Driving in the wrong lane: towards a longer life-span of cars

Within the context of product longevity, one especially impactful and ubiquitous product demands further research: the car. Car longevity has been addressed in the context of product life extension and product lifetime optimisation but there have been a few studies on car longevity in the context of business and none specifically from an industrial design context. This paper presents initial findings from preliminary interviews with key industry representatives such as car designers and engineers. It discusses the barriers to and opportunities for designing a car with a longer life-span. This and further data will later be analysed in order to produce a design framework to inform car designers on life-span and usage optimization through design. Strategies such as increased longevity or use-intensity can potentially reduce the throughput - and thereafter the consumption - of cars. Such a shift in the automotive sector would support the transition from a linear economy to a more sustainable one. The initial findings, however, suggest that a longer life car is not an uncompromised solution and important concessions would have to be made in order to make this an acceptable product

Collapse transition in polymer models with multiple monomers per site and multiple bonds per edge

We present results from extensive Monte Carlo simulations of polymer models where each lattice site can be visited by up to $K$ monomers and no restriction is imposed on the number of bonds on each lattice edge. These \textit{multiple monomer per site} (MMS) models are investigated on the square and cubic lattices, for $K=2$ and $K=3$, by associating Boltzmann weights $\omega_0=1$, $\omega_1=e^{\beta_1}$ and $\omega_2=e^{\beta_2}$ to sites visited by 1, 2 and 3 monomers, respectively. Two versions of the MMS models are considered for which immediate reversals of the walks are allowed (RA) or forbidden (RF). In contrast to previous simulations of these models, we find the same thermodynamic behavior for both RA and RF versions. In three-dimensions, the phase diagrams - in space $\beta_2 \times \beta_1$ - are featured by coil and globule phases separated by a line of $\Theta$ points, as thoroughly demonstrated by the metric $\nu_t$, crossover $\phi_t$ and entropic $\gamma_t$ exponents. The existence of the $\Theta$-lines is also confirmed by the second virial coefficient. This shows that no discontinuous collapse transition exists in these models, in contrast to previous claims based on a weak bimodality observed in some distributions, which indeed exists in a narrow region very close to the $\Theta$-line when $\beta_1 < 0$. Interestingly, in two-dimensions, only a crossover is found between the coil and globule phases

A novel steganography approach for audio files

We present a novel robust and secure steganography technique to hide images into audio files aiming at increasing the carrier medium capacity. The audio files are in the standard WAV format, which is based on the LSB algorithm while images are compressed by the GMPR technique which is based on the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and high frequency minimization encoding algorithm. The method involves compression-encryption of an image file by the GMPR technique followed by hiding it into audio data by appropriate bit substitution. The maximum number of bits without significant effect on audio signal for LSB audio steganography is 6 LSBs. The encrypted image bits are hidden into variable and multiple LSB layers in the proposed method. Experimental results from observed listening tests show that there is no significant difference between the stego audio reconstructed from the novel technique and the original signal. A performance evaluation has been carried out according to quality measurement criteria of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR)

A class of cubic Rauzy Fractals

In this paper, we study arithmetical and topological properties for a class of Rauzy fractals ${\mathcal R}_a$ given by the polynomial $x^3- ax^2+x-1$ where $a \geq 2$ is an integer. In particular, we prove the number of neighbors of ${\mathcal R}_a$ in the periodic tiling is equal to $8$. We also give explicitly an automaton that generates the boundary of ${\mathcal R}_a$. As a consequence, we prove that ${\mathcal R}_2$ is homeomorphic to a topological disk