A novel efficient clustering protocol for energy harvesting in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Networks - The utilization of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is proliferating in our daily life. It depends on the environmental monitoring such as weather tracking, battled field, etc....     

Adaptive cluster-based relay-node placement for disjoint wireless sensor networks

Wireless Networks - Wireless sensor networks are formed with very small sensor devices with limited energy and short transmission range. Sensors are randomly deployed in remote areas with harsh...     

Joint mobile wireless energy transmitter and data collector for rechargeable wireless sensor networks

Wireless Networks - Energy efficiency and data gathering are the primary goals of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), challenging. Mobile sink and mobile chargers are two promising techniques for data...     

Deep Q-probabilistic algorithm based rock hyraxes swarm optimization for channel allocation in CRSN smart grids

Wireless Networks - Due to intelligent communication, smart grids have been further developed compared to traditional power grids. In order to compensate for the growing demand for quality of...     

Effect of Chemical Treatment on Thermal,Mechanical and Degradation Behavior of Banana Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites

ABSTRACT

The current research endeavor, explores the thermal, mechanical, and degradation behavior of alkaline treated banana fibers reinforced polypropylene composites. Composites incorporating BF (20% w: w) treated with NaOH (5% w: v) aqueous solution were developed using extrusion-injection molding processes. After chemical treatment, the tensile, flexural and impact strength of the composite increases by 3.8%, 5.17%, and 11.50%, respectively. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations of tested specimens confirm the fiber pull out and fiber fracture as the main reasons for failure of developed composites under tensile and impact loading. The specimens were exposed to two different environments, water immersion and soil burial for 5 weeks for the degradation studies. The degradation behavior of composites was measured in terms of variation in weight and mechanical properties (tensile, flexural, and impact). The maximum degradation in mechanical properties was observed for the composites buried under soil. The composite lost 7.69%, 12.06%, and 3.27% of tensile, flexural, and impact strength, respectively.     

A catalyst-free new polyol method synthesized hot-pressed Cu-doped Bi<Subscript>2</Subscript>S<Subscript>3</Subscript> nanorods and their thermoelectric properties

This is the first report on the thermoelectric properties of a catalyst-free polyol method used to prepare stoichiometric Bi_2?x Cu _x S₃ samples, x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, via hot pressing. Various systematic approaches to arrive at in their stoichiometric compositions are explored precisely with introduction of excess precursor of S. X-ray diffraction data analysis using Rietveld refinement confirms a polyhedral orthorhombic crystal structure with a space group Pnma, in contrast to Pbnm reported earlier. Raman data further substantiates this. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirms the valence states of the constituent elements (Bi³⁺, Cu²⁺, and S^2?) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis corroborates their compositions. The particle sizes of the pure Bi₂S₃ nanoparticles were 20, 35, and 82 nm as determined from the Scherrer formula, atomic force microscopy, and dynamic light scattering, respectively. Their transmission electron microscopy image shows rod-like nanostructures elongated in the 〈010〉 direction with an average diameter of 23 nm and a length of several hundreds of nanometers. A 34% improvement in the thermoelectric figure of merit is observed for Bi_1.6Cu_0.4S₃ as compared to pure Bi₂S₃ at 300 K.

Open image in new window

     

A molecular variant of plasminogen activator inhibitor of rat decidual tissue

Artificially induced rat decidual tissue expresses plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI). This PAI, isolated and purified employing chromatographic techniques, is a low molecular weight protein unlike the known PAIs. The final purified preparation resolves into a single band following SDS-PAGE and has an approximate molecular weight of 29 kDa. The properties studied include specificity for urokinase-type (uPA) and tissue-type (tPA) plasminogen activators, binding to conA and heparin, inhibition of thrombin, plasmin and trypsin. Decidual PAI is immunogenic in rabbit and a monospecific antiserum raised against the decidual inhibitor cross reacts with an extract of human placenta.