Analytical Determination of Size and Location of Roadside Horizontal Sightline Offsets for Compound Curves

AASHTO’s guideline for geometric design of highways and similar guidelines require that roadside areas on the inside of horizontal curves be cleared of high objects to provide stopping sight distance. The guidelines have analytical models for determining the extent of clearance, known as the horizontal sightline offset or clearance offset, for simple curves. Researchers in the past have developed analytical models for clearance offsets for spiraled and reverse curves. Very few researchers developed analytical models for available sight distances for compound curves. Still missing are models for horizontal sightline offsets and locations of the offsets for compound curves. The objective of this paper is to present development of analytical models and charts for determining horizontal sightline offsets and their locations for compound curves. The paper considers curves whose component arcs are individually shorter than stopping sight distance. The resulting models and the charts have been verified with accurate values determined using graphical methods. The models and the charts will find application in geometric design of highway compound curves.

Minimum Clearance Offsets for Providing Desired Stopping Sight Distances at Simple Curves with Variable Operating Speeds

Lateral clearance on the inside of horizontal curves is required by all geometric design guidelines in order to provide at least stopping sight distance. There already exist graphical models, analytical models, and design charts for determining minimum clearance offsets to meet the requirement. Some of these models determine the offsets based on constant design sight distance values on the assumption that drivers negotiate horizontal curves at constant speed. Therefore, those models are suitable for sites where there is no difference in speeds between tangent and curved sections. Past studies have reported that there are sites where drivers decelerate on entering horizontal curves and accelerate on departing from the curves. At those sites stopping sight distance for a given driver varies with driver location due to variable speed. This paper presents an analytical model and a chart for determining minimum offsets needed to provide desired sight distances at horizontal curves with variable operating speeds. At those sites the offsets yield roadside clearance boundaries that have transition arcs with performances that are similar to those of elliptical arcs. Therefore, practitioners may choose to use elliptical equations or equations and the chart developed herein. Results of this study will be of value to practitioners in the area of roadside design.

GPS measured static and kinematic offsets at near and far field of the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake

The Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake that hit the mainland Japan on 11 th March, 2011 had resulted a devastating Tsunami due to an active thrusting between the Pacific and the North American Plates. Static and kinematic offsets at the offshore epicentre of the Mw 9.0 event remain unanswered and being investigated along with their near and far field limiting distances from the epicentre. Accordingly, offset measurements from 60 continuously operating IGS and GEONET GNSS stations were radially classified from the epicentre and interpreted with analytical models to find their linear offset decay rates. Co-and post-seismic static positional anomaly offsets of sixty days show almost all near field stations had strong or appreciable eastward or south eastward static shifts. Near stations(<250 km) showed both kinematic and static offsets. GEONET station ’0175’ showed maximum resultant static offset of-4.5 m, which diminishes approximately 1-2 cm at far sites like SMST and AIRA. Characteristic decay duration(’b’) of the mean kinematic co-seismic shift(’a’)of near field stations was 17.28 s during earthquake hours with an EW component shift >1.5 m. Spatial models of projected N-S static and kinematic offsets show their asymmetrical distributions around the epicentre with maximum model offset of-1.84 m displaced towards south at-45 km north of the epicentre. The Tohoku-Oki earthquake produced a resultant kinematic offset of-10.2 m towards East at its offshore epicentre;while the estimated near field static offset is ~9.82 m. However, both estimates are bigger than double the resultant offset measured value(~4.3 m) in the Japanese mainland using GPS. The difference in the kinematic and static near field offsets highlight that the near surface had elastic or in-elastic kinematic strain dissipation as against the lithospheric level viscoelastic static response, which resulted rapid kinematic strain release(1.12 cm/km)within the limiting radius of ~220 km from the Tohoku-Oki epicentre.

Inclusion of forestry offsets in emission trading schemes:insights from global experts

Emissions trading schemes(ETSs)have been a central component of international climate change policies,as a carbon pricing tool to achieve emissions reduction targets.Forest carbon offset credits have been leveraged in many ETSs to efficiently meet emission reduction targets,yet there is little knowledge about the perceptions,experiences,and challenges associated with the forest carbon offsetting in existing and pilot ETS.Given that the future inclusion of forest carbon offset in ETS management activities and policies will require strong support and acceptability among the institutions and experts involved in ETS,this study explores the experiences and lessons learned with 16 globally engaging experts representing major existing ETSs(North America,Europe,and New Zealand)and Chinese pilot ETSs towards the inclusion of forestry offsets,major concerns and challenges with existing implementation models.Findings revealed that many respondents particularly from North America,New Zealand,and Chinese pilot systems portrayed positive attitudes toward the inclusion of forestry carbon offsets and its role in contributing to a viable ETS,while European experts were not supportive.Respondents cited leakage,permanence,additionality,and monitoring design features as the major challenges and concerns that inhibit the expansion and inclusion of forest carbon offsetting.Respondents from Chinese pilot schemes referenced a unique set of challenges related to implementation,including the increasing cost of afforestation and reforestation projects,the uncertainty in the future supply and demand for their national Certified Emissions Reduction(CER)scheme and landowner engagement.Existing and future ETSs should learn from and address the challenges experienced by global experts and carbon pricing mechanisms to design,evaluate,or enhance their forest carbon offset programs for an effective and viable system that successfully contributes to GHG mitigation practices globally.We recommend inclusion of forest carbon offsets at the early stages of ETS improves the perceptions and experience of policy makers and practitioners toward the success and potential of forestry offsets in ETS ensuring familiarity and confidence in the mechanism.

Tests of relative vertical offsets for several types of GPS receiver antenna phase centers

The correction for antenna phase center is considered in processing Global Positioning System （GPS） data collected from a network of GPS ultra-short baselines. Compared with the leveling measurements, the GPS results show that the relative vertical offsets for the pairs of GPS receiver antenna phase centers still exist, although absolute calibration of the antenna phase center variations （PCVs） has been considered. With respect to the TPS CR.G3 antenna, the relative vertical offset for the LEI AT504 antenna is 8.4 mm, the offset for the ASH701945C_M antenna is 5.5 mm, and those for the ASHY00936E_C and ASH701945B_M antennas are approximately between 2 mm and -3 mm. The relative offsets for the same type of antennas are approximately 1 mm. By correcting the absolute PCVs, the existing relative offset becomes negligible for horizontal positioning.

Valence band offsets of the strained and longitudinally relaxed diamond/c-BN superlattices

The valence band offsets of the strained and longitudinally relaxed diamond/cubic boron-nitride （c-BN） （110） superlattice are investigated by the plane wave density functional theory approach and using the on-site core electron as a reference energy level. For the strained diamond/c-BN superlattice, the valence band offset of around 1.50 eV is in good agreement with those using all the electrons methods. As for the longitudinally relaxed superlattice, the valence band offset of around 1.28 eV is smaller than that of the strained superlattice. The reason for this is mainly due to the split of the valence band maximum caused by the anisotropic strain.

Performance Study of an FFH/BFSK Self-Normalizing Receiver with Multitone Jamming's Frequency Offsets

This study investigates how frequency offsets of multitone jamming affect the fast frequencyhopped binary frequency shift keying （FFH/BFSK） self-normalizing （SNZ） receiver under additive white Gaussian noise （AWGN）. The average bit-error-rate （BER） expressions of the FFH/BFSK SNZ receiver and the average BER expressions of an FFH/BFSK spread-spectrum （SS） communication system with frequency offsets of multitone jamming for the sake of understanding the simulation results better. Simulation results show that BER performance of the FFH/BFSK SNZ receiver with diversity under the worst case multitone jamming （MTJ） and AWGN suffers from multitone jamming＇s frequency offsets when the jamming power is moderate, which is validated by several simulations with different frequency offsets configured in multitone jamming. Therefore, an FFH/BFSK SNZ receiver under multitone jamming can be combated with the help of frequency offsets of multitone jamming.

Band offsets engineering at Cd_xZn_(1-x)S/Cu_2ZnSnS_4 heterointerface

Cd1-xZnxS/Cu2ZnSnS4 （CZTS）-based thin film solar cells usually use CdS as a buffer layer, but due to its smaller band gap （2.4 eV）, CdS film has been replaced with higher band gap materials. The cadmium zinc sulfide （CdZnS） ternary compound has a higher band gap than other compounds, which leads to a decrease in window absorption loss. In this paper, the band offsets at Cd1-xZnxS/CuzZnSnS4 （CZTS） heterointerface are calculated by the first-principles, density- functional and pseudopotential method. The band offsets at Cdl xZnxS/CZTS heterointerface are tuned by controlling the composition of Zn in Cd1-xZnxS alloy, the calculated valence band offsets are small, which is consistent with the commonanion rule. The favorable heterointerface of type-I with a moderate barrier height （〈 0.3 eV） can be obtained by controlling the composition of Zn in Cdl-xZnxS alloy between 0.25 and 0.375.

Direct calculations on the band offsets of large-latticemismatched and heterovalent Si and III-V semiconductors

Band offset in semiconductors is a fundamental physical quantity that determines the performance of optoelectronic devices.However,the current method of calculating band offset is difficult to apply directly to the large-lattice-mismatched and heterovalent semiconductors because of the existing electric field and large strain at the interfaces.Here,we proposed a modified method to calculate band offsets for such systems,in which the core energy level shifts caused by heterovalent effects and lattice mismatch are estimated by interface reconstruction and the insertion of unidirectional strain structures as transitions,respectively.Taking the Si and III-V systems as examples,the results have the same accuracy as what is a widely used method for small-lattice-mismatched systems,and are much closer to the experimental values for the large-lattice-mismatched and heterovalent systems.Furthermore,by systematically studying the heterojunctions of Si and III-V semiconductors along different directions,it is found that the band offsets of Si/InAs and Si/InSb systems in[100],[110]and[111]directions belong to the type I,and could be beneficial for silicon-based luminescence performance.Our study offers a more reliable and direct method for calculating band offsets of large-lattice-mismatched and heterovalent semiconductors,and could provide theoretical support for the design of the high-performance silicon-based light sources.

Minimum Roadside Clearance Offsets on the Inside of Reverse Curves Based on Flat Spirals

Design guidelines require that high objects on the inside of horizontal curves be cleared so as to provide sufficient sight distance. An example of the guidelines that require such clearance is the AASHTO’s Green Book. The Green Book has an analytical model for determining minimum clearance for a given design sight distance. The model is well suited for middle sections of long curves. Applying such clearance to sections near beginnings and ends of the curves and to sections where there is reverse of curvature will result in over-clearance. Over-clearance implies extra cost of earthwork where highways pass in cut zones. To avoid such extra costs the guideline suggests using the graphical method to determine exact clearance offsets. The graphical method is accurate but it is also tedious and time consuming. This study developed analytical models for efficiently determining clearance offsets that match the offsets determined with the graphical method. The offsets are ordinates from driver paths to flat roadside spirals that make the boundary of the roadside area to clear. Mathematical equations for the spirals comprise of terms related to highway speed (in the form of design sight distance), curve features, and driver locations. In turn, these terms define magnitudes of the offsets to the spirals. Combination of the terms results in many parameters to the extent of making difficult development of design charts for offsets. However, examining suitability of published offset charts for simple curves as estimates of offsets for sites with reverse curves leads to finding that the charts are suitable as long as the reverse curves have common tangents that are at least as long as 25% of design sight distance. For reverse curves with no common tangents, offset charts have been developed and presented in this paper. Practitioners can use these charts or the derived equations to determine clearance offsets for new sites as well as for existing sites that are deficient in design sight distance.

Magnetic Force Investigation of High-Tc Superconducting Bulk over Permanent Magnet Railway under Different Lateral Offsets with Experimental Methods

The magnetic levitation transportation system is one of the potential applications of high-Tc superconducting (HTS) maglev system. The prototype HTS magnetic levitation system is composed of one HTS bulk and a permanent magnet railway (PMR). The maglev transportation system performance is influenced by the maximum levitation force, the maximum guidance force and the maximum of external applied magnetic flux density. The applied magnetic field distribution also needs to be considered carefully. In the paper, the magnetic levitation force of cylindrical HTS bulk over PMR is experimentally studied. During the experiment, symmetrical PMR and Halbach PMR are used separately. The levitation force-gap loops of different lateral offset of the HTS bulk above PMRs are obtained experimentally. The results show that the HTS bulk levitation performance is tightly relative to the external applied magnetic field distribution. The maximum magnetic levitation forces of HTS bulk above symmetrical PMR decrease linearly with the lateral offset increasing. When the lateral offset changes from 0 mm to 25 mm, the maximum magnetic levitation forces of HTS bulk above Halbach PMR increase with the lateral offset increasing. When the lateral offset exceeds the center of the Halbach PMR by 25 mm, the maximum force decreases rapidly with the increase of the lateral offset of the bulk sample.

Near resonance vibration isolation on a levered-dual response(LEDAR)Coulomb-damped system by differential preloads/offsets in linear springs

The levered-dual response(LEDAR)Coulomb-damped system attains near resonant vibration isolation by differential preloads/offsets in linear springs.It takes the advantages of both the preloads/offsets in linear springs and the guiderail friction for realizing different levels of vibration isolation.The isolation capacities are investigated on the strategies with both the horizontal and vertical guiderails,with the horizontal rail only,and without guiderails.The compressive preloads generally result in the consumption of most of the initial excitation energy so as to overcome the potential threshold.The isolation onsets at the frequency ratio of 1∓0.095 on the left-hand side(LHS)and the right-hand side(RHS)of the lever are relative to the load plate connector.The observed near resonant isolation thus makes the LEDAR system a candidate for the isolation of the mechanical systems about resonance while opening a path for simultaneous harvesterisolation functions and passive functions at extreme frequencies.

Optimization for aerodynamic performance of double serpentine nozzles with spanwise offsets using Taguchi-based CFD analysis

Serpentine nozzles are widely used in combat aircraft to realize strong stealth characteristics.Based on the layout characteristics within a confined space,a series of double serpentine nozzles with spanwise offsets are established.Using computational fluid dynamics and Taguchi method,the influence mechanisms of the Distribution of Area(DA),Distributions of Centerline for the first and second‘S’sections in the Vertical direction(DCV1 and DCV2),and Distribution of Centerline in the Spanwise direction(DCS)are analyzed.The impact of these factors on the total pressure recovery coefficient can be ranked as DA>DCV2>DCS>DCV1,whereas their impacts on the discharge coefficient and axial thrust coefficient can be ranked as DCV2>DCS>DA>DCV1.Considering the statistical significance of these factors,a nozzle in which DA changes rapidly at the exit and DCV1,DCV2,and DCS change rapidly at the entrance gives the best aerodynamic performance.Compared to the worst configuration,the total pressure recovery coefficient,discharge coefficient,and axial thrust coefficient are improved by 1.6%,3.5%and 3.6%,respectively.DA influences the gas flow acceleration in the entire serpentine channel,resulting in different wall shear stress and friction losses.The various centerline distributions influence the gas flow acceleration effects and form complex wave structures in the constantarea extension section,resulting in different local and friction losses.

Permanent Magnet Temperature Estimation for PMSMs Using Virtual Position-offset Injection

This paper proposes a virtual position-offset injection based permanent magnet temperature estimation approach for permanent magnet synchronous machines(PMSMs). The concept of virtual position-offset injection is mathematically transforming the machine model to a virtual frame with a position-offset. The virtual frame temperature estimation model is derived to calculate the permanent magnet temperature(PMT) directly from the measurements with computation efficiency. The estimation model involves a combined inductance term, which can simplify the establishment of saturation compensation model with less measurements. Moreover, resistance and inverter distorted terms are cancelled in the estimation model, which can improve the robustness to the winding temperature rise and inverter distortion. The proposed approach can achieve simplified computation in temperature estimation and reduced memory usage in saturation compensation. While existing model-based approaches could be affected by either the need of resistance and inverter information or complex saturation compensation. Experiments are conducted on the test machine to verify the proposed approach under various operating conditions.

The Effect of Lateral Offset Distance on the Aerodynamics and Fuel Economy of Vehicle Queues

The vehicle industry is always in search of breakthrough energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies.In recent years,vehicle intelligence has progressed considerably,and researchers are currently trying to take advantage of these developments.Here we consider the case of many vehicles forming a queue,i.e.,vehicles traveling at a predetermined speed and distance apart.While the majority of existing studies on this subject have focused on the influence of the longitudinal vehicle spacing,vehicle speed,and the number of vehicles on aerodynamic drag and fuel economy,this study considers the lateral offset distance of the vehicle queue.The group fuel consumption savings rate is calculated and analyzed.As also demonstrated by experimental results,some aerodynamic benefits exist.Moreover,the fuel consumption saving rate of the vehicle queue decreases as the lateral offset distance increases.

LFM Radar Source Passive Localization Algorithm Based on Range Migration

Traditional single-satellite passive localization algorithms are influenced by frequency and angle measurement accuracies,resulting in error estimation of emitter position on the order of kilometers.Subsequently,a single-satellite localization algorithm based on passive synthetic aper-ture(PSA)was introduced,enabling high-precision positioning.However,its estimation of azimuth and range distance is considerably affected by the residual frequency offset(RFO)of uncoopera-tive system transceivers.Furthermore,it requires data containing a satellite flying over the radia-tion source for RFO search.After estimating the RFO,an accurate estimation of azimuth and range distance can be carried out,which is difficult to achieve in practical situations.An LFM radar source passive localization algorithm based on range migration is proposed to address the dif-ficulty in estimating frequency offset.The algorithm first provides a rough estimate of the pulse repetition time(PRT).It processes intercepted signals through range compression,range interpola-tion,and polynomial fitting to obtain range migration observations.Subsequently,it uses the changing information of range migration and an accurate PRT to formulate a system of nonlinear equations,obtaining the emitter position and a more accurate PRT through a two-step localization algorithm.Frequency offset only induces a fixed offset in range migration,which does not affect the changing information.This algorithm can also achieve high-precision localization in squint scenar-ios.Finally,the effectiveness of this algorithm is verified through simulations.

A Residual Frequency Offset Estimation Method Based on Range Migration Fitting

Recently,researchers have proposed an emitter localization method based on passive synthetic aperture.However,the unknown residual frequency offset(RFO)between the transmit-ter and the receiver causes the received Doppler signal to shift,which affects the localization accu-racy.To solve this issue,this paper proposes a RFO estimation method based on range migration fitting.Due to the high frequency modulation slope of the linear frequency modulation(LFM)-mod-ulation radar signal,it is not affected by RFO in range compression.Therefore,the azimuth time can be estimated by fitting the peak value position of the pulse compression in range direction.Then,the matched filters are designed under different RFOs.When the zero-Doppler time obtained by the matched filters is consistent with the estimated azimuth time,the given RFO is the real RFO between the transceivers.The simulation results show that the estimation error of azimuth distance does not exceed 20 m when the received signal duration is not less than 3 s,the pulse repe-tition frequency(PRF)of the transmitter radar signal is not less than 1 kHz,the range detection is not larger than 1000 km,and the signal noise ratio(SNR)is not less than-5 dB.

The Impact of Model Based Offset Scaling Technique on the Amplitude Variation with Offset Responses from 3D Seismic Data Acquired from the Tano Basin, Offshore Ghana

Amplitudes have been found to be a function of incident angle and offset. Hence data required to test for amplitude variation with angle or offset needs to have its amplitudes for all offsets preserved and not stacked. Amplitude Variation with Offset (AVO)/Amplitude Variation with Angle (AVA) is necessary to account for information in the offset/angle parameter (mode converted S-wave and P-wave velocities). Since amplitudes are a function of the converted S- and P-waves, it is important to investigate the dependence of amplitudes on the elastic (P- and S-waves) parameters from the seismic data. By modelling these effects for different reservoir fluids via fluid substitution, various AVO geobody classes present along the well and in the entire seismic cube can be observed. AVO analysis was performed on one test well (Well_1) and 3D pre-stack angle gathers from the Tano Basin. The analysis involves creating a synthetic model to infer the effect of offset scaling techniques on amplitude responses in the Tano basin as compared to the effect of unscaled seismic data. The spectral balance process was performed to match the amplitude spectra of all angle stacks to that of the mid (26°) stack on the test lines. The process had an effect primarily on the far (34° - 40°) stacks. The frequency content of these stacks slightly increased to match that of the near and mid stacks. In offset scaling process, the root mean square (RMS) amplitude comparison between the synthetic and seismic suggests that the amplitude of the far traces should be reduced relative to the nears by up to 16%. However, the exact scaler values depend on the time window considered. This suggests that the amplitude scaling with offset delivered from seismic processing is only approximately correct and needs to be checked with well synthetics and adjusted accordingly prior to use for AVO studies. The AVO attribute volumes generated were better at resolving anomalies on spectrally balanced and offset scaled data than data delivered from conventional processing. A typical class II AVO anomaly is seen along the test well from the cross-plot analysis and AVO attribute cube which indicates an oil filled reservoir.

Ab initio Calculation of Valence-band Offsets for Lattice-matched Heterojunctions

In the light of our previous result that the average bond energy E_h valuelines up across heterojunction interfaces,in this paper,the valence-band offsets in ten hete-rojunctions have been calculated using the E_h as a reference level with the LMTO-ASAband-structure method.The calculated results are in excellent agreement with those fromthe more elaborate first-principles self-consistent interface calculations.As the presentmethod requires by far the smaller computational effort,it is very convenient for usingon medium-sized computers.

Valence offsets of ternary alloy heterojunctions In_xGa_(1-x)As/In_xAl_(1-x)As

The ternary alloy heterojunctions InxGa1-xAs/InxAl1-xAs are important materialswhich have been widely used in microwave and photoelectric devices.The alloy hetero-junctions InxGa1-xAs/InxAl1-xAs（x=0.3）have great potential use in high electron mobili-ty transistors（HEMTs）,heterostructure insulated-gate FFTs（HIGFETs）and resonant tun-neling diodes（RTDs）.When x rises to 0.53,InxGa1-xAs/InxAl1-xAs can be widely used inthe high-speed electronic devices.The valence-band offset（the value of ΔEv