Environmental impact assessment of bioplastics production from agricultural crop residues

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Bioplastics are alternatives of conventional petroleum-based plastics. Bioplastics are polymers processed from renewable sources and are biodegradable....     

On the utility of MIMO multi-relay networks for modulation identification over spatially-correlated channels

The necessity to perfectly monitor the intercepted signals for spatially-correlated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, involves modulation identification algorithms. In this paper, we present an algorithm dedicated to the modulation identification for correlated MIMO relaying broadcast channels with direct link using multi-relay nodes. By modeling spatially-correlated MIMO channels as Kronecker-structured and the imperfect channel state information of both the source-to-destination and the relay-to-destination errors as independent complex Gaussian random variables, we firstly derive the ergodic capacity of the proposed transmission system. It turns out that the ergodic capacities improve with the number of relay nodes. Based on a pattern recognition approach using the higher order statistics features and the Bagging classifier, we show that the probability to distinguish among M-ary shift keying linear modulation types without any priori modulation information is enhanced compared to the decision tree (J48), the tree augmented naive Bayes, the naive Bayes using discretization and the multilayer perceptron classifiers. We also study the effect of increasing the number of relay nodes. Numerical simulations show that the proposed algorithm using the cooperation of multi-relay nodes with the source node can avoid the performance deterioration in modulation identification caused by both spatial correlation and imperfect CSI.     

Controllable synthesis of α- and β-MnO(2): cationic effect on hydrothermal crystallization

α-?and β-MnO(2) were controllably synthesized by hydrothermally treating amorphous MnO(2) obtained via a reaction between Mn(2+) and MnO(4)(-), and cationic effects on the hydrothermal crystallization of MnO(2) were investigated systematically. The crystallization is believed to proceed by a dissolution-recrystallization mechanism; i.e.?amorphous MnO(2) dissolves first under hydrothermal conditions, then condenses to recrystallize, and the polymorphs formed are significantly affected by added cations such as K(+), NH(4)(+) and H(+) in the hydrothermal systems. The experimental results showed that K(+)/NH(4)(+) were in competition with H(+) to form polymorphs of α-?and β-MnO(2), i.e., higher relative K(+)/NH(4)(+) concentration favoured α-MnO(2), while higher relative H(+) concentration favoured β-MnO(2).     

Effects of petrophysical rock properties on tortuosity factor

Tortuosity factor is an important parameter of formation resistivity factor calculations in the Archie formula, which is used to predict water saturation. The objective of this work was to study the effects of petrophysical rock properties, i.e., amount of fine-grains, porosity, cementation factor, formation resistivity factor,electrolyte concentrations and degree of brine saturation, on the tortuosity factor using Berea and synthetic sandstones cores. This study also trying to formulate empirical correlations between tortuosity factor and these studied petrophysical rock properties. The obtained results showed that the tortuosity factor is not a constant value, but it varies largely according to many parameters such as were studied in the present article. It was found that it increases as a result of decreasing the amount of fine grains, increasing formation resistivity factor, and cementation factor, and decreasing both porosity and degree of brine saturation. Tortuosity obtained from electrical resistivity measurements is very close to the tortuosity obtained from capillary pressure data. The analysis demonstrated that the correlations between the tortuosity factor and the petrophysical rock properties would yield a strong relationship with most accurate coefficients.     

An evaluation of process-parameter and part-geometry effects on the quality of filling in micro-injection moulding

This paper addresses the use of micro-injection moulding for the fabrication of polymeric parts with microfeatures. Five separate parts with different micro-feature designs are moulded of Polymethylmethacrylate. The design-of-experiments approach is applied to correlate the quality of the parts to the processing parameters. Five processing parameters are investigated using a screening half-factorial experimentation plan to determine their possible effect on the filling quality of the moulded parts. The part mass is used as an output parameter to reflect the filling of the parts. The experiments showed that the holding pressure is the most significant processing parameter for all the different shapes. In addition, the experiments showed that the geometry of the parts plays a role in determining the significant processing parameters. For a more complex part, injection speed and mould temperature became statistically significant. A desirability function approach was successfully used to improve the filling quality of each part.     

Embedded Coded Relay System for Molecular Communications

With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged scientists and industrialists to explore modern information and communication technology (ICT) as a means to reduce or even eliminate it. The World Health Organization recently reported that the virus may infect the organism through any organ in the living body, such as the respiratory, the immunity, the nervous, the digestive, or the cardiovascular system. Targeting the abovementioned goal, we envision an implanted nanosystem embedded in the intra living-body network. The main function of the nanosystem is either to perform diagnosis and mitigation of infectious diseases or to implement a targeted drug delivery system (i.e., delivery of the therapeutic drug to the diseased tissue or targeted cell). The communication among the nanomachines is accomplished via communication-based molecular diffusion. The control/interconnection of the nanosystem is accomplished through the utilization of Internet of bio-nano things (IoBNT). The proposed nanosystem is designed to employ a coded relay nanomachine disciplined by the decode and forward (DF) principle to ensure reliable drug delivery to the targeted cell. Notably, both the sensitivity of the drug dose and the phenomenon of drug molecules loss before delivery to the target cell site in long-distance due to the molecules diffusion process are taken into account. In this paper, a coded relay NM with conventional coding techniques such as RS and Turbo codes is selected to achieve minimum bit error rate (BER) performance and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), while the detection process is based on maximum likelihood (ML) probability and minimum error probability (MEP). The performance analysis of the proposed scheme is evaluated in terms of channel capacity and bit error rate by varying system parameters such as relay position, number of released molecules, relay and receiver size. Analysis results are validated through simulation and demonstrate that the proposed scheme can significantly improve delivery performance of the desirable drugs in the molecular communication system.     

Hierarchical fuzzy controllers for an astronomical telescope tracking

The paper presents an application of fuzzy logic controller (FLC) with hierarchically structured rule base for a two-link direct drive Celestron telescope. The hierarchical fuzzy logic controller (HFLC) is implemented, as nonlinear blocks used in a control system, for supervision of PID controller for position tracking of the telescope driven by electric motors. The HFLC is composed of two FLC stages connected in cascade. The input variables, for the first stage, of the HFLC are the position error and the rate of change in the position error. Then the output from the first stage and the position error integral are used as input variables for the second stage of the HFLC PID. The simulation results of the proposed HFLC PID, when the telescope is subjected to a unit step in reference position, are compared with the PID controller. The dynamic responses of the HFLC PID improve the rise time, damping factor and settling time compared with the PID controller. Also, the proposed techniques, hierarchical fuzzy PID controller, reduce the computation time due to reduction of rule base. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed HFLC PID controller scheme as a promising technique.