Stability and throughput analysis of unslotted CDMA‐ALOHA with finite number of users and code sharing

We consider a system comprising a finite number of nodes, with infinite packet buffers, that use unslotted ALOHA with Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) to share a channel for transmitting packetised data. We propose a simple model for packet transmission and retransmission at each node, and show that saturation throughput in this model yields a sufficient condition for the stability of the packet buffers; we interpret this as the capacity of the access method. We calculate and compare the capacities of CDMA‐ALOHA (with and without code sharing) and TDMA‐ALOHA; we also consider carrier sensing and collision detection versions of these protocols. In each case, saturation throughput can be obtained via analysis of a continuous time Markov chain. Our results show how saturation throughput degrades with code‐sharing. Finally, we also present some simulation results for mean packet delay. Our work is motivated by optical CDMA in which “chips” can be optically generated, and hence the achievable chip rate can exceed the achievable TDMA bit rate which is limited by electronics. Code sharing may be useful in the optical CDMA context as it reduces the number of optical correlators at the receivers. Our throughput results help to quantify by how much the CDMA chip rate should exceed the TDMA bit rate so that CDMA‐ALOHA yields better capacity than TDMA‐ALOHA. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Electrical conductivity in iodine-doped ethyl cellulose

The electrical conductivity of solution-grown ethyl cellulose (EC) films, 5–30 μm thick, has been studied in the sandwich configuration (metal–EC–metal) as a function of iodine concentration from 0.5 to 5.0 wt% ratio. The studies were conducted in the temperature range 333–383 K, while the field was varied over the range (3.0–5.5) × 10⁴V/cm. Aluminium was used as the lower electrode, while the upper electrode was of Al, Ag, Cu, Au or Sn. Certain transient effects such as a large burst of current immediately after the application of field were observed. An attempt was made to identify the nature of the current by comparing the observed dependence on electric field, electrode material and temperature with the respective characteristic features of the existing theories of electrical conduction. The results show that the electrical conduction follows Ohm's law at lower fields, while at higher fields, space-charge limited current (SCLC) was observed. It was also found that Richardson–Schottky emission was responsible, to some extent, for the transport of charge carriers in the polymer. The conductivity of the films increased on doping with iodine. The dopant molecules are considered to act as additional trapping centes and provide links between the polymer molecules in the amorphous region, thus resulting in the formation of charge transfer complexes.     

A bi-criteria model for the inventory aggregation problem under risk pooling

Inventory aggregation, also called Risk Pooling, is one of the most efficient ways to reduce the level of safety stocks thereby reducing inventory across the supply chain. Determining the best level of aggregation is a difficult problem and needs extensive study of all the possible scenarios that can affect this decision. Minimizing costs in a supply chain is no longer the sole priority of businesses. Maintaining a high level of responsiveness is also considered equally important. The conflicting nature of these two criteria makes the solution of the problem difficult. In this paper, we develop a bi-criteria nonlinear stochastic integer programming model to determine the best supply chain distribution network to meet customer demands, where minimizing costs while maintaining high levels of responsiveness is important. We develop a two-stage optimization algorithm to solve this problem.     

Designing content distribution networks for optimal cost and performance

One strategy for alleviating excess latency (delay) in the Internet is the caching of web content at multiple locations. This reduces the number of hops necessary to reach the desired content. This strategy is used for web content such as html pages, images, streaming video, and Internet radio. The network of servers which store this content, and the collections of objects stored on each server, is called a content distribution network (CDN). In order to optimally design a CDN, given a network topology with available server storage capacity at various points in the network, one must decide which object collections to place on each server in order to achieve performance or cost objectives. The placements must be within the storage limits of the servers and must reflect the request patterns for each collection of objects to be cached. Researchers have suggested formulations for the CDN problem which address performance by minimizing latency (the average number of hops is a commonly accepted measure of latency) from client to content, or formulations that focus on minimizing cost of storage and/or bandwidth. In this research, we develop a model which allows for the simultaneous treatment of performance and cost, present examples to illustrate the application of the model and perform a detailed designed experiment to gain insights into cost/hops tradeoff for a variety of network parameters.     

Electrical conduction in non-metallic rare-earth solids

Schematic energy band diagrams for the genesis of charge carriers in non-metallic rare-earth solids have been presented. It has been shown that positions of 4f bands have significant effect on the genesis and nature of charge carriers, their conduction mechanism and magnitude of electrical conductivity () and Seebeck coefficient (S) of the solid. Relevant relations have been given for both and S in different situations. Experimental data on rare-earth sesquioxides (R₂O₃), rare-earth tungstates [R₂(WO₄)₃] and rare-earth molybdates [R₂(MoO₄)₃] in the intrinsic range have been explained as examples for the validity of energy band diagrams.     

A role for isothiocyanates in plant resistance against the specialist herbivore Pieris rapae

We experimentally reanalyzed the classic interaction between Pieris rapae, a specialist lepidopteran herbivore, and isothiocyanates (mustard oils) that are characteristic phytochemicals of the Brassicaceae. Previous investigations have suggested that P. rapae is unaffected by isothiocyanates. Using whole plants, root extracts, and a microencapsulated formulation of allyl isothiocyanate, we now show that isothiocyanates reduce herbivore survival and growth, and increase development time, each in a dose-dependent manner. Neither the substrate allyl glucosinolate, nor myrosinase, the enzyme that results in the breakdown of glucosinolates, negatively affected P. rapae. Thus, we present strong evidence for a role for isothiocyanates in plant resistance against the specialist herbivore P. rapae.     

Bioenergy,food security and poverty reduction: trade-offs and synergies along the water–energy–food security nexus

This article provides a review of trade-offs and synergies of bioenergy within the water–energy–food security nexus, with emphasis on developing countries. It explores the links of bioenergy with food security, poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, health, and gender equity. It concludes that applying the nexus perspective to analyses of bioenergy widens the scope for achieving multiple-win outcomes along the above aspects.     

Modeling finite buffer effects on TCP traffic over an IEEE 802.11 infrastructure WLAN

The network scenario is that of an infrastructure IEEE 802.11 WLAN with a single AP with which several stations (STAs) are associated. The AP has a finite size buffer for storing packets. In this scenario, we consider TCP-controlled upload and download file transfers between the STAs and a server on the wireline LAN (e.g., 100 Mbps Ethernet) to which the AP is connected. In such a situation, it is well known that because of packet losses due to finite buffers at the AP, upload file transfers obtain larger throughputs than download transfers. We provide an analytical model for estimating the upload and download throughputs as a function of the buffer size at the AP. We provide models for the undelayed and delayed ACK cases for a TCP that performs loss recovery only by timeout, and also for TCP Reno. The models are validated in comparison with NS2 simulations.     

Automatic recognition of handwritten medical forms for search engines

A new paradigm, which models the relationships between handwriting and topic categories, in the context of medical forms, is presented. The ultimate goals are: (1) a robust method which categorizes medical forms into specified categories, and (2) the use of such information for practical applications such as an improved recognition of medical handwriting or retrieval of medical forms as in a search engine. Medical forms have diverse, complex and large lexicons consisting of English, Medical and Pharmacology corpus. Our technique shows that a few recognized characters, returned by handwriting recognition, can be used to construct a linguistic model capable of representing a medical topic category. This allows (1) a reduced lexicon to be constructed, thereby improving handwriting recognition performance, and (2) PCR (Pre-Hospital Care Report) forms to be tagged with a topic category and subsequently searched by information retrieval systems. We present an improvement of over 7% in raw recognition rate and a mean average precision of 0.28 over a set of 1,175 queries on a data set of unconstrained handwritten medical forms filled in emergency environments. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.