Fixed collision rate back-off scheme for collision resolution in wireless networks

This investigation proposes a fixed collision rate (FCR) back-off algorithm for wireless networks. The proposed scheme takes advantage of the central unit (CU) in a wireless network to broadcast a common back-off window size to all the users, significantly alleviating the unfairness of bandwidth utilization in conventional binary exponential back-off (BEB) algorithms. It is shown that, when maximum throughput is achieved, collision rate is almost a constant for any traffic load. In the operation of the FCR, the CU dynamically adjusts the back-off window size to keep the collision rate at a constant level for maximum throughput. Simulation results demonstrate that the unfairness of bandwidth utilization in the BEB is significantly lessened and the throughput can be maintained at e^-1≈0.368 when the number of users approaches infinity. The capture effect even further improves system performance.     

A semantic-expansion approach to personalized knowledge recommendation

The rapid propagation of the Internet and information technologies has changed the nature of many industries. Fast response and personalized recommendations have become natural trends for all businesses. This is particularly important for content-related products and services, such as consulting, news, and knowledge management in an organization. The digital nature of their products allows for more customized delivery over the Internet. To provide personalized services, however, a complete understanding of user profile and accurate recommendation are essential.In this paper, an Internet recommendation system that allows customized content to be suggested based on the user's browsing profile is developed. The method adopts a semantic-expansion approach to build the user profile by analyzing documents previously read by the person. Once the customer profile is constructed, personalized contents can be provided by the system. An empirical study using master theses in the National Central library in Taiwan shows that the semantic-expansion approach outperforms the traditional keyword approach in catching user interests. The proper usage of this technology can increase customer satisfaction.     

Adsorption characteristics of OH-terminated alkanethiol and arenethiol on Au(111) surfaces

Adsorption behaviors of hydroxyl-terminated alkanethiol, 3-mercapto-1-propanol (MPO), and arenethiol, 4-mercaptophenol (MPH), on Au(111) electrodes were studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and in situ scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The effects of the molecular structure and the chain length on the characteristics of the self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) were investigated by comparison with the results of 11-mercapto-1-undecanol (MUO) and 6-mercapto-1-hexanol (MHO) reported in the literature. All the alkanethiol SAMs have the same coverage ratio (0.33 ML). For MUO which has a longer chain length, a hexagonal lattice, the (√3 ×√3) structure was observed. However, for shorter thiols (MHO and MPO), the adsorbed molecules exhibit different contrasts under the imaging of STM, ascribed to the different conformations of adsorbed molecules. The CV results indicated that a longer chain length triggers a SAM with higher adhesion and higher resistance to the charge transfer across a SAM. For the SAM of arenethiol, MPH, the π-π stacking interaction of the phenyl ring leads to a lower surface mobility of thiol/Au complexes, lower coverage ratio, and less uniform structure of the adlayer. Furthermore, the vacancy islands commonly observed on alkanethiol-modified Au(111) electrodes do not appear on the MPH-modified surface. Instead, 2-dimensional patch islands formed on the terrace due to the aggregation of moveable MPH/Au complexes.     

Assembly behavior and monolayer characteristics of OH-terminated alkanethiol on Au(111): in situ scanning tunneling microscopy and electrochemical studies

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of 6-mercapto-1-hexanol (MHO) on an Au(111) electrode were prepared in an electrochemical system. The adsorption behavior of MHO and the time-dependent organization of the SAM were investigated by in situ scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The results show that a potential higher than 0.28?V (relative to RHE) is required to induce the adsorption of MHO. At 0.28?V, the MHO molecules adsorb in a flat-lying orientation, forming an ordered striped phase with a molecular arrangement of ([Formula: see text]). However, the adlayer is not stable at this potential. The adsorbed striped phase may recover to the herringbone feature of the gold substrate due to the desorption of adsorbed MHO. At a higher potential (0.35?V), the adlayer becomes stable and can undergo a phase evolution from the striped phase to a condensed structure, identified as c([Formula: see text]). This structure can also be described as a c(4 × 2) superlattice of a [Formula: see text] hexagonal adlattice. The surface coverage of the MHO SAM is identical to the saturated structure of an 11-mercapto-1-undecanol (MUO) SAM reported in a previous work, [Formula: see text]. However, the STM image of MHO adlayer shows a modulation in intensity, reflecting the presence of various conformations of adsorbed molecules. This result is attributed to the shorter chain length of MHO, which gives a weaker?van der Waals interaction between adsorbed molecules. This effect also results in a higher charge permeability across the adlayer and a lower striping potential to an MHO SAM.     

Capillary force pumping fluid for glucose oxidase enzymatic fuel cells

Microsystem Technologies - A micro-fluidic channel plate for self-pumping glucose oxidase enzymatic fuel cell is designed and fabricated. The fuel is driven into the fuel cell using capillary force...     

Reduced-dimension blind space-time 2-D RAKE receivers for DS-CDMAcommunication systems

Blind space-time RAKE receivers for classical DS-CDMA that cancel strong multiuser access interference while optimally combining the desired user's multipath are presented. The delay spread is assumed to be fraction of a symbol interval as in the IS-95 CDMA standard. The post-correlation symbol interval is segmented into that which encompasses the RAKE fingers and that away from the RAKE fingers. The signal-plus-interference and interference alone space-time correlation matrices are estimated during the former and latter, respectively. Reduced-dimension space-time RAKE receivers are investigated for alleviation of the computational burden of computing the largest generalized eigenvector of the resulting matrix pencil. Theoretical analysis and supporting simulations reveal that if the space and time compressing transformations are designed judiciously, reduced-dimension two-dimensional (2-D) RAKE receivers offer faster convergence at the expense of only a slight loss in asymptotic signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) relative to the full-dimension space-time RAKE receiver. Applications to the IS-95 uplink are also presented along with supporting simulations     

Power Allocation Schemes in OFDM-Based Femtocell Networks

Orthogonal frequency division multiplex-based femtocell networks in downlink with two-tier interference are considered in this paper. In order to satisfy the quality of service of macrocell users, a capacity maximization problem with the total and the upper power constraints by allocating power to subcarriers for a user in femtocell systems becomes important. In this paper, the optimal power allocation is derived by using the Lagrangian technique. Based on the analysis of the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions, subcarriers can be classified into two sets with different power allocation strategies according to the upper power constraint. One set of subcarriers is allocated with upper power, and the other set of subcarriers is processed by using the waterfilling approach. A direct linear search scheme is presented to achieve the optimal performance by finding the threshold over the channel states of all subcarriers to determine the two sets. In order to reduce the computational load, a reduced complexity scheme is designed for the optimal solution by utilizing the relationship of the allocated power in the two sets of subcarriers. Unlike the schemes in iterative manners, a fast power allocation scheme with a near-optimal performance is also developed. Simulation results reveal that the proposed schemes outperform the existing scheme. The efficacy of the proposed schemes is demonstrated in the simulations.     

Adaptive Channel Estimation for Multiple Antenna OFDM Systems

We propose a simple adaptive algorithm for channel estimation of multiple antenna OFDM systems to provide competitive performance with low computational complexity and tracking ability. The derivation of the mean-squared error (MSE) for the proposed scheme is presented and the optimum selection of the parameter in the scheme is analyzed by utilizing the derived MSE expression.