A borrow-and-return model to reduce client waiting time for broadcasting-based VOD services

One way to broadcast a popular video is to use multiple channels, each broadcasting a portion of the video periodically. Among the many schemes falling in this category, this paper focuses on several representative schemes (such as FB, Pagoda, and RFS ), which all share a FSFC property by repeatedly broadcasting the first segment of the video on the first channel. We propose a general borrow-and-return model that can be immediately applied to any scheme owning the FSFC property to reduce the viewer's waiting time without increasing the number of channels required. Given a group of videos, the basic idea is to lend the free time slots of videos without viewers to those videos with viewers to speedup the latter's transmission. By so doing, some bandwidth may be vacated by the borrowing videos to benefit others' transmission. The effectiveness of this model is analyzed by applying it to the FB scheme.     

Nitrone spin-traps block calcium channels and induce pulmonary artery relaxation independent of free radicals

Free radicals react with nitrones to form stable nitroxides which can be identified by ESR spectroscopy. Unfortunately, little is known regarding the pharmacological properties of these compounds. In this study, three commonly used nitrones, 5,5-dimethylpyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO), alpha-phenyl-tert-butylnitrone (PBN), and alpha-(4-pyridyl 1-oxide)-N-tert-butylnitrone (POBN), were found to induce relaxation of preconstricted isolated rat pulmonary artery rings. Additional experiments with PBN indicated that vasorelaxation could not be attributed to production of endothelial derived factors, prostaglandins, or free radicals. Patch-clamp techniques revealed reversible calcium channel blockade with PBN at a concentration below that needed to detect free radicals. Calcium channel blockade probably accounts for the vasorelaxation observed in the isolated ring preparations described here, and should be considered when using nitrone spin-traps both in in vivo and clinical studies.     

Prescheduling policy for real-time concurrency control: A performance evaluation

A new priority management policy, aprescheduling policy, is proposed. This policy can be applied on any conventional concurrency control protocol to schedule a real-time transaction. Costly preemption is avoided by the prescheduling policy, and parsing dataset of a transaction is not needed. Three widely used conventional concurrency control protocols (dynamic two-phase locking, basic timestamp ordering, and optimistic) are incorporated with the prescheduling policy to form three real-time concurrency control protocols. Performance of the three protocols is evaluated from three different viewpoints: database management systems, protocols, and transaction. From a database management system viewpoint, we show the prescheduling policy can improve the performance of protocols by raising thevalid ratio and reducingrestart counts. In general, two-phase locking with the prescheduling policy performs the best in most cases and yields the best choice for concurrency control in a real-time application. Deciding factors that affect performance of each protocol are identified from protocol viewpoint. Some suggestions are given for writing a timely transaction from the aspect of transaction viewpoint.     

Effects of substrate temperature and texturing on the magnetic properties and crystallographic structures of CoCrTa/Cr thin film

Bi-layer CoCrTa/Cr films were deposited on textured aluminium or textured NiP-plated aluminium substrate by d.c. magnetron sputtering. The crystal anisotropy and thereby magnetic properties depending on substrate material, substrate temperature and texturing, were investigated. The magnetic crystal anisotropy induced by the mechanical texture on aluminium or NiP/Al substrates along the texture lines for the film deposited at high temperature, were clearly observed, while the film deposited at low temperature shows less prominent anisotropic behaviour. X-ray diffraction analysis indicates a change in the preferred orientation of the chromium and CoCrTa films sputtered on different substrates at different temperatures. It was found that a high substrate temperature was beneficial to the formation of Cr(002) and therefore epitaxial growth of Co(11¯20) on Cr(002) for either aluminium or NiP/Al substrates.     

I-WAP: an intelligent WAP site management system

The popularity regarding wireless communications is such that more and more WAP sites have been developed with wireless markup language (WML). Meanwhile, to translate hypertext markup language (HTML) pages into proper WML ones becomes imperative since it is difficult for WAP users to read most contents designed for PC users via their mobile phone screens. However, for those sites that have been maintained with hypertext markup language (HTML), considerable time and manpower costs will be incurred to rebuild them with WML. In this paper, we propose an intelligent WAP site management system to cope with these problems. With the help of the intelligent management system, the original contents of HTML Web sites can be automatically translated to proper WAP content in an efficient way. As a consequence, the costs associated with maintaining WAP sites could be significantly reduced. The management system also allows the system manager to define the relevance of numerals and keywords for removing unimportant or meaningless contents. The original contents will be reduced and reorganized to fit the size of mobile phone screens, thus reducing the communication cost and enhancing readability. Numerical results gained through various experiments have evinced the effective performance of the WAP management system.     

An experimentally verified hybrid Cassie-Mayr electric arc modelfor power electronics simulations

This paper presents an electric arc model that can approximately represent both the static and dynamic characteristics of an arc load controlled by a power electronic circuit. The proposed model was developed from the combination and modifications of the classical Cassie and Mayr equations. The model equations have been expressed in a form suitable for incorporation into circuit simulators employing the nodal analysis method of equation solving. The model has been test-implemented in the Saber circuit simulator. Simulated and experimental results appear to be in good agreement     

Least mean p-power error criterion for adaptive FIR filter

An adaptive FIR filter based on the least mean p-power error (MPE) criterion is investigated. First, some useful properties of MPE function are studied. Three main results are as follows: 1) MPE function is a convex function of filter coefficients; so it has no local minima. 2) When input process and desired process are both Gaussian processes, then MPE function has the same optimum solution as the conventional Wiener solution for any p. 3) When input process and desired process are non-Gaussian processes, then MPE function may have better optimum solution than Wiener solution. Next, a least mean p-power (LMP) error adaptive algorithm is derived and some application examples are presented. Consequently, when the signal is corrupted by an impulsive noise, the adaptive algorithm with p=1 is preferred. Furthermore, when the signal is corrupted by noise or interference, the adaptive algorithm with proper choice of p may be preferred     

A full-wave mixed potential mode-matching method for the analysisof planar or quasi-planar transmission lines

A full-wave mixed potential mode-matching method is presented for the analysis of planar and/or quasi-planar transmission lines. The transmission lines studied consist of layered (stratified) and nonlayered dielectric substrates and metal strips of finite thickness. The y-directed hybrid transverse electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) Hertzian potentials, perpendicular to the interfaces between each layered region, are employed in the layered regions. The nonlayered regions consist of dielectric step discontinuities that destroy the layered configuration in the horizontal plane, allowing a systematic and easy to handle full-wave formulation of the transmission line problem. The relative convergence criterion needs to be satisfied to obtain accurate electromagnetic field solutions. Theoretical results are in very good agreement with published data for various transmission line structures. Applications of the formulation to the proximity effects of microstrip and microslab lines are illustrated     

An observer-based robust adaptive controller for permanent magnet synchronous motor drive with initial rotor angle uncertainty

An observer-based robust adaptive nonlinear position and speed tracking controller is developed for a permanent magnet synchronous motor with initial rotor angle uncertainty. The unknown initial rotor position is treated as a constant motor parameter in the development of the controller. An incremental encoder, which provides relative position variation of the rotor, is used along with stator current signals to achieve stable control. However, the controller does not require the knowledge of motor parameters and it only assumes friction, external disturbances, and model uncertainties are bounded. By using state observers, the measurement of acceleration and load torque, which is required usually in the nonlinear controller design with high tracking performance, is avoided. The stability of the control system and tracking convergence are guaranteed using Lyapunov theory. Finally, the stability and efficacy of the proposed drive system are verified by experimental results.     

Microwave surface impedances of BCS superconducting thin films

The microwave propagation-dominated problem in the multilayer structure made of a BCS superconducting film and a dielectric substrate is investigated theoretically by using the modified two-fluid model and transmission line theory. The effective microwave surface impedances are studied as functions of temperature, frequency, and film thickness, as well as substrate thickness. Special attention is paid to the substrate resonance phenomenon in the resonant structure. The influence of BCS coherence effects on surface impedance and resonant behavior is clearly demonstrated. The resonant effect in the stack structure is well interpreted with the help of the transverse resonance technique in the microwave theory