Ce document a été compilé à partir de tous les articles publiés dans le volume 225 (1). Il comprend la couverture, les articles, la liste des sponsors et la table des matières.
Instruments and machines, Applied optics. Photonics
This paper proposes a wearable flexible dual-band antenna that covers the 2.34–2.68 GHz and 4.05–5.26 GHz frequency bands. This antenna employs a novel nested imitation annular solar eclipse structure, where the main radiator is a gradually widening loop, and another loop is coupled inside the radiator. The antenna, with overall dimensions of 40∗32∗0.3 mm³, utilizes polyimide as the dielectric material. The gain, efficiency, and cross-polarization of the antenna were tested using a microwave anechoic chamber. The antenna achieves a maximum gain of 6 dBi and a maximum efficiency of 79.6%. We tested the SAR of the antenna at 10 mm from the human body, which was significantly below the international standard of 2.0 W/kg. The flexible antenna presented in this paper exhibits a broad low-frequency bandwidth, enabling coverage of various communication bands such as ISM, WLAN, WIMAX, and Bluetooth. The antenna delivers satisfactory simulation and measurement results while meeting the requirements of minimizing radiation exposure to the human body.
In the last couple of years, the use of weak signal propagation reporter (WSPR) has grown significantly in the radio amateur community and beyond. This protocol allows to probe potential propagation paths between radio transceivers, operating at a low-power level. The protocol decodes the received signals and translates them into appropriate signal-to-noise ratio levels, which reveal the possible propagation paths between the transmitter and receiver using ionospheric reflections. In this article, specifically the 160-m radio amateur band is addressed. This band used less intensity for WSPR communication, compared to the other radio amateur bands (80 m and 40 m). Additionally, the 160-m band has specific features such as the link between propagation performance and the Earth’s electron gyro-effect. The aim of this article is to address these features experimentally. First, two identical 160-m band WSPR receiver stations are conditioned to compare the performance of different 160-m band antennas. Each setup, separated by a limited distance, generates almost identical SNR reports, allowing the comparison between the two antennas. Second, a more extended experimental investigation of the propagation path performance on the 160-m band reveals information on the radio wave behaviour between the transmitter and receiver. The first experiment allowed the identification of the most optimal antenna, specifically in the 160-m band. The second experiment shows that the SNR values can vary depending on the polarization shift of the received signal. Possibly, this can be linked to the effect of the magnetic field of the Earth via the electron gyro-frequency.
Ammar Alhegazi, Zahriladha Zakaria, Noor Azwan Shairi
et al.
This article proposes a novel microfluidic sensor designed with a highly accurate Q-factor for liquid detection. The proposed sensor is developed and implemented with a gap waveguide cavity resonator (GWCR) approach. The GWCR approach is formed from the two metallic plates denoted as upper and lower plates. These plates are separated by an array of metallic pins attached to the lower plate, leading to high electric field concentration. A microfluidic channel is created at the midpoint of each plate to place the holder of liquid under test (LUT). The GWCR provides a high electric field, which increases Q-factor and is shown to exhibit a significant improvement in sensitivity and linearity. To characterise and evaluate the dielectric properties of the fluid, the LUT is placed inside a hairlike glass, which passes through the microfluidic channels. The LUT perturbs the electric field distribution inside the GWCR, known as the perturbation principle. The relation between the LUT and the electric field changes the electric field behaviours in terms of resonant frequency, Q-factor, and transmission coefficient. The analysis of these changes in the electric field behaviours leads to identifying the dielectric properties of the LUT. The anonymous dielectric characteristics of LUT, permittivity, and loss tangent formulas are derived utilising the polynomial fitting approach. The measurement outcomes reveal that the stated sensor can measure the permittivity and loss tangent for both LUT samples, such as ethanol and methanol, at 6.1 GHz and 23.4°C.
Solofo Rakotondraompiana, Heninjara Narovana Hasina Andriamanantena, Solofoarisoa Rakotoniaina
et al.
Cette publication participe à la compréhension de la dégradation de l’environnement à Madagascar. Spécifiquement, il s’agit d’analyser la distribution spatiale et temporelle des feux à Madagascar et d’identifier les facteurs à l’origine des feux. Les données fournies par le capteur MODIS sur l’ensemble du territoire de Madagascar pour les années 2014 à 2018 sont utilisées. Les résultats obtenus indiquent une certaine stabilité des points de feux actifs observés à Madagascar pendant la période 2014 à 2018, sauf pour l’année 2016, année de forte sécheresse mondiale. Les feux brûlent en moyenne une superficie de 3 757 792 ha par an. La majorité de ces feux est observée pendant la saison sèche et leur maximum en nombre et en superficie est atteint aux mois de septembre et octobre. Au premier abord, les feux couvrent la quasi-totalité du pays. Toutefois, les analyses spatiales et temporelles montrent que les points de feu sont regroupés en agrégats d’ordre 1, 2, 3 ou 4. Les agrégats indiquent les zones où l’on retrouve une concentration de points de feux. Les régions contenant des agrégats d'ordres supérieurs sont les plus exposées. Ce sont des zones auxquelles il est nécessaire d’accorder une attention particulière. Les résultats de l’analyse par permutation spatio-temporelle indiquent que les feux proches dans l’espace le sont aussi dans le temps. La répartition des agrégats par rapport aux pistes et aux villages démontre que les feux se propagent essentiellement à proximité des lieux habités et des voies d’accès.
Instruments and machines, Applied optics. Photonics
A new strategy of density tapering called the partial density tapering (PDT) accompanied with the algorithm of differential evolution (DE) is proposed to suppress the peak sidelobe level (PSL) of uniform excited concentric ring arrays (UECRA) with isotropic elements. Through performing the PDT, a sound starting solution for DE can be generated. Then, the ring filling factor (RFF) is introduced so that the optimization of the number of elements can be transformed into the optimization of RFFs within the tapered thresholds, and thereby the real coding can be directly used with respect to the consideration of parallel encoding strategy. Finally, the UECRA featuring improved PSL performance can be obtained by limited runs of conventional DE. Several numerical instances for UECRA, with aperture sizes ranging from small to large scale, confirmed the outperformance of the proposed method.
Objective This review was conducted to identify and synthesise the evidence around the use of telephone and video interpreter services compared with in-person services in healthcare. Methods A systematic search of articles published in the English language was conducted using PubMed, EMBASE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane Library, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), Joanna Briggs, Google Scholar and Google. Search terms included ‘interpreter’, ‘patient satisfaction’, ‘consumer satisfaction’ and ‘client satisfaction’. Any study that did not compare in-person interpreter services with either telephone or video interpreter services was excluded from analysis. Studies were screened for inclusion or exclusion by two reviewers, using criteria established a priori. Data were extracted via a custom form and synthesised. Results The database search yielded 196 studies, eight of which were included in the present review. The search using an Internet search engine did not identify any relevant studies. Of the studies included, five used telephone and three used video interpreter services. All studies, except one, compared levels of satisfaction regarding in-person interpretation and telephone or video interpretation. One study compared satisfaction of two versions of video interpretation. There is evidence of higher satisfaction with hospital-trained interpreters compared with ad hoc (friend or family) or telephone interpreters. There is no difference in satisfaction between in-person interpreting, telephone interpreting or interpretation provided by the treating bilingual physician. Video interpreting has the same satisfaction as in-person interpreting, regardless of whether the patient and the physician are in the same room. Higher levels of satisfaction were reported for trained telephone interpreters than for in-person interpreters or an external telephone interpreter service. Conclusions Current evidence does not suggest there is one particular mode of interpreting that is superior to all others. This review is limited in its translational capacity given that most studies were from the US and in a Spanish-speaking cohort. What is known about the topic? Access to interpreters has been shown to positively affect patients who are not proficient in speaking the local language of the health service. What does this paper add? This paper adds to the literature by providing a comprehensive summary of patient satisfaction when engaging several different types of language interpreting services used in healthcare. What are the implications for practitioners? This review provides clear information for health services on the use of language interpreter services and patient satisfaction. The current body of evidence does not indicate a superior interpreting method when patient satisfaction is concerned.
In the current scenario of high-range resolution radar and noncooperative target, the rotational motion parameters of the target are unknown and migration through resolution cells (MTRC) is apparent in the obtained inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR)images, in both slant-range and cross-range directions. In the case of the high-speed maneuvering target with a small value of rotation, the phase retrieval algorithm can be applied to compensate for the translational motion to form an autofocusing image. However, when the target has a relatively large rotation angle during the coherent integration time, phase retrieval method cannot get an acceptable image for viewing and analysis as the location of the scatterer will not be true due to the Doppler shift imposed by the target’s rotational motion. In this paper, a novel ISAR imaging method for maneuvering targets based on phase retrieval and keystone transform is proposed, which can effectively solve the above problems. First, the keystone transform is used to solve the MTRC effects caused by the rotation component. Next, phase errors caused by the remaining translational motion will be removed by employing phase retrieval algorithm, allowing the scatterers are always kept in their range cells. Finally, the Doppler frequency shifts of scatterers will be time invariant in the phase of the received signal. Furthermore, this approach does not need to estimate the motion parameters of the target, which simplifies the processing steps. The simulated results demonstrate the validity of this method.
The dramatically growing mobile communication industry necessitates the demand for the speedy and error-free connectivity at considerably low cost for the billions of users. This is made possible only through the technological advancements that replace the current 4G wireless systems by 5G. Massive MIMO is the key technology used in 5G that offers spectral efficiency of up to 3 times and throughput of up to 10 times the current 4G. The additional antennas used in massive MIMO systems help in many ways but lack in complexity. Hence, in this paper, we propose two design methodologies to reduce the complexity of massive MIMO systems. The first one is the design of low-complexity hybrid precoder based on Zero-Forcing (ZF) precoding algorithm and Neumann series approximation. The second one is the design of flexible, environment friendly, simple 128-element antenna array at the frequency of 2.4 GHz using inkjet printing technology. The substrate used for printing is the “glossy paper” with dielectric constant of 2.31, and the ink used is silver nanoparticle ink with conductivity of 35,700,000 s/m. The element used for the formation of array is the z-shaped coplanar waveguide (CPW) monopole antenna. The performance of the proposed designs is evaluated in terms of probability of error for the hybrid precoding algorithm and radiation characteristics like gain, directivity, and return loss for the printed antenna design.
Radio frequency fingerprint (RF fingerprint) extraction is a technology that can identify the unique radio transmitter at the physical level, using only external feature measurements to match the feature library. RF fingerprint is the reflection of differences between hardware components of transmitters, and it contains rich nonlinear characteristics of internal components within transmitter. RF fingerprint technique has been widely applied to enhance the security of radio frequency communication. In this paper, we propose a new RF fingerprint method based on multidimension permutation entropy. We analyze the generation mechanism of RF fingerprint according to physical structure of radio transmitter. A signal acquisition system is designed to capture the signals to evaluate our method, where signals are generated from the same three Anykey AKDS700 radios. The proposed method can achieve higher classification accuracy than that of the other two steady-state methods, and its performance under different SNR is evaluated from experimental data. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposal.
Angel Colin, Eduardo Pérez-Tijerina, Francisco Solis-Pomar
We propose a model of antenna-coupled microbolometer to be included in an array for receiving and detecting long wave infrared (LWIR) electromagnetic radiation. The antenna is joined to microstrip bandpass filters thus forming a single metal structure to define the operation frequency band. The antenna and microstrip filters are modeled in aluminum thin film. The microbolometer is modeled with superconducting niobium, all together on a silicon nitride membrane. The squared pixel structure is designed on a support frame of 20 μm in size. Simulation results for this antenna exhibit a frequency range of operation from 27 to 35 THz and is configured for two arrays, one of 10×10 and the other one of 50×50 elements. The device has been simulated by means of the commercial electromagnetic software (HFSS), which is based on the finite elements method. The predicted values for the figures of merit of this microbolometer are as follows: τ=5.8 ns, Rv=5.3×103 V/W, and D⁎ = 2.07×1010 cmHz/W, respectively.
The computation of the augmented electric field integral equation (A-EFIE) is accelerated by using the multilevel complex source beam (MLCSB) method. As an effective solution of the low-frequency problem, A-EFIE includes both current and charge as unknowns to avoid the imbalance between the vector potentials and the scalar potentials in the conventional EFIE. However, dense impedance submatrices are involved in the A-EFIE system, and the computational cost becomes extremely high for problems with a large number of unknowns. As an exact solution to Maxwell’s equations, the complex source beam (CSB) method can be well tailored for A-EFIE to accelerate the matrix-vector products in an iterative solver. Different from the commonly used multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA), the CSB method is free from the problem of low-frequency breakdown. In our implementation, the expansion operators of CSB are first derived for the vector potentials and the scalar potentials. Consequently, the aggregation and disaggregation operators are introduced to form a multilevel algorithm to reduce the computational complexity. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are discussed in detail through a variety of numerical examples. It is observed that the numerical error of the MLCSB-AEFIE keeps constant for a broad frequency range, indicating the good stability and scalability of the proposed method.
Roman Kubacki, Salim Lamari, Mirosław Czyżewski
et al.
This paper proposes a microstrip patch antenna based on the left-handed metamaterial concept, using planar periodic geometry, which results in improved characteristics. This periodic geometry is derived from fractal shapes, which have been widely used in antenna engineering. The metamaterial property was obtained as a result of the double-fractal structure on both the upper and the bottom sides of the antenna. The final structure has been optimized to enhance bandwidth, gain, and radiation characteristics of the microstrip antenna. This combination significantly improved antenna performance; our design could support an ultrawide bandwidth ranging from 4.1 to 19.4 GHz, demonstrating higher gain with an average value of 6 dBi over the frequency range and a peak of 10.9 dBi and a radiation capability directed in the horizontal plane of the antenna.
Pasquale Imperatore, Antonio Iodice, Matteo Pastorino
et al.
This paper addresses the subject of electromagnetic wave scattering in layered media, thus covering the recent progress achieved with different approaches. Existing theories and models are analyzed, classified, and summarized on the basis of their characteristics. Emphasis is placed on both theoretical and practical application. Finally, patterns and trends in the current literature are identified and critically discussed.
Armando Arce, Marco Cardenas-Juarez, Ulises Pineda-Rico
et al.
This paper proposes an alternative and innovative way to design a simpler beamforming network (BFN) based on balancing alternated power combiners and dividers, to feed a nonuniformly spaced linear array with Gaussian amplitude and coherent (in-phase) signals. Thus, a two-beam design configuration of the feeding network for a nonuniform array with beam steering capability is proposed and analyzed. The nonuniform aperture and the complex inputs of the feeding network are optimized by means of a differential evolution algorithm. In addition, a comparative analysis between a uniform and nonuniform linear array with the proposed feeding network is performed. Simulation results show the advantages and effectiveness of the proposed feeding network exploiting the nonuniformity of the antenna elements, in terms of side lobe level and directivity. Furthermore, research results show an inherent reduction in hardware complexity of the network.
Les modèles de processus ponctuels marquès ont été appliqués avec succès pour l'extraction d'objets à partir d'images optiques de télédétection à haute résolution lors de la dernière décennie. Les modèles se composes typiquement de deux types de termes d'énergie : un terme de données qui reflète la fidélité des configurations à l'image d'entrée et un terme qui intègre des connaissances a priori sur les objets à extraire. Dans cet article, nous traitons le problème de l'extraction des bateaux dans des ports. C'est un problème difficile en raison de la répartition particulière des objets dans ce cas. Nous décrivons un modèle de processus ponctuel marquè à base d'ellipses développé auparavant, pour lequel nous déterminons automatiquement l'un de ses principaux paramètres. Nous présentons quelques-uns des inconvénients de ce modéle en raison des contraintes dures imposées, que nous relaxons ensuite pour rendre le nouveau modèle plus général.
Instruments and machines, Applied optics. Photonics
A dual-band folded-coupling planar inverted-F antenna (FC-PIFA) is presented in this paper. By using the folded-coupling technique, the proposed antenna provides two distinct impedance bandwidths of 159 MHz (about 6.5% centered at 2.45 GHz) and 1512 MHz (about 27.5% centered at 5.5 GHz), which cover the required bandwidths for the 2.4/5 GHz wireless local area network (WLAN) communications. Moreover, the antenna shows a low profile of 5 mm and a small length of 20.5 mm in radiating area, making it easy to be installed in the casing of wireless handheld devices and laptops. Details of the design procedures and experimental results are discussed.