Mobility modeling, location tracking, and trajectory prediction inwireless ATM networks

Wireless ATM networks require efficient mobility management to cope with frequent mobile handoff and rerouting of connections. Although much attention has been given in the literature to network architecture design to support wide-area mobility in public ATM networks, little has been done to the important issue of user mobility estimation and prediction to improve the connection reliability and bandwidth efficiency of the underlying system architecture. This paper treats the problem by developing a hierarchical user mobility model that closely represents the movement behavior of a mobile user, and that, when used with appropriate pattern matching and Kalman filtering techniques, yields an accurate location prediction algorithm, HLP, or hierarchical location prediction, which provides necessary information for advance resource reservation and advance optimal route establishment in wireless ATM networks     

Constructing candidate word lists using acoustically similar wordgroups

A method for identifying a set of candidate words that matches well with a given utterance is discussed. The method uses precomputed groups of acoustically similar words. Given a vocabulary, for each word a short list of words that are acoustically similar to it is computed. These groups are constructed using training utterances recorded by several speakers and used in an isolated utterance recognition system to construct candidate word lists during recognition. Experiments show that the correct word appears on the short list of candidate words constructed during recognition using this scheme over 98% of the time     

Distributed fair scheduling in a wireless LAN

Fairness is an important issue when accessing a shared wireless channel. With fair scheduling, it is possible to allocate bandwidth in proportion to weights of the packet flows sharing the channel. This paper presents a fully distributed algorithm for fair scheduling in a wireless LAN. The algorithm can be implemented without using a centralized coordinator to arbitrate medium access. The proposed protocol is derived from the Distributed Coordination Function in the IEEE 802.11 standard. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is able to schedule transmissions such that the bandwidth allocated to different flows is proportional to their weights. An attractive feature of the proposed approach is that it can be implemented with simple modifications to the IEEE 802.11 standard.     

Effect of carbon fiber surface functional groups on the mechanical properties of carbon-carbon composites with HTT

The present investigation describes the quantitative measurement of surface functional groups present on commercially available different PAN based carbon fibers, their effect on the development of interface with resol-type phenol formaldehyde resin matrix and its effect on the physico-mechanical properties of carbon-carbon composites at various stages of heat treatment. An ESCA study of the carbon fibers has revealed that high strength (ST-3) carbon fibers possess almost 10% reactive functional groups as compared to 5.5 and 4.5% in case of intermediate modulus (IM-500) and high modulus (HM-45) carbon fibers, respectively. As a result, ST-3 carbon fibers are in a position to make strong interactions with phenolic resin matrix and HM-45 carbon fibers make weak interactions, while IM-500 carbon fibers make intermediate interactions. This observation is also confirmed from the pyrolysis data (volume shrinkage) of the composites. Bulk density and kerosene density more or less increase in all the composites with heat treatment up to 2600 °C. It is further observed that bulk density is minimum and kerosene density is maximum upon heat treatment at 2600 °C in case of ST-3 based composites compared to HM-45 and IM-500 composites. It has been found for the first time that the deflection temperature (temperature at which the properties of the material start to decrease or increase) of flexural strength as well as interlaminar shear strength is different for the three composites (A, B and C) and is determined by the severity of interactions established at the polymer stage. Above this temperature, flexural strength and interlaminar shear strength increase in all the composites up to 2600 °C. The maximum value of flexural strength at 2600 °C is obtained for HM-45 composites and that of ILSS for ST-3 composites.     

Studies on bitumen production from North Rumaila crude oil

In the present investigation, the effect of three process variables viz., air rate, temperature and time of oxidation has been studied to determine the possibility of making paving bitumens from North Rumaila Crude Oil. In order to have flexibility in the choice of proper feedstock for bitumen production, the effect of these process parameters was studied on three different vacuum residues. Air rate and temperature of oxidation were optimised to produce a bitumen product having less temperature susceptibility. The composition studies of typical feeds and oxidised products indicate that mainly “saturates” components get converted to “asphaltics” on air blowing.     

Fluorine-intercalated carbon fibers-I. structural and transport properties

The intercalation of fluorine in various types of carbon fibers (PAN-based or pitch-based, asreceived or high-temperature treated) has been investigated at room temperature in the presence of gaseous HF. Stage-1 compounds with C_2.5F to C₄F compositions are obtained for 10 bar F₂ pressures, whereas lower pressures (1 bar F₂) lead to stage-2 compounds. Although in higher stages (≥2) the electrical conductivity is generally larger than in the pristine fiber, in stage-1 compounds a drastic increase of resistivity is observed, ρ being more than one order of magnitude larger than that of the starting material. Finally, fluorine-intercalated GICs have been found appropriate to investigate the effects of disorder and reduced dimensionality.     

Additive Manufacturing of Hard Magnetic Passive Shims to Increase Field Homogeneity of a Halbach Magnet

Obtaining a highly homogeneous magnetic field is desired for field-controlled applications. For example, the resolution of magnetic analysis methods can be improved by generating a stronger and more homogeneous field over the region of interest (ROI). A set of 3D-printed passive shims is fabricated using additive manufacturing to improve the magnetic field homogeneity of a Halbach magnet assembly. The feedstock is a custom acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS)-hard magnet composite filament filled with 60% wt. isotropic NdFeB. Additionally, a method for investigating the remanence is developed and validated. The result reveals a good agreement between the new method and existing measurement techniques for the remanence of permanent magnets. It is also shown that the additive manufacturing procedure has negligible effects on the magnetic properties. Performing a parametric study over a rectangular ROI, an optimized shim configuration is achieved. In the optimized and 3D-printed configuration, the average norm of the magnetic flux density, B_norm, is increased by 13% and, more importantly, a 43% increase in the magnetic uniformity is obtained. These results highlight the great potential of freeform manufacturing, namely, additive manufacturing, to tailor the properties of magnet structures.     

MIMO Channel Capacity and Configuration Selection for Switched Parasitic Antennas

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems offer significant enhancements in terms of their data rate and channel capacity compared to traditional systems. However, correlation degrades the system performance and imposes practical limits on the number of antennas that can be incorporated into portable wireless devices. The use of switched parasitic antennas (SPAs) is a possible solution, especially where it is difficult to obtain sufficient signal decorrelation by conventional means. The covariance matrix represents the correlation present in the propagation channel, and has significant impact on the MIMO channel capacity. The results of this work demonstrate a significant improvement in the MIMO channel capacity by using SPA with the knowledge of the covariance matrix for all pattern configurations. By employing the “water-pouring algorithm” to modify the covariance matrix, the channel capacity is significantly improved compared to traditional systems, which spread transmit power uniformly across all the antennas. A condition number is also proposed as a selection metric to select the optimal pattern configuration for MIMO-SPAs.     

Effect of phyllanthus emblica biodiesel based lubricant on cylinder liner and piston ring

In the present time, need of biogenic lubricants is the focusing area which will be biodegradable, avirulent and eco-friendly. Current experimental tests depict the effect of ‘Phyllanthus emblica’ a non-edible feedstock through pin on disc tribo tester. Tests were conducted to evaluate the impact of 0, 10, 20 and 30 % blending of Phyllanthus emblica with SAE20W40 lubricating oil on cylinder liner and piston ring. Promising results have been manifested with 10 % blending of biodiesel (BD) with lubricating oil in terms of coefficient of friction and specific wear rate in comparison with other examined feedstock. For analysis of wear debris in the used oil analytical ferrography was also done. The effects of temperature on wear and friction characteristics have also been discussed.