Ecological Planting Imperative: Functional Systems,Not Stylized Ecologies

The ability of landscape architectural projects to mitigate the worst effects of climate change will depend upon designed ecological systems. These systems will be built with plants. Despite the recognition of ecology as an essential driver of landscapes, the professionals of landscape architecture too often lack the knowledge and practical skills to create robust vegetative systems. New approaches and tools are required. This article outlines principles and methods for designing biodiverse plant systems for urban sites. Planting methods that increase species richness, functional diversity, and spatial complexity are emphasized as a way of developing more resilient plantings. Selecting species with similar evolutionary adaptions to stress, disturbance, and competition—as well as creating multi-layered compositions of diverse plant morphologies—allows designers to create compatible, long-lived plant mixes. To balance the increased visual complexity of diverse plant mixes, the article explores design techniques to make plantings more appealing to the public. The strategies explored here are based on the projects, experience, and research of Phyto Studio, a Washington, D.C. based studio. The methods build on work described in the author’s book, Planting in a Post-Wild World, an exploration of how to create designed plant communities.     

小型无线场强探测传感器研究

近年来,微波加热因其高效性和清洁无污染等优点广泛应用于各个领域。然而,微波加热的不均匀性限制了微波作为高效加热能源的应用。通过测量和分析加热腔中的电场分布情况可以帮助设计人员改进微波加热腔体设计,提高微波加热的均匀性。现有的场强测量设备均为有线设备,应用场景极为有限。因此,本文提出了一种由探头、接收机和上位机三部分组成的无线场强探测传感器。介绍了无线场强探测传感器的结构和原理,采用横电磁波小室进行校准。通过一系列测量实验表明实测值与标准场强仪测量值一致性较好,可满足工程测量需求。     

Utilizing sensor data to model students’ creativity in a digital environment

While creativity is essential for developing students’ broad expertise in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields, many students struggle with various aspects of being creative. Digital technologies have the unique opportunity to support the creative process by (1) recognizing elements of students’ creativity, such as when creativity is lacking (modeling step), and (2) providing tailored scaffolding based on that information (intervention step). However, to date little work exists on either of these aspects. Here, we focus on the modeling step. Specifically, we explore the utility of various sensing devices, including an eye tracker, a skin conductance bracelet, and an EEG sensor, for modeling creativity during an educational activity, namely geometry proof generation. We found reliable differences in sensor features characterizing low vs. high creativity students. We then applied machine learning to build classifiers that achieved good accuracy in distinguishing these two student groups, providing evidence that sensor features are valuable for modeling creativity.     

Distributed wireless power transfer in sensor networks with multiple Mobile Chargers

We investigate the problem of efficient wireless power transfer in wireless sensor networks. In our approach, special mobile entities (called the Mobile Chargers) traverse the network and wirelessly replenish the energy of sensor nodes. In contrast to most current approaches, we envision methods that are distributed and use limited network information. We propose four new protocols for efficient charging, addressing key issues which we identify, most notably (i) what are good coordination procedures for the Mobile Chargers and (ii) what are good trajectories for the Mobile Chargers. Two of our protocols (DC, DCLK) perform distributed, limited network knowledge coordination and charging, while two others (CC, CCGK) perform centralized, global network knowledge coordination and charging. As detailed simulations demonstrate, one of our distributed protocols outperforms a known state of the art method, while its performance gets quite close to the performance of the powerful centralized global knowledge method.     

Maximum Data Generation Rate Routing Protocol Based on Data Flow Controlling Technology for Rechargeable Wireless Sensor Networks

For rechargeable wireless sensor networks, limited energy storage capacity, dynamic energy supply, low and dynamic duty cycles cause that it is unpractical to maintain a fixed routing path for packets delivery permanently from a source to destination in a distributed scenario. Therefore, before data delivery, a sensor has to update its waking schedule continuously and share them to its neighbors, which lead to high energy expenditure for reestablishing path links frequently and low efficiency of energy utilization for collecting packets. In this work, we propose the maximum data generation rate routing protocol based on data flow controlling technology. For a sensor, it does not share its waking schedule to its neighbors and cache any waking schedules of other sensors. Hence, the energy consumption for time synchronization, location information and waking schedule shared will be reduced significantly. The saving energy can be used for improving data collection rate. Simulation shows our scheme is efficient to improve packets generation rate in rechargeable wireless sensor networks.     

基于MF-R和AWS密钥管理机制的物联网健康监测大数据分析系统

带有传感器的可穿戴式医疗设备不断生成大量数据，由于数据的复杂性，难以通过处理和分析大数据来找到有价值的决策信息。为了解决这个问题，提出了一种新的物联网体系结构，用于存储和处理医疗应用的可扩展传感器数据（大数据）。所提出的架构主要由两个子架构组成：Meta Fog重定向（MF-R）架构和AWS密钥管理机制。MF-R架构使用Apache Pig和Apache HBase等大数据技术来收集和存储不同传感器设备生成的传感器数据，并利用卡尔曼滤波消除噪声。AWS密钥管理机制使用密钥管理方案，目的是保护云中的数据，防止未经授权的访问。当数据存储在云中时，所提出的系统能够使用随机梯度下降算法和逻辑回归来开发心脏病的预测模型。仿真实验表明，和其他几种算法相比，提出的算法具有更小的误差，且在吞吐量、准确度等方面具有一定的优越性。     

iM-SIMPLE: iMproved stable increased-throughput multi-hop link efficient routing protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are envisaged to play crucial role in psychological, medical and non-medical applications. This paper presents iM-SIMPLE; a reliable, and power efficient routing protocol with high throughput for WBAN. We deploy sensor nodes on human body to measure the physiological parameters such as blood pressure, temperature, glucose, lactic acid, EMG, acceleration, pressure, and position. Data from sensors is forwarded to intermediate node, from where it is transmitted to sink. An end user can access the required information available at sink via internet. To minimize energy consumption of the network, we utilize multi-hop mode of communication. A cost function is introduced to select the forwarder; node with high residual energy and least distance to sink has minimum cost function value and is selected. Residual energy parameter balances the energy consumption among the sensor nodes, and least distance improves packet delivery to sink because of reduced less path loss. We formulate the minimum energy consumption and high throughput problems as an Integer Linear Program. In order to support mobility, we also consider two body postures. Simulation results confirm the performance advantage of iM-SIMPLE compared to contemporary schemes in terms of maximizing stability period and throughput of the network.     

Control of self-assembly in micro- and nano-scale systems

Control of self-assembling systems at the micro- and nano-scale provides new opportunities for the engineering of novel materials in a bottom-up fashion. These systems have several challenges associated with control including high-dimensional and stochastic nonlinear dynamics, limited sensors for real-time measurements, limited actuation for control, and kinetic trapping of the system in undesirable configurations. Three main strategies for addressing these challenges are described, which include particle design (active self-assembly), open-loop control, and closed-loop (feedback) control. The strategies are illustrated using a variety of examples such as the design of patchy and Janus particles, the toggling of magnetic fields to induce the crystallization of paramagnetic colloids, and high-throughput crystallization of organic compounds in nanoliter droplets. An outlook of the future research directions and the necessary technological advancements for control of micro- and nano-scale self-assembly is provided.     

基于CVSD编码的无线语音系统方案的设计

简要介绍了连续可变斜率增量(CVSD)调制的原理。与目前应用较为广泛的其它语音编码方式相比较,CVSD拥有更优的数字特性。着重介绍了由CML公司研制开发的基于CVSD的语音编码芯片———CMX649的特点及相关的应用方式。CMX649能够成功地应用在广泛的语音编码系统中,尤其适合无线语音系统应用。在此基础上,给出了一种实用性很强的低成本、低功耗无线语音系统的设计与应用方案。该方案可提供清晰可靠的语音传输,可广泛应用于农村地区,具有广阔的市场空间。     

江西省防汛PDA应用系统设计

防汛PDA系统采用B/S和C/S相结合的构架方式,通过GPRS网络平台,能够清晰而灵活的显示出各种防汛工作所需的信息,为防汛工作者提供了全方位的移动指挥办公手段.