Performance evaluation of the third generation TD-SCDMA system.

Firstly, a basic reverse TD-SCDMA system is setup, including a transmitter, a receiver and a channel. Within the receiver model, a specific soft Viterbi decoding algorithm is developed. Secondly, the system synchronization requirements and their impact on its performance under realistic conditions are evaluated. The need for uplink synchronization is established and the sensitivity of the system performance to time misalignment is qualified. To mitigate multipath fading, a RAKE receiver and a minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) receiver are considered. Two RAKE receivers are compared and it is observed that the MMSE-based RAKE receiver always outperforms the cross-correlation based RAKE receiver. An MMSE receiver, including fully or fractionally spaced equalizer is also considered. MMSE receivers do improve the performance for some channels, but not in others. Fractionally spaced equalizers outperform the fully spaced equalizer.Among all the third generation (3G) systems, time-division duplex synchronous code-division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) system is a unique system and has a lot advantages. The performance of the TD-SCDMA system is evaluated using both link level computer simulations and analysis. This dissertation is focused on the performance evaluation and improvement from the receiver model perspective, including Viterbi decoding algorithms, receiver structures, channel estimation algorithms, channel equalization algorithms, and smart antenna techniques.Finally, the performance of the system with an antenna array consisting of a linear array of four equally spaced omni-directional antenna elements, and a direct matrix inversion algorithm (DMI) using the MMSE criterion, was also evaluated

Comparison of the volatiles composition between healthy and buprestid infected Juglans regia (Juglandaceae).

Meliboeus ohbayashii primoriensis (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) is an important pest of the walnut tree Juglans regia (Juglandaceae), but the volatiles mediating this plant–herbivore interaction are unknown. In this study, volatiles emitted by healthy J. regia and by plants infested with M. ohbayashii primoriensis (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) were obtained by a dynamic headspace method and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Shanxi, China). We identified 26 major compounds and compared the volatile composition of healthy and buprestid-infected J. regia. Green leaf volatiles were detected in all damaged plants, including the monoterpenoids β-phellandrene and (E)-β-ocimene, the sesquiterpenoids (-)-β-bourbonene, β-ylangene, and (E,E)-α-farnesene, the alcohols linalool, myrtenol, and (E)-(-)-pinocarveol, the ketones (E)-pinocamphone and (Z)-pinocamphone, and the ester methyl salicylate. The major volatiles detected in healthy plants were β-pinene (36.26 %), α-pinene (23.81 %), D-limonene (12.03 %), sabinene (8.63 %), and β-myrcene (4.35 %). The main volatiles from M. ohbayashii primoriensis larva-infested plants were β-pinene (37.82 %), α-pinene (20.36 %), D-limonene (14.71 %), germacrene D (5.24 %), sabinene (4.52 %), and β-phellandrene (3.80 %). These results enrich our understanding of volatiles of healthy plants and plants infested with M. ohbayashii primoriensis. Furthermore, they provide a theoretical basis and scientific foundation for integrated pest management and for effective ecologically sustainable pest control strategie

Analysis of Concrete Deep Beams with Fibre Reinforced Polymer Reinforcements using Indeterminate Strut-and-Tie Method

Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars have gained popularity in industry to reinforce concrete. They are noncorrosive, strong in tension, but they are less stiff than traditional steel bars and fail in a brittle manner. Therefore, the behaviour of concrete beams reinforced with FRP bars is different in many ways than the behaviour of traditional steel bars reinforced beams. Development of rational design provisions for these beams is essential for wide acceptance of FRP bars in industry and for safe designs of FRP reinforced concrete. In order to develop these design principles, a good analysis model for such structural elements is needed. Strut-and-tie (ST) modelling is one accepted way to analyze reinforced concrete deep members, however the classical ST method was developed for steel reinforced concrete, where the ST method is based on steel yielding. Such ST method cannot be directly applied to FRP reinforced concrete. Based on the work done by Krall (2014), the indeterminate strut-and-tie (IST) method developed initially for steel reinforced deep beams that does not assume steel yielding and includes the nonlinear behavior of concrete can predict good results for FRP reinforced deep beams. In this thesis, the IST methodology for FRP reinforced concrete is developed and analyzed. Several aspects are studied to be the most essential features of IST method, which are the proposed geometries for the ST models, the softened concrete stress-strain relationships, the assumed heights of the compression nodes (h) and the softening factors for concrete struts (). Different ways to compute these features can affect the results predicted by the IST method, thus four ST models for deep beams with vertical reinforcement, four softened concrete stress-strain relationships, four approaches of h , and four approaches of softening factors are developed. Some of the approaches and models are modified from existing ones, and the others are newly proposed in this research. The approaches and models are analyzed with specimens tested in different research programs having different reinforcement design, different beam sizes and different slenderness ratios, in order to find if the approaches and models can work properly with the IST method on different kinds of deep beams. As a result, an improved IST method is proposed, which can predict accurate results and can capture how different factors affect the shear strengths. Although the selected combinations of the approaches and models for the features are slightly different for beams with and without vertical reinforcement, the proposed IST method is proved to work properly on all kinds of deep beams. It is also found that the proposed IST method cannot properly predict the shear strength of FRP reinforced concrete slender beams, thus it shall only apply to find the shear strength of FRP reinforced concrete deep beams governed by arch action

Study on the Improvement of Teaching Quality Management System for Higher Engineering Institutes

Based on the analysis of its establishment and implementation of controlling scheme of the teaching quality management system (TQMS) for advanced institutes of technologies domestic and overseas, from the inspect of the management principles of TQM and 6σas well as the process method of ISO9000 family standards, in combination with the evolution scheme of teaching quality of undergraduate courses in ordinary universities, applying the running principles of PDCA ,this paper has probed into the objectives of the establishment and improvement of the management system on teaching quality, put forward its basic procedures. We believe that its establishment and maintenance should have four stages, namely, plan, do, check and action, as well as eight steps, which includes decision-making, programming, analysis, design, running, assessing, improvement and perfection, which, lays a solid foundation on concrete teaching quality assurance programs for its improvement. Key words: quality management system, procedure improvement, implementation and maintenance, continual improvement, institutes of technology. Résumé: Basé sur l’analyse de l’établissement et de l’application du plan de contrôle du système de gestion de la qualité d’enseignement pour les instituts de technologie supérieurs tant nationaux qu’ étrangers, à partir de l’examination des principes de gestion de ce système et de 6σainsi que la méthode de traitement des standards familial ISO9000, en combinaison avec l’évolution du système de la qualité d’enseignement des cours universitaires dans les universités ordinaires, en applicant les principes de PDCA, cet essai explore les objectifs de l’établissement et de l’amélioration du système de gestion de la qualité d’enseignement et met en avant ses procédures de base. On croit que son établissement et maintenance devrait comporter quatre étapes, soit plan, application, révision et action, et huit pas qui comprennent prise de décision, programmation, analyse, design, application, évaluation, amélioration et perfection, qui, jette une base solide avec des programmes concrets d’assurance de la qualité d’enseignement pour son amélioration. Mots-Clés: système de gestion de la qualité, procédure d’amélioration, application et maintenance, amélioration continuelle, instituts de technologi

Scheduling Performance Evaluation of Logistics Service Supply Chain Based on the Dynamic Index Weight

Scheduling is crucial to the operation of logistics service supply chain (LSSC), so scientific performance evaluation method is required to evaluate the scheduling performance. Different from general project performance evaluation, scheduling activities are usually continuous and multiperiod. Therefore, the weight of scheduling performance evaluation index is not unchanged, but dynamically varied. In this paper, the factors that influence the scheduling performance are analyzed in three levels which are strategic environment, operating process, and scheduling results. Based on these three levels, the scheduling performance evaluation index system of LSSC is established. In all, a new performance evaluation method proposed based on dynamic index weight will have three innovation points. Firstly, a multiphase dynamic interaction method is introduced to improve the quality of quantification. Secondly, due to the large quantity of second-level indexes and the requirements of dynamic weight adjustment, the maximum attribute deviation method is introduced to determine weight of second-level indexes, which can remove the uncertainty of subjective factors. Thirdly, an adjustment coefficient method based on set-valued statistics is introduced to determine the first-level indexes weight. In the end, an application example from a logistics company in China is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method

Coastal Reservoir Strategy and Its Applications

While the world\u27s population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold [1]. It is estimated that the world population will enlarge by another 40 to 50 % in the following fifty years. The demand for water will be increasing resulted by the population growth combined with industrialization and urbanization, which will have serious consequences on the environment. According to WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) (2012 Update), 780 million people lack access to an improved water source; approximately one in nine people [2]. Water stress causes deterioration of fresh water resources in terms of quantity (aquifer over-exploitation, dry rivers, etc.) and quality (eutrophication, organic matter pollution, saline intrusion, etc.). In the Developing World, women and children walk miles to get water. The UN estimates that the average is 40 pounds of water carried 4 miles (18 kg-6 km). This takes hours, people can’t attend school/ work, deforms the spine and can leave women vulnerable to assault [3]. Figure 1 showed the state of water shortages based on synthetic evaluation of water management using for agriculture in 2007

Comparison of phenology estimated from reflectance-based indices and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) observations in a temperate forest using GPP-based phenology as the standard

© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Remote Sensing 10 (2018): 932, doi:10.3390/rs10060932.We assessed the performance of reflectance-based vegetation indices and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) datasets with various spatial and temporal resolutions in monitoring the Gross Primary Production (GPP)-based phenology in a temperate deciduous forest. The reflectance-based indices include the green chromatic coordinate (GCC), field measured and satellite remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI); and the SIF datasets include ground-based measurement and satellite-based products. We found that, if negative impacts due to coarse spatial and temporal resolutions are effectively reduced, all these data can serve as good indicators of phenological metrics for spring. However, the autumn phenological metrics derived from all reflectance-based datasets are later than the those derived from ground-based GPP estimates (flux sites). This is because the reflectance-based observations estimate phenology by tracking physiological properties including leaf area index (LAI) and leaf chlorophyll content (Chl), which does not reflect instantaneous changes in phenophase transitions, and thus the estimated fall phenological events may be later than GPP-based phenology. In contrast, we found that SIF has a good potential to track seasonal transition of photosynthetic activities in both spring and fall seasons. The advantage of SIF in estimating the GPP-based phenology lies in its inherent link to photosynthesis activities such that SIF can respond quickly to all factors regulating phenological events. Despite uncertainties in phenological metrics estimated from current spaceborne SIF observations due to their coarse spatial and temporal resolutions, dates in middle spring and autumn—the two most important metrics—can still be reasonably estimated from satellite SIF. Our study reveals that SIF provides a better way to monitor GPP-based phenological metrics.This research was supported by U. S. Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research Grant DE-SC0006951, National Science Foundation Grants DBI 959333 and AGS-1005663, and the University of Chicago and the MBL Lillie Research Innovation Award to Jianwu Tang and China Scholarship Council No. 201506190095 to Z. Liu. Xiaoliang Lu was also supported by the open project grant (LBKF201701) of Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Using canopy greenness index to identify leaf ecophysiological traits during the foliar senescence in an oak forest

© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Ecosphere 9 (2018): e02337, doi:10.1002/ecs2.2337.Camera‐based observation of forest canopies allows for low‐cost, continuous, high temporal‐spatial resolutions of plant phenology and seasonality of functional traits. In this study, we extracted canopy color index (green chromatic coordinate, Gcc) from the time‐series canopy images provided by a digital camera in a deciduous forest in Massachusetts, USA. We also measured leaf‐level photosynthetic activities and leaf area index (LAI) development in the field during the growing season, and corresponding leaf chlorophyll concentrations in the laboratory. We used the Bayesian change point (BCP) approach to analyze Gcc. Our results showed that (1) the date of starting decline of LAI (DOY 263), defined as the start of senescence, could be mathematically identified from the autumn Gcc pattern by analyzing change points of the Gcc curve, and Gcc is highly correlated with LAI after the first change point when LAI was decreasing (R2 = 0.88, LAI < 2.5 m2/m2); (2) the second change point of Gcc (DOY 289) started a more rapid decline of Gcc when chlorophyll concentration and photosynthesis rates were relatively low (13.4 ± 10.0% and 23.7 ± 13.4% of their maximum values, respectively) and continuously reducing; and (3) the third change point of Gcc (DOY 295) marked the end of growing season, defined by the termination of photosynthetic activities, two weeks earlier than the end of Gcc curve decline. Our results suggested that with the change point analysis, camera‐based phenology observation can effectively quantify the dynamic pattern of the start of senescence (with declining LAI) and the end of senescence (when photosynthetic activities terminated) in the deciduous forest.Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions in Discipline of Environmental Science and Engineer in Nanjing Forest University; China Scholarship Council Grant Number: 201506190095; Brown University Seed Funds for International Research Projects on the Environmen