Abstract: In this paper, the regression dependence of dancing
intensity from wind speed and length of span was established due to
the statistic data obtained from multi-year observations on line wires
dancing accumulated by power systems of Kazakhstan and the
Russian Federation. The lower and upper limitations of the equations
parameters were estimated, as well as the adequacy of the regression
model. The constructed model will be used in research of dancing
phenomena for the development of methods and means of protection
against dancing and for zoning plan of the territories of line wire
dancing.
Abstract: 21st century has transformed the labor market
landscape in a way of posing new and different demands on
university graduates as well as university lecturers, which means that
the knowledge and academic skills students acquire in the course of
their studies should be applicable and transferable from the higher
education context to their future professional careers. Given the
context of the Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) classroom, the
teachers’ objective is not only to teach the language itself, but also to
prepare students to use that language as a medium to develop generic
skills and competences. These include media and information
literacy, critical and creative thinking, problem-solving and analytical
skills, effective written and oral communication, as well as
collaborative work and social skills, all of which are necessary to
make university graduates more competitive in everyday professional
environments. On the other hand, due to limitations of time and large
numbers of students in classes, the frequently topic-centered syllabus
of LSP courses places considerable focus on acquiring the subject
matter and specialist vocabulary instead of sufficient development of
skills and competences required by students’ prospective employers.
This paper intends to explore some of those issues as viewed both by
LSP lecturers and by business professionals in their respective
surveys. The surveys were conducted among more than 50 LSP
lecturers at higher education institutions in Croatia, more than 40 HR
professionals and more than 60 university graduates with degrees in
economics and/or business working in management positions in
mainly large and medium-sized companies in Croatia. Various elements of LSP course content have been taken into
consideration in this research, including reading and listening
comprehension of specialist texts, acquisition of specialist vocabulary
and grammatical structures, as well as presentation and negotiation
skills. The ability to hold meetings, conduct business correspondence,
write reports, academic texts, case studies and take part in debates
were also taken into consideration, as well as informal business
communication, business etiquette and core courses delivered in a
foreign language. The results of the surveys conducted among LSP
lecturers will be analyzed with reference to what extent those
elements are included in their courses and how consistently and
thoroughly they are evaluated according to their course requirements.
Their opinions will be compared to the results of the surveys
conducted among professionals from a range of industries in Croatia
so as to examine how useful and important they perceive the same
elements of the LSP course content in their working environments.
Such comparative analysis will thus show to what extent the syllabi
of LSP courses meet the demands of the employment market when it
comes to the students’ language skills and competences, as well as
transferable skills. Finally, the findings will also be compared to the
observations based on practical teaching experience and the relevant
sources that have been used in this research. In conclusion, the ideas and observations in this paper are merely
open-ended questions that do not have conclusive answers, but might
prompt LSP lecturers to re-evaluate the content and objectives of
their course syllabi.
Abstract: Green roof system is considered a relatively new
concept in Malaysia even though it has been implemented widely in
the developed countries. Generally, green roofs provide many
benefits such as enhancing aesthetical quality of the built
environment, reduce urban heat island effect, reduce energy
consumption, improve stormwater attenuation, and reduce noise
pollution. A better understanding on the implementation of green roof
system in Malaysia is crucial, as Malaysia’s climate is different if
compared with the climate in temperate countries where most of the
green roof studies have been conducted. This study has concentrated
on the technical aspect of green roof system which focuses on i) types
of plants and method of planting; ii) engineering design for green
roof system; iii) its hydrological performance on reducing stormwater
runoff; and iv) benefits of green roofs with respect to energy.
Literature review has been conducted to identify the development and
obstacles associated with green roofs systems in Malaysia. The study
had identified the challenges and potentials of green roofs
development in Malaysia. This study also provided the
recommendations on standard design and strategies on the
implementation of green roofs in Malaysia in the near future.
Abstract: Although Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs),
which consist of mobile sensor nodes (MSNs), can cover a wide range
of observation region by using a small number of sensor nodes, they
need to construct a network to collect the sensing data on the base
station by moving the MSNs. As an effective method, the network
construction method based on Virtual Rails (VRs), which is referred
to as VR method, has been proposed. In this paper, we propose two
types of effective techniques for the VR method. They can prolong
the operation time of the network, which is limited by the battery
capabilities of MSNs and the energy consumption of MSNs. The
first technique, an effective arrangement of VRs, almost equalizes
the number of MSNs belonging to each VR. The second technique,
an adaptive movement method of MSNs, takes into account the
residual energy of battery. In the simulation, we demonstrate that each
technique can improve the network lifetime and the combination of
both techniques is the most effective.
Abstract: This paper aims to link together the concepts of job
satisfaction, work engagement, trust, job meaningfulness and loyalty
to the organisation focusing on specific type of employment –
academic jobs. The research investigates the relationships between
job satisfaction, work engagement and loyalty as well as the impact
of trust and job meaningfulness on the work engagement and loyalty.
The survey was conducted in one of the largest Latvian higher
education institutions and the sample was drawn from academic staff
(n=326). Structured questionnaire with 44 reflective type questions
was developed to measure the constructs. Data was analysed using
SPSS and Smart-PLS software. Variance based structural equation
modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to test the model and to
predict the most important factors relevant to employee engagement
and loyalty. The first order model included two endogenous
constructs (loyalty and intention to stay and recommend to work in
this organisation, and employee engagement), as well as six
exogenous constructs (feeling of fair treatment and trust in
management; career growth opportunities; compensation, pay and
benefits; management; colleagues and teamwork; and finally job
meaningfulness). Job satisfaction was developed as second order
construct and both: first and second order models were designed for
data analysis. It was found that academics are more engaged than
satisfied with their work and main reason for that was found to be job
meaningfulness, which is significant predictor for work engagement,
but not for job satisfaction. Compensation is not significantly related
to work engagement, but only to job satisfaction. Trust was not
significantly related neither to engagement, nor to satisfaction,
however, it appeared to be significant predictor of loyalty and
intentions to stay with the University. Paper revealed academic jobs
as specific kind of employment where employees can be more
engaged than satisfied and highlighted the specific role of job
meaningfulness in the University settings.
Abstract: At the Savonia University of Applied Sciences (UAS),
curriculum and studies have been improved by applying an Open
Innovation Space approach (OIS). It is based on multidisciplinary
action learning. The key elements of OIS-ideology are work-life
orientation, and student-centric communal learning. In this approach,
every participant can learn from each other and innovations will be
created. In this social innovation educational approach, all practices
are carried out in close collaboration with enterprises in real-life
settings, not in classrooms. As an example, in this paper, Savonia
UAS’s Future Food RDI hub (FF) shows how OIS practices are
implemented by providing food product development and consumer
research services for enterprises in close collaboration with
academicians, students and consumers. In particular one example of
OIS experimentation in the field is provided by a consumer research
carried out utilizing verbal analysis protocol combined with audiovisual
observation (VAP-WAVO). In this case, all co-learners were
acting together in supermarket settings to collect the relevant data for
a product development and the marketing department of a company.
The company benefitted from the results obtained, students were
more satisfied with their studies, educators and academicians were
able to obtain good evidence for further collaboration as well as
renewing curriculum contents based on the requirements of working
life. In addition, society will benefit over time as young university
adults find careers more easily through their OIS related food science
studies. Also this knowledge interaction model re-news education
practices and brings working-life closer to educational research
institutes.
Abstract: Fractal based digital image compression is a specific
technique in the field of color image. The method is best suited for
irregular shape of image like snow bobs, clouds, flame of fire; tree
leaves images, depending on the fact that parts of an image often
resemble with other parts of the same image. This technique has
drawn much attention in recent years because of very high
compression ratio that can be achieved. Hybrid scheme incorporating
fractal compression and speedup techniques have achieved high
compression ratio compared to pure fractal compression. Fractal
image compression is a lossy compression method in which selfsimilarity
nature of an image is used. This technique provides high
compression ratio, less encoding time and fart decoding process. In
this paper, fractal compression with quad tree and DCT is proposed
to compress the color image. The proposed hybrid schemes require
four phases to compress the color image. First: the image is
segmented and Discrete Cosine Transform is applied to each block of
the segmented image. Second: the block values are scanned in a
zigzag manner to prevent zero co-efficient. Third: the resulting image
is partitioned as fractals by quadtree approach. Fourth: the image is
compressed using Run length encoding technique.
Abstract: In this current contribution, authors are dedicated to
investigate influence of the crystal lamellae orientation on
electromechanical behaviors of relaxor ferroelectric Poly
(vinylidene fluoride –trifluoroethylene -chlorotrifluoroethylene)
(P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE)) films by control of polymer microstructure,
aiming to picture the full map of structure-property relationship. In
order to define their crystal orientation films, terpolymer films were
fabricated by solution-casting, stretching and hot-pressing process.
Differential scanning calorimetry, impedance analyzer, and tensile
strength techniques were employed to characterize crystallographic
parameters, dielectric permittivity, and elastic Young’s modulus
respectively. In addition, large electrical induced out-of-plane
electrostrictive strain was obtained by cantilever beam mode.
Consequently, as-casted pristine films exhibited surprisingly high
electrostrictive strain 0.1774% due to considerably small value of
elastic Young’s modulus although relatively low dielectric
permittivity. Such reasons contributed to large mechanical elastic
energy density. Instead, due to 2 folds increase of elastic Young’s
modulus and less than 50% augmentation of dielectric constant, fullycrystallized
film showed weak electrostrictive behavior and
mechanical energy density as well. And subjected to mechanical
stretching process, Film C exhibited stronger dielectric constant and
out-performed electrostrictive strain over Film B because edge-on
crystal lamellae orientation induced by uniaxially mechanical stretch.
Hot-press films were compared in term of cooling rate. Rather large
electrostrictive strain of 0.2788% for hot-pressed Film D in
quenching process was observed although its dielectric permittivity
equivalent to that of pristine as-casted Film A, showing highest
mechanical elastic energy density value of 359.5 J/m3. In hot-press
cooling process, dielectric permittivity of Film E saw values at 48.8
concomitant with ca.100% increase of Young’s modulus. Films with
intermediate mechanical energy density were obtained.
Abstract: In language learning, second language learners as well
as Native speakers commit errors in their attempt to achieve
competence in the target language. The realm of collocation has to do
with meaning relation between lexical items. In all human language,
there is a kind of ‘natural order’ in which words are arranged or relate
to one another in sentences so much so that when a word occurs in a
given context, the related or naturally co-occurring word will
automatically come to the mind. It becomes an error, therefore, if
students inappropriately pair or arrange such ‘naturally’ co–occurring
lexical items in a text. It has been observed that most of the second
language learners in this research group commit collocation errors. A
study of this kind is very significant as it gives insight into the kinds
of errors committed by learners. This will help the language teacher
to be able to identify the sources and causes of such errors as well as
correct them thereby guiding, helping and leading the learners
towards achieving some level of competence in the language. The
aim of the study is to understand the nature of these errors as
stumbling blocks to effective essay writing. The objective of the
study is to identify the errors, analyze their structural compositions so
as to determine whether there are similarities between students in this
regard and to find out whether there are patterns to these kinds of
errors which will enable the researcher to understand their sources
and causes. As a descriptive research, the researcher samples some
nine hundred essays collected from three hundred undergraduate
learners of English as a second language in the Federal College of
Education, Kano, North- West Nigeria, i.e. three essays per each
student. The essays which were given on three different lecture times
were of similar thematic preoccupations (i.e. same topics) and length
(i.e. same number of words). The essays were written during the
lecture hour at three different lecture occasions. The errors were
identified in a systematic manner whereby errors so identified were
recorded only once even if they occur severally in students’ essays.
The data was collated using percentages in which the identified
numbers of occurrences were converted accordingly in percentages.
The findings from the study indicate that there are similarities as well
as regular and repeated errors which provided a pattern. Based on the
pattern identified, the conclusion is that students’ collocation errors
are attributable to poor teaching and learning which resulted in wrong
generalization of rules.
Abstract: Scripts are one of the basic text resources to understand
broadcasting contents. Topic modeling is the method to get the
summary of the broadcasting contents from its scripts. Generally,
scripts represent contents descriptively with directions and speeches,
and provide scene segments that can be seen as semantic units.
Therefore, a script can be topic modeled by treating a scene segment
as a document. Because scene segments consist of speeches mainly,
however, relatively small co-occurrences among words in the scene
segments are observed. This causes inevitably the bad quality of
topics by statistical learning method. To tackle this problem, we
propose a method to improve topic quality with additional word
co-occurrence information obtained using scene similarities. The
main idea of improving topic quality is that the information that
two or more texts are topically related can be useful to learn high
quality of topics. In addition, more accurate topical representations
lead to get information more accurate whether two texts are related
or not. In this paper, we regard two scene segments are related
if their topical similarity is high enough. We also consider that
words are co-occurred if they are in topically related scene segments
together. By iteratively inferring topics and determining semantically
neighborhood scene segments, we draw a topic space represents
broadcasting contents well. In the experiments, we showed the
proposed method generates a higher quality of topics from Korean
drama scripts than the baselines.
Abstract: The research aims to investigate the occurrence of
multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter, in carrot and estimate the role of
carrot in its transmission in a rapidly growing urban population.
Thus, 50 carrot samples were collected from Jakara wastewater
irrigation farms and are analyzed on MacConkey agar and screened
by Microbact 24E (Oxoid) and susceptibility of isolates is tested
against 10 commonly used antibiotics. Acinetobacter baumannii and
A. lwoffii were isolated in 22.00% and 16% of samples respectively.
Resistance to ceporex and penicillin of 36.36% and 27.27% in A.
baumannii, and sensitivity to ofloxacin, pefloxacin, gentimycin and
co-trimoxazole were observed. However, for A. lwoffii apart from
37.50% resistance to ceporex, it was also resistant to all other drugs
tested. There were similarities in the resistances shown by A.
baumannii and A. lwoffii to fluoroquinolones and β- lactame drug
families in addition to between sulfonamide and animoglycoside
demonstrated by A. lwoffii. Significant correlation in similarities were
observed at P < 0.05 to CPX to NA (46.2%), and SXT to AU (52.6%)
A. baumannii and A. lwoffii respectively and high multi drug
resistance (MDR) of 27.27% and 62.50% by A. baumannii and A.
lwoffii respectively. The occurrence of multidrug-resistance pathogen
in carrot is a serious challenge to public health care, especially in a
rapidly growing urban population where subsistence agriculture
contributes greatly to urban livelihood and source of vegetables.
Abstract: Dietary cholesterol has elicited the most public
interest as it relates with coronary heart disease. Thus, humans have
been paying more attention to health, thereby reducing consumption
of cholesterol enriched food. Egg is considered as one of the major
sources of human dietary cholesterol. However, an alternative way to
reduce the potential cholesterolemic effect of eggs is to modify the
fatty acid composition of the yolk. The effect of palm oil (PO),
soybean oil (SO), sesame seed oil (SSO) and fish oil (FO)
supplementation in the diets of layers on egg yolk fatty acid,
cholesterol, egg production and egg quality parameters were
evaluated in a 42-day feeding trial. One hundred and five Isa Brown
laying hens of 34 weeks of age were randomly distributed into seven
groups of five replicates and three birds per replicate in a completely
randomized design. Seven corn-soybean basal diets (BD) were
formulated: BD+No oil (T1), BD+1.5% PO (T2), BD+1.5% SO (T3),
BD+1.5% SSO (T4), BD+1.5% FO (T5), BD+0.75% SO+0.75% FO
(T6) and BD+0.75% SSO+0.75% FO (T7). Five eggs were randomly
sampled at day 42 from each replicate to assay for the cholesterol,
fatty acid profile of egg yolk and egg quality assessment. Results
showed that there were no significant (P>0.05) differences observed
in production performance, egg cholesterol and egg quality
parameters except for yolk height, albumen height, yolk index, egg
shape index, haugh unit, and yolk colour. There were no significant
differences (P>0.05) observed in total cholesterol, high density
lipoprotein and low density lipoprotein levels of egg yolk across the
treatments. However, diets had effect (P
Abstract: Objective: Safety and efficacy of Ahmed glaucoma
valve implantation for the management of uveitis induced glaucoma
evaluated on the five dogs with uncontrollable glaucoma. Materials
and Methods: Ahmed Glaucoma Valve (AGV®; New World
Medical, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, USA) is a flow restrictive, nonobstructive
self-regulating valve system. Preoperative ocular
evaluation included direct ophthalmoscopy and measurement of the
intraocular pressure (IOP). The implant was examined and primed
prior to implantation. The selected site of the valve implantation was
the superior quadrant between the superior and lateral rectus muscles.
A fornix-based incision was made through the conjunectiva and
Tenon’s capsule. A pocket is formed by blunt dissection of Tenon’s
capsule from the episclera. The body of the implant was inserted into
the pocket with the leading edge of the device around 8-10 mm from
the limbus. Results: No post-operative complications were detected
in the operated eyes except a persistent corneal edema occupied the
upper half of the cornea in one case. Hyphaema was very mild and
seen only in two cases which resolved quickly two days after surgery.
Endoscopical evaluation for the operated eyes revealed a normal
ocular fundus with clearly visible optic papilla, tapetum and retinal
blood vessels. No evidence of hemorrhage, infection, adhesions or
retinal abnormalities was detected. Conclusion: Ahmed glaucoma
valve is safe and effective implant for treatment of uveitic glaucoma
in dogs.
Abstract: With the advancement of knowledge about the utility
and impact of sustainability, its feasibility has been explored into
different walks of life. Scientists, however; have established their
knowledge in four areas viz environmental, economic, social and
cultural, popularly termed as four pillars of sustainability. Aspects of
environmental and economic sustainability have been rigorously
researched and practiced and huge volume of strong evidence of
effectiveness has been founded for these two sub-areas. For the social
and cultural aspects of sustainability, dependable evidence of
effectiveness is still to be instituted as the researchers and
practitioners are developing and experimenting methods across the
globe. Therefore, the present research aimed to identify globally used
practices of social and cultural sustainability and through evidence
synthesis assess their outcomes to determine the effectiveness of
those practices. A PICO format steered the methodology which
included all populations, popular sustainability practices including
walkability/cycle tracks, social/recreational spaces, privacy, health &
human services and barrier free built environment, comparators
included ‘Before’ and ‘After’, ‘With’ and ‘Without’, ‘More’ and
‘Less’ and outcomes included Social well-being, cultural coexistence,
quality of life, ethics and morality, social capital, sense of
place, education, health, recreation and leisure, and holistic
development. Search of literature included major electronic
databases, search websites, organizational resources, directory of
open access journals and subscribed journals. Grey literature,
however, was not included. Inclusion criteria filtered studies on the
basis of research designs such as total randomization, quasirandomization,
cluster randomization, observational or single studies
and certain types of analysis. Studies with combined outcomes were
considered but studies focusing only on environmental and/or
economic outcomes were rejected. Data extraction, critical appraisal
and evidence synthesis was carried out using customized tabulation,
reference manager and CASP tool. Partial meta-analysis was carried
out and calculation of pooled effects and forest plotting were done.
As many as 13 studies finally included for final synthesis explained
the impact of targeted practices on health, behavioural and social
dimensions. Objectivity in the measurement of health outcomes
facilitated quantitative synthesis of studies which highlighted the
impact of sustainability methods on physical activity, Body Mass
Index, perinatal outcomes and child health. Studies synthesized
qualitatively (and also quantitatively) showed outcomes such as
routines, family relations, citizenship, trust in relationships, social
inclusion, neighbourhood social capital, wellbeing, habitability and
family’s social processes. The synthesized evidence indicates slight
effectiveness and efficacy of social and cultural sustainability on the
targeted outcomes. Further synthesis revealed that such results of this
study are due weak research designs and disintegrated implementations. If architects and other practitioners deliver their
interventions in collaboration with research bodies and policy
makers, a stronger evidence-base in this area could be generated.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to examine, through
experimentation in the laboratory, the supercritical flow in the
presence of an obstacle in a rectangular channel. The supercritical
regime in the whole hydraulic channel is achieved by adding a
convergent. We will observe the influence of the obstacle shape and
dimension on the characteristics of the supercritical flow, mainly the
free-surface elevation and the velocity profile. The velocity
measurements have been conducted with the one dimension laser
anemometry technique.
Abstract: Searching the “Island of stability” is a topic of
extreme interest in theoretical as well as experimental modern
physics today. This “island of stability” is spanned by superheavy
elements (SHE's) that are produced in the laboratory. SHE's are
believed to exist primarily due to the “magic” stabilizing effects of
nuclear shell structure. SHE synthesis is extremely difficult due to
their very low production cross section, often of the order of pico
barns or less. Stabilizing effects of shell closures at proton number
Z=82 and neutron number N=126 are predicted theoretically. Though
stabilizing effects of Z=82 have been experimentally verified, no
concluding observations have been made with N=126, so far. We
measured and analyzed the total evaporation residue (ER) cross
sections for a number of systems with neutron number around 126 to
explore possible shell closure effects in ER cross sections, in this
work.
Abstract: Cochlear Implantation (CI) which became a routine
procedure for the last decades is an electronic device that provides a
sense of sound for patients who are severely and profoundly deaf.
The optimal success of this implantation depends on the electrode
technology and deep insertion techniques. However, this manual
insertion procedure may cause mechanical trauma which can lead to
severe destruction of the delicate intracochlear structure.
Accordingly, future improvement of the cochlear electrode implant
insertion needs reduction of the excessive force application during
the cochlear implantation which causes tissue damage and trauma.
This study is examined tool-tissue interaction of large prototype scale
digit embedded with distributive tactile sensor based upon cochlear
electrode and large prototype scale cochlea phantom for simulating
the human cochlear which could lead to small scale digit
requirements. The digit, distributive tactile sensors embedded with
silicon-substrate was inserted into the cochlea phantom to measure
any digit/phantom interaction and position of the digit in order to
minimize tissue and trauma damage during the electrode cochlear
insertion. The digit have provided tactile information from the digitphantom
insertion interaction such as contact status, tip penetration,
obstacles, relative shape and location, contact orientation and
multiple contacts. The tests demonstrated that even devices of such a
relative simple design with low cost have potential to improve
cochlear implant surgery and other lumen mapping applications by
providing tactile sensory feedback information and thus controlling
the insertion through sensing and control of the tip of the implant
during the insertion. In that approach, the surgeon could minimize the
tissue damage and potential damage to the delicate structures within
the cochlear caused by current manual electrode insertion of the
cochlear implantation. This approach also can be applied to other
minimally invasive surgery applications as well as diagnosis and path
navigation procedures.
Abstract: The occurrences of precipitation, also commonly
referred as rain, in the form of "convective" and "stratiform" have
been identified to exist worldwide. In this study, the radar return
echoes or known as reflectivity values acquired from radar scans
have been exploited in the process of classifying the type of rain
endured. The investigation use radar data from Malaysian
Meteorology Department (MMD). It is possible to discriminate the
types of rain experienced in tropical region by observing the vertical
characteristics of the rain structure. .Heavy rain in tropical region
profoundly affects radiowave signals, causing transmission
interference and signal fading. Required wireless system fade margin
depends on the type of rain. Information relating to the two
mentioned types of rain is critical for the system engineers and
researchers in their endeavour to improve the reliability of
communication links. This paper highlights the quantification of
percentage occurrences over one year period in 2009.
Abstract: The social logic of 'Sequina' slum area in Alexandria details the integral measure of space syntax at the room-level of twenty-building samples. The essence of spatial structure integrates the central 'visitor' domain with the 'living' frontage of the 'children' zone against the segregated privacy of the opposite 'parent' depth. Meanwhile, the multifunctioning of shallow rooms optimizes the integral 'visitor' structure through graph and visibility dimensions in contrast to the 'inhabitant' structure of graph-tails out of sight. Common theme of the layout integrity increases in compensation to the decrease of room visibility. Despite the 'pheno-type' of collective integration, the individual layouts observe 'geno-type' structure of spatial diversity per room adjoins. In this regard, the layout integrity alternates the cross-correlation of the 'kitchen & living' rooms with the 'inhabitant & visitor' domains of 'motherhood' dynamic structure. Moreover, the added 'grandparent' restructures the integral measure to become the deepest space, but opens to the 'living' of 'household' integrity. Some isomorphic layouts change the integral structure just through the 'balcony' extension of access, visual or ignored 'ringiness' of space syntax. However, the most integrated or segregated layouts invert the 'geno-type' into a shallow 'inhabitant' centrality versus the remote 'visitor' structure. Overview of the multivariate social logic of spatial integrity could never clarify without the micro-data analysis.
Abstract: Lightweight and efficient structures have the aim to
enhance the efficiency of the components in various industries.
Toward this end, composites are one of the most widely used
materials because of durability, high strength and modulus, and low
weight. One type of the advanced composites is grid-stiffened
composite (GSC) structures, which have been extensively considered
in aerospace, automotive, and aircraft industries. They are one of the
top candidates for replacing some of the traditional components,
which are used here. Although there are a good number of published
surveys on the design aspects and fabrication of GSC structures, little
systematic work has been reported on their material modification to
improve their properties, to our knowledge. Matrix modification
using nanoparticles is an effective method to enhance the flexural
properties of the fibrous composites. In the present study, a silanecoupling
agent (3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane/3-GPTS) was
introduced onto the silica (SiO2) nanoparticle surface and its effects
on the three-point flexural response of isogrid E-glass/epoxy
composites were assessed. Based on the Fourier Transform Infrared
Spectrometer (FTIR) spectra, it was inferred that the 3-GPTS
coupling agent was successfully grafted onto the surface of SiO2
nanoparticles after modification. Flexural test revealed an
improvement of 16%, 14%, and 36% in stiffness, maximum load and
energy absorption of the isogrid specimen filled with 3 wt.% 3-
GPTS/SiO2 compared to the neat one. It would be worth mentioning
that in these structures, considerable energy absorption was observed
after the primary failure related to the load peak. In addition, 3-
GPTMS functionalization had a positive effect on the flexural
behavior of the multiscale isogrid composites. In conclusion, this
study suggests that the addition of modified silica nanoparticles is a
promising method to improve the flexural properties of the gridstiffened
fibrous composite structures.