Impact of unbalanced harmonic loads towards winding temperature rise using FEM modeling

This paper investigates the hot spot temperature of transformer thermal model due to unbalanced harmonic loads from the network. The finite element method has been used to solve the coupling multiphysic for heat transfer in solid and fluid. All material properties in the model were been took into consideration such as copper as the coil material, iron as the core material and transformer oil as the coolant material for the transformer. The transient study on the model has been set for 1minutes using 30 degree celcius as the ambient temperature reference. The simulation hot spot temperature result has been compared for rated load (without harmonic) versus the unbalanced load (with harmonic) which shown in 2D regime. It can be clearly seen the significant increment of the hotspot temperature of the transformer from the rated load to the unbalanced harmonic load. The result has successfully shows the detection of the prospect failure of the transformer due to the harmonic current load in a form of winding loss that contributes to the hotspot temperature of the transformer

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

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

A survey of voice pathology surveillance systems based on internet of things and machine learning algorithms

The incorporation of the cloud technology with the Internet of Things (IoT) is significant in order to obtain better performance for a seamless, continuous, and ubiquitous framework. IoT has many applications in the healthcare sector, one of these applications is voice pathology monitoring. Unfortunately, voice pathology has not gained much attention, where there is an urgent need in this area due to the shortage of research and diagnosis of lethal diseases. Most of the researchers are focusing on the voice pathology and their finding is only to differentiating either the voice is normal (healthy) or pathological voice, where there is a lack of the current studies for detecting a certain disease such as laryngeal cancer. In this paper, we present an extensive review of the state-of-the-art techniques and studies of IoT frameworks and machine learning algorithms used in the healthcare in general and in the voice pathology surveillance systems in particular. Furthermore, this paper also presents applications, challenges and key issues of both IoT and machine learning algorithms in the healthcare. Finally, this paper highlights some open issues of IoT in healthcare that warrant further research and investigation in order to present an easy, comfortable and effective diagnosis and treatment of disease for both patients and doctors

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

Mortality of emergency abdominal surgery in high-, middle- and low-income countries

Background: Surgical mortality data are collected routinely in high-income countries, yet virtually no low- or middle-income countries have outcome surveillance in place. The aim was prospectively to collect worldwide mortality data following emergency abdominal surgery, comparing findings across countries with a low, middle or high Human Development Index (HDI). Methods: This was a prospective, multicentre, cohort study. Self-selected hospitals performing emergency surgery submitted prespecified data for consecutive patients from at least one 2-week interval during July to December 2014. Postoperative mortality was analysed by hierarchical multivariable logistic regression. Results: Data were obtained for 10 745 patients from 357 centres in 58 countries; 6538 were from high-, 2889 from middle- and 1318 from low-HDI settings. The overall mortality rate was 1⋅6 per cent at 24 h (high 1⋅1 per cent, middle 1⋅9 per cent, low 3⋅4 per cent; P < 0⋅001), increasing to 5⋅4 per cent by 30 days (high 4⋅5 per cent, middle 6⋅0 per cent, low 8⋅6 per cent; P < 0⋅001). Of the 578 patients who died, 404 (69⋅9 per cent) did so between 24 h and 30 days following surgery (high 74⋅2 per cent, middle 68⋅8 per cent, low 60⋅5 per cent). After adjustment, 30-day mortality remained higher in middle-income (odds ratio (OR) 2⋅78, 95 per cent c.i. 1⋅84 to 4⋅20) and low-income (OR 2⋅97, 1⋅84 to 4⋅81) countries. Surgical safety checklist use was less frequent in low- and middle-income countries, but when used was associated with reduced mortality at 30 days. Conclusion: Mortality is three times higher in low- compared with high-HDI countries even when adjusted for prognostic factors. Patient safety factors may have an important role. Registration number: NCT02179112 (http://www.clinicaltrials.gov)

Least-square collaborative beamforming linear array for steering capability in green wireless sensor networks

This paper presents a collaborative beamforming (CB) technique to organize the sensor node's location in a linear array for green wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. In this method, only selected clusters and active CB nodes are needed each time to perform CB in WSNs. The proposed least-square linear array (LSLA) manages to select nodes to perform as a linear antenna array (LAA), which is similar to and as outstanding as the conventional uniform linear array (ULA). The LSLA technique is also able to solve positioning error problems that exist in the random nodes deployment. The beampattern fluctuations have been analyzed due to the random positions of sensor nodes. Performances in terms of normalized power gains are given. It is demonstrated by a simulation that the proposed technique gives similar performances to the conventional ULA and at the same time exhibits lower complexity

Impact of unbalanced harmonic loads towards winding temperature rise using FEM modeling

This paper investigates the hot spot temperature of transformer thermal model due to unbalanced harmonic loads from the network. The finite element method has been used to solve the coupling multiphysic for heat transfer in solid and fluid. All material properties in the model were been took into consideration such as copper as the coil material, iron as the core material and transformer oil as the coolant material for the transformer. The transient study on the model has been set for 1minutes using 30 degree celcius as the ambient temperature reference. The simulation hot spot temperature result has been compared for rated load (without harmonic) versus the unbalanced load (with harmonic) which shown in 2D regime. It can be clearly seen the significant increment of the hotspot temperature of the transformer from the rated load to the unbalanced harmonic load. The result has successfully shows the detection of the prospect failure of the transformer due to the harmonic current load in a form of winding loss that contributes to the hotspot temperature of the transformer

Determining when to use modular construction

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a special form of multi-carrier modulation which is robust against the multipath effect, intersymbol interference (ISI) and high spectral efficiency. However, peak to average power ratio (PAPR) is a major drawback in the system since this leads to the distortion problem in the linear devices such as the power amplifier (PA). Thus, the PAs require a backoff which is approximately equal to the PAPR for distortionless transmission. This decreases the efficiency for amplifiers. Hence, reducing the PAPR is the main focus of this paper. One of the available PAPR solutions is clipping. In the technique, the efficiency does not depend on the number of carriers. This paper investigates the effectiveness of the clipping technique by focusing on the performance of PAPR value with different values of clipping ratios (CRs) and the relationship between PAPR value and bit error rate (BER)

Process noise parameters of beamforming green nodes

Signals arrive out of phase at the intended receiver from collaborative beamforming (CB) nodes due to the instability in the output frequency signals of the universal software radio peripheral's (USRP) local oscillator (LO). These nodes including the target must synchronize their oscillator frequencies for coherent signal reception. In order to do this, frequencies and phases of the signals should be estimated in software defined radio (SDR) and smoothen with nonlinear filters such as the extended Kalman filter (EKF). The process noise parameters of the NI USRP-2920 nodes will have to be calculated and used with the EKF process noise covariance matrix. These nodes are green communication hardware devices where most of the hardware units are now software defined. This article uses the direct spectrum method to obtain the phase noise values at various frequency offsets of the NI USRP-2920 in order to calculate the power spectral density of fractional frequency fluctuation. By applying the power-law noise model to this obtained value, the generated white frequency noise and random walk frequency noise values are q1=1.93×10-21 and q2=5.86×10-18, respectively