Search results for: power transmission

Authors: Sanjida Akter, Ambali Alade Odebowale, Andrey E. Miroshnichenko, Haroldo T. Hattori

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Photodetectors (PDs) play a pivotal role in optoelectronics and optical devices, serving as fundamental components that convert light signals into electrical signals. As the field progresses, the integration of advanced materials with unique optical properties has become a focal point, paving the way for the innovation of novel PDs. This study delves into the exploration of a cutting-edge photodetector designed for deep and near ultraviolet (UV) applications. The photodetector is constructed with a composite of Zirconium Boride (ZrB2) and Chromium (Cr) alloy, deposited onto a 6H nitrogen-doped silicon carbide substrate. The determination of the optimal alloy thickness is achieved through Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) simulation, and the synthesis of the alloy is accomplished using radio frequency (RF) sputtering. Remarkably, the resulting photodetector exhibits an exceptional responsivity of 3.5 A/W under an applied voltage of -2 V, at wavelengths of 405 nm and 280 nm. This heterostructure not only exemplifies high performance but also provides a versatile platform for the development of near UV photodetectors capable of operating effectively in challenging conditions, such as environments characterized by high power and elevated temperatures. This study contributes to the expanding landscape of photodetector technology, offering a promising avenue for the advancement of optoelectronic devices in demanding applications.

Keywords: responsivity, silicon carbide, ultraviolet photodetector, zirconium boride

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Authors: Moshe Davidian, Shlomo Mark, Yotam Lurie

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With the rapid development of technology and the concomitant growth in the capability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and their power, the ethical challenges involved in these systems are also evolving and increasing. In recent years, various organizations, including governments, international institutions, professional societies, civic organizations, and commercial companies, have been choosing to address these various challenges by publishing ethical codes for AI systems. However, despite the apparent agreement that AI should be “ethical,” there is debate about the definition of “ethical artificial intelligence.” This study investigates the various AI ethical codes and their key ethical values. From the vast collection of codes that exist, it analyzes and compares 25 ethical codes that were found to be representative of different types of organizations. In addition, as part of its literature review, the study overviews data collected in three recent reviews of AI codes. The results of the analyses demonstrate a convergence around seven key ethical values. However, the key finding is that the different AI ethical codes eventually reflect the type of organization that designed the code; i.e., the organizations’ role as regulator, user, or developer affects the view of what ethical AI is. The results show a relationship between the organization’s role and the dominant values in its code. The main contribution of this study is the development of a list of the key values for all AI systems and specific values that need to impact the development and design of AI systems, but also allowing for differences according to the organization for which the system is being developed. This will allow an analysis of AI values in relation to stakeholders.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, ethical codes, principles, values

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Yuvraj Singh Dangi, Brajesh Kumar Tiwari, Ashok Kumar Jain, Kamta Prasad Namdeo

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The potential use of liposomes as drug carriers by i.v. injection is limited by their low stability in blood stream. Firstly, phospholipid exchange and transfer to lipoproteins, mainly HDL destabilizes and disintegrates liposomes with subsequent loss of content. To avoid the pain associated with injection and to obtain better patient compliance studies concerning various dosage forms, have been developed. Conventional liposomes (unilamellar and multilamellar) have certain drawbacks like low entrapment efficiency, stability and release of drug after single breach in external membrane, have led to the new type of liposomal systems. The challenge has been successfully met in the form of Double Liposomes (DL). DL is a recently developed type of liposome, consisting of smaller liposomes enveloped in lipid bilayers. The outer lipid layer of DL can protect inner liposomes against various enzymes, therefore DL was thought to be more effective than ordinary liposomes. This concept was also supported by in vitro release characteristics i.e. DL formation inhibited the release of drugs encapsulated in inner liposomes. DL consists of several small liposomes encapsulated in large liposomes, i.e., multivesicular vesicles (MVV), therefore, DL should be discriminated from ordinary classification of multilamellar vesicles (MLV), large unilamellar vesicles (LUV), small unilamellar vesicles (SUV). However, for these liposomes, the volume of inner phase is small and loading volume of water-soluble drugs is low. In the present study, the potential of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) lipid anchored double liposomes (DL) to incorporate two drugs in a single system is exploited as a tool to augment the H. pylori eradication rate. Preparation of DL involves two steps, first formation of primary (inner) liposomes by thin film hydration method containing one drug, then addition of suspension of inner liposomes on thin film of lipid containing the other drug. The success of formation of DL was characterized by optical and transmission electron microscopy. Quantitation of DL-bacterial interaction was evaluated in terms of percent growth inhibition (%GI) on reference strain of H. pylori ATCC 26695. To confirm specific binding efficacy of DL to H. pylori PE surface receptor we performed an agglutination assay. Agglutination in DL treated H. pylori suspension suggested selectivity of DL towards the PE surface receptor of H. pylori. Monotherapy is generally not recommended for treatment of a H. pylori infection due to the danger of development of resistance and unacceptably low eradication rates. Therefore, combination therapy with amoxicillin trihydrate (AMOX) as anti-H. pylori agent and ranitidine bismuth citrate (RBC) as antisecretory agent were selected for the study with an expectation that this dual-drug delivery approach will exert acceptable anti-H. pylori activity.

Keywords: Helicobacter pylorI, amoxicillin trihydrate, Ranitidine Bismuth citrate, phosphatidylethanolamine, multi vesicular systems

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Authors: Fatima Alsalem

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Objectives: This study aims to explore the perceived credibility of social media influencers and their effect on purchase intention. In addition, the study aims to investigate the relationship between satisfaction with content promoted via social media and its relation to purchasing intention. Methodology: This study uses an exploratory and quantitative methodology. It was implemented through a cross-sectional survey that asked respondents to identify the time they spend using social media, satisfaction with influencers’ content, types of influencers they prefer, motivations to use social media, purchase intention of products promoted by influencers, as well as three credibility dimensions. Sample: the sample included 1184 Kuwaiti nationals, of which 50.4% (N=593) were males and 49.6% (N=584) were females. Results: The analysis of the data indicated that comedy and entertainment influencers are the most preferred type of influencers, while fashion influencers “fashionistas” are the least preferred. Based on the results of the regression analysis, the perceived credibility of influencers and satisfaction with their content is positively related to higher purchase intention. While all dimensions of credibility are positively related to higher purchase intention, attractiveness is the strongest predictor. Conclusion: The significant value of this study is the examination of the perceived credibility of influencers and the type of influencer social media users prefer to follow. The current research proves that the attractiveness of influencers is the highest dimension of their perceived credibility, which was prevalent in the findings.

Keywords: influencers, social media, mass media, credibility

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Authors: Juliana Ianova, Lyudmila Kabaivanova, Tanya Toshkova- Yotova

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Background: Microalgae are widely known for their nutritional and therapeutic applications due to the richness in nutrients and bioactive elements. The aim of this research was to investigate the growth and production of bioactive compounds with antioxidant properties by different microalgal strains: Scenedesmus acutus M Tomaselli 8, Scenedesmus obliquus BGP, Porphyridium aerugineum and Porphyridium cruentum (Chlorophyta and Rhodophyta). Most of them are freshwater species, with only one marine microalga P. cruentum. Methods: Monoalgal, non-axenic cultures of the investigated strains were grown autotrophically in 200 ml flasks, CO2 - 2% at 132 μmol m-2 s-1 photon flux density and T 25°C. Algal biomass concentration was measured daily by the dry weight. The ABTS (2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid, C18H18N4O6S4) scavenging assay and CUPRAC assay (cupric ion reducing antioxidant capacity) were used to establish the antioxidant activity of the four algae at the end of the cultivation process, when stationary phase of growth was reached. Results: The highest biomass yield was achieved by Scenedesmus obliquus BGP- (6.6 g/L) after 144 hours of cultivation. Scenedesmus obliquus showed much higher levels of antioxidant properties from the assessed strains. The red microalga Porphyridium aerugineum also exhibits promising reducing antioxidant power. Conclusion: This study confirmed the view that microalgae are promising producers of food supplements and pharmaceuticals.

Keywords: microalgae, dry weight, antioxidant activity, CUPRAC, ABTS

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Authors: Federico Pittino, Thomas Arnold

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The shredding of waste materials is a key step in the recycling process towards the circular economy. Industrial shredders for waste processing operate in very harsh operating conditions, leading to the need for frequent maintenance of critical components. Maintenance optimization is particularly important also to increase the machine’s efficiency, thereby reducing the operational costs. In this work, a monitoring system has been developed and deployed on an industrial shredder located at a waste recycling plant in Austria. The machine has been monitored for one year, and methods for predictive maintenance have been developed for two key components: the cutting knives and the drive belt. The large amount of collected data is leveraged by statistical machine learning techniques, thereby not requiring very detailed knowledge of the machine or its live operating conditions. The results show that, despite the wide range of operating conditions, a reliable estimate of the optimal time for maintenance can be derived. Moreover, the trade-off between the cost of maintenance and the increase in power consumption due to the wear state of the monitored components of the machine is investigated. This work proves the benefits of real-time monitoring system for the efficient operation of industrial shredders.

Keywords: predictive maintenance, circular economy, industrial shredder, cost optimization, statistical machine learning

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Authors: Mohamed Naser Zainol, P. P. Angeline Song

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Over the years, the profile of end-stage renal patients placed under The National Kidney Foundation Singapore (NKFS) dialysis program has evolved, with a gradual incline in the number of patients with behavior-related issues. With these challenging profiles, social workers and counsellors are often expected to oversee behavior management, through referrals from its partnering colleagues. Due to the segregation of tasks usually found in many hospital-based multi-disciplinary settings, social workers’ and counsellors’ interventions are often seen as an endpoint, limiting other stakeholders’ involvement that could otherwise be potentially crucial in managing such patients. While patients’ contact in local hospitals often leads to eventual discharge, NKFS patients are mostly long term. It is interesting to note that these patients are regularly seen by a team of professionals that includes doctors, nurses, dietitians, exercise specialists in NKFS. The dynamism of relationships presents an opportunity for any of these professionals to take ownership of their potentials in leading interventions that can be helpful to patients. As such, it is important to have a framework that incorporates the strength of these professionals and also channels empowerment across the multi-disciplinary team in working towards wholistic patient care. This paper would like to suggest a new framework for NKFS’s multi-disciplinary team, where the group synergy and dynamics are used to encourage ownership and promote empowerment. The social worker and counsellor use group work skills and his/her knowledge of its members’ strengths, to generate constructive solutions that are centered towards patient’s growth. Using key ideas from Karl’s Tomm Interpersonal Communications, the Communication Management of Meaning and Motivational Interviewing, the social worker and counsellor through a series of guided meeting with other colleagues, facilitates the transmission of understanding, responsibility sharing and tapping on team resources for patient care. As a result, the patient can experience personal and concerted approach and begins to flow in a direction that is helpful for him. Using seven case studies of identified patients with behavioral issues, the social worker and counsellor apply this framework for a period of six months. Patient’s overall improvement through interventions as a result of this framework are recorded using the AB single case design, with baseline measured three months before referral. Interviews with patients and their families, as well as other colleagues that are not part of the multi-disciplinary team are solicited at mid and end points to gather their experiences about patient’s progress as a by-product of this framework. Expert interviews will be conducted on each member of the multi-disciplinary team to study their observations and experience in using this new framework. Hence, this exploratory framework hopes to identify the inherent usefulness in managing patients with behavior related issues. Moreover, it would provide indicators in improving aspects of the framework when applied to a larger population.

Keywords: behavior management, end-stage renal failure, satellite dialysis, multi-disciplinary team

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Authors: W. H. Zheng, J. Li, F. J. Hong

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Thin liquid film evaporation in ultrathin nanoporous membranes, which reduce the viscous resistance while still maintaining high capillary pressure and efficient liquid delivery, is a promising thermal management approach for high-power electronic devices cooling. Given the challenges and technical limitations of experimental studies for accurate interface temperature sensing, complex manufacturing process, and short duration of membranes, a dimensionless lattice Boltzmann method capable of restoring thermophysical properties of working fluid is particularly derived. The evaporation of R134a to its pure vapour ambient in nanoporous membranes with the pore diameter of 80nm, thickness of 472nm, and three porosities of 0.25, 0.33 and 0.5 are numerically simulated. The numerical results indicate that the highest heat transfer coefficient is about 1740kW/m²·K; the highest heat flux is about 1.49kW/cm² with only about the wall superheat of 8.59K in the case of porosity equals to 0.5. The dissipated heat flux scaled with porosity because of the increasing effective evaporative area. Additionally, the self-regulation of the shape and curvature of the meniscus under different operating conditions is also observed. This work shows a promising approach to forecast the membrane performance for different geometry and working fluids.

Keywords: high heat flux, ultrathin nanoporous membrane, thin film evaporation, lattice Boltzmann method

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Authors: Joao Almeida, Ana Azevedo, Myriam Kanoun-Boule, Maria Ines Santos, Antonio Tadeu

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The effects of the increasing expansion of cities and climate changes have encouraged European countries and regions to adopt nature-based solutions with ability to mitigate environmental issues and improve life in cities. Among these strategies, green roofs and urban gardens have been considered ingenious solutions, since they have the desirable potential to improve air quality, prevent floods, reduce the heat island effect and restore biodiversity in cities. However, an additional consumption of fresh water and mineral nutrients is necessary to sustain larger green urban areas. This communication discusses the main technical features of a new system to manage urine recovery at the building level and its application in green roofs. The depletion of critical nutrients like phosphorus constitutes an emergency. In turn, their elimination through urine is one of the principal causes for their loss. Thus, urine recovery in buildings may offer numerous advantages, constituting a valuable fertilizer abundantly available in cities and reducing the load on wastewater treatment plants. Although several urine-diverting toilets have been developed for this purpose and some experiments using urine directly in agriculture have already been carried out in Europe, several challenges have emerged with this practice concerning collection, sanitization, storage and application of urine in buildings. To our best knowledge, current buildings are not designed to receive these systems and integrated solutions with ability to self-manage the whole process of urine recovery, including separation, maturation and storage phases, are not known. Additionally, if from a hygiene point of view human urine may be considered a relatively safe fertilizer, the risk of disease transmission needs to be carefully analysed. A reduction in microorganisms can be achieved by storing the urine in closed tanks. However, several factors may affect this process, which may result in a higher survival rate for some pathogens. In this work, urine effluent was collected under real conditions, stored in closed containers and kept in climatic chambers under variable conditions simulating cold, temperate and tropical climates. These samples were subjected to a first physicochemical and microbiological control, which was repeated over time. The results obtained so far suggest that maturation conditions were reached for all the three temperatures and that a storage period of less than three months is required to achieve a strong depletion of microorganisms. The authors are grateful for the Project WashOne (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017461) funded by the Operational Program for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI) of Portugal 2020, with the support of the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).

Keywords: sustainable green roofs and urban gardens, urban nutrient cycle, urine-based fertilizers, urine recovery in buildings

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Authors: Xincheng Jiang, Yanyan An, Yaoyao Huang, Wei Ding, Manli Sun, Hong Li, Huaili Zheng

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The residual antibiotics in the environment will pose a threat to the environment and human health. Thus, efficient removal and rapid detection of norfloxacin (NOR) in wastewater is very important. The main sources of NOR pollution are the agricultural, pharmaceutical industry and hospital wastewater. The total consumption of NOR in China can reach 5440 tons per year. It is found that neither animals nor humans can totally absorb and metabolize NOR, resulting in the excretion of NOR into the environment. Therefore, residual NOR has been detected in water bodies. The hazards of NOR in wastewater lie in three aspects: (1) the removal capacity of the wastewater treatment plant for NOR is limited (it is reported that the average removal efficiency of NOR in the wastewater treatment plant is only 68%); (2) NOR entering the environment will lead to the emergence of drug-resistant strains; (3) NOR is toxic to many aquatic species. At present, the removal and detection technologies of NOR are applied separately, which leads to a cumbersome operation process. The development of simultaneous adsorption-flocculation removal and FTIR detection of pollutants has three advantages: (1) Adsorption-flocculation technology promotes the detection technology (the enrichment effect on the material surface improves the detection ability); (2) The integration of adsorption-flocculation technology and detection technology reduces the material cost and makes the operation easier; (3) FTIR detection technology endows the water treatment agent with the ability of molecular recognition and semi-quantitative detection for pollutants. Thus, it is of great significance to develop a smart water treatment material with high removal capacity and detection ability for pollutants. This study explored the feasibility of combining NOR removal method with the semi-quantitative detection method. A magnetic Cu-Ni-S/Ni foam was synthesized by in-situ loading Cu-Ni-S nanostructures on the surface of Ni foam. The novelty of this material is the combination of adsorption-flocculation technology and semi-quantitative detection technology. Batch experiments showed that Cu-Ni-S/Ni foam has a high removal rate of NOR (96.92%), wide pH adaptability (pH=4.0-10.0) and strong ion interference resistance (0.1-100 mmol/L). According to the Langmuir fitting model, the removal capacity can reach 417.4 mg/g at 25 °C, which is much higher than that of other water treatment agents reported in most studies. Characterization analysis indicated that the main removal mechanisms are surface complexation, cation bridging, electrostatic attraction, precipitation and flocculation. Transmission FTIR detection experiments showed that NOR on Cu-Ni-S/Ni foam has easily recognizable FTIR fingerprints; the intensity of characteristic peaks roughly reflects the concentration information to some extent. This semi-quantitative detection method has a wide linear range (5-100 mg/L) and a low limit of detection (4.6 mg/L). These results show that Cu-Ni-S/Ni foam has excellent removal performance and semi-quantitative detection ability of NOR molecules. This paper provides a new idea for designing and preparing multi-functional water treatment materials to achieve simultaneous removal and semi-quantitative detection of organic pollutants in water.

Keywords: adsorption-flocculation, antibiotics detection, Cu-Ni-S/Ni foam, norfloxacin

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Authors: A. Majeed, P. Ali

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Before designing an electrical system, the estimation of load is necessary for unit sizing and demand-generation balancing. The system could be a stand-alone system for a village or grid connected or integrated renewable energy to grid connection, especially as there are non–electrified villages in developing countries. In the classical model, the energy demand was found by estimating the household appliances multiplied with the amount of their rating and the duration of their operation, but in this paper, information exists for electrified villages could be used to predict the demand, as villages almost have the same life style. This paper describes a method used to predict the average energy consumed in each two months for every consumer living in a village by Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The input data are collected using a regional survey for samples of consumers representing typical types of different living, household appliances and energy consumption by a list of information, and the output data are collected from administration office of Piramagrun for each corresponding consumer. The result of this study shows that the average demand for different consumers from four villages in different months throughout the year is approximately 12 kWh/day, this model estimates the average demand/day for every consumer with a mean absolute percent error of 11.8%, and MathWorks software package MATLAB version 7.6.0 that contains and facilitate Neural Network Toolbox was used.

Keywords: artificial neural network, load estimation, regional survey, rural electrification

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Authors: Samer Muthana Sarsam, Abdul Samad Shibghatullah, Chit Su Mon, Abd Aziz Alias, Hosam Al-Samarraie

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Generative Artificial Intelligence chatbots (GAI chatbots) have emerged as promising tools in various domains, including higher education. However, their specific role within the educational context and the level of legal support for their implementation remain unclear. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the role of Bard, a newly developed GAI chatbot, in higher education. To achieve this objective, English tweets were collected from Twitter's free streaming Application Programming Interface (API). The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm was applied to extract latent topics from the collected tweets. User sentiments, including disgust, surprise, sadness, anger, fear, joy, anticipation, and trust, as well as positive and negative sentiments, were extracted using the NRC Affect Intensity Lexicon and SentiStrength tools. This study explored the benefits, challenges, and future implications of integrating GAI chatbots in higher education. The findings shed light on the potential power of such tools, exemplified by Bard, in enhancing the learning process and providing support to students throughout their educational journey.

Keywords: generative artificial intelligence chatbots, bard, higher education, topic modelling, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Patel Darshan Shaileshkumar, M. G. Vanza

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Black cotton soil is problematic soil for any construction work. Black cotton soil contains montmorillonite in its structure. Due to this mineral, black cotton soil will attain maximum swelling and shrinkage. Due to these volume changes, it is necessary to stabilize black cotton soil before the construction of the road. For soil stabilization use of pozzolanic waste is found to be a good solution by some researchers. The palm kernel shell ash (PKSA) is a pozzolanic material that can be used for soil stabilization. Basically, PKSA is a waste material, and it is available at a cheap cost. Palm kernel shell is a waste material generated in palm oil mills. Then palm kernel shell is used in industries instead of coal for power generation. After the burning of a palm kernel shell, ash is formed; the ash is called palm kernel shell ash (PKSA). The PKSA contains a free lime content that will react chemically with the silicate and aluminate of black cotton soil and forms a C-S-H and C-A-H gel which will bines soil particles together and reduce the plasticity of the soil. In this study, the PKSA is added to the soil. It was found that with the addition of PKSA content in the soil, the liquid limit of the soil is decreased, the plastic limit of the soil is increased, and the plasticity of the soil is decreased. The group index value of the soil is evaluated, and it was found that with the addition of PKSA GI value of the soil is decreased, which indicates the strength of the soil is improved.

Keywords: palm kernel shell ash, black cotton soil, liquid limit, group index, plastic limit, plasticity index

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Authors: Ross Lee, Pritpal Singh, Andrew Jester

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As the world transitions to a more sustainable energy economy, the deployment of energy storage technologies is expected to increase to develop a more resilient grid system. However, current technologies are associated with various environmental and safety issues throughout their entire lifecycle; therefore, new battery technology is necessary for grid applications to curtail these risks. Biological cells, such as human neurons and electrolytes in the electric eel, can serve as a more sustainable design template for a new bio-inspired (i.e., biomimetic) battery. Within biological cells, an electrochemical gradient across the cell membrane forms the membrane potential, which serves as the driving force for ion transport into/out of the cell, akin to the charging/discharging of a battery cell. This work serves as the first step to developing such a biomimetic battery cell, starting with the fabrication and characterization of ion-selective membranes to facilitate ion transport through the cell. Performance characteristics (e.g., cell voltage, power density, specific energy, roundtrip efficiency) for the cell under investigation are compared to incumbent battery technologies and biological cells to assess the readiness level for this emerging technology. Using a Na⁺-Form Nafion-117 membrane, the cell in this work successfully demonstrated behavior similar to human neurons; these findings will inform how cell components can be re-engineered to enhance device performance.

Keywords: battery, biomimetic, electrolytes, human neurons, ion-selective membranes, membrane potential

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Authors: Zhiyuan Jia, Xiuxiu Sun, Yong Chen, Liu Hai, Shuangqing Li

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The engine cooling water and exhaust gas contain a large amount of available energy. In order to improve energy efficiency, a steam injection technology based on waste heat recovery is proposed. The models of cooling water waste heat utilization, exhaust gas waste heat utilization, and exhaust gas-cooling water waste heat utilization were constructed, and the effects of the three modes on the performance of steam injection were analyzed, and then the feasibility of in-cylinder water injection steam technology based on waste heat recovery was verified. The research results show that when the injection water flow rate is 0.10 kg/s and the temperature is 298 K, at a cooling water temperature of 363 K, the maximum temperature of the injection water heated by the cooling water can reach 314.5 K; at an exhaust gas temperature of 973 K and an exhaust gas flow rate of 0.12 kg/s, the maximum temperature of the injection water heated by the exhaust gas can reach 430 K; Under the condition of cooling water temperature of 363 K, exhaust gas temperature of 973 K and exhaust gas flow rate of 0.12 kg/s, after cooling water and exhaust gas heating, the maximum temperature of the injection water can reach 463 K. When the engine is 1200 rpm, the water injection volume is 30 mg, and the water injection time is 36°CA, the engine power increases by 2% and the fuel consumption is reduced by 2.6%.

Keywords: cooling water, exhaust gas, extended range engine, steam injection, waste heat recovery

Procedia PDF Downloads 177

Authors: Saad Saif

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Tourism promotion in the digital age is significantly influenced by social media, particularly in developing travel markets such as Pakistan. This study examines how travel bloggers use social media to inspire people to plan journeys and increase trust in destinations. It examines how trustworthiness works as a moderator to enhance the legitimacy of social media posts. This study aims to comprehend the dynamics of social media's influence on the travel and tourism industry. This study investigates the influence of travel bloggers' content, with a focus on tone (positive/negative) and emotional intensity (strong/weak), on prospective Pakistani travelers' travel preferences and levels of trust toward a particular location. The study used an experimental design to validate its hypotheses. The results indicate that the emotive content and tone of bloggers influence travel intentions and that destination trust mediates this relationship. It is interesting to observe that variations in the emotional intensity of positive and negative ratings are not always accompanied by changes in destination trust and travel intent. In addition, the influence of a blogger's review tone on travel intention and destination trust is moderated by the credibility of online reviews, whereas the influence of emotional intensity on these outcomes is unaffected by review credibility.

Keywords: tourism marketing, destination trust, travel intention, trustworthiness

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Authors: Yun Sun, Meng Xun, Jingtao Zhou, Ming Li, Qiang Kan, Zhi Jin, Xinyu Liu, Dexin Wu

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Higher speed short-wavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) working at high temperature are required for future optical interconnects. In this work, the high-speed 850 nm VCSELs are designed, fabricated and characterized. The temperature dependent static and dynamic performance of devices are investigated by using current-power-voltage and small signal modulation measurements. Temperature-stable high-speed properties are obtained by employing highly strained multiple quantum wells and short cavity length of half wavelength. The temperature dependent photon lifetimes and carrier radiative times are determined from damping factor and resonance frequency obtained by fitting the intrinsic optical bandwidth with the two-pole transfer function. In addition, an analytical theoretical model including the strain effect is development based on model-solid theory. The calculation results indicate that the better high temperature performance of VCSELs can be attributed to the strong confinement of holes in the quantum wells leading to enhancement of the carrier transit time.

Keywords: vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, high speed modulation, optical interconnects, semiconductor lasers

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Authors: Kuldeep Singh

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The present paper is an attempt for tracing the changes in the welfare state in Indian democracy from the starting point till now and aims to critical analyse the social-welfare programmes in India with respect to welfare state. After getting independence from Britishers, India became a welfare state and is aiming towards the upliftment of its citizens. Indian democracy is considered to be the largest amongst democratic countries, instead of this after forty-five years of independence, Panchayati Raj Institution became one of the branches of democratic decentralization institutions in India by 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment in 1992. Unfortunately, desired purpose of introducing Panchayati Raj Institution is not achieved after all these delayed efforts. The basic problem regarding achievement of welfare state in India in true sense is unawareness and non-implementation of these social-welfare programmes. Presently, Indian government is only focusing on economic growth of the country but lacking from the social point. The doctrinal method of research is used in this research paper. In the concluding remarks, researcher is partly favoring the government in introducing welfare programmes as there are abundant of welfare schemes and programmes, but majority are facing implementation problem. In last, researcher has suggested regarding programmes and schemes that these should be qualitative in nature and power would be given to effective machinery for further check upon their proper implementation and aware the citizens regarding their rights so that welfare state would be achieved.

Keywords: democratic decentralization, Indian democracy, Panchayati Raj institution, social-welfare programmes, welfare state

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Authors: Ramin Barati, Atefeh Salemi

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In Victorian era, the society had been surrounded by extreme class ranking in order to identify the people of the classes and to intensify power relationships due to the growth of industry in Charles Dickens's (1812-1870) Great Expectations (2003) in which he illustrates the clash and dichotomy in the 19th century London. The classes in Victorian period have socially divided the population into two parts, the lower and the upper class of the community. In such a panopticon society, the major character Pip was the best example of the working class who was under the domination of violence, malice, and abuse of Miss Havisham as a member of the ruling class in order to take revenge on her failures. The conflict and disunity represented in vindictiveness and the sense of revenge applied by Miss Havisham against his victim Pip, made him experience alienation and eventually suffer from identity crisis. This paper considers New Historicism based on the theories of the French critic Michel Foucault (1926-1984). The social concept, panopticism, was called after the panopticon society, basically elaborated by Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish (1975) and he considers the panopticon as a sign of punitive community of surveillance. This paper evaluates the problems of a dual society to show that the people of the lower class are under the domination of capitalist society.

Keywords: class, identity crisis, violence, panoptic society, domination

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Authors: N. Guru Prasath, Sangjin Ma, Chang-Wan Kim

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A butterfly valve is a quarter turn valve which is used to control the flow of a fluid through a section of pipe. Generally, butterfly valve is used in wide range of applications such as water distribution, sewage, oil and gas plants. In particular, butterfly valve with larger diameter finds its immense applications in hydro power plants to control the fluid flow. In-lieu with the constraints in cost and size to run laboratory setup, analysis of large diameter values will be mostly studied by computational method which is the best and inexpensive solution. For fluid and structural analysis, CFD and FEM software is used to perform large scale valve analyses, respectively. In order to perform above analysis in butterfly valve, the CAD model has to recreate and perform mesh in conventional software’s for various dimensions of valve. Therefore, its limitation is time consuming process. In-order to overcome that issue, python code was created to outcome complete pre-processing setup automatically in Salome software. Applying dimensions of the model clearly in the python code makes the running time comparatively lower and easier way to perform analysis of the valve. Hence, in this paper, an attempt was made to study the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) of butterfly valves by varying the valve angles and dimensions using python code in pre-processing software, and results are produced.

Keywords: butterfly valve, flow coefficient, automatic CFD analysis, FSI analysis

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Authors: Suparna Roy, P. Anantharaman

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The aim of this work is to estimate some in-vitro antioxidant activities and total phenols of various extracts such as aqueous, acetone, ethanol, methanol extract of seaweeds and pigments content by Spectrophotometric method. The seaweeds were collected during 2016 from Rameshwaram, southeast coast of India. Among four different extracts, aqueous extracts from all seaweeds had minimum activity than acetone, methanol and ethanol. The Rhodophyta and Phaeophyta had high antioxidant activity in comparing to Chlorophyta. The highest total antioxidant activity was found in acetone extract fromTurbinaria decurrens (98.97±0.00%), followed by its methanol extract (98.81±0.60%) and ethanol extract (98.58±0.53%). The highest reducing power and H2O2 scavenging activity were found in acetone extract of Caulerpa racemosa (383.25±1.04%), and methanol extract from Caulerpa racemosa var. macrophysa (24.91±0.49%). The methanol extract from Caulerpa scalpelliformis contained the highest total phenol (85.23±0.12%). The Chloro-a and Chloro-b contents were the highest in Gracilaria foliifera (13.69±0.38% mg/gm dry wt.) and Caulerpa racemosa var. macrophysa (9.12 ±0.12% mg/gm dry wt.) likewise carotenoid was also the highest in Gracilaria foliifera (0.054±0.0003% mg/gm dry wt.) and Caulerpa racemosa var. macrophysa (0.04 ±0.002% mg/gm dry wt.). It can be concluded from this study that some seaweed extract can be used for natural antioxidant production, after further characterization to negotiate the side effect of synthetic, market available antioxidants.

Keywords: seaweeds, antioxidant, total phenol, pigment, Olaikuda, Vadakkadu, Rameshwaram

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Authors: Farzan Gity, Lida Ansari, Ian M. Povey, Roger E. Nagle, James C. Greer

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Titanium nitride (TiN) films have been widely used in variety of fields, due to its unique electrical, chemical, physical and mechanical properties, including low electrical resistivity, chemical stability, and high thermal conductivity. In microelectronic devices, thin continuous TiN films are commonly used as diffusion barrier and metal gate material. However, as the film thickness decreases below a few nanometers, electrical properties of the film alter considerably. In this study, the physical and electrical characteristics of 1.5nm to 22nm thin films deposited by Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition (PE-ALD) using Tetrakis(dimethylamino)titanium(IV), (TDMAT) chemistry and Ar/N2 plasma on 80nm SiO2 capped in-situ by 2nm Al2O3 are investigated. ALD technique allows uniformly-thick films at monolayer level in a highly controlled manner. The chemistry incorporates low level of oxygen into the TiN films forming titanium oxynitride (TiON). Thickness of the films is characterized by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) which confirms the uniformity of the films. Surface morphology of the films is investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) indicating sub-nanometer surface roughness. Hall measurements are performed to determine the parameters such as carrier mobility, type and concentration, as well as resistivity. The >5nm-thick films exhibit metallic behavior; however, we have observed that thin film resistivity is modulated significantly by film thickness such that there are more than 5 orders of magnitude increment in the sheet resistance at room temperature when comparing 5nm and 1.5nm films. Scattering effects at interfaces and grain boundaries could play a role in thickness-dependent resistivity in addition to quantum confinement effect that could occur at ultra-thin films: based on our measurements the carrier concentration is decreased from 1.5E22 1/cm3 to 5.5E17 1/cm3, while the mobility is increased from < 0.1 cm2/V.s to ~4 cm2/V.s for the 5nm and 1.5nm films, respectively. Also, measurements at different temperatures indicate that the resistivity is relatively constant for the 5nm film, while for the 1.5nm film more than 2 orders of magnitude reduction has been observed over the range of 220K to 400K. The activation energy of the 2.5nm and 1.5nm films is 30meV and 125meV, respectively, indicating that the TiON ultra-thin films are exhibiting semiconducting behaviour attributing this effect to a metal-semiconductor transition. By the same token, the contact is no longer Ohmic for the thinnest film (i.e., 1.5nm-thick film); hence, a modified lift-off process was developed to selectively deposit thicker films allowing us to perform electrical measurements with low contact resistance on the raised contact regions. Our atomic scale simulations based on molecular dynamic-generated amorphous TiON structures with low oxygen content confirm our experimental observations indicating highly n-type thin films.

Keywords: activation energy, ALD, metal-semiconductor transition, resistivity, titanium oxynitride, ultra-thin film

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Authors: Elena Chernyak, Ryan Ceresola

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Intimate partner violence is a serious social problem that affects a million women worldwide and impacts their health and wellbeing. Some risk factors for intimate partner violence against women (e.g., disobeying or arguing with a partner, women’s age, education, and employment) are similar in many countries, both developed and developing. However, one of the principal and most significant contributors to women’s vulnerability to violence perpetrated by their intimate partners is the witnessing of interparental aggression in the family of origin. Witnessing interparental violence may lead to acceptance of intimate partner violence as a normal way to resolve conflicts. Thus, utilization of violence becomes the behavioral model: men who witnessed the parental violence are more likely to employ physical violence against their female partners whereas women who observed their fathers beating their mothers learn to tolerate aggressive behavior and become victims of domestic violence themselves. Taking into consideration the importance of this subject matter, the association between witnessing intimate partner violence in family-of-origin and experience of intimate partner violence in adulthood requires further attention. The objective of this research is to analyze and compare the prevalence of intimate partner violence in ten developing countries in different regions, namely: Mali, Haiti, Jordan, Peru, the Philippines, Pakistan, Cambodia, Egypt, the Dominican Republic and Nigeria. Specifically, this research asks whether witnessing interparental violence in a family of origin is associated with the woman’s experience of intimate partner violence during adulthood and to what extent this factor varies among the countries under investigation. This study contributes to the literature on domestic violence against women, prevalence and experience of intimate partner violence against women in developing countries, and the risk factors, using recently collected, nationally representative population-based data from above-mentioned countries. The data used in this research are derived from the demographic and health surveys conducted in the ten mentioned above countries from 2013-2016. These surveys are cross-sectional, nationally representative surveys of ever-married or cohabitating women of reproductive age and the good source of high quality and comprehensive information about women, their children, partners, and households. To complete this analysis, multivariate logistic regression was run for each of the countries, and the results are presented with odds ratios, in order to highlight the effect of witnessing intimate partner violence controlling for other factors. The results of this study indicated that having witnessed partner violence in a family of origin significantly (by 50-500%) increases the likelihood of experiencing later abuse for respondents in all countries. This finding provides robust support for the intergenerational transmission of violence theory that explains the link between interparental aggression and intimate partner violence in subsequent relationships in adulthood as a result of a learned model of behavior observed in childhood. Furthermore, it was found that some of the control variables (e.g., education, number of children, and wealth) are associated with intimate partner violence in some countries under investigation while are not associated with male partner’s abusive behavior in some other, which may be explained by specific cultural and economic factors.

Keywords: intimate partner violence, domestic violence against women, developing countries, demographic and health surveys, risk factors

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Authors: Johann Van Niekerk

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The disciplines of conducting (instrumental or choral) and of singing presume a willingness toward an open posture and, in many cases, demand it for effective communication and technique. Yet, this very openness, with the "spread-eagle" gesture as an extreme, is oftentimes counterintuitive for musicians and within the trajectory of human evolution. Conversely, it is in this very gesture of "taking up space" that confidence-gaining techniques such as the popular "power pose" are based. This paper consists primarily of a literature review, exploring the topics of physical openness and vulnerability, considering the semiotics of the "spread-eagle" and its accompanying letter X. A major finding of this research is the discrepancy between evolutionary instinct towards physical self-protection and “folding in” and the demands of the discipline of physical and gestural openness, expansiveness and vulnerability. A secondary finding is ways in which encouragement of confidence-gaining techniques may be more effective in obtaining the required results than insistence on vulnerability, which is influenced by various cultural contexts and socialization. Choral conductors and music educators are constantly seeking ways to promote engagement and healthy singing. Much of the information and direction toward this goal is gleaned by students from conducting gestures and other pedagogies employed in the rehearsal. The findings of this research provide yet another avenue toward reaching the goals required for sufficient and effective teaching and artistry on the part of instructors and students alike.

Keywords: conducting, gesture, music, pedagogy, posture, vulnerability

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Authors: Sabri Mrayed, David Maccioni, Greg Leslie

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Seawater desalination has been accepted as one of the most effective solutions to the growing problem of a diminishing clean drinking water supply. Currently, two desalination technologies dominate the market – the thermally driven multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) and the membrane based reverse osmosis (RO). However, in recent years membrane distillation (MD) has emerged as a potential alternative to the established means of desalination. This research project intended to determine the viability of MD as an alternative process to MSF and RO for seawater desalination. Specifically the project involves conducting a thermodynamic analysis of the process based on the second law of thermodynamics to determine the efficiency of the MD. Data was obtained from experiments carried out on a laboratory rig. In order to determine exergy values required for the exergy analysis, two separate models were built in Engineering Equation Solver – the ’Minimum Separation Work Model’ and the ‘Stream Exergy Model’. The efficiency of MD process was found to be 17.3 %, and the energy consumption was determined to be 4.5 kWh to produce one cubic meter of fresh water. The results indicate MD has potential as a technique for seawater desalination compared to RO and MSF. However, it was shown that this was only the case if an alternate energy source such as green or waste energy was available to provide the thermal energy input to the process. If the process was required to power itself, it was shown to be highly inefficient and in no way thermodynamically viable as a commercial desalination process.

Keywords: desalination, exergy, membrane distillation, second law efficiency

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Authors: Salieg L. Munestri

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War on Terror became a principal war after the 9/11 attacks on U.S. homeland. Instead of helping to build up worldwide efforts to condemn terror and suicide bombings, the U.S.-led war on terror has given opportunities for the vast spread of terror. In much of Muslim world recently, the Bush’s Doctrine pushing all nations to choose sides in a war that is not truly a war has resulted worse effects. In the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, more terror occurred since then. Instead of reinforcing the well-trained anti-terror military forces, Indonesian government established US-funded Special Detachment 88 to guarantee the accomplishment of war on terror in Indonesia and significantly to bring impact on regional security atmosphere. Indonesia is a potential power in Asia but it lacked off sophisticated military equipments. Consequently, Indonesia agrees to become a U.S. mutual partner in combating terrorism managed by Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The formation of elite anti-terror forces and U.S. partnerships perform Indonesia’s commitment to take a position beside the U.S. in coping with terrorism issue. However, this undeniably brings consequences on Indonesian political athmosphere, which encourages the writer to dig deep the consequences on the domestic environment of Indonesian political system. The establishment of the elite forces has aroused fluctuations within government, chiefly Indonesian House, concerning the establishment urgency, the large amount of funding, and the unpleasant performances, particularly the treatment toward suspected terrorists. Hence, evaluation process upon the Detachment 88 is highly demanding.

Keywords: anti-terror forces, Indonesia, political system, war on terror

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Authors: Serzhan Ashirov, Dana Nour, Rafat Rob, Khaled Alotaibi

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There has been a fast growth in the introduction and use of communications, information, monitoring, and sensing technologies. The new technologies are making their way to the Industrial Control Systems as embedded in products, software applications, IT services, or commissioned to enable integration and automation of increasingly global supply chains. As a result, the lines that separated the physical, digital, and cyber world have diminished due to the vast implementation of the new, disruptive digital technologies. The variety and increased use of these technologies introduce many cybersecurity risks affecting cyber-resilience of the supply chain, both in terms of the product or service delivered to a customer and members of the supply chain operation. US department of energy considers supply chain in the IR4 space to be the weakest link in cybersecurity. The IR4 identified the digitization of the field devices, followed by digitalization that eventually moved through the digital transformation space with little care for the new introduced cybersecurity risks. This paper will examine the best methodologies for securing the electrical substations from cybersecurity attacks due to supply chain risks, and due to digitization effort. SCADA systems are the most vulnerable part of the power system infrastructure due to digitization and due to the weakness and vulnerabilities in the supply chain security. The paper will discuss in details how create a secure supply chain methodology, secure substations, and mitigate the risks due to digitization

Keywords: cybersecurity, supply chain methodology, secure substation, digitization

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Authors: Muhammad Ali Khan

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Education is a word has been derived from Latin word "Educare", means to train. Therefore, the harmonious growth of the potentialities for achieving the qualities desirable and useful in the human society is called education. It is claimed that by educating women we can develop our economy, family health and decrease population growth. To explore the socio-economic impact of education on urban women. A prospective study design was used. Over a period of six months 50 respondents were randomly selected from Hayat Abad, an urban city in the North West of Pakistan. A questionnaire was used to explore marital, educational, occupational, social, economical and political status of urban women. Of the total, 50% (25) were employed, where 56% were married and 44% unmarried. Of the employed participants, 56% were teachers fallowed by social worker 16%. Monthly income was significantly high (p=001) of women with master degree. Understanding between wife and husband was also very significant in women with masters. . 78% of employed women replied that Parda (Hija) should be on choice not imposed. 52% of educated women replied participation in social activates, such as parties, shopping etc. Education has a high impact on urban women because it is directly related to employment, decision of power, economy and social life. Urban women with high education have significant political awareness and empowerment. Improving women educational level in rural areas of Pakistan is the key for economic growth and political empowerment

Keywords: women, urban, Pakistan, socio economic

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Authors: Sahil Kapahi

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A Formula SAE competition is characterized by typical track layouts having slaloms, tight corners and short straights, which favor a particular range of engine speed for a given set of gear ratios. Therefore, it is imperative that the power-train is optimized for the corresponding engine rpm band. This paper describes the process of designing, simulating and validating an air intake manifold for an inline four cylinder four-stroke internal combustion gasoline engine based on analysis of required vehicle performance. The requirements for the design of subject intake were set considering the rules of FSAE competitions and analysis of engine performance patterns for typical competition scenarios, carried out using OPTIMUMLAP software. Manifold geometry was optimized using results of air flow simulations performed on ANSYS CFX, and subsequent effect of this geometry on the engine was modeled using 1D simulation on Ricardo WAVE. A design was developed to meet the targeted performance standards in terms of engine torque output and volumetric efficiency. Finally, the intake manifold was manufactured and assembled onto the vehicle, and the engine output of the vehicle with the designed intake was studied using a dynamometer. The results of the dynamometer testing were then validated against predicted values derived from the Ricardo WAVE modeling and benefits to performance of the vehicle were established.

Keywords: 1 D Simulation, air flow simulation, ANSYS CFX, four-stroke engine, OPTIMUM LAP, Ricardo WAVE

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Authors: Atena Naeimi, Mehri-Sadat Ekrami-Kakhki

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Fe3O4 is one of the important magnetic oxides with spinel structure; it has exhibited unique electric and magnetic properties based on the electron transfer between Fe2+ and Fe3+ in the octahedral sites. Fe3O4 have received considerable attention in various areas such as cancer therapy, drug targeting, enzyme immobilization catalysis, magnetic cell separation, magnetic refrigeration systems and super-paramagnetic materials. Fe3O4–ZnO nanostructures were synthesized via a surfactant-free ultrasonic reaction at room temperatures. The effect of various parameters such as temperature, time, and power on the size and morphology of the product was investigated. Alternating gradient force magnetometer shows that Fe3O4 nanoparticles exhibit super-paramagnetic behaviour at room temperature. For preparation of nanocomposite 1 g of Fe3O4 nanostructures were dispersed in 100 mL of distilled water. 0.25 g of Zn (NO3)2 and 20 mL of NH3 solution 1 M were then slowly added to the solution under ultrasonic irradiation. The product was centrifuged, washed with distilled water and dried in the air. The photocatalytic behaviour of Fe3O4–ZnO nanoparticles was evaluated using the degradation of a methyl orange aqueous solution under ultraviolet light irradiation. As time increased, more and more methyl orange was adsorbed on the nanoparticles catalyst, until the absorption peak vanish. The methyl orange concentration decreased rapidly with increasing UV-irradiation time.

Keywords: nanocomposite, ultrasonic, paramagnetic, photocatalytic

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