University of Texas at Arlington

About: University of Texas at Arlington is a education organization based out in Arlington, Texas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Large Hadron Collider. The organization has 11758 authors who have published 28598 publications receiving 801626 citations. The organization is also known as: UT Arlington & University of Texas-Arlington.

A Comprehensive Analysis of the MAC Unreliability Problem in IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) represent a very promising solution in the field of wireless technologies for industrial applications. However, for a credible deployment of WSNs in an industrial environment, four main properties need to be fulfilled, i.e., energy efficiency, scalability, reliability, and timeliness. In this paper, we focus on IEEE 802.15.4 WSNs and show that they can suffer from a serious unreliability problem. This problem arises whenever the power management mechanism is enabled for energy efficiency, and results in a very low packet delivery ratio, also when the number of sensor nodes in the network is very low (e.g., 5). We carried out an extensive analysis-based on both simulation and experiments on a real WSN-to investigate the fundamental reasons of this problem, and we found that it is caused by the contention-based Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol used for channel access and its default parameter values. We also found that, with a more appropriate MAC parameters setting, it is possible to mitigate the problem and achieve a delivery ratio up to 100%, at least in the scenarios considered in this paper. However, this improvement in communication reliability is achieved at the cost of an increased latency, which may not be acceptable for industrial applications with stringent timing requirements. In addition, in some cases this is possible only by choosing MAC parameter values formally not allowed by the standard.

Diagenetic Origin of Quartz Silt in Mudstones and Implications for Silica Cycling

Abstract: Mudstone—the most abundant sedimentary rock type1, composed primarily of clay- or silt-sized particles—contains most of the quartz found in sedimentary rocks2. These quartz grains, which are chemically and mechanically resistant and therefore preserve their characteristics well, have long been considered to be derived from the continental crust1. Here we analyse quartz silt from black shales in the eastern USA, dating back to the Late Devonian period (about 370 million years ago), using backscattered electron and cathodoluminescence imaging and measure oxygen isotopes with an ion probe. Our results indicate that up to 100% of the quartz silt in our samples does not originate from the continental crust. Instead, it appears to have precipitated early in diagenesis in algal cysts and other pore spaces3, with silica derived from the dissolution of opaline skeletons of planktonic organisms, such as radiolaria and diatoms. Transformation of early diatoms into in situ quartz silt might explain the time gap between the earliest fossil occurrences of diatoms about 120 Myr ago4 and molecular evidence for a much earlier appearance between 266 or even 500 Myr ago5,6. Moreover, if many other mudstone successions show similarly high proportions of in situ precipitated—rather than detrital—quartz silt, the sedimentary record in mudstones may have been misinterpreted in the past, with consequences for our estimates of palaeoproductivity as well as our perceptions of the dynamics and magnitude of global biogeochemical cycling of silica.

Magnetic anisotropy in the Trenton Limestone: Results of a new technique, anisotropy of anhysteretic susceptibility

Abstract: A new method for determining magnetic anisotropy using anhysteric remanence susceptibility is described. The magnetic fabric of a collection of Trenton Limestone specimens has been determined using this method, as well as by conventional anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility. The results demonstrate the usefulness of the new method for finding the magnetic fabric of rock units such as the Trenton in which the bulk magnetic susceptibilities are low. A model is proposed to explain the observed foliated and lineated fabric as a consequence of overburden compaction and regional horizontal stresses. The original fabric is inferred to have been isotropic; the anisotropy resides in secondary magnetite of Late Paleozoic age. It is argued that the observed magnetic fabric must therefore be Alleghenian or younger in age. Our method has the potential to determine paleostress directions in carbonates elsewhere, provided our assumptions are correct.

Transfer-printed stacked nanomembrane lasers on silicon

Abstract: A hybrid laser that combines silicon photonic-crystal reflectors with transfer-printed InGaAsP quantum wells offers a convenient means of realizing surface-emitting lasers on silicon.

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in the four-lepton channel in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract: The final ATLAS Run 1 measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in the decay channel H -> ZZ* -> l(+)l(-)l(+)l'(-), where l, l' = e or mu, are presented. These measurements were performed using pp collision data corresponding to integrated luminosities of 4.5 and 20.3 fb(-1) at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, respectively, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The H -> ZZ* -> 4l signal is observed with a significance of 8.1 standard deviations, with an expectation of 6.2 standard deviations, at m(H) = 125.36 GeV, the combined ATLAS measurement of the Higgs boson mass from the H -> gamma gamma and H -> ZZ* -> 4l channels. The production rate relative to the Standard Model expectation, the signal strength, is measured in four different production categories in the H -> ZZ* -> 4l channel. The measured signal strength, at this mass, and with all categories combined, is 1.44(-0.33)(+0.40). The signal strength for Higgs boson production in gluon fusion or in association with (tt) over bar or (bb) over bar pairs is found to be 1.7(-0.4)(+0.5), while the signal strength for vector-boson fusion combined with WH/ZH associated production is found to be 0.3(-0.9)(+1.6).