A Ku-band active transmit-array module with a horn or patch array as a signal launching/receiving device

This paper is concerned with the design of a Ku-band active transmit-array module of transistor amplifiers excited by either a pyramidal horn or a patch array Optimal distances between the active transmit array and the signal-launching:receiving device, which is either a passive corporate-fed array or a horn, are determined to maximise the power gain at a design frequency: Having established these conditions, the complete structure is investigated in terms of operational bandwidth and near-field and far-field distributions measured at the output side of the transmit array, The experimental results show that the use of a corporate-fed array as an illuminating/receiving device gives higher gain and significantly larger operational bandwidth, An explanation for this behavior is sought.

A Devonian (Givetian) fore-reef slope sequence at Liangshuijing and implication for Devonian platform-to-depression development in Guilin, South China

Three Bahama-like carbonate plaforms-the Guilin, Yangshuo and Yanshan-occurred in Guilin and the surrounding regions during Middle and Late Devonian, which, at a broad scale, are part of an extensive carbonate platform (Xiangzhou carbonate platform) facies in South China. The intraplatform depression facies, a unique characteristic of the Chinese Devonian depositional sequence, separates Bahama-like (platform-to-depression) carbonate subplatfonns. Intraplatform depressions resulted from syndepositional faulting that cut the basement of carbonate subplatforms and affected further platform development. The Liangshuijing section, located between the Guilin platform in the north and the Yangshuo platform in the south, is representative of the fore-reef slope facies neighboring an intraplatform. depression. The South edge of the fore-reef slope lies adjacent to the Yangshuo reef carbonate platform, and the north edge graded into the Yangdi pelagic depression facies. A detailed sedimentary and microfacies analysis work done in this study at the Liangshuijing section shows a distinct vertical facies change from back-reef, restricted platform, hemipelagic, to fore-reefslope facies, differing from either shallow-water benthic facies or typical pelagic facies. Various benthic and pelagic lithofacies and their associations have been recognized in the Liangshuijing section, including dolomitic rudstone, gastropod wackestone, Amphipora floatstone, tentaculitoid wackestone, stromatolite and oncoid limestone, Amphipora grainstone, grain flows, laminated limestone, flat-pebble and brachiopod floatstone, and carbonate turbidites. Eight types of sedimentary cycles composed of two or three lithofacies have been distinguished, which are able to indicate environment changes. Stromatolites, oncoids, grain flows, carbonate turbidites, and tentaculitoid limestones characterize the slope and intraplatform depression lithofacies. Analysis of the vertical sedimentary cycles in the Liangshuijinag section and the lateral stratigraphic equivalents suggest the differing facies patterns occurred at the middle Varcus Zone (Givetian) of Middle Devonian, coeval with the development of fore-reef slope facies in the Guilin area in response to syndeposifional faulting.

Monitoring and isolation of blood dendritic cells from apheresis products in healthy individuals: a platform for cancer immunotherapy

The fundamental role of dendritic cells (DC in initiating and directing the primary immune response is well established. Furthermore, it is now accepted that DC may be useful in new vaccination strategies for preventing certain malignant and infectious diseases. As blood DC (BDC physiology differs from that of the DC homologues generated in vitro from monocyte precursors, it is becoming more relevant to consider BDC for therapeutic interventions. Until recently, protocols for the isolation of BDC were laborious and inefficient; therefore, their use for investigative cancer immunotherapy is not widespread. In this study, we carefully documented BDC counts, yields and subsets during apheresis (Cobe Spectra), the initial and essential procedure in creating a BDC isolation platform for cancer immunotherapy. We established that an automated software package (Version 6,0 AutoPBPC) provides an operator-independent reliable source of motionuclear cells (MNC for BDC preparation. Further, we observed that BDC might be recovered in high yields, often greater than 100% relative to the number of circulating BDC predicted by blood volume. An average of 66 million (range, 17-179) BDC per 10-1 procedure were obtained, largely satisfying the needs for immunization. Higher yields were possible on total processed blood volumes of 151. BDC were not activated by the isolation procedure and, more importantly, both BDC subsets (CD11c(+)CD123(low) and CD11c(-)CD123(high)) were equally represented. Finally, we established that the apheresis product could be used for antibody-based BDC immunoselection and demonstrated that fully functional BDC can be obtained by this procedure. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

The formative platform of the Congress of Panama (1810-1826): the Pan-American conjecture revisited

This article examines the formative platform of the Congress of Panama of 1826. It seeks to support the hypothesis that the nature and scope of the first test of integration in the Western Hemisphere depended critically on the platform created by Simón Bolívar and other Latin American Independence heroes from the Declaration of Independence of Venezuela in 1810 until the last bilateral agreement of 1826. In that respect, it corroborates the Latin American Identity of the initiative.

A Platform to Emulate Ambient Assisted Living Environments

According to the opinion of clinicians, emerging medical conditions can be timely detected by observing changes in the activities of daily living and/or in the physiological signals of a person. To accomplish such purpose, it is necessary to properly monitor both the person’s physiological signals as well as the home environment with sensing technology. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a promising technology for this support. After receiving the data from the sensor nodes, a computer processes the data and extracts information to detect any abnormality. The computer runs algorithms that should have been previously developed and tested in real homes or in living-labs. However, these installations (and volunteers) may not be easily available. In order to get around that difficulty, this paper suggests the making of a physical model to emulate basic actions of a user at home, thus giving autonomy to researchers wanting to test the performance of their algorithms. This paper also studies some data communication issues in mobile WSNs namely how the orientation of the sensor nodes in the body affects the received signal strength, as well as retransmission aspects of a TDMA-based MAC protocol in the data recovery process.

A Wireless EEG Acquisition Platform based on Embedded Systems

This paper proposes a wireless EEG acquisition platform based on Open Multimedia Architecture Platform (OMAP) embedded system. A high-impedance active dry electrode was tested for improving the scalp- electrode interface. It was used the sigma-delta ADS1298 analog-to-digital converter, and developed a “kernelspace” character driver to manage the communications between the converter unit and the OMAP’s ARM core. The acquired EEG signal data is processed by a “userspace” application, which accesses the driver’s memory, saves the data to a SD-card and transmits them through a wireless TCP/IP-socket to a PC. The electrodes were tested through the alpha wave replacement phenomenon. The experimental results presented the expected alpha rhythm (8-13 Hz) reactiveness to the eyes opening task. The driver spends about 725 μs to acquire and store the data samples. The application takes about 244 μs to get the data from the driver and 1.4 ms to save it in the SD-card. A WiFi throughput of 12.8Mbps was measured which results in a transmission time of 5 ms for 512 kb of data. The embedded system consumes about 200 mAh when wireless off and 400 mAh when it is on. The system exhibits a reliable performance to record EEG signals and transmit them wirelessly. Besides the microcontroller-based architectures, the proposed platform demonstrates that powerful ARM processors running embedded operating systems can be programmed with real-time constrains at the kernel level in order to control hardware, while maintaining their parallel processing abilities in high level software applications.

A Caregiver Support Platform within the Scope of an Ambient Assisted Living Ecosystem

The Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) area is in constant evolution, providing new technologies to users and enhancing the level of security and comfort that is ensured by house platforms. The Ambient Assisted Living for All (AAL4ALL) project aims to develop a new AAL concept, supported on a unified ecosystem and certification process that enables a heterogeneous environment. The concepts of Intelligent Environments, Ambient Intelligence, and the foundations of the Ambient Assisted Living are all presented in the framework of this project. In this work, we consider a specific platform developed in the scope of AAL4ALL, called UserAccess. The architecture of the platform and its role within the overall AAL4ALL concept, the implementation of the platform, and the available interfaces are presented. In addition, its feasibility is validated through a series of tests.

The undergraduate level (1st study cycle) as a fundamental platform/standard for the development of Urban and Regional Planning in higher education programs

LUDA is a research project of Key Action 4 "City of Tomorrow & Cultural Heritage" of the programme "Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development" within the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission

Improving Remote Voting Security with Code Voting

One of the major problems that prevents the spread of elections with the possibility of remote voting over electronic networks, also called Internet Voting, is the use of unreliable client platforms, such as the voter's computer and the Internet infrastructure connecting it to the election server. A computer connected to the Internet is exposed to viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, malware and other threats that can compromise the election's integrity. For instance, it is possible to write a virus that changes the voter's vote to a predetermined vote on election's day. Another possible attack is the creation of a fake election web site where the voter uses a malicious vote program on the web site that manipulates the voter's vote (phishing/pharming attack). Such attacks may not disturb the election protocol, therefore can remain undetected in the eyes of the election auditors. We propose the use of Code Voting to overcome insecurity of the client platform. Code Voting consists in creating a secure communication channel to communicate the voter's vote between the voter and a trusted component attached to the voter's computer. Consequently, no one controlling the voter's computer can change the his/her's vote. The trusted component can then process the vote according to a cryptographic voting protocol to enable cryptographic verification at the server's side.

A Service Integration Platform for Collaborative Networks

Integrated manufacturing constitutes a complex system made of heterogeneous information and control subsystems. Those subsystems are not designed to the cooperation. Typically each subsystem automates specific processes, and establishes closed application domains, therefore it is very difficult to integrate it with other subsystems in order to respond to the needed process dynamics. Furthermore, to cope with ever growing marketcompetition and demands, it is necessary for manufacturing/enterprise systems to increase their responsiveness based on up-to-date knowledge and in-time data gathered from the diverse information and control systems. These have created new challenges for manufacturing sector, and even bigger challenges for collaborative manufacturing. The growing complexity of the information and communication technologies when coping with innovative business services based on collaborative contributions from multiple stakeholders, requires novel and multidisciplinary approaches. Service orientation is a strategic approach to deal with such complexity, and various stakeholders' information systems. Services or more precisely the autonomous computational agents implementing the services, provide an architectural pattern able to cope with the needs of integrated and distributed collaborative solutions. This paper proposes a service-oriented framework, aiming to support a virtual organizations breeding environment that is the basis for establishing short or long term goal-oriented virtual organizations. The notion of integrated business services, where customers receive some value developed through the contribution from a network of companies is a key element.

MASGriP – a Multi-Agent Smart Grid Simulation Platform

The increasing number of players that operate in power systems leads to a more complex management. In this paper a new multi-agent platform is proposed, which simulates the real operation of power system players. MASGriP – A Multi-Agent Smart Grid Simulation Platform is presented. Several consumer and producer agents are implemented and simulated, considering real characteristics and different goals and actuation strategies. Aggregator entities, such as Virtual Power Players and Curtailment Service Providers are also included. The integration of MASGriP agents in MASCEM (Multi-Agent System for Competitive Electricity Markets) simulator allows the simulation of technical and economical activities of several players. An energy resources management architecture used in microgrids is also explained.

Self-optimization module for scheduling using case-based reasoning

Metaheuristics performance is highly dependent of the respective parameters which need to be tuned. Parameter tuning may allow a larger flexibility and robustness but requires a careful initialization. The process of defining which parameters setting should be used is not obvious. The values for parameters depend mainly on the problem, the instance to be solved, the search time available to spend in solving the problem, and the required quality of solution. This paper presents a learning module proposal for an autonomous parameterization of Metaheuristics, integrated on a Multi-Agent System for the resolution of Dynamic Scheduling problems. The proposed learning module is inspired on Autonomic Computing Self-Optimization concept, defining that systems must continuously and proactively improve their performance. For the learning implementation it is used Case-based Reasoning, which uses previous similar data to solve new cases. In the use of Case-based Reasoning it is assumed that similar cases have similar solutions. After a literature review on topics used, both AutoDynAgents system and Self-Optimization module are described. Finally, a computational study is presented where the proposed module is evaluated, obtained results are compared with previous ones, some conclusions are reached, and some future work is referred. It is expected that this proposal can be a great contribution for the self-parameterization of Metaheuristics and for the resolution of scheduling problems on dynamic environments.