Search results for: automated optical inspection

Authors: Ana Neves, John Leander, Ignacio Gonzalez, Raid Karoumi

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Systematic monitoring and inspection are needed to assess the present state of a structure and predict its future condition. If an irregularity is noticed, repair actions may take place and the adequate intervention will most probably reduce the future costs with maintenance, minimize downtime and increase safety by avoiding the failure of the structure as a whole or of one of its structural parts. For this to be possible decisions must be made at the right time, which implies using systems that can detect abnormalities in their early stage. In this sense, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is seen as an effective tool for improving the safety and reliability of infrastructures. This paper explores the decision-making problem in SHM regarding the maintenance of civil engineering structures. The aim is to assess the present condition of a bridge based exclusively on measurements using the suggested method in this paper, such that action is taken coherently with the information made available by the monitoring system. Artificial Neural Networks are trained and their ability to predict structural behavior is evaluated in the light of a case study where acceleration measurements are acquired from a bridge located in Stockholm, Sweden. This relatively old bridge is presently still in operation despite experiencing obvious problems already reported in previous inspections. The prediction errors provide a measure of the accuracy of the algorithm and are subjected to further investigation, which comprises concepts like clustering analysis and statistical hypothesis testing. These enable to interpret the obtained prediction errors, draw conclusions about the state of the structure and thus support decision making regarding its maintenance.

Keywords: artificial neural networks, clustering analysis, model-free damage detection, statistical hypothesis testing, structural health monitoring

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Authors: Abdul Musaweer Habib, Habibul Hasan Mazumder, Saiful Islam, Sohel Sikder, Omar Faruk Sikder

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The plethora of genome sequence information of bacteria in recent times has ushered in many novel strategies for antibacterial drug discovery and facilitated medical science to take up the challenge of the increasing resistance of pathogenic bacteria to current antibiotics. In this study, we adopted subtractive genomics approach to analyze the whole genome sequence of the Fusobacterium nucleatum, a human oral pathogen having association with colorectal cancer. Our study divulged 1499 proteins of Fusobacterium nucleatum, which has no homolog in human genome. These proteins were subjected to screening further by using the Database of Essential Genes (DEG) that resulted in the identification of 32 vitally important proteins for the bacterium. Subsequent analysis of the identified pivotal proteins, using the KEGG Automated Annotation Server (KAAS) resulted in sorting 3 key enzymes of F. nucleatum that may be good candidates as potential drug targets, since they are unique for the bacterium and absent in humans. In addition, we have demonstrated the 3-D structure of these three proteins. Finally, determination of ligand binding sites of the key proteins as well as screening for functional inhibitors that best fitted with the ligands sites were conducted to discover effective novel therapeutic compounds against Fusobacterium nucleatum.

Keywords: colorectal cancer, drug target, Fusobacterium nucleatum, homology modeling, ligands

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Authors: Nour El Houda Arabi, Aicha Iratni, Talaighil Razika, Bruno Capoen, Mohamed Bouazaoui

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In this paper, we report the effect of the calcination temperature and SiO2 addition on structural, optical and hydrophilicity of TiO2 films deposited by deep-coating sol-gel process. XRD investigation of the structural TiO2 films with increasing the temperature calcination, reveals that rutile phase will appear for the high temperature (>1000°C). However, the addition of SiO2 relate the densification of TiO2 films. Ellipsometric and UV-visible measure show that the refractive index grow with increasing temperature, against the film thickness decreases. On the other hand, the addition of SiO2 decreases the refractive index and increases the TiO2 film thickness. Finally, the hydrophilicity is assisted by contact angle measurement. It is found that addition of 50% of SiO2 to TiO2 is most effective for reducing the contact angle of water.

Keywords: physical properties, sol, gel, TiO2/SiO2 composite films

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Authors: Alibakhsh Kasaeian, Mohammad Sameti, Zahra Noori, Mona Rastgoo Bahambari

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Nowadays, the parabolic trough solar collector technology has become the most promising large-scale technology among various solar thermal generations. In this paper, a detailed numerical heat transfer model for a parabolic trough collector with nanofluid is presented based on the finite difference approach for which a MATLAB code was developed. The model was used to simulate the performance of a parabolic trough solar collector’s linear receiver, called a heat collector element (HCE). In this model, the heat collector element of the receiver was discretized into several segments in axial directions and energy balances were used for each control volume. All the heat transfer correlations, the thermodynamic equations and the optical properties were considered in details and the set of algebraic equations were solved simultaneously using iterative numerical solutions. The modeling assumptions and limitations are also discussed, along with recommendations for model improvement.

Keywords: heat transfer, nanofluid, numerical analysis, trough

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Authors: Byung Il You, Ryun Oh, Gyo Woo Lee

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Manhole refers to facilities that are accessible to the people cleaning and inspection of sewer, and its covering is called manhole lid. Manhole lid is typically made of a cast iron material. Due to the heavy weight of the cast iron manhole lids their installation and maintenance are not easy, and an electrical shock and corrosion aging of them can cause critical problems. The manhole body and the lid manufacturing using the fiber-reinforced composite material can reduce the weight considerably compared to the cast iron manhole. But only the fiber reinforcing is hard to maintain the heavy load, and the method of the iron frame with double injection molding of the composite material has been proposed widely. In this study reflecting the situation of this market, the structural design of the iron frame for the composite manhole lid was carried out. Structural analysis with the computer simulation for the effectively distributed load on the iron frame was conducted. In addition, we want to assess manufacturing costs through the comparing of weights and number of welding spots of the frames. Despite the cross-sectional area is up to 38% compared with the basic solid form the maximum von Mises stress is increased at least about 7 times locally near the rim and the maximum strain in the central part of the lid is about 5.5 times. The number of welding points related to the manufacturing cost was increased gradually with the more complicated shape. Also, the higher the height of the arch in the center of the lid the better result might be obtained. But considering the economic aspect of the composite fabrication we determined the same thickness as the frame for the height of the arch at the center of the lid. Additionally in consideration of the number of the welding points we selected the hexagonal as the optimal shape. Acknowledgment: These are results of a study on the 'Leaders Industry-university Cooperation' Project, supported by the Ministry of Education (MOE).

Keywords: manhole lid, iron frame, structural design, computer simulation

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Authors: Kerim Emre Öksüz, Mehmet Çevik, A. Enbiya Bozdağ, Ali Özer, Mehmet Şimşir

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Metal matrix composites (MMCs) have gained a considerable interest in the last three decades. Conventional powder metallurgy production route often involves the addition of reinforcing phases into the metal matrix directly, which leads to poor wetting behavior between ceramic phase and metal matrix and the segregation of reinforcements. The commonly used elements for ceramic phase formation in iron based MMCs are Ti, Nb, Mo, W, V and C, B. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the effect of sintering temperature and V-B addition on densification, phase development, microstructure, and hardness of Fe–V-B composites (Fe-(5-10) wt. %B – 25 wt. %V alloys) prepared by powder metallurgy process. Metal powder mixes were pressed uniaxial and sintered at different temperatures (ranging from 1300 to 1400ºC) for 1h. The microstructure of the (V, B) Fe composites was studied with the help of high magnification optical microscope and XRD. Experimental results show that (V, B) Fe composites can be produced by conventional powder metallurgy route.

Keywords: hardness, metal matrix composite (MMC), microstructure, powder metallurgy

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Authors: Morsy Ahmed Morsy Ismail

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In this paper, the structure of a coherent homodyne receiver for the Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) Optical Code Division Multiple Access (OCDMA) network is introduced based on the Multi-Length Weighted Modified Prime Code (ML-WMPC) for multimedia applications. The Bit Error Rate (BER) of this homodyne detection is evaluated as a function of the number of active users and the signal to noise ratio for different code lengths according to the multimedia application such as audio, voice, and video. Besides, the Mach-Zehnder interferometer is used as an external phase modulator in homodyne detection. Furthermore, the Multiple Access Interference (MAI) and the receiver noise in a shot-noise limited regime are taken into consideration in the BER calculations.

Keywords: OCDMA networks, bit error rate, multiple access interference, binary phase-shift keying, multimedia

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Authors: Hussein Alahmer, Amr Ahmed

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Liver cancer is one of the common diseases that cause the death. Early detection is important to diagnose and reduce the incidence of death. Improvements in medical imaging and image processing techniques have significantly enhanced interpretation of medical images. Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems based on these techniques play a vital role in the early detection of liver disease and hence reduce liver cancer death rate.  This paper presents an automated CAD system consists of three stages; firstly, automatic liver segmentation and lesion’s detection. Secondly, extracting features. Finally, classifying liver lesions into benign and malignant by using the novel contrasting feature-difference approach. Several types of intensity, texture features are extracted from both; the lesion area and its surrounding normal liver tissue. The difference between the features of both areas is then used as the new lesion descriptors. Machine learning classifiers are then trained on the new descriptors to automatically classify liver lesions into benign or malignant. The experimental results show promising improvements. Moreover, the proposed approach can overcome the problems of varying ranges of intensity and textures between patients, demographics, and imaging devices and settings.

Keywords: CAD system, difference of feature, fuzzy c means, lesion detection, liver segmentation

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Authors: Abdullah Alnutayfat, Alexander Sutin

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One of the most important types of renewable energy resources is wind energy which can be produced by wind turbines. The blades of the wind turbine are exposed to the pressure of the harsh environment, which causes a significant issue for the wind power industry in terms of the maintenance cost and failure of blades. One of the reliable methods for blade inspection is the vibroacoustic structural health monitoring (SHM) method which examines information obtained from the structural vibrations of the blade. However, all vibroacoustic SHM techniques are based on comparing the structural vibration of intact and damaged structures, which places a practical limit on their use. Methods for nonlinear vibroacoustic SHM are more sensitive to damage and cracking and do not need to be compared to data from the intact structure. This paper presents the Vibro-Acoustic Modulation (VAM) method based on the modulation of high-frequency (probe wave) by low-frequency loads (pump wave) produced by the blade rotation. The blade rotation alternates bending stress due to gravity, leading to crack size variations and variations in the blade resonance frequency. This method can be used with the classical SHM vibration method in which the blade is excited by piezoceramic actuator patches bonded to the blade and receives the vibration response from another piezoceramic sensor. The VAM modification of this method analyzes the spectra of the detected signal and their sideband components. We suggest the VAM model as the simple mechanical oscillator, where the parameters of the oscillator (resonance frequency and damping) are varied due to low-frequency blade rotation. This model uses the blade vibration parameters and crack influence on the blade resonance properties from previous research papers to predict the modulation index (MI).

Keywords: wind turbine blades, damaged detection, vibro-acoustic structural health monitoring, vibro-acoustic modulation

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Authors: Marija Vitanovа, Igor Gjorgjiev, Viktor Hristovski, Vlado Micov

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Evaluation of stability is very important in the process of definition of optimal structural measures for maintenance of bridge structures and their strengthening. To define optimal measures for their repair and strengthening, it is necessary to evaluate their static and seismic stability. Presented in this paper are methodologies for evaluation of the seismic stability of existing reinforced concrete bridges designed without consideration of seismic effects and checking of structural justification of newly designed bridge structures. All bridges are located in the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia. A total of 26 existing bridges of different structural systems have been analyzed. Visual inspection has been carried out for all bridges, along with the definition of three main damage categories according to which structures have been categorized in respect to the need for their repair and strengthening. Investigations involving testing the quality of the built-in materials have been carried out, and dynamic tests pointing to the dynamic characteristics of the structures have been conducted by use of non-destructive methods of ambient vibration measurements. The conclusions drawn from the performed measurements and tests have been used for the development of accurate mathematical models that have been analyzed for static and dynamic loads. Based on the geometrical characteristics of the cross-sections and the physical characteristics of the built-in materials, interaction diagrams have been constructed. These diagrams along with the obtained section quantities under seismic effects, have been used to obtain the bearing capacity of the cross-sections. The results obtained from the conducted analyses point to the need for the repair of certain structural parts of the bridge structures. They indicate that the stability of the superstructure elements is not critical during a seismic effect, unlike the elements of the sub-structure, whose strengthening is necessary.

Keywords: existing bridges, newly designed bridges, reinforced concrete bridges, stability assessment

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Authors: Mark Daniel De Luna, Ma. Katreena Pillejera, Wei-Hsin Chen

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The raw bamboo (Phyllostachys mankinoi), with a moisture content of 13.54 % and a higher heating value (HHV) of 17.657 MJ/kg, was subjected to torrefaction under a high gravity (higee) environment using a rotating packed bed. The performance of the higee torrefaction was explored in two parts: (1) effect of rotation and temperature and (2) effect of duration on the solid yield, HHV and energy yield. By statistical analyses, the results indicated that the rotation, temperature and their interaction has a significant effect on the three responses. Same remarks on the effect of duration where when the duration (temperature and rotation) increases, the HHV increases, while the solid yield and energy yield decreases. Graphical interpretations showed that at 300 °C, the rotating speed has no evident effect on the responses. At 30-min holding time, the highest HHV reached (28.389 MJ/kg) was obtained in the most severe torrefaction condition (the rotating speed at 1800 rpm and temperature at 300 °C) with an enhancement factor of HHV corresponding to 1.61 and an energy yield of 63.51%. Upon inspection, the recommended operating condition under a 30-min holding time is at 255 °C-1800 rpm since the enhancement factor of HHV (1.53), HHV (26.988 MJ/kg), and energy yield (65.21%) values are relatively close to that of the aforementioned torrefaction condition. The Van Krevelen diagram of the torrefied biomass showed that the ratios decrease as the torrefaction intensifies, hence improving the hydrophobicity of the product. The spreads of the results of the solid yield, enhancement factor (EF) of HHV, energy yield, and H/C and O/C ratios were in accordance with the trends of the responses. Overall, from the results presented, it can be concluded that the quality of the product from the process is at par to that of coal (i.e. HHV of coal is 21-35 MJ/kg). The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy results indicated that cellulose and lignin may have been degraded at a lower temperature accompanied with a high rotating speed. The results suggested that torrefaction under higee environment indicates promising process for the utilization of bamboo.

Keywords: heat transfer, high gravity environment, FTIR, rotation, rotating speed, torrefaction

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Authors: Negar Mesgara, Laleh Maleknia

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In this paper, electrospun CdTe quantum dot / nylon-6 nanofiber mats were successfully prepared. The nanofiber mats were characterized by FE-SEM, XRD and EDX analyses. The results revealed that fibers in different distinct sizes (nano and subnano scale) were obtained with the electrospinning parameters. The phenomenon of ‘on ‘ and ‘off ‘ luminescence intermittency (blinking) of CdTe QDs in nylon-6 was investigated by single-molecule optical microscopy, and we identified that the intermittencies of single QDs were correlated with the interaction of water molecules absorbed on the QD surface. The ‘off’ times, the interval between adjacent ‘on’ states, remained essentially unaffected with an increase in excitation intensity. In the case of ‘on’ time distribution, power law behavior with an exponential cutoff tail is observed at longer time scales. These observations indicate that the luminescence blinking statistics of water-soluble single CdTe QDs is significantly dependent on the aqueous environment, which is interpreted in terms of passivation of the surface trap states of QDs.

Keywords: electrospinning, CdTe quantum dots, Nylon-6, Nanocomposite

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Authors: Vishakha Parihar

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This study reports the preparation of iron metal-doped nanoparticles of Titanium dioxide by the sol-gel process and the photocatalytic degradation of dye. Nano-particles were characterized by SEM, EDX, and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The detailed study confirmed that nanoparticles have grown in high density and have good optical properties. The photocatalytic batch experiment was performed in an aqueous solution where congo red dye was used as a dye pollutant under the irradiation of ultraviolet rays created by using a mercury lamp source. Total degradation efficiency achieved was approximately 85% to 93% in the duration of 100-120 minutes of irradiation under an ultraviolet light source. The decolorization ability of this process was measured by absorbance at a maximum wavelength of 498nm. The results indicated that the iron-doped Titanium dioxide nanoparticles showed an excellent photocatalytic response to the degradation of dye under the ultraviolet light source within a very short period of time.

Keywords: titanium dioxide, nano-particles iron dope, photocatalytic degradation, Congo red dye, sol-gel process

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Authors: Omran M. Kenshel, Alan J. O'Connor

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Estimating the service life of Reinforced Concrete (RC) bridge structures located in corrosive marine environments of a great importance to their owners/engineers. Traditionally, bridge owners/engineers relied more on subjective engineering judgment, e.g. visual inspection, in their estimation approach. However, because financial resources are often limited, rational calculation methods of estimation are needed to aid in making reliable and more accurate predictions for the service life of RC structures. This is in order to direct funds to bridges found to be the most critical. Criticality of the structure can be considered either form the Structural Capacity (i.e. Ultimate Limit State) or from Serviceability viewpoint whichever is adopted. This paper considers the service life of the structure only from the Structural Capacity viewpoint. Considering the great variability associated with the parameters involved in the estimation process, the probabilistic approach is most suited. The probabilistic modelling adopted here used Monte Carlo simulation technique to estimate the Reliability (i.e. Probability of Failure) of the structure under consideration. In this paper the authors used their own experimental data for the Correlation Length (CL) for the most important deterioration parameters. The CL is a parameter of the Correlation Function (CF) by which the spatial fluctuation of a certain deterioration parameter is described. The CL data used here were produced by analyzing 45 chloride profiles obtained from a 30 years old RC bridge located in a marine environment. The service life of the structure were predicted in terms of the load carrying capacity of an RC bridge beam girder. The analysis showed that the influence of SV is only evident if the reliability of the structure is governed by the Flexure failure rather than by the Shear failure.

Keywords: Chloride-induced corrosion, Monte-Carlo simulation, reinforced concrete, spatial variability

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Authors: Hafizah Che Hasan, Fateen Nazwa Yusof, Maslina Daud

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Internet of Things (IoT) is a powerful industry system, which end-devices are interconnected and automated, allowing the devices to analyze data and execute actions based on the analysis. The IoT technology leverages the technology of Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), including mobile and sensor. These technologies contribute to the evolution of IoT. However, due to more devices are connected each other in the Internet, and data from various sources exchanged between things, confidentiality of the data becomes a major concern. This paper focuses on one of the major challenges in IoT; authentication, in order to preserve data integrity and confidentiality are in place. A few solutions are reviewed based on papers from the last few years. One of the proposed solutions is securing the communication between IoT devices and cloud servers with Elliptic Curve Cryptograhpy (ECC) based mutual authentication protocol. This solution focuses on Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) cookies as security parameter.  Next proposed solution is using keyed-hash scheme protocol to enable IoT devices to authenticate each other without the presence of a central control server. Another proposed solution uses Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) based mutual authentication protocol. It emphasizes on tamper resistant and resource-efficient technology, which equals a 3-way handshake security protocol.

Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT), authentication, PUF ECC, keyed-hash scheme protocol

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Authors: Luiz C. G. Pennafort Jr., Alexandre de S. Rios, Enio P. de Deus

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In the search for materials that replace conventional polymers in order to preserve natural resources, combined with the need to minimize the problems arising from environmental pollution generated by plastic waste, comes the recycled materials biodegradable, especially the composites reinforced with natural fibers. However, such materials exhibit properties little known, requiring studies of manufacturing methods and characterization of these composites. This article shows informations about preparation and characterization of a composite produced by extrusion, which consists of recycled PVC derived from the recycling of materials discarded, added of the micronized coconut fiber. The recycled PVC with 5% of micronized fiber were characterized by X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric, differential scanning calorimetry, mechanical analysis and optical microscopy. The use of fiber in the composite caused a decrease in its specific weight, due to the lower specific weight of fibers and the appearance of porosity, in addition to the decrease of mechanical properties.

Keywords: recycled PVC, coconut fiber, characterization, composites

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Authors: Yinghui Shang, Ziqing Zhou, Rong Han, Hang Wang, Xiaodi Liu, Yong Yang

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The design of advanced amorphous solids, such as metallic glasses, with targeted properties through artificial intelligence signifies a paradigmatic shift in physical metallurgy and materials technology. Here, we developed a machine-learning architecture that facilitates the generation of metallic glasses with targeted multifunctional properties. Our architecture integrates the state-of-the-art unsupervised generative adversarial network model with supervised models, allowing the incorporation of general prior knowledge derived from thousands of data points across a vast range of alloy compositions, into the creation of data points for a specific type of composition, which overcame the common issue of data scarcity typically encountered in the design of a given type of metallic glasses. Using our generative model, we have successfully designed copper-based metallic glasses, which display exceptionally high hardness or a remarkably low modulus. Notably, our architecture can not only explore uncharted regions in the targeted compositional space but also permits self-improvement after experimentally validated data points are added to the initial dataset for subsequent cycles of data generation, hence paving the way for the customized design of amorphous solids without human intervention.

Keywords: metallic glass, artificial intelligence, mechanical property, automated generation

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Authors: Gomti Devi

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Photoisomerization has been attracting to researchers due to its wide range of applications in optical switches, polymeric chains, liquid-crystalline systems and bilayer membranes etc. Azobenzene is a photochromic molecule which exhibits a reversible isomerisation process between its trans and cis isomers of different stability. An investigation has been conducted of the effects of temperature on intensity and position of Raman band of N=N, C-N stretching modes of Azobenzene (AZBN). It was found that the N=N stretching mode of Raman band shape shifts to lower frequency region with the increase in temperature. The Raman intensity was also decreased with the increase of temperature. The change in bandwidth with the increase in temperature has been studied. The FTIR spectrum of the molecule is recorded so as to complement the Raman spectra. In order to investigate the possibility of undergoing dimerization and trimerization as well as the stability of this molecule, ab initio calculation for geometry optimization and vibrational wavenumber calculation have been performed. Theoretically calculated values are found in good agreement with the experimental results.

Keywords: azobenzene, temperature, ab-initio, frequency

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Authors: Mahdi Amne Elahi, Marcus Koch, Peter Plapper

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Due to the demand of miniaturizing in automotive industry, the application of laser welding is quite promising. The current study focused on laser micro-welding of CuSn6 bronze and nickel wire for a miniature electromechanical hybrid component. Due to the advantages of laser welding, the welding can be tailored specifically for the requirements of the part. Scanning electron and optical microscopy were implemented to study the microstructure and tensile-shear test was selected to represent the mechanical properties. Different welding sides, beam oscillations, and speeds have been investigated to optimize the tensile-shear load and microstructure. The results show that the mechanical properties and microstructure of the joint is highly under the influence of the mentioned parameters. Due to the lack of intermetallic compounds, the soundness of the joint is achievable by manipulating the geometry of the weld seam and minimize weld defects.

Keywords: bronze, laser micro-welding, microstructure, nickel, tensile shear test

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Authors: Emrah Ersoy, Yusuf Ozcatalbas

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The aim of this study is to investigate formability of Al based closed cell metallic foams at high temperature. The foam specimens with rectangular section were produced from AlMg1Si0.6TiH20.8 alloy preform material. Bending and free bending tests based on gravity effect were applied to foam specimens at high temperatures. During the tests, the time-angular deformation relationships with various temperatures were determined. Deformation types formed in cell walls were investigated by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy. Bending deformation about 90° was achieved without any defect at high temperatures. The importance of a critical temperature and deformation rate was emphasized in maintaining the deformation. Significant slip lines on surface of cell walls at tensile zones of bending specimen were observed. At high strain rates, the microcrack formation in boundaries of elongated grains was determined.

Keywords: Al alloy, Closed cell, Hot deformation, Metallic foam

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Authors: Namekong Fokeng Armand

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Background: Zoonoses are nowadays a serious public health problem in both developing and developed countries. They contribute to increase the economic burden. In case of emergence, rural populations are the most affected, hence the need to investigate risk practices in rural households of Penka-Michel (West Cameroon). Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from October to November 2021 among 200 heads of households living in the Penka-Michel health district (West Cameroon). It was done using a pre-tested and validated questionnaire, allowing to obtain socio-demographic, economic data, and data on zoonotic risk practices. Results: The participants [women (56%), men (44%)] worked mainly in the informal private sector (53%) and practiced agriculture secondarily (90%). Their highest level of education, for the most part, was a secondary school (50%); the average household size was 06 persons with a monthly income > 36270 FCFA (72%). 74% of household heads thought that animals can transmit diseases, and 17% had heard about zoonotic diseases through the media (65%). Rats caught in households (60%) were consumed there (74%), as was bush meat (61%) or dog meat (18%). For family food (90%), animals were slaughtered within the household (97%), rarely preceded by a veterinary inspection (6%). 87% of households practiced traditional rites with animal blood, 65% shared the same habitat as their animals, 41% did not systematically wash their hands after handling animals. More than 50% of households owned one or more dogs, usually strays (41%) and 48% of which were vaccinated (rabies). Many households had at least one: poultry (98%); pig (50%); dog (57%), cat (52%). 25% of households slaughtered sick animals for consumption, and 27% ate dead animals. Conclusion: This study identified numerous zoonotic risk practices in households in the Penka-Michel health district (West Cameroon). Concerted, multisectoral communication / awareness-raising actions are needed to break with these practices.

Keywords: zoonoses, risky practices, rural households, penka-michel, cameroon

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Authors: Najme lari, Shahrokh Ahangarani, Ali Shanaghi

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Multilayer structure of thin films by the sol–gel process attracts great attention for antireflection applications. In this paper, antireflective nanometric multilayer SiO2-TiO2 films are formed on both sides of the glass substrates by combining the sol–gel method and the dip-coating technique. SiO2 and TiO2 sols were prepared using tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) and tetrabutylorthotitanate (TBOT) as precursors and also nitric acid as catalyst. Prepared coatings were investigated by Field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), Fourier-transformed infrared spectrophotometer (FT-IR) and UV–visible spectrophotometer. After evaluation, all of SiO2 top layer coatings showed excellent antireflection in the wavelength range of 400-800 nm where the transmittance of glass substrate is significantly lower. By increasing the number of double TiO2-SiO2 layers, the transmission of the coated glass increases due to applied multilayer coating properties. 6-layer sol–gel TiO2-SiO2 shows the highest visible transmittance about 99.25% at the band of 550-650 nm.

Keywords: thin films, optical properties, sol-gel, multilayer

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Authors: Noelia L. Alchapar, Cláudia C. Pezzuto, Erica N. Correa

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Mitigating urban overheating is key to achieving the environmental and energy sustainability of cities. The management of the optical properties of the materials that make up the urban envelope -roofing, pavement, and facades- constitutes a profitable and effective tool to improve the urban microclimate and rehabilitate urban areas. Each material that makes up the urban envelope has a different capacity to reflect received solar radiation, which alters the fraction of solar radiation absorbed by the city. However, the paradigm of increasing solar reflectance in all areas of the city without distinguishing their relative position within the urban canyon can cause serious problems of overheating and discomfort among its inhabitants. The hypothesis that supports the research postulates that not all reflective technologies that contribute to urban radiative cooling favor the thermal comfort conditions of pedestrians to equal measure. The objective of this work is to determine to what degree the management of the optical properties of the facades modifies outdoor thermal comfort, given that the mitigation potential of materials with high reflectance in facades is strongly conditioned by geographical variables and by the geometric characteristics of the urban profile aspect ratio (H/W). This research was carried out under two climatic contexts, that of the city of Mendoza-Argentina and that of the city of Campinas-Brazil, according to the Köppen climate classification: BWk and Cwa, respectively. Two areas in two different climatic contexts (Mendoza - Argentina and Campinas - Brazil) were selected. Both areas have comparable urban morphology patterns. These areas are located in a region with low horizontal building density and residential zoning. The microclimatic conditions were monitored during the summer period with temperature and humidity fixed sensors inside vial channels. The microclimate model was simulated in ENVI-Met V5. A grid resolution of 3.5 x 3.5 x 3.5m was used for both cities, totaling an area of 145x145x30 grids. Based on the validated theoretical model, ten scenarios were simulated, modifying the height of buildings and the solar reflectivity of facades. The solar reflectivity façades ranges were: low (0.3) and high (0.75). The density scenarios range from 1th to the 5th level. The study scenarios' performance was assessed by comparing the air temperature, physiological equivalent temperature (PET), and thermal climate index (UTCI). As a result, it is observed that the behavior of the materials of the urban outdoor space depends on complex interactions. Many urban environmental factors influence including constructive characteristics, urban morphology, geographic locations, local climate, and so forth. The role of the vertical urban envelope is decisive for the reduction of urban overheating. One of the causes of thermal gain is the multiple reflections within the urban canyon, which affects not only the air temperature but also the pedestrian thermal comfort. One of the main findings of this work leads to the remarkable importance of considering both the urban warming and the thermal comfort aspects of pedestrians in urban mitigation strategies.

Keywords: materials facades, solar reflectivity, thermal comfort, urban cooling

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Authors: Ashish Kumar, Munesh Raghuraj Varma, Nisarg Joshi, Gujjula Vishwa Teja, Srikanth Sambi, Arpit Awasthi

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Autonomous driving vehicles are revolutionizing the transportation system of the 21st century. This has been possible due to intensive research put into making a robust, reliable, and intelligent program that can perceive and understand its environment and make decisions based on the understanding. It is a very data-intensive task with data coming from multiple sensors and the amount of data directly reflects on the performance of the system. Researchers have to design the preprocessing pipeline for different datasets with different sensor orientations and alignments before the dataset can be fed to the model. This paper proposes a solution that provides a method to unify all the data from different sources into a uniform format using the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the sensor used to capture the data allowing the same pipeline to use data from multiple sources at a time. This also means easy adoption of new datasets or In-house generated datasets. The solution also automates the complete deep learning pipeline from preprocessing to post-processing for various tasks allowing researchers to design multiple custom end-to-end pipelines. Thus, the solution takes care of the input and output data handling, saving the time and effort spent on it and allowing more time for model improvement.

Keywords: augmentation, autonomous driving, camera, custom end-to-end pipeline, data unification, lidar, post-processing, preprocessing

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Authors: Serge Mudinga Lemika, Samuel Olukayode Akinwamide, Aribo Sunday, Babatunde Abiodun Obadele, Peter Apata Olubambi

Abstract:

Use of Duplex stainless steel has become predominant in applications where excellent corrosion resistance is of utmost importance. Corrosion behavior of duplex stainless steel induced with varying stress in a chloride media were studied. Characterization of as received 2205 duplex stainless steels were carried out to reveal its structure and properties tensile sample produced from duplex stainless steel was initially subjected to tensile test to obtain the yield strength. Stresses obtained by various percentages (20, 40, 60 and 80%) of the yield strength was induced in DSS samples. Corrosion tests were carried out in magnesium chloride solution at room temperature. Morphologies of cracks observed with optical and scanning electron microscope showed that samples induced with higher stress had its austenite and ferrite grains affected by pitting.

Keywords: duplex stainless steel, hardness, nanoceramics, spark plasma sintering

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Authors: Christiana Ebobo

Abstract:

Cybercrime consists of numerous crimes that are perpetrated on the internet on daily basis. The forms include but not limited to Identity theft, Pretentious dating, Desktop counterfeiting, Internet chat room, Cyber harassment, Fraudulent electronic mails, Automated Teller Machine Spoofing, Pornography, Piracy, Hacking, Credit card frauds, Phishing and Spamming. The general term used among the youths for this type of crime in Nigeria is ‘Yahoo Yahoo’. Cybercrime is on the increase among the youths at all levels as such this study aims at examining the impact of cybercrime on youth development in Nigeria. The study examines the impact of cybercrime on youths’ academic performance, integrity, employment and religious practices. The study is a survey which made use of questionnaire and focus group discussion among 150 randomly selected youths in Gwagwalada LCDA, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. The study adopts the systems theory as its theoretical framework. The study also adopts the simple frequency table and percentage for its data analysis. The study reveals that cybercrime has eaten deep into the minds of some youths and some of them are practicing diabolic means to succeed in it. It is also reveals that majority (68%) of the respondents believe that cybercrime impacts negatively on youths’ academic performance in Nigeria. The major recommendation of this study is that cybercrime offenders should be treated like armed robbers in order to discourage other youths from getting involved in it.

Keywords: armed robber, cybercrime, integrity, youth

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Authors: N. Chetty, K. Singh

Abstract:

In this work, the relationship between the melanin content in a tissue and subsequent absorption of light through that tissue was determined using a digital camera. This technique proved to be simple, cost effective, efficient and reliable. Tissue phantom samples were created using milk and soy sauce to simulate the optical properties of melanin content in human tissue. Increasing the concentration of soy sauce in the milk correlated to an increase in melanin content of an individual. Two methods were employed to measure the light transmitted through the sample. The first was direct measurement of the transmitted intensity using a conventional lux meter. The second method involved correctly calibrating an ordinary digital camera and using image analysis software to calculate the transmitted intensity through the phantom. The results from these methods were then graphically compared to the theoretical relationship between the intensity of transmitted light and the concentration of absorbers in the sample. Conclusions were then drawn about the effectiveness and efficiency of these low cost methods.

Keywords: tissue phantoms, scattering coefficient, albedo, low-cost method

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Authors: Hossain A., Chowdhury S. I.

Abstract:

Introduction: The use of a gamma camera is a standard procedure in nuclear medicine facilities or hospitals to diagnose chronic kidney disease (CKD), but the gamma camera does not precisely stage the disease. The authors sought to determine whether they could use an artificial neural network to determine whether CKD was in normal or abnormal stages based on GFR values (ANN). Method: The 250 kidney patients (Training 188, Testing 62) who underwent an ultrasonography test to diagnose a renal test in our nuclear medical center were scanned using a gamma camera. Before the scanning procedure, the patients received an injection of ⁹⁹ᵐTc-DTPA. The gamma camera computes the pre- and post-syringe radioactive counts after the injection has been pushed into the patient's vein. The artificial neural network uses the softmax function with cross-entropy loss to determine whether CKD is normal or abnormal based on the GFR value in the output layer. Results: The proposed ANN model had a 99.20 % accuracy according to K-fold cross-validation. The sensitivity and specificity were 99.10 and 99.20 %, respectively. AUC was 0.994. Conclusion: The proposed model can distinguish between normal and abnormal stages of CKD by using an artificial neural network. The gamma camera could be upgraded to diagnose normal or abnormal stages of CKD with an appropriate GFR value following the clinical application of the proposed model.

Keywords: artificial neural network, glomerular filtration rate, stages of the kidney, gamma camera

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Authors: Abeer A. Kenawy, Usama Massoud, El-Said A. Ragab, Heba M. El-Kosery

Abstract:

2-D Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and hydrochemical study have been conducted at El Sadat industrial city. The study aims to investigate the area around the wastewater ponds to determine the possibility of water percolation from the wastewater ponds to the Pleistocene aquifer and to inspect the effect of this seepage on the groundwater chemistry. Pleistocene aquifer is the main groundwater reservoir in this area, where El Sadat city and its vicinities depend totally on this aquifer for water supplies needed for drinking, agricultural, and industrial activities. In this concern, seven ERT profiles were measured around the wastewater ponds. Besides, 10 water samples were collected from the ponds and the nearby groundwater wells. The water samples have been chemically analyzed for major cations, anions, nutrients, and heavy elements. Also, the physical parameters (pH, Alkalinity, EC, TDS) of the water samples were measured. Inspection of the ERT sections shows that they exhibit lower resistivity values towards the water ponds and higher values in opposite sides. In addition, the water table was detected at shallower depths at the same sides of lower resistivity. This could indicate a wastewater infiltration to the groundwater aquifer near the oxidation ponds. Correlation of the physical parameters and ionic concentrations of the wastewater samples with those of the groundwater samples indicates that; the ionic levels are randomly varying and no specific trend could be obtained. In addition, the wastewater samples shows some ionic levels lower than those detected in other groundwater samples. Besides, the nitrate level is higher in samples taken from the cultivated land than the wastewater samples due to the over using of nitrogen fertilizers. Then, we can say that the infiltrated water from wastewater ponds are not the main controller of the groundwater chemistry in this area, but rather the variable ionic concentrations could be attributed to local, natural, and anthropogenic processes.

Keywords: El Sadat city, ERT, hydrochemistry, percolation, wastewater ponds

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Authors: Abbas Raza Ali

Abstract:

Big Data technology is gradually becoming a dire need of large enterprises. These enterprises are generating massively large amount of off-line and streaming data in both structured and unstructured formats on daily basis. It is a challenging task to effectively extract useful insights from the large scale datasets, even though sometimes it becomes a technology constraint to manage transactional data history of more than a few months. This paper presents a framework to efficiently manage massively large and complex datasets. The framework has been tested on a communication service provider producing massively large complex streaming data in binary format. The communication industry is bound by the regulators to manage history of their subscribers’ call records where every action of a subscriber generates a record. Also, managing and analyzing transactional data allows service providers to better understand their customers’ behavior, for example, deep packet inspection requires transactional internet usage data to explain internet usage behaviour of the subscribers. However, current relational database systems limit service providers to only maintain history at semantic level which is aggregated at subscriber level. The framework addresses these challenges by leveraging Big Data technology which optimally manages and allows deep analysis of complex datasets. The framework has been applied to offload existing Intelligent Network Mediation and relational Data Warehouse of the service provider on Big Data. The service provider has 50+ million subscriber-base with yearly growth of 7-10%. The end-to-end process takes not more than 10 minutes which involves binary to ASCII decoding of call detail records, stitching of all the interrogations against a call (transformations) and aggregations of all the call records of a subscriber.

Keywords: big data, communication service providers, enterprise data warehouse, stream computing, Telco IN Mediation

Procedia PDF Downloads 163