Effect of Molybdenum Disulfide Layer on Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensor for the Detection of Bacteria

In this study, a molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor is proposed. The reflectance curves for the proposed SPR biosensor are analyzed and compared with the graphene based and the conventional SPR biosensors. It is observed that the performance parameters of the proposed biosensor- sensitivity, detection accuracy, and the quality factor are enhanced by the utilization of the adsorption property of MoS₂ for monolayer and bi-layer MoS₂. Also, the effect of increasing the number of layers of MoS₂ on the reflectance curve is analyzed and compared.     

Rethinking investment planning and optimizing net zero emission buildings

Increased awareness of climate change has precipitated more stringent mitigation targets. Public sector institutions in Canada are committed to becoming carbon neutral to attain a leadership position in climate change mitigation-related initiatives. Recent statistics reveal that buildings account for the majority of the corporate carbon footprint of public sector institutions. Hence, there is an increasing interest towards developing net zero energy and net zero emission buildings to comply with climate action targets. With limited financial resources, public sector institutions must optimize investments into building energy retrofits by considering lifecycle cost (LCC), overall energy performance, and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. The aim of this paper is to develop an investment planning approach for net zero emission buildings (NZEB). First, an investment planning approach for NZEB is proposed. A typical recreational centre building in British Columbia, Canada, was used as the archetype to demonstrate the concept. Second, innovative and proven building energy retrofits were analysed using energy simulation software to assess the impact on energy consumption reduction, GHG emissions, and LCC. Third, impacts of geographical location, tariff regimes, and grid emission factors on energy retrofits were studied by locating the same building in other provinces of Canada. This study revealed that net zero energy investment has a strong correlation to the grid emission factor. The proposed approach in this paper will assist building managers and owners in retrofitting and budget planning.     

Video error concealment through 3-D face model

Multimedia Tools and Applications - All current state-of-the-art video error concealment schemes conceal the lost area through the reconstruction of 2-D patches. Reconstructed corrupted areas in...     

Atomic force microscopy studies of short melamine fiber reinforced EPDM rubber

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) was used to investigate the morphology and interfacial properties of unaged and aged Ethylene Propylene Diene (EPDM) rubber-melamine fiber composites. Interfacial adhesion between the fiber and the matrix was weak in the absence of a dry bonding system consisting of hexamethylene tetramine, resorcinol and hydrated silica (HRH). AFM images revealed the formation of an interface between the fiber and the matrix with the addition of the bonding agents. Ageing of the composites improved the adhesion between the fiber and the matrix, which was evident from the topographic images of the aged composites. It was found that two-dimensional and three-dimensional topographic images from AFM could be used to determine fiber geometry, fiber diameter and fiber-matrix adhesion in short fiber-rubber composites.     

Electronic properties of carbon nanotubes calculated from density functional theory and the empirical <Emphasis Type="Italic">π</Emphasis>-bond model

The validity of the DFT models implemented by FIREBALL for CNT electronic device modeling is assessed. The effective masses, band gaps, and transmission coefficients of semi-conducting, zigzag, (n,0) carbon nanotubes (CNTs) resulting from the ab-initio tight-binding density functional theory (DFT) code FIREBALL and the empirical, nearest-neighbor π-bond model are compared for all semiconducting n values 5≤n≤35. The DFT values for the effective masses differ from the π-bond values by ±9% over the range of n values, 17≤n≤29, most important for electronic device applications. Over the range 13≤n≤35, the DFT bandgaps are less than the empirical bandgaps by 20–180 meV depending on the functional and the n value. The π-bond model gives results that differ significantly from the DFT results when the CNT diameter goes below 1 nm due to the large curvature of the CNT. The π-bond model quickly becomes inaccurate away from the bandedges for a (10,0) CNT, and it is completely inaccurate for n≤8.     

Building Many-Core Processor-to-DRAM Networks with Monolithic CMOS Silicon Photonics

Silicon photonics is a promising technology for addressing memory bandwidth limitations in future many-core processors. This article first introduces a new monolithic silicon-photonic technology, which uses a standard bulk CMOS process to reduce costs and improve energy efficiency, and then explores the logical and physical implications of leveraging this technology in processor-to-memory networks.     

Dynamic Functional Unit Assignment for Low Power

A hardware method for functional unit assignment is presented, based on the principle that a functional unit's power consumption is approximated by the switching activity of its inputs. Since computing the Hamming distance of the inputs in hardware is expensive, only a portion of the inputs are examined. Integers often have many identical top bits, due to sign extension, and floating points often have many zeros in the least significant digits, due to the casting of integer values into floating point, and other reasons. The accuracy of these approximations is studied and the results are used to develop a simple, but effective, hardware scheme.