Search

Some of the popular virtual assistants today are Google Assistant, Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana. Such virtual assistants are capable of understanding natural language voice commands and perform various tasks for users. Virtual assistants have typically and historically performed simple jobs for end-users such as adding tasks to a calendar, providing information scraped from websites. Users also use virtual assistants to make and receive phone calls, create text messages, get directions, hear news and weather reports, find hotels or restaurants, check flight reservations, hear music, or play games. With the latest technology integrated with virtual assistants its ability to understand and perform requests can be enhanced. Currently, Web Automation is widely used in the industry for software testing, Web scraping, etc. However, its application can be widely increased if it can be integrated with Voice assistants, making them even smarter. In this paper, we propose to present a prototype of a system that combines web automation and a smart virtual assistant that can relieve the user from day-to-day mundane tasks. This paper has 2 main novelties 1) presenting the design and prototype of such fusion assistant 2) determining and analyzing user acceptability.

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), the foremost root which leads to blindness is found among working-age adults. It is caused due to diabetes that affects human eye. When such a disease is detected, then at first it does not show any symptoms or shows only mild symptoms. Gradually, it leads to blindness. There are various symptoms of DR. They may include: fluctuating vision, blurred vision, spots floating in your vision, vision loss, empty areas in vision, impaired color vision. It is critical to detect this condition in its early stage for good diagnosis. In fact, earliest stage was unable to help in diagnosing of normal eye sight. Hence, requirement of finding a DR as early as possible increased which would prevent visual impairment for patients having elongated diabetes although one is suffering from young. Microaneurysms, exudates, neovascularization and hemorrhages all these parameters decide the acuteness of DR. DR is categorized in to five stages such as normal, mild, moderate, severe Non proliferative (NPDR) or Proliferative diabetic retinopathy patient (PDR). We aim to categorize early-stage DR for better clinical benefits with more useful means. In this project we aim to use Deep Learning algorithm. This paper comprises of analysis and evaluation of the different techniques of DR diagnosis and categorization using retinal images was regulated. Accordingly, 14 research papers were studied and analyzed to provide an examination related to extracted features, classification accuracy, and the usage of different data sets, such as Indian Diabetic Retinopathy Image Dataset (IDRiD), High-Resolution Fundus (HRF) Image Database, Kaggle dataset. IDRiD is an Indian dataset which is the first retinal database representative. It is the mixture of normal retinal dataset and diabetic retinopathy retinal eye image. All in all to show different issues and to provide results that can be helpful for researchers to obtain further research on diabetic retinopathy diagnosis and categorization.

A number of applications require two-sample testing of pairwise comparison data. For instance, in crowdsourcing, there is a long-standing question of whether comparison data provided by people is distributed similar to ratings-converted-to-comparisons. Other examples include sports data analysis and peer grading. In this paper, we design a two-sample test for pairwise comparison data. We establish an upper bound on the sample complexity required to correctly distinguish between the distributions of the two sets of samples. Our test requires essentially no assumptions on the distributions. We then prove complementary information-theoretic lower bounds showing that our results are tight (in the minimax sense) up to constant factors. We also investigate the role of modeling assumptions by proving information-theoretic lower bounds for a range of pairwise comparison models (WST, MST, SST, parameter-based such as BTL and Thurstone).

Student Performance Analysis System is an emerging field and is very crucial to schools and universities in helping their students and professors. Most of the pre-existing methods are based only on past academic performance of students. This paper aims to develop models which can predict the student's performance and grades while keeping in mind other equally essential personality factors like interests, attributes and opinions (IAO variables) which affect their lifestyle. It uses various machine learning and deep learning techniques to predict the performance of students, and basic exploratory data analysis to derive various correlations of student's performance with psychographic attributes.

We present for the first time a fabrication process which allows the patterning; internal alignment; and integration of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), a promising family of "artificial muscle" actuators for MEMS technology. The actuation direction of LCEs is defined by the internal alignment of the liquid crystal domains. The approach described here allows the definition of arbitrary alignment directions using a wafer-level process. This technology thus allows programming and structuring of artificial muscle actuators with arbitrary actuation direction and direct integration with standard silicon, polymer and other micromechanical components.

We consider the problem of noisy matrix completion, in which the goal is to reconstruct a structured matrix whose entries are partially observed in noise. Standard approaches to this underdetermined inverse problem are based on assuming that the underlying matrix has low rank, or is well-approximated by a low rank matrix. In this paper, we propose a richer model based on what we term the "permutation-rank" of a matrix. We first describe how the classical non-negative rank model enforces restrictions that may be undesirable in practice, and how and these restrictions can be avoided by using the richer permutation-rank model. Second, we establish the minimax rates of estimation under the new permutation-based model, and prove that surprisingly, the minimax rates are equivalent up to logarithmic factors to those for estimation under the typical low rank model. Third, we analyze a computationally efficient singular-value-thresholding algorithm, known to be optimal for the low-rank setting, and show that it also simultaneously yields a consistent estimator for the low-permutation rank setting. Finally, we present various structural results characterizing the uniqueness of the permutation-rank decomposition, and characterizing convex approximations of the permutation-rank polytope.

In recent years, large investments into the research of semiconducting two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have elucidated interesting device related physical phenomena such as valleytronics [1], 2D superconductivity [2], 2D excitonic effects [3] and vertical tunneling [4]. TMDs offer layer-dependent chemical tunability of electronic and optoelectronic properties governed by interlayer van der Waals (vdW) forces [5]. Because of their layered nature, these low-dimensional materials can be combined to form multifunctional heterostructure materials exhibiting entirely new physical systems offering new degrees of flexibility in designing electronics, optoelectronics and other novel devices [6], [7]. In the last couple of years, the focus in the 2D materials research have shifted from exploration of proof-of-concept devices using mechanically exfoliated materials to more advanced device processing using high-quality large-scale growth based on advanced scalable vdW-epitaxy techniques such as powder vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD).

Initial results for diamond RF transistor technology are presented. Field Effect Transistors (FETs) were fabricated with gate lengths $(\mathbf{L}_{\mathrm{g}})$ ranging from $\mathbf{4}\pmb{\mu}\mathbf{m}$ to 50nm. The FETs have total gate width $(\mathbf{W}_{\mathrm{g}})$ of 40 or $\mathbf{120}\pmb{\mu}\mathbf{m}. \mathbf{L}_{\mathbf{g}}=\mathbf{100\ nm}$ devices show DC drain current $\mathbf{I}_{\mathbf{D}}=\mathbf{600\ mA}/\mathbf{mm} (>\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{GS}}=-\mathbf{3V},\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{DS}}=-\mathbf{10V}$ ) with transconductance $\mathbf{g}_{\mathbf{m}}=\mathbf{140mS}/\mathbf{mm} (>\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{GS}}=-\mathbf{0.3V},\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{DS}}=-\mathbf{4V}$ ). Small signal S-parameters were measured to evaluate the high-frequency performance of the diamond FETs. Extrinsic $\mathbf{f}_{\mathbf{t}}$ and $\mathbf{f}_{\mathbf{max}}$ were measured to be 41GHz and 44GHz, respectively. Load pull measurements were used to characterize the devices under large signal excitation. The $\mathbf{L}_{\mathbf{g}}=\mathbf{200nm},\ \mathbf{W}_{\mathbf{g}}=\mathbf{40}\pmb{\mu}\mathbf{m}$ device, tested at 2GHz, shows peak efficiency of 30.5% at $\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{DS}}=-\mathbf{5V}$ . Both peak gain of 19.5dB and peak output power density of 0.66W/mm were achieved at $\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{DS}}=- \mathbf{30V}$ , Biasing the device at $\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{DS}}=-\mathbf{15V}$ provides a trade off point for the large signal parameters - gain of ~15dB, efficiency of ~20%, and output power of ~0.5W/mm.

This paper deals with a carrier phase-shifted pulse width-modulation (CPS-PWM) scheme based modular multilevel converters (MMC). The modular multilevel converter (MMC) is a one of the most promising converter topologies for high voltage and high power application, specifically for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems. One of the technical issue associated with the control of an MMC is to carry out the submodule (SM) capacitor voltages balancing without unnecessary switching of among the SMs. Average device switching frequency can be reduce by reduced switching-frequency (RSF) voltage balancing algorithm. In this paper results of voltage balancing techniques with RSF algorithm is compared with without RSF techniques.

Even today, the maternal mortality rate (MMR) and the number of stillbirths in India and other developing countries are much higher than that of the developed countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a pregnant woman must make at least four antenatal visits to a health care center to ensure a safe and healthy pregnancy. The Smart ASHA Pregnancy Monitoring System (SAPMS) aims to reduce the MMR by digitalizing the work of the health workers in the unprivileged parts of the country, by enabling them to monitor the pregnancies of the women in their area with the help of smart phones, effectively and efficiently.

Identification of ovarian status and follicle monitoring becomes the most important part in the evaluation of an infertile woman. Ultrasound or sonography has helped in diagnosis and treatment of infertile patients. Ultrasound imaging of the follicles in the ovary gives very important information about the ovary such as type of cyst, number of follicles and size of follicles response to hormonal imbalance. Image Segmentation gives more information in the region of interest in an image and clearly differentiate the object and the background from the image. But it is very hard to perform segmentation on ultrasound images due to presence of noise so by using image preprocessing with morphological operations, detection of follicles becomes easy and effective. Classification of Ovarian cyst is done using fuzzy logic.

This paper discuss an increasing development and reduce energy crisis, in electric power with the use of renewable energy sources which plays a main role for continuous power supply. This situation is necessary for micro grid to continue to provide power to the load. In normal condition, each Distributed Generation (DG) system generally works in constant current control mode and provides power to the main grid. The DG system will identify islanding situation and switch to a voltage control mode when the micro grid is cut off from the main grid. The micro grid will provide a constant voltage to the critical load. A control strategy is used to describe grid-connected and intentional-islanding operations of distributed generation.

This paper presents a system network analysis of a private firm having 54 MW generations and distribution level at 11kv/3.3kv/0.415kv and having an expansion of 66MW generation at the distribution level at 11kv/3.3kv/0.415kv. Load flow analysis, short circuit analysis and motor starting analysis are presented. Short circuit analysis of ETAP results is compared with manual calculation. Comparative results of all analysis prove the effectiveness, less computation time by ETAP.

Optical Polarimeter works on the principle of rapid modulation of light and measures the angle of rotation caused by passing polarized light through an optically active substance. The Polarimeter which was designed some years ago is having embedded based control system. Because of this kind of controlling system, it requires large area to place such type of the instrument also controlling for the same can only done from the place where the instrument has been placed. This paper gives an idea to overcome these two problems. It proposed the use of FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based control system to fulfil both requirements. The Spartan 3E FPGA board requires less area then embedded system and it allows communication between host PC and instrument. This paper proposed to obtained similar type of result as previously.

The “3-DOF Admittance Control Robotic Arm with a 3D Virtual Game” is a senior capstone design project for the New Jersey Institute of Technology. This robotic arm is designed for facilitated training of the hemiparetic hand i.e. for patients in need for rehabilitation of their upper extremities. The virtual 3D game is an interactive environment that will track the movements of the robotic arm. In this paper, the software architecture and robot platform is presented. A basic overview of system flow is as follows: a user positions their finger into the end effector of the robotic arm and presses on a strain gauge to input a force; this force is feed into the admittance control paradigm to produce a coordinate position; this position is relayed to the game to move the game cursor accordingly and into an inverse kinematics algorithm that calculates the angles for this position; finally these angles are feed into motors that make up the 3-degrees of freedom for the robotic arm to move the links to this position.

Android is currently the fastest growing mobile platform. One of the fastest growing areas in Android applications is Location Based Service (LBS). LBS provides information services based on the current or a known location and is supported by the Mobile positioning system. Presently, MOSDAC (Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre) disseminates the weather forecast information through web. Android is one of the most widely used mobile OS these days and that is the reason why it is the best practice to develop application on Android platform. The application for disseminating location based weather forecast is a client-server application on Android platform. It provides weather forecast information as per user's location or location of interest. While developing a client-server application, the communication between client and database server becomes imperative. This paper discusses detailed analysis for choosing appropriate type of web service, data exchange protocols, data exchange format, and Mobile positioning technologies for client-server application. It also highlights issues like memory capacity, security, poor response time, and battery consumption in mobile devices. This paper is about exploring effective options to establish the dissemination service over smart phones with Android OS.

Recent proliferation of mobile devices and high market demand have pushed power consumption of cellular networks to high levels in India. At the same time, the marginal gains to telecom operators for providing services have dwindled. Thus, a gap is slowly building up in the demand and supply of telecom services. The effect is adverse in urban areas where the demand for throughput and other load handling capabilities are high. While the base stations are setup to meet the peak quality of service (QoS) demands, vast opportunities exist to save operational and energy cost when loads are low. For the traffic patterns of one of India's leading telecom service providers, we show that such cost saving opportunities do exist in a systematic fashion and can be tapped to lower the operational cost. We further show that these opportunities can be predicted reliably and discuss a possible scheme to cut down on both energy and operational cost.

In this paper, we study carrier frequency offset estimation and correction for uplink multi-user MIMO (UL MU-MIMO) for Wi-Fi, where distributed stations (STAs) send multiple data streams to a common access point (AP) with multiple receive antennas. We provide a description of the proposed system, and propose a three-step approach using a joint phase estimation algorithm for carrier frequency synchronization that takes advantage of the existing pilot signals to deliver good performance and also has low complexity. We provide simulation results to demonstrate that the proposed approach incurs negligible performance loss due to carrier frequency offsets.

Compared to the Non-conversion energy resources, the photovoltaic (PV) system that is uses the solar energy to produce electricity it is one of renewable energy source. It has a great potential and developing fast compared to other renewable energies. This system can be either stand-alone or connected to utility grid. The disadvantage of this PV generation depended on atmospheric conditions such as solar irradiance and temperature. Maximum power point trackers (MPPTs) play an important role in photovoltaic (PV) power systems because it is maximize the output power of a PV system for a given atmospheric conditions so it is maximize the PV array efficiency. MPPT is maintaining operating point at the maximum power point using a different MPPT algorithm. MPPT can minimize the overall photovoltaic (PV) system cost. For maximize the output of a PV system, continuously tracking the maximum power point (MPP) is necessary.

This innovative project aims to monitor water quality in the area of continental, the coast and the lake using mobile buoy remotely controlled by a computer which sends a series of commands to Intel Atom N2600 Board and microcontrollers over Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM). The user enters the desired coordinate to Graphical User Interface (GUI) monitoring software from a remote computer. The buoy moves to the desired coordinate that relies on Global Positioning System (GPS) current reading. Sets of data of PH, Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) and temperature sensors reading is taken from sensors attached at the buoy. The data and the coordinate of the buoy location is uploaded and mapped via Google Map. The Google Map is integrated into the GUI to display the buoy position. The user can freely monitor real-time water quality information and the buoy will go to any location coordinated by the user's command.

Nowadays, it is hard to distinguish the type of orchid leaf diseases just by using naked eyes. This paper presents an image segmentation technique for classify two difference types of orchid leaf disease such as black leaf spot and sun scorch. The orchid leaves images were digitally captured by using digital camera. With respect to the region of interest selected orchid leaves are analyze by using border segmentation techniques using MATLAB. In this paper, filtering technique and morphological processing technique will be applied to the images. The graphical user interface has been developed to automatically classify orchid diseases. The system has potential as early detection system for classify orchid diseases.

Private information retrieval (PIR) systems allow a user to retrieve a record from a public database without revealing to the server which record is being retrieved. The literature on PIR considers only replication-based systems, wherein each storage node stores a copy of the entire data. However, systems based on erasure codes are gaining increasing popularity due to a variety of reasons. This paper initiates an investigation into PIR in erasure-coded systems by establishing its capacity and designing explicit codes and algorithms. The notion of privacy considered here is information-theoretic, and the metric optimized is the amount of data downloaded by the user during PIR. In this paper, we present four main results. First, we design an explicit erasure code and PIR algorithm that requires only one extra bit of download to provide perfect privacy. In contrast, all existing PIR algorithms require a download of at least twice the size of the requisite data. Second, we derive lower bounds proving the necessity of downloading at least one additional bit. This establishes the precise capacity of PIR with respect to the metric of download. These results are also applicable to PIR in replication-based systems, which are a special case of erasure codes. Our third contribution is a negative result showing that capacity-achieving codes necessitate super-linear storage overheads. This motivates the fourth contribution of this paper: an erasure code and PIR algorithm that requires a linear storage overhead, provides high reliability to the data, and is a small factor away from the capacity.

In this paper, we consider the security of exact-repair regenerating codes operating at the minimum-storage-regenerating (MSR) point. The security requirement (introduced in Shah et. al.) is that no information about the stored data file must be leaked in the presence of an eavesdropper who has access to the contents of l 1 nodes as well as all the repair traffic entering a second disjoint set of l 2 nodes. We derive an upper bound on the size of a data file that can be securely stored that holds whenever l 2 ≤ d - k + 1. This upper bound proves the optimality of the product-matrix-based construction of secure MSR regenerating codes by Shah et. al.

The IEEE 802.11 standardization group has recently ratified 802.11ac as the newest major amendment of the 802.11 family of Wi-Fi standards. While 802.11ac has specified a number of improvements over 802.11n such as: (i) 8 spatial streams (ii) mandatory bandwidth of 80 MHz and (iii) multi-user MIMO on the downlink, these improvements mostly target to improve the per-link throughput, and in case of MU-MIMO, traffic performance on the downlink. In order to satisfy the air interface high efficiency requirements and technologies, herein referred to broadly as 5G-Carrier Grade WiFi (5G-CGW), it is important to consider other metrics for system performance, such as area-throughput and Quality of Experience (QoE), which are more relevant in use cases where there can be a dense deployment of access points (APs), and stations (STAs). Recently, 802.11 started a study group called High Efficiency Wi-Fi (HEW) to develop the next generation of Wi-Fi physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) protocols that would satisfy these requirements. In this paper we will first provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in 802.11 standards, followed by a discussion on some of the limitations of 802.11ac in use cases of interest such as dense deployments in apartment buildings, stadiums and airports. We will provide an overview and preliminary simulation results of three technologies that have shown promise for meeting the requirements of CGW: (i) Multi-User Parallel Channel Access (MU-PCA) which would allow APs to simultaneously transmit to and to receive from a number of STAs in the frequency domain: enabled through multiplexing. This would alleviate the problem of underutilization of frequency resources caused by the need to support STAs of different bandwidths. (ii) Uplink Multi-User MIMO (UL MU-MIMO): IEEE 802.11ac standardized multi-user simultaneous transmissions in the downlink via downlink MU-MIMO. Uplink MU-MIMO needs to be defined to enable multiple users to share the spatial domain and transmit at the same time in the uplink. (iii) Fractional CSMA and Transmit Power Control (TPC): In a dense deployment of APs, the performance of overlapping basic service sets (BSSs) can be improved by coordinating the transmitted power in the adjacent APs in such a manner that STAs on the edge of coverage face reduced interference.

This work presents a simulation comparison of three algorithms developed in order to maximize the output power from a photovoltaic (PV) system for the same given set of conditions. The maximum power point tracking (MPPT) methods proposed in this study are three extended algorithms : fixed step size (FSS) Incremental conductance method (ICM), variable step size (VSS) ICM and Advanced VSSICM. Among all the MPPT strategies, the incremental conductance (INC) algorithm is widely employed due to easy implementation and high tracking accuracy. In this paper, a PV system based on a boost converter as MPPT device is considered. The different MPPT algorithum is simulated in PSIM 9.0 with simplified `C' Programing. This paper compare the effect of step size on the performance of MPPT.

A linear algebraic approach to graph algorithms that exploits the sparse adjacency matrix representation of graphs can provide a variety of benefits. These benefits include syntactic simplicity, easier implementation, and higher performance. One way to employ linear algebra techniques for graph algorithms is to use a broader definition of matrix and vector multiplication. We demonstrate through the use of the Julia language system how easy it is to explore semirings using linear algebraic methodologies.

The inability to identify the optimal construction of a nerve guidance conduit (NGC) for peripheral nerve regeneration is a challenge in the field of tissue engineering. This is attributed to the vast number of parameters that can be combined in varying quantities. A pre-existing normalization standard is applied in this paper which uses a calculated ratio of gap length divided by the graft's critical axon elongation denoted as L/Lc. This allows for a direct comparison of the nerve regenerative activity, a measure of performance, of any NGC across an array of gap lengths relative to a standard nerve conduit. Data was extracted from a total of 28 scientific publications that compared the nerve regenerative activity of experimental NGCs relative to standard NGCs. Of the extracted data, 40 parameters were identified that impacted the performance of the experimental conduits. We demonstrate how bootstrap aggregated neural networks provides substantial increases in accuracy in predicting the performance of a NGC over a single neural network and previous prediction attempts by the SWarm Intelligence based Reinforcement Learning (SWIRL) system. The improved accuracy will provide for a better understanding and insight for theorizing successful strategies for NGC development.

In this paper, the development of PIC based sensor system for sympodial orchid stem measurement is presented. The humidity sensor, temperature sensor, light sensor and stem detection sensor are integrated with the PIC16F887. Here, the stem detection sensor was developed by using 2mm Aluminium type strain gauge that connected in Wheatstone bridge form. The correlation between the strain gauge output and the given constant displacement produced a good relationship. Then, results attained proven that the proposed system is capable to measure changes of sympodial orchid stem diameter.

In this study, sol-gel based ZrO2 nano coating was made on the surface of glazed ceramic tile by spin coating. Further, various surface characteristics were studied after curing at 550°C, 650°C and 700°C, 750°C and 800°C. FTIR, DTA/TG of the gel powder and XRD of calcined gel powder were carried out. The surface of the coating has been characterised using optical microscope and SEM. Properties of coated glazed surfaces such as gloss, colour difference, wetting characteristics and stain resistance were evaluated. Chemical resistance studies (both acid and alkali) of ceramic tiles were also carried out. Experimental results showed that gloss and contact angle of water on the surface of the coated samples significantly increased compared to uncoated substrate. Coated substrates cured at all temperatures exhibited good acid resistance. It has also observed that curing temperature has a strong influence on alkali resistance and coated substrate cured at 650°C and 700°C showed superior alkali resistance than uncoated substrate. In this paper, an effort has been made to explore and validate the potential application of ZrO2 nano coating on the glazed ceramic wall tiles w.r.t improved gloss, hydrophobic properties and chemical resistance.

Shamir's (n, k) threshold secret sharing is an important component of several cryptographic protocols, such as those for secure multiparty-computation. These protocols typically assume the presence of direct communication links from the dealer to all participants, in which case the dealer can directly pass the shares of the secret to every participant. In this paper, we consider the problem of secret sharing when the dealer does not have direct communication links to all participants, and instead, they form a general network. We present an algorithm for secret sharing over networks that satisfy what we call the k-propagating-dealer condition. The algorithm is communication-efficient, distributed and deterministic. Interestingly, the solution constitutes an instance of a network coding problem admitting a distributed and deterministic solution, and furthermore, handles the case of nodal-eavesdropping, about which very little appears to be known in the literature. In the second part of the paper, we derive information-theoretic lower bounds on the communication complexity of secret sharing over any network, which may also be of independent interest. We show that for networks satisfying the k-propagating-dealer condition, the communication complexity of our algorithm is Θ(n), and furthermore, is always within a constant factor of the lower bound. We also show that, in contrast, existing solutions in the literature entail a communication-complexity that is superlinear for a wide class of networks, and is Θ(n2) in the worst case. Our algorithm thus allows for efficient generalization of several cryptographic protocols to a large class of networks.

To meet the world's growing energy demands in a renewable and cost-effective manner, Photosystem I has been studied as a model for solar energy capture. Previous work has demonstrated the ability to construct low cost biohybrid solar cells using Photosystem I and specialty surfactants onto metal oxide surfaces. Electrospray deposition has also been used for adsorption of plant proteins onto metal oxide surfaces. Attachment of Photosystem I onto nanostructured materials increases the surface area and activity of biohybrid solar cells. Recent work has shown that Photosystem I can be attached to metal oxide surfaces without using linkers and maintain high current density. However, the current density of the surface decreases over the course of weeks (unpublished data). This work investigated the performance of Photosystem I-based solar cells manufactured using electrospray deposition. Photosystem I was successfully deposited onto metal oxide surfaces, and current densities of up to 6.84 mA/cm2 were measured. Different amounts of protein were deposited and the solar performance was tested for each cell. It was shown that very small and very large amounts of PS I increase the current density, but there is an intermediate regime where performance drops. This intermediate regime was attributed to a shading effect of the protein on the surface and self-assembly effects of the protein on the surface.

Natural light harvesting organisms use self-assembled dye structures to absorb light and transfer energy. These self-assembled structures have high extinction coefficient and transfer energy efficiently. Aerosol-based method of electrospray deposition is demonstrated to assemble dyes and also deposit the structures onto a surface. The kinetics of assembly are studied to understand the optimal conditions for assembly. Finally a concept of novel device using self-assembled structures which allows broad absorption spectrum and increased efficiency is explained.

The use of metamorphic (lattice-mismatched) host materials for the growth of Stranski-Krastanov type epitaxial quantum dots (QDs) is explored. Two alloys that provide access to wide band gaps (up to and above 2.0 eV), GaAsP and InGaP, are considered and compared to their lattice-matched analogs. InGaAs/GaAsP QD/host structures are found to yield smaller and denser QDs, with a stronger photoluminescence (PL) blue-shift, than the equally-strained lattice-matched InGaAs/GaAs system. Metamorphic InP/InGaP QDs are found to appear nearly identical to the lattice-matched analogs, but do exhibit a slightly larger PL blue-shift. Results indicate the potential for using metamorphic substrates to provide additional tailoring of QD properties, in addition to providing access to QD/host materials combinations that are more consistent with intermediate band solar cell design requirements.

Voltage - Var Control and Optimization (VVC&O) mechanism in distribution system assisted by local controllers and Distributed Management System (DMS) helps in meeting operating criterion and achieving energy savings. Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR) with VVC&O allows reduction in peak load and energy consumption, by having flat voltage profile near lower bound of ANSI Standards (114V), while maintaining power factor within limit. To estimate the energy saving, CVR factor is needed and accurate load modeling is required to estimate CVR factors. In this work, distribution system was modeled and simulated utilizing data from one of the feeder in Pullman, WA. This paper presents the results of the study done on improving the VVC capabilities by integrating Smart Meter Infrastructure. Load Modeling was done by observing the behavior of loads at each house and comparing the smart meter data with the simulation results. Precision of developed load model provides enough information to make a decision on required changes in voltage at a substation at a given time for energy saving without violating operation criterion. Results of VVC&O show that energy saving of 4-5% can be achieved at the typical distribution substation.

Regenerating codes are a class of codes proposed for providing reliability of data and efficient repair of failed nodes in distributed storage systems. In this paper, we address the fundamental problem of handling errors and erasures during the data-reconstruction and node-repair operations. We provide explicit regenerating codes that are resilient to errors and erasures, and show that these codes are optimal with respect to storage and bandwidth requirements. As a special case, we also establish the capacity of a class of distributed storage systems in the presence of malicious adversaries. While our code constructions are based on previously constructed Product-Matrix codes, we also provide necessary and sufficient conditions for introducing resilience in any regenerating code., ISIT 2012

Distributed decision making has been identified as a source of managerial complexity for the SoS engineer. A new framework, AIR (Anticipation-Influence-Reaction), is proposed to capture the feedback relationship between the decisions made by constituents and those made by the managers of the SoS. AIR is then used to develop a five-member set of basic influences that can bring about changes in constituent behavior thus modifying the SoS. These influences, the 5 I's, are Incentives, Information, Infrastructure, Integration, and Institutions. AIR and the influences are demonstrated through qualitative application to real-world SoS and quantitatively through a simulation of an inter-modal transport network. It is found that cooperation between competing constituents can be quite fragile and sensitive to the SoS context. Careful, dynamic planning of influence strategies is needed to maintain SoS behavior in the face of constituents who are driven by self-interest and a limited, local perspective of the SoS.

Regenerating codes are a class of recently developed codes for distributed storage that, like Reed-Solomon codes, permit data recovery from any subset of k nodes within the n-node network. However, regenerating codes possess in addition, the ability to repair a failed node by connecting to an arbitrary subset of d nodes. It has been shown that for the case of functional-repair, there is a tradeoff between the amount of data stored per node and the bandwidth required to repair a failed node. A special case of functional-repair is exact-repair where the replacement node is required to store data identical to that in the failed node. Exact-repair is of interest as it greatly simplifies system implementation. The first result of the paper is an explicit, exact-repair code for the point on the storage-bandwidth tradeoff corresponding to the minimum possible repair bandwidth, for the case when d=n-1. This code has a particularly simple graphical description and most interestingly, has the ability to carry out exact-repair through mere transfer of data and without any need to perform arithmetic operations. Hence the term `repair-by-transfer'. The second result of this paper shows that the interior points on the storage-bandwidth tradeoff cannot be achieved under exact-repair, thus pointing to the existence of a separate tradeoff under exact-repair. Specifically, we identify a set of scenarios, termed `helper node pooling', and show that it is the necessity to satisfy such scenarios that over-constrains the system., 30 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory

AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are important for high-frequency RF communication systems. However free carrier traps in the HEMTs caused by material growth issues, material interfaces, and processing issues reduce the device performance and life. We analyzed the switching performance of HEMTs and investigated locating and quantifying the traps involved. Results from multiple samples will be provided for comparisons.

Changes in stem diameter of orchid plants were investigated in control growing climate. Previous study has focused on stem diameter in relation to plant water on terrestrial plant for outdoor and practice conventional watering by farmers. The objective of this work is to identify the characteristic of orchid stem changes and to relate the stem shrinking rate with orchid plant water content and its microclimate. In this project, strain gauge sensor was employed to measure the changes. Experiments were performed on two different samples of wild orchid, Coelogyne rochussenii and Epidendrum stamfordianum. From the finding, it can relate that changes in voltage strain gauge are related to the stem diameter of orchid plants. In conclusion, single strain gauge can be used in the measurement of the changes in stem diameter orchid plant.

Stem measurement is vital since its diameter is related to development of tree as well as water content. Hence, in this study, PIC microcontroller based instrumentation is developed for measuring the changes of linear micrometer that represents the stem diameter changes. Here, the strain gauge is used as a sensor to detect the changes in micrometer for every 1µm changes. In addition, digital multimeter and digital oscilloscope are used for comparison and validation of the proposed PIC. Results attained proven that the system is capable to measure changes of stem diameter accurately.

The Intuitive Leg Assist Device (I-LAD) is designed to address a demographic of people with lower extremity weakness. It optimizes cost, weight, and functionality, and provides the power and support needed to perform natural ambulation. The design mimics the human gait cycle by coupling the actuation of the knee and hip via a dual four-bar linkage system modified from a crank rocker system, with a 12.8% and 14.1% error in the hip and knee movement, respectively. The patient supports the device using an over the shoulder harness and modified work belt, both connected to an acrylic plate. The plate serves as the mounting for the motor, planetary gear system, and electrical components that drive the linkage system. The linkage system is connected to a knee brace and ankle foot orthosis that minimizes the effect of foot drop. The design implements feedback and safety by incorporating four sensor inputs—two force sensors beneath the feet and two goniometers on the hips—and a microprocessor, which controls motor actuation. The program logic ensures that the device shuts down upon unintended user movement, minimizing safety hazards.

Regenerating codes are a class of codes for distributed storage networks that provide reliability and availability of data, and also perform efficient node repair. Another important aspect of a distributed storage network is its security. In this paper, we consider a threat model where an eavesdropper may gain access to the data stored in a subset of the storage nodes, and possibly also, to the data downloaded during repair of some nodes. We provide explicit constructions of regenerating codes that achieve information-theoretic secrecy capacity in this setting., Globecom 2011

Erasure codes are an efficient means of storing data across a network in comparison to data replication, as they tend to reduce the amount of data stored in the network and offer increased resilience in the presence of node failures. The codes perform poorly though, when repair of a failed node is called for, as they typically require the entire file to be downloaded to repair a failed node. A new class of erasure codes, termed as regenerating codes were recently introduced, that do much better in this respect. However, given the variety of efficient erasure codes available in the literature, there is considerable interest in the construction of coding schemes that would enable traditional erasure codes to be used, while retaining the feature that only a fraction of the data need be downloaded for node repair. In this paper, we present a simple, yet powerful, framework that does precisely this. Under this framework, the nodes are partitioned into two 'types' and encoded using two codes in a manner that reduces the problem of node-repair to that of erasure-decoding of the constituent codes. Depending upon the choice of the two codes, the framework can be used to avail one or more of the following advantages: simultaneous minimization of storage space and repair-bandwidth, low complexity of operation, fewer disk reads at helper nodes during repair, and error detection and correction., Comment: IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) 2011 (to be presented)

This paper presents a new mixed integer model for a special project resource scheduling problem. Project resource scheduling problems are involved in many complicating factors in real world, such as budget limitation and activity compressibility while considering a finite number of renewable resources. Activity compressibility is modeled through a time / cost trade-off relation between the time and cost of performing each activity. In other words, each activity could be performed in a time interval bounded by activity normal time and activity crash time by paying its corresponding costs. As the problem is known to be NP-Hard, a new heuristic solution method is developed to obtain a near optimal resource schedule in a deterministic project planning problem. The algorithm is run on a set of test data and computational experiences report about the superior performance of the algorithm than the existing methods.

In the distributed storage setting that we consider, data is stored across n nodes in the network such that the data can be recovered by connecting to any subset of k nodes. Additionally, one can repair a failed node by connecting to any d nodes while downloading β units of data from each. Dimakis et al. show that the repair bandwidth dβ can be considerably reduced if each node stores slightly more than the minimum required and characterize the tradeoff between the amount of storage per node and the repair bandwidth.