Search results for: time series local fractal properties

Authors: Nigina Toktasynova, Sholpan Sagyndykova, Zhanat Kenzhebayeva, Maksat Kalimoldayev, Mariya Ishimova, Irbulat Utepbergenov

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Any business needs a stable operation and continuous improvement, therefore it is necessary to constantly interact with the environment, to analyze the work of the enterprise in terms of employees, executives and consumers, as well as to correct any inconsistencies of certain types of processes and their aggregate. In the case of heat supply organizations, in addition to suppliers, local legislation must be considered which often is the main regulator of pricing of services. In this case, the process approach used to build a functional organizational structure in these types of businesses in Kazakhstan is a challenge not only in the implementation, but also in ways of analyzing the employee's salary. To solve these problems, we investigated the management system of heating enterprise, including strategic planning based on the balanced scorecard (BSC), quality management in accordance with the standards of the Quality Management System (QMS) ISO 9001 and analysis of the system based on expert judgment using fuzzy inference. To carry out our work we used the theory of fuzzy sets, the QMS in accordance with ISO 9001, BSC according to the method of Kaplan and Norton, method of construction of business processes according to the notation IDEF0, theory of modeling using Matlab software simulation tools and graphical programming LabVIEW. The results of the work are as follows: We determined possibilities of improving the management of heat-supply plant-based on QMS; after the justification and adaptation of software tool it has been used to automate a series of functions for the management and reduction of resources and for the maintenance of the system up to date; an application for the analysis of the QMS based on fuzzy inference has been created with novel organization of communication software with the application enabling the analysis of relevant data of enterprise management system.

Keywords: balanced scorecard, heat supply, quality management system, the theory of fuzzy sets

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Authors: Eric Mensah

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The effects of rapid urbanisation of tropical sub-Saharan developing cities on local and global climate are of great concern due to the negative impacts of Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects. The importance of urban parks, vegetative cover and forest reserves in these tropical cities have been undervalued with a rapid degradation and loss of these vegetative covers to urban developments which continue to cause an increase in daily mean temperatures and changes to local climatic conditions. Using Landsat data of the same months and period intervals, the spatial variations of land cover changes, temperature, and vegetation were examined to determine how vegetation improves local temperature and the effects of urbanisation on daily mean temperatures over the past 12 years. The remote sensing techniques of maximum likelihood supervised classification, land surface temperature retrieval technique, and normalised differential vegetation index techniques were used to analyse and create the land use land cover (LULC), land surface temperature (LST), and vegetation and non-vegetation cover maps respectively. Results from the study showed an increase in daily mean temperature by 0.80 °C as a result of rapid increase in urban area by 46.13 sq. km and loss of vegetative cover by 46.24 sq. km between 2005 and 2017. The LST map also shows the existence of UHI within the urban areas of Accra, the potential mitigating effects offered by the existence of forest and vegetative cover as demonstrated by the existence of cool islands around the Achimota ecological forest and University of Ghana botanical gardens areas.

Keywords: land surface temperature, climate, remote sensing, urbanisation

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Authors: Jann-Eike Saathoff, Kirill Alexander Schmoor, Martin Achmus, Mauricio Terceros

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By using partial factors of safety, uncertainties due to the inherent variability of the soil properties and loads are taken into account in the geotechnical design process. According to the reliability index concept in Eurocode-0 in conjunction with Eurocode-7 a minimum safety level of β = 3.8 for reliability class RC2 shall be established. The reliability of the system depends heavily on the choice of the prespecified safety factor and the choice of the characteristic soil properties. The safety factors stated in the standards are mainly based on experience. However, no general accepted method for the calculation of a characteristic value within the current design practice exists. In this study, a laterally loaded monopile is investigated and the influence of the chosen quantile values of the deterministic system, calculated with p-y springs, will be presented. Monopiles are the most common foundation concepts for offshore wind energy converters. Based on the calculations for non-cohesive soils, a recommendation for an appropriate quantile value for the necessary safety level according to the standards for a deterministic design is given.

Keywords: asymptotic sampling, characteristic value, monopile foundation, probabilistic design, quantile values

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Authors: Mallikarjunachari Gangapuram

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The design of stimuli-responsive hydrogel nanocomposite thin films is gaining significant attention in these days due to its wide variety of applications. Soft microrobots, drug delivery, biosensors, regenerative medicine, bacterial adhesion, energy storage and wound dressing are few advanced applications in different fields. In this research work, the nanomechanical properties of composite thin films of 20 microns were tuned by applying homogeneous external DC, and AC magnetic fields of magnitudes 0.05 T and 0.1 T. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) used as a matrix material and elliptical hematite nanoparticles (ratio of the length of the major axis to the length of the minor axis is 140.59 ± 1.072 nm/52.84 ± 1.072 nm) used as filler materials to prepare the nanocomposite thin films. Both quasi-static nanoindentation, Nano Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (Nano-DMA) tests were performed to characterize the viscoelastic properties of PVA, PVA+Hematite (0.1% wt, 2% wt and 4% wt) nanocomposites. Different properties such as storage modulus, loss modulus, hardness, and Er/H were carefully analyzed. The increase in storage modulus, hardness, Er/H and a decrease in loss modulus were observed with increasing concentration and DC magnetic field followed by AC magnetic field. Contact angle and ATR-FTIR experiments were conducted to understand the molecular mechanisms such as hydrogen bond formation, crosslinking density, and particle-particle interactions. This systematic study is helpful in design and modeling of magnetic responsive hydrogel nanocomposite thin films for biomedical applications.

Keywords: hematite, hydrogel, nanoindentation, nano-DMA

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Authors: Ayman M. Othman, Hassan Y. Ahmed

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This paper discusses the effect of using blast furnace iron slag as a part of fine aggregate on the mechanical performance of hot mix asphalt (HMA). The mechanical performance was evaluated based on various mechanical properties that include; Marshall/stiffness, indirect tensile strength and unconfined compressive strength. The effect of iron slag content on the mechanical properties of the mixtures was also investigated. Four HMA with various iron slag contents, namely; 0%, 5%, 10% and 15% by weight of total mixture were studied. Laboratory testing has revealed an enhancement in the compressive strength of HMA when iron slag was used. Within the tested range of iron slag content, a considerable increase in the compressive strength of the mixtures was observed with the increase of slag content. No significant improvement on Marshall/stiffness and indirect tensile strength of the mixtures was observed when slag was used. Even so, blast furnace iron slag can still be used in asphalt paving for environmental advantages.

Keywords: blast furnace iron slag, compressive strength, HMA, indirect tensile strength, marshall/stiffness, mechanical performance, mechanical properties

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Authors: Sanjeev Kumar, S. K. Nath

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Proper selection of welding parameters for getting excellent weld is a challenge. HAZ simulation helps in identifying suitable welding parameters like heating rate, cooling rate, peak temperature, and energy input. In this study, the influence of weld thermal cycle of heat affected zone (HAZ) is simulated for Submerged Arc Welding (SAW) using Gleeble ® 3800 thermomechanical simulator. A (Micro-alloyed) MA steel plate of thickness 18 mm having yield strength 450MPa is used for making test specimens. Determination of the mechanical properties of weld simulated specimens including Charpy V-notch toughness and hardness is performed. Peak temperatures of 1300°C, 1150°C, 1000°C, 900°C, 800°C, heat energy input of 22KJ/cm and preheat temperatures of 30°C have been used with Rykalin-3D simulation model. It is found that the impact toughness (75J) is the best for the simulated HAZ specimen at the peak temperature 900ºC. For parent steel, impact toughness value is 26.8J at -50°C in transverse direction.

Keywords: HAZ simulation, mechanical properties, peak temperature, ship hull steel, weldability

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Authors: Ruedee Niyomrath

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The purposes of this research is aim to build the energy saving stove for stew coconut sugar. The research started from explores ceramic raw materials in local area, create the appropriate mixture of ceramic raw materials for construction material of stove, and make it by ceramic process. It includes design and build the energy saving stove, experiment the efficiency of energy saving stove as to thermal efficiency, energy saving, performance of time, and energy cost efficiency, transfer the knowledge for community, stove manufacturers, and technicians. The findings must be useful to the coconut sugar enterprises producing, to reduce the cost of production, preserve natural resources, and environments.

Keywords: ceramic raw material, energy saving stove, stove design, performance of stove, stove for stew coconut sugar

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Authors: Anand Choudhary

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Following the global economic crisis in 2008, businesses and more especially the big multinational conglomerates were increasingly viewed by the people world over as one of the major causes of the economic problems faced by millions globally, in terms of job loss and lifetime savings being wiped out as banks and pension funds went bankrupt and people stared at an insecure financial future. This caused a lot of resentment in the public against big businesses and fueled several protest movements by the people such as “Occupy Wall Street” in different parts of the world. This forced the big businesses to respond to the challenge by adopting more people-centric policies and initiatives for local communities in societies where they operate as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR), in order to regain their social acceptance among the people whilst earning their ‘social license to operate’. The current paper studies many of such large MNCs across the United States of America, India and South Africa, which changed the way they did business earlier, following the global economic crisis in 2008, by incorporating capacity building initiatives for local communities as part of their CSR strategy and explores whether it has contributed to improving their financial performance. It is a conceptual research paper using secondary source data. The findings reveal that there is a positive correlation between the companies’ corporate social performance and corporate financial performance. In addition, the findings also bring to light that the MNCs examined as part of the current paper have improved their image in the eyes of their stakeholders following the change in their CSR strategy and initiatives.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility (CSR), Corporate Social Performance (CSP), Corporate Financial Performance (CFP), local communities

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Authors: Omar Bendjimaa, Karzabi Abdelatif

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Small and medium enterprises have witnessed several developments in recent years thanks to the policies and programs of support given by the state, and that is due to their importance in local and national development. Nevertheless, the success and development of these firms depends on a number of factors, especially the human element, for instance, the culture of the manager has its origin in the culture of the community and is of crucial influence in these firms. In fact, this culture is nothing more than a set of values, perceptions, beliefs, symbols and practices repeated, in addition to the knowledge it has received from the readings and the modern means of education. All these factors have an impact on the effectiveness of governance, its resolutions, instructions and performance of its function as a manager of a medium or small enterprise is inevitably affected by these cultural values, it is the driving force, the leader, and the observer at the same time.

Keywords: small and medium enterprises, the culture of the manager, the culture of the community, values, perceptions, beliefs, symbols, performance

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Authors: Yao-Hong Tsai

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This paper presents an efficient fusion algorithm for iris images to generate stable feature for recognition in unconstrained environment. Recently, iris recognition systems are focused on real scenarios in our daily life without the subject’s cooperation. Under large variation in the environment, the objective of this paper is to combine information from multiple images of the same iris. The result of image fusion is a new image which is more stable for further iris recognition than each original noise iris image. A wavelet-based approach for multi-resolution image fusion is applied in the fusion process. The detection of the iris image is based on Adaboost algorithm and then local binary pattern (LBP) histogram is then applied to texture classification with the weighting scheme. Experiment showed that the generated features from the proposed fusion algorithm can improve the performance for verification system through iris recognition.

Keywords: image fusion, iris recognition, local binary pattern, wavelet

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Authors: JaeHwan Yang, Da-Woon Jeong, Seung-Young Kho, Dong-Kyu Kim

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In terms of ITS, information on link characteristic is an essential factor for plan or operation. But in practical cases, not every link has installed sensors on it. The link that does not have data on it is called “Missing Link”. The purpose of this study is to impute data of these missing links. To get these data, this study applies the machine learning method. With the machine learning process, especially for the deep learning process, missing link data can be estimated from present link data. For deep learning process, this study uses “Recurrent Neural Network” to take time-series data of road. As input data, Dedicated Short-range Communications (DSRC) data of Dalgubul-daero of Daegu Metropolitan Area had been fed into the learning process. Neural Network structure has 17 links with present data as input, 2 hidden layers, for 1 missing link data. As a result, forecasted data of target link show about 94% of accuracy compared with actual data.

Keywords: data estimation, link data, machine learning, road network

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Authors: Z. Bouattou, R. Laurini, H. Belbachir

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This paper describes a new approach for the automatic generation of the visual summaries dealing with cartographic visualization methods and sensors real time data modeling. Hence, the concept of chorems seems an interesting candidate to visualize real time geographic database summaries. Chorems have been defined by Roger Brunet (1980) as schematized visual representations of territories. However, the time information is not yet handled in existing chorematic map approaches, issue has been discussed in this paper. Our approach is based on spatial analysis by interpolating the values recorded at the same time, by sensors available, so we have a number of distributed observations on study areas and used spatial interpolation methods to find the concentration fields, from these fields and by using some spatial data mining procedures on the fly, it is possible to extract important patterns as geographic rules. Then, those patterns are visualized as chorems.

Keywords: geovisualization, spatial analytics, real-time, geographic data streams, sensors, chorems

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Authors: Seongho Han, Dongkwan Kim

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The focus of regional innovation policies is shifting from a central government to local governments. The central government demands that regions enforce autonomous and responsible regional innovation policies and that regional governments seek for innovation policies fit for regional characteristics. However, the central government and local governments have not arrived yet at a conclusion on what innovation policies are appropriate for regional circumstances. In particular, even if each local government is trying to find regional innovation strategies that are based on the needs of a region, its innovation strategies turn out to be similar with those of other regions. This leads to a consequence that is inefficient not only at a national level, but also at a regional level. Existing researches on regional innovation types point out that there are remarkable differences in the types or characteristics of innovation among the regions of a nation. In addition they imply that there would be no expected innovation output in cases in which policies are enforced with ignoring such differences. This means that it is undesirable to enforce regional innovation policies under a single standard. This research, given this problem, aims to find out the characteristics and differences in innovation types among the regions in Korea and suggests appropriate policy implications by classifying such characteristics and differences. This research, given these objectives, classified regions in consideration of the various indicators that comprise the innovation suggested by existing related researches and illustrated policies based on such characteristics and differences. This research used recent data, mainly from 2012, and as a methodology, clustering analysis based on multiple factor analysis was applied. Supplementary researches on dynamically analyzing stability in regional innovation types, establishing systematic indicators based on the regional innovation theory, and developing additional indicators are necessary in the future.

Keywords: regional innovation policy, regional innovation type, region-based innovation, multiple factor analysis, clustering analysis

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Authors: Hang Meng, Wen-Bin Liu, Bi Xiao, Kai-Jun Ma, Jian-Hui Xie, Geng Fei, Tian-Ye Zhang, Lu-Yi Xu, Dong-Chuan Zhang

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The victims in water are often found in the coastal region, along river region or the region with lakes. In China, the examination for the bodies of victims in the water is conducted by forensic doctors working in the public security bureau. Because the enter water time for most of the victims are not clear, and often lack of monitor images and other information, so to find out the corpse enter water time for victims is very difficult. After the corpse of the victim enters the water, it sinks first, then corruption gas produces, which can make the density of the corpse to be less than water, and thus rise again. So the factor that determines the corpse floating time is temperature. On the basis of the temperature data obtained in Shanghai region of China (Shanghai is a north subtropical marine monsoon climate, with an average annual temperature of about 17.1℃. The hottest month is July, the average monthly temperature is 28.6℃, and the coldest month is January, the average monthly temperature is 4.8℃). This study selected about 100 cases with definite corpse enter water time and corpse floating time, analyzed the cases and obtained the empirical law of the corpse floating time. For example, in the Shanghai region, on June 15th and October 15th, the corpse floating time is about 1.5 days. In early December, the bodies who entered the water will go up around January 1st of the following year, and the bodies who enter water in late December will float in March of next year. The results of this study can be used to roughly estimate the water enter time of the victims in Shanghai. Forensic doctors around the world can also draw on the results of this study to infer the time when the corpses of the victims in the water go up.

Keywords: corpse enter water time, corpse floating time, drowning, forensic pathology, victims in the water

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Authors: Dilip K. De, Olukunle C. Olawole, Emmanuel S. Joel, Moses Emetere

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A good number of electronic properties such as electrical and thermal conductivities depend on charge carrier densities of nanomaterials. By controlling the charge carrier densities during the fabrication (or growth) processes, the physical properties can be tuned. In this paper, we discuss a new technique of estimating the charge carrier densities of nanomaterials from the thermionic emission data using the newly modified Richardson-Dushman equation. We find that the technique yields excellent results for graphene and carbon nanotube.

Keywords: charge carrier density, nano materials, new technique, thermionic emission

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Authors: Rebecca Sager, Gary Adler, Damon Mayrl, Jonathan Cooley

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The United States’ unique constitutional structure and religious roots have fostered the flourishing of local communities through the close interaction of church and state. Today, these local relationships play out in these circumstances, including increased religious diversity and changing jurisprudence to more accommodating church-state interaction. This project seeks to understand the meanings of church-state interaction among diverse religious leaders in a variety of local settings. Using data from interviews with over 200 religious leaders in six states in the US, we examine how religious groups interact with various non-elected and elected government officials. We have interviewed local religious actors in eight communities characterized by the difference in location and religious homogeneity. These include a small city within a major metropolitan area, several religiously diverse cities in various areas across the country, a small college town with religious diversity set in a religiously-homogenous rural area, and a small farming community with minimal religious diversity. We identified three types of religious actors in each of our geographic areas: congregations, religious non-profit organizations, and clergy coalitions. Given the well-known difficulties in identifying religious organizations, we used the following to construct a local population list from which to sample: the Association of Religion Data Archives ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, Guidestar, and the Internal Revenue Service Exempt Business Master File. Our sample for selecting interviewees were stratified by three criteria: religious tradition (Christian v. non-Christian), sectarian orientation (Mainline/Catholic v. Evangelical Protestant), and organizational form (congregation vs. other). Each interview included the elicitation of local church-state interactions experienced by the organization and organizational members, the enumeration of information sources for navigating church-state interactions, and the personal and community background of interviewees. We coded interviews to identify the cognitive schema of “church” and “state,” the models of legitimate relations between the two, and discretion rules for managing interaction and avoiding conflict. We also enumerate arenas in which and issues for which local state officials are engaged. In this paper, we focus on Korean religious groups and examine how their interactions differ from other congregations, including other immigrant congregations. These churches were particularly common in one large metropolitan area. We find that Korean churches are much more likely to be concerned about any governmental interactions and have fewer connections than non-Korean churches leading to more disconnection from their communities. We argue that due to their status as new immigrant churches without a lot of community ties for many members and being in a large city, Korean churches were particularly concerned about too much interaction with any type of government officials, even ones that could be potentially helpful. While other immigrant churches were somewhat willing to work with government groups, such as Latino-based Catholic groups, Korean churches were the least likely to want to create these connections. Understanding these churches and how immigrant church identity varies and creates different types of interaction is crucial to understanding how church/state interaction can be more meaningful over space and place.

Keywords: religion, congregations, government, politics

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Authors: Susana Aldaba Yaben, Marga Echauri Ozcoidi, Rosario Osinaga Cenoz

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It was decided to make a diagnosis with students of Berriozar High School between 12 and 15 years (both included) for their lifestyles in relation to eating habits, BMI (Body Mass Index), physical activity, drugs, interpersonal relationships and screen time. The aim of this survey is identifying needs of this population and depending on the results, we could program socio-educational activities. This action is part of the Community Health Promotion Programme and healthy lifestyles in childhood and youth of Berriozar. The eating habits, a lack of physical activity and an excessive screen time are causes of 26,75% of obese or overweight young people. First of all, many of them have got a diet enriched in saturated fats and sugars. Secondly, most of them do not practise physical exercise daily and finally, their screen time are higher than the recommendation (until 2 hours a day).

Keywords: lifestyle, diet, BMI, physical activity, screen time, education, youth

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Authors: Lucia Rozumová, Ivo Šafařík, Jana Seidlerová, Pavel Kůs

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Biosorption by biological waste materials from agriculture industry could be a cost-effective technique for removing metal ions from wastewater. The performance of new biosorbent systems, consisting of the waste matrixes which were magnetically modified by iron oxide nanoparticles, for the removal of lead ions from an aqueous solution was tested. The use of low-cost and eco-friendly adsorbents has been investigated as an ideal alternative to the current expensive methods. This article deals with the removal of metal ions from aqueous solutions by modified waste products - orange peels, sawdust, peanuts husks, used tea leaves and ground coffee sediment. Magnetically modified waste materials were suspended in methanol and then was added ferrofluid (magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles). This modification process gives the predictions for the formation of the smart materials with new properties. Prepared material was characterized by using scanning electron microscopy, specific surface area and pore size analyzer. Studies were focused on the sorption and desorption properties. The changes of iron content in magnetically modified materials after treatment were observed as well. Adsorption process has been modelled by adsorption isotherms. The results show that magnetically modified materials during the dynamic sorption and desorption are stable at the high adsorbed amount of lead ions. The results of this study indicate that the biological waste materials as sorbent with new properties are highly effective for the treatment of wastewater.

Keywords: biological waste, sorption, metal ions, ferrofluid

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Authors: Meesun Sun, Yongmin Kim

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Estimating maintenance cost is crucial in defense management because it affects military budgets and availability of equipment. When it comes to estimating maintenance cost of the deployed equipment, time series forecasting can be applied with the actual historical cost data. It is more difficult issue to estimate maintenance cost of new equipment for which the actual costs are not provided. In this underlying context, this study proposes an analytical method for maintenance cost estimating relationships (CERs) development of helicopters using linear programming. The CERs can be applied to a new helicopter because they use non-cost independent variables such as the number of engines, the empty weight and so on. In the Republic of Korea, the maintenance cost of new equipment has been usually estimated by reflecting maintenance cost to unit price ratio of the legacy equipment. This study confirms that the CERs perform well for the 10 types of airmobile helicopters in terms of mean absolute percentage error by applying leave-one-out cross-validation. The suggested method is very useful to estimate the maintenance cost of new equipment and can help in the affordability assessment of acquisition program portfolios for total life cycle systems management.

Keywords: affordability analysis, cost estimating relationship, helicopter, linear programming, maintenance cost

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Authors: Elif Tugce Aksun Tumerkan, Chris Lowe, Hannah Krupa

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Fluorescent proteins are self-sufficient in forming chromophores with a visible wavelength from 3 amino acids sequence within their own polypeptide structure. This chromophore – a molecule that absorbs a photon of light and exhibits an energy transition equal to the energy of the absorbed photon. Fluorescent proteins (FPs) consisted of a chain of 238 amino acid residues and composed of 11 beta strands shaped in a cylinder surrounding an alpha helix structure. A better understanding of the system of the chromospheres and the increasing advance in protein engineering in recent years, the properties of FPs offers the potential for new applications. They have used sensors and probes in molecular biology and cell-based research that giving a chance to observe these FPs tagged cell localization, structural variation and movement. For clarifying functional uses of fluorescent proteins, electrophoretic properties of these proteins are one of the most important parameters. Sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) analysis is used for determining electrophoretic properties commonly. While there are many techniques are used for determining the functionality of protein-based research, SDS-PAGE analysis can only provide a molecular level assessment of the proteolytic fragments. Before SDS-PAGE analysis, fluorescent proteins need to successfully purified. Due to directly purification of the target, FPs is difficult from the animal, gene expression is commonly used which must be done by transformation with the plasmid. Furthermore, used gel within electrophoresis and staining agents properties have a key role. In this review, the different factors that have the impact on the electrophoretic properties of fluorescent proteins explored. Fluorescent protein separation and purification are the essential steps before electrophoresis that should be done very carefully. For protein purification, gene expression process and following steps have a significant function. For successful gene expression, the properties of selected bacteria for expression, used plasmid are essential. Each bacteria has own characteristics which are very sensitive to gene expression, also used procedure is the important factor for fluorescent protein expression. Another important factors are gel formula and used staining agents. Gel formula has an effect on the specific proteins mobilization and staining with correct agents is a key step for visualization of electrophoretic bands of protein. Visuality of proteins can be changed depending on staining reagents. Apparently, this review has emphasized that gene expression and purification have a stronger effect than electrophoresis protocol and staining agents.

Keywords: cell biology, gene expression, staining agents, SDS-page

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Authors: Beilei Xu, Wencheng Wu, Lei Lin, Rachel Melnyk, Ahmed Ghazi

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In operating rooms, excessive cognitive stress can impede the performance of a surgeon, while low engagement can lead to unavoidable mistakes due to complacency. As a consequence, there is a strong desire in the surgical community to be able to monitor and quantify the cognitive stress of a surgeon while performing surgical procedures. Quantitative cognitiveload-based feedback can also provide valuable insights during surgical training to optimize training efficiency and effectiveness. Various physiological measures have been evaluated for quantifying cognitive stress for different mental challenges. In this paper, we present a study using the cognitive stress measured by the task evoked pupillary response extracted from the time series eye-tracking measurements to predict task difficulties in a virtual reality based robotic surgery training environment. In particular, we proposed a differential-task-difficulty scale, utilized a comprehensive feature extraction approach, and implemented a multitask learning framework and compared the regression accuracy between the conventional single-task-based and three multitask approaches across subjects.

Keywords: surgical metric, task evoked pupillary response, multitask learning, TSFresh

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Authors: Omid Saligheh

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Poly (tri methylene terephthalate) (PTT) nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning, being directly deposited in the form of a random fibers web. The effect of changing processing parameters such as solution concentration and electrospinning voltage on the morphology of the electrospun PTT nanofibers was investigated with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The electrospun fibers diameter increased with rising concentration and decreased by increasing the electrospinning voltage, thermal and mechanical properties of electrospun fibers were characterized by DSC and tensile testing, respectively.

Keywords: poly tri methylene terephthalate, electrospinning, morphology, thermal behavior, mechanical properties

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Authors: Katherine Dropiewski, Michael Yakimov, Vadim Tokranov, Allan Minns, Pavel Murat, Serge Oktyabrsky

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InAs Quantum Dots (QDs) in a GaAs matrix is a well-documented luminescent material with high light yield, as well as thermal and ionizing radiation tolerance due to quantum confinement. These benefits can be leveraged for high-efficiency, room temperature scintillation detectors. The proposed scintillator is composed of InAs QDs acting as luminescence centers in a GaAs stopping medium, which also acts as a waveguide. This system has appealing potential properties, including high light yield (~240,000 photons/MeV) and fast capture of photoelectrons (2-5ps), orders of magnitude better than currently used inorganic scintillators, such as LYSO or BaF2. The high refractive index of the GaAs matrix (n=3.4) ensures light emitted by the QDs is waveguided, which can be collected by an integrated photodiode (PD). Scintillation structures were grown using Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and consist of thick GaAs waveguiding layers with embedded sheets of modulation p-type doped InAs QDs. An AlAs sacrificial layer is grown between the waveguide and the GaAs substrate for epitaxial lift-off to separate the scintillator film and transfer it to a low-index substrate for waveguiding measurements. One consideration when using a low-density material like GaAs (~5.32 g/cm³) as a stopping medium is the matrix thickness in the dimension of radiation collection. Therefore, luminescence properties of very thick (4-20 microns) waveguides with up to 100 QD layers were studied. The optimization of the medium included QD shape, density, doping, and AlGaAs barriers at the waveguide surfaces to prevent non-radiative recombination. To characterize the efficiency of QD luminescence, low temperature photoluminescence (PL) (77-450 K) was measured and fitted using a kinetic model. The PL intensity degrades by only 40% at RT, with an activation energy for electron escape from QDs to the barrier of ~60 meV. Attenuation within the waveguide (WG) is a limiting factor for the lateral size of a scintillation detector, so PL spectroscopy in the waveguiding configuration was studied. Spectra were measured while the laser (630 nm) excitation point was scanned away from the collecting fiber coupled to the edge of the WG. The QD ground state PL peak at 1.04 eV (1190 nm) was inhomogeneously broadened with FWHM of 28 meV (33 nm) and showed a distinct red-shift due to self-absorption in the QDs. Attenuation stabilized after traveling over 1 mm through the WG, at about 3 cm⁻¹. Finally, a scintillator sample was used to test detection and evaluate timing characteristics using 5.5 MeV alpha particles. With a 2D waveguide and a small area of integrated PD, the collected charge averaged 8.4 x10⁴ electrons, corresponding to a collection efficiency of about 7%. The scintillation response had 80 ps noise-limited time resolution and a QD decay time of 0.6 ns. The data confirms unique properties of this scintillation detector which can be potentially much faster than any currently used inorganic scintillator.

Keywords: GaAs, InAs, molecular beam epitaxy, quantum dots, III-V semiconductor

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Authors: Pavel V. Balabanov, Daria A. Liubimova, Aleksandr P. Savenkov

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The increase of technogenic and natural accidents, accompanied by air pollution, for example, by combustion products, leads to the necessity of respiratory protection. This work is devoted to the development of a calorimetric method and a device which allow investigating quickly the kinetics of carbon dioxide sorption by chemo-sorbents on the base of potassium superoxide in order to assess the protective properties of respiratory protective closed-circuit apparatus. The features of the traditional approach for determining the sorption properties in a thin layer of chemo-sorbent are described, as well as methods and devices, which can be used for the sorption kinetics study. The authors of the paper developed an approach (as opposed to the traditional approach) based on the power measurement of internal heat sources in the chemo-sorbent layer. The emergence of the heat sources is a result of the exothermic reaction of carbon dioxide sorption. This approach eliminates the necessity of chemical analysis of samples and can significantly reduce the time and material expenses during chemo-sorbents testing. The error of determining the volume fraction of adsorbed carbon dioxide by the developed method does not exceed 12%. Taking into account the efficiency of the method, we consider that it is a good alternative to traditional methods of chemical analysis under the assessment of the protection sorbents quality.

Keywords: carbon dioxide chemisorption, exothermic reaction, internal heat sources, respiratory protective apparatus

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Authors: Radovan Bures, Madgalena Streckova, Maria Faberova, Pavel Kurek

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Composite material based on Fe3Si micro-particles and Mn-Zn nano-ferrite was prepared using powder metallurgy technology. The sol-gel followed by autocombustion process was used for synthesis of Mn0.8Zn0.2Fe2O4 ferrite. 3 wt.% of mechanically milled ferrite was mixed with Fe3Si powder alloy. Mixed micro-nano powder system was homogenized by the Resonant Acoustic Mixing using ResodynLabRAM Mixer. This non-invasive homogenization technique was used to preserve spherical morphology of Fe3Si powder particles. Uniaxial cold pressing in the closed die at pressure 600 MPa was applied to obtain a compact sample. Microwave sintering of green compact was realized at 800°C, 20 minutes, in air. Density of the powders and composite was measured by Hepycnometry. Impulse excitation method was used to measure elastic properties of sintered composite. Mechanical properties were evaluated by measurement of transverse rupture strength (TRS) and Vickers hardness (HV). Resistivity was measured by 4 point probe method. Ferrite phase distribution in volume of the composite was documented by metallographic analysis. It has been found that nano-ferrite particle distributed among micro- particles of Fe3Si powder alloy led to high relative density (~93%) and suitable mechanical properties (TRS >100 MPa, HV ~1GPa, E-modulus ~140 GPa) of the composite. High electric resistivity (R~6.7 ohm.cm) of prepared composite indicate their potential application as soft magnetic material at medium and high frequencies.

Keywords: micro- and nano-composite, soft magnetic materials, microwave sintering, mechanical and electric properties

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Authors: Zhaojun Zheng, Yuanfa Liu, Jiaxin Li, Jinwei Li, Yong-jiang Xu, Chen Cao

Abstract:

Black bean is an excellent protein source for preparing hydrolysates, which attract much attention due to their biological activity. The objective of this study was to characterize the physicochemical and antioxidant properties of black bean protein, hydrolyzed by ficin, bromelain or alcalase until 300 min of hydrolysis. Results showed that bromelain and alcalase hydrolysates possessed a higher degree of hydrolysis (DH) than that of ficin, thereby presenting different ultraviolet absorption, fluorescence intensity, and circular dichroism. Moreover, all hydrolysates possessed the capacity to scavenge DPPH radical with the lowest IC₅₀ of 21.11 µg/mL, as well as to chelate ferrous ion (Fe²⁺) with the IC₅₀ values ranging from 6.82 to 30.68 µg/mL. Intriguingly, the oxidation of linoleic acid, sunflower oil, and sunflower oil-in-water emulsion was remarkedly retarded by the three selected protein hydrolysates, especially by bromelain-treated protein hydrolysate, which might attribute to their high hydrophobicity and emulsifying properties. These findings can provide strong support for black bean protein hydrolysates to be employed in food products acting as natural antioxidant alternatives.

Keywords: antioxidant activity, black bean protein hydrolysate, emulsion physicochemical properties, sunflower oil

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Authors: Huang Xiaoling, Liu Lufeng

Abstract:

In this paper, we seek to determine one reasonable local hub port and optimal routes for a containership fleet, performing pick-ups and deliveries, between the hub and spoke ports in a same region. The relationship between a hub port, and traffic in feeder lines is analyzed. A new network planning method is proposed, an integrated hub port location and route design, a capacitated vehicle routing problem with pick-ups, deliveries and time deadlines are formulated and solved using an improved genetic algorithm for positioning the hub port and establishing routes for a containership fleet. Results on the performance of the algorithm and the feasibility of the approach show that a relatively small fleet of containerships could provide efficient services within deadlines.

Keywords: route planning, hub port location, container feeder service, regional transportation network

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Authors: Michael Tupý, Alice Tesaříková-Svobodová, Dagmar Měřínská, Vít Petránek

Abstract:

Polyethylene (PE), Polypropylene (PP), Polyethylene (vinyl acetate) (EVA) and Surlyn (modif-PE) nano composite samples were prepared with montmorillonite fillers Cloisite 93A and Dellite 67G. The amount of modified Na+ montmorillonite (MMT) was fixed to 5 % (w/w). For the compounding of polymer matrix and chosen nano fillers twin-screw kneader was used. The level of MMT intercalation or exfoliation in the nano composite systems was studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations. The properties of samples were evaluated by dynamical mechanical analysis (E* modulus at 30 °C) and by the measurement of tensile properties (stress and strain at break).

Keywords: polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethylene(vinyl acetate), clay, nanocomposite, montmorillonite

Procedia PDF Downloads 535

Authors: Sharareh Mohseni

Abstract:

Purpose: The objective of this study was to find a suitable solvent to produce saffron edible extract with improved chemical properties. Design/methodology/approach: Dried and pulverized stigmas of C. sativus L. (10g) was extracted with 300 ml of solvents including: distillated water (DW), ethanol/DW, methanol/DW, propylene glycol/DW, heptan/DW, and hexan/DW, for 3 days at 25°C and then centrifuged at 3000 rpm. Then the extracts were evaporated using rotary evaporator at 40°C. The fiber and solvent-free extracts were then analyzed by UV spectrophotometer to detect saffron quality parameters including crocin, picrocrocin and safranal. Findings: Distilled water/ethanol mixture as the extraction solvent, caused larger amounts of the plant constituents to diffuse out to the extract compared to other treatments and also control. Polar solvents including distilled water, ethanol, and propylene glycol (except methanol) were more effective in extracting crocin, picrocrocin, and saffranal than non-polar solvents. Social implications: Due to an enhancement of color and flavor, saffron extract is economical compared to natural saffron. Saffron Extract saves on preparation time and reduces the amount of saffron required for imparting the same flavor, as compared to dry saffron. Liquid extract is easier to use and standardize in food preparations compared to dry stamens and can be dosed precisely compared to natural saffron. Originality/value: No research had been done on production of saffron edible extract using the solvent studied in this survey. The novelty of this research is high and the results can be used industrially.

Keywords: Crocus sativus L., saffron extract, solvent extraction, distilled water

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Authors: Humphrey Danso, Seth Adu

Abstract:

The high cost of cement and its greenhouse effect on the environment have led to the use of alternative building materials in the production of block and bricks. This study seeks to investigate the properties of compressed earth blocks (CEBs) enhanced with clay pozzolana. CEBs of size 290 × 140 × 100 mm were prepared with 10, 20 and 30 % weight of clay pozzolana. The CEBs were compressed at a constant pressure of 5 MPa and cured for 28 days. The blocks, after 7, 14, 21 and 28 days of curing were tested for density, water absorption, compressive strength and erosion. It was found that amount of pozzolana content did not have much influence on blocks’ density. There was a decline in water absorption of the stabilised blocks ranged between 32.8% and 252.2% over the unstabilised blocks. The highest compressive strength (3.75MPa) of the stabilized blocks was achieved at 28th day of curing with 30% clay pozzolana content, which showed an improvement of 116.8% strength over the unstabilised blocks. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant difference in the erosion resistance between the stabilized blocks and the unstabilised blocks. The study concludes that the inclusion of the clay pozzolana increased the properties of the CEBs, and therefore recommended for use in the building of houses.

Keywords: clay pozzolana, compressed earth blocks (CEBs), compressive strength, erosion test

Procedia PDF Downloads 280