Service delivery through mobile-government (mGov): Driving factors and cultural impacts

The mobile-Government (mGov) service system is conducted through an open network, and it is virtual. This service mode and pattern change inevitably necessitates a behavioral change in citizen attitudes and intentions. Nevertheless, this new pattern of service delivery through mGov has hardly been systematically investigated by any researchers. The objective of this current research is twofold. First, we attempt to reveal the sources of beliefs for developing intention toward the mGov (ITM) system. Then, as the second objective, we investigate cultural influence as the reason for a difference in consumer attitudes and intentions toward mGov. In this regard, the empirical study was conducted in Bangladesh and the USA, which have potential differences in the cultural traits listed by Hofstede. From our statistical analysis, we have identified the sources of beliefs for both Bangladeshi and USA consumers. We observed clear differences in sources of beliefs and their influence on attitudes leading to intention, which demonstrates support for our second objective which was designed to verify the cultural impacts on belief-attitude relations. We understand that these different sources of beliefs influence cognitive, affective, and connative attitudes toward mGov in different ways.     

DOA estimation of wideband sources without estimating the number of sources

In this paper, we propose a new technique to estimate wideband source directions from the sensor snapshots without requiring to know the number of sources present in the scenario. This work is motivated by the fact that the existing model order estimation (number of sources) techniques for wideband source scenario are either inaccurate or computationally expensive. Direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation is realized using a beamformer framework which imposes nulls in the spatial spectrum along the source directions. The null width along the frequency axis is widened by introducing a new data dependent term into the optimization problem, thus achieving wideband capability. Furthermore, the temporal processing of the data snapshots drastically reduces the number of snapshots required for wideband DOA estimation. The effectiveness of the proposed formulation is studied with simulated experiments.     

Rice-like CuO nanostructures for sensitive electrochemical sensing of hydrazine

In this work, a low temperature aqueous chemical growth methodology was used for the fabrication of CuO nanostructures. The as-synthesised nanostructures were then elaborately characterised by number of analytical techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The obtained nanostructures were observed to possess interlaced rice-shaped structural features with the length and width of individual rice determined to be in the range of 200–300 nm and 50–100 nm respectively. The unique nanostructures when utilised as electrode material exhibited excellent electro-catalytic potential towards oxidation of hydrazine in alkaline media. The excellent conductive of CuO added by the high surface area of obtained nanorice-like structures enabled development of highly sensitive (3087 µA mM⁻¹ cm⁻²), selective and stable electrochemical sensor for hydrazine. In addition, the successfully application of the developed sensor in spiked tap, bottled and industrial water samples for the detection of hydrazine suggested its feasibility for practical environmental application.

     

Poly(ethylene glycol) grafted polystyrene dendrimer resins: Novel class of supports for solid phase peptide synthesis

Poly(propyleneglycol)dimethacrylate cross-linked support using monomers Styrene and 4-chloromethyl styrene (PS-PPGDMA-VBC resin) was prepared by suspension polymerization method. Dendritic templates were synthesized from Schiff base and trimesic acid molecules and assembled independently on PS-PPGDMA-VBC support to the second generation. N,N-bischloro ethyl amine dendrimer was generated from Schiff base units and introduced to the chloromethyl groups uniquely through secondary amine. It was followed by acidolytic cleavage, diazotization and thionyl chloride reactions leading to first generation dendrimer. O-benzyl ether dendrimer was created using 1,3,5-tris(hydroxyl methyl)benzene unit which was produced by the LiAlH₄ reduction of carbonyl groups of trimesic acid molecule. The hydroxyl methyl groups formed were converted to chloro methyl groups by adding thionyl chloride that leads to first generation dendrimer. Similar synthetic routes were followed to produce second generation dendrimers too. Poly(ethylene glycol), M_n ≈ 1500) has been grafted to chlorine termini of both dendrimers and used to check various physical and chemical properties of different peptide synthetic conditions. Reactions were qualitatively analyzed by FTIR, ¹³C NMR, SEM and quantitatively analyzed by UV measurements and CHN analysis. Classically difficult ACP sequence was synthesized on both PEGylated dendrimer supports and compared to Tenta Gel. Biologically significant disulfide bonded endothelin class of peptides were also synthesized using novel supports using various literature reported methods.     

Representation of facial expression categories in continuous arousal–valence space: Feature and correlation

Representation of facial expressions using continuous dimensions has shown to be inherently more expressive and psychologically meaningful than using categorized emotions, and thus has gained increasing attention over recent years. Many sub-problems have arisen in this new field that remain only partially understood. A comparison of the regression performance of different texture and geometric features and the investigation of the correlations between continuous dimensional axes and basic categorized emotions are two of these. This paper presents empirical studies addressing these problems, and it reports results from an evaluation of different methods for detecting spontaneous facial expressions within the arousal–valence (AV) dimensional space. The evaluation compares the performance of texture features (SIFT, Gabor, LBP) against geometric features (FAP-based distances), and the fusion of the two. It also compares the prediction of arousal and valence, obtained using the best fusion method, to the corresponding ground truths. Spatial distribution, shift, similarity, and correlation are considered for the six basic categorized emotions (i.e. anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise). Using the NVIE database, results show that the fusion of LBP and FAP features performs the best. The results from the NVIE and FEEDTUM databases reveal novel findings about the correlations of arousal and valence dimensions to each of six basic emotion categories.     

Behaviour of CI engine performance,combustion and exhaust emission with neem biodiesel at varied fuel injection rates

Motorisation and fast depletion of fossil fuel reserves and issues like global warming have led the researchers all over to look for substitute fuels. Biodiesel resulting from vegetable oil is being used around the globe to lessen air pollution and reduce the necessity of diesel fuel. The current study covers the various aspects of N20 neem biodiesel with increased fuel injection pressure. The blends of N20 were tested with increased fuel injection pressure to examine the characteristics such as brake thermal efficiency, fuel consumption, emission and combustion parameters. Experimental results indicated that N20 with 240?bar has a closer performance to diesel, reduced exhaust emission and improved combustion parameters.     

Electrical behavior of dual‐morphology polyaniline

An attempt was taken to synthesize two types of polyaniline (PANI) with and without solvent followed by drying in air and vacuum oven conditions resulting different morphologies. The PANIs were prepared by chemical oxidative polymerization and studied with respect to their morphological features. Scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, X‐ray diffractometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy techniques were used for the characterization studies. The PANI synthesized with a solvent had a mixed morphology (fibrillar and granular), whereas PANI synthesized without a solvent had only a granular morphology. The direct‐current electrical conductivities of the samples were evaluated with an electrometer. We observed that the PANIs with mixed morphology (with solvent) were more electrically conducting than those with a single morphology (without solvent). On drying in vacuo, the conductivity of PANI decreased from 3.3 × 10^?2 to 0.3 × 10^?2 S/cm with solvent treatment, whereas it decreased from 0.1 × 10^?2 to 0.3 × 10^?3 S/cm without solvent treatment. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 44091.     

Mechanistic origins of multi-scale reinforcements in segmented polyurethane-clay nanocomposites

The objective of the present work is to get insights into the mechanistic origin of the reinforcement effects of nanoclay on a segmented polybutadiene polyurethane-urea system. To this end, a convergent analysis of the hard domain morphology and conformational state of soft segment in the nanocomposites was carried out by using a combination of complementary characterization techniques, namely, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, small angle neutron scattering, transmission electron microscopy, modulated differential scanning calorimetry and dynamic mechanical analysis. Analysis of small angle neutron scattering data by a combination of Percus–Yevick hard sphere and Zernike-Ornstein model coupled with direct visualization of the dispersed hard domain morphology from transmission electron microscopy provided insight on clay induced changes in the hard domain morphology. A monotonic decrease in the domain size as well as the average interdomain distance was observed with increasing nanoclay content in the polymer matrix. Analysis of the carbonyl stretching region from FTIR showed increased degree of hydrogen bonding for the urethane carbonyl groups of the nanocomposites compared to the neat matrix. A combination of calorimetric and dynamic mechanical analysis revealed the existence of a constrained amorphous region; quantified to be ≈ 16% at the highest clay content experimented. The manifestation of these morphological and conformational changes on the nano-, micro- and macro scale reinforcements in the nanocomposites was investigated by mechanical properties at these length scales using nanoindentation, DMA and tensile testing, respectively.