Abstract: Newly synthesized Polypropylene-g-Polyethylene
glycol polymer was first time used for a compartment-less enzymatic
fuel cell. Working electrodes based on Polypropylene-g-Polyethylene
glycol were operated as unmediated and mediated system (with
ferrocene and gold/cobalt oxide nanoparticles). Glucose oxidase and
bilirubin oxidase was selected as anodic and cathodic enzyme,
respectively. Glucose was used as fuel in a single-compartment and
membrane-less cell. Maximum power density was obtained as 0.65
nW cm-2, 65 nW cm-2 and 23500 nW cm-2 from the unmediated,
ferrocene and gold/cobalt oxide modified polymeric film,
respectively. Power density was calculated to be ~16000 nW cm-2 for
undiluted wastewater sample with gold/cobalt oxide nanoparticles
including system.
Abstract: Vehicular Adhoc Network (VANET) is a new
technology which aims to ensure intelligent inter-vehicle
communications, seamless internet connectivity leading to improved
road safety, essential alerts, and access to comfort and entertainment.
VANET operations are hindered by mobile node’s (vehicles)
uncertain mobility. Routing algorithms use metrics to evaluate which
path is best for packets to travel. Metrics like path length (hop count),
delay, reliability, bandwidth, and load determine optimal route. The
proposed scheme exploits link quality, traffic density, and
intersections as routing metrics to determine next hop. This study
enhances Geographical Routing Protocol (GRP) using fuzzy
controllers while rules are optimized with Bee Swarm Optimization
(BSO). Simulations results are compared to conventional GRP.
Abstract: This study was developed to compare the behavior
and the ability of polymer foam composites towards sound absorption
test of Shorea leprosula wood (SL) of acid hydrolysis treatment with
particle size
Abstract: The web’s increased popularity has included a huge
amount of information, due to which automated web page
classification systems are essential to improve search engines’
performance. Web pages have many features like HTML or XML
tags, hyperlinks, URLs and text contents which can be considered
during an automated classification process. It is known that Webpage
classification is enhanced by hyperlinks as it reflects Web page
linkages. The aim of this study is to reduce the number of features to
be used to improve the accuracy of the classification of web pages. In
this paper, a novel feature selection method using an improved
Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) using principle of evolution is
proposed. The extracted features were tested on the WebKB dataset
using a parallel Neural Network to reduce the computational cost.
Abstract: This work reports the potential of using Palm Kernel
(PK) ash and shell as a partial substitute for Portland Cement (PC)
and coarse aggregate in the development of mortar and concrete. PK
ash and shell are agro-waste materials from palm oil mills, the
disposal of PK ash and shell is an environmental problem of concern.
The PK ash has pozzolanic properties that enables it as a partial
replacement for cement and also plays an important role in the
strength and durability of concrete, its use in concrete will alleviate
the increasing challenges of scarcity and high cost of cement. In order
to investigate the PC replacement potential of PK ash, three types of
PK ash were produced at varying temperature (350-750C) and they
were used to replace up to 50% PC. The PK shell was used to replace
up to 100% coarse aggregate in order to study its aggregate
replacement potential. The testing programme included material
characterisation, the determination of compressive strength, tensile
splitting strength and chemical durability in aggressive sulfatebearing
exposure conditions. The 90 day compressive results showed
a significant strength gain (up to 26.2 N/mm2). The Portland cement
and conventional coarse aggregate has significantly higher influence
in the strength gain compared to the equivalent PK ash and PK shell.
The chemical durability results demonstrated that after a prolonged
period of exposure, significant strength losses in all the concretes
were observed. This phenomenon is explained, due to lower change
in concrete morphology and inhibition of reaction species and the
final disruption of the aggregate cement paste matrix.
Abstract: The development of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
into a regional trade, tourism, finance and logistics hub has
transformed its real estate markets. However, speculative activity and
price volatility remain concerns. UAE residential market values
(MV) are exposed to fluctuations in capital flows and migration
which, in turn, are affected by geopolitical uncertainty, oil price
volatility and global investment market sentiment. Internally, a
complex interplay between administrative boundaries, land tenure,
building quality and evolving location characteristics fragments UAE
residential property markets. In short, the UAE Residential Valuation
System (UAE-RVS) confronts multiple challenges to collect, filter
and analyze relevant information in complex and dynamic spatial and
capital markets. A robust (RVS) can mitigate the risk of unhelpful
volatility, speculative excess or investment mistakes. The research
outlines the institutional, ontological, dynamic and epistemological
issues at play. We highlight the importance of system capabilities,
valuation standard salience and stakeholders trust.
Abstract: The development of Drugs Delivery System (DDS)
has been widely investigated in the last decades. In this paper, first a
general overview of traditional and modern wound dressing is
presented. This is followed by a review of what scientists have done
in the medical environment, focusing on the possibility to develop a
new alternative for DDS through transdermal pathway, aiming to
treat melanoma skin cancer.
Abstract: A numerical study of natural convection heat transfer
in water filled cavity has been examined in 3-Dfor single phase liquid
cooling system by using an array of parallel plate fins mounted to one
wall of a cavity. The heat generated by a heat source represents a
computer CPU with dimensions of 37.5∗37.5mm mounted on
substrate. A cold plate is used as a heat sink installed on the opposite
vertical end of the enclosure. The air flow inside the computer case is
created by an exhaust fan. A turbulent air flow is assumed and k-ε
model is applied. The fins are installed on the substrate to enhance
the heat transfer. The applied power energy range used is between 15
- 40W. In order to determine the thermal behaviour of the cooling
system, the effect of the heat input and the number of the parallel
plate fins are investigated. The results illustrate that as the fin number
increases the maximum heat source temperature decreases. However,
when the fin number increases to critical value the temperature start
to increase due to the fins are too closely spaced and that cause the
obstruction of water flow. The introduction of parallel plate fins
reduces the maximum heat source temperature by 10% compared to
the case without fins. The cooling system maintains the maximum
chip temperature at 64.68°C when the heat input was at 40W that is
much lower than the recommended computer chips limit temperature
of no more than 85°C and hence the performance of the CPU is
enhanced.
Abstract: Human motion capture has become one of the major
area of interest in the field of computer vision. Some of the major
application areas that have been rapidly evolving include the
advanced human interfaces, virtual reality and security/surveillance
systems. This study provides a brief overview of the techniques and
applications used for the markerless human motion capture, which
deals with analyzing the human motion in the form of mathematical
formulations. The major contribution of this research is that it
classifies the computer vision based techniques of human motion
capture based on the taxonomy, and then breaks its down into four
systematically different categories of tracking, initialization, pose
estimation and recognition. The detailed descriptions and the
relationships descriptions are given for the techniques of tracking and
pose estimation. The subcategories of each process are further
described. Various hypotheses have been used by the researchers in
this domain are surveyed and the evolution of these techniques have
been explained. It has been concluded in the survey that most
researchers have focused on using the mathematical body models for
the markerless motion capture.
Abstract: With increasingly more mobile health applications
appearing due to the popularity of smartphones, the possibility arises
that these data can be used to improve the medical diagnostic process,
as well as the overall quality of healthcare, while at the same time
lowering costs. However, as of yet there have been no reports of a
successful combination of patient-generated data from smartphones
with data from clinical routine. In this paper we describe how these
two types of data can be combined in a secure way without
modification to hospital information systems, and how they can
together be used in a medical expert system for automatic nutritional
classification and triage.
Abstract: A large amount of data is typically stored in relational
databases (DB). The latter can efficiently handle user queries which
intend to elicit the appropriate information from data sources.
However, direct access and use of this data requires the end users to
have an adequate technical background, while they should also cope
with the internal data structure and values presented. Consequently
the information retrieval is a quite difficult process even for IT or DB
experts, taking into account the limited contributions of relational
databases from the conceptual point of view. Ontologies enable users
to formally describe a domain of knowledge in terms of concepts and
relations among them and hence they can be used for unambiguously
specifying the information captured by the relational database.
However, accessing information residing in a database using
ontologies is feasible, provided that the users are keen on using
semantic web technologies. For enabling users form different
disciplines to retrieve the appropriate data, the design of a Graphical
User Interface is necessary. In this work, we will present an
interactive, ontology-based, semantically enable web tool that can be
used for information retrieval purposes. The tool is totally based on
the ontological representation of underlying database schema while it
provides a user friendly environment through which the users can
graphically form and execute their queries.
Abstract: The present article seeks to carry out along the lines of
interpretation of the recent Portuguese Constitutional Court case law
on the possibility of an employee to observe a worship day imposed
by religious beliefs. In this approach to the question, considerations
on the subject of the relationship between religious freedom and
labour relations will inevitably arise. We intend to draw conclusions
of practical application from the court decisions on the matter of
freedom of religion.
Abstract: Environmental impact assessment techniques have
been developed as a result of the worldwide efforts to reduce the
environmental impact of global warming. By using the quantification
method in the construction industry, it is now possible to manage the
greenhouse gas is to systematically evaluate the impact on the
environment over the entire construction process. In particular, the
proportion of greenhouse gas emissions at the production stage of
construction material occupied is high, and efforts are needed in
particular in the construction field.
In this research, intended for concrete products for the construction
materials, by using the LCA method, we compared the results of
environmental impact assessment and carbon emissions of developing
products that have been applied low-carbon technologies compared to
existing products. As a results, by introducing a raw material of
industrial waste, showed carbon reduction. Through a comparison of
the carbon emission reduction effect of low carbon technologies, it is
intended to provide academic data for the evaluation of greenhouse
gases in the construction sector and the development of low carbon
technologies of the future.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the hypothesis
explaining the mechanism in the case, where the product is deleted or
reduced the fundamental function of the product through the product
concept changes in the digital camera industry. This paper points out
not owning the fundamental technology might cause the change of the
product concept. Casio could create new competitive factor so that this
paper discusses a possibility of the mechanism of changing the product
concept.
Abstract: Large-scale data stream analysis has become one of
the important business and research priorities lately. Social networks
like Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms hold an enormous
amount of data that is large in volume, velocity and variety.
Extracting valuable information and trends out of these data would
aid in a better understanding and decision-making. Multiple analysis
techniques are deployed for English content. Moreover, one of the
languages that produce a large amount of data over social networks
and is least analyzed is the Arabic language. The proposed paper is a
survey on the research efforts to analyze the Arabic content in
Twitter focusing on the tools and methods used to extract the
sentiments for the Arabic content on Twitter.
Abstract: Every machine plays roles of client and server
simultaneously in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. Though a P2P
network has many advantages over traditional client-server models
regarding efficiency and fault-tolerance, it also faces additional
security threats. Users/IT administrators should be aware of risks
from malicious code propagation, downloaded content legality, and
P2P software’s vulnerabilities. Security and preventative measures
are a must to protect networks from potential sensitive information
leakage and security breaches. Bit Torrent is a popular and scalable
P2P file distribution mechanism which successfully distributes large
files quickly and efficiently without problems for origin server. Bit
Torrent achieved excellent upload utilization according to
measurement studies, but it also raised many questions as regards
utilization in settings, than those measuring, fairness, and Bit
Torrent’s mechanisms choice. This work proposed a block selection
technique using Fuzzy ACO with optimal rules selected using ACO.
Abstract: In rapid industrial development, the demand for
high-strength and lightweight materials have been increased. Thus,
various CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics) with composite
materials are being used. The design variables of CFRP are its
lamination direction, order and thickness. Thus, the hardness and
strength of CFRP depends much on their design variables. In this
paper, the lamination direction of CFRP was used to produce a
symmetrical ply [0°/0°, -15°/+15°, -30°/+30°, -45°/+45°, -60°/+60°,
-75°/+75° and 90°/90°] and an asymmetrical ply [0°/15°, 0°/30°,
0°/45°, 0°/60° 0°/75° and 0°/90°]. The bending flexure stress of the
CFRP specimen was evaluated through a bending test. Its thermal
property was measured using an infrared camera. The symmetrical
specimen and the asymmetrical specimen were analyzed. The results
showed that the asymmetrical specimen increased the bending loads
according to the increase in the orientation angle; and from 0°, the
symmetrical specimen showed a tendency opposite the asymmetrical
tendency because the tensile force of fiber differs at the vertical
direction of its load. Also, the infrared camera showed that the thermal
property had a trend similar to that of the mechanical properties.
Abstract: The wear measuring and wear modelling are
fundamental issues in the industrial field, mainly correlated to the
economy and safety. Therefore, there is a need to study the wear
measurements and wear estimation. Pin-on-disc test is the most
common test which is used to study the wear behaviour. In this paper,
the pin-on-disc (AEROTECH UNIDEX 11) is used for the
investigation of the effects of normal load and hardness of material on
the wear under dry and sliding conditions. In the pin-on-disc rig, two
specimens were used; one, a pin is made of steel with a tip, positioned
perpendicular to the disc, where the disc is made of aluminium. The
pin wear and disc wear were measured by using the following
instruments: The Talysurf instrument, a digital microscope, and the
alicona instrument. The Talysurf profilometer was used to measure
the pin/disc wear scar depth, digital microscope was used to measure
the diameter and width of wear scar, and the alicona was used to
measure the pin wear and disc wear. After that, the Archard model,
American Society for Testing and Materials model (ASTM), and
neural network model were used for pin/disc wear modelling.
Simulation results were implemented by using the Matlab program.
This paper focuses on how the alicona can be used for wear
measurements and how the neural network can be used for wear
estimation.
Abstract: Agriculture is the backbone of economy of Pakistan
and cotton is the major agricultural export and supreme source of raw
fiber for our textile industry. To combat severe problems of insect
and weed, combination of three genes namely Cry1Ac, Cry2A and
EPSPS genes was transferred in locally cultivated cotton variety
MNH-786 with the use of Agrobacterium mediated genetic
transformation. The present study focused on the molecular screening
of transgenic cotton plants at T3 generation in order to confirm
integration and expression of all three genes (Cry1Ac, Cry2A and
EPSP synthase) into the cotton genome. Initially, glyphosate spray
assay was used for screening of transgenic cotton plants containing
EPSP synthase gene at T3 generation. Transgenic cotton plants which
were healthy and showed no damage on leaves were selected after 07
days of spray. For molecular analysis of transgenic cotton plants in
the laboratory, the genomic DNA of these transgenic cotton plants
were isolated and subjected to amplification of the three genes. Thus,
seventeen out of twenty (Cry1Ac gene), ten out of twenty (Cry2A
gene) and all twenty (EPSP synthase gene) were produced positive
amplification. On the base of PCR amplification, ten transgenic plant
samples were subjected to protein expression analysis through
ELISA. The results showed that eight out of ten plants were actively
expressing the three transgenes. Real-time PCR was also done to
quantify the mRNA expression levels of Cry1Ac and EPSP synthase
gene. Finally, eight plants were confirmed for the presence and active
expression of all three genes at T3 generation.
Abstract: A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is
developed for rechargeable non-aqueous electrolyte lithium-air
batteries with a partial opening for oxygen supply to the cathode.
Multi-phase transport phenomena occurred in the battery are
considered, including dissolved lithium ions and oxygen gas in the
liquid electrolyte, solid-phase electron transfer in the porous
functional materials and liquid-phase charge transport in the
electrolyte. These transport processes are coupled with the
electrochemical reactions at the active surfaces, and effects of
discharge reaction-generated solid Li2O2 on the transport properties
and the electrochemical reaction rate are evaluated and implemented
in the model. The predicted results are discussed and analyzed in terms
of the spatial and transient distribution of various parameters, such as
local oxygen concentration, reaction rate, variable solid Li2O2 volume
fraction and porosity, as well as the effective diffusion coefficients. It
is found that the effect of the solid Li2O2 product deposited at the solid
active surfaces is significant on the transport phenomena and the
overall battery performance.