The human desire to grasp the nature of fast phenomena has been driving technological progress for years, including in the field of ultrafast photography.

This paper proposes a novel method for digital image watermarking, in which watermarks are embedded in the domain of fast para-metric transforms based on known spread spectrum approaches. Fast parametric transforms have the ability to adapt the forms of base vectors, which enables automatic selection of the domain of watermarking in relation to the pair: a marked image – a watermarking attack. The process of adapting the forms of fast parametric transforms is carried out with aid of the classical genetic algorithm with the fitting function based on the known measure of separability of watermarks. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been verified experimentally on the basis of the images of two classes, i.e. natural images and technical diagrams. The results taking into account both the efficiency of watermark embedding and the generated distortions in the marked images are summarized in tables and accompanied by an appropriate commentary.

The results of pyrolysis of pine chips and refuse derived fuel fractions are presented. The experiments were carried out in a pilot pyrolysis reactor. The feedstock was analyzed by an elemental analyzer and the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine the elemental composition. To find out optimum conditions for pyrolysis and mass loss as a function of temperature the thermogravimetric analysis was applied. Gases from the thermogravimetric analysis were directed to the infrared spectrometer using gas-flow cuvette to online analysis of gas composition. Chemical composition of the produced gas was measured using gas chromatography with a thermal conductivity detector and a flame ionization detector. The product analysis also took into account the mass balance of individual products.

A low drop-out [LDO] voltage regulator with fast transient response which does not require a capacitor for proper operation is proposed in this paper. Recent cap-less LDOs do not use off chip capacitor but instead they use on chip capacitor which occupy a large area on the chip. In the proposed LDO, this on chip capacitor is also avoided. A novel secondary local feedback technique is introduced which helps to achieve a good transient response even in the absence of output capacitor. Further an error amplifier that does need compensation capacitor is selected to reduce the on chip area. Stability analysis shows that the proposed LDO is stable with a phase margin of 78°. The proposed LDO is laid out using Cadence Virtuoso in 180 nm standard CMOS technology. Post layout simulation is carried out and LDO gives 6mV=V and 360µV=mA line and load regulation respectively. An undershoot of 120 mV is observed during the load transition from 0 mA to 50 mA in 1 µs transition time, however LDO is able to recover within 1:4 µs. Since capacitor is not required in any part of design, it occupies only 0:010824 mm2 area on the chip.

The paper refers to pulverization and sintering of the (Fe80Nb6B14)0.88Tb0.12 high coercive alloy. The powder was sintered using the ultra-fast current aided method. It turned out that too long discharge time leads to appearing of a soft magnetic phase and simultaneously, decrease in coercivity of the compacted powder. Nevertheless, it was possible to establish preference technology parameters, preserving magnetic hardness of the alloy. As a final test, an impact of Co-powder addition on magnetic properties was studied. The introduced soft magnetic phase (about 20 wt. %) caused about 30% increase of magnetic remanence, which is a result of direct exchange interactions between the two phases.

This study proposes a surface profile and roughness measurement system for a fibre-optic interconnect based on optical interferometry. On the principle of Fizeau interferometer, an interference fringe is formed on the fibre end-face of the fibre-optic interconnect, and the fringe pattern is analysed using the Fast Fourier transform method to reconstruct the surface profile. However, as the obtained surface profile contains some amount of tilt, a rule for estimating this tilt value is developed in this paper. The actual fibre end-face surface profile is obtained by subtracting the estimated tilt amount from the surface profile, as calculated by the Fast Fourier transform method, and the corresponding surface roughness can be determined. The proposed system is characterized by non-contact measurement, and the sample is not coated with a reflector during measurement. According to the experimental results, the difference between the roughness measurement result of an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and the measurement result of this system is less than 3 nm.

Cavitation is an essential problem that occurs in all kinds of pumps. This cavitation contributes highly towards the deterioration in the performance of the pump. In industrial applications, it is very vital to detect and decrease the effect of the cavitation in pumps. Using different techniques to analysis and diagnose cavitation leads to increase in the reliability of cavitation detection. The use of various techniques such as vibration and acoustic analyses can provide a more robust detection of cavitation within the pump. In this work therefore, focus is put on detecting and diagnosing the cavitation phenomenon within a centrifugal pump using vibration and acoustic techniques. The results obtained from vibration and acoustic signals in time and frequency domains were analysed in order to achieve better understanding regarding detection of cavitation within a pump. The effect of different operating conditions related to the cavitation was investigated in this work using different statistical features in time domain analysis (TDA). Moreover, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technique for frequency domain analysis (FDA) was also applied. Furthermore, the comparison and evaluation system among different techniques to find an adequate technique incorporating for accuracy and to increase the reliability of detection and diagnosing different levels of cavitation within a centrifugal pump were also investigated.

Irregular systems with long-range interactions and multiple clusters are considered. The presence of clusters leads to excessive computational complexity of conventional fast multipole methods (FMM), used for modeling systems with large number of DOFs. To overcome the difficulty, a modification of the classical FMM is suggested. It tackles the very cause of the complication by accounting for higher intensity of fields, generated by clusters in upward and especially in downward translations. Numerical examples demonstrate that, in accordance with theoretical estimations, in typical cases the modified FMM significantly reduces the time expense without loss of the accuracy.

Many analysis of growth poles do not refer directly to development and dynamics of propulsive activities, but rather to their effects. In this paper the author concluded that essential role may be played by fast-growing and knowledge-based small and medium enterprises (SMEs) while their intra-regional diversity of activity may be a reasonable proxy measure of a role played by specific town as a growth centre. Therefore the article has two main goals: methodical – determining the usefulness of the activity of fast-growing and (potentially) innovative small and medium enterprises as a designatum for the growth pole and cognitive – to capture the spatial differences in the distribution of this kind of SMEs in Podkarpackie region. The study showed strong diversification of the number of fast-growing and (potentially) innovative SMEs on the local level. All techniques of determining the level of economic development and it’s dynamics taken into consideration in the analysis testify to strong and rising position of Rzeszów as a regional growth pole. It indicates growing role of metropolisation processes in Poland even in case of peripheral, weakly urbanised region with a relatively small regional centre compared to the biggest Polish cities.

U-10wt.%Zr metallic fuel slugs containing rare-earth (RE: a rare-earth alloy comprising 53% Nd, 25% Ce, 16% Pr and 6% La) elements for a sodium-cooled fast reactor were fabricated by modified injection casting as an alternative method. The distribution, size and composition of the RE inclusions in the metallic fuel slugs were investigated according to the content of the RE inclusions. There were no observed casting defects, such as shrunk pipes, micro-shrinkage or hot tears formed during solidification, in the metallic fuel slugs fabricated by modified injection casting. Scanning electron micrographs and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) showed that the Zr and RE inclusions were uniformly distributed in the matrix and the composition of the RE inclusions was similar to that of a charged RE element. The content and the size of the RE inclusions increased slightly according to the charge content of the RE elements. RE inclusions in U-Zr alloys will have a positive effect on fuel performance due to their micro-size and high degree of distribution.

In this paper, the effect of the resolution of an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) on the accuracy of timedomain low-frequency electrical impedance spectroscopy is examined. For the first time, we demonstrated that different wideband stimuli signals used for impedance spectroscopy have different sensitivities to the resolution of ADC used in impedance spectroscopy systems. We also proposed Ramp and Half-Gaussian signals as new wideband stimulating signals for EIS. The effect of ADC resolution was studied for Sinc, Gaussian, Half-Gaussian, and Ramp excitation signals using both simulation and experiments. We found that Ramp and Half-Gaussian signals have the best performance, especially at low frequencies. Based on the results, a wideband electrical impedance spectroscopy circuit was implemented with a high accuracy at frequencies bellow 10 Hz.

Brain-computer interface (BCI) is a device which allows paralyzed people to navigate a robot, prosthesis or wheelchair using only their own brains reactions. By creating a direct communication pathway between the human brain and a machine, without muscles contractions or activity from within the peripheral nervous system, BCI makes mapping persons intentions onto directive signals possible. One of the most commonly utilized phenomena in BCI is steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEP). If subject focuses attention on the flashing stimulus (with specified frequency) presented on the computer screen, a signal of the same frequency will appear in his or hers visual cortex and from there it can be measured. When there is more than one stimulus on the screen (each flashing with a different frequency) then based on the outcomes of the signal analysis we can predict at which of these objects (e.g., rectangles) subject was/is looking at that particular moment. Proper preprocessing steps have taken place in order to obtain maximally accurate stimuli recognition (as the specific frequency). In the current article, we compared various preprocessing and processing methods for BCI purposes. Combinations of spatial and temporal filtration methods and the proceeding blind source separation (BSS) were evaluated in terms of the resulting decoding accuracy. Canonical-correlation analysis (CCA) to signals classification was used.

An isogeometric boundary element method is applied to simulate wave scattering problems governed by the Helmholtz equation. The NURBS (non-uniform rational B-splines) widely used in the CAD (computer aided design) field is applied to represent the geometric model and approximate physical field variables. The Burton-Miller formulation is used to overcome the fictitious frequency problem when using a single Helmholtz boundary integral equation for exterior boundary-value problems. The singular integrals existing in Burton-Miller formulation are evaluated directly and accurately using Hadamard’s finite part integration. Fast multipole method is applied to accelerate the solution of the system of equations. It is demonstrated that the isogeometric boundary element method based on NURBS performs better than the conventional approach based on Lagrange basis functions in terms of accuracy, and the use of the fast multipole method both retains the accuracy for isogeometric boundary element method and reduces the computational cost.

A lightning protection system (LPS) of an urban 110 kV substation is designed and analysed according to NFPA 780 and IEC 62305-3 standards. The analysis of the LPS is established on the value of risk assessment. The total area of the plant is described by one soil layer with uniform resistivity. This study aims to improve the understanding of an unexpected manner of the grounding system beneath lightning currents by clarifying the basic concepts of the lightning protection level and the new design procedure in this paper was clarified according to NFPA-780 level 1 for a lightning protection system. The program is integrated with the CDEGS software, which provides effective geometrical modeling with object and result visualization. Furthermore, module and automated fast Fourier transform (FFT) is implemented in this study to simulate electromagnetic fields in the time and frequency domains. These current values are compared to the desired protection levels within the standards. The study results show that for the improved protection of the system against lightning, the total power grid must be considered as a source of improvement for studying shielding influence and the protection levels provided inside this substation.