Abstract
Tapering single mode-multimode-single mode structures to enhance sensitivity is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. 50 mm-long coreless MMF sections are spliced between SMFs and tapered. They are characterized in strain and an increase in strain sensitivity is obtained with taper diameter reduction. Sensitivities as high as -23.69 pm/mu epsilon for the 15 mu m taper are attained. A combination of an untapered and tapered SMS is proposed as a sensing system for the simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature.

Abstract
In this work a fiber optic interferometric system for differential refractive index measurement is described. The system is based on a white light Mach-Zehnder configuration, with serrodyne phase modulation, to interrogate two similar non-adiabatic tapered optical fiber sensors in a differential scheme. In this situation it is possible to measure the refractive index independent of temperature. Signal processing with low cost digital instrumentation developed in Labview environment allows a detectable change in refractive index of Delta n approximate to 2x10(-6), which is, from the best of our knowledge the highest resolution achieved using a fiber taper device. The results demonstrate the potential of the proposed scheme to operate as chemical and biological sensing platform.

Abstract
We present a jamming protocol for secrecy-enhanced wireless networks in which otherwise silent devices are selected as jammers to cause interference to potential eavesdroppers. This cooperative protocol includes several jammer selection policies that lead to different levels of secrecy-energy tradeoffs. Our results show that there is some advantage over selecting well-connected jammers and there is a need for a minimum number of jammers for the energy cost of jamming to payoff.

Abstract
PhenoSat is an experimental software tool that extracts phenological information from satellite vegetation index time-series. Temporal satellite NDVI data provided by VEGETATION sensor from three different vegetation types (Vineyard, Closed Deciduous Forest and Deciduous Shrubland with Sparse Trees) and for different geographical locations were used to test the ability of the software in extracting vegetation dynamics information. Six noise reduction filters were tested: piecewise-logistic, Savitzky-Golay, cubic smoothing splines, Gaussian models, Fourier series and polynomial curve fitting. The results showed that PhenoSat is an useful tool to extract phenological NDVI metrics, providing similar results to those obtained from field measurements. The best results presented correlations of 0.89 (n=6; p<0.01) and 0.71 (n=6; p<0.06) for the green-up and maximum stages, respectively. In the fitting process, the polynomial and Gaussian algorithms over smoothed the peak related with a double-growth season, the opposite to the other methods that could detect more accurately this peak.

Abstract

Abstract
A fiber optic sensor for simultaneous measurement of refractive index and temperature is presented. The sensing probe is achieved by introducing multimode interference inside a high birefringence fiber loop mirror resulting in a configuration capable of refractive index and temperature discrimination. The multimode interference peak is sensitive to the surrounding refractive index (90 nm/RIU) and slightly responsive to the temperature (0.005 nm/degrees C). On the other hand, the birrefringent fiber loop mirror is highly sensitive to temperature (2.39 nm/degrees C) and has no response to refractive index. Therefore, a temperature independent refractive index measurement can be made with a resolution of +/- 2.5x10(-5).