A Capacity Analysis for the IEEE 802.11 MAC Protocol

The IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol provides shared access to a wireless channel. This paper uses an analytic model to study the channel capacity – i.e., maximum throughput – when using the basic access (two-way handshaking) method in this protocol. It provides closed-form approximations for the probability of collision p, the maximum throughput S and the limit on the number of stations in a wireless cell.The analysis also shows that: p does not depend on the packet length, the latency in crossing the MAC and physical layers, the acknowledgment timeout, the interframe spaces and the slot size; p and S (and other performance measures) depend on the minimum window size W and the number of stations n only through a gap g=W/(n–1) – consequently, halving W is like doubling n; the maximum contention window size has minimal effect on p and S; the choice of W that maximizes S is proportional to the square root of the packet length; S is maximum when transmission rate (including collisions) equals the reciprocal of transmission time, and this happens when channel wastage due to collisions balances idle bandwidth caused by backoffs.The results suggest guidelines on when and how W can be adjusted to suit measured traffic, thus making the protocol adaptive.     

Removal and recovery of copper (II) ions by bacterial biosorption

Studies were conducted toinvestigate the removal and recovery of copper (II) ions from aqueous solutions by Micrococcus sp., which was isolated from a local activated sludge process. The equilibrium of copper biosorption followed the Langmuir isotherm model very well with a maximum biosorption capacity (q_max) of 36.5 mg of Cu²⁺/gofdry cell at pH 5.0 and 52.1 mg of Cu²⁺/g of dry cell at pH 6.0. Cells harvested at exponential growth phase and stationary phase showed similar biosorption characteristics for copper, Copper uptake by cells was negligible at pH 2.0 and then increased rapidly with increasing pH un til 6.0. In multim etal systems, Micrococcus sp. exhibited a preferential biosorption order: Cu−Pb>Ni−Zn. There is virtually no interference with copper uptake by Micrococcus sp. from solutions bearing high concentrations of Cl⁻, SO ₄ ²⁻ , and NO3/− (0–500 mg/L). Sulfuric acid (0.05 M) was the most efficient desorption medium, recovering >90% of the initial copper sorbed. The copper capacity of Micrococcus sp. remained unchanged after five successive sorption and desorption cycles. Immobilization of Micrococcus sp. in 2% calcium alginate and 10% polyacrylamide gel beads increased copper uptake by 61%. Biomass of Micrococcus sp. may be applicable to the development of potentially cost-effective biosorbent for removing and recovering copper from effluents.     

Effect of C∶N molar ratio on monomer composition of polyhdroxyalk anoates produced by Pseudomonas mendocina 0806 and Pseudomonas pseudoalkaligenus YS1

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are biodegradable polymers produced by bacteria. In this study, the effect of C∶N molar ratio on the monomer composition of PHAs was investigated, including medium chain length PHA produced by Pseudomonas mendocina 0806 and PHA blends consisting of monomers of 3-hydroxybutyrate and medium chain length hydroxyalkan⇘te produced by Pseudomonas pseudoalkaligenus YS1. It was observed that there were some fixed ranges of C∶N molar ratio that affect the monomer composition of PHA independently of the substrate. For strain 0806, the ranges were C∶N <20, 20<C∶N<200, and C∶N>200. The monomer composition was constant among these ranges when using glucose and octanoate as the sole substrate. For strain YS1, the ranges were C∶N<20, 20<C∶N<45, and C∶N>45. These results are useful for controlling monomer composition in PHA production.     

Effect of tap spacing on the performance of direct-sequencespread-spectrum RAKE receiver

The effect of tap spacing on the performance of a RAKE receiver is analyzed analytically in a frequency-selective fading channel. A continuous time multipath fading channel model is used for the analysis, and the expression of the correlation between the desired signals, interference signals, and noise signals at the output of each branch of the RAKE receiver is derived for various chip waveforms. Since the noise components of each branch signal are correlated to each other, an optimum combining rule based on the maximum-likelihood criterion is derived to gain utmost performance. It is shown that the performance of the system can be improved by setting the tap spacing of the RARE receiver below the chip duration when the bandwidth of the transmitted signal is larger than the inverse of the chip duration. Also, it is shown that the normalized capacity of the system can be increased by using a chip waveform occupying wider bandwidth, which takes advantage of the increased diversity gain merits of a wide-band code-division multiple-access system at the same chip rate. It is noted that the derived combining rule gives diversity gain against the fading process as well as noise whitening processing gain against multiple-access interference at the same time     

A novel simplified process for fabricating a very high densityp-channel trench gate power MOSFET

A novel simplified fabrication method of a very high density p-channel trench gate power MOSFET using four mask layers and nitride/TEOS sidewall spacers is realized. The proposed process showed improved on-resistance characteristics of the device with increasing cell density and the cost-effective production capability due to the lesser number of processing steps. By using this process technique, a remarkably increased high density (100 Mcell/inch²) trench gate power MOSFET with a cell pitch of 2.5 μm could be effectively realized. The fabricated device had a low specific on-resistance of 1.1 mΩ-cm² with a breakdown voltage of -36 V     

Demonstration of aluminum-free metamorphic InP/In0.53Ga0.47As/InP double heterojunction bipolar transistors on GaAssubstrates

We report, for the first time, the successful fabrication of aluminum-free metamorphic (MM) InP/In_0.53 Ga_0.47 As/InP double heterojunction bipolar transistors (DHBTs) on GaAs substrates with a linearly graded In_xGa_1-xP buffer grown by solid-source molecular beam epitaxy (SSMBE). Devices with 5×5 μm² emitters display a peak current gain of 40 and a common-emitter breakdown voltage (BV_CE0) higher than 9 V, a current gain cut-off frequency (f_T) of 48 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency (f_max) of 42 GHz. A minimum noise figure of 2.9 dB and associated gain of 19.5 dB were measured at a collector current level of 2.6 mA at 2 GHz. Detailed analysis suggests that the degradation of the base-emitter heterojunction interface and the increase of bulk recombination are the most probable causes for the poorer device performance of current metamorphic HBTs compared with lattice-matched HBTs     

Dislocation scattering in n-GaN

The scattering of carriers due to dislocations is studied. Unlike semiconductors such as Si or GaAs, the major scattering mechanism for undoped or lightly doped samples is dislocation scattering instead of ionized impurity scattering. It was found that for GaN samples in the dislocation scattering region, the mobility is a function of the dislocation density and free carrier concentration, via a relationship. Temperature-variation mobility plots also indicate that a T^3/2 dependence component is present, which is also attributed to dislocation scattering.     

Broadly wavelength-tunable external cavity lasers with extremely low power variation over tuning range

Tunable external-cavity lasers with low power variation over a broad tuning range are demonstrated using asymmetric multiple quantum-wells with a wide and flat gain. For a 2.8-/spl mu/m-wide ridge waveguide laser of cavity length 380 /spl mu/m, when used in a grating external cavity and with an antireflection coating on one facet of laser diode chip, the power variation of less than -1 dB is obtained over a range of 80 nm. This extremely low power variation is a direct result of the spectrally flat gain.     

Synthesis of Conjugated Polymers via Transition Metal Catalysed C−H Bond Activation

Transition metal catalysed C−H bond activation chemistry has emerged as an exciting and promising approach in organic synthesis. This allows us to synthesize a wider range of functional molecules and conjugated polymers in a more convenient and more atom economical way. The formation of C−C bonds in the construction of pi-conjugated systems, particularly for conjugated polymers, has benefited much from the advances in C−H bond activation chemistry. Compared to conventional transition-metal catalysed cross-coupling polymerization such as Suzuki and Stille cross-coupling, pre-functionalization of aromatic monomers, such as halogenation, borylation and stannylation, is no longer required for direct arylation polymerization (DArP), which involve C−H/C−X cross-coupling, and oxidative direct arylation polymerization (Ox-DArP), which involves C−H/C−H cross-coupling protocols driven by the activation of monomers’ C(sp²)−H bonds. Furthermore, poly(annulation) via C−H bond activation chemistry leads to the formation of unique pi-conjugated moieties as part of the polymeric backbone. This review thus summarises advances to date in the synthesis of conjugated polymers utilizing transition metal catalysed C−H bond activation chemistry. A variety of conjugated polymers via DArP including poly(thiophene), thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione)-containing, fluorenyl-containing, benzothiadiazole-containing and diketopyrrolopyrrole-containing copolymers, were summarized. Conjugated polymers obtained through Ox-DArP were outlined and compared. Furthermore, poly(annulation) using transition metal catalysed C−H bond activation chemistry was also reviewed. In the last part of this review, difficulties and perspective to make use of transition metal catalysed C−H activation polymerization to prepare conjugated polymers were discussed and commented.     

Reductive heterocyclizations via indium/iodine-promoted one-pot conversion of 2-nitroaryl aldehydes, ketones, and imines

2-Nitroaryl aldehydes, ketones, and imines were reductively cyclized to 2,1-benzisoxazoles with good yields in the presence of indium and iodine in MeOH. Under a similar condition, N-(2-nitrobenzylidene)anilines were produced mixtures of 2,1-benzisoxazoles and 3-anilino-2-phenyl-2H-indazoles.