Design of a Web Based Underwater Acoustic Communication Testbed and Simulation Platform

Wireless Personal Communications - Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are playing a vital role in exploring the unseen underwater (UW) natural resources. However, performance evaluation of...     

Optimizing Approach of Water Allocation to Off-Takes During Reduced Flows

Multi-objective optimization models with an index were developed based on farmers’ preferences, local requirements, supplies available at the head of the canal, system losses, crop demand about different growth stages, and field soil moisture balance. The models were applied using linear programming. The Model 1 determines the cropping pattern by maximizing net economic benefits using a monthly basis lumped volume available at the head of the canal and is set to the minimum and maximum area constraints along with the constraint of minimum main crop area. The areas for different crops given by the first model form input for the Model 2. The other inputs of Model 2 included periodic supply available at the head of the primary canal (7-day period in this study), root growth depth, demand, and soil moisture constants. The Model 2 optimizes the sum of relative yields of all the crops and provide the irrigation levels of various crops for specified periods. Finally, the distributed area and irrigation levels determined by Model 2 are used in conjunction with the losses to decide flow rates of off takes. The complete program was implemented in the West branch irrigated area of Mirpurkhas subdivision. The results showed that the resources were allocated to off-takes in a competitive and conflict-free manner.

     

Halogenation effect promoted low bandgap polymers based on asymmetric isoindigo unit with low energy loss

To optimize the energy levels of the structural framework of isoindigo polymers, a series of asymmetric isoindigo based low bandgap polymers with chlorine, fluorine and thiazole substituents was constructed and their optical, electrochemical and photovoltaic properties were comparatively evaluated for the impact of different substitutions. In comparison with the polymer based on 2,2'‐bithiophene and isoindigo unit (PTi) with non‐substituted bithiophene as the donor moiety, the highest occupied molecular orbital energy level for the newly synthesized polymers is significantly decreased, and in turn an improvement of the open‐circuit voltage (V_OC) is noted in the corresponding photovoltaic devices. More importantly, combined with a low bandgap of 1.32 eV, the energy losses (E_loss) could be reduced to 0.61 eV for polymer based on chlorinated 2,2'‐bithiophene and isoindigo unit (PCl). In addition, the halogen moieties are observed to be superior in device fabrication and give better values than the thiazole substituent. Both fluorinated and chlorinated polymer donors exhibited improved performance compared with the original polymer PTi. Consequently, this work not only presents the influence of different electron withdrawing substituents on the physicochemical and photovoltaic performance, but also backs the concept of how to reduce the energy loss via the heteroatom effect. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry     

Political Optimizer Based Feedforward Neural Network for Classification and Function Approximation

Neural Processing Letters - Political optimizer (PO) is a recently proposed human-behavior inspired meta-heuristic, which has shown tremendous performance on complex multimodal functions as well as...     

Switchable Fluorescence of Doxorubicin for Label-Free Imaging of Bioorthogonal Drug Release

Monitoring the release and activation of prodrug formulations provides essential information about the outcome of a therapy. While the prodrug delivery can be confirmed by using different imaging techniques, confirming the release of active payload by using imaging is a challenge. Here, we have discovered that the switchable fluorescence of doxorubicin can validate drug release upon its uncaging reaction with a highly specific chemical partner. We have observed that the conjugation of doxorubicin with a trans-cyclooctene (TCO) diminishes its fluorescence at 595 nm. This quenched fluorescence of the doxorubicin prodrug is recovered upon its bond-cleaving reaction with tetrazine. Clinically assessed iron oxide nanoparticles were used to formulate a doxorubicin nanodrug. The release of doxorubicin from the nanodrug was studied under various experimental conditions. A fivefold increase in doxorubicin fluorescence is observed after complete release. The studies were carried out in vitro in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. An increase in Dox signal was observed upon tetrazine administration. This switchable fluorescence mechanism of Dox could be employed for fundamental studies, that is, the reactivity of various tetrazine and TCO linker types under different experimental conditions. In addition, the system could be instrumental for translational research where the release and activation of doxorubicin prodrug payloads can be monitored by using optical imaging systems.     

Retraction Note: Relationship between water content,shear deformation,and elastic wave velocity through unsaturated soil slope

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment -     

Uplink coverage probability and spectral efficiency for downlink uplink decoupled dense heterogeneous cellular network using multi-slope path loss model

Telecommunication Systems - Low powered node densification leading to dense and ultra dense heterogeneous networks is a feature of 5th generation cellular networks. With this densification, the...