Additively manufactured respirators: quantifying particle transmission and identifying system-level challenges for improving filtration efficiency

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the supply chain for personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical professionals, including N95-type respiratory protective masks. To address this shortage, many have looked to the agility and accessibility of additive manufacturing (AM) systems to provide a democratized, decentralized solution to producing respirators with equivalent protection for last-resort measures. However, there are concerns about the viability and safety in deploying this localized download, print, and wear strategy due to a lack of commensurate quality assurance processes. Many open-source respirator designs for AM indicate that they do not provide N95-equivalent protection (filtering 95% of SARS-CoV-2 particles) because they have either not passed aerosol generation tests or not been tested. Few studies have quantified particle transmission through respirator designs outside of the filter medium. This is concerning because several polymer-based AM processes produce porous parts, and inherent process variation between printers and materials also threaten the integrity of tolerances and seals within the printed respirator assembly. No study has isolated these failure mechanisms specifically for respirators. The goal of this paper is to measure particle transmission through printed respirators of different designs, materials, and AM processes. The authors compare the performance of printed respirators to N95 respirators and cloth masks. Respirators in this study printed using desktop- and industrial-scale fused filament fabrication processes and industrial-scale powder bed fusion processes were not sufficiently reliable for widespread distribution and local production of N95-type respiratory protection. Even while assuming a perfect seal between the respirator and the user’s face, although a few respirators provided >90% efficiency at the 100−300 nm particle range, almost all printed respirators provided <60% filtration efficiency. Post-processing procedures including cleaning, sealing surfaces, and reinforcing the filter cap seal generally improved performance, but the printed respirators showed similar performance to various cloth masks. The authors further explore the process-driven aspects leading to low filtration efficiency. Although the design/printer/material combination dictates the AM respirator performance, the identified failure modes originate from system-level constraints and are therefore generalizable across multiple AM processes. Quantifying the limitations of AM in producing N95-type respiratory protective masks advances understanding of AM systems toward the development of better part and machine designs to meet the needs of reliable, functional, end-use parts.     

Uplink Scheduling in CDMA Packet-Data Systems

Uplink scheduling in wireless systems is gaining importance due to arising uplink intensive data services (ftp, image uploads etc.), which could be hampered by the currently in-built asymmetry in favor of the downlink. In this work, we propose and study algorithms for efficient uplink packet-data scheduling in a CDMA cell. The algorithms attempt to maximize system throughput under transmit power limitations on the mobiles assuming instantaneous knowledge of user queues and channels. However no channel statistics or traffic characterization is necessary. Apart from increasing throughput, the algorithms also improve fairness of service among users, hence reducing chances of buffer overflows for poorly located users. The major observation arising from our analysis is that it is advantageous on the uplink to schedule “strong” users one-at-a-time, and “weak” users in larger groups. This contrasts with the downlink where one-at-a-time transmission for all users has shown to be the preferred mode in much previous work. Based on the optimal schedules, we propose less complex and more practical approximate methods, both of which offer significant performance improvement compared to one-at-a-time transmission, and the widely acclaimed Proportional Fair (PF) algorithm, in simulations. When queue content cannot be fed back, we propose a simple modification of PF, Uplink PF (UPF), that offers similar improvement. Hereafter, we refer to users with low recieved power at the base even when transmitting at peak transmit power as “weak” users, and the strongly recieved users at the base as “strong” users. Krishnan Kumaran is currently a member of the Complex Systems Modeling section in the Corporate Strategic Research of ExxonMobil Corp., Clinton, NJ. Formerly, he was a Member of Technical Staff in the Mathematics of Networks and Systems Research Department at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ, where his research interests were in modeling, analysis and simulation of design, resource management and scheduling issues in telecommunication networks. Lijun Qian is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Prairie View A&M University. He received his B.S. from Tsinghua University in Beijing, M.S. from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and Ph.D. from WINLAB, Rutgers University, all in electrical engineering. Before joining PVAMU, he was a researcher at Networks and Systems Research Department of Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ. His major research interests are in wireless communications and networking technologies, especially in radio resource management, protocol design, TCP/RLP optimization and MPLS traffic engineering.     

3G标准的技术性比较分析与研究

介绍了3G技术在国内外的发展情况，阐述了发展趋势，对3G技术的分类和所采用的主流技术、标准化情况进行了论述，并对CDMA2000，WCDMA和TD-SCDMA三种3G的三大主流应用技术标准进行比较分析。     

基于多线程技术的监控系统的设计

详细介绍在32位操作系统Windows95／98下，用C Builder3．0开发基于多线程技术的监控系统的有关方法。     

Wireless video streaming with TCP and simultaneous MAC packet transmission (SMPT)

Video streaming is expected to account for a large portion of the traffic in future networks, including wireless networks. It is widely accepted that the user datagram protocol (UDP) is the preferred transport protocol for video streaming and that the transmission control protocol (TCP) is unsuitable for streaming. The widespread use of UDP, however, has a number of drawbacks, such as unfairness and possible congestion collapse, which are avoided by TCP. In this paper we investigate the use of TCP as the transport layer protocol for streaming video in a multi‐code CDMA cellular wireless system. Our approach is to stabilize the TCP throughput over the wireless links by employing a recently developed simultaneous MAC packet transmission (SMPT) approach at the link layer. We study the capacity, i.e. the number of customers per cell, and the quality of service for streaming video in the uplink direction. Our extensive simulations indicate that streaming over TCP in conjunction with SMPT gives good performance for video encoded in a closed loop, i.e. with rate control. We have also found that TCP is unsuitable (even in conjunction with SMPT) for streaming the more variable open‐loop encoded video. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于循环前缀的单载波直接序列扩频技术(CP/CDMA)

介绍了下行链路中基于循环前缀的单载波直接序列扩频技术(CP/CDMA)。这种技术结合了多载波系统中的循环前缀和频域均衡,具有较低的复杂度。同时保留了单载波系统发射端复杂度低的优点。在时变信道中,利用基于辅助数据的信道估计方法,即每隔一定帧数的数据帧发送一帧训练序列来估计信道。在仿真中使用了信道编码。     

结合功率控制的时-空多用户检测器

针对CDMA系统中抗干扰技术,提出一种结合多用户检测、波束成形和功率控制的算法,对接收信号在时域和空间上进行联合处理,能大大抑制干扰,提高系统容量。     

IS-2000规范在Walsh Code定义上的局限性

本文针对IS-2000规范关于W alsh Code的定义,发现IS-2000规范有关W alshCode的定义不合理,在前向RC 3下限制了最大数据用户数和最高数据速率;如按本文修改规范关于W alsh Code的定义,不但可以在前向RC 3下提高最大数据用户数,同时在理论上可以将最高数据速率提高一倍。     

子空间方法盲多用户检测技术分析与探索

着重分析了基于子空间跟踪的盲线性多用户检测算法 ,并对其内部算法模块进行了仿真比较 ,最后对算法性能改善方法提出了自己的新思路     

无线智能网技术

本介绍CDMA无线智能网（WIN）的产生背景、技术标准、提供的业务、与GSM移动智能网技术上的差异以及它在实际工程中的应用，最后对WIN的发展进行展望。