Relevance of coupling effects on DRA array design

A finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) approach is proposed in order to obtain suitable criteria for the design of a four-element dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) array. The numerical analysis is focused on the study of the electromagnetic coupling phenomena arising between DRA fed by a microstrip-slot transition. Scattering parameters behavior and radiation patterns are determined by taking advantage of the geometrical symmetry of the structure, analyzing only one half or one quarter of the entire domain through two or four separate FDTD runs.     

Design of dual-polarized series-fed microstrip arrays with low losses and high polarization purity

The design of a dual-polarized microstrip series-fed linear traveling-wave array is described in this paper. The array is composed of two identical subarrays formed by cascading an equal number of four-port aperture-coupled cross-patch elements and terminated on a two-port radiating matched load. By properly exciting the array, dual linear or circular polarization can be accomplished and by virtue of the symmetric arrangement of the antenna cross-polarization is annihilated. A straightforward design strategy is proposed for the synthesis of a desired current distribution along the array antenna. Some proof-of-concept linear arrays are developed and the corresponding numerical results, obtained through a full-wave approach based on the method of moments (MoM), are provided. As an independent validation, supplementary analyses by the finite integration technique (FIT) are also reported. Very close agreement is found between prescribed and synthesized array performance, which qualifies the proposed design approach as an accurate and effective tool for the synthesis of series-fed aperture-coupled patch arrays.     

Downstream Ecological Impacts of Controlled Sediment Flushing in an Alpine Valley River: A Case Study

Sediment flushing may be effective to tackle the loss of reservoir storage as a result of siltation. When operationally possible, the impact of this practice on the downstream aquatic environment can be mitigated by limiting the sediment concentration of the discharged waters (controlled sediment flushing). However, this topic is poorly documented, and concerns arise when limits are discussed. We present the results of a 3‐year field investigation concerning the controlled sediment flushing of a small reservoir on the Adda River, the main tributary of Lake Como—Italy. Two limits for suspended solid concentration (SSC) were adopted: 1.5 g L^?1, as average value throughout the whole working day, and 3.0 g L^?1, as alert threshold to adjust the ongoing activity. These constraints were essentially fulfilled in the course of the documented operations. The first year sediment flushing was more significant than the following year: 25 000 tons of fines below 2 mm in diameter were flushed in six non‐consecutive days in summer 2010, while, one year earlier, 75 000 tons were flushed in 16 non‐consecutive days. In the third year of investigation (2011), no sediment evacuation took place. The benthic macroinvertebrate and the fish communities were surveyed a short distance below the reservoir, that is, in the potentially more affected river reach. Clear pieces of evidence of environmental quality degradation were not detected; the adopted strategies can therefore be considered to be appropriate when planning sediment flushing management in comparable contexts. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The labeled maximum matching problem

Given a graph G where a label is associated with each edge, we address the problem of looking for a maximum matching of G using the minimum number of different labels, namely the labeled maximum matching problem. It is a relatively new problem whose application is related to the timetabling problem. We prove it is NP-complete and present four different mathematical formulations. Moreover, we propose an exact algorithm based on a branch-and-bound approach to solve it. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm on a wide set of instances and compare our computational times with the ones required by CPLEX to solve the proposed mathematical formulations. Test results show the effectiveness of our procedure, that hugely outperforms the solver.     

An intercomparison of bio-optical techniques for detecting dominant phytoplankton size class from satellite remote sensing

Satellite remote sensing of ocean colour is the only method currently available for synoptically measuring wide-area properties of ocean ecosystems, such as phytoplankton chlorophyll biomass. Recently, a variety of bio-optical and ecological methods have been established that use satellite data to identify and differentiate between either phytoplankton functional types (PFTs) or phytoplankton size classes (PSCs). In this study, several of these techniques were evaluated against in situ observations to determine their ability to detect dominant phytoplankton size classes (micro-, nano- and picoplankton). The techniques are applied to a 10-year ocean-colour data series from the SeaWiFS satellite sensor and compared with in situ data (6504 samples) from a variety of locations in the global ocean. Results show that spectral-response, ecological and abundance-based approaches can all perform with similar accuracy. Detection of microplankton and picoplankton were generally better than detection of nanoplankton. Abundance-based approaches were shown to provide better spatial retrieval of PSCs. Individual model performance varied according to PSC, input satellite data sources and in situ validation data types. Uncertainty in the comparison procedure and data sources was considered. Improved availability of in situ observations would aid ongoing research in this field.     

Towards controlled cationic polymer growth from inorganic oxide defects: Directing the mechanism of polystyrene grafting from γ-irradiated silica

Most studies on surface-initiated controlled polymerizations for the synthesis of polymeric covalent organic-inorganic hybrid materials focus on chemical methods requiring specific modifications of the inorganic substrate. Few mechanistically-aware approaches have been undertaken towards exploiting the reactivity of defects induced by physical techniques such as ionizing radiations or UV–Vis light. Within this framework, we take grafted polymerization of styrene from γ-irradiated silica as a mechanistic testing ground where para- and diamagnetic silica defects are present, and polymerization proceeds through both radical and cationic mechanisms, resulting in a bimodal molecular weight distribution. We show that these mechanistic intricacies can be sorted out by resorting to the chemical arsenal developed in the last decades for controlled polymerizations. Specifically, we obtained a silica-polystyrene grafted material by cationic grafting from at 30 °C, a unimodal molecular weight distribution, and a relatively high molecular weight (Mn = 7.4 kDa) with a PDI of 1.68.     

Two-port active coupled microstrip antenna

A multilayer structure, based on a patch antenna coupled through a nonresonant slot to a pair of feeding microstrips is a versatile module which can be used as a radiating and resonating element in a number of different configurations. Direct connection to a low cost transistor in a feedback loop results in a very simple active antenna, as reported. Different termination conditions at the four microstrip ports give rise to a number of alternative configurations for active generation/detection and multipatch arrays.<>     

Practical application of the “turbid water” flag in ocean color imagery: Interference with sun-glint contaminated pixels in open ocean

A simple method to identify turbid, sediment-loaded, waters within satellite ocean color imageries was recently proposed (A. Morel and S. Bélanger, Remote Sensing of Environment, 102, (2006), 237-249). Systematic application of this method to the level-3 composites obtained from three ocean color sensors shows that the “turbid” flag is often raised in the open ocean, especially in the sub-tropical oligotrophic gyres, where turbidity is unlikely. In addition these flagged zones migrate with season, and clearly follow the sun declination course. The combination of low chlorophyll waters with a residual sun-glint is at the origin of this artifact. Simple approaches for eliminating such a misleading detection are proposed. The identification and elimination of the bias are also needed in particular for an unambiguous detection of the presence of calcite (coccolithophores) in open waters.     

Compact dual-profile corrugated circular waveguide horn

A new type of corrugated horn is presented. It is designed to have a dual-profile corrugation, yielding a more compact structure with respect to standard linear or sinusoidal profiled horns. It is also shown that the new design has some interesting features in terms of the phase centre location and its level of variation over the operating bandwidth