Search results for: cloud interface

Authors: Kunihiro Kamataki

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In this study, active learning based on simple science experiments was developed in a university class of the freshman, in order to improve their scientific literacy. Through the active learning based on simple experiments of generation of cloud in a plastic bottle, students increased the interest in the global atmospheric problem and were able to discuss and find solutions about this problem positively from various viewpoints of the science technology, the politics, the economy, the diplomacy and the relations among nations. The results of their questionnaires and free descriptions of this class indicate that they improve the scientific literacy and motivations of other classroom lectures to acquire knowledge. It is thus suggested that the science experiment is strong tool to improve their intellectual curiosity rapidly and the connections that link the impression of science experiment and their interest of the social problem is very important to enhance their learning effect in this education.

Keywords: active learning, scientific literacy, simple scientific experiment, university education

Procedia PDF Downloads 243

Authors: A. Sakavičius, A. Lukša, V. Nargelienė, V. Bukauskas, G. Astromskas, A. Šetkus

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We investigate the influence of annealing on the properties of a contact between graphene and metal (Au and Ni), using circular transmission line model (CTLM) contact geometry. Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and Raman spectroscopy are applied for characterization of the surface and interface properties. Annealing causes a decrease of the metal-graphene contact resistance for both Ni and Au.

Keywords: Au/Graphene contacts, graphene, Kelvin force probe microscopy, NiC/Graphene contacts, Ni/Graphene contacts, Raman spectroscopy

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Authors: Saurav Kumar Suman, P. Karthigayani

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In this paper the height of the tree is estimated and forest types is classified from the multi temporal RISAT-1 Horizontal-Horizontal (HH) and Horizontal-Vertical (HV) Polarised Satellite Aperture Radar (SAR) data. The novelty of the proposed project is combined use of the Back-scattering Coefficients (Sigma Naught) and the Coherence. It uses Water Cloud Model (WCM). The approaches use two main steps. (a) Extraction of the different forest parameter data from the Product.xml, BAND-META file and from Grid-xxx.txt file come with the HH & HV polarized data from the ISRO (Indian Space Research Centre). These file contains the required parameter during height estimation. (b) Calculation of the Vegetation and Ground Backscattering, Coherence and other Forest Parameters. (c) Classification of Forest Types using the ENVI 5.0 Tool and ROI (Region of Interest) calculation.

Keywords: RISAT-1, classification, forest, SAR data

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Authors: Jossitt Williams Vargas Cruz, Aura Jazmín Pérez Ríos

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The variations of solar dynamics have become a relevant topic of study due to the effects of climate changes generated on the earth. One of the most disconcerting aspects is the variability that the sun has on the climate is the role played by sunspots (extra-atmospheric variable) in the modulation of the Cosmic Rays CR (extra-atmospheric variable). CRs influence the earth's climate by affecting cloud formation (atmospheric variable), and solar cycle influence is associated with the presence of solar storms, and the magnetic activity is greater, resulting in less CR entering the earth's atmosphere. The different methods of climate prediction in Colombia do not take into account the extra-atmospheric variables. Therefore, correlations between atmospheric and extra-atmospheric variables were studied in order to implement a Python code based on neural networks to make the prediction of the extra-atmospheric variable with the highest correlation.

Keywords: correlations, cosmic rays, sun, sunspots and variations.

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Authors: Shaik Mohammad Samiullah Shariff, Siva Sreenath, Sai Haripriya, Prathyusha, M. Padma Lalitha

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The Internet of Things (IoT) is the emerging technology that has been utilized to extend the possibilities for smart dairy farming (SDF). Milk consumption is continually increasing due to the world's growing population. As a result, some providers are prone to using dishonest measures to close the supply-demand imbalance, such as adding adulterants to milk. To identify the presence of adulterants in milk, traditional testing methods necessitate the use of particular chemicals and equipment. While efficient, this method has the disadvantage of yielding difficult and time-consuming qualitative results. Furthermore, same milk sample cannot be tested for other adulterants later. As a result, this study proposes an IoT-based approach for identifying adulterants in milk by measuring electrical conductivity (EC) or Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and PH. In order to achieve this, an Arduino UNO microcontroller is used to assess the contaminants. When there is no adulteration, the pH and TDS values of milk range from 6.45 to 6.67 and 750 to 780ppm, respectively, according to this study. Finally, the data is uploaded to the cloud via an IoT device attached to the Ubidot web platform.

Keywords: internet of things (IoT), pH sensor, TDS sensor, EC sensor, industry 4.0

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Authors: Huey-Kuo Chen

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Travel demand forecasting including four travel choices, i.e., trip generation, trip distribution, modal split and traffic assignment constructs the core of transportation planning. In its current application, travel demand forecasting has associated with three important issues, i.e., interface inconsistencies among four travel choices, inefficiency of commonly used solution algorithms, and undesirable multiple path solutions. In this paper, each of the three issues is extensively elaborated. An ideal unified framework for the combined model consisting of the four travel choices and variable demand functions is also suggested. Then, a few remarks are provided in the end of the paper.

Keywords: travel choices, B algorithm, entropy maximization, dynamic traffic assignment

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Authors: Ali Safaeianpour, Nima Shamandi

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As air traffic expands, many airports have evolved into transit centers for people, information, and commerce, and technology implementation is an absolute part of airport development. Several challenges are in the way of implementing technology in an airport. Airport 4.0 proposes the "Smart Airport" concept, which focuses on using modern technologies such as Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), advanced biometric systems, blockchain, and cloud computing to alter and enhance passengers' journeys. Several common IoT concrete topics as partial keys to smart airports are discussed and introduced, ranging from automated check-in systems to exterior tracking processes, with the goal of enlightening more and more insightful ideas and proposals about smart airport solutions. IoT will dramatically alter people's lives by infusing intelligence, boosting the quality of life, and assembling it smarter. This paper reviews the approaches to transforming an airport into a smart airport and describes several enabling components of IoT and challenges that can hinder the implementation of a smart airport's function, which require to be addressed.

Keywords: airport 4.0, digital airport, smart airport, IoT

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Authors: Tonderai Muchenje, Xolani Mkhwanazi

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Precision agriculture uses a number of technologies, devices, protocols, and computing paradigms to optimize agricultural processes. Big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and edge computing are all used to handle the huge amounts of data generated by precision agriculture. However, precision agriculture is still emerging and has a low level of security features. Furthermore, future solutions will demand data availability and accuracy as key points to help farmers, and security is important to build robust and efficient systems. Since precision agriculture comprises a wide variety and quantity of resources, security addresses issues such as compatibility, constrained resources, and massive data. Moreover, conventional protection schemes used in the traditional internet may not be useful for agricultural systems, creating extra demands and opportunities. Therefore, this paper aims at reviewing state of the art of precision agriculture security, particularly in open field agriculture, discussing its architecture, describing security issues, and presenting the major challenges and future directions.

Keywords: precision agriculture, security, IoT, EIDE

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Authors: Soufiene Ilahi

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We have used Photothermal deflection spectroscopy PTD to investigate the impact of doping on electronics properties of bulk. Then, the extraction of these parameters is performed by fitting the theoretical curves to the experimental PTD ones. We have remarked that electron mobility in p type C-doped GaAs is about 300 cm2/V·s. Accordinagly, the diffusion length of minority carrier lifetime is equal to 5 (± 7%), 5 (± 4,4%) and 1.42 µm (± 7,2 %) for the Cr, C and Si doped GaAs respectively. Surface recombination velocity varies randomly that can be found around of 7942 m/s, 100 m/s and 153 m/s GaAs doped Si, Cr, C, respectively.

Keywords: nonradiative lifetime, mobility of minority carrier, diffusion length, surface and interface recombination in GaAs

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Authors: M. Armenteros, A. Domínguez, M. Fernández, A. J. Benítez

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The following paper describes the video database tool used by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) as part of the research project developed in collaboration with the Carlos III University of Madrid. The database project began in 2012, with the aim of creating an educational tool for the training of instructors, referees and assistant referees, and it has been used in all FUTURO III courses since 2013. The platform now contains 3,135 video clips of different match situations from FIFA competitions. It has 1,835 users (FIFA instructors, referees and assistant referees). In this work, the main features of the database are described, such as the use of a search tool and the creation of multimedia presentations and video quizzes. The database has been developed in MySQL, ActionScript, Ruby on Rails and HTML. This tool has been rated by users as "very good" in all courses, which prompt us to introduce it as an ideal tool for any other sport that requires the use of video analysis.

Keywords: assistants referees, cloud computing, e-learning, instructors, FIFA, referees, soccer, video database

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Authors: Muhammad Jamil, Ning He, Wei Zhao

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Ti-6Al-4V has poor thermal conductivity (6.7W/mK) accumulates shear and friction heat at the tool-chip interface zone. To dissipate the heat generation and friction effect, cryogenic cooling, Minimum quantity lubrication (MQL), nanofluids, hybrid cryogenic-MQL, solid lubricants, etc are applied frequently to underscore their significant effect on improving the machinability of Ti-6Al-4V. Nowadays, hybrid lubri-cooling is getting attention from researchers to explore their effect on machining Ti-6Al-4V.

Keywords: hybrid lubri-cooling, tool wear, surface roughness, minimum quantity lubrication

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Authors: Thomas Ousterhout

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In an effort to test the ability of a commercial grade EEG headset to effectively measure the N400 ERP, a replication study was conducted to see if similar results could be produced as that which used a medical grade EEG. Pictures of meaningful and meaningless hand postures were borrowed from the original author and subjects were required to perform a semantic discrimination task. The N400 was detected indicating semantic processing of the meaningfulness of the hand postures. The results corroborate those of the original author and support the use of some commercial grade EEG headsets for non-critical research applications.

Keywords: EEG, ERP, N400, semantics, congruency, gestures, emotiv

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Authors: Yang-Keun Ahn, Kwang-Soon Choi, Young-Choong Park, Kwang-Mo Jung

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Vision based user interfaces to control TVs and PCs have the advantage of being able to perform natural control without being limited to a specific device. Accordingly, various studies on hand gesture recognition using RGB cameras or depth cameras have been conducted. However, such cameras have the disadvantage of lacking in accuracy or the construction cost being large. The proposed method uses a low cost IR camera to accurately differentiate between the hand and the background. Also, complicated learning and template matching methodologies are not used, and the correlation between the fingertips extracted through curvatures is utilized to recognize Click and Move gestures.

Keywords: recognition, hand gestures, infrared camera, RGB cameras

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Authors: Ashraf Nawaz Khan, R. Alagirusamy, Apurba Das, Puneet Mahajan

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The thermoplastic-based fibre composites are acquiring a market sector of conventional as well as thermoset composites. However, replacing the thermoset with a thermoplastic composite has never been an easy task. The inherent high viscosity of thermoplastic resin reveals poor interface properties. In this work, a homo-polymer towpreg is produced through an electrostatic powder spray coating methodology. The produced flexible towpreg offers a low melt-flow distance during the consolidation of the laminate. The reduced melt-flow distance demonstrates a homogeneous fibre/matrix distribution (and low void content) on consolidation. The composite laminate has been fabricated with two manufacturing techniques such as conventional film stack (FS) and powder-coated (PC) technique. This helps in understanding the distinct response of produced laminates on applying load since the laminates produced through the two techniques are comprised of the same constituent fibre and matrix (constant fibre volume fraction). The changed behaviour is observed mainly due to the different fibre/matrix configurations within the laminate. The interface adhesion influences the load transfer between the fibre and matrix. Therefore, it influences the elastic, plastic, and failure patterns of the laminates. Moreover, the effect of preform geometries (plain weave and satin weave structure) are also studied for corresponding composite laminates in terms of various mechanical properties. The fracture analysis is carried out to study the effect of resin at the interlacement points through micro-CT analysis. The PC laminate reveals a considerably small matrix-rich and deficient zone in comparison to the FS laminate. The different load tensile, shear, fracture toughness, and drop weight impact test) is applied to the laminates, and corresponding damage behaviour is analysed in the successive stage of failure. The PC composite has shown superior mechanical properties in comparison to the FS composite. The damage that occurs in the laminate is captured through the SEM analysis to identify the prominent mode of failure, such as matrix cracking, fibre breakage, delamination, debonding, and other phenomena.

Keywords: composite, damage, fibre, manufacturing

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Authors: Anindita Patra, Prasad K. Bhaskaran

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The atmosphere-ocean is a dynamically linked system that influences the exchange of energy, mass, and gas at the air-sea interface. The exchange of energy takes place in the form of sensible heat, latent heat, and momentum commonly referred to as fluxes along the atmosphere-ocean boundary. The large scale features such as El Nino and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a classic example on the interaction mechanism that occurs along the air-sea interface that deals with the inter-annual variability of the Earth’s Climate System. Most importantly the ocean and atmosphere as a coupled system acts in tandem thereby maintaining the energy balance of the climate system, a manifestation of the coupled air-sea interaction process. The present work is an attempt to understand the long-term variability in atmospheric parameters (from surface to upper levels) and investigate their role in influencing the surface ocean variables. More specifically the influence of atmospheric circulation and its variability influencing the mean Sea Level Pressure (SLP) has been explored. The study reports on a critical examination of both ocean-atmosphere parameters during a monsoon season over the head Bay of Bengal region. A trend analysis has been carried out for several atmospheric parameters such as the air temperature, geo-potential height, and omega (vertical velocity) for different vertical levels in the atmosphere (from surface to the troposphere) covering a period from 1992 to 2012. The Reanalysis 2 dataset from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Department of Energy (NCEP-DOE) was used in this study. The study signifies that the variability in air temperature and omega corroborates with the variation noticed in geo-potential height. Further, the study advocates that for the lower atmosphere the geo-potential heights depict a typical east-west contrast exhibiting a zonal dipole behavior over the study domain. In addition, the study clearly brings to light that the variations over different levels in the atmosphere plays a pivotal role in supporting the observed dipole pattern as clearly evidenced from the trends in SLP, associated surface wind speed and significant wave height over the study domain.

Keywords: air temperature, geopotential height, head Bay of Bengal, long-term variability, NCEP reanalysis 2, omega, wind-waves

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Authors: Jiwuer Jilili, Ulrich Eckern, Udo Schwingenschlogl

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We present first principles results for the electronic, magnetic, and optical properties of the BiFeO3 /La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 heterostructure as obtained by spin polarized calculations using density functional theory. The electronic states of the heterostructure are compared to those of the bulk compounds. Structural relaxation turns out to have only a minor impact on the chemical bonding, even though the oxygen octahedra in La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 develop some distortions due to the interface strain. While a small charge transfer affects the heterointerfaces, our results demonstrate that the half-metallic character of La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 is fully maintained.

Keywords: BiFeO3, La2/3Sr1/3MnO3, superlattice, half-metallicity

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Authors: Mohammed R. Elkobaisi, Abdelsalam Maatuk

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The search engines are the large scale information retrieval tools from the Web that are currently freely available to all. This paper explains how to convert the raw resulted number of search engines into useful information. This represents a new method for data gathering comparing with traditional methods. When a query is submitted for a multiple numbers of keywords, this take a long time and effort, hence we develop a user interface program to automatic search by taking multi-keywords at the same time and leave this program to collect wanted data automatically. The collected raw data is processed using mathematical and statistical theories to eliminate unwanted data and converting it to usable data.

Keywords: search engines, information extraction, agent system

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Authors: Anum Ali, Kashaf ad Dooja, Asif Saleem

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The future smart cities trend will be towards Internet of Things (IoT); IoT creates dynamic connections in a ubiquitous manner. Smart cities offer ease and flexibility for daily life matters. By using small devices that are connected to cloud servers based on IoT, network traffic between these devices is growing exponentially, whose security is a concerned issue, since ratio of cyber attack may make the network traffic vulnerable. This paper discusses the latest machine learning approaches in related work further to tackle the increasing rate of cyber attacks, machine learning algorithm is applied to IoT-based network traffic data. The proposed algorithm train itself on data and identify different sections of devices interaction by using supervised learning which is considered as a classifier related to a specific IoT device class. The simulation results clearly identify the attacks and produce fewer false detections.

Keywords: IoT, traffic security, deep learning, classification

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Authors: Adriano Araujo Carvalho, Arturo Alatrista Corrales

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This paper intends to show how electrical energy consumption and production data analysis were used to find opportunities to save energy at Taboada wastewater treatment plant in Callao, Peru. In order to access the data, it was used independent data networks for both electrical and process instruments, which were taken to analyze under an ISO 50001 energy audit, which considered, thus, Energy Performance Indexes for each process and a step-by-step guide presented in this text. Due to the use of aforementioned methodology and data mining techniques applied on information gathered through electronic multimeters (conveniently placed on substation switchboards connected to a cloud network), it was possible to identify thoroughly the performance of each process and thus, evidence saving opportunities which were previously hidden before. The data analysis brought both costs and energy reduction, allowing the plant to save significant resources and to be certified under ISO 50001.

Keywords: energy and production data analysis, energy management, ISO 50001, wastewater treatment plant energy analysis

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Authors: Nikolaos Georgoulopoulos, Alkis Hatzopoulos, Konstantinos Karamitsios, Konstantinos Kotrotsios, Alexandros I. Metsai

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In modern server systems, business critical applications run in different types of infrastructure, such as cloud systems, physical machines and virtualization. Often, due to high load and over time, various hardware faults occur in servers that translate to errors, resulting to malfunction or even server breakdown. CPU, RAM and hard drive (HDD) are the hardware parts that concern server administrators the most regarding errors. In this work, selected RAM, HDD and CPU errors, that have been observed or can be simulated in kernel ring buffer log files from two groups of Linux servers, are investigated. Moreover, a severity characterization is given for each error type. Better understanding of such errors can lead to more efficient analysis of kernel logs that are usually exploited for fault diagnosis and prediction. In addition, this work summarizes ways of simulating hardware errors in RAM and HDD, in order to test the error detection and correction mechanisms of a Linux server.

Keywords: hardware errors, Kernel logs, Linux servers, RAM, hard disk, CPU

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Authors: Ibe Perpetual Nwakaego

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The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), were an integrated project formed to eradicate many unnatural situations the citizens of the third world country may found themselves in. The MDGs, to be a sustainable project for the future depends 100% on the actions of governments, multilateral institutions and civil society. This paper first looks at the political views on the MDGs and relates it to the current electoral situations around the country by underlining the drastic changes over the few months. The second part of the paper presents ICT in tertiary institutions as one of the solutions in terms of the success of the MDGs. ICT is vital in all phases of the educational process and development of the cloud connectivity is an added advantage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for sharing a common data bank for research purposes among UNICEF, RED CROSS, NPS, INEC, NMIC, and WHO. Finally, the paper concludes with areas that need twigging and recommendations for the tertiary institutions committed to delivering an ambitious set of goals. A combination of observation and document materials for data gathering was employed as the methodology for carrying out this research.

Keywords: MDGs, ICT, database, politics

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Authors: Kun Xue, Lvlan Miu, Jiarui Li

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Jetting structures are widely found in particle rings or shells dispersed by the central explosion. In contrast, some explosive dispersal of particles only results in a dispersed cloud without distinctive structures. Employing the coupling method of the compressible computational fluid mechanics and discrete element method (CCFD-DEM), we reveal the underlying physics governing the formation of the jetting structure, which is related to the competition between the shock compaction and gas infiltration, two major processes during the shock interaction with the granular media. If the shock compaction exceeds the gas infiltration, the discernable jetting structures are expected, precipitated by the agglomerates of fast-moving particles induced by the heterogenous network of force chains. Otherwise, particles are uniformly accelerated by the interstitial flows, and no distinguishable jetting structures are formed. We proceed to devise the phase map of the jetting formation in the space defined by two dimensionless parameters which characterize the timescales of the shock compaction and the gas infiltration, respectively.

Keywords: compressible multiphase flows, DEM, granular jetting, pattern formation

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Authors: Umesh Kumar Singh, Abhishek Raghuvanshi, Suyash Kumar Singh

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As IoT networks gain popularity, they are more susceptible to security breaches. As a result, it is crucial to analyze the IoT platform as a whole from the standpoint of core security concepts. The Internet of Things relies heavily on wireless networks, which are well-known for being susceptible to a wide variety of attacks. This article provides an analysis of many techniques that may be used to identify vulnerabilities in the software and hardware associated with the Internet of Things (IoT). In the current investigation, an experimental setup is built with the assistance of server computers, client PCs, Internet of Things development boards, sensors, and cloud subscriptions. Through the use of network host scanning methods and vulnerability scanning tools, raw data relating to IoT-based applications and devices may be collected. Shodan is a tool that is used for scanning, and it is also used for effective vulnerability discovery in IoT devices as well as penetration testing. This article presents an efficient mitigation plan for encountering vulnerabilities in the Internet of Things.

Keywords: internet of things, security, privacy, vulnerability identification, mitigation plan

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Authors: Abdeljalil Beniiche

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The limitation with smart contracts is that they cannot access external data that might be required to control the execution of business logic. Oracles can be used to provide external data to smart contracts. An oracle is an interface that delivers data from external data outside the blockchain to a smart contract to consume. Oracle can deliver different types of data depending on the industry and requirements. In this paper, we study and describe the widely used blockchain oracles. Then, we elaborate on his potential role, technical architecture, and design patterns. Finally, we discuss the human oracle and its key role in solving the truth problem by reaching a consensus about a certain inquiry and tasks.

Keywords: blockchain, oracles, oracles design, human oracles

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Authors: Wann-Yun Shieh, Chin-Man Wang, Ya-Cheng Shieh

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This study aims to develop an objective scoring system to evaluate hand-eye coordination and hand dexterity for Parkinson’s disease. This system contains three boards, and each of them is implemented with the sensors to sense a user’s finger operations. The operations include the peg test, the block test, and the blind block test. A user has to use the vision, hearing, and tactile abilities to finish these operations, and the board will record the results automatically. These results can help the physicians to evaluate a user’s reaction, coordination, dexterity function. The results will be collected to a cloud database for further analysis and statistics. A researcher can use this system to obtain systematic, graphic reports for an individual or a group of users. Particularly, a deep learning model is developed to learn the features of the data from different users. This model will help the physicians to assess the Parkinson’s disease symptoms by a more intellective algorithm.

Keywords: deep learning, hand-eye coordination, reaction, hand dexterity

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Authors: Adekunle Kolawole Ojo, Idowu Peter Adebayo, Egwuche Sylvester O.

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Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality across developed and developing nations and is associated with increased risk. There are no existing electronic means of capturing and monitoring CKD in Nigeria. The work is aimed at developing a spatial data model that can be used to implement renal registries required for tracking and monitoring the spatial distribution of renal diseases by public health officers and patients. In this study, we have developed a spatial data model for a functional renal registry.

Keywords: renal registry, health informatics, chronic kidney disease, interface

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Authors: M. Barbouche, M. Hajji, H. Ezzaouia

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This project is a step to manufacture solar grade silicon. It consists in designing an electrical arc furnace in order to produce metallurgical silicon Mg-Si with mutually carbon and high purity of silica. It concerns, first, the development of a functional analysis, a mechanical design and thermodynamic study. Our study covers also, the design of the temperature control system and the design of the electric diagrams. The furnace works correctly. A Labview interface was developed to control all parameters and to supervise the operation of furnace. Characterization tests with X-ray technique and Raman spectroscopy allow us to confirm the metallurgical silicon production.

Keywords: arc furnace, electrical design, silicon manufacturing, regulation, x-ray characterization

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Authors: Francesca Crivellari, Nicholas Mavrogiannis, Zachary Gagnon

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Portable diagnostic methods have become increasingly important for a number of different purposes: point-of-care screening in developing nations, environmental contamination studies, bio/chemical warfare agent detection, and end-user use for commercial health monitoring. The cheapest and most portable methods currently available are paper-based – lateral flow and dipstick methods are widely available in drug stores for use in pregnancy detection and blood glucose monitoring. These tests are successful because they are cheap to produce, easy to use, and require minimally invasive sampling. While adequate for their intended uses, in the realm of blood-borne pathogens and numerous cancers, these paper-based methods become unreliable, as they lack the nM/pM sensitivity currently achieved by clinical diagnostic methods. Clinical diagnostics, however, utilize techniques involving surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), which are expensive and unfeasible in terms of portability. To develop a better, competitive biosensor, we must reduce the cost of one, or increase the sensitivity of the other. Electric fields are commonly utilized in microfluidic devices to manipulate particles, biomolecules, and cells. Applications in this area, however, are primarily limited to interfaces formed between immiscible interfaces. Miscible, liquid-liquid interfaces are common in microfluidic devices, and are easily reproduced with simple geometries. Here, we demonstrate the use of electrical fields at liquid-liquid electrical interfaces, known as fluidic dielectrophoresis, (fDEP) for biodetection in a microfluidic device. In this work, we apply an AC electric field across concurrent laminar streams with differing conductivities and permittivities to polarize the interface and induce a discernible, near-immediate, frequency-dependent interfacial tilt. We design this aqueous electrical interface, which becomes the biosensing “substrate,” to be intelligent – it “moves” only when a target of interest is present. This motion requires neither labels nor expensive electrical equipment, so the biosensor is inexpensive and portable, yet still capable of sensitive detection. Nanoparticles, due to their high surface-area-to-volume ratio, are often incorporated to enhance detection capabilities of schemes like SPR and fluorimetric assays. Most studies currently investigate binding at an immobilized solid-liquid or solid-gas interface, where particles are adsorbed onto a planar surface, functionalized with a receptor to create a reactive substrate, and subsequently flushed with a fluid or gas with the relevant analyte. These typically involve many preparation and rinsing steps, and are susceptible to surface fouling. Our microfluidic device is continuously flowing and renewing the “substrate,” and is thus not subject to fouling. In this work, we demonstrate the ability to electrokinetically detect biomolecules binding to functionalized nanoparticles at liquid-liquid interfaces using fDEP. In biotin-streptavidin experiments, we report binding detection limits on the order of 1-10 pM, without amplifying signals or concentrating samples. We also demonstrate the ability to detect this interfacial motion, and thus the presence of binding, using impedance spectroscopy, allowing this scheme to become non-optical, in addition to being label-free.

Keywords: biodetection, dielectrophoresis, microfluidics, nanoparticles

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Authors: Chih Chin Yang

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The paper proposed a new theory of intellectual capital (so called IC) and a value approach in associated with production and market. After an in-depth review and research analysis of leading firms in this field, a holistic intellectual capital model is discussed, which involves transport, delivery supporting, and interface and systems of on intellectual capital. Through a quantity study, it is found that there is a significant relationship between the product value and infrastructure in a company. The product values are transferred from intellectual capital elements which includes three elements of content and the enterprise includes three elements of infrastructure in its market and product values of enterprise.

Keywords: enterprise, product value, intellectual capital, market and product values

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Authors: Ugo Galvanetto, Pirto G. Pavan, Mirco Zaccariotto

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The discipline of Computer-integrated surgery (CIS) will provide equipment able to improve the efficiency of healthcare systems and, which is more important, clinical results. Surgeons and machines will cooperate in new ways that will extend surgeons’ ability to train, plan and carry out surgery. Patient specific CIS of the brain requires several steps: 1 - Fast generation of brain models. Based on image recognition of MR images and equipped with artificial intelligence, image recognition techniques should differentiate among all brain tissues and segment them. After that, automatic mesh generation should create the mathematical model of the brain in which the various tissues (white matter, grey matter, cerebrospinal fluid …) are clearly located in the correct positions. 2 – Reliable and fast simulation of the surgical process. Computational mechanics will be the crucial aspect of the entire procedure. New algorithms will be used to simulate the mechanical behaviour of cutting through cerebral tissues. 3 – Real time provision of visual and haptic feedback A sophisticated human-machine interface based on ergonomics and psychology will provide the feedback to the surgeon. The present work will address in particular point 2. Modelling the cutting of soft tissue in a structure as complex as the human brain is an extremely challenging problem in computational mechanics. The finite element method (FEM), that accurately represents complex geometries and accounts for material and geometrical nonlinearities, is the most used computational tool to simulate the mechanical response of soft tissues. However, the main drawback of FEM lies in the mechanics theory on which it is based, classical continuum Mechanics, which assumes matter is a continuum with no discontinuity. FEM must resort to complex tools such as pre-defined cohesive zones, external phase-field variables, and demanding remeshing techniques to include discontinuities. However, all approaches to equip FEM computational methods with the capability to describe material separation, such as interface elements with cohesive zone models, X-FEM, element erosion, phase-field, have some drawbacks that make them unsuitable for surgery simulation. Interface elements require a-priori knowledge of crack paths. The use of XFEM in 3D is cumbersome. Element erosion does not conserve mass. The Phase Field approach adopts a diffusive crack model instead of describing true tissue separation typical of surgical procedures. Modelling discontinuities, so difficult when using computational approaches based on classical continuum Mechanics, is instead easy for novel computational methods based on Peridynamics (PD). PD is a non-local theory of mechanics formulated with no use of spatial derivatives. Its governing equations are valid at points or surfaces of discontinuity, and it is, therefore especially suited to describe crack propagation and fragmentation problems. Moreover, PD does not require any criterium to decide the direction of crack propagation or the conditions for crack branching or coalescence; in the PD-based computational methods, cracks develop spontaneously in the way which is the most convenient from an energy point of view. Therefore, in PD computational methods, crack propagation in 3D is as easy as it is in 2D, with a remarkable advantage with respect to all other computational techniques.

Keywords: computational mechanics, peridynamics, finite element, biomechanics

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