Crack kinking in anti-plane shear solved by the Mellin transform

The problem of kinking of internal cracks in infinite plates submitted to antiplane shear at infinity was solved by using the Mellin transform. This transform allows a straightforward reduction of it to a system of second order Fredholm integral equations for a pair of functions in terms of which the stress intensity factors at the crack tips may be calculated. Of great interest and of equivocal views is the regime at the vicinity of the corner, the region where the kink is nucleated, and which reflects numerical difficulties arising in the solution of the integral equations. For this purpose an asymptotic expansion is constructed for their kernels and subsequently for the values of SIFs with respect to the length of the kinked branch. The analysis yielded results which were physically sound, but differing fundamentally with those existing in the literature. These results were in agreement with those obtained for an in-plane loading of the cracks and for cracks in bi-phase materials whose tips are on the interface of the phases.

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Résumé On propose une solution au problème des déviations de fissures internes dans une plaque infinie soumise à l'infini à un cisaillement antiplanaire, en utilisant une transformée de Mellin.Cette transformée, appliquée à un couple de fonctions grâce auxquelles on peut calculer les facteurs d'intensité de contraintes aux extrémités d'une fissure, conduit à réduire le problème à un système d'intégrales de Fredholm du deuxième ordre. La situation régnant au voisinage du bord de la plaque, une région où s'amorcent les déviations, est particulièrement intéressante et prête à des interprétations équivoques; ceci reflète les difficultés que l'on peut rencontrer dans la solution numérique des intégrales. Pour y remédier, on établit une expansion asymptotique pour leur kernel, et donc pour les valeurs des facteurs d'intensité de contrainte, en fonction de la longueur de la branche déviée.L'analyse conduit à des résultats qui ont un sens physique, mais qui diffèrent profondément de ceux qui l'on trouve dans la littérature. Ces résultats se révèlent en accord avec ceux obtenus dans le cas d'une sollicitation de fissures dans leur plan et dans le cas de fissures dans des matériaux biphasiques, pour lesquelles les extrémités de fissure seraient situées à l'interface entre les phases.

     

Importance of Reservoir Tributaries to Spawning of Migratory Fish in the Upper Paraná River

Regulation of rivers by dams transforms previously lotic reaches above the dam into lentic ones and limits or prevents longitudinal connectivity, which impairs access to suitable habitats for the reproduction of many migratory fish species. Frequently, unregulated tributaries can provide important habitat heterogeneity to a regulated river and may mitigate the influence of impoundments on the mainstem river. We evaluated the importance of tributaries to spawning of migratory fish species over three spawning seasons, by comparing several abiotic conditions and larval fish distributions in four rivers that are tributaries to an impounded reach of the Upper Paraná River, Brazil. Our study confirmed reproduction of at least 8 long‐distance migrators, likely nine, out of a total of 19 occurring in the Upper Paraná River. Total larval densities and percentage species composition differed among tributaries, but the differences were not consistent among spawning seasons and unexpectedly were not strongly related to annual differences in temperature and hydrology. We hypothesize that under present conditions, densities of larvae of migratory species may be better related to efficiency of fish passage facilities than to temperature and hydrology. Our study indicates that adult fish are finding suitable habitat for spawning in tributaries, fish eggs are developing into larvae, and larvae are finding suitable rearing space in lagoons adjacent to the tributaries. Our findings also suggest the need for establishment of protected areas in unregulated and lightly regulated tributaries to preserve essential spawning and nursery habitats. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Secure and robust multipath routings for advanced metering infrastructure

A Smart Grid is the modernization of the electricity grid using communication technology with the prime goals of reducing energy consumption as well as cost increasing reliability and creating new services for all participants. It comprises key components such as the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), which includes Neighborhood area network (NAN). When multi-hopping is considered in wireless communication, especially in WiFi and ZigBee, the range of the communication can be extended to communicate with the gateway collector in AMI network. Wireless mesh AMI network may have smart meters, a NAN gateway, and fixed as well as mobile repeaters. Though many techniques have been developed to secure on-demand routing protocols in wireless multi-hop ad-hoc networks, these protocols have shortcomings. In this paper, we propose two robust and secure multipath routing protocols for wireless mesh AMI networks. We have analyzed their robustness to various attacks. The simulation results show that the proposed protocols are better than existing secure routing protocols.     

Privacy preserving broadcast message authentication protocol for VANETs

Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) will start becoming deployed within the next decade. Among other benefits, it is expected that VANETs will support applications and services targeting the increase of safety on the road, and assist in improving the efficiency of the road transportation network. However, several serious challenges remain to be solved before efficient and secure VANET technology becomes available, one of them been efficient authentication of messages in a VANET. There is a significant body of research work addressing this issue, however, while progress has been made, the challenge is still far from having been resolved and reliable and secure systems ready for deployment becoming available. In this paper, we propose the Privacy Preserving Broadcast Message Authentication (PPBMA) scheme, which, instead of performing asymmetric verification, uses Message Authentication Code (MAC) functionality and HASH operations to authenticate messages. Moreover, we use two-level key hash chain, which assists avoiding message losses. Simulation results demonstrate that PPBMA has superior performances in terms of packet loss rate and message delivery latency when compared to existing solutions. Due to this advantage, it can support emergency and routine messages alike, while existing solutions can only support routine messages.     

Comment on “Maximum likelihood decoding of uncoded and codedPSK signal sequences transmitted over Rayleigh flat-fadingchannels”

This comment points out some papers published before the paper of Vitetta and Taylor (see ibid., vol.43, no.11, p.2750-58, 1995). These early papers have dealt with the general problem of maximum-likelihood sequence estimation of coded/uncoded phase-shift keying (PSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals in correlated Rician and Rayleigh-fading channels. These publications did not assume use of interleaving or use of optimal codes, designed for interleaved systems. The statistical properties of the multiplicative fading process have been included in the design of the receivers which were proposed, analyzed, and evaluated. The research contributions documented in these papers have also shown for the first time in the open literature the link between conventional detection techniques and the maximum-likelihood detection of signals in this type of fading channels     

Differential detection of GMSK using decision feedback

Differential detector structures that use decision feedback to partially remove the effect of destructive intersymbol interference from minimum-shift keying (MSK) are introduced. In comparison to the conventional two-bit differential detection of GMSK (Gaussian MSK), the proposed structures provide about 4-dB E_b/N ₀ improvement when the premodulation filter time-bandwidth product is 0.25. As the premodulation filter becomes narrower, the advantages of the proposed receivers are more pronounced. Thus the bit-error-rate performance of differential detection is brought closer to coherent detection while avoiding the problems associated with the carrier recovery     

Analysis of Maximum Traffic Intensity and Optimal Channel Reservation Under QoS Constraints in LEO-MSS

A novel analytical approach is developed for determining the maximum traffic intensity for Low Earth Orbit Mobile Satellite Systems (LEO-MSS) under preset Quality of Service (QoS) constraints such as call blocking and dropping probabilities. The proposed methodology also enables the optimization of channel reservation for handovers so that the traffic intensity supported by LEO-MSS is maximized.     

FMSLPP: fake-message based sink location privacy preservation for WSNs against global eavesdroppers

Traditional encryption and authentication methods are not effective in preserving sink’s location privacy from a global adversary that could be monitoring the network’s traffic and time-of-arrival of traffic flows. In this paper, we present a novel method named fake-message based sink location privacy preservation (FMSLPP) to protect sink’s location privacy against global eavesdroppers. In this method, we let sensors generate fake messages with a probability before the sink sends a message, in order to confuse an adversary about the sink’s location. We also make each node have approximately the same traffic volume to protect the sink’s location privacy. Simulation results from two approaches of sensor deployment (random deployment or controlled deployment) indicate that FMSLPP makes it very difficult for the global adversary to identify the location of the sink; at the same time, transmission of fake messages does not impact significantly the network’s performance in terms of network life.     

Bidirectional connectivity via fish ladders in a large Neotropical river

The conservation of migratory fish species worldwide has been threatened by the loss of longitudinal connectivity caused by dams intercepting large rivers. One environmental management strategy for reestablishing connectivity is providing passage through fish ladders. However, ladders in Neotropical rivers have been described as ascending one‐way routes. We analysed the movements of Prochilodus lineatus through a fish ladder at a large dam—Porto Primavera—in the heavily impounded Upper Paraná River, Brazil, to determine whether the ladder connected habitats downstream and upstream of the dam, in both directions. A total of 1,419 specimens of P. lineatus were PIT‐tagged above and below the dam, and continuously monitored for 4 years. We documented bidirectional movements of P. lineatus through the fish ladder. Many individuals repeated these movements annually; one individual as many as six times. It was estimated that the cumulative probability that P. lineatus would return from downstream after descending through the ladder was 0.38, 0.50, and 0.56 in 1, 2, and 3 years, respectively. Correspondingly, return probabilities from upstream were 0.15, 0.22, and 0.26 in 1–3 years, respectively. Although return probabilities from upstream were roughly half, our results suggest the Porto Primavera fish ladder contributes to habitat connectivity, bidirectional passage, and preservation of P. lineatus. These results deviate from the perception that fishways are ineffective in Neotropical rivers. We suggest that fishways can restore the bidirectional connectivity denied to some Neotropical species, and until the services of dams are no longer needed, environmental management through fish ladders could continue to be considered as an integral part of broader conservation strategy designed to preserve native fauna.     

Dynamic resource management considering the real behavior ofaggregate traffic

This paper explains why the theory of effective bandwidth is in general not applicable to characterize realistic traffic sources. Moreover, we show that a static allocation of network resources (bandwidth and/or buffer space) based on large deviation theory can be highly inefficient when the real statistical behavior of traffic is taken into account. As an alternative, we propose a dynamic resource management scheme based on prediction techniques. As a specific example, we apply this scheme to a Differentiated Service (DiffServ) Internet environment, in which the goal, besides policing the incoming traffic, is to optimize the use of network resources, thus minimizing the probability of occurrence of violations of contract guarantees. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated via simulations and our results show the superior performance of the new algorithm in terms of buffer overflows, output link utilization, and jitter, as compared to currently used policing and shaping mechanisms