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In this paper the accelerated aging experiments of oil-paper insulation are carried out to simulate the oil-paper aging process under normal thermal aging process. On the basis of the results of accelerated aging experiments, how the deviation degree of aging status change under the same aging factors is studied, and a method to calculate the failure probability due to the loss of mechanical strength of the insulation is put forward. This paper presents an approach for economic assessment on insulation diagnosis through accelerated aging experiments. The foundation of this approach for economic assessment on insulation diagnosis is to establish condition simulation method of triple relationships between condition status, aging time and failure probability according to data from accelerated aging experiments. The conclusions are made that the economic and technical factors can affect the optimum life cycle cost of each maintenance strategy, which consequently affects the economic feasibility of condition-based maintenance strategies.

In a previous article, i wrote a brief piece on how to enhance papers that have been published at one of the IEEE Consumer Electronics (CE) Society conferences to create papers that can be considered for publishing in IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics (T-CE) [1]. Basically, it included some hints and tips to enhance a conference paper into what is required for a full archival journal paper and not fall foul of self-plagiarism. This article focuses on writing original papers specifically for T-CE.

High voltage (HV) transients in electrical power systems are mainly caused by lightning strikes and switching operations. The dielectric properties of a particular electrical insulation at the instant of interaction with a high voltage transient would determine a level of the degradation of an electrical insulation. This work investigates how high voltage impulses would change Phase Resolved Partial Discharge (PRPD) patterns in test samples consisting of a cavity deliberately introduced between the sheets of oil-impregnated paper used in power transformer bushings. It also investigates how the change in PRPD patterns is related to the degradation level of oilimpregnated paper. In order to accomplish these objectives, the experiments were set in such a way that the effect of HV impulses and an early stage PD activity at an elevated AC stress, HV impulses in combination with a prolonged PD activity at an elevated AC stress, and a prolonged PD activity alone at an elevated AC stress could be investigated separately. The experimental results presented in this paper indicate that HV impulses below the impulse breakdown stress following an early stage AC PD activity would not cause a significant change in PRPD patterns, and would not damage oil-impregnated paper to a level which can be noticed by a visual observation. On the other hand, a prolonged AC PD activity alone can cause the change in PRPD patterns, but cannot quickly damage the oil-impregnated paper as it would do when it is combined with HV impulses. However, the combination of both, HV impulses and a prolonged AC PD activity caused a high drop in the PD parameters (total PD charge and a repetition rate). The study found that the decrease of the PD parameters can be considered as a sign of severe degradation of oil-impregnated paper.

The IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) reviews paper on following topics: industrial power systems; commercial power systems; power system engineering; power system protection; electric machines; rural electric power; industrial drives; industrial power converter; power electronics devices; power electronics components; sustainable energy conversion systems; transportation systems; industrial lighting; industrial display; electrical safety; pulp industry and paper industry.

Origamic architecture (OA) is a form of papercraft that involves cutting and folding a single sheet of paper to produce a 3D pop-up, and is commonly used to depict architectural structures. Because of the strict geometric and physical constraints, OA design requires considerable skill and effort. In this paper, we present a method to automatically generate an OA design that closely depicts an input 3D model. Our algorithm is guided by a novel set of geometric conditions to guarantee the foldability and stability of the generated pop-ups. The generality of the conditions allows our algorithm to generate valid pop-up structures that are previously not accounted for by other algorithms. Our method takes a novel image-domain approach to convert the input model to an OA design. It performs surface segmentation of the input model in the image domain, and carefully represents each surface with a set of parallel patches. Patches are then modified to make the entire structure foldable and stable. Visual and quantitative comparisons of results have shown our algorithm to be significantly better than the existing methods in the preservation of contours, surfaces, and volume. The designs have also been shown to more closely resemble those created by real artists.

As you might know, the year 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility. As part of the 50th anniversary of the EMC Transactions, the 50 most referenced papers of the Transactions were identified using IEEE Xplore and are presented in Table 1. The top referenced paper of the Transactions is the classical paper by G. Mur (Absorbing Boundary Conditions for the Finite-Difference Approximation of the Time-Domain Electromagnetic-Field, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1981). The paper deals with the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique and the author presents highly absorbing boundary conditions that can be used for both two-and three-dimensional configurations.

At a recent IEEE Panel of Editors meeting, John Baillieul, chair of the IEEE Publications Strategic Planning Committee, challenged the audience to go beyond the traditional thinking that papers are publication units. At first, one may wonder why we need to go beyond papers in the first place. But, on second thought, this idea makes perfect sense. The whole purpose of writing a paper is for others to read it and use its results. Let us, therefore, consider the publication process from the viewpoint of the reader.

At IEEE I2MTC 2019 in Auckland this past May, we had the sophomore edition of the TIM@I2MTC program, which started at IEEE I2MTC 2018 in Houston. Under this program, authors of all published or e-published papers during a given calendar year in the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement (TIM) have the option to present their TIM paper at the next year's I2MTC in a specially designated poster session. For example, at IEEE I2MTC 2019 in Auckland, TIM papers published or e-published in 2018 were eligible for presentation. Authors who would like to take advantage of this opportunity will simply have to register their paper by the given deadline. There is no review process—the paper will be automatically accepted for presentation, and its title, abstract, and authors list will appear in the conference program—though the paper itself will not appear in the conference proceedings since it is already published on IEEE Xplore as a TIM paper.

The winner of the 2019 Transactions on Plasma Science Best Paper Award has been selected (refer to our Transactions home page for details about the award at https://ieee-npss.org/publications/transactions-on-plasma-science/ ). This year is the first year that the award is being given, and I am pleased to announce that Prof. Noah Hirshkowitz, of the Department of Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin (UW), Madison, WI, USA, is the winner for his paper, “43 years of Fun Basic Plasma Physics Experiments,” published in the Transactions in 2016 (vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 347–363).

The following paper was selected for the 2018 IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award from papers that appeared in 2016–2017: “Multimode Q Control in Tapping-Mode AFM: Enabling Imaging on Higher Flexural Eigenmodes” by Michael G. Ruppert and S. O. Reza Moheimani Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 1149–1159, July 2016.

The recipients of the 2018 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award are Arash Gholami Davoodi and Syed A. Jafar for the paper “Aligned Image Sets Under Channel Uncertainty: Settling Conjectures on the Collapse of Degrees of Freedom Under Finite Precision CSIT” which appeared in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 62, no. 10, pp. 5603–5618, October 2016.

Main insulation of windings connected with valves in high voltage direct current (HVDC) convert transformers withstands pulsating DC voltages. This paper presents breakdown properties of oil-impregnated paper under pulsating DC voltages at different temperatures. Progressive stress tests were carried out to obtain breakdown voltages of oil-impregnated paper with thickness of 0.2 mm under pulsating DC voltages at different temperatures. Constant stress tests were executed to measure time to breakdown of the oil-paper specimens. Both types of the experiments were also undertaken under either AC or DC voltages. An electrical aging lifetime model was proposed for the oil-impregnated paper, and parameters of the electrical aging lifetime model were presented. Experiments and analysis results show that the breakdown voltages and time to breakdown of oil-paper insulation are influenced by temperature significantly.

For the first time, high quality factor (Q), meander inductors are demonstrated utilizing inkjet-printing on organic paper substrates. Quality factors of up to 25, which is an order of magnitude greater than previous works, and inductance values of up to 8 nH are achieved. The high self-resonance frequency (SRF) of 8 GHz makes it possible for the inductors to be used in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz RFID bands, and in 5 GHz Wifi band. Furthermore, a study into the performance and miniaturization effects of inkjet-printing ferromagnetic nanomaterial onto the inductors shows increases in inductance of up to 5%. Applications for inkjet printed inductors include all-printed flexible and wearable filters, resonators, and microwave matching networks.

In high voltage engineering, dielectric response analysis is a widely used tool for insulation diagnostic. Voltages used for studying dielectric response in the laboratory are usually sinusoidal in nature. But the insulation system in operation on site is often stressed by voltages that may deviate significantly from a sinusoid. Thus the use of nonsinusoidal waveform in obtaining the dielectric response is a desirable study for advanced insulation diagnostic technique. Present work involves assessing the condition of electrical insulation using dielectric response analysis under the influence of nonsinusoidal voltage waveform. In dielectric response analysis, characteristics curve of phase response over a frequency band is used to predict the insulation condition, which involves expertise. In this respect parameterization of insulation condition can make the assessment technique much simpler. But the nonlinear behavior of insulation restricts such an attempt to be accurate enough for reliable assessment of minute degradation of insulation condition. Therefore, the present work proposes a non-linear system identification technique, in an attempt to parameterize insulation condition. In this work, a suitable excitation signal has been designed so that the observed response becomes representative of the behavior of the whole system dynamics over the frequency band of interest. Tests have been performed with insulations having different moisture contents. The obtained system parameters, through nonlinear Hammerstein model, were found to be consistent over several experiments, and also accurate enough to detect small variation of moisture content. The proposed method is based on the time domain measurement of input excitation voltage and corresponding response current through the insulation.

Writer verification is a method to specify an authentic writer from handwriting. Automated writer verification methods are required for various applications (e.g., credit cards, checks, and passports). However, there is room for improvement in the performance of such methods compared with the performance of human beings, for example, forensic document examiners. Because automated writer verification systems do not always return correct results under any circumstances, which can lead to grave consequences, further research is required to improve the performance of such methods. Furthermore, problems caused by limited samples must be solved for real applications. To improve verification accuracy with limited samples, we propose a text and user generic model for writer verification that uses a combination of pen pressure information from ink intensity and writing indentations obtained by a multiband image scanner. We introduce a writer-specific dissimilarity representation to consider individual handwriting characteristics that affect model performance. Experimental results obtained using handwriting samples collected from 54 volunteers are reported. The results show a decrease in error rate compared with conventional methods from 10.0% to 4.0%.

This special issue features twelve selected papers from ISSCC 2015, held in San Francisco, CA, from February 22–26, 2015.

The prototype O system seamlessly integrates Web searching and browsing on touch-enabled tablets using two-handed gesture interaction, much like handling and marking content on a piece of paper. The system also leverages contextual information to infer user intent and significantly improve search results over traditional keyword-based approaches, enabling users to go beyond websites' "walled garden"' and more fully explore information objects.

A multilayer polymeric photodetector fabricated on a paper substrate by inkjet and aerosol jet printing has been demonstrated. It employs a poly(3-hexylthiophene) and C61-butyric acid methyl ester blend (P3HT:PCBM) as a photoactive layer sandwiched between a silver bottom electrode and a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) top electrode. A deoxyribonucleic acid biopolymer interlayer between P3HT:PCBM and PEDOT:PSS top electrode enables the printing of the PEDOT:PSS on P3HT:PCBM. The printed photodetector exhibits a photoresponse when photoexcited by four different light emitting diodes with center wavelengths of 405, 465, 525, and 635 nm. The highest responsivity was observed at 405 nm. The responsivity to pulsed light reveals a strong frequency dependence from 25 to 1000 Hz.

The papers in this special section were presented a the 2018 Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC) that took place in San Diego, CA, March 2018.

In this work, we report on the fabrication of hybrid n-channel thin film transistors using paper as substrate and gate insulator, and indium oxide (In2O3) thin films as channel layer, and contacts for the source, drain and gate respectively. Capacitor paper having 10 μm thickness was used. In2O3 thin films were grown by pulsed electron beam deposition method at room temperature. The gate leakage current was 20 nA at 5 V and the on/off current ratio up to 6×104, limited mainly by the gate leakage. The transfer characteristics -Id (Vgs)- showed a memory effect with a threshold voltage of 0.8 V in “0” state and -3.6 V in “1” state. The drain current-voltage characteristics family -Id (Vds)- showed saturation currents up to 3.5 mA in “1”state and about 500 μA in “0” state. The subthreshold swing was 0.3-0.5 V/decade.

The feasibility of electrically conductive paper as a low-cost and eco-friendly alternative to copper is presented for application as an antenna conductor in UHF radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems. The conductivity of the paper is determined to be 50 S/m and the effect of such a low conductivity on the radiation performance of a half-wavelength dipole is investigated through simulation and experimental measurements. The radiation efficiency of a dipole cut from a 0.4 mm thick conductive paper sheet is measured to be 5.0%, which translates to an RFID tag read range of 22% of that obtained using copper. This performance is deemed unacceptable for most antenna applications. However, through simulation a conductivity of 500 S/m is identified as a reasonable target for the developers of conductive paper as the current distribution and terminal properties of the resulting antenna become similar to those observed when using copper. The radiation efficiency is projected at 56 % in this case, resulting in an RFID read range of 73% of that obtained using copper.

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is intended to supplant legacy (optical) bar code scanning technology found in many logistic and retail applications. RFID is distinguished by inexpensive, low power and compact form factor tags, whose longevity and efficacy are predicated on using passive communication techniques and on-tag power harvesting. Such tags employ backscatter modulation, which does not require any active RF components. As a result, backscatter has become an attractive design choice for short-range communications in power constrained wireless sensor networking scenarios. The purpose of this work is two-fold. First, it aims to expose backscatter communication as an emerging topic to a communication systems-theoretic audience. Since backscatter modulation and on-tag power harvesting efficiency are coupled, it is necessary to re-examine notions of power and spectral efficiency from an energy-constraint perspective; this leads to novel coded modulation schemes for future RFID systems. Further, we investigate RFID MIMO systems where the channel fading encountered has different statistics than the classical Rayleigh fading model. In turn,the trade off between diversity order and spatial multiplexing gains are distinct from wide-area MIMO.

This paper presents the prototype implementation of a Bio-Patch using fully integrated low-power System-on-Chip (SoC) sensor and paper-based inkjet printing technology. The SoC sensor is featured with programmable gain and bandwidth to accommodate a variety of bio-signals. It is fabricated in a 0.18-ìm standard CMOS technology, with a total power consumption of 20 ìW from a 1.2 V supply. Both the electrodes and interconnections are implemented by printing conductive nano-particle inks on a flexible photo paper substrate using inkjet printing technology. A Bio-Patch prototype is developed by integrating the SoC sensor, a soft battery, printed electrodes and interconnections on a photo paper substrate. The Bio-Patch can work alone or operate along with other patches to establish a wired network for synchronous multiple-channel bio-signals recording. The measurement results show that electrocardiogram and electromyogram are successfully measured in in-vivo tests using the implemented Bio-Patch prototype.

A complete characterization of the inkjet printing process using metallic nanoparticle inks on a paper substrate for microwave frequencies up to 12.5 GHz as well as its application to low-cost, high gain and wideband antenna design are demonstrated in this work. Laser and heat sintering of metallic nanoparticles are compared on paper substrate for the first time which demonstrate immense cost and time benefits of laser sintering. The antennas fabricated using the characterized process include a Vivaldi for the UWB band which exhibits a significantly higher gain of up to 8 dBi as compared to the currently published inkjet printed antennas, and a novel slow-wave log periodic dipole array which employs a new miniaturization technique to show 20% width reduction.

This paper presents the evolution of the publication of microstrip antenna papers in the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. Both the number of papers and the topics of the papers are examined. To set the reference point and the general trends, the most relevant figures and statistics of all the papers published in the journal since 1970 are also analyzed.

Oxide-based thin-film transistors (TFTs) with a lateral in-plane electrode are self-assembled on paper substrates, and the electrical modulation effect of the in-plane electrode is investigated. A SiO2-based solid-electrolyte film with high specific capacitance is used as the gate dielectric, and the operation voltage is reduced to less than 2.0 V. The threshold voltage (Vth) of such paper TFTs is tuned from -0.98 to 0.94 V by different voltage biases on the in-plane electrode. The threshold voltage shift (ΔVth) can be described by ΔVth = -(CG2/CG1)VG2, where CG2 and CG1 are the in-plane electrode and bottom-gate specific capacitance values. High electrical performance with a current on/off ratio of 6 ×105 ~ 106, a subthreshold swing of 0.14 ~ 0.19 V/dec, and a mobility of 8.64 ~ 9.45 cm2/V·s is obtained at different in-plane electrode voltage biases. Such low-voltage paper TFTs are promising for low-cost and portable electronics.

The paper used to insulate the windings of power transformers is mostly made from wood pulp, a cellulosic material. Over decades the paper is slowly attacked by water, oxygen, oil acids, and high temperatures and eventually degrades to the point where it is no longer an effective insulator. The transformer is then likely to fail. Power utilities need to know when a transformer is nearing the end of its useful life in order to plan its replacement. However, a problem with monitoring the condition of the paper within a transformer is that it may be difficult to obtain a sample to test. Furthermore, a particular sample may not accurately reflect the overall paper condition. A power transformer operating in Australia failed in 2010. Thus we had the opportunity to study the paper condition at various points within the transformer and evaluate the validity of the current understanding of paper aging. In this article we discuss the mechanisms of cellulose degradation, and the associated equations, and apply them to the paper insulation in the failed transformer.

Realization of a U-slot tri-band monopole antenna on a low-cost paper substrate using inkjet-printed technology is presented for the first time. The U-shaped slot is optimized to enhance the bandwidth and to achieve tri-band operation of 1.57, 3.2, and 5 GHz with measured impedance bandwidths of 3.21%, 28.1%, and 36%, respectively. The antenna is fabricated through a metallic nanoparticle ink on a standard commercial paper. Thus, the antenna can be used to cover the GPS, WiMAX, HiperLAN/2, and WLAN. The antenna has a compact size of 12 × 37.3 × 0.44 mm3, leaving enough space for the driving electronics on the paper substrate. The impedance bandwidth, current distributions, radiation patterns, gain, and efficiency of the antenna have been studied through computer simulations and measurements.

This paper reviews some of the many published technical papers relating to the measurement of IC emissions using a 1 GHz TEM cell or GTEM cell modified to accept an IC test board and provides a basis for correlation between these IC level measurements and module level RF emissions. We will follow the development of this methodology from the early investigations through the later applications to show the viability of the technique for IC qualification. Developments over time have shown that this method of IC emission measurement is repeatable, correlatable to other methods and provides, within limits, useful prediction of module level RF emissions performance.

With the explosion of “big data” in the past decade, exploring and mining the value hidden in the data has already generated a lot of innovative applications, especially the recent advances of AI applications. The data governance, including activities of data creation, sharing, exchange, management, analytics, tracing, and accounting, has drawn a lot of attentions. Services computing establishes the foundation of current data governance, typically in a centralized fashion, e.g., the cloud-based storage services and analytic services. However, the potential values of big data distributed on the Internet are far away from being adequately explored. Considering the infrastructure revolution made by the blockchain, in this position article, we try to rethink a new data governance fashion that is built upon the blockchain-based decentralized services computing paradigm. The core principle is that data owners are able to publish their data as a set of services that can be deployed independently from the application systems where the data were born. Meanwhile, data owners can define service rules/policies where their data should be stored and how the data can be shared, and keep governing the whole lifecycle record of how their data are actually used. Similar to existing services computing paradigm, data users can search, discover, integrate, and analyze the data in a decentralized fashion. With this perspective, we try to discuss some key insights and enumerate several related new technologies and open challenges, in terms of programmability, interoperability, and intelligence.

The papers in this special issue were presented at the 5th ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics, held in Newport Beach, CA in September 2014, The papers address the use of computational modeling in the biological and health research fields. With the new high throughput devices, such as sequencers and imaging devices, and ubiquitous sensor technologies, the landscape of how we do biomedical research; how the knowledge is curated; and results are delivered to stake holders are constantly changing.

Video halftoning is a key technology for use in electronic paper (e-paper) or smart paper, which is an emerging display device that has received considerable attention recently. In this paper, a temporal frequency of flickering-distortion optimized video halftoning method is proposed. We first uncover three visual defects that conventional neighboring frame referencing-based video halftoning methods, due to their sequential changes of reference frames, will encounter. To deal with the problem, we then propose a reference frame update per GOP-based error diffusion video halftoning method based on a flickering sensitivity-based human visual model. To efficiently compromise between average temporal frequency of flickering (ATFoF) and visual quality, temporal frequency of flickering-distortion (TFoFD) is presented as a metric for video halftoning performance evaluation. Based on the proposed probability model of video halftoning, the TFoFD curve can be accurately estimated to optimize the tradeoff between quality and ATFoF before the video is halftoned. Our temporal frequency of flickering-distortion optimization strategy can also be applied to other video halftoning schemes for performance improvement. Experimental results and comparisons with known methods demonstrate the effectiveness of our video halftoning method.

When pursuing an unfamiliar research direction, a researcher, possibly a PhD student, must undertake a literature search. This search aims to discover what research has already been carried out in a given field (solved problems) and what research hasn't (unsolved problems). However, in visualization and computer graphics, reading a refereed conference or journal paper can be challenging owing to its high level of specialization, complexity, and detail. Such papers often present a detailed mathematical framework accompanied by algorithms and data structures to carry them out and are usually written by (or with the aid of) experts in the field with many years' experience. This complex ity comes as no great surprise because a single paper is often the result of many (combined) person-years of work.

This paper presents aging condition assessment of oil-paper transformer insulation based on partial discharge analysis in order to realize statistical parameters reduction. The extracted feature factors of this proposed model were used to identify oil-paper samples with different aging degrees. An accelerated aging test was implemented using artificial oil-paper samples with an internal flat air gap. During the aging test, partial discharge signal acquisition was conducted periodically. In the new model, conventional statistical parameters of phase resolved partial discharge (PRPD) patterns were analyzed using principal component and factor analysis (PCFA), and a group of new features constituted by the extracted factors was obtained. These factors were not only independent of one another, they had their own specific properties. To a great extent, these factors represent information on PRPD patterns through a limited number of variables. Through the use of the new features extracted from PCFA method, the clustering and discriminating results of the samples with different aging stages provided significantly referenced information on the condition assessment of oil-paper insulation.

In this paper we present User Customizable Logic Paper (UCLP) with a Sea-of Transmission-Gates (SOTG) of 2-V organic CMOS transistors. This can enable users to fabricate custom integrated circuits, by printing 200 wide interconnects with at-home ink-jet printers for the prototyping of large-area electronics and educational purposes. The SOTG reduces the area of the circuits in UCLP by between 11% and 85% compared with a conventional gate array architecture.

For the first time, we demonstrate the feasibility of realizing ultra-wideband antennas through ink-jetting of conductive inks on commercially available paper sheets (paper as an RF substrate). The characterization of the conductive ink as well as of the electrical properties of the paper substrate is reported for frequencies up to 10GHz. This work is one step further towards the development of low-cost environmentfriendly conformal printed antennas/electronics for ad-hoc wireless sensor networks operating in rugged environments.

The 30th International Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics Conference (ACES) was held on March 23?27, 2014, in Jacksonville, Florida. The ACES conference once again provided an opportunity for students to present their research in computational electromagnetics in a special student paper competition session, and to compete for cash prizes. ACES requires participants to be the only student authors of the submitted papers.

A printed lateral resistive fuse-type write-once-read-many (WORM) memory on paper substrate is demonstrated. The memory writing process is based on breaking of a silver nanoparticle conductor. Low-voltage and low-current writability demonstrated with printed batteries are enabled by a μm2-range cross-sectional bit area that are achieved by super-fine inkjet technology. Supported by the statistical distribution of the writing times, the bit writing process is attributed to electromigration of silver and the required current density for fusing is found to be 34 mA/μm2. The results show an improvement in memory retention time when compared with structurally similar printed antifuse-type WORM memories

Significant gain and bandwidth improvement of inkjet-printed antennas with integrated artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) is achieved by utilizing wideband ground-backed frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) to overcome the high losses of organic substrates such as paper. A microstrip-fed monopole mounted on an artificial magnetic conductor is demonstrated to improve the gain by 5 dB over previous works and exhibit much wider impedance bandwidth while maintaining a thin antenna profile and a 20% electrical size reduction. The effect of AMC bandwidth on substrate losses and the gain reduction caused by finite AMC array effects are investigated in an effort to produce high-gain, miniaturized, low-cost wearable and structure mount antennas.

In our profession, there are two main ways of publishing new results: as a paper in conference proceedings and as a journal paper. A few decades ago, the arrangement was very clear: conference proceedings were difficult to find and, therefore, not considered to be archival. As a result, authors of good conference papers were encouraged to extend their conference papers into journal versions. In many cases, the resulting extended versions appeared in easier-to-access form as journal papers. The amount of extension differed from paper to paper, often extensions were reasonably minor-but this was an accepted practice because it made results more accessible to others.

This paper presents the design, fabrication and measurements of a direct-write printed low-cost and flexible inverted-F antenna on an ultra-low-cost paper-based organic substrate for wireless local area network (WLAN) and flexible display applications. Innovations include the study and utilization of paper as a high-frequency substrate for the first time in the gigahertz (GHz) range, the fabrication technology for the direct-write printing of the antenna as a flexible RF electronic device, and the investigation of antenna flexibility in conjunction with flexible displays. Although paper substrates exhibit relatively high dielectric losses (tanδ ~ 0.065 at 2.45 GHz), the maximum realized gain of the fabricated antenna is measured to be + 1.2 dBi giving a total efficiency ~ 82%. Simulated results of the antenna's return loss and radiation patterns agree well with the measurements, and can lead to a whole new class of flexible low-cost electronic devices of the future.

Using a within-subjects field experiment, we tested the differences between paper-based and electronic employee surveys. Employees of a large organization were invited to respond to a paper survey as well as an identical electronic survey. Results from 134 employees who completed both questionnaires indicated that electronic surveys were seen as marginally easier to use and more enjoyable than paper surveys. However, the paper-based questionnaires produced a higher response rate. The self-reported likelihood that participants would respond to similar questionnaires in the future did not differ between the two formats. After comparing the answers on survey items that measured feelings of well-being and spending patterns, data quality also appeared to be equivalent across the two formats. Conceptual issues, as well as the implications for managers who are administering employee surveys, are discussed.

This paper discusses the evolution towards the first integrated radio-frequency identification (RFID)-enabled wireless sensor network infrastructure using ultra-high frequency/radio frequency (UHF/RF) RFID-enabled sensor nodes and inkjet-printed electronics technologies on flexible and paper substrates for the first time ever. The first sections highlight the unique capabilities of inkjet printed electronics as well as the benefits of using paper as the ultra-low-cost, conformal and environmentally friendly substrate for the mass-scale ubiquitous implementation of the first RFID-enabled wireless sensing applications. Various inkjet-printed antenna configurations are presented for enhanced-range compact RFID-enabled sensing platforms in “rugged” environments up to 7 GHz, followed by the discussion of their 2-D integration with integrated circuit (IC) and sensors on paper. This integration is extended to a power-scavenging “smart-shoe” batteryless integrated RFID module on paper that could be used for autonomous wearable sensing applications with enhanced range. The paper concludes discussing the details for establishing for the first time an asynchronous wireless link between the aforementioned RFID-tags and a widely used commercial wireless sensor network (WSN) mote using a simplified protocol; a paramount step that could potentially create ubiquitous ultra-low-cost sensor networks and large-scale RFID implementations eliminating the need of expensive RFID reader infrastructure and linking RFIDs to the mature level of WSNs.

Alternating-current-type inorganic powder electroluminescence (PEL) devices were successfully fabricated on four kinds of paper substrates, i.e., glossy paper, sticker paper, magazine paper, and newspaper. To protect the paper from wet chemical and heating processes during the formation of the PEL device, the paper substrate was coated with a spin-on-glass layer that served as a buffer layer. In spite of the fragility of paper, quite satisfactory results were obtained-the performance of paper-based PEL devices was almost equivalent to that of PEL devices on a plastic substrate. Extension of a substrate to paper, even to flimsy daily newspaper, will widen the opportunity of PEL devices as one of flexible and disposable displays.

A thermal aging experiment was conducted for oil-paper insulation to evaluate the insulation's response under thermal stress. Oil-papers at different aging stages were used to create oil-paper bound gas cavity specimens, which were used to collect data on degrees of polymerization (DP) and partial discharge (PD). Evaluation of oil-paper aging was based on statistical operators of PD and factor analysis was used to extract the principle parameters of PD. Three types of fuzzy clustering approaches were used to classify PD of aged oil-paper: the fuzzy c-means, the kernel fuzzy c-means, and the possibilistic fuzzy c-means. The clustering results showed that the possibilistic fuzzy c-means clustering was capable of classifying PD of oil-paper bound gas cavity specimens. The factor analysis method was also verified to be helpful in fuzzy clustering of PD data samples by reducing number of parameters.

Questions are used to obtain information, stimulate thinking, and redirect reasoning. Academics in higher education use questions on a daily basis to stimulate thinking and reasoning in students. Final examination papers are used by academics to assess the retention and application skills of students. The assumption, however, exists that questions relating to application skills at universities of technology should start to dominate the higher academic levels in education, with a subsequent drop in questions regarding retention skills. These questions may be categorized as either higher order or lower order questions. This article attempts to distinguish between these two types of questions in light of Bloom's taxonomy, with similar concepts such as deep and surface learning being examined. The literature review is applied to an electrical engineering module titled Electronics, which serves as the case study. The results of this study indicate that a high percentage of the final examination papers dealt with the objective ?Application,? where students had to make use of numerous mathematical equations to solve various unknowns. The results also indicated that academics in electronics are using more lower order than higher order questions in their final examination papers. A balance is suggested between these two types of questions for various academic levels at universities of technology.

Dear readers, I am very pleased to announce that all previous backlog open call papers have been cleared up with the publication of this issue. It means that all later accepted papers, including both feature topic articles and open call articles will be published in the next available issue without any delay in 2014 and beyond. This achievement can be attributed to the support from the IEEE Communications Society allowing this magazine to publish more articles in every issue in 2013. Other good news is that the average turnaround time for the first editorial decision for this magazine in the previous year (from November 20, 2012 to November 20, 2013) has been reduced to 51 days, which is a new record in the history of this magazine.

The paper presents the application of the Cole-Cole model for determining the runs of the return voltage of the paper-oil insulation sample through a computer simulation. Different insulation conditions were simulated through an adequate selection of parameters ? and ? of the Cole-Cole model. For calculation purposes, a series - parallel substitute scheme, obtained through approximation of discrete characteristic operator impedance Za of the model applied, was used. The diagnostics of the simulated insulation condition was based on the analysis of a few selected parameters of the return voltage, obtained from time characteristics.