Building sustainable parking lots with the Web of Things

Peak-time traffic woes create considerable amount of stress and environmental pollution resulting in an economic loss. Research innovations in areas such as the Web of Things are able to curtail some of these issues by creating scalable and sustainable environments like parking lots, which provide motorists with access to convenient parking spots. We present a scalable parking lot network infrastructure that exposes parking management operations through a judicious mashup of physical things’ services within a parking lot. Our system uses service-oriented architecture, allowing motorists to reserve parking spots in advance. In doing so, our proposed system leverages the use of HTTP and Wi-Fi for the Web enablement and interoperability of things within a parking spot and elevates it as a Smart Parking Spot on the Web. Our suggested semantic Web-based structure for representing things makes it possible to query physical things’ states and services depending on their capabilities and other relevant parking-related parameters. Our performance evaluation reveals that a maximum of 40 % time is saved to find parking spots and also 40 % reduction in air pollution is observed.     

Application of thionine-nafion supported on multi-walled carbon nanotube for preparation of a modified electrode in simultaneous voltammetric detection of dopamine and ascorbic acid

A modified carbon-paste electrode (CPE) is prepared by incorporating thionine-nafion supported on multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT). The electrochemical behavior of dopamine (DA) and ascorbic acid (AA) on the surface of the modified electrode is investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV). The results show that thionine effectively immobilized in the matrix of the paste by using an appropriate mixture of nafion/MWCNT under the ultrasonic condition. On the other hand, presence of nafion enhances the stability of the thionine supported by MWCNT in the composite electrode and improves the reproducibility of the surface of the modified electrode under renewing process by polishing. The results of cyclic and differential pulse voltammetric investigations show that the modified electrode possesses an efficient electrocatalytic activity for the electrochemical oxidation of DA and AA and a peak potential separation nearly 379 mV is resulted for two compounds. The prepared modified electrode does not show any considerable response toward the electro-oxidation of sulfhydryl compounds, such as, cysteine, penicillamine and glutathione, revealing a good selectivity for voltammetric response to AA and DA in clinical and pharmaceutical preparations. The effective electrocatalytic property, excellent peak resolution and ability for masking the voltammetric responses of the other biologically reducing agents, make the modified electrode suitable for simultaneous and sensitive voltammetric detection of sub-micromolar amounts of AA and DA.     

Voltammetric studies of a cobalt(II)-4-methylsalophen modified carbon-paste electrode and its application for the simultaneous determination of cysteine and ascorbic acid

A carbon-paste electrode (CPE) chemically modified with the cobalt(II)-4-methylsalophen (CoMSal) as a Schiff base complex was used as a highly sensitive and fairly selective electrochemical sensor for simultaneous determination of minor mounts of ascorbic acid (AA) and cysteine. This modified electrode shows very efficient electrocatalytic activity for anodic oxidation of both AA and cysteine via substantially decreasing of anodic overpotentials for both compounds. The mechanism of electrochemical oxidation of both AA and cysteine using CoMSal-modified electrode was thoroughly investigated by cyclic voltammetry and polarization studies. Results of cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) using this modified electrode show two well-resolved anodic waves for the oxidation of AA and cysteine, which makes it possible for simultaneous determination of both compounds. A linear range of 1 × 10⁻⁴ to 5 × 10⁻⁷ M for cysteine in a constant concentration of 1 × 10⁻⁴ M AA in buffered solution (as a background electrolyte) was obtained from DPV measurements using this electrode. The linear range, which is obtained for AA in the presence of 1 × 10⁻⁴ M cysteine, was in the range of 1 × 10⁻⁴ to 1 × 10⁻⁶ M. The modified electrode has good reproducibility (RSD ≤ 2.5%), low detection limit (sub-micromolar) and high sensitivity for the detection of both AA and cysteine with a very high stability in its voltammetric response. Differential pulse voltammetry using the modified electrode exhibited a reasonable recovery for a relatively wide concentration range of cysteine spiked to a synthetic human serum sample.     

Rheological/thermal properties of poly(ethylene terephthalate) modified by chain extenders of pyromellitic dianhydride and pentaerythritol

Due to low molecular weight and wide molecular weight distribution, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) shows weak melt strength properties. In this study, the synergistic effect of using different types of chain extenders and catalyst on rheological behavior of PET has been investigated. Long-chain branching is known as a suitable method for developing the structure of PET during reactive melt processing. Thus, pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) and pentaerythritol (PENTA) were added to the fiber grade PET. The best formulation was determined based on rheological results, which revealed an improvement in both storage modulus and complex viscosity of PMDA-modified samples. Samples containing 1.5% PMDA and 0.5% PENTA exhibited the best rheological properties. Also, dibutyltin dilaurate (DBTDL) acted as an accelerator for chain extension reaction during reactive melt blending. Subsequently, the rheological properties were improved by increasing the chain extending rate. Moreover, thermal properties such as crystallization and melting temperatures and the degree of crystallinity for modified PET were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry.     

Solution blow spinning of piezoelectric nanofiber mat for detecting mechanical and acoustic signals

Solution blow spinning (SBS) technique can produce nanofibers (NFs) mat in large-scale production. In this work, the SBS was used to fabricate piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) NF membranes that can be utilized for energy harvesting applications. The effect of operating air pressure from (2–5 bar) on the surface morphology of the NFs has been studied. The structural analysis for crystalline polymorph β-phase for PVDF powder, casted film, electrospinning and SBS NFs has also been presented with the aid of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Piezoelectric characteristics of PVDF NFs mats were tested by applying impact impulse with different weights from different heights between 1 and 10 cm. The sensitivity of the voltage response increased from 1.71 mV/g to 8.98 mV/g, respectively. Besides, the SBS generated PVDF mat is found to be sensitive to pressure forces in a range of few Newtons with the generated voltage according to detected sensitivity of 80 mV/N based on the analysis of the impact of a few Hertz mechanical vibrations. In addition, the produced SBS NFs were applied as an acoustic signal detector within different acoustic frequencies. The results suggest that the β-phase PVDF nanofibrous membrane produced via the SBS technique has a great potential to be used as a piezoelectric sensor.     

Increasing power efficiency in the design of a low power and low phase noise CMOS LC oscillator

This study developed a local oscillator (LO) with low phase noise and low power consumption. The proposed oscillator core comprises a pair of cross‐coupled transistors, which are fed by another pair of transistors that injects current at moments close to the peak of output voltage. The position of the current injection transistors, which are inserted in series with the cross‐coupled transistors, affects the waveform of current injected into an inductive–capacitive (LC) tank. Installing a capacitor on the source node of the cross‐coupled transistors increases the current injected into the LC tank and thereby augments the output voltage amplitude and power efficiency of the LO. The resonator phase shift and Q can be corrected by adjusting the source capacitance, which filters noise. These changes reduce the phase noise to ?123.4 dBc/Hz at a frequency offset of 1 MHz and improve oscillator performance with a figure of merit equal to ?193.5 dBc/Hz. To evaluate the LC tank, a 5 GHz LO was simulated at 1.8 V power supply and 2.5 mW power consumption. The simulation was conducted using a practical 0.18 complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor model manufactured by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The simulation results confirmed the analytical findings.     

Computer aided detection and classification of acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell subtypes based on microscopic image analysis

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a cancer that starts from the early version of white blood cells called lymphocytes in the bone marrow. It can spread to different parts of the body rapidly and if not treated, would probably be deadly within a couple of months. Leukemia cells are categorized into three types of L1, L2, and L3. The cancer is detected through screening of blood and bone marrow smears by pathologists. But manual examination of blood samples is a time‐consuming and boring procedure as well as limited by human error risks. So to overcome these limitations a computer‐aided detection system, capable of discriminating cancer from noncancer cases and identifying the cancerous cell subtypes, seems to be necessary. In this article an automatic detection method is proposed; first cell nucleus is segmented by fuzzy c‐means clustering algorithm. Then a rich set of features including geometric, first‐ and second‐order statistical features are obtained from the nucleus. A principal component analysis is used to reduce feature matrix dimensionality. Finally, an ensemble of SVM classifiers with different kernels and parameters is applied to classify cells into four groups, that is noncancerous, L1, L2, and L3. Results show that the proposed method can be used as an assistive diagnostic tool in laboratories.     

Cloud-supported framework for patients in post-stroke disability rehabilitation

Given the flexibility and potential of cloud technologies, cloud-based rehabilitation frameworks have shown encouraging results as assistive tools for post-stroke disability rehabilitation exercises and treatment. To treat post-stroke disability, cloud-based rehabilitation offers great advantages over conventional, clinic-based rehabilitation, providing ubiquitous flexible rehabilitation services and storage while offering therapeutic feedback from a therapist in real-time during patients' rehabilitative movements. With the development of sensory technologies, cloud computing technology integrated with Augmented Reality (AR) may make therapeutic exercises more enjoyable. To achieve these objectives, this paper proposes a framework for cloud-based rehabilitation services, which uses AR technology along with other sensory technologies. We have designed a prototype of the framework that uses the mechanism of sensor gloves to recognize gestures, detecting the real-time condition of a patient doing rehabilitative exercises. This prototype framework is tested on twelve patients not using sensor gloves and on four patients wearing sensor gloves over six weeks. We found statistically significant differences between the forces exerted by patients’ fingers at week one compared to week six. Significant improvements in finger strength were found after six weeks of therapeutic rehabilitative exercises.     

Synchronization and wave propagation in neuronal network under field coupling

Electric and chemical synapse play important role in connecting neurons and thus signal propagation can be realized between neurons. External electric stimulus can change the excitability of neuron and then the electrical activities can be modulated completely. Continuous fluctuation of ion concentration in cell can induce complex time-varying electromagnetic field during the exchange of charged ions across the membrane of neuron. Polarization and magnetization in the media(and neuron), which exposed to electromagnetic radiation, can modulate the dynamical response and mode transition in electrical activities of neurons. In this paper, magnetic flux is used to describe the effect of electromagnetic field, and the three-variable HindmarshRose neuron model is updated to propose a four-variable neuron model that the effect of electromagnetic induction and radiation can be explained. Based on the physical law of electromagnetic induction, exchange of charged ions and flow of ion currents will change the distribution of electromagnetic filed in cell, and each neuron will be exposed to the superimposed field triggered by other neurons. Therefore, signal exchange could occur even synapse coupling between neurons is removed in the case of field coupling. A chain network is proposed to investigate the signal exchange between neurons under field coupling when synapse coupling is not available. It is found that field coupling between neurons can change the collective behaviors in electrical activities. A statistical factor of synchronization and spatial patterns are calculated, these results confirmed that field coupling is effective for signal communication between neurons. In the end, open problems are suggested for readers' extensive guidance in this field.     

Investigation of cure advancement in dual-cure polyurethane-acrylate coatings over metal substrates

In the present study, a polyurethane acrylate (PUA) system cured via a thermal–UV (dual-cure process) was developed. The system selected for this work was a two-pack polyurethane acrylate with polyester polyol as the main component and urethane monoacrylate (UMA) as hardener. The polyester polyol was synthesized in a way to provide a final film coating containing both a suitable flexibility and high surface hardness. The thermal and photochemical curing behavior of the resin was studied via the chemorheology technique and the real-time FTIR. The Boltzmann sigmoidal model was implemented and well-fitted to the data obtained from the chemorheology measurements. The comparison between two reactive diluents, butanediol diacrylate (BDDA) and trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA) showed that BDDA reacts faster than TMPTA in the thermal curing condition. Nevertheless, the network buildup is stronger when TMPTA is used. The photopolymerization is also faster for the case of TMPTA. However, its final double bond conversion is restricted to a lower amount due to steric hindrance and higher viscosity of the system.