Generalized Analysis and Unified Design of EM Skins

A generalized formulation is derived for the analysis of the field manipulation properties of electromagnetic skins (EMSs) in the working regimes of interest for wireless communications. Based on such a theoretical framework, a unified method for the design of anomalous-reflecting and focusing EMSs is presented. Representative results, from a wide set of numerical experiments, are reported and validated with full-wave HFSS simulations to give the interested readers some insights on the accuracy, the effectiveness, and the computational efficiency of the proposed analysis/synthesis tools

GPR practical training at the University of West Lodon, 14 s.

This report presents a description of some of the activities carried out within the Training School on Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) for road-pavement assessment and detection of buried utilities, organized by the COST Action TU1208 and held in London, UK, on October 12-14, 2015. More precisely, this document deals with the second practical lesson on the use of GPR equipment provided by UTSI Electronics and devoted to the detection of buried utilities in an outdoor environment. The processing and interpretation of the collected GPR data through the commercial software REFLEXW is presented, as well

Konrad Lorenz and contemporary philosophy of mind

Lorenz advanced in chapter The Mind-Body Problem of the «Russian Manuscript» some theses concerning the mind-body relations that are very impressive for the contemporary philosophers of mind. The way Lorenz deals with the origins, the role of consciousness and of qualitative mental states is up to date. He gives us also a way to deal with the knowledge argument, quite forty years the argument were worked out. Notwithstanding Lorenz was not a reductionist, it is possible for a reductionist using his perspective to take away from the knowledge argument its antireductionist value, so that to defend the identity theory

Transition choice probabilities in logit

We consider the widely used multinomial logit model with i.i.d. Gumbel random terms. Transition choice probabilities, i.e. probabilities of choosing alternative i in the first choice and alternative j in the second, are available in analytic form in the two extreme cases where the random terms of each alternative are independent or perfectly correlated across choices. We extend these results and provide the transition probabilities in analytic form in the case where the random terms follow a bi-extremal distribution with correlation coefficient varying in the full positive range between zero and one

Le Van Gogh de Heidegger et le Velazquez de Foucault. Une reflexion sur deux erreurs philosophiques

La fausse interprétation d’un tableau peut-elle créer de véritables concepts philosophiques ? En raison de qui ou de quoi l’erreur est-elle l’origine de la vie ? Ces questions constituent l’entrée, au sens deleuzien, pour pouvoir aborder deux célèbres cas de fausses interprétations philosophiques : l’interprétation faite par Martin Heidegger de Une paire de chaussures (1887) de Vincent Van Gogh et l’interprétation de Les Ménines (1656) de Diego Velázquez faite par Michel Foucault. Ces deux célèbres cas seront mis en perspective à l’aide de la pensée de Gilles Deleuze et Felix Guattari afin de répondre aux questions posées.Can a false interpretation of a picture, create a real philosophical concept? How can mistake can be considered the beginnings of life? These questions constitute the entrance, in a deleuzian sense, to examine two famous wrong interpretations of artworks on the part of philosophers: through Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts it became possible to re-understand and re-value the wrong interpretation made by Martin Heidegger concerning A pair of Boots (1887) a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, and the wrong reading made by Michel Foucault concerning Las Meninas (1656) a painting by Diego Velázquez

Multi-Resolution Subspace-Based Optimization Method for the Retrieval of 2D Perfect Electric Conductors

Perfect Electric Conductors (PECs) are imaged integrating the subspace-based optimizationmethod (SOM) within the iterative multi-scaling scheme (IMSA). Without a-priori information on the number or/and the locations of the scatterers and modelling their EM scattering interactions with a (known) probing source in terms of surface electric field integral equations, a segment-based representation of PECs is retrieved from the scattered field samples. The proposed IMSA-SOM inversion method is validated against both synthetic and experimental data by assessing the reconstruction accuracy, the robustness to the noise, and the computational efficiency with some comparisons, as well

Learned Global Optimization for Inverse Scattering Problems -- Matching Global Search with Computational Efficiency

The computationally-efficient solution of fully non-linear microwave inverse scattering problems (ISPs) is addressed. An innovative System-by-Design (SbD) based method is proposed to enable, for the first time to the best of the authors knowledge, an effective, robust, and time-efficient exploitation of an evolutionary algorithm (EA) to perform the global minimization of the data-mismatch cost function. According to the SbD paradigm as suitably applied to ISPs, the proposed approach founds on (i) a smart re-formulation of the ISP based on the definition of a minimum-dimensionality and representative set of degrees-of-freedom (DoFs) and on (ii) the artificial-intelligence (AI)-driven integration of a customized global search technique with a digital twin (DT) predictor based on the Gaussian Process (GP) theory. Representative numerical and experimental results are provided to assess the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed approach also in comparison with competitive state-of-the-art inversion techniques

Towards Real-World Indoor Smart Electromagnetic Environments -- A Large-Scale Experimental Demonstration

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work presents the first large-scale indoor experimental assessment of an implementation of the emerging Smart ElectroMagnetic Environment (SEME) paradigm, which is based on the deployment of static-passive EM skins (SP-EMSs) to enhance the coverage in a 5 [GHz] Wi-Fi network. Unlike standard (laboratory-based) validations reported in the state-of-the-art (SoA) literature, the scenario at hand mimics a realistic indoor environment to replicate as close as possible the user experience when using commodity devices. Representative results from the experimental field trials are re-ported to confirm the performance predictions arising from the numerical studies and the tolerance analyses carried out with a commercial ray-tracing (RT) tool. Besides experimentally validating the SEME idea, this study is also aimed at (roughly) quantifying the economic advantage of a SEME implementation, relying on simple-manufacturing/low-cost field manipulating devices without any additional biasing circuitry, with respect to standard approaches that imply the densification of the active radiating sources

Using rail to make urban freight distribution more sustainable

Rail is today a minimally used modality in urban freight distribution. To reap the benefits of this more sustainable transport mode a few experiences in Europe have attempted to introduce innovative freight distribution schemes where rail is used. One of such schemes uses rail for the urban penetration leg. After having been consolidated in a centre located outside the urban area, goods are transported by shuttle trains to a centre located inside the central area (the multi-modal urban distribution centre – MUDC) and there are transferred to low-pollution road vehicles to reach their final destination. Other schemes use tramways. The paper provides a review of rail-based schemes which have been introduced in European cities. An in-depth assessment is provided of the scheme based on the use of a MUDC. The case study relates to the distribution of fish food in Rome. The environmental and energy benefits obtainable from the shift from the current road-only scheme to the MUDC scheme are estimated in physical and monetary units. An estimate is provided of the maximum public contribution that would still make the scheme beneficial for society as a whole, obtained as the difference between the social costs of the road-only scheme and those of the MUDC scheme. Also, an assessment is provided of the profitability of the scheme from the operators‟ viewpoint