Analysis, design, and optimization of antennas on CMOS integrated circuits for energy harvesting applications

Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting is a promising technology that finds applications in such products as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Active Remote Sensing (ARS). In order to reduce the overall size and the manufacturing cost of the device, it is highly desirable to integrate the energy-harvesting antenna, onto the same monolithic CMOS integrated circuit as the functional circuitry. The focus of this dissertation is on the extension of the more traditional approach to antenna design while overcoming the many barriers to the design and analysis of tiny antennas that are fabricated on a CMOS die resulting in an extremely unfriendly environment. Specifically, the major challenges for building antennas on CMOS ICs have been identified. The Finite Element Method (FEM) was found to be the most suitable numerical method for the full-wave analyses of antennas on CMOS ICs after a comparison of the major numerical methods available for electromagnetic simulations. A complete power measurement system that requires no cable connection to the antenna under test has been constructed. It offers accurate measurement of the available power from the on-chip antennas with the help of the annealing approach to impedance matching, which was also developed in this research. The various design factors for antennas on CMOS ICs have been evaluated through both simulation and experiments. It was concluded that the properly designed spiral antennas are good candidates for the on-chip energy-harvesting applications

Therapeutic promise and challenges of targeting DLL4/NOTCH1

DLL4-mediated NOTCH1 signaling represents an essential pathway for vascular development and has emerged as an attractive target for angiogenesis-based cancer therapies. However, newly reported toxicity findings raise safety concerns of chronic pathway blockade. Lessons learned from the development of γ-secretase inhibitors (GSIs) might offer insights into how to safely harness this important signaling pathway

A conceptual model of personalized virtual learning environments

The Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is one of the fastest growing areas in educational technology research and development. In order to achieve learning effectiveness, ideal VLEs should be able to identify learning needs and customize solutions, with or without an instructor to supplement instruction. They are called Personalized VLEs (PVLEs). In order to achieve PVLEs success, comprehensive conceptual models corresponding to PVLEs are essential. Such conceptual modeling development is important because it facilitates early detection and correction of system development errors. Therefore, in order to capture the PVLEs knowledge explicitly, this paper focuses on the development of conceptual models for PVLEs, including models of knowledge primitives in terms of learner, curriculum, and situational models, models of VLEs in general pedagogical bases, and particularly, the definition of the ontology of PVLEs on the constructivist pedagogical principle. Based on those comprehensive conceptual models, a prototyped multiagent-based PVLE has been implemented. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the learning achievements by comparing personalized and non-personalized systems. The result indicates that the PVLE we developed under our comprehensive ontology successfully provides significant learning achievements. These comprehensive models also provide a solid knowledge representation framework for PVLEs development practice, guiding the analysis, design, and development of PVLEs. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Knowledge Engineering in Agent Oriented Business Process Management

The challenge of dynamic environment requires managing business processes with the ability to adapt to changes and to collaborate in activities. As a promising technology to process management, agent technology with its flexible, distributed and intelligent features has been studied in numerous studies. However, most existing approaches are special and ad-hoc. They have not looked much into the nature and characteristic of agents and their rational behaviours in process management. This paper intends to investigate the mechanism how to build intelligent agents in dynamic process management from the view of knowledge engineering. An agent-oriented approach to dynamic process management with its knowledge engineering is discussed, and a three-layer knowledge model of intelligent agents is proposed. By exploiting the knowledge involved in dynamic process management and transforming it into a computational model, this work provides an essential support of developing agent-oriented approaches to business process management

The Design of Agents Oriented Collaboration in SCM

In today\u27s global marketplace, individual firms no longer compete as independent entities but rather as integral part of supply chain links. In order to cater for the increasing demand on collaboration between supply chain partners, the technology of intelligent agent has gained increased interest in supply chain management. However fewer researches have clearly investigated the mechanism about agent applications in this area. In this paper we are to study the way how to incorporate intelligent agents into supply chain management from the perspective of agent-oriented system analysis and design. A multi-agent framework for collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment in supply chain management is developed, in which supply chain collaboration models are composed from software components that represent types of supply chain agent, their constituent control elements, and their interaction protocols

Factors Affecting Burden of South Koreans Providing Care to Disabled Older Family Members

This study examined the determinants of caregiving burden among South Koreans who care for their disabled older family members. A sample of 1,000 primary caregivers taken from the Comprehensive Study for Elderly Welfare Policy in Seoul, South Korea was analyzed. Independent variables included the demographic characteristics of caregivers and care recipients, the severity of cognitive impairment among care recipients, care recipients\u27 functional abilities, financial adequacy and caregivers\u27 degree of social support. Hierarchical regression was used to predict the levels of caregivers\u27 burden. Similar to western care providers, South Korean caregivers who were in poor health and who had little informal social support, inadequate financial resources and more weekly caregiving hours were more likely to experience intense caregiving burden. Burden was also positively related to the functional and cognitive disabilities of care recipients. The results of this study indicate that certain aspects of caregiving are unique to South Koreans. Daughters-in-law were the most common caregiver within the sample which indicates that South Korean eldercare is non-consanguineous. Identifying predictors of South Korean caregivers\u27 burden promotes a more comprehensive understanding of cultural experiences in caring for older adults

The socioeconomic consequences of the U.S. fracking boom

The central theme of this dissertation is to understand the socioeconomic consequences associated with the technological breakthroughs in the U.S. energy landscape. The dissertation combines econometric methods with spatial techniques to identify the externalities in water and energy transport arising from the recent shale energy boom. The three essays focus on various aspects of influences on real estate market, wastewater management, and highway traffic safety, with each contributing to a broad picture of the overall costs and benefits of the fracking revolution. All the analyses indicate that despite the enormous economic benefits the negative externalities associated with pipeline and truck transport have resulted in additional social and environmental costs. Specifically, in the first essay, we focus on the extent to which the existence of oil and gas pipelines and the related incidents elevated mortgage lenders’ risk perceptions and affected their lending and securitization decisions. We show a permanently lower origination rate by 1.9% in the pipeline-present areas compared to the pipeline-free areas, which was further enlarged by 1.8% whenever pipeline incidents happened. Moreover, lenders’ risk management strategies differed by borrowers’ income and evolved with the tightening of the securitization market. In the second essay, we focus on analyzing how unconventional drilling and production techniques could affect oil and gas wastewater production. We find that horizontal wells drilled in shale regions after 2010 produced an increasingly larger amount of wastewater at the initial stage of production compared to vertical wells with the difference decreasing over production age regardless of the cohort years. However, we find that unconventional wells have a lower lifespan cumulative wastewater and a higher production efficiency regarding the wastewater-to-energy ratio. In the third essay, we examine the effects of the fracking-related trucking on fatal crashes using evidence from North Dakota. A Poisson estimation shows that an additional post-fracking well within six miles of a road segment not only increased the count of fatal crashes involving large trucks by 7.5% but also intensified the crash severity. Moreover, wells’ post-fracking transport increased the incidence of daytime crashes during both rush and non-rush hours but not nighttime crashes. Finally, evidence suggests that the increased accidents were due to a higher traffic volume rather than a higher accident rate or risky driving behaviors