Using AQM for performance improvement of networked control systems

International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems - This paper presents a new scheme to jointly control the plant and the network to improve the overall performance of the networked control...     

Production of hydrogen and syngas via gasification of the corn and wheat dry distiller grains (DDGS) in a fixed-bed micro reactor

Production of hydrogen and syngas via gasification of the corn and wheat dry distiller grains (DDGS) with oxygen in a continuous downflow fixed bed micro reactor are studied in this paper. A series of experiments have been performed to investigate the effects of reaction time (15–45 min), reactor temperature (700–900 °C) and oxygen to nitrogen ratio (0.08–0.2 vol./vol.) on product gas composition, gas yield, low heating value (LHV) and carbon conversion efficiency. Over the ranges of the experimental conditions used, the results obtained seemed to suggest that for both biomasses the operating conditions were optimized for a gasification temperature around 900 °C, an oxygen to nitrogen ratio of 0.08 and a reaction time of 30 min, because a gas richer in hydrogen and carbon monoxide and poorer in carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons. The results showed that the product gas of corn DDGS gasification has higher H₂ and CO concentrations (11 and 56.5%) than that of wheat DDGS gasification (10.5 and 51.5%). In addition gasification of corn DDGS resulted to higher gas yield (0.42 m³/kg), LHV (10.65 MJ/m³) and carbon conversion efficiency (44.2%).     

Hydrothermal Preparation, Crystal Structures, Spectroscopic and Thermal Analyses of Cadmium(II) and Cobalt(II) Coordination Polymers With Pyridine-2,3-dicarboxylic Acid

Two novel 1D coordination polymers, [M(μ-2,3-pydc)(H₂O)₃]_n (M = Cd for 1 and Co for 2) (2,3-pydcH₂ = pyridine-2,3-dicarboxylic acid) have been hydrothermally synthesized. Both complexes were characterized by elemental analysis and by IR and UV–Vis spectroscopy. Their molecular and crystal structures were determined by X-ray crystal structure analysis and their thermal stability by TGA-DTA methods. Compound 1 crystallizes in the orthorhombic Pca2 space group, while compound 2 crystallizes in the triclinic P−1 space group. Polymeric chains of 1 and 2 are composed of M(II) ions bridged by pyridine-2,3-dicarboxylate ions (2,3-pydc) in N,O,O′ fashion. Distorted octahedral coordination geometry around the metal ions is completed by three water molecules. A wide range of hydrogen bonding (of the O–H···O type) is also present in the crystal structures. These interactions lead to formation of a 3D structure for 1 and 2D network for 2.     

A new multiscale Bayesian algorithm for speckle reduction in medical ultrasound images

This paper introduces a new multiscale speckle reduction method based on the extraction of wavelet interscale dependencies to visually enhance the medical ultrasound images and improve clinical diagnosis. The logarithm of the image is first transformed to the oriented dual-tree complex wavelet domain. It is then shown that the adjacent subband coefficients of the log-transformed ultrasound image can be successfully modeled using the general form of bivariate isotropic stable distributions, while the speckle coefficients can be approximated using a zero-mean bivariate Gaussian model. Using these statistical models, we design a new discrete bivariate Bayesian estimator based on minimizing the mean square error (MSE). To assess the performance of the proposed method, four image quality metrics, namely signal-to-noise ratio, MSE, coefficient of correlation, and edge preservation index, were computed on 80 medical ultrasound images. Moreover, a visual evaluation was carried out by two medical experts. The numerical results indicated that the new method outperforms the standard spatial despeckling filters, homomorphic Wiener filter, and new multiscale speckle reduction methods based on generalized Gaussian and symmetric alpha-stable priors.     

Cooperative beamforming in cognitive radio systems without feedback of receiver beamforming vectors to transmitter

Wireless Networks - In this paper, we investigate the problem of transceiver beamforming and power allocation in the downlink of a multiple input multiple output Cognitive radio system. In this...     

Selective adsorption of ketoconazole from aqueous solutions using a new molecularly imprinted polyurethane coated magnetic multiwall carbon nanotubes

New magnetic molecularly imprinted polyurethanes based on magnetic multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MMWNTs-MIPUs) were synthesized with specific selectivity toward ketoconazole (KTZ) as an anti-fungal drug. First, novel N-(4-carboxyphenyl) trimellitimide diisocyanate (NTDIS) was prepared from the reaction of trimellitic anhydride and 4-amino benzoic acid in two steps. Then, NTDIS was functionalized by β-cyclodextrin and methacrylic acid (MAA-NTDIS-β-CD). MAA-NTDIS-β-CD was used as a functional monomer, KTZ as a template, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as a cross-linking agent and 2,2′-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as initiator. Structure and properties of the prepared compounds were characterized by FTIR, ¹H NMR, FESEM, XRD, VSM, BET, and EDX. The influence of parameters such as solution pH, contact time, temperature, and initial concentrations in controlled absorption of KTZ using MMWCNTs-MIPU and MMWCNTs-NIPU were evaluated. The kinetic data were measured using the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order equation. The pseudo-second-order equation displayed the best fit for the kinetic studies (R² 0.9958). The adsorption equilibrium of KTZ using MMWCNTs-MIPU could be well-defined with the Langmuir isotherm model, and the maximum adsorption capacity was calculated as 52.35 mg g^–1. The prepared MMWCNTs-MIPU can be simply separated by an external magnetic field and, MMWCNTs-MIPU can be used after six filtration-regeneration cycles.

     

Deep convolution network for surveillance records super-resolution

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The aim of image super resolution (SR) is to recover low resolution (LR) input image or video to a visually desirable high-resolution (HR) one. The task of...     

Synthesis and characterization of conductive neural tissue engineering scaffolds based on urethane-polycaprolactone

Polymeric biomaterials play a key role in enhancement of lengthy nerve regeneration and various types of scaffolds were used to pave the way for nerve regeneration. Electrospun fibrous scaffolds have special potential applicability in controlling the cell behaviors such as adhesion, growth, proliferation and function. This study attempted to design a conductive and porous fibrous scaffold containing polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyaniline (PANI) with controllable degradation rate by adding urethane groups in scaffold structures. FTIR and NMR analysis was used to characterize the chemical bonds. Morphology, porosity, conductivity and degradation rate of scaffolds were also evaluated. To assess the cell–scaffold interaction, PC-12 cell line was cultured on the scaffolds. Results showed that the degradation rate of composite samples significantly increased in 50 time period. It seems that these results suggest that the composite fibrous scaffolds having proportions of UPCL/PCL/PANI45:20:35 exhibit the most balanced properties that meet all of the required specifications for neural cells and possess a potential application in neural tissue engineering.