Post-disaster 4G/5G Network Rehabilitation using Drones: Solving Battery and Backhaul Issues

Drone-based communications is a novel and attractive area of research in cellular networks. It provides several degrees of freedom in time (available on demand), space (mobile) and it can be used for multiple purposes (self-healing, offloading, coverage extension or disaster recovery). This is why the wide deployment of drone-based communications has the potential to be integrated in the 5G standard. In this paper, we utilize a grid of drones to provide cellular coverage to disaster-struck regions where the terrestrial infrastructure is totally damaged due to earthquake, flood, etc. We propose solutions for the most challenging issues facing drone networks which are limited battery energy and limited backhauling. Our proposed solution based mainly on using three types of drones; tethered backhaul drone (provides high capacity backhauling), untethered powering drone (provides on the fly battery charging) and untethered communication drone (provides cellular connectivity). Hence, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the energy consumption of drones in addition to determining the placement of these drones and guaranteeing a minimum rate for the users. The simulation results show that we can provide unlimited cellular service to the disaster-affected region under certain conditions with a guaranteed minimum rate for each user.Comment: 2018 IEEE Global Communications Conference: Workshops: 9th International Workshop on Wireless Networking and Control for Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle

Global Cement Industry: Competitive and Institutional Dimensions

The cement industry is a capital intensive, energy consuming, and vital industry for sustaining infrastructure of nations. The international cement market –while constituting a small share of world industry output—has been growing at an increasing rate relative to local production in recent years. Attempts to protect the environment in developed countries –especially Europe—have caused cement production plants to shift to countries with less stringent environmental regulations. Along with continually rising real prices, this has created a concerning pattern on economic efficiency and environmental compliance. This paper attempts to critically analyze the forces affecting pricing and production of cement from two perspectives. Porter’s five forces serve as our tool to analyze the competitive forces that move the industry from a market economy standpoint. On the other hand, the institutional economics framework serves to explain how governments and policymakers influence the structure and production distribution in the global market. Our findings suggest that the cement industry does not follow expected patterns of a market economy model. Additionally, it does not fully behave along the institutional economics paradigm. Hence, neither perspective explains the pricing or nature of the market on its own. Combining market forces within an institutional setting provides a more clear understanding of price dynamics and industry performance. We find that local regulation alone is insufficient to ensure market efficiency due to weak institutional governance in developing countries aligned with private business interests of global cement firms. Moreover, the global impact of local environmental non-compliance generates economic spillover effects that cannot be corrected by market forces alone. Due to asymmetries in governance and structure, this paper recommends the establishment of an independent international regulatory body for the cement industry that serves to provide sustainable industry development guidelines within a global context.Keywords: cement – global industry– institutional economics – Porter competition – market niche

D3S: A Framework for Enabling Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as a Service

In this paper, we consider the use of UAVs to provide wireless connectivity services, for example after failures of wireless network components or to simply provide additional bandwidth on demand, and introduce the concept of UAVs as a service (UaaS). To facilitate UaaS, we introduce a novel framework, dubbed D3S, which consists of four phases: demand, decision, deployment, and service. The main objective of this framework is to develop efficient and realistic solutions to implement these four phases. The technical problems include determining the type and number of UAVs to be deployed, and also their final locations (e.g., hovering or on-ground), which is important for serving certain applications. These questions will be part of the decision phase. They also include trajectory planning of UAVs when they have to travel between charging stations and deployment locations and may have to do this several times. These questions will be part of the deployment phase. The service phase includes the implementation of the backbone communication and data routing between UAVs and between UAVs and ground control stations

Report of the Librarian of the State Library, for the Year Ending September 30, 1875

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has gained interest in wireless networks for its many uses and advantages such as rapid deployment and multi-purpose functionality. This is why wide deployment of UAVs has the potential to be integrated in the upcoming 5G standard. They can be used as flying base-stations, which can be deployed in case of ground Base-Stations (GBSs) failures. Such failures can be short-term or longterm. Based on the type and duration of the failure, we propose a framework that uses drones or helikites to mitigate GBS failures. Our proposed short-term and long-term cell outage compensation framework aims to mitigate the effect of the failure of any GBS in 5G networks. Within our framework, outage compensation is done with the assistance of sky BSs (UAVs), An optimization problem is formulated to jointly minimize communication power of the UAVs and maximize the minimum rates of the Users\u27 Equipment (UEs) affected by the failure. Also, the optimal placement of the UAVs is determined. Simulation results show that the proposed framework guarantees the minimum quality of service for each UE in addition to minimizina the UAVs\u27 consumed energy

Sunflower oil-based hyperbranched alkyd/spherical ZnO nanocomposite modeling for mechanical and anticorrosive applications

Approaches for designing advanced nanomaterials with hyperbranched architectures and lack of volatile organic content (VOC) have attracted considerable attention. In this study, eco-friendly hyperbranched alkyd resins for mechanical and anticorrosive coatings with high solid content were successfully synthesized based on sunflower oil (SFO) via a polyesterification approach. These resins are characterized by energy-efficient polymer synthesis, lack of gelation properties, high functionality, and low viscosity. A chemical precipitation process was used to fabricate zinc oxide (ZnO) spherical nanostructures with controlled diameters and morphologies. A series of conformal, novel, low-cost SFO-based hyperbranched alkyd/spherical ZnO nanocomposites were fabricated through an ex situ method. Various nanofiller concentrations were distributed to establish synergetic effects on the micro-nano binary scale performance of the materials. The features of the nanocomposites, including the molecular weight, acid and hydroxyl values of the prepared alkyd resins, were concomitantly assessed through various standard tests. The nanocomposites were also subjected to various tests to determine their surface adhesion and mechanical properties, such as impact, T-bending, crosscut, and abrasion resistance tests. Furthermore, the physico-mechanical properties, anticorrosive behavior, thermal stabilities and cellular cytotoxicities of the fabricated materials were assessed. The anticorrosive features of the nanocomposites were investigated through salt spray tests in 5 wt% NaCl. The results indicate that well-dispersed ZnO nanospheres (0.5%) in the interior of the hyperbranched alkyd matrix improve the durability and anticorrosive attributes of the composites; thus, they exhibit potential applications in eco-friendly surface coatings

Theoretical and Experimental Sets of Choice Anode/Cathode Architectonics for High-Performance Full-Scale LIB Built-up Models

To control the power hierarchy design of lithium-ion battery (LIB) built-up sets for electric vehicles (EVs), we offer intensive theoretical and experimental sets of choice anode/cathode architectonics that can be modulated in full-scale LIB built-up models. As primary structural tectonics, heterogeneous composite superstructures of full-cell-LIB (anode//cathode) electrodes were designed in closely packed flower agave rosettes TiO2@C (FRTO@C anode) and vertical-star-tower LiFePO4@C (VST@C cathode) building blocks to regulate the electron/ion movement in the three-dimensional axes and orientation pathways. The superpower hierarchy surfaces and multi-directional orientation components may create isosurface potential electrodes with mobile electron movements, in-to-out interplay electron dominances, and electron/charge cloud distributions. This study is the first to evaluate the hotkeys of choice anode/cathode architectonics to assemble different LIB–electrode platforms with high-mobility electron/ion flows and high-performance capacity functionalities. Density functional theory calculation revealed that the FRTO@C anode and VST-(i)@C cathode architectonics are a superior choice for the configuration of full-scale LIB built-up models. The integrated FRTO@C//VST-(i)@C full-scale LIB retains a huge discharge capacity (~ 94.2%), an average Coulombic efficiency of 99.85% after 2000 cycles at 1 C, and a high energy density of 127 Wh kg−1, thereby satisfying scale-up commercial EV requirements