A systematic approach to the Planck LFI end-to-end test and its application to the DPC Level 1 pipeline

The Level 1 of the Planck LFI Data Processing Centre (DPC) is devoted to the handling of the scientific and housekeeping telemetry. It is a critical component of the Planck ground segment which has to strictly commit to the project schedule to be ready for the launch and flight operations. In order to guarantee the quality necessary to achieve the objectives of the Planck mission, the design and development of the Level 1 software has followed the ESA Software Engineering Standards. A fundamental step in the software life cycle is the Verification and Validation of the software. The purpose of this work is to show an example of procedures, test development and analysis successfully applied to a key software project of an ESA mission. We present the end-to-end validation tests performed on the Level 1 of the LFI-DPC, by detailing the methods used and the results obtained. Different approaches have been used to test the scientific and housekeeping data processing. Scientific data processing has been tested by injecting signals with known properties directly into the acquisition electronics, in order to generate a test dataset of real telemetry data and reproduce as much as possible nominal conditions. For the HK telemetry processing, validation software have been developed to inject known parameter values into a set of real housekeeping packets and perform a comparison with the corresponding timelines generated by the Level 1. With the proposed validation and verification procedure, where the on-board and ground processing are viewed as a single pipeline, we demonstrated that the scientific and housekeeping processing of the Planck-LFI raw data is correct and meets the project requirements.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures; this paper is part of the Prelaunch status LFI papers published on JINST: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.proc5/jins

Anatomical variations of median nerve formation, distribution and possible communication with other nerves in preserved human cadavers

Formation, distribution and possible communication of the median nerve are essential to know in treatment and surgeries of various conditions of injuries e.g. repair or reconstruction of the median nerve post traumatic accident. In the present study, 44 upper limbs were dissected. Root forming the median nerve, the median nerve in relation with the axillary artery and communication of the median nerve with other nerves were noted

VLBI for Gravity Probe B. V. Proper Motion and Parallax of the Guide Star, IM Pegasi

We present the principal astrometric results of the very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) program undertaken in support of the Gravity Probe B (GP-B) relativity mission. VLBI observations of the GP-B guide star, the RS CVn binary IM Pegasi (HR 8703), yielded positions at 35 epochs between 1997 and 2005. We discuss the statistical assumptions behind these results and our methods for estimating the systematic errors. We find the proper motion of IM Peg in an extragalactic reference frame closely related to the International Celestial Reference Frame 2 (ICRF2) to be -20.83 +- 0.03 +- 0.09 mas/yr in right ascension and -27.27 +- 0.03 +- 0.09 mas/yr in declination. For each component the first uncertainty is the statistical standard error and the second is the total standard error (SE) including plausible systematic errors. We also obtain a parallax of 10.37 +- 0.07 mas (distance: 96.4 +- 0.7 pc), for which there is no evidence of any significant contribution of systematic error. Our parameter estimates for the ~25-day-period orbital motion of the stellar radio emission have SEs corresponding to ~0.10 mas on the sky in each coordinate. The total SE of our estimate of IM Peg's proper motion is ~30% smaller than the accuracy goal set by the GP-B project before launch: 0.14 mas/yr for each coordinate of IM Peg's proper motion. Our results ensure that the uncertainty in IM Peg's proper motion makes only a very small contribution to the uncertainty of the GP-B relativity tests.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie

Audio deformation based data augmentation for convolution neural network in vibration analysis

Audio deformations in audio processing have proved ability in preserve semantic meaning for audio signal. Convolution Neural Network (CNN) is among deep learning model that requires huge dataset during training for excellence performance Thus, data augmentation (DA) method is used to overcome the problem of limited dataset number for vibration analysis. Several signal processing phases including segmentation and image converting need to be performed before the vibration signal can be used as input for CNN. In this research, audio-deformation based DA is proposed in generating the additional vibration signal dataset. The proses is start by encoding the raw vibration signal to audio signal format to enable the audio deformation process performing, then decoding back into new vibration signal. Speed and amplify transformation are selected for audio deformation process. The new vibration data set of bearing fault detection problem are used for training CNN to validate the proposed approach. The results obtained from 13 experiments setting have shown that the proposed DA able to increase the accuracy of training for CNN until 13% compared with the previous DA method

Exponential Tapered Balun with Different Sizes for UWB Elliptical Dipole Antenna

This work presents a broadband tapered balun with different sizes using nonlinear transition particularly suitable for planar and three-dimensional (3-D) dipole antennas for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications such as communication, radar systems and geolocation precision. Four baluns with wideband microstrip-to-parallel-strip transition using an elliptical structure for an elliptical dipole antenna are proposed. The initial balun structure consists of a nonlinear profile with a quarter-wavelength for both height and width. By studying the current distributions at the balun surface, it can be reduced to 25%, 50% and 75% from the original size. Measured results based on the reflection coefficients for all baluns are shown to be better than -10 dB from 1.0 GHz to 10 GHz. These baluns are integrated with an elliptical dipole which acts as a feeding circuit. Eight set of antennas with a planar and 3-D configurations with four different sizes are proposed in this work. The planar configurations are named as Planar 1, Planar 2, Planar 3 and Planar 4 while the 3-D configurations are named as 3D Dipole 1, 3D Dipole 2, 3D Dipole 3 and 3D Dipole 4, respectively. The results show that all antennas with the proposed baluns operates within the UWB frequency range

Implantable slot antenna with substrate integrated waveguide for biomedical applications

This work presents a new design of capsule slot antenna with substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) for wireless body area networks (WBANs) operating at the range of (2.5-4 GHz) which is located in the body area networks (BAN) standard in IEEE802.15.6. The proposed antenna was designed for WBANs. The substrate is assumed to be from Rogers 5880 with relative permittivity of 2.2, and thickness of 0.787 mm. The ground and the patch are created from annealed copper while the capsule is assumed to be a plastic material of medical grade polycarbonate. The antenna designed and summited using computer simulation technology (CST) software. A CST voxel model was used to study the performance of SIW capsule antenna and the ability of the band (2.5-4 GHz). Results indicated a wide bandwidth of 1.5 GHz between the range of (2.5-4) GHz at 3.3 GHz as center frequency, with return loss with more than -24.52 dB, a gain of -18.2 dB, voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of 1.17, and front-to-back ratio (FBR) of 10.07 dB. Through simulation, all considerable parameters associated with the proposed antenna including return loss, bandwidth, operating frequency, VSWR less than 2, radiation pattern were examined. Regarding size, gain, and frequency band, the proposed antenna is located with the standards of implantable medical devices

Discovery of unusual pulsations in the cool, evolved Am stars HD 98851 and HD 102480

The chemically peculiar (CP) stars HD 98851 and HD 102480 have been discovered to be unusual pulsators during the ``Naini Tal Cape Survey'' programme to search for pulsational variability in CP stars. Time series photometric and spectroscopic observations of these newly discovered stars are reported here. Fourier analyses of the time series photometry reveal that HD 98851 is pulsating mainly with frequencies 0.208 mHz and 0.103 mHz, and HD 102480 is pulsating with frequencies 0.107 mHz, 0.156 mHz and 0.198 mHz. The frequency identifications are all subject to 1 d$^{-1}$ cycle count ambiguities. We have matched the observed low resolution spectra of HD 98851 and HD 102480 in the range 3500-7400 \AA with theoretical synthetic spectra using Kurucz models with solar metallicity and a micro-turbulent velocity 2 km s$^{-1}$. These yield $T_{eff}=7000\pm250$ K, log $g=3.5 \pm 0.5$ for HD 98851 and $T_{eff} = 6750 \pm 250$ K, log $g = 3.0 \pm 0.5$ for HD 102480. We determined the equivalent H-line spectral class of these stars to be F1 IV and F3 III/IV, respectively. A comparison of the location of HD 98851 and HD 102480 in the HR diagram with theoretical stellar evolutionary tracks indicates that both stars are about 1-Gyr-old, 2-$M_{\odot}$ stars that lie towards the red edge of the $\delta$ Sct instability strip. We conclude that HD 98851 and HD 102480 are cool, evolved Am pulsators. The light curves of these pulsating stars have alternating high and low amplitudes, nearly harmonic (or sub-harmonic) period ratios, high pulsational overtones and Am spectral types. This is unusual for both Am and $\delta$ Sct pulsators, making these stars interesting objects.Comment: 9 pages, 6 Figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA

Microstrip to Parallel-Strip Nonlinear Transition Balun with Stubs and DGS for UWB Dipole Antenna

Three tapered baluns with nonlinear transition are developed for harmonic suppression in dipole antenna. The first balun consists of an exponential profile with the size of a quarter–wavelength for both the height and width with a wideband characteristic. However, for some applications such as narrowband harmonic suppression antennas and wideband-to-narrowband reconfigurable antennas, the suppression of higher operating band is desired. By employing stubs-filter and a defected ground structure (DGS), two narrowband tapered baluns are produced. They are named as an exponential balun-stub and an exponential balun-DGS, respectively, that operate from 1 to 2 GHz. A simulated and measured results that based on the reflection coefficient is found to be better than -10 dB from 1 to 2 GHz. The employment of the stubs and DGS have enabled these baluns to have the capability to reject the unwanted higher frequency band from 2.0 to 10 GHz. Finally, the proposed baluns are employed as a feeding circuit for an ultra wideband (UWB) circular dipole antenna that produces a reasonable outcome

Micromachining techniques for millimeterwave applications: a short review

Millimeterwave frequency range gained interest due to the demands on bandwidth and speed in telecommunication system. As the frequency increases, the wavelength is shorter and the devices shrink. To some extent, it is difficult to fabricate the small structure using conventional method. A proper consideration on the manufacturing tolerances is needed in fabricating compact structure precisely as well as minimizing losses and crosstalks between lines in a circuit. Many techniques with different tolerances were discussed. Micromachining is one of the techniques with potential to achieve small structures with great accuracy. This paper presents a short review on micromachining techniques used to manufacture small devices precisely. The techniques discussed are bulk micromachining, LIGA, membrane technology, surface micromachining as well as thick photoresist technique. The process for each technique may differ as well as the tolerances

Comparative study of different window sizes setting in median filter for off-angle iris recognition

Iris recognition is one of the most popular biometric recognition that has increased in the number of acceptance user gradually because of the reliability and accuracy provided by this system. However, this accuracy is highly correlated with the quality of iris image captured. Thus, a poor quality of the image captured required an enhancement technique. This study aims to identify the optimum window size for the median filter. Identifying the optimum window size setting required template matching value result of the off-angle iris recognition. The lowest value obtained showed that the window size applied was optimized. The result of this study demonstrated, for WVU-OA dataset for 15 degrees off-angle iris of right and left eyes, the window size of [5 5] and [7 7] respectively are optimum to maximize the median filter function. Meanwhile, for 30 degrees off-angle iris of right and left eyes data, the optimum windows size proposed are [7 7] and [5 5] respectively. On the other hand, analysis using UBIRIS dataset showed that the optimum window size for 30 degrees off-angle iris, both right and left eye is [7 7] which is able to maximize the performance of the median filter. In conclusion, the effective value to be applied to all dataset are [5 5] and [7 7] because in most cases it provides a better template matching compared to without applying the filtering method