Influence of pH on particle size and sensing response of chemically synthesized chromium oxide nanoparticles to alcohols

Nanoparticles of chromium oxide have been synthesized by following a co-precipitation route at various pH values of the precursor solution. Structural and morphological analysis were carried out by using XRD and TEM techniques which revealed that the size of nanoparticles synthesized at pH 9 was smaller as compared to those synthesized at other pH values. The thick films of synthesized samples were deposited on alumina substrate and their sensing response to methanol, ethanol and isopropanol was investigated at different operating temperatures. It was observed that all the sensors gave optimum response at 250 °C. It has been observed that sample prepared at pH 9, being a collection of smallest particles as compared to other samples, exhibited high sensing response to alcohol vapour. Sensor response of all the samples tested was significantly higher towards isopropanol vapour than towards methanol or ethanol.In the present study the effect of particle size on intergranular activation energy has been studied as well. It was found that smaller particles possess high activation energy and exhibit higher sensing response as compared to that of larger particles. This type of study may help in the selection of particle suitable for gas sensing.     

EEHC: Energy efficient heterogeneous clustered scheme for wireless sensor networks

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in wireless sensor networks. One of the major issues in wireless sensor network is developing an energy-efficient clustering protocol. Hierarchical clustering algorithms are very important in increasing the network’s life time. Each clustering algorithm is composed of two phases, the setup phase and steady state phase. The hot point in these algorithms is the cluster head selection. In this paper, we study the impact of heterogeneity of nodes in terms of their energy in wireless sensor networks that are hierarchically clustered. We assume that a percentage of the population of sensor nodes is equipped with the additional energy resources. We also assume that the sensor nodes are randomly distributed and are not mobile, the coordinates of the sink and the dimensions of the sensor field are known. Homogeneous clustering protocols assume that all the sensor nodes are equipped with the same amount of energy and as a result, they cannot take the advantage of the presence of node heterogeneity. Adapting this approach, we introduce an energy efficient heterogeneous clustered scheme for wireless sensor networks based on weighted election probabilities of each node to become a cluster head according to the residual energy in each node. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate that our proposed heterogeneous clustering approach is more effective in prolonging the network lifetime compared with LEACH.     

Lévy flight artificial bee colony algorithm

Artificial bee colony (ABC) optimisation algorithm is a relatively simple and recent population-based probabilistic approach for global optimisation. The solution search equation of ABC is significantly influenced by a random quantity which helps in exploration at the cost of exploitation of the search space. In the ABC, there is a high chance to skip the true solution due to its large step sizes. In order to balance between diversity and convergence in the ABC, a Lévy flight inspired search strategy is proposed and integrated with ABC. The proposed strategy is named as Lévy Flight ABC (LFABC) has both the local and global search capability simultaneously and can be achieved by tuning the Lévy flight parameters and thus automatically tuning the step sizes. In the LFABC, new solutions are generated around the best solution and it helps to enhance the exploitation capability of ABC. Furthermore, to improve the exploration capability, the numbers of scout bees are increased. The experiments on 20 test problems of different complexities and five real-world engineering optimisation problems show that the proposed strategy outperforms the basic ABC and recent variants of ABC, namely, Gbest-guided ABC, best-so-far ABC and modified ABC in most of the experiments.     

An improved transport layer protocol for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a kind of communication networks having independent sensor nodes that form multi-hop ad hoc network to transfer data. In the past few years, various transport control protocols in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been developed and proposed in the literature. In this paper, we have analyzed pump slowly, fetch quickly (PSFQ) protocol and presented an improved transport layer protocol for wireless sensor networks. The improved protocol has been analyzed based on various factors such as average latency and average error tolerance and it is found that the proposed protocol is better than PSFQ in terms of these factors.     

GENOTOXICITY IN CHIRONOMUS KIIENSIS (CHIRONOMIDAE: DIPTERA) AFTER EXPOSURE TO POLLUTED SEDIMENTS FROM RIVERS OF NORTH PENINSULAR MALAYSIA: IMPLICATION FOR ECOTOXICOLOGICAL MONITORING

Rapid industrialization and urbanization has led to increasing input of chemical contaminants into the aquatic environment of Malaysia. Despite the threat civilization poses to the biota, there are still very few relevant studies on ecotoxicological testing of river ecosystems. To overcome this knowledge gap, we examined lethal and genotoxic effects of sediments from different rivers of the northern Malaysia against Chironomus kiiensis, a group well represented in the aquatic fauna of this region. We exposed the larvae to sediments from Selama River (SR), Permatang Rawa River (PRR) and Kilang Ubi River (KUR) at various durations (0, 6, 12, 24 and 48 h). The larval mortality was monitored, whereas DNA damage in survivors' cells was determined using the comet assay. Pollution level indexed by the amounts of heavy metals and other organic contaminants in the sediment showed progressive increases from SR to PRR to KUR. Highly polluted sediments (PRR to KUR) were detrimental to C. kiiensis larvae, most of which did not survive following exposure for long periods. DNA analyses revealed greater damages in nuclei derived from larvae maintained on polluted sediments, in particular, those from KUR. The effects on the genomic material of C. kiiensis larvae occurred in a time‐dependent manner, with damage level increasing as exposure time progressed. Our results highlight the genotoxic properties of polluted sediments. More importantly, this study showed that C. kiiensis larvae could respond to different levels of pollution with respect to exposure time. It is concluded that C. kiiensis larvae is a potential candidate for river ecotoxicological monitoring. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SUSANS With Polarized Neutrons

Super Ultra-Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SUSANS) studies over wave vector transfers of 10^–4 nm^–1 to 10^–3 nm^–1 afford information on micrometer-size agglomerates in samples. Using a right-angled magnetic air prism, we have achieved a separation of ≈10 arcsec between ≈2 arcsec wide up- and down-spin peaks of 0.54 nm neutrons. The SUSANS instrument has thus been equipped with the polarized neutron option. The samples are placed in a uniform vertical field of 8.8 × 10⁴ A/m (1.1 kOe). Several magnetic alloy ribbon samples broaden the up-spin neutron peak significantly over the ±1.3 × 10^–3 nm^–1 range, while leaving the down-spin peak essentially unaltered. Fourier transforms of these SUSANS spectra corrected for the instrument resolution, yield micrometer-range pair distribution functions for up- and down-spin neutrons as well as the nuclear and magnetic scattering length density distributions in the samples.     

Enhancement in ethanol sensing response by surface activation of ZnO with SnO2

A surface functionalized gas sensing material convincingly giving enhanced response to ethanol is demonstrated by SnO₂ activated ZnO. Zinc oxide was synthesized by a chemical route, deposited on an alumina substrate and activated by tin dioxide obtained by on-site oxidation of tin chloride. The XRD study of samples confirmed wurtzite hexagonal structure of zinc oxide and FESEM investigation revealed that surface of activated ZnO microrods was covered by nanoparticles of tin dioxide. Sensing response of sensing elements activated with different concentrations of tin chloride solution has been investigated. It was found that response to ethanol vapor significantly enhanced (eight times) by surface activation with tin dioxide, which optimized at a concentration of 3 wt.%.     

Image coding based on maximum entropy partitioning for identifying improbable intensities related to facial expressions

In this paper we investigate information-theoretic image coding techniques that assign longer codes to improbable, imprecise and non-distinct intensities in the image. The variable length coding techniques when applied to cropped facial images of subjects with different facial expressions, highlight the set of low probability intensities that characterize the facial expression such as the creases in the forehead, the widening of the eyes and the opening and closing of the mouth. A new coding scheme based on maximum entropy partitioning is proposed in our work, particularly to identify the improbable intensities related to different emotions. The improbable intensities when used as a mask decode the facial expression correctly, providing an effective platform for future emotion categorization experiments.     

Influence of fine ceramic aggregates on the residual properties of concrete subjected to elevated temperature

The residual properties of concrete subjected to elevated temperature are of importance to assess the stability of the structure. This paper investigates the performance of concrete containing white ware ceramic sand exposed to elevated temperature. Concrete mixes containing 0%, 50%, and 100% ceramic sand were prepared. The specimen were exposed to elevated temperatures of 200°C, 500°C, and 800°C for a duration of 60 minutes. Their residual mechanical properties (compressive strength, split tensile strength), ultra sonic pulse velocity, and mass change for different cooling regimes were investigated and compared among specimen. The results showed that incorporation of ceramic sand in concrete mixes improved the resistance against elevated temperature of hardened concrete.