Inter Vehicle Distance based connectivity aware routing in vehicular adhoc networks

Connectivity in vehicular traffic environment has witnessed significant attention due to the direct impact on the performance of most of the traffic safety applications of intelligent transport system. Various parameters such as density, speed, direction, link quality and inter vehicle distance (IVD) have been utilized for measuring connectivity. IVD has greater impact on connectivity and controls the impact of other parameters. Usage of real time IVD for measuring connectivity has not received sufficient attention in VANETs. This paper proposes IVD based connectivity aware routing (Ivd-CAR) for enhancing connectivity aware data dissemination. IVD calculation is robust and can effectively handle instantaneous GPS failure. Two localization techniques; namely, cooperative localization and Geometry based Localization are developed. Standard deviation of real time IVDs of a forwarding path is derived. Distribution of IVDs of a forwarding path is employed for estimating connectivity. Segment vehicle based next hop vehicle selection is utilized for incorporating network load, link quality and direction into consideration while selecting forwarding path. Simulations are carried out in ns2 to evaluate the performance of Ivd-CAR in realistic traffic environment. Comparative analysis of simulation results attests the superiority of Ivd-CAR to the state-of-the-art techniques: CSR and A-CAR

Triggering Cell Stress and Death Using Conventional UV Laser Confocal Microscopy.

Using a standard confocal setup, a UV ablation method can be utilized to selectively induce cellular injury and to visualize single-cell responses and cell-cell interactions in the CNS in real-time. Previously, studying these cell-specific responses after injury often required complicated setups or the transfer of cells or animals into different, non-physiological environments, confounding immediate and short-term analysis. For example, drug-mediated ablation approaches often lack the specificity that is required to study single-cell responses and immediate cell-cell interactions. Similarly, while high-power pulsed laser ablation approaches provide very good control and tissue penetration, they require specialized equipment that can complicate real-time visualization of cellular responses. The refined UV laser ablation approach described here allows researchers to stress or kill an individual cell in a dose- and time-dependent manner using a conventional confocal microscope equipped with a 405-nm laser. The method was applied to selectively ablate a single neuron within a dense network of surrounding cells in the zebrafish spinal cord. This approach revealed a dose-dependent response of the ablated neurons, causing the fragmentation of cellular bodies and anterograde degeneration along the axon within minutes to hours. This method allows researchers to study the fate of an individual dying cell and, importantly, the instant response of cells-such as microglia and astrocytes-surrounding the ablation site

Rubber Impact on 3D Textile Composites

A low velocity impact study of aircraft tire rubber on 3D textile-reinforced composite plates was performed experimentally and numerically. In contrast to regular unidirectional composite laminates, no delaminations occur in such a 3D textile composite. Yarn decohesions, matrix cracks and yarn ruptures have been identified as the major damage mechanisms under impact load. An increase in the number of 3D warp yarns is proposed to improve the impact damage resistance. The characteristic of a rubber impact is the high amount of elastic energy stored in the impactor during impact, which was more than 90% of the initial kinetic energy. This large geometrical deformation of the rubber during impact leads to a less localised loading of the target structure and poses great challenges for the numerical modelling. A hyperelastic Mooney-Rivlin constitutive law was used in Abaqus/Explicit based on a step-by-step validation with static rubber compression tests and low velocity impact tests on aluminium plates. Simulation models of the textile weave were developed on the meso- and macro-scale. The final correlation between impact simulation results on 3D textile-reinforced composite plates and impact test data was promising, highlighting the potential of such numerical simulation tools

A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201

Large-Range Movements of Neotropical Orchid Bees Observed via Radio Telemetry

Neotropical orchid bees (Euglossini) are often cited as classic examples of trapline-foragers with potentially extensive foraging ranges. If long-distance movements are habitual, rare plants in widely scattered locations may benefit from euglossine pollination services. Here we report the first successful use of micro radio telemetry to track the movement of an insect pollinator in a complex and forested environment. Our results indicate that individual male orchid bees (Exaerete frontalis) habitually use large rainforest areas (at least 42–115 ha) on a daily basis. Aerial telemetry located individuals up to 5 km away from their core areas, and bees were often stationary, for variable periods, between flights to successive localities. These data suggest a higher degree of site fidelity than what may be expected in a free living male bee, and has implications for our understanding of biological activity patterns and the evolution of forest pollinators

Cosmic microwave background observations from the Cosmic Background Imager and Very Small Array: a comparison of coincident maps and parameter estimation methods

WWe present coincident observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from the Very Small Array (VSA) and Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) telescopes. The consistency of the full data sets is tested in the map plane and the Fourier plane, prior to the usual compression of CMB data into flat bandpowers. Of the three mosaics observed by each group, two are found to be in excellent agreement. In the third mosaic, there is a 2σ discrepancy between the correlation of the data and the level expected from Monte Carlo simulations. This is shown to be consistent with increased phase calibration errors on VSA data during summer observations. We also consider the parameter estimation method of each group. The key difference is the use of the variance window function in place of the bandpower window function, an approximation used by the VSA group. A re-evaluation of the VSA parameter estimates, using bandpower windows, shows that the two methods yield consistent results

Food for pollinators: quantifying the nectar and pollen resources of urban flower meadows

Planted meadows are increasingly used to improve the biodiversity and aesthetic amenity value of urban areas. Although many ‘pollinator-friendly’ seed mixes are available, the floral resources these provide to flower-visiting insects, and how these change through time, are largely unknown. Such data are necessary to compare the resources provided by alternative meadow seed mixes to each other and to other flowering habitats. We used quantitative surveys of over 2 million flowers to estimate the nectar and pollen resources offered by two exemplar commercial seed mixes (one annual, one perennial) and associated weeds grown as 300m2 meadows across four UK cities, sampled at six time points between May and September 2013. Nectar sugar and pollen rewards per flower varied widely across 65 species surveyed, with native British weed species (including dandelion, Taraxacum agg.) contributing the top five nectar producers and two of the top ten pollen producers. Seed mix species yielding the highest rewards per flower included Leontodon hispidus, Centaurea cyanus and C. nigra for nectar, and Papaver rhoeas, Eschscholzia californica and Malva moschata for pollen. Perennial meadows produced up to 20x more nectar and up to 6x more pollen than annual meadows, which in turn produced far more than amenity grassland controls. Perennial meadows produced resources earlier in the year than annual meadows, but both seed mixes delivered very low resource levels early in the year and these were provided almost entirely by native weeds. Pollen volume per flower is well predicted statistically by floral morphology, and nectar sugar mass and pollen volume per unit area are correlated with flower counts, raising the possibility that resource levels can be estimated for species or habitats where they cannot be measured directly. Our approach does not incorporate resource quality information (for example, pollen protein or essential amino acid content), but can easily do so when suitable data exist. Our approach should inform the design of new seed mixes to ensure continuity in floral resource availability throughout the year, and to identify suitable species to fill resource gaps in established mixes