A compact microstrip six-port reflectometer (SPR) with extended bandwidth is proposed in this paper. The design is based on using 16-dB multi-section coupled line directional couplers and a multi-section 3-dB Wilkinson power divider operating from 1 to 6 GHz. The proposed SPR employs only two calibration standards: a matched load and an open load. As compared to other dielectric substrates, fabricating the proposed SPR involves using a low-cost (FR4) substrate. A novel algorithm is also proposed to estimate the complex reflection coefficient over the frequency ranges at which the standard performance of the circuit components is not fully satisfied. The new algorithm is based on the circles’ intersection points, which have been de

Recent years have witnessed an increase in the use of composite coatings for numerous applications, including aerospace, aircraft, and maritime vessels. These materials owe this popularity surge to the superior strength, weight, stiffness, and electrical insulation they exhibit over conventional substances, such as metals. The growing demand for such materials is accompanied by the inevitable need for fast, accurate, and affordable nondestructive testing techniques to reveal any possible defects within the coatings or any defects under coating. However, typical nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques such as ultrasonic testing (UT), infrared thermography (IRT), eddy current testing (ECT), and laser shearography (LS) have failed to p

A new modified differential evolution algorithm DE-BEA, is proposed to improve the reliability of the standard DE/current-to-rand/1/bin by implementing a new mutation scheme inspired by the bacterial evolutionary algorithm (BEA). The crossover and the selection schemes of the DE method are also modified to fit the new DE-BEA mechanism. The new scheme diversifies the population by applying to all the individuals a segment based scheme that generates multiple copies (clones) from each individual one-by-one and applies the BEA segment-wise mechanism. These new steps are embedded in the DE/current-to-rand/bin scheme. The performance of the new algorithm has been compared with several DE variants over eighteen benchmark functions including sever

This review discusses precision agriculture techniques that help reduce the effects of soil degradation and improve soil health, based on an analysis of studies published in scientific databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect, with an emphasis on recent field research. The methodology included a qualitative analysis of case studies and application experiments in different areas to evaluate the impact of technologies such as controlled traffic farming (CTF), mechanized guidance (MG), precision fertilization (PF), precision irrigation (PI), conservation tillage (CT), and precision tillage (PT). Research results showed, CT to maintain soil structure and reduce organic matter loss increases soil f

The author’s taxonomy of the archaic temporally deactivated vocabulary, compiled on the poems by A.S. Pushkin, has been proposed in the article. The definitions of the concepts “obsolete lexicon”, “archaisms” in modern linguistics have been represented. The key approaches and criteria for the classification of archaic vocabulary, which occur at different levels of language: phonetic / phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic have been outlined. An attempt has been made to classify the archaic vocabulary represented in the poems by A.S. Pushkin. The following thematic groups have been give: complete archaisms and partial archaisms, among which, in turn, can be traced: phonetic / phonological, graphic, word-building archai