Search results for: spectral domain optical coherence tomography

Authors: Nigus Maregu Demewoz, Shu-Kai Yeh

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Low-density nanocellular foam is a fascinating new-generation advanced material due to its mechanical strength and thermal insulation properties. In nanocellular foam, reducing the density increases the insulation ability. However, producing a nanocellular foam of densities less than 0.3 with a cell size of less than 100 nm is very challenging. In this study, poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) was blended with Polyether block amide (PEBAX) to study the effects of PEBAX on the nanocellular foam structure of the PMMA matrix. We added 2 wt% of PEBAX in the PMMA matrix, and the PEBAX nanostructured domain size of 45 nm was well dispersed in the PMMA matrix. The foaming result produced a new generation special bouquet-like nanocellular foam of cell size less than 50 nm with a relative density of 0.24. Also, we were able to produce a nanocellular foam of a relative density of about 0.17. In addition to thermal insulation applications, bouquet-like nanocellular foam may be expected for filtration applications.

Keywords: nanocellular foam, low-density, cell size, relative density, PMMA/PEBAX blend

Procedia PDF Downloads 98

Authors: Florian Kleber, Martin Kampel

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The increasing demand of gallium, indium and rare-earth elements for the production of electronics, e.g. solid state-lighting, photovoltaics, integrated circuits, and liquid crystal displays, will exceed the world-wide supply according to current forecasts. Recycling systems to reclaim these materials are not yet in place, which challenges the sustainability of these technologies. This paper proposes a multispectral imaging system as a basis for a vision based recognition system for valuable components of electronics waste. Multispectral images intend to enhance the contrast of images of printed circuit boards (single components, as well as labels) for further analysis, such as optical character recognition and entire printed circuit board recognition. The results show that a higher contrast is achieved in the near infrared compared to ultraviolet and visible light.

Keywords: electronics waste, multispectral imaging, printed circuit boards, rare-earth elements

Procedia PDF Downloads 418

Authors: Van Nhan Nguyen, Harald Holone

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Over the past few years, a lot of research has been conducted to bring Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) into various areas of Air Traffic Control (ATC), such as air traffic control simulation and training, monitoring live operators for with the aim of safety improvements, air traffic controller workload measurement and conducting analysis on large quantities controller-pilot speech. Due to the high accuracy requirements of the ATC context and its unique challenges, automatic speech recognition has not been widely adopted in this field. With the aim of providing a good starting point for researchers who are interested bringing automatic speech recognition into ATC, this paper gives an overview of possibilities and challenges of applying automatic speech recognition in air traffic control. To provide this overview, we present an updated literature review of speech recognition technologies in general, as well as specific approaches relevant to the ATC context. Based on this literature review, criteria for selecting speech recognition approaches for the ATC domain are presented, and remaining challenges and possible solutions are discussed.

Keywords: automatic speech recognition, asr, air traffic control, atc

Procedia PDF Downloads 403

Authors: Olawale J. Olaluyi, Ayodele S. Oluwole, O. Akinsanmi, Johnson O. Adeogo

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Communication using visible light VLC is considered a cutting-edge technology used for data transmission and illumination since it uses less energy than radio frequency (RF) technology and has a large bandwidth, extended lifespan, and high security. The room's irregular distribution of small base stations, or LED array distribution, is the cause of the obscured area, minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and received power. In order to maximize the received power distribution and SNR at the center of the room for an indoor VLC system, the researchers offer an innovative model for the placement of eight LED array distributions in this work. We have investigated the arrangement of the LED array distribution with regard to receiving power to fill the open space in the center of the room. The suggested LED array distribution saved 36.2% of the transmitted power, according to the simulation findings. Aside from that, the entire room was equally covered. This leads to an increase in both received power and SNR.

Keywords: visible light communication (VLC), light emitted diodes (LED), optical power distribution, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

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Authors: Amel Hamma, Allesandro Pegoretti

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Kenaf fibres, with two aspect ratios, were melt compounded with two types of biopolymers named starch grafted polypropylene, and then blends compression molded to form plates of 1 mm thick. Results showed that processing induced variation of fibres length which is quantified by optical microscopy observations. Young modulus, stress at break and impact resistance values of starch-grafted-polypropylenes were remarkably improved by kenaf fibres for both matrixes and demonstrated best values when G906PJ were used as matrix. These results attest the good interfacial bonding between the matrix and fibres even in the absence of any interfacial modification. Vicat Softening Point and storage modules were also improved due to the reinforcing effect of fibres. Moreover, short-term tensile creep tests have proven that kenaf fibres remarkably improve the creep stability of composites. The creep behavior of the investigated materials was successfully modeled by the four parameters Burgers model.

Keywords: creep behaviour, kenaf fibres, mechanical properties, starch-grafted-polypropylene

Procedia PDF Downloads 236

Authors: Ruqyyah Mushtaq, Chiacar Gamberdella, Roberta Miroglio, Fabio Novelli, Domenica Papro, M. Paturzo, A. Rubano, Angela Sardo

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Microalgae, particularly diatoms, are well suited for monitoring environmental health, especially in assessing the quality of seas and rivers in terms of organic matter, nutrients, and heavy metal pollution. They respond rapidly to changes in habitat quality. In this study, we focused on Skeletonema pseudocostatum, a unicellular alga that forms chains depending on environmental conditions. Specifically, we explored whether metal toxicants could affect the growth of these algal chains, potentially serving as an ecotoxicological indicator of heavy metal pollution. We utilized THz spectroscopy in conjunction with standard optical microscopy to observe the formation of these chains and their response to toxicants. Despite the strong absorption of terahertz radiation in water, we demonstrate that changes in water absorption in the terahertz range due to water-diatom interaction can provide insights into diatom chain length.

Keywords: THz-TDS spectroscopy, diatoms, marine ecotoxicology, marine pollution

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Authors: Edip Kemal, Sheshov Vlatko, Bojadjieva Julijana, Bogdanovic ALeksandra, Gjorgjeska Irena

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The wave propagation phenomenon in porous domains is of great importance in the field of geotechnical earthquake engineering. In these kinds of problems, the elastic waves propagate from the interior to the exterior domain and require special treatment at the computational level since apart from displacement in the solid-state there is a p-wave that takes place in the pore water phase. In this paper, a study on the implementation of multiphase finite elements is presented. The proposed algorithm is implemented in the ANSYS finite element software and tested on one-dimensional wave propagation considering both pore pressure wave propagation and displacement fields. In the simulation of porous media such as soils, the behavior is governed largely by the interaction of the solid skeleton with water and/or air in the pores. Therefore, coupled problems of fluid flow and deformation of the solid skeleton are considered in a detailed way.

Keywords: wave propagation, multiphase model, numerical methods, finite element method

Procedia PDF Downloads 169

Authors: Eman AbuKhousa, Marwan Z. Bataineh

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The 21^st century higher education and globalization challenge new faculty members to build effective professional networks and partnership with industry in order to accelerate their growth and success. This creates the need for community of practice (CoP)-oriented development approaches that focus on cognitive apprenticeship while considering individual predisposition and future career needs. This work adopts data mining, clustering analysis, and social networking technologies to present the CoP-Network as a virtual space that connects together similar career-aspiration individuals who are socially influenced to join and engage in a process for domain-related knowledge and practice acquisitions. The CoP-Network model can be integrated into higher education to extend traditional graduate and professional development programs.

Keywords: clustering analysis, community of practice, data mining, higher education, new faculty challenges, social network, social influence, professional development

Procedia PDF Downloads 185

Authors: Bhuvnesh Narayanan, Bernhard Weiss, Tvrtko Mandic, Adrijan Baric

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This paper discusses a method to reconstruct internal high-frequency signals through subsampling techniques in an IC using an on-chip sensor. Though there are existing methods to internally probe and reconstruct high frequency signals through subsampling techniques; these methods have been applicable mainly for synchronized systems. This paper demonstrates a method for making such non-intrusive on-chip reconstructions possible also in non-synchronized systems. The TLP pulse is used to demonstrate the experimental validation of the concept. The on-chip sensor measures the voltage in an internal node. The jitter in the input pulse causes a varying pulse delay with respect to the on-chip sampling command. By measuring this pulse delay and by correlating it with the measured on-chip voltage, time domain waveforms can be reconstructed, and the influence of the pulse on the internal nodes can be better understood.

Keywords: on-chip sensor, jitter, transmission line pulse, subsampling

Procedia PDF Downloads 150

Authors: Lorenzo Bonoldi, Gianluca Memoli, Abdelhalim Azbaid El Ouahabi

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In this paper, a series of ring-shaped attenuators utilizing Helmholtz and quarter wavelength resonators in variable, fixed, and combined configurations have been manufactured using a 3D printer. We illustrate possible uses by incorporating such devices into musical instruments (e.g. in acoustic guitar sound holes) and audio speakers with a view to controlling such devices tonal emissions without electronic equalization systems. Numerical investigations into the transmission loss values of these ring-shaped attenuators using finite element method simulations (COMSOL Multiphysics) have been presented in the frequency range of 100– 1000 Hz. We compare such results for each attenuator model with experimental measurements using different driving sources such as white noise, a maximum-length sequence (MLS), square and sine sweep pulses, and point scans in the frequency domain. Finally, we present a preliminary discussion on the comparison of numerical and experimental results.

Keywords: equaliser, metamaterials, musical, instruments

Procedia PDF Downloads 179

Authors: Gül Çevik

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This paper summarizes the work conducted to assess the root cause of the failure of a medium commercial vehicle leaf spring failed in service. Macro- and micro-fractographic analyses by scanning electron microscope as well as material verification tests were conducted in order to understand the failure mechanisms and root cause of the failure. Findings from the fractographic analyses indicated that failure mechanism is fatigue. Crack initiation was identified to have occurred from a point on the top surface near to the front face and to the left side. Two other crack initiation points were also observed, however, these cracks did not propagate. The propagation mode of the fatigue crack revealed that the cyclic loads resulting in crack initiation and propagation were unidirectional bending. Fractographic analyses have also showed that the root cause of the fatigue crack initiation and propagation was loading the part above design stress. Material properties of the part were also verified by chemical composition analysis, microstructural analysis by optical microscopy and hardness tests.

Keywords: leaf spring, failure analysis, fatigue, fractography

Procedia PDF Downloads 137

Authors: Evans Belly, Imdad Rizvi, M. M. Kadam

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Satellite imagery is one of the emerging technologies which are extensively utilized in various applications such as detection/extraction of man-made structures, monitoring of sensitive areas, creating graphic maps etc. The main approach here is the automated detection of buildings from very high resolution (VHR) optical satellite images. Initially, the shadow, the building and the non-building regions (roads, vegetation etc.) are investigated wherein building extraction is mainly focused. Once all the landscape is collected a trimming process is done so as to eliminate the landscapes that may occur due to non-building objects. Finally the label method is used to extract the building regions. The label method may be altered for efficient building extraction. The images used for the analysis are the ones which are extracted from the sensors having resolution less than 1 meter (VHR). This method provides an efficient way to produce good results. The additional overhead of mid processing is eliminated without compromising the quality of the output to ease the processing steps required and time consumed.

Keywords: building detection, shadow detection, landscape generation, label, partitioning, very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery

Procedia PDF Downloads 319

Authors: M. A. Ghebouli, H. Choutri, B. Ghebouli , M. Fatmi, L. Louail

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We employed the density-functional perturbation theory (DFPT) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA), the local density approximation (LDA) and the virtual-crystal approximation (VCA) to study the effect of composition on the structure, stability, energy gaps, electron effective mass, the dynamic effective charge, optical and acoustical phonon frequencies and static and high dielectric constants of the rock-salt CaxMg1-xSe and CaxMg1-xTe alloys. The computed equilibrium lattice constant and bulk modulus show an important deviation from the linear concentration. From the Voigt-Reuss-Hill approximation, CaxMg1-xSe and CaxMg1-xTe present lower stiffness and lateral expansion. For Ca content ranging between 0.25-0.75, the elastic constants, energy gaps, electron effective mass and dynamic effective charge are predictions. The elastic constants and computed phonon dispersion curves indicate that these alloys are mechanically stable.

Keywords: CaxMg1-xSe, CaxMg1-xTe, band structure, phonon

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Authors: Sudip Kumar Sinha, Saptarshi Ghosh

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While there’s a perpetual buzz around zinc oxide (ZnO) superstructures for their unique optical features, the versatile material has been constantly utilized to manifest tailored electronic properties through rendition of distinct morphologies. And yet, the unorthodox approach of implementing the novel 1D nanostructures of ZnO (pristine or doped) for volatile sensing applications has ample scope to accommodate new unconventional morphologies. In the last two decades, solid-state sensors have attracted much curiosity for their relevance in identifying pollutant, toxic and other industrial gases. In particular gas sensors based on metal oxide semiconducting (wide Eg) nanomaterials have recently attracted intensive attention owing to their high sensitivity and fast response and recovery time. These materials when exposed to air, the atmospheric O2 dissociates and get absorb on the surface of the sensors by trapping the outermost shell electrons. Finally a depleted zone on the surface of the sensors is formed, that enhances the potential barrier height at grain boundary . Once a target gas is exposed to the sensor, the chemical interaction between the chemisorbed oxygen and the specific gas liberates the trapped electrons. Therefore altering the amount of adsorbate is a considerable approach to improve the sensitivity of any target gas/vapour molecule. Likewise, this study presents a spontaneous but self catalytic creation of Sn-doped ZnO hexagonal nanoprisms on Si (100) substrates through thermal evaporation-condensation method, and their subsequent deployment for volatile sensing. In particular, the sensors were utilized to detect molecules of ethanol, acetone and ammonia below their permissible exposure limits which returned sensitivities of around 85%, 80% and 50% respectively. The influence of Sn concentration on the growth, microstructural and optical properties of the nanoprisms along with its role in augmenting the sensing parameters has been detailed. The single-crystalline nanostructures have a typical diameter ranging from 300 to 500 nm and a length that extends up to few micrometers. HRTEM images confirmed the hexagonal crystallography for the nanoprisms, while SAED pattern asserted the single crystalline nature. The growth habit is along the low index <0001>directions. It has been seen that the growth mechanism of the as-deposited nanostructures are directly influenced by varying supersaturation ratio, fairly high substrate temperatures, and specified surface defects in certain crystallographic planes, all acting cooperatively decide the final product morphology. Room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectra of this rod like structures exhibits a weak ultraviolet (UV) emission peak at around 380 nm and a broad green emission peak in the 505 nm regime. An estimate of the sensing parameters against dispensed target molecules highlighted the potential for the nanoprisms as an effective volatile sensing material. The Sn-doped ZnO nanostructures with unique prismatic morphology may find important applications in various chemical sensors as well as other potential nanodevices.

Keywords: gas sensor, HRTEM, photoluminescence, ultraviolet, zinc oxide

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Authors: N. Jinesh, K. Shankar

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This article presents a method of using the one dimensional piezo-electric patch on beam model for structural identification. A hybrid element constituted of one dimensional beam element and a PZT sensor is used with reduced material properties. This model is convenient and simple for identification of beams. Accuracy of this element is first verified against a corresponding 3D finite element model (FEM). The structural identification is carried out as an inverse problem whereby parameters are identified by minimizing the deviation between the predicted and measured voltage response of the patch, when subjected to excitation. A non-classical optimization algorithm Particle Swarm Optimization is used to minimize this objective function. The signals are polluted with 5% Gaussian noise to simulate experimental noise. The proposed method is applied on beam structure and identified parameters are stiffness and damping. The model is also validated experimentally.

Keywords: inverse problem, particle swarm optimization, PZT patches, structural identification

Procedia PDF Downloads 311

Authors: Ivan Stanev, Maria Koleva

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Described are challenges to the Bulgarian e-Customs (BeC) related to low level of interoperability and standardization, inefficient use of available infrastructure, lack of centralized identification and authorization, extremely low level of software process automation, and insufficient quality of data stored in official registers. The technical requirements for BeC are prepared with a focus on domain independent common platform, specialized customs and excise components, high scalability, flexibility, and reusability. The Knowledge Based Automated Software Engineering (KBASE) Common Platform for Automated Programming (CPAP) is selected as an instrument covering BeC requirements for standardization, programming automation, knowledge interpretation and cloud computing. BeC stage 3 results are presented and analyzed. BeC.S3 development trends are identified.

Keywords: service oriented architecture, cloud computing, knowledge based automated software engineering, common platform for automated programming, e-customs

Procedia PDF Downloads 377

Authors: Ateeth Shetty, K. S. Jayappa, Ratheesh Ramakrishnan, A. S. Rajawat

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Suspended Sediment Concentration (SSC) was estimated for the period of four months (November, 2013 to February 2014) using Oceansat-2 (Ocean Colour Monitor) satellite images to understand the coastal dynamics and regional sediment transport, especially distribution and budgeting in coastal waters. The coastal zone undergoes continuous changes due to natural processes and anthropogenic activities. The importance of the coastal zone, with respect to safety, ecology, economy and recreation, demands a management strategy in which each of these aspects is taken into account. Monitoring and understanding the sediment dynamics and suspended sediment transport is an important issue for coastal engineering related activities. A study of the transport mechanism of suspended sediments in the near shore environment is essential not only to safeguard marine installations or navigational channels, but also for the coastal structure design, environmental protection and disaster reduction. Such studies also help in assessment of pollutants and other biological activities in the region. An accurate description of the sediment transport, caused by waves and tidal or wave-induced currents, is of great importance in predicting coastal morphological changes. Satellite-derived SSC data have been found to be useful for Indian coasts because of their high spatial (360 m), spectral and temporal resolutions. The present paper outlines the applications of state‐of‐the‐art operational Indian Remote Sensing satellite, Oceansat-2 to study the dynamics of sediment transport.

Keywords: suspended sediment concentration, ocean colour monitor, sediment transport, case – II waters

Procedia PDF Downloads 255

Authors: Rosa L. Figueroa, Christopher A. Flores, Qing Zeng-Treitler

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A regular expression consists of sequence characters which allow describing a text path. Usually, in clinical research, regular expressions are manually created by programmers together with domain experts. Lately, there have been several efforts to investigate how to generate them automatically. This article presents a text classification algorithm based on regexes. The algorithm named REX was designed, and then, implemented as a simplified method to create regexes to classify Spanish text automatically. In order to classify ambiguous cases, such as, when multiple labels are assigned to a testing example, REX includes an information gain method Two sets of data were used to evaluate the algorithm’s effectiveness in clinical text classification tasks. The results indicate that the regular expression based classifier proposed in this work performs statically better regarding accuracy and F-measure than Support Vector Machine and Naïve Bayes for both datasets.

Keywords: information gain, regular expressions, smith-waterman algorithm, text classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 324

Authors: Emily Stamm, Neil Smyth, Elizabeth O'Sullivan

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In Identity-Based Encryption (IBE), an identity, such as a username, email address, or domain name, acts as the public key. IBE consolidates the PKI by eliminating the repetitive process of requesting public keys for each message encryption. Two of the most popular schemes are Sakai-Kasahara (SAKKE), which is based on elliptic curve pairings, and the Ducas, Lyubashevsky, and Prest lattice scheme (DLP- Lattice), which is based on quantum-secure lattice cryptography. In or- der to embed the schemes in a standard enterprise setting, both schemes are implemented as shared system libraries and integrated into a REST service that functions at the enterprise level. The performance of both schemes as libraries and services is compared, and the practicalities of implementation and application are discussed. Our performance results indicate that although SAKKE has the smaller key and ciphertext sizes, DLP-Lattice is significantly faster overall and we recommend it for most enterprise use cases.

Keywords: identity-based encryption, post-quantum cryptography, lattice-based cryptography, IBE

Procedia PDF Downloads 145

Authors: H. G. C. P. Dinesh, G. Tharshini, M. P. B. Ekanayake, G. M. R. I. Godaliyadda

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This paper presents a new spatial feature extraction method based on principle component analysis (PCA) and Fisher Discernment Analysis (FDA) for facial expression recognition. It not only extracts reliable features for classification, but also reduces the feature space dimensions of pattern samples. In this method, first each gray scale image is considered in its entirety as the measurement matrix. Then, principle components (PCs) of row vectors of this matrix and variance of these row vectors along PCs are estimated. Therefore, this method would ensure the preservation of spatial information of the facial image. Afterwards, by incorporating the spectral information of the eigen-filters derived from the PCs, a feature vector was constructed, for a given image. Finally, FDA was used to define a set of basis in a reduced dimension subspace such that the optimal clustering is achieved. The method of FDA defines an inter-class scatter matrix and intra-class scatter matrix to enhance the compactness of each cluster while maximizing the distance between cluster marginal points. In order to matching the test image with the training set, a cosine similarity based Bayesian classification was used. The proposed method was tested on the Cohn-Kanade database and JAFFE database. It was observed that the proposed method which incorporates spatial information to construct an optimal feature space outperforms the standard PCA and FDA based methods.

Keywords: facial expression recognition, principle component analysis (PCA), fisher discernment analysis (FDA), eigen-filter, cosine similarity, bayesian classifier, f-measure

Procedia PDF Downloads 429

Authors: A. Abdullah, S. Abushalmat, A. Bakshwain, A. Basuhail, A. Aslam

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GIS (Geographic Information System) applications require geo-referenced data, this data could be available as databases or in the form of digital or hard-copy agro-meteorological maps. These parameter maps are color-coded with different regions corresponding to different parameter values, converting these maps into a database is not very difficult. However, text and different planimetric elements overlaid on these maps makes an accurate image to database conversion a challenging problem. The reason being, it is almost impossible to exactly replace what was underneath the text or icons; thus, pointing to the need for inpainting. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic inpainting approach that uses the probability of spatial locality of colors in the map for replacing overlaid elements with underlying color. We tested the limits of our proposed technique using non-textual simulated data and compared text removing results with a popular image editing tool using public domain data with promising results.

Keywords: noise, image, GIS, digital map, inpainting

Procedia PDF Downloads 355

Authors: D. Erdenechimeg, T. Bujinlkham, N. Erdenepurev

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The anti-corrosion performance of fatty acid coated mild steel samples is studied. Samples of structural steel coated with collector reagents deposited from surfactant in ethanol solution and overcoated with an epoxy barrier paint. A quantitative corrosion rate was determined by linear polarization resistance method using biopotentiostat/galvanostat 400. Coating morphology was determined by scanning electronic microscopy. A test for hydrophobic surface of steel by surfactant was done. From the samples, the main component or high content iron was determined by chemical method and other metal contents were determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) method. Prior to measuring the corrosion rate, mechanical and chemical treatments were performed to prepare the test specimens. Overcoating the metal samples with epoxy barrier paint after exposing them with surfactant the corrosion rate can be inhibited by 34-35 µm/year.

Keywords: corrosion, linear polarization resistance, coating, surfactant

Procedia PDF Downloads 104

Authors: Tian Lan, Yixiang Wang, Wenxin Tai, Yilan Lyu, Zufeng Wu

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The monaural speech enhancement task in the time-frequencydomain has a myriad of approaches, with the stacked con-volutional neural network (CNN) demonstrating superiorability in feature extraction and selection. However, usingstacked single convolutions method limits feature represen-tation capability and generalization ability. In order to solvethe aforementioned problem, we propose an attention-basedadaptive convolutional network that integrates the multi-scale convolutional operations into a operation-specific blockvia input dependent attention to adapt to complex auditoryscenes. In addition, we introduce a two-stage progressivelearning method to enlarge the receptive field without a dra-matic increase in computation burden. We conduct a series ofexperiments based on the TIMIT corpus, and the experimen-tal results prove that our proposed model is better than thestate-of-art models on all metrics.

Keywords: speech enhancement, adaptive convolu-tion, progressive learning, time-frequency domain

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Fengmei Li, Li Xu, Guoliang Xia

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Lysozyme is a catalytic enzyme that performs bacterial cell lysis by cleaving the β-1,4-glycosidic bond between N-acetylmuramic acid and N-acetylglucosamine of peptidoglycan in cell walls. In the present study, an invertebrate-type (i-type) lysozyme gene was cloned from Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis (designated as EsLysozyme) based on PCR-based rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) technology. The full-length cDNA of EsLysozyme was of 831 bp. SMART and SIGNALP 3.0 program analysis revealed that EsLysozyme contained a signal peptide and a destabilase domain. The five amino acid residues (Tyr63, Trp64, Tyr91, His110, Pro114) and the conserved motif GSLSCG(P/Y)FQI and CL(E/L/R/H)C(I/M)C in i-type lysozymes were also found in EsLysozyme. The high similarity of EsLysozyme with L. vannamei lysozymes and phylogenetic analysis suggested that EsLysozyme should be a new member of i-type lysozyme family.

Keywords: i-type lysozyme, Eriocheir sinensis, cloning, characterization

Procedia PDF Downloads 299

Authors: Ekkehard Fehling, Paul Capewell

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In recent years, the importance of masonry glued by polyurethane adhesive has increased. In 2021, the Institute of Structural Engineering of the University of Kassel was commissioned to carry out quasi-static in-plane shear tests on prefabricated brick masonry panel systems with 2K PUR adhesive in order to investigate the load-bearing behavior during earthquakes. In addition to the usual measurement of deformations using displacement transducers, all tests were documented using an optical measuring system (“GOM”), which was used to determine the surface strains and deformations of the test walls. To compare the results with conventional mortar walls, additional reference tests were carried out on test specimens with thin-bed mortar joints. This article summarizes the results of the test program and provides a comparison between the load-bearing behavior of masonry bonded with polyurethane adhesive and thin bed mortar in order to enable realistic non-linear modeling.

Keywords: masonry, shear tests, in-plane, polyurethane adhesive

Procedia PDF Downloads 75

Authors: Chun-Ying Lee, Mei-Wen Wu, Li-Yi Cheng, Chiang-Ho Cheng

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This research studies the electroplating of zinc coating in the zinc chloride bath mixed with supercritical CO2. The sodium fluoride (NaF) was used as the bath additive to change the structure and property of the coating, and therefore the roughness and corrosion resistance of the zinc coating was investigated. The surface characterization was performed using optical microscope (OM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and α-step profilometer. Moreover, the potentiodynamic polarization measurement in 3% NaCl solution was employed in the corrosion resistance evaluation. Because of the emulsification of the electrolyte mixed in Sc-CO2, the electroplated zinc produced the coating with smoother surface, smaller grain, better throwing power and higher corrosion resistance. The main role played by the NaF was to reduce the coating’s roughness and grain size. In other words, the CO2 mixed with the electrolyte under the supercritical condition performed the similar function as brighter and leveler in zinc electroplating to enhance the throwing power and corrosion resistance of the coating.

Keywords: supercritical CO2, zinc-electroplating, sodium fluoride, electroplating

Procedia PDF Downloads 567

Authors: Sangkhao M., Butcher B. A.

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Diazepam (known as valium) is a medication for calming effect. Many reports on committed suicide cases shown that diazepam is frequently used for this purpose. This research aims to study effect of diazepam on the development of forensically important blowflies, Chrysomya megacephala (Diptera: Calliphoridae) using micro-computed tomography (micro CT). In this study, four rabbits were treated with three different lethal doses of diazepam and one control (LD₀, LD₅₀, LD₁₀₀ and LC). The rabbit’s livers were removed for rearing the blowflies. Pupae were sampled for two series (ages; S1: 24h and S2: 120h) of development. After preparing the specimens, all samples were performed Micro CT using Skyscan 1172. The results shown the effect of diazepam on internal organs and tissues such as brain, cavity of the body, gas bubble, meconium and especially fat body. In the control group, in series 1 (LCS1), fat body was equally dispersed in the head, thorax, and abdomen, development of internal organs were not completed, however, brain, thoracic muscle, wings, legs and rectum were able to observe at 24h after developing into the pupal stage. Development of each organ in the control group in the series two was completed. In the treatment groups, LD₀, LD₅₀, LD₁₀₀ (Series 1 and Series 2), tissues are different, such as gas bubble in LD₀S1, was observed due to rapidity morphological changes during the metamorphosis of blowfly’s pupa in this treatment. Meconium was observed in LD₅₀S2 group because excretion of metabolic waste was not completed. All of the samples in the treatment groups had differentiation of fat bodies because metabolic activities were not completed and these changes affected on functions of every internal system. Discovering of differentiated fat bodies are important results because fat bodies of insect functions as liver in human, therefore it is shown that toxin eliminates from blowfly’s body and homeostatic maintenance of the hemolymph proteins, lipid and carbohydrates in each treatment group are abnormal.

Keywords: forensic toxicology, forensic entomology, diptera, diazepam

Procedia PDF Downloads 128

Authors: Sami Iqbal, Azam Hussain, Weiping Wu, Guo Xinli, Tong Zhang

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A novel octagonal upright micro-pyramid structure was generated by wet chemical anisotropic etching on a monocrystalline silicon wafer (100). The primary objectives are to reduce front surface reflectance of silicon wafers, improve wettability, enhance surface morphology, and maximize the area coverage by generated octagonal pyramids. Under rigorous control and observation, the etching process' response time was maintained precisely. The experimental outcomes show a significant decrease in the optical surface reflectance of silicon wafers, with the lowest reflectance of 8.98%, as well as enhanced surface structure, periodicity, and surface area coverage of more than 85%. The octagonal silicon pyramid was formed with a high etch rate of 0.41 um/min and a much shorter reaction time with the addition of hydrofluoric acid coupled with magnetic stirring (mechanical agitation) at 300 rpm.

Keywords: octagonal pyramids, rapid etching, solar cells, surface engineering, surface reflectance

Procedia PDF Downloads 105

Authors: F.Sadoughi, A. Sarsarshahi, L, Eerfannia, S.M.A. Khatami

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Hospital information systems with lots of ability would lead to health care quality improvement. Evaluation of this system has done according different method and criteria. The main goal of present study is to prioritize the most important factors which are influence these systems evaluation. At the first step, according relevant literature, three main factor and 29 subfactors extracted. Then, study framework was designed. Based on analytical hierarchical process (AHP), 28 paired comparisons with Saaty range, in a questionnaire format obtained. Questionnaires were filled by 10 experts in health information management and medical informatics field. Human factors with weight of 0.55 were ranked as the most important. Organization (0.25) and technology (0.14) were in next place. It seems MADM methods such as AHP have enough potential to use in health research and provide positive opportunities for health domain decision makers.

Keywords: Analytical hierarchy process, Multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM), Hospital information system, Evaluation factors

Procedia PDF Downloads 456

Authors: Madeleine Anthonisen, M. Hussain Sangji, G. Monserratt Lopez-Ayon, Margaret Magdesian, Peter Grutter

Abstract:

Advances in micromanipulation techniques and real-time particle tracking with nanometer resolution have enabled biological force measurements at scales relevant to neuron mechanics. An approach to precisely control and maneuver neurite-tethered polystyrene beads is presented. Analogous to an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), this multi-purpose platform is a force sensor with imaging acquisition and manipulation capabilities. A mechanical probe composed of a micropipette with its tip fixed to a functionalized bead is used to incite the formation of a neurite in a sample of rat hippocampal neurons while simultaneously measuring the tension in said neurite as the sample is pulled away from the beaded tip. With optical imaging methods, a force resolution of 12 pN is achieved. Moreover, the advantages of this technique over alternatives such as AFM, namely ease of manipulation which ultimately allows higher throughput investigation of the mechanical properties of neurons, is demonstrated.

Keywords: axonal growth, axonal guidance, force probe, pipette micromanipulation, neurite tension, neuron mechanics

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