Abstract: This paper presents the design and characterization of
analog readout interface circuits for ion sensitive field effect
transistor (ISFET) and ion selective electrode (ISE) based sensor.
These interface circuits are implemented using MIMOS’s 0.35um
CMOS technology and experimentally characterized under 24-leads
QFN package. The characterization evaluates the circuit’s
functionality, output sensitivity and output linearity. Commercial
sensors for both ISFET and ISE are employed together with glass
reference electrode during testing. The test result shows that the
designed interface circuits manage to readout signals produced by
both sensors with measured sensitivity of ISFET and ISE sensor are
54mV/pH and 62mV/decade, respectively. The characterized output
linearity for both circuits achieves above 0.999 Rsquare. The readout
also has demonstrated reliable operation by passing all qualifications
in reliability test plan.
Abstract: On the basis of the theory of nonlinear elasticity, the
effect of homogeneous stress on the propagation of Lamb waves in
an initially isotropic hyperelastic plate is analysed. The equations
governing the propagation of small amplitude waves in the prestressed
plate are derived using the theory of small deformations
superimposed on large deformations. By enforcing traction free
boundary conditions at the upper and lower surfaces of the plate,
acoustoelastic dispersion equations for Lamb wave propagation are
obtained, which are solved numerically. Results are given for an
aluminum plate subjected to a range of applied stresses.
Abstract: There are many perceived advantages of microwave
ablation have driven researchers to develop innovative antennas to
effectively treat deep-seated, non-resectable hepatic tumors. In this
paper a coaxial antenna with a miniaturized sleeve choke has been
discussed for microwave interstitial ablation therapy, in order to
reduce backward heating effects irrespective of the insertion depth
into the tissue. Two dimensional Finite Element Method (FEM) is
used to simulate and measure the results of miniaturized sleeve choke
antenna. This paper emphasizes the importance of factors that can
affect simulation accuracy, which include mesh resolution, surface
heating and reflection coefficient. Quarter wavelength choke
effectiveness has been discussed by comparing it with the unchoked
antenna with same dimensions.
Abstract: The article proposed intends to analyze the possibility
(and conditions) of a media regulation law in a democratic rule of law
in the twenty-first century. To do so, will be presented initially the
idea of the public sphere (by Jürgen Habermas), showing how it is
presented as an interface between the citizen and the state (or the
private and public) and how important is it in a deliberative
democracy. Based on this paradigm, the traditional perception of the
role of public information (such as system functional element) and on
the possibility of media regulation will be exposed, due to the public
nature of their activity. A critical argument will then be displayed
from two different perspectives: a) the formal function of the current
media information, considering that the digital age has fragmented
the information access; b) the concept of a constructive democracy,
which reduces the need for representation, changing the strategic
importance of the public sphere. The question to be addressed (based
on the comparative law) is if the regulation is justified in a
polycentric democracy, especially when it operates under the digital
age (with immediate and virtual communication). The proposal is to
be presented in the sense that even in a twenty-first century the media
in a democratic rule of law still has an extremely important role and
may be subject to regulation, but this should be on terms very
different (and narrower) from those usually defended.
Abstract: Removal of the widespread used drug paracetamol
from water was investigated using activated carbon originated from
dende coconut mesocarp and babassu coconut mesocarp. Kinetic and
equilibrium data were obtained at different values of pH. Both
activated carbons showed high efficiency when pH ≤ pHPZC as the
carbonil group of paracetamol molecule are adsorbed due to
positively charged carbon surface. Microporosity also played an
important role in such process. Pseudo-second order model was better
adjusted to the kinetic results. Equilibrium data may be represented
by Langmuir equation.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate formability of
Al based closed cell metallic foams at high temperature. The foam
specimens with rectangular section were produced from
AlMg1Si0.6TiH20.8 alloy preform material. Bending and free
bending tests based on gravity effect were applied to foam specimens
at high temperatures. During the tests, the time-angular deformation
relationships with various temperatures were determined.
Deformation types formed in cell walls were investigated by means
of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy.
Bending deformation about 90° was achieved without any defect at
high temperatures. The importance of a critical temperature and
deformation rate was emphasized in maintaining the deformation.
Significant slip lines on surface of cell walls at tensile zones of
bending specimen were observed. At high strain rates, the microcrack
formation in boundaries of elongated grains was determined.
Abstract: This paper presents a numerical investigation of two
horizontally mounted four-lobed swirl pipes in terms of swirl
induction effectiveness into flows passing through them. The swirl
flows induced by the two swirl pipes have the potential to improve
the efficiency of Clean-In-Place procedures in a closed processing
system by local intensification of hydrodynamic impact on the
internal pipe surface. Pressure losses, swirl development within the
two swirl pipe, swirl induction effectiveness, swirl decay and wall
shear stress variation downstream of two swirl pipes are analyzed and
compared. It was found that a shorter length of swirl inducing pipe
used in joint with transition pipes is more effective in swirl induction
than when a longer one is used, in that it has a less constraint to the
induced swirl and results in slightly higher swirl intensity just
downstream of it with the expense of a smaller pressure loss. The
wall shear stress downstream of the shorter swirl pipe is also slightly
larger than that downstream of the longer swirl pipe due to the
slightly higher swirl intensity induced by the shorter swirl pipe. The
advantage of the shorter swirl pipe in terms of swirl induction is more
significant in flows with a larger Reynolds Number.
Abstract: Plasmin plays an important role in the human
circulatory system owing to its catalytic ability of fibrinolysis. The
immediate injection of plasmin in patients of strokes has intrigued
many scientists to design vectors that can transport plasmin to the
desired location in human body. Here we predict the structure of
human plasmin and investigate the interaction of plasmin with the
gold-nanoparticle.
Because the crystal structure of plasminogen has been solved, we
deleted N-terminal domain (Pan-apple domain) of plasminogen and
generate a mimic of the active form of this enzyme (plasmin). We
conducted a simulated annealing process on plasmin and discovered a
very large conformation occurs. Kringle domains 1, 4 and 5 had been
observed to leave its original location relative to the main body of the
enzyme and the original doughnut shape of this enzyme has been
transformed to a V-shaped by opening its two arms. This observation
of conformational change is consistent with the experimental results of
neutron scattering and centrifugation.
We subsequently docked the plasmin on the simulated gold surface
to predict their interaction. The V-shaped plasmin could utilize its
Kringle domain and catalytic domain to contact the gold surface.
Our findings not only reveal the flexibility of plasmin structure but
also provide a guide for the design of a plasmin-gold nanoparticle.
Abstract: Brass terminal, one of the several crude oil and
petroleum products storage/handling facilities in the Niger Delta was
built in the 1980s. Activities at this site, over the years, released
crude oil into this 3 m-deep, 1500 m-long canal lying adjacent to the
terminal with oil floating on it and its sediment heavily polluted. To
ensure effective clean-up, three major activities were planned: site
characterization, bioremediation pilot plant construction and testing
and full-scale bioremediation of contaminated sediment / bank soil by
land farming. The canal was delineated into 12 lots and each
characterized, with reference to the floating oily phase, contaminated
sediment and canal bank soil. As a result of site characterization, a
pilot plant for on-site bioremediation was designed and a treatment
basin constructed for carrying out pilot bioremediation test.
Following a designed sampling protocol, samples from this pilot
plant were collected for analysis at two laboratories as a quality
assurance / quality control check. Results showed that Brass Canal
upstream is contaminated with dark, thick and viscous oily film with
characteristic hydrocarbon smell while downstream, thin oily film
interspersed with water was observed. Sediments were observed to be
dark with mixture of brownish sandy soil with TPH ranging from
17,800 mg/kg in Lot 1 to 88,500 mg/kg in Lot 12 samples. Brass
Canal bank soil was observed to be sandy from ground surface to 3m,
below ground surface (bgs) it was silty-sandy and brownish while
subsurface soil (4-10m bgs) was sandy-clayey and whitish/grayish
with typical hydrocarbon smell. Preliminary results obtained so far
have been very promising but were proprietary. This project is
considered, to the best of technical literature knowledge, the first
large-scale on-site bioremediation project in the Niger Delta region,
Nigeria.
Abstract: As the trend in automotive technology is fast moving
towards hybridization and electrification to curb emissions as well as
to improve the fuel efficiency, air-conditioning systems in passenger
cars have not caught up with this trend and still remain as the major
energy consumers amongst others. Adsorption based air-conditioning
systems, e.g. with silica-gel water pair, which are already in use for
residential and commercial applications, are now being considered as
a technology leap once proven feasible for the passenger cars. In this
paper we discuss a methodology, challenges and feasibility of
implementing an adsorption based air-conditioning system in a
passenger car utilizing the exhaust waste heat. We also propose an
optimized control strategy with interfaces to the engine control unit
of the vehicle for operating this system with reasonable efficiency
supported by our simulation and validation results in a prototype
vehicle, additionally comparing to existing implementations,
simulation based as well as experimental. Finally we discuss the
influence of start-stop and hybrid systems on the operation strategy of
the adsorption air-conditioning system.
Abstract: In wastewater treatment processes, aeration introduces
air into a liquid. In these systems, air is introduced by different
devices submerged in the wastewater. Smaller bubbles result in more
bubble surface area per unit of volume and higher oxygen transfer
efficiency. Jet pumps are devices that use air bubbles and are widely
used in wastewater treatment processes. The principle of jet pumps is
their ability to transfer energy of one fluid, called primary or motive,
into a secondary fluid or gas. These pumps have no moving parts and
are able to work in remote areas under extreme conditions. The
objective of this work is to study experimentally the characteristics of
the jet pump and the size of air bubbles in the laboratory water tank.
The effect of flow rate ratio on pump performance is investigated in
order to have a better understanding about pump behavior under
various conditions, in order to determine the efficiency of receiving
air bubbles different sizes. The experiments show that we should take
care when increasing the flow rate ratio while seeking to decrease
bubble size in the outlet flow. This study will help improve and
extend the use of the jet pump in many practical applications.
Abstract: Edge is variation of brightness in an image. Edge
detection is useful in many application areas such as finding forests,
rivers from a satellite image, detecting broken bone in a medical
image etc. The paper discusses about finding edge of multiple aerial
images in parallel. The proposed work tested on 38 images 37
colored and one monochrome image. The time taken to process N
images in parallel is equivalent to time taken to process 1 image in
sequential. Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Open Computing
Language (OpenCL) is used to achieve task and pixel level
parallelism respectively.
Abstract: All current experimental methods for determination of
stress intensity factors are based on the assumption that the state of
stress near the crack tip is plane stress. Therefore, these methods rely
on strain and displacement measurements made outside the near
crack tip region affected by the three-dimensional effects or by
process zone. In this paper, we develop and validate an experimental
procedure for the evaluation of stress intensity factors from the
measurements of the out-of-plane displacements in the surface area
controlled by 3D effects. The evaluation of stress intensity factors is
possible when the process zone is sufficiently small, and the
displacement field generated by the 3D effects is fully encapsulated
by K-dominance region.
Abstract: In this work, we explore the capability of the mean
shift algorithm as a powerful preprocessing tool for improving the
quality of spatial data, acquired from airborne scanners, from densely
built urban areas. On one hand, high resolution image data corrupted
by noise caused by lossy compression techniques are appropriately
smoothed while at the same time preserving the optical edges and, on
the other, low resolution LiDAR data in the form of normalized
Digital Surface Map (nDSM) is upsampled through the joint mean
shift algorithm. Experiments on both the edge-preserving smoothing
and upsampling capabilities using synthetic RGB-z data show that the
mean shift algorithm is superior to bilateral filtering as well as to
other classical smoothing and upsampling algorithms. Application of
the proposed methodology for 3D reconstruction of buildings of a
pilot region of Athens, Greece results in a significant visual
improvement of the 3D building block model.
Abstract: Networking is important among students to achieve
better understanding. Social networking plays an important role in the
education. Realizing its huge potential, various organizations,
including institutions of higher learning have moved to the area of
social networks to interact with their students especially through
Facebook. Therefore, measuring the effectiveness of Facebook as a
learning tool has become an area of interest to academicians and
researchers. Therefore, this study tried to integrate and propose new
theoretical and empirical evidences by linking the western idea of
adopting Facebook as an alternative learning platform from a
Malaysian perspective. This study, thus, aimed to fill a gap by being
among the pioneering research that tries to study the effectiveness of
adopting Facebook as a learning platform across other cultural
settings, namely Malaysia. Structural equation modeling was
employed for data analysis and hypothesis testing. This study finding
has provided some insights that would likely affect students’
awareness towards using Facebook as an alternative learning
platform in the Malaysian higher learning institutions. At the end,
future direction is proposed.
Abstract: The development of adaptive user interfaces (UI)
presents for a long time an important research area in which
researcher attempt to call upon the full resources and skills of several
disciplines, The adaptive UI community holds a thorough knowledge
regarding the adaptation of UIs with users and with contexts of use.
Several solutions, models, formalisms, techniques and mechanisms
were proposed to develop adaptive UI. In this paper, we propose an
approach based on the fuzzy set theory for modeling the concept of
the appropriateness of different solutions of UI adaptation with
different situations for which interactive systems have to adapt their
UIs.
Abstract: Failure of typical seismic frames has been found by
plastic hinge occurring on beams section near column faces. On the
other hand, the seismic capacity of the frames can be enhanced if the
plastic hinges of the beams are shifted away from the column faces.
This paper presents detailing of reinforcements in the interior beam–
column connections aiming to relocate the plastic hinge of reinforced
concrete and precast concrete frames. Four specimens were tested
under quasi-static cyclic load including two monolithic specimens
and two precast specimens. For one monolithic specimen, typical
seismic reinforcement was provided and considered as a reference
specimen named M1. The other reinforced concrete frame M2
contained additional intermediate steel in the connection area
compared with the specimen M1. For the precast specimens,
embedded T-section steels in joint were provided, with and without
diagonal bars in the connection area for specimen P1 and P2,
respectively. The test results indicated the ductile failure with beam
flexural failure in monolithic specimen M1 and the intermediate steel
increased strength and improved joint performance of specimen M2.
For the precast specimens, cracks generated at the end of the steel
inserts. However, slipping of reinforcing steel lapped in top of the
beams was seen before yielding of the main bars leading to the brittle
failure. The diagonal bars in precast specimens P2 improved the
connection stiffness and the energy dissipation capacity.
Abstract: An unconventional composite inorganic ceramic
membrane capable of enhancing carbon dioxide emission decline was
fabricated and tested at laboratory scale in conformism to various
environmental guidelines and also to mitigate the effect of global
warming. A review of the existing membrane technologies for carbon
capture including the relevant gas transport mechanisms is presented.
Single gas permeation experiments using silica modified ceramic
membrane with internal diameter 20mm, outside diameter 25mm and
length of 368mm deposited on a macro porous support was carried
out to investigate individual gas permeation behaviours at different
pressures at room temperature. Membrane fabrication was achieved
using after a dip coating method. Nitrogen, Carbon dioxide, Argon,
Oxygen and Methane pure gases were used to investigate their
individual permeation rates at various pressures. Results show that
the gas flow rate increases with pressure drop. However above a
pressure of 3bar, CO2 permeability ratio to that of the other gases
indicated control of a more selective surface adsorptive transport
mechanism.
Abstract: In order to avoid self-collision of space manipulators
during operation process, a real-time detection method is proposed in
this paper. The manipulator is fitted into a cylinder-enveloping
surface, and then, a kind of detection algorithm of collision between
cylinders is analyzed. The collision model of space manipulator
self-links can be detected by using this algorithm in real-time detection
during the operation process. To ensure security of the operation, a
safety threshold is designed. The simulation and experiment results
verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for a 7-DOF space
manipulator.
Abstract: Design concepts of real-time embedded system can be
realized initially by introducing novel design approaches. In this
literature, model based design approach and in-the-loop testing were
employed early in the conceptual and preliminary phase to formulate
design requirements and perform quick real-time verification. The
design and analysis methodology includes simulation analysis, model
based testing, and in-the-loop testing. The design of conceptual driveby-
wire, or DBW, algorithm for electronic control unit, or ECU, was
presented to demonstrate the conceptual design process, analysis, and
functionality evaluation. The concepts of DBW ECU function can be
implemented in the vehicle system to improve electric vehicle, or EV,
conversion drivability. However, within a new development process,
conceptual ECU functions and parameters are needed to be evaluated.
As a result, the testing system was employed to support conceptual
DBW ECU functions evaluation. For the current setup, the system
components were consisted of actual DBW ECU hardware, electric
vehicle models, and control area network or CAN protocol. The
vehicle models and CAN bus interface were both implemented as
real-time applications where ECU and CAN protocol functionality
were verified according to the design requirements. The proposed
system could potentially benefit in performing rapid real-time
analysis of design parameters for conceptual system or software
algorithm development.