Search results for: powder processing

Authors: Fawaz S. Al-Anzi, Dia AbuZeina

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Speech recognition is of an important contribution in promoting new technologies in human computer interaction. Today, there is a growing need to employ speech technology in daily life and business activities. However, speech recognition is a challenging task that requires different stages before obtaining the desired output. Among automatic speech recognition (ASR) components is the feature extraction process, which parameterizes the speech signal to produce the corresponding feature vectors. Feature extraction process aims at approximating the linguistic content that is conveyed by the input speech signal. In speech processing field, there are several methods to extract speech features, however, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) is the popular technique. It has been long observed that the MFCC is dominantly used in the well-known recognizers such as the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Sphinx and the Markov Model Toolkit (HTK). Hence, this paper focuses on the MFCC method as the standard choice to identify the different speech segments in order to obtain the language phonemes for further training and decoding steps. Due to MFCC good performance, the previous studies show that the MFCC dominates the Arabic ASR research. In this paper, we demonstrate MFCC as well as the intermediate steps that are performed to get these coefficients using the HTK toolkit.

Keywords: speech recognition, acoustic features, mel frequency, cepstral coefficients

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Authors: Aran Hakki, Corina Cirstea, Julian Rathke

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Formal methods are yet to be utilized in mainstream software development due to issues in scaling and implementation costs. This work is about developing a scalable, simplified, pragmatic, formal software development method with strong correctness properties and guarantees that are easy prove. The method aims to be easy to learn, use and apply without extensive training and experience in formal methods. Petra is proposed as an object-oriented, process calculus with composable data types and sequential/parallel processes. Petra has a simple denotational semantics, which includes a definition of Correct by Construction. The aim is for Petra is to be standard which can be implemented to execute on various mainstream programming platforms such as Java. Work towards an implementation of Petra as a Java EDSL (Embedded Domain Specific Language) is also discussed.

Keywords: compositionality, formal method, software verification, Java, denotational semantics, rewriting systems, rewriting semantics, parallel processing, object-oriented programming, OOP, programming language, correct by construction

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Authors: Elena A. Outkina, Marina V. Meledina, Aliaksandr A. Khodin

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Nanostructured thin films of SnSₓ, Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) semiconductors were fabricated by chemical processing to produce thin-film photoactive layers for photocells as a prospective lowest-cost and environment-friendly alternative to Si, Cu(In, Ga)Se₂, and other traditional solar cells materials. To produce SnSₓ layers, the modified successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) technique were investigated, including successive cyclic dipping into Na₂S solution and SnCl₂, NaCl, triethanolamine solution. To fabricate CZTS layers, the cyclic dipping into CuSO₄ with ZnSO₄, SnCl₂, and Na₂S solutions was used with intermediate rinsing in distilled water. The nano-template aluminum/alumina substrate was used to control deposition processes. Micromorphology and optical characteristics of the fabricated layers have been investigated. Analysis of 2D-like layers deposition features using nano-template substrate is presented, including the effect of nanotips in a template on surface charge redistribution and transport.

Keywords: kesterite, nanotemplate, SILAR, solar cell, tin sulphide

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Authors: Michelle Zeyuan Ma, Hermann Heilmeier

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Recently, meat production ecosystem impacts initiated many hot discussions and researchers, and it is a difficult implementation to reduce such impacts due to the demand of meat products. It calls for better management and control of ecosystem impacts from every aspects of meat production. This article analyzes the ecosystem impacts of meat production based on meat products life cycle. The analysis shows that considerable ecosystem impacts are caused by different meat production steps: initial establishment phase, animal raising, slaughterhouse processing, meat consumption, and wastes management. Based on this analysis, the impacts are summarized as: leading factor for biodiversity loss; water waste, land use waste and land degradation; greenhouse gases emissions; pollution to air, water, and soil; related major diseases. The article also provides a discussion on a solution-sustainable food system, which could help in reducing ecosystem impacts. The analysis method is based on the life cycle level, it provides a concept of the whole meat industry ecosystem impacts, and the analysis result could be useful to manage or control meat production ecosystem impacts from investor, producer and consumer sides.

Keywords: eutrophication, life cycle based analysis, sustainable food, waste management

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Authors: Han-Wei Shih, Yao-Nan Wang, Ko-Tung Chang, Lung-Ming Fu

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A multi-channel cell growth real-time monitor and evaluation system using charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors with 40X lens integrating a NI LabVIEW image processing program is proposed and demonstrated. The LED light source control of monitor system is utilizing 8051 microprocessor integrated with NI LabVIEW software. In this study, the same concentration RAW264.7 cells growth rate and morphology in four different culture conditions (DMEM, LPS, G1, G2) were demonstrated. The real-time cells growth image was captured and analyzed by NI Vision Assistant every 10 minutes in the incubator. The image binarization technique was applied for calculating cell doubling time and cell division index. The cells doubling time and cells division index of four group with DMEM, LPS, LPS+G1, LPS+G2 are 12.3 hr,10.8 hr,14.0 hr,15.2 hr and 74.20%, 78.63%, 69.53%, 66.49%. The image magnification of multi-channel CCDs cell real-time monitoring system is about 100X~200X which compares with the traditional microscope.

Keywords: charge-coupled device (CCD), RAW264.7, doubling time, division index

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Authors: Yakin Hajlaoui, Richard Labib, Jean-François Plante, Michel Gamache

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This study introduces the Multi-Layer Inverse Distance Weighting Model (ML-IDW), inspired by the mathematical formulation of both multi-layer neural networks (ML-NNs) and Inverse Distance Weighting model (IDW). ML-IDW leverages ML-NNs' processing capabilities, characterized by compositions of learnable non-linear functions applied to input features, and incorporates IDW's ability to learn anisotropic spatial dependencies, presenting a promising solution for nonlinear spatial interpolation and learning from complex spatial data. it employ gradient descent and backpropagation to train ML-IDW, comparing its performance against conventional spatial interpolation models such as Kriging and standard IDW on regression and classification tasks using simulated spatial datasets of varying complexity. the results highlight the efficacy of ML-IDW, particularly in handling complex spatial datasets, exhibiting lower mean square error in regression and higher F1 score in classification.

Keywords: deep learning, multi-layer neural networks, gradient descent, spatial interpolation, inverse distance weighting

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Authors: Mohannad N. H. Al-Malichi

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Because of its exceptional properties, graphene has become the most promising nanomaterial for the development of a new generation of advanced materials from battery electrodes to structural composites. However, current methods to meet requirements for the mass production of high-quality graphene are limited by harsh oxidation, high temperatures, and tedious processing steps. To extend the scope of the bulk production of graphene, herein, a facile, reproducible and cost-effective approach has been developed. This involved heating a specific mixture of chemical materials at an extremely low temperature (70 C) for a short period (7 minutes) to exfoliate functionalized graphene platelets with high structural integrity. The obtained graphene platelets have an average thickness of 3.86±0.71 nm and a lateral size less than ~2 µm with a low defect intensity ID/IG ~0.06. The thin film (~2 µm thick) exhibited a low surface resistance of ~0.63 Ω/sq⁻¹, confirming its high electrical conductivity. Additionally, these nanoplatelets were decorated with polar functional groups (epoxy and carboxyl groups), thus have the potential to toughen and provide multifunctional polymer nanocomposites. Moreover, such a simple method can be further exploited for the novel exfoliation of other layered two-dimensional materials such as MXenes.

Keywords: functionalized graphene nanoplatelets, high structural integrity graphene, low temperature exfoliation of graphene, functional graphene platelets

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Authors: Lewis Wallace, William Dempster, David Nash, Alexandros Boukis, Craig Maclean

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This paper, through traditional test methods and close adherence to international standards, presents a characterization study of a woven Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET). Testing is undergone in the axial, shear, and out-of-plane (bend) directions, and the results are fitted to the *FABRIC material model with ABAQUS FEA. The non-linear behaviors of the fabric in the axial and shear directions and behaviors on the macro scale are explored at the meso scale level. The medical grade bio-fabric is tested in untreated and heat-treated forms, and deviations are closely analyzed at the micro, meso, and macro scales to determine the effects of the process. The heat-treatment process was found to increase the stiffness of the fabric during axial and bending stiffness testing but had a negligible effect on the shear response. The ability of *FABRIC to capture behaviors unique to fabric deformation is discussed, whereby the unique phenomenological input can accurately represent the experimentally derived inputs.

Keywords: experimental techniques, FEA modelling, materials characterization, post-processing techniques

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Authors: Kehinde Adeyeye Adelabu

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Computer applications has completely revolutionized the way of life of people which does not exclude the field of sport education. There are computer technologies which help to enhance teaching in every field of education. Invention of computers has done great to the field of education. This study was therefore carried out to examine the effects and merits of computer operations in Human Kinetics Education and Sports. The study was able to identify the component of computer, uses of computer in Human Kinetics education (sports), computer applications in some branches of human kinetics education. A qualitative research method was employed by the author in gathering experts’ views and used to analyze the effects and merits of computer applications in the field of human kinetics education. No experiment was performed in the cause of carrying out the study. The source of information for the study was text-books, journal, articles, past project reports, internet i.e. Google search engine. Computer has significantly helped to improve Education (Human Kinetic), it has complemented the basic physical fitness testing and gave a more scientific basis to the testing. The use of the software and packages has made cost projections, database applications, inventory control, management of events, word processing, electronic mailing and record keeping easier than the pasts.

Keywords: application, computer operation, education, human kinetics

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Authors: Hiroki Yoshikai, Shin’ichi Arakawa, Tetsuya Takine, Masayuki Murata

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API (Application Programming Interface) economy is expected to create new value by converting corporate services such as information processing and data provision into APIs and using these APIs to connect services. Understanding the dynamics of a market of API economy under the strategies of participants is crucial to fully maximize the values of the API economy. To capture the behavior of a market in which the number of participants changes over time, we present a time-evolving market model for a platform in which API providers who provide APIs to service providers participate in addition to service providers and consumers. Then, we use the market model to clarify the role API providers play in expanding market participants and forming ecosystems. The results show that the platform with API providers increased the number of market participants by 67% and decreased the cost to develop services by 25% compared to the platform without API providers. Furthermore, during the expansion phase of the market, it is found that the profits of participants are mostly the same when 70% of the revenue from consumers is distributed to service providers and API providers. It is also found that when the market is mature, the profits of the service provider and API provider will decrease significantly due to their competition, and the profit of the platform increases.

Keywords: API economy, ecosystem, platform, API providers

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Authors: Nipawan Tharasak, Ladda Hirunyava

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The objective of the research was to study factors affecting working efficiency and the relationship between working environment, satisfaction to human resources management and operation employees’ working efficiency of Faculty of Management Science, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The sample size of the research was based on 33 employees of Faculty of Management Science. The researcher had classified the support employees into 4 divisions by using Stratified Random Sampling. Individual sample was randomized by using Simple Random Sampling. Data was collected through the instrument. The Statistical Package for the Windows was utilized for data processing. Percentage, mean, standard deviation, the t-test, One-way ANOVA, and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient were applied. The result found the support employees’ satisfaction in human resources management of Faculty of Management Science in following areas: remuneration; employee recruitment & selection; manpower planning; performance evaluation; staff training & developing; and spirit & fairness were overall in good level.

Keywords: faculty of management science, operational factors, practice performance, staff working

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Authors: Houria Hamitouche, Abdellah Khelifa

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Quaternary ammonium salts (QACs) are the most common cationic surfactants of natural or synthetic origin usually. They possess one or more hydrophobic hydrocarbon chains and hydrophilic cationic group. In fact, the hydrophobic groups are derived from three main sources: petrochemicals, vegetable oils, and animal fats. These QACs have attracted the attention of chemists for a long time, due to their general simple synthesis and their broad application in several fields. They are important as ingredients of cosmetic products and are also used as corrosion inhibitors, in emulsion polymerization and textile processing. Within biological applications, QACs show a good antimicrobial activity and can be used as medicines, gene delivery agents or in DNA extraction methods. The 2004 worldwide annual consumption of QACs was reported as 500,000 tons. The petroleum product is considered a true reservoir of a variety of chemical species, which can be used in the synthesis of quaternary ammonium salts. The purpose of the present contribution is to synthesize the quaternary ammonium salts by Menschutkin reaction, via chloromethylation/quaternization sequences, from Algerian petroleum products namely: reformate, light naphtha and kerosene and characterize.

Keywords: quaternary ammonium salts, reformate, light naphtha, kerosene

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Authors: Abdallah Sofiane Berrouk, Dara Satyadileep

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This paper investigates the feasibility of retrofitting a middle-east based commercial amine sweetening unit with a split-flow scheme which involves withdrawing a portion of partially stripped semi-lean solvent from the stripping column and re-injecting it in the absorption column to reduce the overall energy consumption of the unit. This method is comprehensively explored by performing parametric analysis of the split fraction of the semi-lean solvent using a kinetics based process simulator ProMax V 3.2. Re-boiler duty, condenser duty, solvent cooling and pumping loads are analysed as functions of a split fraction of the semi-lean solvent from the stripper. It is shown that the proposed method significantly reduces the overall energy consumption of the unit resulting in an annual savings of 325,000 USD. The thorough economic analysis is performed using Aspen Economic Evaluation V 8.4 to reveal that the retrofit scheme pays back the capital cost in less than eight years and is highly recommended for any commercial plant having suitable provisions for solvent inlet/withdrawal on the columns.

Keywords: split flow, Amine, gas processing, optimization

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Authors: Sofia N. Gonçalves, Duarte M. S. Albuquerque, José C. F. Pereira

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Microwave technology has been gaining importance in contributing to decarbonization processes in high energy demand industries. Despite the several numerical models presented in the literature, a proper Verification and Validation exercise is still lacking. This is important and required to evaluate the physical process model accuracy and adequacy. Another issue addresses impedance matching, which is an important mechanism used in microwave experiments to increase electromagnetic efficiency. Such mechanism is not available in current computational tools, thus requiring an external numerical procedure. A numerical model was implemented to study the continuous processing of limestone with microwave heating. This process requires the material to be heated until a certain temperature that will prompt a highly endothermic reaction. Both a 2D and 3D model were built in COMSOL Multiphysics to solve the two-way coupling between Maxwell and Energy equations, along with the coupling between both heat transfer phenomena and limestone endothermic reaction. The 2D model was used to study and evaluate the required numerical procedure, being also a benchmark test, allowing other authors to implement impedance matching procedures. To achieve this goal, a controller built in MATLAB was used to continuously matching the cavity impedance and predicting the required energy for the system, thus successfully avoiding energy inefficiencies. The 3D model reproduces realistic results and therefore supports the main conclusions of this work. Limestone was modeled as a continuous flow under the transport of concentrated species, whose material and kinetics properties were taken from literature. Verification and Validation of the coupled model was taken separately from the chemical kinetic model. The chemical kinetic model was found to correctly describe the chosen kinetic equation by comparing numerical results with experimental data. A solution verification was made for the electromagnetic interface, where second order and fourth order accurate schemes were found for linear and quadratic elements, respectively, with numerical uncertainty lower than 0.03%. Regarding the coupled model, it was demonstrated that the numerical error would diverge for the heat transfer interface with the mapped mesh. Results showed numerical stability for the triangular mesh, and the numerical uncertainty was less than 0.1%. This study evaluated limestone velocity, heat transfer, and load influence on thermal decomposition and overall process efficiency. The velocity and heat transfer coefficient were studied with the 2D model, while different loads of material were studied with the 3D model. Both models demonstrated to be highly unstable when solving non-linear temperature distributions. High velocity flows exhibited propensity to thermal runways, and the thermal efficiency showed the tendency to stabilize for the higher velocities and higher filling ratio. Microwave efficiency denoted an optimal velocity for each heat transfer coefficient, pointing out that electromagnetic efficiency is a consequence of energy distribution uniformity. The 3D results indicated the inefficient development of the electric field for low filling ratios. Thermal efficiencies higher than 90% were found for the higher loads and microwave efficiencies up to 75% were accomplished. The 80% fill ratio was demonstrated to be the optimal load with an associated global efficiency of 70%.

Keywords: multiphysics modeling, microwave heating, verification and validation, endothermic reactions modeling, impedance matching, limestone continuous processing

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Authors: Qazi Umer Jamil, Abubakr Siddique, Mubeen Ur Rehman, Nida Aziz, Mohsin I. Tiwana

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This paper discusses a brain controlled robotic gait trainer for neurorehabilitation of Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) patients. Patients suffering from Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI) become unable to execute motion control of their lower proximities due to degeneration of spinal cord neurons. The presented approach can help SCI patients in neuro-rehabilitation training by directly translating patient motor imagery into walkers motion commands and thus bypassing spinal cord neurons completely. A non-invasive EEG based brain-computer interface is used for capturing patient neural activity. For signal processing and classification, an open source software (OpenVibe) is used. Classifiers categorize the patient motor imagery (MI) into a specific set of commands that are further translated into walker motion commands. The robotic walker also employs fall detection for ensuring safety of patient during gait training and can act as a support for SCI patients. The gait trainer is tested with subjects, and satisfactory results were achieved.

Keywords: brain computer interface (BCI), gait trainer, spinal cord injury (SCI), neurorehabilitation

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Authors: Sylvia Szabo, Thilini Navaratne, Indrajit Pal, Seree Park

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Deltaic and coastal regions are often strategically important both from local and regional perspectives. While deltas are known to be bread baskets of the world, delta inhabitants often face the risk of food and nutritional insecurity. These risks are highly exacerbated by the impacts of climate and environmental change. While numerous regional studies examined the prevalence and the determinants of food security in specific delta and coastal regions, there is still a lack of a systematic analysis of the most widely used scientific food security indicators. In order to fill this gap, a systematic review was carried out using Covidence, a Cochrane-adopted systematic review processing software. Papers included in the review were selected from the SCOPUS, Thomson Reuters Web of Science, Science Direct, ProQuest, and Google Scholar databases. Both scientific papers and grey literature (e.g., reports by international organizations) were considered. The results were analyzed by food security components (access, availability, quality, and strategy) and by world regions. Suggestions for further food security, nutrition, and health research, as well as policy-related implications, are also discussed.

Keywords: delta regions, coastal, food security, indicators, systematic review

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Authors: Laura C. Loaiza, Elodie Salager, Nicolas Louvain, Athmane Boulaoued, Antonella Iadecola, Patrik Johansson, Lorenzo Stievano, Vincent Seznec, Laure Monconduit

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Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have an important place among energy storage devices due to their high capacity and good cyclability. However, the advancements in portable and transportation applications have extended the research towards new horizons, and today the development is hampered, e.g., by the capacity of the electrodes employed. Silicon and germanium are among the considered modern anode materials as they can undergo alloying reactions with lithium while delivering high capacities. It has been demonstrated that silicon in its highest lithiated state can deliver up to ten times more capacity than graphite (372 mAh/g): 4200 mAh/g for Li₂₂Si₅ and 3579 mAh/g for Li₁₅Si₄, respectively. On the other hand, germanium presents a capacity of 1384 mAh/g for Li₁₅Ge₄, and a better electronic conductivity and Li ion diffusivity as compared to Si. Nonetheless, the commercialization potential of Ge is limited by its cost. The synergetic effect of Si₁₋ₓGeₓ alloys has been proven, the capacity is increased compared to Ge-rich electrodes and the capacity retention is increased compared to Si-rich electrodes, but the exact performance of this type of electrodes will depend on factors like specific capacity, C-rates, cost, etc. There are several reports on various formulations of Si₁₋ₓGeₓ alloys with promising LIB anode performance with most work performed on complex nanostructures resulting from synthesis efforts implying high cost. In the present work, we studied the electrochemical mechanism of the Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅ alloy as a realistic micron-sized electrode formulation using carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as the binder. A combination of a large set of in situ and operando techniques were employed to investigate the structural evolution of Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅ during lithiation and delithiation processes: powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), Raman spectroscopy, and 7Li solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The results have presented a whole view of the structural modifications induced by the lithiation/delithiation processes. The Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅ amorphization was observed at the beginning of discharge. Further lithiation induces the formation of a-Liₓ(Si/Ge) intermediates and the crystallization of Li₁₅(Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅)₄ at the end of the discharge. At really low voltages a reversible process of overlithiation and formation of Li₁₅₊δ(Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅)₄ was identified and related with a structural evolution of Li₁₅(Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅)₄. Upon charge, the c-Li₁₅(Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅)₄ was transformed into a-Liₓ(Si/Ge) intermediates. At the end of the process an amorphous phase assigned to a-SiₓGey was recovered. Thereby, it was demonstrated that Si and Ge are collectively active along the cycling process, upon discharge with the formation of a ternary Li₁₅(Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅)₄ phase (with a step of overlithiation) and upon charge with the rebuilding of the a-Si-Ge phase. This process is undoubtedly behind the enhanced performance of Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅ compared to a physical mixture of Si and Ge.

Keywords: lithium ion battery, silicon germanium anode, in situ characterization, X-Ray diffraction

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Authors: ChoLiang Chung, YuMin Chen

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C-doped TiO2 nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning successfully. Different amounts of carbon were added into the nanofibers by using chitosan, aiming to shift the wave length that is required to excite the photocatalyst from ultraviolet light to visible light. Different amounts of carbon and different atmosphere fibers were calcined at 500oC, and the optical characteristic of C-doped TiO2 nanofibers had been changed. characterizes of nanofibers were identified by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM), UV-vis, Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The XRD is used to identify the phase composition of nanofibers. The morphology of nanofibers were explored by FE-SEM and AFM. Optical characteristics of absorption were measured by UV-Vis. Three dimension surface images of C-doped TiO2 nanofibers revealed different effects of processing. The results of XRD showed that the phase of C-doped TiO2 nanofibers transformed to rutile phase and anatase phase successfully. The results of AFM showed that the surface morphology of nanofibers became smooth after high temperature treatment. Images from FE-SEM revealed the average size of nanofibers. UV-vis results showed that the band-gap of TiO2 were reduced. Finally, we found out C-doped TiO2 nanofibers can change countenance of nanofiber and make it smoother.

Keywords: carbon, TiO2, chitosan, electrospinning

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Authors: H. Chassaigne, S. Gioria, J. Lobo Vicente, D. Carpi, P. Barboro, G. Tomasi, A. Kinsner-Ovaskainen, F. Rossi

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Emerging approaches in the area of exposure to nanomaterials and assessment of human health effects combine the use of in vitro systems and analytical techniques to study the perturbation of the proteome and/or the metabolome. We investigated the modification in the cytoplasmic compartment of the Balb/3T3 cell line exposed to gold nanoparticles. On one hand, the proteomic approach is quite standardized even if it requires precautions when dealing with in vitro systems. On the other hand, metabolomic analysis is challenging due to the chemical diversity of cellular metabolites that complicate data elaboration and interpretation. Differentially expressed proteins were found to cover a range of functions including stress response, cell metabolism, cell growth and cytoskeleton organization. In addition, de-regulated metabolites were annotated using the HMDB database. The "omics" fields hold huge promises in the interaction of nanoparticles with biological systems. The combination of proteomics and metabolomics data is possible however challenging.

Keywords: data processing, gold nanoparticles, in vitro systems, metabolomics, proteomics

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Authors: J. Franco Macías, E. Montes Alba, A. López Vásquez

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The growing development in the poultry industry has generated a strong and adverse impact on quality and availability of water resources. Inside this industry, is finding out the treatment of by-products such as feathers, viscera and blood demanding highly water consumption, generating contaminant discharges as well. As one of current of treatment of by-products is the effluent of cooking condensate steam that has contaminant organic load; therefore, it is necessary to implement removal treatments before discharging it toward water sources. The photo catalysis appears as a promising alternative of treatment due to the different advantages it has, among others, includes low cost, easily operation, high efficiency and elimination of a wide variety of contaminants in a watery environment. This study has evaluated a heterogeneous photo catalytic treatment for removal contaminant organic load. This process was developed in oxidation and reduction conditions. It was analyzed the effect of factors such as pH, catalyst and sacrifice agent concentration. Finally, good conditions to removal contaminant organic load were achieved to determine percentage of contaminant organic load by means of response surface methodology.

Keywords: poultry industry, advanced oxidation process, photocatalysis, photodegradation, TiO2

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Authors: Gholamreza Namavar, Ali Bayati

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Nowadays according to increasing the population all around the world, consuming of fossil fuels increased dramatically. Many believe that most of the atmospheric pollution comes by using fossil fuels. The process of natural sources entering cities show one of the large challenges in consumption sources management. Nowadays, everyone considered about the consumption of fossil fuels and also reduction of consumption civil energy in megacities that play a key role in solving serious problems such as air pollution, producing greenhouse gasses, global warming and damage ozone layer. In construction industry we should use the materials with the lowest need to energy for making and carrying them, and also the materials which need the lowest energy and expenses to recycling. In this way, the kind of usage material, the way of processing, regional materials and the adaption with environment is critical. Otherwise, the isolation should be use and mention in long term. Accordingly, in this article we investigates the new ways in order to reduce environmental pollution and save more energy by using materials that are not harmful to the environment, fully insulated materials in buildings, sustainable and diversified buildings, suitable urban design and using solar energy more efficiently in order to reduce energy consumption.

Keywords: architectural design, insulation, sustainable construction, reducing energy consumption

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Authors: Skiker Kaoutar, Mounir Maouene

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Neuroimaging studies have shown that animal and tool concepts rely on distinct networks of brain areas. Animal concepts depend predominantly on temporal areas while tool concepts rely on fronto-temporo-parietal areas. However, the origin of this neurofunctional distinction for processing animal and tool concepts remains still unclear. Here, we address this question from a network perspective suggesting that the neural distinction between animals and tools might reflect the differences in their structural semantic networks. We build semantic networks for animal and tool concepts derived from McRae and colleagues’s behavioral study conducted on a large number of participants. These two networks are thus analyzed through a large number of graph theoretical measures for small-worldness: centrality, clustering coefficient, average shortest path length, as well as resistance to random and targeted attacks. The results indicate that both animal and tool networks have small-world properties. More importantly, the animal network is more vulnerable to targeted attacks compared to the tool network a result that correlates with brain lesions studies.

Keywords: animals, tools, network, semantics, small-worls, resilience to damage

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Authors: A.Cifarelli, L. Boggioni, F. Bertini, L. Magon, M. Pitalieri, S. Losio

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Nowadays, the growing environmental awareness and the dwindling of fossil resources stimulate the polyurethane (PU) industry towards renewable polymers with low carbon footprint to replace the feed stocks from petroleum sources. The main challenge in this field consists in replacing high-performance products from fossil-fuel with novel synthetic polymers derived from 'green monomers'. The bio-polyols from plant oils have attracted significant industrial interest and major attention in scientific research due to their availability and biodegradability. Triglycerides rich in unsaturated fatty acids, such as soybean oil (SBO) and linseed oil (ELO), are particularly interesting because their structures and functionalities are tunable by chemical modification in order to obtain polymeric materials with expected final properties. Unfortunately, their use is still limited for processing or performance problems because a high functionality, as well as OH number of the polyols will result in an increase in cross-linking densities of the resulting PUs. The main aim of this study is to evaluate soy and linseed-based polyols as precursors to prepare prepolymers for the production of polyurethane foams (PUFs) or waterborne-polyurethanes (WPU) used as coatings. An effective reaction route is employed for its simplicity and economic impact. Indeed, bio-polyols were synthesized by a two-step method: epoxidation of the double bonds in vegetable oils and solvent-free ring-opening reaction of the oxirane with organic acids. No organic solvents have been used. Acids with different moieties (aliphatic or aromatics) and different length of hydrocarbon backbones can be used to customize polyols with different functionalities. The ring-opening reaction requires a fine tuning of the experimental conditions (time, temperature, molar ratio of carboxylic acid and epoxy group) to control the acidity value of end-product as well as the amount of residual starting materials. Besides, a Lewis base catalyst is used to favor the ring opening reaction of internal epoxy groups of the epoxidized oil and minimize the formation of cross-linked structures in order to achieve less viscous and more processable polyols with narrower polydispersity indices (molecular weight lower than 2000 g/mol⁻¹). The functionality of optimized polyols is tuned from 2 to 4 per molecule. The obtained polyols are characterized by means of GPC, NMR (¹H, ¹³C) and FT-IR spectroscopy to evaluate molecular masses, molecular mass distributions, microstructures and linkage pathways. Several polyurethane foams have been prepared by prepolymer method blending conventional synthetic polyols with new bio-polyols from soybean and linseed oils without using organic solvents. The compatibility of such bio-polyols with commercial polyols and diisocyanates is demonstrated. The influence of the bio-polyols on the foam morphology (cellular structure, interconnectivity), density, mechanical and thermal properties has been studied. Moreover, bio-based WPUs have been synthesized by well-established processing technology. In this synthesis, a portion of commercial polyols is substituted by the new bio-polyols and the properties of the coatings on leather substrates have been evaluated to determine coating hardness, abrasion resistance, impact resistance, gloss, chemical resistance, flammability, durability, and adhesive strength.

Keywords: bio-polyols, polyurethane foams, solvent free synthesis, waterborne-polyurethanes

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Authors: Meftah O. Bashir, Fatma A. Karkory

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Rapid prototyping is a new group of manufacturing processes, which allows fabrication of physical of any complexity using a layer by layer deposition technique directly from a computer system. The rapid prototyping process greatly reduces the time and cost necessary to bring a new product to market. The prototypes made by these systems are used in a range of industrial application including design evaluation, verification, testing, and as patterns for casting processes. These processes employ a variety of materials and mechanisms to build up the layers to build the part. The present work was to build a FDM prototyping machine that could control the X-Y motion and material deposition, to generate two-dimensional and three-dimensional complex shapes. This study focused on the deposition of wax material. This work was to find out the properties of the wax materials used in this work in order to enable better control of the FDM process. This study will look at the integration of a computer controlled electro-mechanical system with the traditional FDM additive prototyping process. The characteristics of the wax were also analysed in order to optimize the model production process. These included wax phase change temperature, wax viscosity and wax droplet shape during processing.

Keywords: rapid prototyping, wax, manufacturing processes, shape

Procedia PDF Downloads 464

Authors: Sankaran Rajendran

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Remote sensing plays a vital role in mapping of resources and monitoring of environments of the earth. In the present research study, mapping and monitoring of clay siltations occurred in the Alkhod Dam of Muscat, Sultanate of Oman are carried out using low-cost multispectral Landsat and ASTER data. The dam is constructed across the Wadi Samail catchment for ground water recharge. The occurrence and spatial distribution of siltations in the dam are studied with five years of interval from the year 1987 of construction to 2014. The deposits are mainly due to the clay, sand, and silt occurrences derived from the weathering rocks of ophiolite sequences occurred in the Wadi Samail catchment. The occurrences of clays are confirmed by minerals identification using ASTER VNIR-SWIR spectral bands and Spectral Angle Mapper supervised image processing method. The presence of clays and their spatial distribution are verified in the field. The study recommends the technique and the low-cost satellite data to similar region of the world.

Keywords: Alkhod Dam, ASTER siltation, Landsat, remote sensing, Oman

Procedia PDF Downloads 437

Authors: Seda Sahin, Emin Akata

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Obturator foramen is a specific structure in pelvic bone images and recognition of it is a new concept in medical image processing. Moreover, segmentation of bone structures such as obturator foramen plays an essential role for clinical research in orthopedics. In this paper, we present a novel method to analyze the similarity between the substructures of the imaged region and a hand drawn template, on hip radiographs to detect obturator foramen accurately with integrated usage of Marker-controlled Watershed segmentation and Zernike moment feature descriptor. Marker-controlled Watershed segmentation is applied to seperate obturator foramen from the background effectively. Zernike moment feature descriptor is used to provide matching between binary template image and the segmented binary image for obturator foramens for final extraction. The proposed method is tested on randomly selected 100 hip radiographs. The experimental results represent that our method is able to segment obturator foramens with % 96 accuracy.

Keywords: medical image analysis, segmentation of bone structures on hip radiographs, marker-controlled watershed segmentation, zernike moment feature descriptor

Procedia PDF Downloads 434

Authors: Mohammadreza Azarnoush, Ali Bayati, Jamileh Azarnoush

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Nowadays according to increasing the population all around the world, consuming of fossil fuels increased dramatically. Many believe that most of the atmospheric pollution comes by using fossil fuels. The process of natural sources entering cities shows one of the large challenges in consumption sources management. Nowadays, everyone considers the consumption of fossil fuels and also reduction of consumption civil energy in megacities as playing a key role in solving serious problems such as air pollution, producing greenhouse gasses, global warming, and damage ozone layer. In the construction industry, we should use the materials with the lowest need to energy for making and carrying them, and also the materials which need the lowest energy and expenses to recycling. In this way, the kind of usage material, the way of processing, regional materials, and the adoption to the environment is critical. Otherwise, the isolation should be use and mention in the long term. Accordingly, in this article, we investigate the new ways in order to reduce environmental pollution and save more energy by using materials that are not harmful to the environment, fully insulated materials in buildings, sustainable and diversified buildings, suitable urban design and using solar energy more efficiently in order to reduce energy consumption.

Keywords: building design, construction masonry, insulation, sustainable construction

Procedia PDF Downloads 414

Authors: Neha Singh, Ananya Arora

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Facial expression measurement plays a crucial role in the identification of emotion. Facial expression plays a key role in psychophysiology, neural bases, and emotional disorder, to name a few. The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) has proven to be the most efficient and widely used of the various systems used to describe facial expressions. Coders can manually code facial expressions with FACS and, by viewing video-recorded facial behaviour at a specified frame rate and slow motion, can decompose into action units (AUs). Action units are the most minor visually discriminable facial movements. FACS explicitly differentiates between facial actions and inferences about what the actions mean. Action units are the fundamental unit of FACS methodology. It is regarded as the standard measure for facial behaviour and finds its application in various fields of study beyond emotion science. These include facial neuromuscular disorders, neuroscience, computer vision, computer graphics and animation, and face encoding for digital processing. This paper discusses the conceptual basis for FACS, a numerical listing of discrete facial movements identified by the system, the system's psychometric evaluation, and the software's recommended training requirements.

Keywords: facial action, action units, coding, machine learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 106

Authors: Alberto Fina, Samuele Colonna, Maria del Mar Bernal, Orietta Monticelli, Mauro Tortello, Renato Gonnelli, Julio Gomez, Chiara Novara, Guido Saracco

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Thermally conductive polymer nanocomposites are of high interest for several applications including low-temperature heat recovery, heat exchangers in a corrosive environment and heat management in electronics and flexible electronics. In this paper, the preparation of thermally conductive nanocomposites exploiting graphene-related materials is addressed, along with their thermal characterization. In particular, correlations between 1- chemical and physical features of the nanoflakes and 2- processing conditions with the heat conduction properties of nanocomposites is studied. Polymers are heat insulators; therefore, the inclusion of conductive particles is the typical solution to obtain a sufficient thermal conductivity. In addition to traditional microparticles such as graphite and ceramics, several nanoparticles have been proposed, including carbon nanotubes and graphene, for the use in polymer nanocomposites. Indeed, thermal conductivities for both carbon nanotubes and graphenes were reported in the wide range of about 1500 to 6000 W/mK, despite such property may decrease dramatically as a function of the size, number of layers, the density of topological defects, re-hybridization defects as well as on the presence of impurities. Different synthetic techniques have been developed, including mechanical cleavage of graphite, epitaxial growth on SiC, chemical vapor deposition, and liquid phase exfoliation. However, the industrial scale-up of graphene, defined as an individual, single-atom-thick sheet of hexagonally arranged sp2-bonded carbons still remains very challenging. For large scale bulk applications in polymer nanocomposites, some graphene-related materials such as multilayer graphenes (MLG), reduced graphene oxide (rGO) or graphite nanoplatelets (GNP) are currently the most interesting graphene-based materials. In this paper, different types of graphene-related materials were characterized for their chemical/physical as well as for thermal properties of individual flakes. Two selected rGOs were annealed at 1700°C in vacuum for 1 h to reduce defectiveness of the carbon structure. Thermal conductivity increase of individual GNP with annealing was assessed via scanning thermal microscopy. Graphene nano papers were prepared from both conventional RGO and annealed RGO flakes. Characterization of the nanopapers evidenced a five-fold increase in the thermal diffusivity on the nano paper plane for annealed nanoflakes, compared to pristine ones, demonstrating the importance of structural defectiveness reduction to maximize the heat dissipation performance. Both pristine and annealed RGO were used to prepare polymer nanocomposites, by melt reactive extrusion. Thermal conductivity showed two- to three-fold increase in the thermal conductivity of the nanocomposite was observed for high temperature treated RGO compared to untreated RGO, evidencing the importance of using low defectivity nanoflakes. Furthermore, the study of different processing paremeters (time, temperature, shear rate) during the preparation of poly (butylene terephthalate) nanocomposites evidenced a clear correlation with the dispersion and fragmentation of the GNP nanoflakes; which in turn affected the thermal conductivity performance. Thermal conductivity of about 1.7 W/mK, i.e. one order of magnitude higher than for pristine polymer, was obtained with 10%wt of annealed GNPs, which is in line with state of the art nanocomposites prepared by more complex and less upscalable in situ polymerization processes.

Keywords: graphene, graphene-related materials, scanning thermal microscopy, thermally conductive polymer nanocomposites

Procedia PDF Downloads 268

Authors: Dimitris E. Kontaxis, George Litainas, Dimitris P. Ptochos

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Real-time monitoring of the supply chain conditions and procedures is a critical element for the optimal coordination and safety of the deliveries, as well as for the minimization of the delivery time and cost. Real-time monitoring requires IoT data streams, which are related to the conditions of the products and the means of transport (e.g., location, temperature/humidity conditions, kinematic state, ambient light conditions, etc.). These streams are generated by battery-based IoT tracking devices, equipped with appropriate sensors, and are transmitted to a cloud-based back-end system. Proper handling and processing of the IoT data streams, using predictive and artificial intelligence algorithms, can provide significant and useful results, which can be exploited by the supply chain stakeholders in order to enhance their financial benefits, as well as the efficiency, security, transparency, coordination, and sustainability of the supply chain procedures. The technology, the features, and the characteristics of a complete, proprietary system, including hardware, firmware, and software tools -developed in the context of a co-funded R&D programme- are addressed and presented in this paper.

Keywords: IoT embedded electronics, real-time monitoring, tracking device, sensor platform

Procedia PDF Downloads 177