Fe2MoO4 magnetic nanocomposite modified screen printed graphite electrode as a voltammetric sensor for simultaneous determination of nalbuphine and diclofenac

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - This study applied screen printed graphite electrode (SPGE) modified with the Fe2MoO4 magnetic nanocomposite for simultaneously determining...     

Thermoresponsive Conductivity of Graphene-Based Fibers

Smart materials are versatile material systems which exhibit a measurable response to external stimuli. Recently, smart material systems have been developed which incorporate graphene in order to share on its various advantageous properties, such as mechanical strength, electrical conductivity, and thermal conductivity as well as to achieve unique stimuli-dependent responses. Here, a graphene fiber-based smart material that exhibits reversible electrical conductivity switching at a relatively low temperature (60 °C), is reported. Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and density functional theory-based non-equilibrium Green's function (DFT-NEGF) approach, it is revealed that this thermo-response behavior is due to the change in configuration of amphiphilic triblock dispersant molecules occurring in the graphene fiber during heating or cooling. These conformational changes alter the total number of graphene-graphene contacts within the composite material system, and thus the electrical conductivity as well. Additionally, this graphene fiber fabrication approach uses a scalable, facile, water-based method, that makes it easy to modify material composition ratios. In all, this work represents an important step forward to enable complete functional tuning of graphene-based smart materials at the nanoscale while increasing commercialization viability.     

State of the art in passive digital image forgery detection: copy-move image forgery

Authenticating digital images is increasingly becoming important because digital images carry important information and due to their use in different areas such as courts of law as essential pieces of evidence. Nowadays, authenticating digital images is difficult because manipulating them has become easy as a result of powerful image processing software and human knowledge. The importance and relevance of digital image forensics has attracted various researchers to establish different techniques for detection in image forensics. The core category of image forensics is passive image forgery detection. One of the most important passive forgeries that affect the originality of the image is copy-move digital image forgery, which involves copying one part of the image onto another area of the same image. Various methods have been proposed to detect copy-move forgery that uses different types of transformations. The goal of this paper is to determine which copy-move forgery detection methods are best for different image attributes such as JPEG compression, scaling, rotation. The advantages and drawbacks of each method are also highlighted. Thus, the current state-of-the-art image forgery detection techniques are discussed along with their advantages and drawbacks.     

Cost minimization for bag-of-tasks workflows in a federation of clouds

We address the problem of resource allocation for bag-of-tasks (BoT) workflows in a federation of clouds and formulate it as an integer linear programming problem. The proposed model minimizes financial cost including fees for running VMs and fees for data transfer, and fulfills deadline and resource constraints in the clouds. We also formulate the problem of BoT scheduling in the hybrid clouds, and compare the financial cost in the federation of clouds with that in the hybrid clouds. Moreover, this paper discusses sensitivity analysis to investigate stability in the related allocation problem. Numerical results show that the resource allocation in the federation is considerably preferred to that in the hybrid clouds in terms of stability and cost-saving. In this paper, we also propose an approach named GRASP-FC for obtaining an approximate optimal solution of BoT scheduling in the federation. GRASP-FC is an extension of greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP), and it can be of great interest from the computational points of view.

     

Stress-Aware Periodic Test of Interconnects

Journal of Electronic Testing - Safety-critical systems have to follow extremely high dependability requirements as specified in the standards for automotive, air, and space applications. The...     

Optimal Newton–Secant like methods without memory for solving nonlinear equations with its dynamics

We construct two optimal Newton–Secant like iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations. The proposed classes have convergence order four and eight and cost only three and four function evaluations per iteration, respectively. These methods support the Kung and Traub conjecture and possess a high computational efficiency. The new methods are illustrated by numerical experiments and a comparison with some existing optimal methods. We conclude with an investigation of the basins of attraction of the solutions in the complex plane.     

Embedded of Nanogel into Multi-responsive Hydrogel Nanocomposite for Anticancer Drug Delivery

Hydrogels, nanogels, and nanocomposites show increasing potential for application in drug delivery systems due to their good chemical and physical properties. Therefore, we were encouraged to combine them to produce a new compound with unique properties for drug release systems. To this aim, we first prepared poly [(N-isopropylacrylamide)-co-(2-dimethylamino ethyl methacrylate) nanogel by copolymerization processes and then added it into the solution of poly (2-dimethylamino ethyl methacrylate)] grafted onto salep. Through dropwise addition of mixed aqueous solution of iron salts into the prepared polymeric solution, a novel hydrogel nanocomposite with excellent pH, thermo, and magnetic responsive was fabricated. The obtained hydrogel nanocomposite were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermo gravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer, and atomic force micrographs. The dependence of swelling properties of hydrogel nanocomposite on the temperature, pH, and magnetic field were investigated. The release behavior of doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) drug from DOX loaded into synthesized hydrogel nanocomposite was investigated at different pHs, temperatures, and magnetic field. In addition, the drug release behavior from obtained hydrogel nanocomposite was monitored via different kinetic models. Lastly, the toxicity of the DOX and DOX-loaded hydrogel nanocomposite were studied on MCF-7 cells at different times. These results suggested that the obtained hydrogel nanocomposite might have high potential applications in drug delivery systems.     

Proposal for optical fiber designs with ultrahigh effective area and small bending loss applicable to long haul communications

A proposal for the multiclad MII optical fiber structure with ultralarge effective area and small bending loss is presented. For the proposed structure small dispersion and dispersion slope are obtained thanks to what we believe to be a novel design method. The suggested design method is based on a weighted fitness function, which is applied to the genetic algorithm optimization technique. In the meantime, the foregoing structure introduces a special fiber whose mode field diameter is small and approximately insensitive to the variation of the effective area. Compared to the work reported previously, our method can precisely set the zero dispersion wavelength. The designed dispersion-shifted single-mode fibers have effective area, mode field diameter, and quality factor respectively within [150-194.79] microm(2), [6.82-7.95] microm, and [3.04-3.85] at lambda(0)=1.55 microm. An analytical method is used for the calculation of the dispersion and its slope. These calculations give dispersion and dispersion slope of [(-2.57 x 10(-4))-(-0.085)] ps/km/nm and approximately 0.064 ps/km x nm(2), respectively.     

Quality preservation of minimally processed pomegranate cv. Jahrom arils based on chitosan and organic acid edible coatings

The effects of chitosan (CTS), ascorbic acid (AsA), and citric acid (CtA) on quality preservation of (Punica granatum cv. “Jahrom”) processed arils were investigated. The arils were immersed in aqueous solutions including water (control), CTS (0.5 and 1%), AsA (1 and 2%), and CtA (1 and 2%) and stored at 5–7°C for 15 days. Results showed that AsA maintained water loss; inhibited color change, phenolic, and anthocyanin degradation; increased vitamin C; and decreased total soluble solids and titratable acidity as compared to control. The efficiency was better for AsA than CtA and thus the effect of CTS on quality safety except to protect water loss was approximately ineffective. AsA also exhibited a significantly lower decay percentage, probably due to the suppressing peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase followed by improving antioxidant power and maintaining catalase activity, which displayed that AsA exerts an antibrowning effect. Moreover, the positive effects of AsA result in getting a higher score in sensory quality at the end storage.