Computer Simulation of Chute Flows of Granular Materials

The purpose of the present paper is to present results from computer simulations of the flow of granular materials down inclined chutes or channels and to compare the results of these calculations with existing experimental measurements of velocity, solid fraction and mass flow rate profiles

Geometric interpretations of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)

One, two, and three dimensional Discrete Fourier Transforms (DFT) and geometric interpretations of their periodicities are presented. These operators are examined for their relationship with the two sided, continuous Fourier transform. Discrete or continuous transforms of real functions have certain symmetry properties. The symmetries are examined for the one, two, and three dimensional cases. Extension to higher dimension is straight forward

Data processing improvements for the Skylab S-191 EREP spectrometer

The characteristics of the S-191 spectrometer (filter wheel infrared spectrometer) are discussed. Inherent deficiencies in previous spectrometers are described and the techniques for correcting the deficiencies are explained. The radiance errors caused by error in wavelength are identified and the effects on the accuracy of the spectrometer are described. It is stated that the most important source of error in the S-191 spectrometer is off-band radiation in which the detected radiation is far from the wavelength which is expected to be detected by the sensor at that particular time. A numerical analysis of the effects of off-band radiation is developed

An efficient algorithm for generating random number pairs drawn from a bivariate normal distribution

An efficient algorithm for generating random number pairs from a bivariate normal distribution was developed. Any desired value of the two means, two standard deviations, and correlation coefficient can be selected. Theoretically the technique is exact and in practice its accuracy is limited only by the quality of the uniform distribution random number generator, inaccuracies in computer function evaluation, and arithmetic. A FORTRAN routine was written to check the algorithm and good accuracy was obtained. Some small errors in the correlation coefficient were observed to vary in a surprisingly regular manner. A simple model was developed which explained the qualities aspects of the errors

Convergence of Newton's method for a single real equation

Newton's method for finding the zeroes of a single real function is investigated in some detail. Convergence is generally checked using the Contraction Mapping Theorem which yields sufficient but not necessary conditions for convergence of the general single point iteration method. The resulting convergence intervals are frequently considerably smaller than actual convergence zones. For a specific single point iteration method, such as Newton's method, better estimates of regions of convergence should be possible. A technique is described which, under certain conditions (frequently satisfied by well behaved functions) gives much larger zones where convergence is guaranteed

The status of environmental satellites and availability of their data products

The latest available information about the status of unclassified environmental satellite (flown by the United States) and their data products is presented. The type of environmental satellites discussed include unmanned earth resource and meteorological satellites, and manned satellites which can act as a combination platform for instruments. The capabilities and data products of projected satellites are discussed along with those of currently operating systems

Spool for releasing and retracting flat conductor cable

Spool design and operation permit installation of up to 8 cables on single unit. Heat treating the cables while wound in a coil obtains effective recoil action

An efficient multichannel wireless sensor networks MAC protocol based on IEEE 802.11 distributed co-ordinated function.

This research aimed to create new knowledge and pioneer a path in the area relating to future trends in the WSN, by resolving some of the issues at the MAC layer in Wireless Sensor Networks. This work introduced a Multi-channel Distributed Coordinated Function (MC-DCF) which takes advantage of multi-channel assignment. The backoff algorithm of the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) was modified to invoke channel switching, based on threshold criteria in order to improve the overall throughput for wireless sensor networks. This work commenced by surveying different protocols: contention-based MAC protocols, transport layer protocols, cross-layered design and multichannel multi-radio assignments. A number of existing protocols were analysed, each attempting to resolve one or more problems faced by the current layers. The 802.15.4 performed very poorly at high data rate and at long range. Therefore 802.15.4 is not suitable for sensor multimedia or surveillance system with streaming data for future multichannel multi-radio systems. A survey on 802.11 DCF - which was designed mainly for wireless networks –supports and confirm that it has a power saving mechanism which is used to synchronise nodes. However it uses a random back-off mechanism that cannot provide deterministic upper bounds on channel access delay and as such cannot support real-time traffic. The weaknesses identified by surveying this protocol form the backbone of this thesis The overall aim for this thesis was to introduce multichannel with single radio as a new paradigm for IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordinated Function (DCF) in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that is used in a wide range of applications, from military application, environmental monitoring, medical care, smart buildings and other industry and to extend WSNs with multimedia capability which sense for instance sounds or motion, video sensor which capture video events of interest. Traditionally WSNs do not need high data rate and throughput, since events are normally captured periodically. With the paradigm shift in technology, multimedia streaming has become more demanding than data sensing applications as such the need for high data rate protocol for WSN which is an emerging technology in this area. The IEEE 802.11 can support data rates up to 54Mbps and 802.11 DCF was designed specifically for use in wireless networks. This thesis focused on designing an algorithm that applied multichannel to IEEE 802.11 DCF back-off algorithm to reduce the waiting time of a node and increase throughput when attempting to access the medium. Data collection in WSN tends to suffer from heavy congestion especially nodes nearer to the sink node. Therefore, this thesis proposes a contention based MAC protocol to address this problem from the inspiration of the 802.11 DCF backoff algorithm resulting from a comparison of IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.4 for Future Green Multichannel Multi-radio Wireless Sensor Networks