Dynamic Analysis of Nonlinear Models with Infinite Extension by Boundary Elements

The Time-Domain Boundary Element Method (TDBEM) is a well known numerical technique that handles quite properly dynamic analyses considering infinite dimension media. However, when these analyses are also related to nonlinear behavior, very complex numerical procedures arise considering the TD-BEM, which may turn its application prohibitive. In order to avoid this drawback and model nonlinear infinite media, the present work couples two BEM formulations, aiming to achieve the best of two worlds. In this context, the regions expected to behave nonlinearly are discretized by the Domain Boundary Element Method (D-BEM), which has a simpler mathematical formulation but is unable to deal with infinite domain analyses; the TD-BEM is employed as in the sense of an effective non-reflexive boundary. An iterative procedure is considered for the coupling of the TD-BEM and D-BEM, which is based on a relaxed renew of the variables at the common interfaces. Elastoplastic models are focused and different time-steps are allowed to be considered by each BEM formulation in the coupled analysis.

Modeling Directional Thermal Radiance Anisotropy for Urban Canopy

one of the significant factors for improving the accuracy of Land Surface Temperature (LST) retrieval is the correct understanding of the directional anisotropy for thermal radiance. In this paper, the multiple scattering effect between heterogeneous non-isothermal surfaces is described rigorously according to the concept of configuration factor, based on which a directional thermal radiance model is built, and the directional radiant character for urban canopy is analyzed. The model is applied to a simple urban canopy with row structure to simulate the change of Directional Brightness Temperature (DBT). The results show that the DBT is aggrandized because of the multiple scattering effects, whereas the change range of DBT is smoothed. The temperature difference, spatial distribution, emissivity of the components can all lead to the change of DBT. The “hot spot" phenomenon occurs when the proportion of high temperature component in the vision field came to a head. On the other hand, the “cool spot" phenomena occur when low temperature proportion came to the head. The “spot" effect disappears only when the proportion of every component keeps invariability. The model built in this paper can be used for the study of directional effect on emissivity, the LST retrieval over urban areas and the adjacency effect of thermal remote sensing pixels.

Robust Control of a High-Speed Manipulator in State Space

A robust control approach is proposed for a high speed manipulator using a hybrid computed torque control approach in the state space. The high-speed manipulator is driven by permanent magnet dc motors to track a trajectory in the joint space in the presence of disturbances. Tracking problem is analyzed in the state space where the completed models are considered for actuators. The proposed control approach can guarantee the stability and a satisfactory tracking performance. A two-link elbow manipulator driven by electrical actuators is simulated and results are shown to satisfy conditions under technical specifications.

An Automated Test Setup for the Characterization of Antenna in CATR

This paper describes the development of a fully automated measurement software for antenna radiation pattern measurements in a Compact Antenna Test Range (CATR). The CATR has a frequency range from 2-40 GHz and the measurement hardware includes a Network Analyzer for transmitting and Receiving the microwave signal and a Positioner controller to control the motion of the Styrofoam column. The measurement process includes Calibration of CATR with a Standard Gain Horn (SGH) antenna followed by Gain versus angle measurement of the Antenna under test (AUT). The software is designed to control a variety of microwave transmitter / receiver and two axis Positioner controllers through the standard General Purpose interface bus (GPIB) interface. Addition of new Network Analyzers is supported through a slight modification of hardware control module. Time-domain gating is implemented to remove the unwanted signals and get the isolated response of AUT. The gated response of the AUT is compared with the calibration data in the frequency domain to obtain the desired results. The data acquisition and processing is implemented in Agilent VEE and Matlab. A variety of experimental measurements with SGH antennas were performed to validate the accuracy of software. A comparison of results with existing commercial softwares is presented and the measured results are found to be within .2 dBm.

A Novel Nano-Scaled SRAM Cell

To help overcome limits to the density of conventional SRAMs and leakage current of SRAM cell in nanoscaled CMOS technology, we have developed a four-transistor SRAM cell. The newly developed CMOS four-transistor SRAM cell uses one word-line and one bit-line during read/write operation. This cell retains its data with leakage current and positive feedback without refresh cycle. The new cell size is 19% smaller than a conventional six-transistor cell using same design rules. Also the leakage current of new cell is 60% smaller than a conventional sixtransistor SRAM cell. Simulation result in 65nm CMOS technology shows new cell has correct operation during read/write operation and idle mode.

Design of an Ultra Low Power Low Phase Noise CMOS LC Oscillator

In this paper we introduce an ultra low power CMOS LC oscillator and analyze a method to design a low power low phase noise complementary CMOS LC oscillator. A 1.8GHz oscillator is designed based on this analysis. The circuit has power supply equal to 1.1 V and dissipates 0.17 mW power. The oscillator is also optimized for low phase noise behavior. The oscillator phase noise is -126.2 dBc/Hz and -144.4 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz and 8 MHz offset respectively.

A Chaotic Study on Tremor Behavior of Parkinsonian Patients under Deep Brain Stimulation

Deep Brain Stimulation or DBS is a surgical treatment for Parkinson-s Disease with three stimulation parameters: frequency, pulse width, and voltage. The parameters should be selected appropriately to achieve effective treatment. This selection now, performs clinically. The aim of this research is to study chaotic behavior of recorded tremor of patients under DBS in order to present a computational method to recognize stimulation optimum voltage. We obtained some chaotic features of tremor signal, and discovered embedding space of it has an attractor, and its largest Lyapunov exponent is positive, which show tremor signal has chaotic behavior, also we found out, in optimal voltage, entropy and embedding space variance of tremor signal have minimum values in comparison with other voltages. These differences can help neurologists recognize optimal voltage numerically, which leads to reduce patients' role and discomfort in optimizing stimulation parameters and to do treatment with high accuracy.

Virtual Environments...Vehicle for Pedagogical Advancement

Virtual environments are a hot topic in academia and more importantly in courses offered via distance education. Today-s gaming generation view virtual worlds as strong social and interactive mediums for communicating and socializing. And while institutions of higher education are challenged with increasing enrollment while balancing budget cuts, offering effective courses via distance education become a valid option. Educators can utilize virtual worlds to offer students an enhanced learning environment which has the power to alleviate feelings of isolation through the promotion of communication, interaction, collaboration, teamwork, feedback, engagement and constructivists learning activities. This paper focuses on the use of virtual environments to facilitate interaction in distance education courses so as to produce positive learning outcomes for students. Furthermore, the instructional strategies were reviewed and discussed for use in virtual worlds to enhance learning within a social context.

Optimal Power Allocation for the Proposed Asymmetric Turbo Code for 3G Systems

We proposed a new class of asymmetric turbo encoder for 3G systems that performs well in both “water fall" and “error floor" regions in [7]. In this paper, a modified (optimal) power allocation scheme for the different bits of new class of asymmetric turbo encoder has been investigated to enhance the performance. The simulation results and performance bound for proposed asymmetric turbo code with modified Unequal Power Allocation (UPA) scheme for the frame length, N=400, code rate, r=1/3 with Log-MAP decoder over Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel are obtained and compared with the system with typical UPA and without UPA. The performance tests are extended over AWGN channel for different frame size to verify the possibility of implementation of the modified UPA scheme for the proposed asymmetric turbo code. From the performance results, it is observed that the proposed asymmetric turbo code with modified UPA performs better than the system without UPA and with typical UPA and it provides a coding gain of 0.4 to 0.52dB.

A Novel Adaptive E-Learning Model Based on Developed Learner's Styles

Adaptive e-learning today gives the student a central role in his own learning process. It allows learners to try things out, participate in courses like never before, and get more out of learning than before. In this paper, an adaptive e-learning model for logic design, simplification of Boolean functions and related fields is presented. Such model presents suitable courses for each student in a dynamic and adaptive manner using existing database and workflow technologies. The main objective of this research work is to provide an adaptive e-learning model based learners' personality using explicit and implicit feedback. To recognize the learner-s, we develop dimensions to decide each individual learning style in order to accommodate different abilities of the users and to develop vital skills. Thus, the proposed model becomes more powerful, user friendly and easy to use and interpret. Finally, it suggests a learning strategy and appropriate electronic media that match the learner-s preference.

Bandwidth allocation in ATM Network for different QOS Requirements

For future Broad band ISDN, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is designed not only to support a wide range of traffic classes with diverse flow characteristics, but also to guarantee the different quality of service QOS requirements. The QOS may be measured in terms of cell loss probability and maximum cell delay. In this paper, ATM networks in which the virtual path (VP) concept is implemented are considered. By applying the Markov Deterministic process method, an efficient algorithm to compute the minimum capacity required to satisfy the QOS requirements when multiple classes of on-off are multiplexed on to a single VP. Using the result, we then proposed a simple algorithm to determine different combinations of VP to achieve the optimum of the total capacity required for satisfying the individual QOS requirements (loss- delay).

Analysis of Take-off Phase of Somersaults with Twisting along the Longitudinal Body Axis

The contribution deals with problem of take-off phase of back somersault with twisting with various numbers of twists along longitudinal body axis. The aim was to evaluate the changes in angles during transition phase from back handspring to back somersault using 3D kinematic analysis of the somersaults. We used Simi Motion System for the 3D kinematic analysis of the observed gymnastic element performed by Czech Republic female representative and 2008 Summer Olympic Games participant. The results showed that the higher the number of twists, the smaller the touchdown angle in which the gymnasts lands on the pad in the beginning of take-off phase. In back somersault with one twist (180°) the average angle is 54°, in 1080° back somersault the average angle is 45.9°. These results may help to improve technical training of sports gymnasts.

Design and Performance of Adaptive Polarized MIMO MC-SS-CDMA System for Downlink Mobile Communications

In this paper, an adaptive polarized Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Multicarrier Spread Spectrum Code Division Multiple Access (MC-SS-CDMA) system is designed for downlink mobile communications. The proposed system will be examined in Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) mode for both macro urban and suburban environments. For the same transmission bandwidth, a performance comparison between both nonoverlapped and orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) schemes will be presented. Also, the proposed system will be compared with both the closed loop vertical MIMO MC-SS-CDMA system and the synchronous vertical STBC-MIMO MC-SS-CDMA system. As will be shown, the proposed system introduces a significant performance gain as well as reducing the spatial dimensions of the MIMO system and simplifying the receiver implementation. The effect of the polarization diversity characteristics on the BER performance will be discussed. Also, the impact of excluding the cross-polarization MCSS- CDMA blocks in the base station will be investigated. In addition, the system performance will be evaluated under different Feedback Information (FBI) rates for slowly-varying channels. Finally, a performance comparison for vehicular and pedestrian environments will be presented

20 GHz Fractional Phased Locked Loop Circuit for the Gbps Wireless Communication

This paper presents the 20-GHz fractional PLL (Phase Locked Loop) circuit for the next generation Wi-Fi by using 90 nm TSMC process. The newly suggested millimeter wave 16/17 pre-scalar is designed and verified by measurement to make the fractional PLL having a low quantization noise. The operational bandwidth of the 60 GHz system is 15 % of the carrier frequency which requires large value of Kv (VCO control gain) resulting in degradation of phase noise. To solve this problem, this paper adopts AFC (Automatic Frequency Controller) controlled 4-bit millimeter wave VCO with small value of Kv. Also constant Kv is implemented using 4-bit varactor bank. The measured operational bandwidth is 18.2 ~ 23.2 GHz which is 25 % of the carrier frequency. The phase noise of -58 and -96.2 dBc/Hz at 100 KHz and 1 MHz offset is measured respectively. The total power consumption of the PLL is only 30 mW.

Controller Design for Euler-Bernoulli Smart Structures Using Robust Decentralized FOS via Reduced Order Modeling

This paper features the modeling and design of a Robust Decentralized Fast Output Sampling (RDFOS) Feedback control technique for the active vibration control of a smart flexible multimodel Euler-Bernoulli cantilever beams for a multivariable (MIMO) case by retaining the first 6 vibratory modes. The beam structure is modeled in state space form using the concept of piezoelectric theory, the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and the Finite Element Method (FEM) technique by dividing the beam into 4 finite elements and placing the piezoelectric sensor / actuator at two finite element locations (positions 2 and 4) as collocated pairs, i.e., as surface mounted sensor / actuator, thus giving rise to a multivariable model of the smart structure plant with two inputs and two outputs. Five such multivariable models are obtained by varying the dimensions (aspect ratios) of the aluminium beam. Using model order reduction technique, the reduced order model of the higher order system is obtained based on dominant Eigen value retention and the Davison technique. RDFOS feedback controllers are designed for the above 5 multivariable-multimodel plant. The closed loop responses with the RDFOS feedback gain and the magnitudes of the control input are obtained and the performance of the proposed multimodel smart structure system is evaluated for vibration control.

Transmitter Macrodiversity in Multihopping- SFN Based Algorithm for Improved Node Reachability and Robust Routing

A novel idea presented in this paper is to combine multihop routing with single-frequency networks (SFNs) for a broadcasting scenario. An SFN is a set of multiple nodes that transmit the same data simultaneously, resulting in transmitter macrodiversity. Two of the most important performance factors of multihop networks, node reachability and routing robustness, are analyzed. Simulation results show that our proposed SFN-D routing algorithm improves the node reachability by 37 percentage points as compared to non-SFN multihop routing. It shows a diversity gain of 3.7 dB, meaning that 3.7 dB lower transmission powers are required for the same reachability. Even better results are possible for larger networks. If an important node becomes inactive, this algorithm can find new routes that a non-SFN scheme would not be able to find. Thus, two of the major problems in multihopping are addressed; achieving robust routing as well as improving node reachability or reducing transmission power.

ANN Models for Microstrip Line Synthesis and Analysis

Microstrip lines, widely used for good reason, are broadband in frequency and provide circuits that are compact and light in weight. They are generally economical to produce since they are readily adaptable to hybrid and monolithic integrated circuit (IC) fabrication technologies at RF and microwave frequencies. Although, the existing EM simulation models used for the synthesis and analysis of microstrip lines are reasonably accurate, they are computationally intensive and time consuming. Neural networks recently gained attention as fast and flexible vehicles to microwave modeling, simulation and optimization. After learning and abstracting from microwave data, through a process called training, neural network models are used during microwave design to provide instant answers to the task learned.This paper presents simple and accurate ANN models for the synthesis and analysis of Microstrip lines to more accurately compute the characteristic parameters and the physical dimensions respectively for the required design specifications.

Design Optimization for Efficient Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers

The exact gain shape profile of erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA`s) are depends on fiber length and Er3 ion densities. This paper optimized several of erbium doped fiber parameters to obtain high performance characteristic at pump wavelengths of λp= 980 nm and λs= 1550 nm for three different pump powers. The maximum gain obtained for pump powers (10, 30 and 50mw) is nearly (19, 30 and 33 dB) at optimizations. The required numerical aperture NA to obtain maximum gain becomes less when pump power increased. The amplifier gain is increase when Er+3doped near the center of the fiber core. The simulation has been done by using optisystem 5.0 software (CAD for Photonics, a license product of a Canadian based company) at 2.5 Gbps.

Virtual Reality for Mutual Understanding in Landscape Planning

This paper argues that fostering mutual understanding in landscape planning is as much about the planners educating stakeholder groups as the stakeholders educating the planners. In other words it is an epistemological agreement as to the meaning and nature of place, especially where an effort is made to go beyond the quantitative aspects, which can be achieved by the phenomenological experience of the Virtual Reality (VR) environment. This education needs to be a bi-directional process in which distance can be both temporal as well as spatial separation of participants, that there needs to be a common framework of understanding in which neither 'side' is disadvantaged during the process of information exchange and it follows that a medium such as VR offers an effective way of overcoming some of the shortcomings of traditional media by taking advantage of continuing technological advances in Information, Technology and Communications (ITC). In this paper we make particular reference to this as an extension to Geographical Information Systems (GIS). VR as a two-way communication tool offers considerable potential particularly in the area of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS). Information rich virtual environments that can operate over broadband networks are now possible and thus allow for the representation of large amounts of qualitative and quantitative information 'side-by-side'. Therefore, with broadband access becoming standard for households and enterprises alike, distributed virtual reality environments have great potential to contribute to enabling stakeholder participation and mutual learning within the planning context.

Implementation of Interactive Computer Aided Instruction in Learning of Javanese Traditional Classic Dance

Traditional Javanese classic dance is a valuable inheritance in Java Indonesia. Nowadays, this treasure of culture is no longer belonging to Javanese people only. Many art departments from universities around the world already put this as a subject in their curriculum. Nonetheless, dance is a practical skill. It needs to be practices so often while accompanied by an instructor to get the right technique. An interactive Computer Aided Instruction (iCAI) that can interactively assist the student to practice is developed. By using this software students can conduct a self practice in studio and get some feedbacks from the software. This CAI is not intended to replace the instructor, but to assist them in increasing the student fly-time in practice.