Corrosion risk assessment of chloride-contaminated concrete structures using embeddable multi-cell sensor system

Monitoring the service condition of concrete structures requires the quantitative assessment of properties and corrosion rate of structural steels surrounded by concrete.A multi-cell sensor system that included a reference electrode,a chloride content sensor,a macrocell current unit and an electrical resistance measurement unit was developed.This system provided the following important electrochemical data in the cover-zone concrete on site:open circuit potential,macrocell current from anodes to cathode,chloride profile,concrete resistance and corrosion rate of built-in anodes.The experimental results show that the macrocell current increases when the chloride content in concrete is higher.Thus,monitoring the chloride content is a good method for monitoring the corrosion state.The chloride ion content and cover depth are the key factors that affect the electrical resistance of concrete.Without considering the temperature and time,a simplified model of the instantaneous corrosion rate of steel rebar in a concrete structure based on the measured chloride contents and concrete resistance was proposed.The test results further prove the reliability of this simplified predicting model.

Multi-objective optimization of multi-cell conical structures under dynamic loads

In this paper,crashworthiness performance of multi-cell conical tubes with new sectional configuration design(i.e.square,hexagonal,octagonal,decagon and circular)has been evaluated under axial and three different oblique loads.The same weight conical tubes were comparatively studied using an experimentally validated finite element model generated in LS-DYNA.Complex proportional assessment(COPRAS)method was then employed to select the most efficient tube using two conflicting criteria,namely peak collapse force(PCF)and energy absorption(EA).From the COPRAS calculations,the multi-cell conical tube with decagonal cross-section(MCDT)showed the best crashworthiness performance.Furthermore,the effects of possible number of inside ribs on the crashworthiness of the decagonal conical tubes were also evaluated,and the results displayed that the tubes performed better as the number of ribs increased.Finally,parameters(the cone angle,θ,and ratio of the internal tube size to the external one,S)of MCDT were optimized by adopting artificial neural networks(ANN)and genetic algorithm(GA)techniques.Based on the multi-objective optimization results,the optimum dimension parameters were found to beθ=7.9o,S=0.46 andθ=8o,S=0.74 from the minimum distance selection(MDS)and COPRAS methods,respectively.

Handover initiation performance of a new multi-cell cellular configuration with a developed base-station multi-beam antenna

A new multi-cell cellular configuration networks is provided for analysis of handover initiation probability, which is based on multi-beam base-station antenna splitting in the elevation-radiating plane. The sum of the received signal power in the mobile station, including both desired and interference signal power, has been introduced into the handover initiation algorithm. Along with the idea, we present three models of handover initiation algorithm with the shadowing process of Gaussian distribution. The formulation of handover initiation probability of those algorithms is also analyzed. The validity of the presented models has been checked through the comparison with simulation results. The results present the performance characteristics of handover initiation vary with cluster number and base-station antenna elevation angle.

ICI Management for Efficient Radio Resource Allocation in Multi-Cell OFDMA Networks

Two Inter-cell Interference (ICI) management algorithms: Primary Interference Balancing (PIB) algorithm and Interfering Bits Loading Avoidance (IBLA) algorithm are proposed for canceling the ICI effects which the existing efficient radio resource allocation algorithms do not consider. The efficient radio resource allocation algorithm, i.e., Pre-assignment and Reassignment (PR) algorithm, obtains the lowest complexity and achieves good throughput performance in single cell OFDMA system. However, in multi-cell multi-sector OFDMA networks, PR algorithm is not applicable because it does not take ICI into consideration. The proposed PIB algorithm balances the number of loading bits for the desired User Equipment (UE) and the major interfering UE, as well as optimizes the SINR performance; meanwhile, IBLA avoids loading certain number of interfering bits which would make SINR unqualified. Simulations confirm the ICI management effectiveness and feasibility of both the proposals.

Limited Feedback Bit Allocation for Cooperative Multi-cell Systems with Multi- user MIMO

For the cooperative multi-cell systems with muki-user MIMO, a new limited feedback bit allocation scheme is proposed to minimize the rate loss caused by quantization error. In the proposed scheme, the Channel State Information （CSI） feedback of cell-edge user for the local service cell and the adjacent interference cell are separately quantized. Based on the upper bound of the rate loss of cell-edge user due to the limited feedback, the number of feedback bits for quantized CSI of the local service cell and the adjacent cell are optimized with the fixed total bits of the limited feedback. The simulation shows that our proposed scheme of feedback bits allocation efficiently decreases the interference and increases the rate of systems compared with that of equal bits allocation and those of other allocations.

A virtual delay queue-based backpressure scheduling for multi-cell cellular edge computing systems

To further improve delay performance in multi-cell cellular edge computing systems,a new delay-driven joint communication and computing resource BP(backpressure)scheduling algorithm is proposed.Firstly,the mathematical models of the communication delay and computing delay in multi-cell cellular edge computing systems are established and expressed as virtual delay queues.Then,based on the virtual delay models,a novel joint wireless subcarrier and virtual machine resource scheduling algorithm is proposed to stabilize the virtual delay queues in the framework of the BP scheduling principle.Finally,the delay performance of the proposed virtual queue-based BP scheduling algorithm is evaluated via simulation experiments and compared with the traditional queue length-based BP scheduling algorithm.Results show that under the considered simulation parameters,the total delay of the proposed BP scheduling algorithm is always lower than that of the traditional queue length-based BP scheduling algorithm.The percentage of the reduced total delay can be as high as 51.29%when the computing resources are heterogeneously configured.Therefore,compared with the traditional queue length-based BP scheduling algorithms,the proposed virtual delay queue-based BP scheduling algorithm can further reduce delay in multi-cell cellular edge computing systems.

Beam interference suppression in multi-cell millimeter wave communications

Due to the increase in the number of users, beam switching is used for suppressing interference, which leads to higher computational complexity in multi-cell millimeter wave communications. In order to resolve this problem, a beam interference model is introduced, and a lower complexity beam interference suppression algorithm based on user grouping is proposed. The proposed algorithm operates beam switching and mnlti-cell cooperative transmission for a part of the users when there exists beam interference due to high user density. In particular, considering the distinct interference suffered by each user, the proposed dual-threshold user grouping method can effectively solve the frequent switching problem at the base station caused by multi-cell cooperative transmission in multi-cell environments. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the computational complexity of beam switching and approach ideal system capacity, compared with conventional interference suppression algorithms that do not involve grouping of users.

A comparative crashworthiness analysis of multi-cell polygonal tubes under axial and oblique loads

In order to investigate the energy absorption characteristics of multi-cell polygonal tubes with different cross-sectional configurations,firstly,the theoretical formulae of the mean crushing force under axial load for four multi-cell polygonal tubes were derived by combining the Super Folding Element theory with Zhang’s research results.These formulae can be used to validate the numerical model and quickly evaluate the energy absorption ability of multi-cell polygonal tubes.Furthermore,a comparative study on the energy absorption performance of eight multi-cell polygonal tubes under axial and oblique loads was conducted.The results show that all tubes have a stable mixed deformation mode under axial load.The multi-cell decagon tube has better energy-absorption ability compared with other tubes.Whenθis less than 10°,all the tubes maintain a stable deformation mode,and the multi-cell decagon tube also has the biggest crushing force efficiency and specific energy absorption among these eight tubes;meanwhile compared with the results atθ=0°,the specific energy absorption of all tubes decreases by about 8%-21%,while the crushing force efficiency increases by 20%-56%.However,at large angles 20°and 30°,all of the tubes collapse in bending modes and lose their effectiveness at energy absorption.

Resource provisioning for computation and communication in multi-cell wireless networks

The convergence of computation and communication at network edges plays a significant role in coping with computation-intensive and delay-critical tasks.During the stage of network planning,the resource provisioning problem for edge nodes has to be investigated to provide prior information for future system configurations.This work focuses on how to quantify the computation capabilities of access points at network edges when provisioning resources of computation and communication in multi-cell wireless networks.The problem is formulated as a discrete and non-convex minimization problem,where practical constraints including delay requirements,the inter-cell interference,and resource allocation strategies are considered.An iterative algorithm is also developed based on decomposition theory and fractional programming to solve this problem.The analysis shows that the necessary computation capability needed for certain delay guarantee depends on resource allocation strategies for delay-critical tasks.For delay-tolerant tasks,it can be approximately estimated by a derived lower bound which ignores the scheduling strategy.The efficiency of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated using numerical results.

Multi Multi-Cell Uplink Interference Management Cell Uplink Interference Management: A Distributed Power Control Method

This paper investigates a multi-cell uplink network,where the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing(OFDM)protocol is considered to mitigate the intra-cell interference.An optimization problem is formulated to maximize the user sup-porting ratio for the uplink multi-cell system by optimizing the transmit power.This paper adopts the user supporting ratio as the main performance metric.Our goal is to improve the user supporting ratio of each cell.Since the formulated optimization problem is non-convex,it cannot be solved by using traditional convex-based optimi-zation methods.Thus,a distributed method with low complexity and a small amount of multi-cell interaction is proposed.Numerical results show that a notable perfor-mance gain achieved by our proposed scheme compared with the traditional one is without inter-cell interaction.

RIS-Assisted Federated Learning in Multi-Cell Wireless Networks

Over-the-air computation(AirComp)based federated learning(FL)has been a promising technique for distilling artificial intelligence(AI)at the network edge.However,the performance of AirComp-based FL is decided by the device with the lowest channel gain due to the signal alignment property.More importantly,most existing work focuses on a single-cell scenario,where inter-cell interference is ignored.To overcome these shortages,a reconfigurable intelligent surface(RIS)-assisted AirComp-based FL system is proposed for multi-cell networks,where a RIS is used for enhancing the poor user signal caused by channel fading,especially for the device at the cell edge,and reducing inter-cell interference.The convergence of FL in the proposed system is first analyzed and the optimality gap for FL is derived.To minimize the optimality gap,we formulate a joint uplink and downlink optimization problem.The formulated problem is then divided into two separable nonconvex subproblems.Following the successive convex approximation(SCA)method,we first approximate the nonconvex term to a linear form,and then alternately optimize the beamforming vector and phase-shift matrix for each cell.Simulation results demonstrate the advantages of deploying a RIS in multi-cell networks and our proposed system significantly improves the performance of FL.

New Approach of Multi-Cell Stacked Cell Inverter for Solar Photovoltaic System

In this paper, a new inverter topology dedicated to isolated or grid-connected PV systems is proposed. This inverter is based on the structures of a stacked multi-cell converter (SMC) and an H-bridge. This new topology has allowed the voltage stresses of the converter to be distributed among several switching cells. Secondly, divide the input voltage into several fractions to reduce the number of power semiconductors to be switched. In this contribution, the general topology of this micro-inverter has been described and the simulation tests developed to validate its operation have been presented. Finally, we discussed the simulation results, the efficiency of this topology and the feasibility of its use in a grid-connected photovoltaic production system.

Evaluation of Linear Precoding Schemes for Cooperative Multi-Cell MU MIMO in Future Mobile Communication Systems

In Mobile Communication Systems, inter-cell interference becomes one of the challenges that degrade the system’s performance, especially in the region with massive mobile users. The linear precoding schemes were proposed to mitigate interferences between the base stations (inter-cell). These schemes are categorized into linear and non-linear;this study focused on linear precoding schemes, which are grounded into three types, namely Zero Forcing (ZF), Block Diagonalization (BD), and Signal Leakage Noise Ratio (SLNR). The study included the Cooperative Multi-cell Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) System, whereby each Base Station serves more than one mobile station and all Base Stations on the system are assisted by each other by shared the Channel State Information (CSI). Based on the Multi-Cell Multiuser MIMO system, each Base Station on the cell is intended to maximize the data transmission rate by its mobile users by increasing the Signal Interference to Noise Ratio after the interference has been mitigated due to the usefully of linear precoding schemes on the transmitter. Moreover, these schemes used different approaches to mitigate interference. This study mainly concentrates on evaluating the performance of these schemes through the channel distribution models such as Ray-leigh and Rician included in the presence of noise errors. The results show that the SLNR scheme outperforms ZF and BD schemes overall scenario. This implied that when the value of SNR increased the performance of SLNR increased by 21.4% and 45.7% for ZF and BD respectively.

Detecting short-term gravitational waves from post-merger hyper-massive neutron stars with a kilohertz detector

Gravitational waves emanating from binary neutron star inspirals,alongside electromagnetic transients resulting from the aftermath of the GW170817 merger,have been successfully detected.However,the intricate post-merger dynamics that bridge these two sets of observables remain enigmatic.This includes if,and when,the post-merger remnant star collapses to a black hole,and what are the necessary conditions to power a short gamma-ray burst,and other observed electromagnetic counterparts.Our focus is on the detection of gravitational wave(GW)emissions from hyper-massive neutron stars(NSs)formed through binary neutron star(BNS)mergers.Utilizing several kilohertz GW detectors,we simulate BNS mergers within the detection limits of LIGO-Virgo-KARGA O4.Our objective is to ascertain the fraction of simulated sources that may emit detectable post-merger GW signals.For kilohertz detectors equipped with a new cavity design,we estimate that approximately 1.1%-32%of sources would emit a detectable post-merger GW signal.This fraction is contingent on the mass converted into gravitational wave energy,ranging from 0.01M_(sun)to 0.1M_(sun).Furthermore,by evaluating other well-regarded proposed kilohertz GW detectors,we anticipate that the fraction can increase to as much as 2.1%-61%under optimal performance conditions.

Risk Assessment and Control in Medical Investment,Merger,and Acquisition

The risk assessment and control of medical investment,merger,and acquisition are crucial topics within the medical industry,encompassing various aspects of investment,merger,and acquisition within this sector.The process primarily targets the unique nature and associated risks of the medical industry,focusing on effective risk management and control strategies to facilitate the smooth progression of investment,merger,and acquisition activities.

A Cloud-resolving Study on the Role of Cumulus Merger in MCS with Heavy Precipitation

The cumulus merging processes in generating the mesoscale convective system （MCS） on 23 August 2001 in the Beijing region are studied by using a cloud-resolving mesoscale model of MM5. The results suggest that the merger processes occurred among isolated convective cells formed in high mountain region during southerly moving process play critical role in forming MCS and severe precipitating weather events such as hailfall, heavy rain, downburst and high-frequency lightning in the region. The formation of the MCS experiences multi-scale merging processes from single-cell scale merging to cloud cluster-scale merging, and high core merging. The merger process can apparently alter cloud dynamical and microphysical properties through enhancing both low- and middle-level forcing. Also, lightning flash rates are enhanced by the production of more intense and deeper convective cells by the merger process, especially by which, the more graupel-like ice particles are formed in clouds. The explosive convective development and the late peak lightning flash rate can be found during merging process.

Atypical Occlusion Process Caused by the Merger of a Sea-breeze Front and Gust Front

An atypical occlusion process that occurred in North China on 14 July 2011 is studied based on both observations and a real-data Weather Research and Forecasting （WRF） model simulation. The results show that this atypical occlusion process was significantly different from the traditional, synoptic-scale occlusion process that occurs within extratropical cyclones. It was caused by the merger of two cold-type mesoscale fronts. One of the fronts developed from the gust front of convective storms, while the other was a sea-breeze front. As the two fronts moved towards each other, the warm air between them was squeezed and separated from the surface. An atypical occluded front was formed when the two fronts merged, with the warm air forced aloft. This kind of occlusion is termed a ＂merger＂ process, different from the well-known ＂catch-up＂ and ＂wrap-up＂ processes. Moreover, local convection was found to be enhanced during the merger process, with severe convective weather produced in the merger area.

ANOTHER NEW METHOD FOR SUPPORTING ENTERPRISE IN THE FORMULATION OF ITS MERGER STRATEGIES

This paper discusses the key factors about industrial attractiveness and enterprise strength which influence the formulation of enterprise merger strategies. A new method for supporting an enterprise to analyze and evaluate its merger strategies is developed when the enterprise is making the decision of its merger strategies the method can be used to provide scientific support.

Due Diligence in Mergers and Acquisitions in Emerging Markets： Evaluated Risk Factors From the Academic and Practical View

The obviously ever increasing number of corporate acquisitions in recent decades has improved the general knowledge and awareness of due diligence for both the industry and research. In the current challenging business environment, acquisitions face a higher degree of risk profiles, especially cross-border acquisitions in the emerging markets. Conducting a thorough due diligence investigation in the context of an acquisition is more important now than ever. In a broad analysis, this paper researches the key risk factors in the acquisition process and their assessment within a due diligence audit in the acquisition phase. The task of this paper is to match the academic and practical view in order to give a more complete understanding of risk factors to be covered in due diligence audit. The starting point is the research of academic findings which basically concentrate on common approaches considering financial, legal, commercial, and some other issues in domestic acquisitions and in developed countries. In contrast, this paper considers risk factors in cross-border and emerging markets transactions. In addition, a number of business consultants publish studies based on surveys on this topic which reflect typical risk factors based on experience of their customers being involved in cross-border acquisitions. Their risk assessment consists of specific regulatory, political, and other factors, which may lead to commercial and reputational impediments in cross-border acquisitions. The outcome of the comparison is a comprehended list of evaluated risk factors, whereby the academic findings are complemented and supported by the practical experience in the business consultant＇s studies. Moreover, the practical approach points to the fact that due diligence scope needs to be suited to the dynamics of the markets. The comparison and the comprehended list of evaluated risk factors call for a more integrated system of due diligence and show herein the research deficit. Hence, the novelty is the compendium of evaluated risk factors which should be assessed in the pre-acquisition phase. The originality of the paper is given by a unique analysis of academic work about acquisition due diligence literature and consultant studies from anonymized practical experience based on insider information.

A Critical Study of Mergers and Acquisitions

This article presents and analyses the theories with respect to mergers and acquisitions, and list why companies or firms need to be reorganised. Different types of mergers occur under different situations. Mergers between companies which have same products or services called horizontal mergers; mergers between companies which have buyer-seller relationship called vertical mergers; and companies which have different business fields always use conglomerate mergers. The main motive of companies or firms choosing merger or acquisition is synergy.