Search results for: Range of motion

Authors: Kazutoshi Shishido, Sanehiro Muromachi, Ryo Ohmura

Abstract:

This paper reports the three-phase (gas + liquid + hydrate) equilibrium pressure versus temperature data for a (O3 + O2 + CO2 + H2O) system for developing the hydrate-based technology to preserve ozone, a chemically unstable substance, for various industrial, medical and consumer uses. These data cover the temperature range from 272 K to 277 K, corresponding to pressures from 1.6 MPa to 3.1 MPa, for each of the three different (O3 + O2)-to-CO2 or O2-to-CO2 molar ratios in the gas phase, which are approximately 4 : 6, 5 : 5, respectively. The mole fraction of ozone in the gas phase was ~0.03 , which are the densest ozone fraction to artificially form O3 containing hydrate ever reported in the literature. Based on these data, the formation of hydrate containing high-concentration ozone, as high as 1 mass %, will be expected.

Keywords: Clathrate hydrate, Ozone, Molecule storage, Sterilization.

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Authors: Manjit Singh

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Multiscale entropy (MSE) is an extensively used index to provide a general understanding of multiple complexity of physiologic mechanism of heart rate variability (HRV) that operates on a wide range of time scales. Accurate selection of electrocardiogram (ECG) sampling frequency is an essential concern for clinically significant HRV quantification; high ECG sampling rate increase memory requirements and processing time, whereas low sampling rate degrade signal quality and results in clinically misinterpreted HRV. In this work, the impact of ECG sampling frequency on MSE based HRV have been quantified. MSE measures are found to be sensitive to ECG sampling frequency and effect of sampling frequency will be a function of time scale.

Keywords: ECG, heart rate variability, HRV, multiscale entropy, sampling frequency.

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Authors: S.Asadi, H.Panahi

Abstract:

The Navier–Stokes equations for unsteady, incompressible, viscous fluids in the axisymmetric coordinate system are solved using a control volume method. The volume-of-fluid (VOF) technique is used to track the free-surface of the liquid. Model predictions are in good agreement with experimental measurements. It is found that the dynamic processes after impact are sensitive to the initial droplet velocity and the liquid pool depth. The time evolution of the crown height and diameter are obtained by numerical simulation. The critical We number for splashing (Wecr) is studied for Oh (Ohnesorge) numbers in the range of 0.01~0.1; the results compares well with those of the experiments.

Keywords: Droplet impingement, free surface flows, liquid crown, numerical simulation, thin liquid film.

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Authors: K. D. Mroczek

Abstract:

In the study presented institutional context is discussed in terms of companies’ entry mode choice. In contrary to many previous analyses, instead of using one or two aggregated variables, a set of eleven determinants is used to establish equity and non-equity internationalization friendly conditions. Based on secondary data, 140 countries are analyzed and grouped into clusters revealing similar framework. The range of the economies explored is wide as it covers all regions distinguished by The World Bank. The results can prove a useful alternative for operationalization of institutional variables in further research concerning entry modes or strategic management in international markets.

Keywords: Clustering, entry mode choice, institutional environment, transaction costs.

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Authors: S.B. Tavakoly Sany, A. Salleh, A.H. Sulaiman, G.H. Monazami

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The coastal sediments of West Port of Malaysia was monitored from Nov. 2009 to Oct. 2010 to assess spatial distribution of heavy metals As, Cu, Cd, Cr, Hg, Ni, Zn and Pb. Sediment samples were collected from 10 stations in dry and rainy season in West Port. The range concentrations measured (Mg/g dry weight ) were from 23.4 to 98.3 for Zn, 22.3 to 80 for Pb, 7.4 to 27.6 Cu, 0.244 to 3.53 for Cd, 7.2 to 22.2 for Ni, 20.2 to 162 for As, 0.11 to 0.409 for Hg and 11.5 to 61.5 for Cr. The geochemical indexes used in this study were Geoaccumulation (Igeo), Contamination Factor (CF) and Pollution Load Index (PLI); these indexes were used to evaluate the levels of sediment contaminations. The results of these indexes show that, the status of West Port sediment quality are moderately polluted by heavy metals except in arsenic which shows the high level of pollution.

Keywords: Heavy metals, Sediment Quality, West Port.

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Authors: Ahmed El Oualkadi, Abdellah Ait Ouahman

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This paper discusses a systematic design of a Σ-Δ fractional-N Phase-Locked Loop based on HDL behavioral modeling. The proposed design consists in describing the mixed behavior of this PLL architecture starting from the specifications of each building block. The HDL models of critical PLL blocks have been described in VHDL-AMS to predict the different specifications of the PLL. The effect of different noise sources has been efficiently introduced to study the PLL system performances. The obtained results are compared with transistor-level simulations to validate the effectiveness of the proposed models for wireless applications in the frequency range around 2.45 GHz.

Keywords: Phase-locked loop, frequency synthesizer, fractional-N PLL, Σ-Δ modulator, HDL models

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Authors: Sh. E. Jamanbalayeva, G. S. Abdiraiymova, N. Zh. Biyekenova, D. K. Burkhanova

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At present the process of formation of corporate values in Kazakh universities is under the influence of a whole range of socio-economic and cultural changes: on the one hand universities must maintain and transmit traditional cultural values of education, on the other, to improve quality of service and to involve young people to science, providing thus own competitiveness. Thus, this article presents some results of two cycles of sociological research conducted in 2012 and aimed at identifying possible ways to popularize science and readiness to participate of youth in given activities, expectations of young scientists and the prospects of future development of the Kazakh science.

Keywords: Corporate culture, higher education institutions, motivation reforms, young scientists.

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Authors: Hachaichi Mohamed Nour El-Islem, Baouni Tahar

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Environmental sustainability rather than a trans-disciplinary and a scientific issue, is the main problem that characterizes all modern cities nowadays. In developing countries, this concern is expressed in a plethora of critical urban ills: traffic congestion, air pollution, noise, urban decay, increase in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions which blemish cities’ landscape and might threaten citizens’ health and welfare. As in the same manner as developing world cities, the rapid growth of Algiers’ human population and increasing in city scale phenomena lead eventually to increase in daily trips, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. In addition, the lack of proper and sustainable planning of the city’s infrastructure is one of the most relevant issues from which Algiers suffers. The aim of this contribution is to estimate the carbon deficit of the City of Algiers, Algeria, using the Ecological Footprint Model (carbon footprint). In order to achieve this goal, the amount of CO₂ from fuel combustion has been calculated and aggregated into five sectors (agriculture, industry, residential, tertiary and transportation); as well, Algiers’ biocapacity (CO₂ uptake land) has been calculated to determine the ecological overshoot. This study shows that Algiers’ transport system is not sustainable and is generating more than 50% of Algiers total carbon footprint which cannot be sequestered by the local forest land. The aim of this research is to show that the Carbon Footprint Assessment might be a relevant indicator to design sustainable strategies/policies striving to reduce CO₂ by setting in motion the energy consumption in the transportation sector and reducing the use of fossil fuels as the main energy input.

Keywords: Biocapacity, carbon footprint, ecological footprint assessment, energy consumption.

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Authors: Uzair Muhammad, Kashif Bilal, Atif Khan, M. Nasir Khan

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Machine Translation (MT 3) of English text to its Urdu equivalent is a difficult challenge. Lot of attempts has been made, but a few limited solutions are provided till now. We present a direct approach, using an expert system to translate English text into its equivalent Urdu, using The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0 (ISBN 0-321-18578-1) Range: 0600–06FF. The expert system works with a knowledge base that contains grammatical patterns of English and Urdu, as well as a tense and gender-aware dictionary of Urdu words (with their English equivalents).

Keywords: Machine Translation, Multiword Expressions, Urdulanguage processing, POS12 Tagging for Urdu, Expert Systems.

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Authors: Tze Sian Pui, Tushar Bansal, Patthara Kongsuphol, Sunil K. Arya

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We present a label-free biosensor based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for the detection of proinflammatory cytokine Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF-α). Secretion of TNF-α has been correlated to the onset of various diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn-s disease etc. Gold electrodes were patterned on a silicon substrate and self assembled monolayer of dithiobis-succinimidyl propionate was used to develop the biosensor which achieved a detection limit of ~57fM. A linear relationship was also observed between increasing TNF-α concentrations and chargetransfer resistance within a dynamic range of 1pg/ml – 1ng/ml.

Keywords: Tumor necrosis factor, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, label free, self assembled monolayer

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Authors: F.H. Liu, S.H. Chen, R.T. Lee, W.S. Lin, Y.S. Liao

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This paper describes a rapid prototyping (RP) technology for forming a hydroxyapatite (HA) bone scaffold model. The HA powder and a silica sol are mixed into bioceramic slurry form under a suitable viscosity. The HA particles are embedded in the solidified silica matrix to form green parts via a wide range of process parameters after processing by selective laser sintering (SLS). The results indicate that the proposed process was possible to fabricate multilayers and hollow shell structure with brittle property but sufficient integrity for handling prior to post-processing. The fabricated bone scaffold models had a surface finish of 25

Keywords: bioceramic, bone scaffold, rapid prototyping, selective laser sintering

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Authors: Daniel Chen, George Mamic, Clinton Fookes, Sridha Sridharan

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An automatic method for the extraction of feature points for face based applications is proposed. The system is based upon volumetric feature descriptors, which in this paper has been extended to incorporate scale space. The method is robust to noise and has the ability to extract local and holistic features simultaneously from faces stored in a database. Extracted features are stable over a range of faces, with results indicating that in terms of intra-ID variability, the technique has the ability to outperform manual landmarking.

Keywords: Scale space volume descriptor, feature extraction, 3D facial landmarking

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Authors: Bimali Sanjeevani Weerakoon, Toshiaki Osuga, Takehisa Konishi

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrast Agents (MRI-CM) are significant in the clinical and biological imaging as they have the ability to alter the normal tissue contrast, thereby affecting the signal intensity to enhance the visibility and detectability of images. Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles, coated with dextran or carboxydextran are currently available for clinical MR imaging of the liver. Most SPIO contrast agents are T2 shortening agents and Resovist (Ferucarbotran) is one of a clinically tested, organ-specific, SPIO agent which has a low molecular carboxydextran coating. The enhancement effect of Resovist depends on its relaxivity which in turn depends on factors like magnetic field strength, concentrations, nanoparticle properties, pH and temperature. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the impact of field strength and different contrast concentrations on enhancement effects of Resovist. The study explored the MRI signal intensity of Resovist in the physiological range of plasma from T2-weighted spin echo sequence at three magnetic field strengths: 0.47 T (r1=15, r2=101), 1.5 T (r1=7.4, r2=95), and 3 T (r1=3.3, r2=160) and the range of contrast concentrations by a mathematical simulation. Relaxivities of r1 and r2 (L mmol-1 Sec-1) were obtained from a previous study and the selected concentrations were 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, 0.08, 0.09, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 mmol/L. T2-weighted images were simulated using TR/TE ratio as 2000 ms /100 ms. According to the reference literature, with increasing magnetic field strengths, the r1 relaxivity tends to decrease while the r2 did not show any systematic relationship with the selected field strengths. In parallel, this study results revealed that the signal intensity of Resovist at lower concentrations tends to increase than the higher concentrations. The highest reported signal intensity was observed in the low field strength of 0.47 T. The maximum signal intensities for 0.47 T, 1.5 T and 3 T were found at the concentration levels of 0.05, 0.06 and 0.05 mmol/L, respectively. Furthermore, it was revealed that, the concentrations higher than the above, the signal intensity was decreased exponentially. An inverse relationship can be found between the field strength and T2 relaxation time, whereas, the field strength was increased, T2 relaxation time was decreased accordingly. However, resulted T2 relaxation time was not significantly different between 0.47 T and 1.5 T in this study. Moreover, a linear correlation of transverse relaxation rates (1/T2, s–1) with the concentrations of Resovist can be observed. According to these results, it can conclude that the concentration of SPIO nanoparticle contrast agents and the field strengths of MRI are two important parameters which can affect the signal intensity of T2-weighted SE sequence. Therefore, when MR imaging those two parameters should be considered prudently.

Keywords: Concentration, Resovist, Field strength, Relaxivity, Signal intensity.

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Authors: N. Arulanand, P. Dhara

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Optimizing the parameters in the controller plays a vital role in the control theory and its applications. Optimizing the PID parameters is finding out the best value from the feasible solutions. Finding the optimal value is an optimization problem. Inverted Pendulum is a very good platform for control engineers to verify and apply different logics in the field of control theory. It is necessary to find an optimization technique for the controller to tune the values automatically in order to minimize the error within the given bounds. In this paper, the algorithmic concepts of Harmony search (HS) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) have been analyzed for the given range of values. The experimental results show that HS performs well than GA.

Keywords: Genetic Algorithm, Harmony Search Algorithm, Inverted Pendulum, PID Controller.

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Authors: Shimal Das, Dibyendu Ghoshal

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The effect of directional search using iterated functional system has been studied on four images taken from databases. The images are portioned successively towards smaller dimension. Presented method provides the faster rate of convergence with respect to processing time in the flat region, but the same has been found to be slower at the border of the images and edges. It has also been revealed that the PSNR is lower at the edges and border portions of the image, and it is found to be higher in the uniform gray region, under the same external illumination and external noise environment.

Keywords: Iterated functional system, fractal compression, structural similarity index measure, fractal block coding, affine transformations.

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Authors: Gela Gelashvili, David Gelenidze, Sulkhan Nanobashvili, Irakli Nanobashvili, George Tavkhelidze, Tsiuri Sitchinava

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Development of new highly efficient plasma arc combustion system of pulverized coal is presented. As it is well-known, coal is one of the main energy carriers by means of which electric and heat energy is produced in thermal power stations. The quality of the extracted coal decreases very rapidly. Therefore, the difficulties associated with its firing and complete combustion arise and thermo-chemical preparation of pulverized coal becomes necessary. Usually, other organic fuels (mazut-fuel oil or natural gas) are added to low-quality coal for this purpose. The fraction of additional organic fuels varies within 35-40% range. This decreases dramatically the economic efficiency of such systems. At the same time, emission of noxious substances in the environment increases. Because of all these, intense development of plasma combustion systems of pulverized coal takes place in whole world. These systems are equipped with Non-Transferred Plasma Arc Torches. They allow practically complete combustion of pulverized coal (without organic additives) in boilers, increase of energetic and financial efficiency. At the same time, emission of noxious substances in the environment decreases dramatically. But, the non-transferred plasma torches have numerous drawbacks, e.g. complicated construction, low service life (especially in the case of high power), instability of plasma arc and most important – up to 30% of energy loss due to anode cooling. Due to these reasons, intense development of new plasma technologies that are free from these shortcomings takes place. In our proposed system, pulverized coal-air mixture passes through plasma arc area that burns between to carbon electrodes directly in pulverized coal muffler burner. Consumption of the carbon electrodes is low and does not need a cooling system, but the main advantage of this method is that radiation of plasma arc directly impacts on coal-air mixture that accelerates the process of thermo-chemical preparation of coal to burn. To ensure the stability of the plasma arc in such difficult conditions, we have developed a power source that provides fixed current during fluctuations in the arc resistance automatically compensated by the voltage change as well as regulation of plasma arc length over a wide range. Our combustion system where plasma arc acts directly on pulverized coal-air mixture is simple. This should allow a significant improvement of pulverized coal combustion (especially low-quality coal) and its economic efficiency. Preliminary experiments demonstrated the successful functioning of the system.

Keywords: Coal combustion, plasma arc, plasma torches, pulverized coal.

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Authors: Sansanee Sansiribhan, Anusorn Rattanathanaophat, Chirapan Nuengchaknin

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The potential feasibility of a 9.5 MW_e capacity rice straw power plant project in Thailand was studied by evaluating the rice straw resource. The result showed that Thailand had a high rice straw biomass potential at the provincial level, especially, the provinces in the central, northeastern and western Thailand, which could feasibly develop plants. The economic feasibility of project was also investigated. The financial feasibility is also evaluated based on two important factors in the project, i.e., NPV ≥ 0 and IRR ≥ 11%. It was found that the rice straw power plant project at 9.5 MW_e was financially feasible with the cost of fuel in the range of 30.6-47.7 USD/t.

Keywords: Power plant, Project feasibility, Rice straw, Thailand.

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Authors: Sheng Ge, Jian-Peng Wang, Hai-Ying Tang, Xi Xiao, Wen Wu

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This research proposed a new design of helmet-shaped array transcranial magnetic stimulation coil system. It was constructed using several sagittal directional wires and several coronal directional wires. By varying the current direction and strength on each wire, this array coil system could be constructed into the circular coil and figure-eight coil of different size. Also, this proposed coil system can flexibly not only change the stimulation location, range, type and strength, but also change the shape and the channel number of coil dynamically.

Keywords: TMS, circular coils, figure-eight coil, array coil

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Authors: M. Amanipour, J. Towfighi, E. Ganji Babakhani, M. Heidari

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Cylindrical alumina microfiltration membrane (GMITM Corporation, inside diameter=9 mm, outside diameter=13 mm, length= 50 mm) with an average pore size of 0.5 micrometer and porosity of about 0.35 was used as the support for membrane reactor. This support was soaked in boehmite sols, and the mean particle size was adjusted in the range of 50 to 500 nm by carefully controlling hydrolysis time, and calcined at 650 °C for two hours. This process was repeated with different boehmite solutions in order to achieve an intermediate layer with an average pore size of about 50 nm. The resulting substrate was then coated with a thin and dense layer of silica by counter current chemical vapour deposition (CVD) method. A boehmite sol with 10 wt.% of nickel which was prepared by a standard procedure was used to make the catalytic layer. BET, SEM, and XRD analysis were used to characterize this layer. The catalytic membrane reactor was placed in an experimental setup to evaluate the permeation and hydrogen separation performance for a steam reforming reaction. The setup consisted of a tubular module in which the membrane was fixed, and the reforming reaction occurred at the inner side of the membrane. Methane stream, diluted with nitrogen, and deionized water with a steam to carbon (S/C) ratio of 3.0 entered the reactor after the reactor was heated up to 500 °C with a specified rate of 2 °C/ min and the catalytic layer was reduced at presence of hydrogen for 2.5 hours. Nitrogen flow was used as sweep gas through the outer side of the reactor. Any liquid produced was trapped and separated at reactor exit by a cold trap, and the produced gases were analyzed by an on-line gas chromatograph (Agilent 7890A) to measure total CH₄ conversion and H₂ permeation. BET analysis indicated uniform size distribution for catalyst with average pore size of 280 nm and average surface area of 275 m².g^-1. Single-component permeation tests were carried out for hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide at temperature range of 500-800 °C, and the results showed almost the same permeance and hydrogen selectivity values for hydrogen as the composite membrane without catalytic layer. Performance of the catalytic membrane was evaluated by applying membranes as a membrane reactor for methane steam reforming reaction at gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) of 10,000 h⁻¹ and 2 bar. CH₄ conversion increased from 50% to 85% with increasing reaction temperature from 600 °C to 750 °C, which is sufficiently above equilibrium curve at reaction conditions, but slightly lower than membrane reactor with packed nickel catalytic bed because of its higher surface area compared to the catalytic layer.

Keywords: Catalytic membrane, hydrogen, methane steam reforming, permeance.

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Authors: F.H.Wee, F. Malek

Abstract:

This paper presents the utilizing of ferroelectric material on antenna application. There are two different ferroelectric had been used on the proposed antennas which include of Barium Strontium Titanate (BST) and Bismuth Titanate (BiT), suitable for Access Points operating in the WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g and WiMAX IEEE 802.16 within the range of 2.3 GHz to 2.5 GHz application. BST, which had been tested to own a dielectric constant of εr = 15 while BiT has a dielectric constant that higher than BST which is εr = 21 and both materials are in rectangular shaped. The influence of various parameters on antenna characteristics were investigated extensively using commercial electromagnetic simulations software by Communication Simulation Technology (CST). From theoretical analysis and simulation results, it was demonstrated that ferroelectric material used have not only improved the directive emission but also enhanced the radiation efficiency.

Keywords: Ferroelectric material, WLAN, WiMAX, dielectric constant

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Authors: Nelson K. Lujara

Abstract:

The paper presents a practical three-phase PWM inverter suitable for low voltage, low rating energy efficient systems. The work in the paper is conducted with the view to establishing the significance of the loss contribution from the PWM inverter in the determination of the complete losses of a photovoltaic (PV) arraypowered induction motor drive water pumping system. Losses investigated include; conduction and switching loss of the devices and gate drive losses. It is found that the PWM inverter operates at a reasonable variable efficiency that does not fall below 92% depending on the load. The results between the simulated and experimental results for the system with or without a maximum power tracker (MPT) compares very well, within an acceptable range of 2% margin.

Keywords: Energy, Inverter, Losses, Photovoltaic.

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Authors: H. Karakaş, A.S. Saraç, T. Polat, E.G. Budak, S. Bayram, N. Dağ, S. Jahangiri

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Electrospinning is a broadly used technology to obtain polymeric nanofibers ranging from several micrometers down to several hundred nanometers for a wide range of applications. It offers unique capabilities to produce nanofibers with controllable porous structure. With smaller pores and higher surface area than regular fibers, electrospun fibers have been successfully applied in various fields, such as, nanocatalysis, tissue engineering scaffolds, protective clothing, filtration, biomedical, pharmaceutical, optical electronics, healthcare, biotechnology, defense and security, and environmental engineering. In this study, polyurethane nanofibers were obtained under different electrospinning parameters. Fiber morphology and diameter distribution were investigated in order to understand them as a function of process parameters.

Keywords: Electrospinning, polyurethane, nanofibers.

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Authors: Azza M. Anis, M. M. Abutaleb, Hani F. Ragai, M. I. Eladawy

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This paper presents the characterization and design of a capacitive pressure sensor with LC-based 0.35 µm CMOS readout circuit. SPICE is employed to evaluate the characteristics of the readout circuit and COMSOL multiphysics structural analysis is used to simulate the behavior of the pressure sensor. The readout circuit converts the capacitance variation of the pressure sensor into the frequency output. Simulation results show that the proposed pressure sensor has output frequency from 2.50 to 2.28 GHz in a pressure range from 0.1 to 2 MPa almost linearly. The sensitivity of the frequency shift with respect to the applied pressure load is 0.11 GHz/MPa.

Keywords: CMOS LC-based oscillator, micro pressure sensor, silicon carbide

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Authors: Paul Akagwu, Aaron Aboshio

Abstract:

In this study, typical c-ɸ soils subjected to loadings were assessed with a view to understand the general stress distribution and settlement behaviour of the soils under drained conditions. Numerical estimations of the non-dimensional bearing capacity factors, N_q and N_γ for varied angles of friction in the soil mass were obtained using PLAXIS. Ultimate bearing capacity values over a Ф range of 0-30 degrees were also computed and compared with analytical results obtained from the traditional simplified uncoupled approach of Terzaghi and Meyerhof. Results from the numerical study agree well with theoretical findings.

Keywords: Bearing capacity factors, finite element method, safe bearing pressure, structure-soil interaction.

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Authors: A. Youseef

Abstract:

IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) aims to present high speed wireless access to cover wide range coverage. The base station (BS) and the subscriber station (SS) are the main parts of WiMAX. WiMAX uses either Point-to-Multipoint (PMP) or mesh topologies. In the PMP mode, the SSs connect to the BS to gain access to the network. However, in the mesh mode, the SSs connect to each other to gain access to the BS. The main components of QoS management in the 802.16 standard are the admission control, buffer management and packet scheduling. In this paper, we use QualNet 5.0.2 to study the performance of different scheduling schemes, such as WFQ, SCFQ, RR and SP when the numbers of SSs increase. We find that when the number of SSs increases, the average jitter and average end-to-end delay is increased and the throughput is reduced.

Keywords: WiMAX, Scheduling Scheme, QoS, QualNet.

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Authors: E. Farshidi

Abstract:

This paper presents the design of a low power second-order continuous-time sigma-delta modulator for low power applications. The loop filter of this modulator has been implemented based on the nonlinear transconductance-capacitor (Gm-C) by employing current-mode technique. The nonlinear transconductance uses floating gate MOS (FG-MOS) transistors that operate in weak inversion region. The proposed modulator features low power consumption (<80uW), low supply voltage (1V) and 62dB dynamic range. Simulation results by HSPICE confirm that it is very suitable for low power biomedical instrumentation designs.

Keywords: Sigma-delta, modulator, Current-mode, Nonlinear Transconductance, FG-MOS.

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Authors: Mohammadreza Salek Faramarzi, Touraj Taghikhany

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In this paper, seismic fragility assessment of a recently developed hybrid structural system, known as the strongback system (SBS) is investigated. In this system, to mitigate the occurrence of the soft-story mechanism and improve the distribution of story drifts over the height of the structure, an elastic vertical truss is formed. The strengthened members of the braced span are designed to remain substantially elastic during levels of excitation where soft-story mechanisms are likely to occur and impose a nearly uniform story drift distribution. Due to the distinctive characteristics of near-field ground motions, it seems to be necessary to study the effect of these records on seismic performance of the SBS. To this end, a set of 56 near-field ground motion records suggested by FEMA P695 methodology is used. For fragility assessment, nonlinear dynamic analyses are carried out in OpenSEES based on the recommended procedure in HAZUS technical manual. Four damage states including slight, moderate, extensive, and complete damage (collapse) are considered. To evaluate each damage state, inter-story drift ratio and floor acceleration are implemented as engineering demand parameters. Further, to extend the evaluation of the collapse state of the system, a different collapse criterion suggested in FEMA P695 is applied. It is concluded that SBS can significantly increase the collapse capacity and consequently decrease the collapse risk of the structure during its life time. Comparing the observing mean annual frequency (MAF) of exceedance of each damage state against the allowable values presented in performance-based design methods, it is found that using the elastic vertical truss, improves the structural response effectively.

Keywords: Strongback System, Near-fault, Seismic fragility, Uncertainty, IDA, Probabilistic performance assessment.

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Authors: N. Zainol, J. Salihon, R. Abdul-Rahman

Abstract:

Factor analysis was applied to two stages biogas production from banana stem waste allowing a screening of the experimental variables second stage temperature (T), organic loading rates (OLR) and hydraulic retention times (HRT). Biogas production was found to be strongly influenced by all the above experimental variables. Results from factorial analysis have shown that all variables which were HRT, OLR and T have significant effect to biogas production. Increased in HRT and OLR could increased the biogas yield. The performance was tested under the conditions of various T (35oC-60oC), OLR (0.3 g TS/l.d–1.9 gTS/l.d), and HRT (3 d–15 d). Conditions for temperature, OLR and HRT in this study were based on the best range obtained from literature review.

Keywords: Biogas, factor analysis, banana stem waste

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Authors: M. M. Sharma, Swati Gupta, Deepak Bhatnagar, R. P. Yadav

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This paper presents the theoretical investigation of a slotted patch antenna. The main objective of proposed work is to obtain a large bandwidth antenna with reduced size. The antenna has a compact size of 21.1mm x 20.25mm x 8.5mm. Two designs with minor variation are studied which provide wide impedance bandwidths of 24.056% and 25.63% respectively with the use of parasitic elements when excited by a probe feed. The advantages of this configuration are its compact size and the wide range of frequencies covered. A parametric study is also conducted to investigate the characteristics of the antenna under different conditions. The measured return loss and radiation pattern indicate the suitability of this design for WLAN applications, namely, Wi- Max, 802.11a/b/g and ISM bands.

Keywords: Inset feed, microstrip antenna, parasitic patch, shorting wall, slot, wi-max.

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Authors: Gul Tosun, Emine Ünsaldi Latif Özler, Nuri Orhan, Ali Said Durmus, Hatice Eröksüz

Abstract:

In this study, the powders of Ni and Ti with 50.5 at.% Ni for 12 h were blended and cold pressed at the different pressures (50, 75 and100 MPa).The porous product obtained after Ni-Ti compacts were synthesized by SHS (self-propagating hightemperature synthesis) in the different preheating temperatures (200, 250 and 300oC) and heating rates (30, 60 and 90oC/min). The effects of the pressure, preheating temperature and heating rate were investigated on biocompatibility in vivo. The porosity in the synthesized products was in the range of 50.7–59.7 vol. %. The pressure, preheating temperature and heating rate were found to have an important effect on the biocompatibility in-vivo of the synthesized products. Max. fibrotic tissue within the porous implant was found in vivo periods (6 months), in which compacting pressure 100MPa.

Keywords: NiTi, biomaterial, SHS, biocompatibility.

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