Search results for: slab optical waveguide(SOWG) spectroscopy

Authors: Amoljit S. Gill, Sanjeev Kumar

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In this study, Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) is used to modify the surface of high carbon steel En31 with the help of tool electrode (Copper-Chromium-Nickel) manufactured by powder metallurgy (PM) process. The effect of EDM on surface roughness during surface alloying is studied. Taguchi’s Design of experiment (DOE) and L18 orthogonal array is used to find the best level of input parameters in order to achieve high surface finish. Six input parameters are considered and their percentage contribution towards surface roughness is investigated by analysis of variances (ANOVA). Experimental results show that an hard alloyed surface (1.21% carbon, 2.14% chromium and 1.38% nickel) with surface roughness of 3.19µm can be generated using EDM with PM tool. Additionally, techniques like Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) are used to analyze the machined surface and EDMed layer composition, respectively. The increase in machined surface micro-hardness (101%) may be related to the formation of carbides containing chromium.

Keywords: Electrical Discharge Machining, Surface Roughness, Powder metallurgy compact tools, Taguchi DOE technique.

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Authors: Toshinori Takabatake, Yoshikazu Komano

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Recently, the improvements in processing performance of a computer and in high speed communication of an optical fiber have been achieved, so that the amount of data which are processed by a computer and flowed on a network has been increasing greatly. However, in a client-server system, since the server receives and processes the amount of data from the clients through the network, a load on the server is increasing. Thus, there are needed to introduce a server with high processing ability and to have a line with high bandwidth. In this paper, concerning to P2P networks to resolve the load on a specific server, a criterion called an Indexed-Priority Metric is proposed and its performance is evaluated. The proposed metric is to allocate some files to each node. As a result, the load on a specific server can distribute them to each node equally well. A P2P file sharing system using the proposed metric is implemented. Simulation results show that the proposed metric can make it distribute files on the specific server.

Keywords: peer-to-peer, file-sharing system, load-balancing, dependability

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Authors: Anushree, Chhaya Sharma, Satish Kumar

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Catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) is normally carried out at elevated temperature and pressure. This work investigates the potential of NiO-CeO₂ nano-catalyst in CWAO of paper industry wastewater under milder operating conditions of 90 °C and 1 atm. The NiO-CeO₂ nano-catalysts were synthesized by a simple co-precipitation method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), before and after use, in order to study any crystallographic change during experiment. The extent of metal-leaching from the catalyst was determined using the inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The catalytic activity of nano-catalysts was studied in terms of total organic carbon (TOC), adsorbable organic halides (AOX) and chlorophenolics (CHPs) removal. Interestingly, mixed oxide catalysts exhibited higher activity than the corresponding single-metal oxides. The maximum removal efficiency was achieved with Ce₄₀Ni₆₀ catalyst. The results indicate that the CWAO process is efficient in removing the priority organic pollutants from wastewater, as it exhibited up to 59% TOC, 55% AOX, and 54 % CHPs removal.

Keywords: Nano-materials, NiO-CeO2, wastewater, wet air oxidation.

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Authors: E. Moroydor Derun, A. S. Kipcak, A. Kaplan, S. Piskin

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Magnesium wastes are produced by many industrial activities. This waste problem is becoming a future problem for the world. Magnesium borates have many advantages such as; high corrosion resistance, heat resistance, high coefficient of elasticity and can also be used in the production of material against radiation. Addition, magnesium borates have great potential in sectors including ceramic and detergents industry and superconducting materials. In this study, using the starting materials of waste magnesium and H3BO3 the hydrothermal method was applied at a moderate temperature of 70oC. Several mole ratios of waste magnesium to H3BO3 are selected as; 1:2, 1:4, 1:6, 1:8, 1:10. Reaction time was determined as 1 hour. After the synthesis, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) techniques are applied to products. As a result the forms of mcallisterite “Mg2(B6O7(OH)6)2.9(H2O)”, admontite “MgO(B2O3)3.7(H2O)” and magnesium boron hydrate (MgO(B2O3)3.6(H2O)” are obtained. 

Keywords: Hydrothermal synthesis, magnesium borates, waste magnesium.

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Authors: S. Xiao, M. B. Shuai, M. F. Chu

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The hydrolysis kinetics of polycrystalline lithium hydride (LiH) in argon at various low humidities was measured by gravimetry and Raman spectroscopy with ambient water concentration ranging from 200 to 1200 ppm. The results showed that LiH hydrolysis curve revealed a paralinear shape, which was attributed to two different reaction stages that forming different products as explained by the 'Layer Diffusion Control' model. Based on the model, a novel two-stage rate equation for LiH hydrolysis reactions was developed and used to fit the experimental data for determination of Li2O steady thickness Hs and the ultimate hydrolysis rate vs. The fitted data presented a rise of Hs as ambient water concentration cw increased. However, in spite of the negative effect imposed by Hs increasing, the upward trend of vs remained, which implied that water concentration, rather than Li2O thickness, played a predominant role in LiH hydrolysis kinetics. In addition, the proportional relationship between vsHs and cw predicted by rate equation and confirmed by gravimetric data validated the model in such conditions.

Keywords: Hydrolysis kinetics, ‘Layer Diffusion Control’ model, Lithium hydride

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Authors: Banashree N. P., R. Vasanta

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Recognition of Indian languages scripts is challenging problems. In Optical Character Recognition [OCR], a character or symbol to be recognized can be machine printed or handwritten characters/numerals. There are several approaches that deal with problem of recognition of numerals/character depending on the type of feature extracted and different way of extracting them. This paper proposes a recognition scheme for handwritten Hindi (devnagiri) numerals; most admired one in Indian subcontinent. Our work focused on a technique in feature extraction i.e. global based approach using end-points information, which is extracted from images of isolated numerals. These feature vectors are fed to neuro-memetic model [18] that has been trained to recognize a Hindi numeral. The archetype of system has been tested on varieties of image of numerals. . In proposed scheme data sets are fed to neuro-memetic algorithm, which identifies the rule with highest fitness value of nearly 100 % & template associates with this rule is nothing but identified numerals. Experimentation result shows that recognition rate is 92-97 % compared to other models.

Keywords: OCR, Global Feature, End-Points, Neuro-Memetic model.

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Authors: Himanshu Patel, R. T. Vashi

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Adsorption of Toluidine blue dye from aqueous solutions onto Neem Leaf Powder (NLP) has been investigated. The surface characterization of this natural material was examined by Particle size analysis, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The effects of process parameters such as initial concentration, pH, temperature and contact duration on the adsorption capacities have been evaluated, in which pH has been found to be most effective parameter among all. The data were analyzed using the Langmuir and Freundlich for explaining the equilibrium characteristics of adsorption. And kinetic models like pseudo first- order, second-order model and Elovich equation were utilized to describe the kinetic data. The experimental data were well fitted with Langmuir adsorption isotherm model and pseudo second order kinetic model. The thermodynamic parameters, such as Free energy of adsorption (AG"), enthalpy change (AH') and entropy change (AS°) were also determined and evaluated.

Keywords: Adsorption, isotherm models, kinetic models, temperature, toluidine blue dye, surface chemistry.

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Authors: Sh. Gofurov, O. Ismailova, U. Makhmanov, A. Kokhkharov

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The refractometric method has been used to determine optical properties of concentration features of aqueous solutions of ethanol, tetrahydrofuran and dimethylformamide at the room temperature. Changes in dielectric permittivity of aqueous solutions of ethanol, tetrahydrofuran and dimethylformamide in a wide range of concentrations (0÷1.0 molar fraction) have been studied using molecular dynamics method. The curves depending on the concentration of experimental data on excess refractive indices and excess dielectric permittivity were compared. It has been shown that stable heteromolecular complexes in binary solutions are formed in the concentration range of 0.3÷0.4 mole fractions. The real and complex part of dielectric permittivity was obtained from dipole-dipole autocorrelation functions of molecules. At the concentrations of C = 0.3 / 0.4 m.f. the heteromolecular structures with hydrogen bonds are formed. This is confirmed by the extremum values of excessive dielectric permittivity and excessive refractive index of aqueous solutions.

Keywords: Refractometric method, dielectric constant, molecular dynamics, aqueous solution.

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Authors: P. Chihomvu, P. Stegmann, M. Pillay

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Pollution of the Klip River has caused microorganisms inhabiting it to develop protective survival mechanisms. This study isolated and characterized the heavy metal resistant bacteria in the Klip River. Water and sediment samples were collected from six sites along the course of the river. The pH, turbidity, salinity, temperature and dissolved oxygen were measured in-situ. The concentrations of six heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb and Zn) of the water samples were determined by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Biochemical and antibiotic profiles of the isolates were assessed using the API 20E® and Kirby Bauer Method. Growth studies were carried out using spectrophotometric methods. The isolates were identified using 16SrDNA sequencing. The uppermost part of the Klip River with the lowest pH had the highest levels of heavy metals. Turbidity, salinity and specific conductivity increased measurably at Site 4 (Henley on Klip Weir). MIC tests showed that 16 isolates exhibited high iron and lead resistance. Antibiotic susceptibility tests revealed that the isolates exhibited multitolerances to drugs such as Tetracycline, Ampicillin, and Amoxicillin.

Keywords: Klip River, heavy metals, resistance.

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Authors: V. Pérez-Herranz, M. Pinel, E. M. Ortega, M. García-Gabaldón

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In the present work, Electrochemical Impedance Spectrocopy (EIS) is applied to study the transport of different metal cations through a cation-exchange membrane. This technique enables the identification of the ionic-transport characteristics and to distinguish between different transport mechanisms occurring at different current density ranges. The impedance spectra are dependent on the applied dc current density, on the type of cation and on the concentration. When the applied dc current density increases, the diameter of the impedance spectra loops increases because all the components of membrane system resistance increase. The diameter of the impedance plots decreases in the order of Na(I), Ni(II) and Cr(III) due to the increased interactions between the negatively charged sulfonic groups of the membrane and the cations with greater charge. Nyquist plots are shifted towards lower values of the real impedance, and its diameter decreases with the increase of concentration due to the decrease of the solution resistance.

Keywords: Ion-exchange Membranes, Electrochemical Impedance Espectroscopy, Multivalent Metal Cations.

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Authors: M. Al Nur, M. S. Kaiser

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Corrosion behaviour of hypereutectic Al-19Si automotive alloy in different pH=1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 environments was carried out using conventional gravimetric measurements and was complemented by resistivity, optical micrograph, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray analyzer (EDX) investigations. Gravimetric analysis confirmed that the highest corrosion rate is shown at pH 13 followed by pH 1. Minimum corrosion occurs in the pH range of 3.0 to 11 due to establishment of passive layer on the surface. The highest corrosion rate at pH 13 is due to the presence of sodium hydroxide in the solution which dissolves the surface oxide film at a steady rate. At pH 1, it can be attributed that the presence of aggressive chloride ions serves to pick up the damage of the passive films at localized regions. With varying exposure periods by both, the environment complies with the normal corrosion rate profile that is an initial steep rise followed by a nearly constant value of corrosion rate. Resistivity increases in case of pH 1 solution for the higher pit formation and decreases at pH 13 due to formation of thin film. The SEM image of corroded samples immersed in pH 1 solution clearly shows pores on the surface and in pH 13 solution, and the corrosion layer seems more compact and homogenous and not porous.

Keywords: Al-Si alloy, corrosion, pH, resistivity, SEM.

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Authors: Mohammad Y. Abualhoul, Edgar Talavera Munoz, Fawzi Nashashibi

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The new emerging Visible Light Communication (VLC) technology has been subjected to intensive investigation, evaluation, and lately, deployed in the context of convoy-based applications for Intelligent Transportations Systems (ITS). The technology limitations were defined and supported by different solutions proposals to enhance the crucial alignment and mobility limitations. In this paper, we propose the incorporation of VLC technology and Lane-Centering (LC) technique to assure the VLC-connectivity by keeping the autonomous vehicle aligned to the lane center using vision-based lane detection in a convoy-based formation. Such combination can ensure the optical communication connectivity with a lateral error less than 30 cm. As soon as the road lanes are detectable, the evaluated system showed stable behavior independently from the inter-vehicle distances and without the need for any exchanged information of the remote vehicles. The evaluation of the proposed system is verified using VLC prototype and an empirical result of LC running application over 60 km in Madrid M40 highway.

Keywords: VLC, lane-centering, platoon, ITS, road safety applications.

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Authors: Woei-Shyan Lee, Shuo-Ling Chang

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The nanoindentation behaviour and phase transformation of annealed single-crystal silicon wafers are examined. The silicon specimens are annealed at temperatures of 250, 350 and 450ºC, respectively, for 15 minutes and are then indented to maximum loads of 30, 50 and 70 mN. The phase changes induced in the indented specimens are observed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and micro-Raman scattering spectroscopy (RSS). For all annealing temperatures, an elbow feature is observed in the unloading curve following indentation to a maximum load of 30 mN. Under higher loads of 50 mN and 70 mN, respectively, the elbow feature is replaced by a pop-out event. The elbow feature reveals a complete amorphous phase transformation within the indented zone, whereas the pop-out event indicates the formation of Si XII and Si III phases. The experimental results show that the formation of these crystalline silicon phases increases with an increasing annealing temperature and indentation load. The hardness and Young’s modulus both decrease as the annealing temperature and indentation load are increased.

Keywords: Nanoindentation, silicon, phase transformation, amorphous, annealing.

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Authors: Zhao Jing, Bai Yongqing, Shi Qiaofang, Zang Yang, Zhang Huaihao

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Advances in software technology enable the computational chemistry to be commonly applied in various research fields, especially in pedagogy. Thus, in order to expand and improve experimental instructions of computational chemistry for undergraduates, we designed an introductory experiment—research on acrylamide molecular structure and physicochemical properties. Initially, students construct molecular models of acrylamide and polyacrylamide in Gaussian and Materials Studio software respectively. Then, the infrared spectral data, atomic charge and molecular orbitals of acrylamide as well as solvation effect of polyacrylamide are calculated to predict their physicochemical performance. At last, rheological experiments are used to validate these predictions. Through the combination of molecular simulation (performed on Gaussian, Materials Studio) with experimental verification (rheology experiment), learners have deeply comprehended the chemical nature of acrylamide and polyacrylamide, achieving good learning outcomes.

Keywords: Upper-division undergraduate, computer-based learning, laboratory instruction, amides, molecular modeling, spectroscopy.

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Authors: E. Kam, G. Karahan, H. Aslıyuksek, A. Bozkurt

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This study aims to determine the natural radioactivity levels in some foodstuffs produced in Turkey. For this purpose, 48 different foods samples were collected from different land parcels throughout the country. All samples were analyzed to designate both gross alpha and gross beta radioactivities and the radionuclides’ concentrations. The gross alpha radioactivities were measured as below 1 Bq kg^-1 in most of the samples, some of them being due to the detection limit of the counting system. The gross beta radioactivity levels ranged from 1.8 Bq kg^-1 to 453 Bq kg^-1, larger levels being observed in leguminous seeds while the highest level being in haricot bean. The concentrations of natural radionuclides in the foodstuffs were investigated by the method of gamma spectroscopy. High levels of ⁴⁰K were measured in all the samples, the highest activities being again in leguminous seeds. Low concentrations of ²³⁸U and ²²⁶Ra were found in some of the samples, which are comparable to the reported results in the literature. Based on the activity concentrations obtained in this study, average annual effective dose equivalents for the radionuclides ²²⁶Ra, ²³⁸U, and ⁴⁰K were calculated as 77.416 µSv y^-1, 0.978 µSv y^-1, and 140.55 µSv y^-1, respectively.

Keywords: Foods, radioactivity, gross alpha, gross beta, annual equivalent dose, Turkey.

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Authors: Aneeqa Sabah, Saadat Anwar Siddiqi, Salamat Ali

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The systematic manipulations of shapes and sizes of inorganic compounds greatly benefit the various application fields including optics, magnetic, electronics, catalysis and medicine. However shape control has been much more difficult to achieve. Hence exploration of novel method for the preparation of differently shaped nanoparticles is challenging research area. II-VI group of semiconductor cadmium sulphide (CdS) nanostructure with different morphologies (such as, acicular like, mesoporous, spherical shapes) and of crystallite sizes vary from 11 to 16 nm were successfully synthesized by chemical aqueous precipitation of Cd2+ ions with homogeneously released S2- ions from decomposition of cadmium sulphate (CdSO4) and thioacetamide (CH3CSNH2) by annealing at different radiations (microwave, ultrasonic and sunlight) with matter and systematic research has been done for various factors affecting the controlled growth rate of CdS nanoparticles. The obtained nanomaterials have been characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Thermogravometric (DSC-TGA) analysis and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The result indicates that on increasing the reaction time particle size increases but on increasing the molar ratios grain size decreases.

Keywords: CdS nanoparticles, Morphology, Oxidation, Radiations

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Authors: Manjunath Aradhya V N, Hemantha Kumar G, Shivakumara P

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Document image processing has become an increasingly important technology in the automation of office documentation tasks. During document scanning, skew is inevitably introduced into the incoming document image. Since the algorithm for layout analysis and character recognition are generally very sensitive to the page skew. Hence, skew detection and correction in document images are the critical steps before layout analysis. In this paper, a novel skew detection method is presented for binary document images. The method considered the some selected characters of the text which may be subjected to thinning and Hough transform to estimate skew angle accurately. Several experiments have been conducted on various types of documents such as documents containing English Documents, Journals, Text-Book, Different Languages and Document with different fonts, Documents with different resolutions, to reveal the robustness of the proposed method. The experimental results revealed that the proposed method is accurate compared to the results of well-known existing methods.

Keywords: Optical Character Recognition, Skew angle, Thinning, Hough transform, Document processing

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Authors: Binay K. Dutta, Tayseir M. Abd Ellateif, Saikat Maitra

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In the present work homogeneous silica film on silicon was fabricated by colloidal silica sol. The silica sol precursor with uniformly granular particle was derived by the alkaline hydrolysis of tetraethoxyorthosilicate (TEOS) in presence of glycerol template. The film was prepared by dip coating process. The templated hetero-structured silica film was annealed at elevated temperatures to generate nano- and meso porosity in the film. The film was subsequently annealed at different temperatures to make it defect free and abrasion resistant. The sol and the film were characterized by the measurement of particle size distribution, scanning electron microscopy, XRD, FTIR spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, measurement of the refractive index, thermal conductivity and abrasion resistance. The porosity of the films decreased whereas refractive index and dielectric constant of it `increased with the increase in the annealing temperature. The thermal conductivity of the films increased with the increase in the film thickness. The developed porous silica film holds strong potential for use in different areas.

Keywords: Silica film, Nanoporous, Sol-gel, Templating, Dip coating.

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Authors: Yohei Saika, Hiroki Sakaematsu, Shota Akiyama

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We investigated statistical performance of Bayesian inference using maximum entropy and MAP estimation for several models which approximated wave-fronts in remote sensing using SAR interferometry. Using Monte Carlo simulation for a set of wave-fronts generated by assumed true prior, we found that the method of maximum entropy realized the optimal performance around the Bayes-optimal conditions by using model of the true prior and the likelihood representing optical measurement due to the interferometer. Also, we found that the MAP estimation regarded as a deterministic limit of maximum entropy almost achieved the same performance as the Bayes-optimal solution for the set of wave-fronts. Then, we clarified that the MAP estimation perfectly carried out phase unwrapping without using prior information, and also that the MAP estimation realized accurate phase unwrapping using conjugate gradient (CG) method, if we assumed the model of the true prior appropriately.

Keywords: Bayesian inference using maximum entropy, MAP estimation using conjugate gradient method, SAR interferometry.

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Authors: Seung You Na, Joo Hyun Jung, Jin Young Kim, Mohammad AhangarKiasari

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There are various kinds of medical equipment which requires relatively accurate positional adjustments for successful treatment. However, patients tend to move without notice during a certain span of operations. Therefore, it is common practice that accompanying operators adjust the focus of the equipment. In this paper, tracking controllers for medical equipment are suggested to replace the operators. The tracking controllers use AHRS sensor information to recognize the movements of patients. Sensor fusion is applied to reducing the error magnitudes through linear Kalman filters. The image processing of optical markers is included to adjust the accumulation errors of gyroscope sensor data especially for yaw angles. The tracking controller reduces the positional errors between the current focus of a device and the target position on the body of a patient. Since the sensing frequencies of AHRS sensors are very high compared to the physical movements, the control performance is satisfactory. The typical applications are, for example, ESWT or rTMS, which have the error ranges of a few centimeters.

Keywords: AHRS, Sensor fusion, Tracking control, Position and posture.

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Authors: Erdinç Vural, Bülent Özdalyan, Serkan Özel

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The four-stroke single cylinder diesel engine has been used in this study, the pistons and valves of the engine have been stabilized, the aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) in different ratios has been added in the power of zirconium (ZrO₂) magnesium oxide (MgO), and has been coated with the plasma spray method. The pistons and valves of the combustion chamber of the engine are coated with 5 different (ZrO₂ + MgO), (ZrO₂ + MgO + 25% Al₂O₃), (ZrO₂ + MgO + 50% Al₂O₃), (ZrO₂ + MgO + 75% Al₂O₃), (Al₂O₃) sample. The material tests have been made for each of the coated engine parts with the scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) using Cu Kα radiation surface analysis methods. The engine tests have been repeated for each sample in any electric dynamometer in full power 1600 rpm, 2000 rpm, 2400 rpm and 2800 rpm engine speeds. The material analysis and engine tests have shown that the best performance has been performed with (ZrO₂ + MgO + 50% Al₂O₃). Thus, there is no significant change in HC and Smoke emissions, but NOx emission is increased, as the engine improves power, torque, specific fuel consumption and CO emissions in the tests made with sample A3.

Keywords: Ceramic coating, material characterization, engine performance, exhaust emissions.

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Authors: Isao Tomita

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We develop a periodically-poled LiNbO3 (PPLN) device for highly-efficient third-harmonic generation (THG), where the THG efficiency is enhanced with a cavity. THG can usually be produced via χ(3)-nonlinear materials by optical pumping with very high pump-power. Instead, we here propose THG by moderate-power pumping through a specially-designed PPLN device containing only χ(2)-nonlinearity, where sum-frequency generation in the χ(2) process is employed for the mixing of a pump beam and a second-harmonic-generation (SHG) beam produced from the pump beam. The cavity is designed to increase the SHG power with dichroic mirrors attached to both ends of the device that perfectly reflect the SHG beam back to the device and yet let the pump and THG beams pass through the mirrors. This brings about a THG-power enhancement because of THG power proportional to the enhanced SHG power. We examine the THG-efficiency dependence on the mirror reflectance and show that very high THG-efficiency is obtained at moderate pump-power when compared with that of a cavity-free PPLN device.

Keywords: Cavity, periodically-poled LiNbO3, sum-frequency generation, third-harmonic generation.

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Authors: S. A. A. Oloomi , M. Omidpanah

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Semiconductor materials with coatings have a wide range of applications in MEMS and NEMS. This work uses transfermatrix method for calculating the radiative properties. Dopped silicon is used and the coherent formulation is applied. The Drude model for the optical constants of doped silicon is employed. Results showed that for the visible wavelengths, more emittance occurs in greater concentrations and the reflectance decreases as the concentration increases. In these wavelengths, transmittance is negligible. Donars and acceptors act similar in visible wavelengths. The effect of wave interference can be understood by plotting the spectral properties such as reflectance or transmittance of a thin dielectric film versus the film thickness and analyzing the oscillations of properties due to constructive and destructive interferences. But this effect has not been shown at visible wavelengths. At room temperature, the scattering process is dominated by lattice scattering for lightly doped silicon, and the impurity scattering becomes important for heavily doped silicon when the dopant concentration exceeds1018cm-3 .

Keywords: Dopant Concentrations, Radiative Properties, Nanoscale Multilayer, Coherent Formulation, Visible Wavelengths

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Authors: M. K. Jindal, G. S. Lehal, R. K. Sharma

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Character segmentation is an important preprocessing step for text recognition. In degraded documents, existence of touching characters decreases recognition rate drastically, for any optical character recognition (OCR) system. In this paper we have proposed a complete solution for segmenting touching characters in all the three zones of printed Gurmukhi script. A study of touching Gurmukhi characters is carried out and these characters have been divided into various categories after a careful analysis. Structural properties of the Gurmukhi characters are used for defining the categories. New algorithms have been proposed to segment the touching characters in middle zone, upper zone and lower zone. These algorithms have shown a reasonable improvement in segmenting the touching characters in degraded printed Gurmukhi script. The algorithms proposed in this paper are applicable only to machine printed text. We have also discussed a new and useful technique to segment the horizontally overlapping lines.

Keywords: Character Segmentation, Middle Zone, Upper Zone, Lower Zone, Touching Characters, Horizontally Overlapping Lines.

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Authors: Bruno Bacci Fernandes, Stephan Mändl, Ataíde Ribeiro da Silva Junior, José Osvaldo Rossi, Mário Ueda

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Nitrogen implantation in aluminum and its alloys is acquainted for the difficulties in obtaining modified layers deeper than 200 nm. The present work addresses a new method to overcome such a problem; although, the coating with nitrogen and oxygen obtained by plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) into a 7075 aluminum alloy surface was too shallow. This alloy is commonly used for structural parts in aerospace applications. Such a layer was characterized by secondary ion mass spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and nanoindentation experiments reciprocating wear tests. From the results, one can assume that the wear of this aluminum alloy starts presenting severe abrasive wear followed by an additional adhesive mechanism. PIII produced a slight difference, as shown in all characterizations carried out in this work. The results shown here can be used as the scientific basis for further nitrogen PIII experiments in aluminum alloys which have the goal to produce thicker modified layers or to improve their surface properties.

Keywords: Aluminum alloys, plasma immersion ion implantation, tribological properties, hardness, nanofatigue.

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Authors: Farid Arya, Trevor Hyde, Paul Henshall, Phillip Eames, Roger Moss, Stan Shire

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Vacuum flat plate solar thermal collectors offer several advantages over other collectors namely the excellent optical and thermal characteristics they exhibit due to a combination of their wide surface area and high vacuum thermal insulation. These characteristics can offer a variety of applications for industrial process heat as well as for building integration as they are much thinner than conventional collectors making installation possible in limited spaces. However, many technical challenges which need to be addressed to enable wide scale adoption of the technology still remain. This paper will discuss the challenges, expectations and requirements for the flat-plate vacuum solar collector development. In addition, it will provide an overview of work undertaken in Ulster University, Loughborough University, and the University of Warwick on flat-plate vacuum solar thermal collectors. Finally, this paper will present a detailed experimental investigation on the development of a vacuum panel with a novel sealing method which will be used to accommodate a novel slim hydroformed solar absorber.

Keywords: Hot box calorimeter, infrared thermography, solar thermal collector, vacuum insulation.

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Authors: Xiaodong Xu, Dan Zhao, Xiujuan Chang, Chunming Li, Huiyun Zhou, Xin Li, Qiang Shi, Shifang Luan, Jinghua Yin

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Polypropylene (PP) is one of the most commonly used plastics because of its low density, outstanding mechanical properties, and low cost. However, its drawbacks such as low surface energy, poor dyeability, lack of chemical functionalities, and poor compatibility with polar polymers and inorganic materials, have restricted the application of PP. To expand its application in biomedical materials, functionalization is considered to be the most effective way. In this study, PP was functionalized with a chiral monomer, (S)-1-acryloylpyrrolidine-2-carboxylic acid ((S)-APCA), by free-radical grafting in the solid phase. The grafting degree of PP-g-APCA was determined by chemical titration method, and the chemical structure of functionalized PP was characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, which confirmed that the chiral monomer (S)-APCA was successfully grafted onto PP. Static water contact angle results suggested that the surface hydrophilicity of PP was significantly improved by solid phase grafting and assistance of surface water treatment. Protein adsorption and platelet adhesion results showed that hemocompatibility of PP was greatly improved by grafting the chiral monomer.

Keywords: Functionalization, polypropylene, chiral monomer, hemocompatibility.

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Authors: H. Akbari Khorami, P. Wild, N. Djilali

Abstract:

This paper reports on the response of a fiber-optic sensing probe to small concentrations of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) vapor at room temperature. H2O2 has extensive applications in industrial and medical environments. Conversely, H2O2 can be a health hazard by itself. For example, H2O2 induces cellular damage in human cells and its presence can be used to diagnose illnesses such as asthma and human breast cancer. Hence, development of reliable H2O2 sensor is of vital importance to detect and measure this species. Ferric ferrocyanide, referred to as Prussian Blue (PB), was deposited on the tip of a multimode optical fiber through the single source precursor technique and served as an indicator of H2O2 in a spectroscopic manner. Sensing tests were performed in H2O2-H2O vapor mixtures with different concentrations of H2O2. The results of sensing tests show the sensor is able to detect H2O2 concentrations in the range of 50.6 ppm to 229.5 ppm. Furthermore, the sensor response to H2O2 concentrations is linear in a log-log scale with the adjacent R-square of 0.93. This sensing behavior allows us to detect and quantify the concentration of H2O2 in the vapor phase.

Keywords: Chemical deposition, fiber-optic sensors, hydrogen peroxide vapor, prussian blue.

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Authors: C. Photiphitak, P. Rakkwamsuk, P. Muthitamongkol, C. Thanachayanont

Abstract:

TiO2/MgO composite films were prepared by coating the magnesium acetate solution in the pores of mesoporous TiO2 films using a dip coating method. Concentrations of magnesium acetate solution were varied in a range of 1x10-4 – 1x10-1 M. The TiO2/MgO composite films were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscropy (TEM), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EIS) , transient voltage decay and I-V test. The TiO2 films and TiO2/MgO composite films were immersed in a 0.3 mM N719 dye solution. The Dye-sensitized solar cells with the TiO2/MgO/N719 structure showed an optimal concentration of magnesium acetate solution of 1x10-3 M resulting in the MgO film estimated thickness of 0.0963 nm and giving the maximum efficiency of 4.85%. The improved efficiency of dyesensitized solar cell was due to the magnesium oxide film as the wide band gap coating decays the electron back transfer to the triiodide electrolyte and reduce charge recombination.

Keywords: Magnesium oxide thin film, TiO2/MgO composite films, Electrochemical Impedance Spectrum, Transient voltage decay

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Authors: Lina Paola Orozco-Marín, Yuliet Montoya, John Bustamante

Abstract:

Ischemic events can culminate in acute myocardial infarction with irreversible cardiac lesions that cannot be restored due to the limited regenerative capacity of the heart. Tissue engineering proposes therapeutic alternatives by using biomaterials to resemble the native extracellular medium combined with healthy and functional cells. This research focused on developing a natural thermosensitive hydrogel, its physical-chemical characterization and in vitro biocompatibility determination. Hydrogels’ morphological characterization was carried out through scanning electron microscopy and its chemical characterization by employing Infrared Spectroscopy technic. In addition, the biocompatibility was determined using fetal human ventricular cardiomyocytes cell line RL-14 and the MTT cytotoxicity test according to the ISO 10993-5 standard. Four biocompatible and thermosensitive hydrogels were obtained with a three-dimensional internal structure and two gelation times. The results show the potential of the hydrogel to increase the cell survival rate to the cardiac cell therapies under investigation and lay the foundations to continue with its characterization and biological evaluation both in vitro and in vivo models.

Keywords: cardiac cell therapy, cardiac ischemia, natural polymers, thermosensitive hydrogel

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