Downlink queuing model and packet scheduling for providing lossless handoff and QoS in AG mobile networks

Next generation mobile networks are expected to provide seamless personal mobile communication and quality-of-service (QoS) guaranteed IP-based multimedia services. Providing seamless communication in mobile networks means that the networks have to be able to provide not only fast but also lossless handoff. This paper presents a two-layer downlink queuing model and a scheduling mechanism for providing lossless handoff and QoS in mobile networks, which exploit IP as a transport technology for transferring datagrams between base stations and the high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) at the radio layer. In order to reduce handoff packet dropping rate at the radio layer and packet forwarding rate at the IP layer and provide high system performance, e.g., downlink throughput, scheduling algorithms are performed at both IP and radio layers, which exploit handoff priority scheduling principles and take into account buffer occupancy and channel conditions. Performance results obtained by computer simulation show that, by exploiting the downlink queuing model and scheduling algorithms, the system is able to provide low handoff packet dropping rate, low packet forwarding rate, and high downlink throughput.     

A hybrid SOF-PID controller for a MIMO biped robot

The application of the hybrid self-organizing fuzzy (SOF) PID controller to a multiinput multioutput nonlinear biped robot is studied in this article. The SOF-PID controller was initially studied by H.B. Kazemian in 1998. Actually, his SOF-PID controller has limits. The supervisory capacity of the SOF-PID controller can adjust only certain kinds of parameters. Here the hybrid SOF-PID controller is introduced to tune some kinds of parameters, and it was tested on a MIMO biped robot. In the experiment, the hybrid SOF-PID controller shows a better performance than the SOF-PID. This work was presented in part at the 10th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, February 4–6, 2005     

Microfabrication and characterization of metal-embedded thin-film thermomechanical microsensors for applications in hostile manufacturing environments

Effective monitoring and diagnosis of manufacturing processes is of critical importance. If critical manufacturing process conditions are continuously monitored, problems can be detected and solved during the processing cycle. However, current technology still evidently lags behind practical needs. Microfabricated thin-film thermocouples and strain gauges are attractive for their small size and fast response. It is challenging to fabricate and embed these sensors into metallic components that are widely used in manufacturing. This paper investigates the fabrication, embedding, and characterization of metal embedded thin-film thermocouples and strain gauges. The materials (dielectric and metallic) constituting a complete microsensor were characterized and optimized. The results obtained from characterization and optimization of materials are presented and discussed. Thin-film thermocouples on stainless steel substrates (before and after embedding) were calibrated to elevated temperatures. The behavior of thin-film strain gauges was also studied. The metal embedded sensors demonstrated good accuracy, sensitivity, and linearity that matched the performance of commercial thermocouples and strain gauges well. The metal embedded microsensors are promising for in situ monitoring in hostile manufacturing environments.     

Continuous-Time Negotiation Mechanism for Software Agents

While there are several existing mechanisms and systems addressing the crucial and difficult issues of automated one-to-many negotiation, this paper develops a flexible one-to-many negotiation mechanism for software agents. Unlike the existing general one-to-many negotiation mechanism, in which an agent should wait until it has received proposals from all its trading partners before generating counterproposals, in the flexible one-to-many negotiation mechanism, an agent can make a proposal in a flexible way during negotiation, i.e., negotiation is conducted in continuous time. To decide when to make a proposal, two strategies based on fixed waiting time and a fixed waiting ratio is proposed. Results from a series of experiments suggest that, guided by the two strategies for deciding when to make a proposal, the flexible negotiation mechanism achieved more favorable trading outcomes as compared with the general one-to-many negotiation mechanism. To determine the amount of concession, negotiation agents are guided by four mathematical functions based on factors such as time, trading partners' strategies, negotiation situations of other threads, and competition. Experimental results show that agents guided by the four functions react to changing market situations by making prudent and appropriate rates of concession and achieve generally favorable negotiation outcomes     

Advanced photospacers with elastic recovery

A new series of photospacers has been prepared with different types of crosslinkers to improve elastic recovery. Afunctional crosslinker with six reactive groups demonstrates the best elastic recovery. As the quantity of crosslinker is increased, the elastic recovery also increases, probably due to an increase in the crosslinking density. The use of ADMS EPS® results in high resolution, good uniformity, and high production yield in the liquid‐crystal‐display (LCD) process. Especially, EPS® improves and solves problems such as viewing angle, crosstalk, and dark spots.     

Adaptive bandwidth reservation and admission control in QoS-sensitive cellular networks

How to keep the probability of hand-off drops within a prespecified limit is a very important quality-of-service (QoS) issue in cellular networks because mobile users should be able to maintain ongoing sessions even during their hand-off from one cell to another. We design and evaluate predictive and adaptive schemes for bandwidth reservation for the hand-offs of ongoing sessions and the admission control of new connections. We first develop a method to estimate user mobility based on an aggregate history of hand-offs observed in each cell. This method is then used to probabilistically predict mobiles' directions and hand-off times in a cell. For each cell, the bandwidth to be reserved for hand-offs is calculated by estimating the total sum of tractional bandwidths of the expected hand-offs within a mobility-estimation time window. Three different admission-control schemes for new connection requests using this bandwidth reservation are proposed. We also consider variations that utilize the path/location information available from the car navigation system or global positioning system. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the proposed schemes extensively to show that they meet our design goal and outperform the static reservation scheme under various scenarios.     

A comparative study of bandwidth reservation and admission control schemes in QoS‐sensitive cellular networks

This paper compares five different schemes – called CHOI, NAG, AG, BHARG, and NCBF – for reserving bandwidths for handoffs and admission control for new connection requests in QoS‐sensitive cellular networks. CHOI and NAG are to keep the handoff dropping probability below a target value, AG is to guarantee no handoff drops through per‐connection bandwidth reservation, and BHARG and NCBF use another type of per‐connection bandwidth reservation. CHOI predicts the bandwidth required to handle handoffs by estimating possible handoffs from adjacent cells, then performs admission control for each newly‐requested connection. On the other hand, NAG predicts the total required bandwidth in the current cell by estimating both incoming and outgoing handoffs at each cell. AG requires the set of cells to be traversed by the mobile with a newly‐requested connection, and reserves bandwidth for each connection in each of these cells. The last two schemes reserve bandwidth for each connection in the predicted next cell of a mobile where the two schemes use different admission control policies. We adopt the history‐based mobility estimation for the first two schemes. Using extensive simulations, the five schemes are compared quantitatively in terms of (1) handoff dropping probability, connection‐blocking probability, and bandwidth utilization; (2) dependence on the design parameters; (3) dependence on the accuracy of mobility estimation; and (4) complexity. The simulation results indicate that CHOI is the most desirable in that it achieves good performance while requiring much less memory and computation than the other four schemes. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Improvement of intact human lipocortin-I production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by inhibiting proteolysis

Human lipocortin-I (hLC1), when was expressed as a secretory product in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, was cleaved to a significant extent by endoproteolytic processing, resulting in the accumulation of des1-26-hLC1 in the culture supernatant. This proteolytic cleavage was inhibited significantly by the addition of high concentrations of l-arginine and l-lysine, with a resultant marked improvement in the yield of intact hLC1. When the hLC1 was expressed in S. cerevisiae mutants deficient in one or two of the following endoproteases, Kex2p, Mkc7p and Yps1p (Yap3p), the mutants exhibited no reduction in the extent of hLC1 proteolysis, indicating that these endoproteases are not involved in the proteolytic cleavage of hLC1.     

Characterization of polyphosphates by electrospray mass spectrometry

Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) was applied for the characterization of inorganic polyphosphates [orthophosphate, pyrophosphate, tripolyphosphate, trimetaphosphate, and tetrapolyphosphatel. The high selectivity of ESI-MS allows the detection of different polyphosphate species without preseparation by ion chromatography or capillary electrophoresis. Furthermore, ESI-MS does not require the incorporation of UV-absorbing chromophores into the analytical method for the detection of phosphates, unlike conventional UV-chromatographic methods. Limits of detection by ESI-MS were estimated to range from approximately 1 to 10 ng/mL. The quantification of polyphosphate samples as single-component and multicomponent mixtures was investigated. Linear signal response for single-component samples ranged from the limit of detection to approximately 10 microg/mL Quantification of polyphosphate in streamwater is demonstrated using the standard addition method. The effect of multi-polyphosphate components and salts on signal response was also studied. For concentrations less than 2.0 microg/mL, signal response from a tetrapolyphosphate sample was comparable to those obtained from tetrapolyphosphate-tripolyphosphate mixtures. Signal response obtained from tetrapolyphosphate in the presence of tripolyphosphate or NH4NO3 at higher concentrations (approximately 50 microg/mL and 35 microg/mL, respectively) was significantly lower relative to single-component standards (approximately 40%-70%).     

Simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature by use of a single-fiber Bragg grating and an erbium-doped fiber amplifier

We propose and demonstrate a novel sensor by using a single-fiber Bragg grating that can simultaneously measure strain and temperature with the aid of an erbium-doped fiber amplifier. By using a linear variation in the amplified spontaneous emission power of the erbium-doped fiber amplifier with temperature, we determine the temperature. By subtracting the temperature effect from the fiber Bragg grating Bragg wavelength shift, we determine the strain. Experiments show rms deviations of 18.2 muepsilon and 0.7 degrees C for strain and temperature, respectively.