Rheological behaviour of processed avocado pulp emulsions

Shear rate vs. shear stress data were obtained on avocado pulp in water emulsions using a concentric cylinder rheometer and fitted to a power law model. Dilution, as volume fraction of water, had a pronounced effect on the apparent viscosity of the pulp emulsions and the Richardson equation, (η_R= exp.( a φ) for the emulsion viscosity fitted the data well. A mean slope coefficient, a , of 4.57 can be used as a first approximation. Enzymatic treatment (40°C, 1 h), is slightly more effective than thermal treatment (65°C, 1 h), in reducing the initial apparent viscosity of the pulp-water emulsions     

Securing DSR against wormhole attacks in multirate ad hoc networks

A wormhole attack is one of the hardest problems to detect whereas it can be easily implanted in any type of wireless ad hoc network. A wormhole attack can easily be launched by the attacker without having knowledge of the network or compromising any legitimate nodes. Most existing solutions either require special hardware devices or make strong assumptions in order to detect wormhole attacks which limit the usability of these solutions. In this paper, we present a security enhancement to dynamic source routing (DSR) protocol against wormhole attacks for ad hoc networks which relies on calculation of round trip time (RTT). Our protocol secures DSR against a wormhole attack in ad hoc networks for multirate transmissions. We also consider the processing and queuing delays of each participating node in the calculation of RTTs between neighbors which to date has not been addressed in the existing literature. This work provides two test cases that show that not taking multirate transmission into consideration results in miss identifying a wormhole attack.     

Novel method to transform ZnO nanorods into interlaced tattered nanosheets by changing the target inclination angle

ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized by liquid-phase pulse laser ablation of a Zn foil target immersed in deionized water. Nanosecond Q-switched Nd:YAG laser pulses of 532 nm were applied to the Zn foil target at a perpendicular and inclined (θ = 45°) angles. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that both cases feature a ZnO nanostructure with a hexagonal wurtzite structure and that the particle size increases with the inclined target angle. Field emission scanning electron microscopy results of a colloidal drop cast on a glass substrate showed the ZnO has a nanorod structure in the case of a perpendicular target angle and an interlaced tattered nanosheet structure in the case of an inclined target angle. Photoluminescence spectra showed emission peaks in the UV, violet, blue, and green spectral regions, which correspond to excitonic and various defects resulting in an enhancement of emissions at inclined target angle.     

An Integrated Experimental and Computational System for the Thermal Characterization of Complex Three-Dimensional Submicron Electronic Devices

This work presents the creation of a coupled analysis engine and experimental system capable of fully characterizing the thermal behavior of complex, 3D, active, submicron, electronic devices. First, the surface temperature field of an activated device is non-invasively measured with submicron spatial resolution. Next, the thermal conductivity of each thin-film layer composing the device is measured and a numerical model is built using these values. The measured temperature distribution map is then used as input for an ultra-fast inverse computational solution to fully characterize the thermal behavior of the complex 3D device. By bringing together measurement and computation, it becomes possible for the first time to non-invasively extract the 3D thermal behavior of nanoscale embedded features that cannot otherwise be accessed. The power of the method was demonstrated by verifying that it can extract details of interest of a representative MOSFET device.     

Photocatalytic reaction intensification using monolithic supports designed by stereolithography

An original photocatalytic reactor for the treatment of polluted air is designed. The titanium dioxide is supported on various supports that consist in photopolymers and are built using the stereolithography technique and placed in a glass tube illuminated from the outside, while the air containing the pollutant to be removed flows through the glass tube and the photocatalyst support. It is shown that the gas–solid mass transfer plays a role only at the very smallest gas velocities investigated. The global depollution kinetics are then determined for the different geometrical forms of the photocatalyst support and the efficiency of the forms compared.     

An Efficient Backoff Algorithm for IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Sensor Networks

IEEE 802.15.4 is one of the most prominent MAC protocol standard designed to achieve low-power, low-cost, and low-rate wireless personal area networks. The contention access period of IEEE 802.15.4 employs carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) algorithm. A long random backoff time causes longer average delay, while a small one gives a high collision rate. In this paper, we propose an efficient backoff algorithm, called EBA-15.4MAC that enhances the performance of slotted CSMA/CA algorithm. EBA-15.4MAC is designed based on two new techniques; firstly, it updates the contention window size based on the probability of collision parameter. Secondly, EBA-15.4MAC resolves the problem of access collision via the deployment of a novel Temporary Backoff (TB) and Next Temporary Backoff (NTB). In this case, the nodes not choose backoff exponent randomly as mentioned in the standard but they select TB and NTB values which can be 10–50 % of the actual backoff delay selected by the node randomly. By using these two new methods, EBA-15.4MAC minimizes the level of collision since the probability of two nodes selecting the same backoff period will be low. To evaluate the performance of EBA-15.4MAC mechanism, the network simulator has been conducted. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme significantly improves the throughput, delivery ratio, power consumption and average delay.     

On the Performance of FFT/DWT/DCT-based OFDM Systems with Chaotic Interleaving and Channel Estimation Algorithms

The efficiency of data transmission over fading channels in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems depends on the employed interleaving method. In this study, we propose an improved chaotic interleaving scheme which aims to improve the performance of OFDM system under fading channel. In the proposed scheme, the binary data is interleaved with chaotic Baker map prior to the modulation process. In the sequel, significant degree of encryption is being added during data transmission. The performance of the proposed approach is tested on the conventional fast Fourier transform OFDM, discrete wavelet transform OFDM, and discrete cosine transform OFDM with and without chaotic interleaving. Furthermore, an expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm is proposed for improving channel impulse response (CIR) estimation based on a maximum likelihood principle. The proposed scheme makes use of EM algorithm to update the channel estimates until convergence is reached. The simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithms under Rayleigh fading environments where the symbol error rate essentially coincides with that of the perfect channel case after the fifth EM iteration.     

Minimizing broadcast latency and redundancy in asynchronous wireless sensor networks

Asynchronous duty cycle Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols do not require global synchronization because nodes determine their wake-up schedule independently. As a result, these MACs have superior performance to those that employ synchronous duty-cycles in terms of energy expenditure, and advantageously, they are simple to implement. A key limitation is that they do not support efficient broadcast. A node needs to transmit a broadcast packet multiple times via unicast because only a subset of its neighbors may be awake at any given point in time. To address this problem, this paper proposes a centralized and distributed asynchronous broadcast algorithm that achieves minimal broadcast latency and redundancy. In addition, it uses a novel asynchronous MAC protocol that ensures all neighbors of a broadcasting node are awake to receive a broadcast. The performance of our algorithms is evaluated under different network configurations. We show via extensive simulation studies that our algorithms have near optimal network performance in terms of broadcast latency. In particular, compared to OTAB, the best broadcast scheduling algorithm to date, the broadcast latency and transmission times achieved by our designs are 1/5 and 1/2 that of OTAB, respectively.