Polarized light reflectometer

The modulated reflected and nonreflected light fluxes, measured as the azimuth of incident linearly polarized light is varied, yield the absolute reflectances R(p), and R(s), of a dielectric or semiconductor surface. Application to a reflective Si detector determines the refractive index and thickness of a SiO(2) film on the detector surface.     

New aspect-oriented constructs for security hardening concerns

In this paper, we present new pointcuts and primitives to Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) languages that are needed for systematic hardening of security concerns. The two proposed pointcuts allow to identify particular join points in a program's control-flow graph (CFG). The first one is the GAFlow, Closest Guaranteed Ancestor, which returns the closest ancestor join point to the pointcuts of interest that is on all their runtime paths. The second one is the GDFlow, Closest Guaranteed Descendant, which returns the closest child join point that can be reached by all paths starting from the pointcut of interest. The two proposed primitives are called ExportParameter and ImportParameter and are used to pass parameters between two pointcuts. They allow to analyze a program's call graph in order to determine how to change function signatures for passing the parameters associated with a given security hardening. We find these pointcuts and primitives to be necessary because they are needed to perform many security hardening practices and, to the best of our knowledge, none of the existing ones can provide their functionalities. Moreover, we show the viability and correctness of the proposed pointcuts and primitives by elaborating and implementing their algorithms and presenting the result of explanatory case studies.     

Anodic destruction of 4-chlorophenol solution

The electrochemical oxidation of 4-chlorophenol solutions was studied using a dimensional stable anode (DSA), made of pure titanium sheet mesh coated with Ti/TiO(2) and RuO(2) film. An electrochemical cell with one working electrode and two counter-electrodes was designed. A gas collecting system to collect the electrolysis gaseous products was also designed. The influence of current density (6.51-21.58 mA/cm(2)), pH (2.0-12.6) and initial 4-chlorophenol concentration (25-100 mg/l) on the destruction was investigated. Complete elimination was successfully achieved within 2 h for most investigated conditions. Highest rates of elimination were achieved at a pH of 12.6.A new approach to calculate the current efficiency (CE) of the cell was proposed. The volumes of the gases produced at the anode and at the cathode were the basis for the new CE calculations. It was observed that the worst CE was approximately 20% and the best CE was approximately 89%. The most efficient pH was at 12.6 and the most efficient current density was at 11.39 mA/cm(2).     

VANET QoS-OLSR: QoS-based clustering protocol for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks

In this paper, we address the problem of clustering in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) using Quality of Service Optimized Link State Routing (QoS-OLSR) protocol. Several clustering algorithms have been proposed for VANET and MANET. However, the mobility-based algorithms ignore the Quality of Service requirements that are important for VANET safety, emergency, and multimedia services while the QoS-based algorithms ignore the high speed mobility constraints since they are dedicated for Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). Our solution is a new QoS-based clustering algorithm that considers a tradeoff between QoS requirements and high speed mobility constraints. The goal is to form stable clusters and maintain the stability during communications and link failures while satisfying the Quality of Service requirements. This is achieved by: (1) considering the high mobility metrics while computing the QoS, (2) using Ant Colony Optimization for MPRs selection, and (3) using MPR recovery algorithm able to select alternatives and keep the network connected in case of link failures. Performance analysis and simulation results show that the proposed model can maintain the network stability, reduce the end-to-end delay, increase the packet delivery ratio, and reduce the communications overhead.