Characterization of UHF RFID tags fabricated directly on convex surfaces by pad printing

The possibility of pad printing in RFID tag antenna manufacturing is investigated. Passive UHF RFID tags were printed on flat and on convex surfaces with two different polymer thick-film silver inks. The effect of the ink and substrate material properties on tag antenna performance was examined. The goal was to provide information which is needed in adapting the pad-printing technique in RFID tag manufacture. The results show that pad printing is suitable for tag manufacturing on flat and on convex surfaces. The curvature of the substrate did not significantly affect the tag performance. It was more important to take into consideration other substrate properties, ink characteristics, morphology, and printing parameters. The best practice is to take these matters into consideration in the initial tag design process to ensure proper tag performance at the desired frequency.     

Like counting deckchairs on the Titanic: A study of institutional racism and housing allocations in Haringey and Lambeth

Why and how do black people lose out in the provision of social housing? This was the question that we set out to examine, looking at the situation in two London boroughs with a declared commitment to anti‐racism in the late 1980s. Previous studies had focused on the role of officer discretion, and a popular strategy of ‘institutional hygiene’ had been adopted to counter this factor by many agencies as part of an anti‐racist or more general equal opportunities policy. This strategy concentrated on limiting individual officer discretion near the point of service delivery in favour of formalising procedures and monitoring outcomes. In this paper we re‐examine the role of officer discretion and look at the way that differing local institutional discourses of racial and ethnic difference, particularly essentialist ones, affect the way that housing outcomes are produced and either made visible or hidden. We argue first that it is important to examine the local context to see how racial meanings are constructed and reproduced by individual and institutions in a dynamic relationship. Second, we argue that using a gaming metaphor is helpful in examining the way that different interests and players interact at different levels in the process of housing allocation, and that this contributes to a better understanding of how racialised groups can be disadvantaged by a number of factors in the allocation of social housing.     

Testing the effects of temperature and humidity on printed passive UHF RFID tags on paper substrate

This article is an interesting substrate material for environmental-friendly printable electronics. In this study, screen-printed RFID tags on paper substrate are examined. Their reliability was tested with low temperature, high temperature, slow temperature cycling, high temperature and high humidity and water dipping test. Environmental stresses affect the tag antenna impedance, losses and radiation characteristics due to their impact on the ink film and paper substrate. Low temperature, temperature cycling and high humidity did not have a radical effect on the measured parameters: threshold power, backscattered signal power or read range of the tags. However, the frequency response and the losses of the tags were slightly affected. Exposure to high temperature was found to even improve the tag performance due to the positive effect of high temperature on the ink film. The combined high humidity and high temperature had the most severe effect on the tag performance. The threshold power increased, backscattered power decreased and the read range was shortened. On the whole, the results showed that field use of these tags in high, low and changing temperature conditions and high humidity conditions is possible. Use of these tags in combined high-humidity and high-temperature conditions should be carefully considered.     

Radio frequency technology for automated manufacturing and logistics control. Part 2: RFID antenna utilisation in industrial applications

The trend in industrial automation is to move towards fast and real-time identification, further improving the high-level of accuracy that is needed to enable continuous identification and monitoring. The interest in adopting radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for use in automation systems with minimal manual involvement is increasing rapidly. RFID systems are capable of providing real-time object visibility with high accuracy enabling continuous identification and location of all items and thereby providing accurate real-time data management instead of simple snapshots. In this paper, the use of multiple reader antennas is examined against collision and interference avoidance. Also, antenna operation is studied in typical industrial environments containing metallic objects or other conducting surfaces. In addition, this paper reviews different tag antennas and their characteristics for particular item identification cases. These cases include items made of specific materials that obstruct or prevent radio wave propagation by either absorbing or reflecting them. The results given in this paper are fully applicable with practical RFID solutions.     

Inkjet-printed passive UHF RFID tags: review and performance evaluation

In this paper, the performance and the feasibility of inkjet-printed dipole RFID tag antennas are experimentally studied in the implementation of identifying objects with different electromagnetic properties. To estimate the performance quality, we compare our results to those obtained using traditional etched copper dipole tag antennas. We first examine the performance characteristics, i.e. the read range and the radiation patterns, of tags in free space. Then we attach the tags directly to target objects and compare the optimum performance on target objects to that of the tag in free space. The obtained results provide information about the behaviour of inkjet-printed tag antennas on different objects. This information can be used to optimize the inkjet-printed tag antenna performance for use on objects with different characteristics.     

Insight from data analytics with an automotive aftermarket SME

There is enormous general interest in the automotive sector, and there are many sets of informative data openly available to the public. Companies involved in the automotive aftermarket sector have access to further masses of data, and this can be analysed to provide valuable insights to complement those obtainable from the internet and popular press, discovering hidden knowledge and financial benefit within the data by using statistical analysis, big data analytics, and data science. This article gives examples of insight derived from data giving great value to stakeholders in the sector. The examples are followed by a discussion of the issues involved in applying data science and ensuring that solutions are implemented and are sustainable within the business partner companies.     

TEI and the Encoding of the Physical Structure of Books

The TEI Guidelines provide little detail on how to encode a text within the physical structures of the book in which it is contained. This paper describes the physical structures of an early printed book and presents two methods for encoding a text within that structure through use of the TEI elements and .     

Simulating the mixing of helium and air by mixing salt water and fresh water in a scaled enclosure

We are attempting to establish scaling laws to simulate the mixing of helium (a simulant for hydrogen) with air in a large-scale enclosure by mixing salt water and fresh water, in a small-scale enclosure. This will allow us to assess the mixing of gases in a nuclear reactor containment using relatively small-scale liquid-mixing experiments. The scope of our current work does not cover the integrated effects of different mechanisms of gas mixing expected to prevail during postulated LOCA (loss-of-coolant accident) scenarios. The work is limited to mixing caused by jet inertia and buoyancy forces. Within this scope, we have identified the dominant scaling laws, and tested them by conducting gas-mixing experiments in a large-scale enclosure and liquid-mixing experiments in a small-scale enclosure. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the scaling laws.     

美国煤炭地下开采与自动化技术进展

美国煤炭的地下开采分为长壁式和房柱式2种技术。地质条件较好、井田范围大的矿井,一般以长壁开采为主,否则以房柱开采为主。1994—2017年,美国井工矿数量减少了79%(2017年为237座)。但是单个矿井产量增加了230%,煤炭生产更加集中、高效。美国长壁开采以中厚煤层为主,采高一般为1.6~2.5 m(最大开采高度4.2 m,最小开采高度1.2 m)。长壁工作面均采用多巷布置、矩形断面巷道、锚杆支护。近年来,工作面尺寸、设备功率、设备尺寸逐渐增大,生产系统更加可靠。长壁工作面的自动化开采源于1984年的电动控制液压支架的研发与使用,此后开发了支架、采煤机、刮板输送机的单机自动化以及追机移架技术。2000年以后开发了半自动化工作面技术和采煤机远程控制技术。目前应用的主要是半自动化工作面技术,只有2个工作面应用了采煤机远程控制技术。这些技术解决了条件简单工作面的自动化开采问题,但遇到复杂地质条件时,仍需要人工干预。研发自动化开采的关键传感器和设备以适应地质条件变化、完善端部进刀系统,聚焦作业安全和粉尘与噪音防控,以及矿用大数据、高速通信与可视化技术是目前美国的重要研发方向。在近10 a来,房柱开采的工艺变化不大,但是开采装备的多样化和开采系统的自动化、信息化、智能化的相关技术开发取得了重要进展。     

Study on effects of longwall mining on the underground water

It is very important for secure mining under water bodies to study the effects of Iongwall mining on the underground water. In order to study this problem, piezometers for monitoring underground water levels were established in an American coalmine. Large amounts of pre-mining and post-mining monitoring data were collected. Based on the data the effects of Iongwall mining on the underground water was studied. The results demonstrate that when the piezometer monitoring wells have an interburden thickness less than 72.7 m, the groundwater level decreases immediately to immeasurable levels and go dry after undermining. The height of the fractured zone in is 72.7-85.3 m in this geological and mining conditions. The results also show that the calculated value of fractured zone by the empirical formulae used in China is smaller than the actual results. Therefore, it is not always safe to use them in analysis of mining under water bodies.