Temperature-dependent bending loss characteristics of W-type photonic crystal fibres: design and analysis

The temperature-dependent bending loss characteristics of two solid-core W-typephotonic crystal fibres have been reported by employing full-vectorial finite element method. The bending loss characteristics of W-type-I photonic crystal fibrestructure have been found better than that of the W-type-II photonic crystal fibre structure. The proposed photonic crystal fibrestructures show significant nonlinearity and hence can be used in telecommunication and nonlinear applications such as visible to near-infrared supercontinuum generation. Macro-bend insensitive nature of the proposed photonic crystal fibres makes them suitable candidates for fibre-to-the-home applications.     

Effect of microwave pretreatment of mixed culture on biohydrogen production from waste of sweet produced from Benincasa hispida

To enhance the production of biohydrogen from biomass, various pretreatment methods play important role. In this study, effect of microwave irradiation on the culture was studied on biohydrogen production from Benincasa hispida (Petha) solid waste at different powers for a fixed interval of time. The highest power studied was 800 W with a frequency of 2450 MHz. The amount of soluble sugars found in the waste was 13.9 mg/L having the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 3000 mg/L. Studies have been performed in batch reactors using mixed consortia and results were also compared with the reactor operated at the normal conditions i.e. without any inoculum pretreatment. Maximum hydrogen produced was 14 mmol H₂ per mol of soluble sugar consumed in the reactor in which the inoculum was exposed to 320 W of microwave for 5 min. SEM analysis of this microwave pretreated culture was done.     

SOAR: Simple Opportunistic Adaptive Routing Protocol for Wireless Mesh Networks

Multihop wireless mesh networks are becoming a new attractive communication paradigm owing to their low cost and ease of deployment. Routing protocols are critical to the performance and reliability of wireless mesh networks. Traditional routing protocols send traffic along predetermined paths and face difficulties in coping with unreliable and unpredictable wireless medium. In this paper, we propose a Simple Opportunistic Adaptive Routing protocol (SOAR) to explicitly support multiple simultaneous flows in wireless mesh networks. SOAR incorporates the following four major components to achieve high throughput and fairness: 1) adaptive forwarding path selection to leverage path diversity while minimizing duplicate transmissions, 2) priority timer-based forwarding to let only the best forwarding node forward the packet, 3) local loss recovery to efficiently detect and retransmit lost packets, and 4) adaptive rate control to determine an appropriate sending rate according to the current network conditions. We implement SOAR in both NS-2 simulation and an 18-node wireless mesh testbed. Our extensive evaluation shows that SOAR significantly outperforms traditional routing and a seminal opportunistic routing protocol, ExOR, under a wide range of scenarios.     

Electrical behavior of dual‐morphology polyaniline

An attempt was taken to synthesize two types of polyaniline (PANI) with and without solvent followed by drying in air and vacuum oven conditions resulting different morphologies. The PANIs were prepared by chemical oxidative polymerization and studied with respect to their morphological features. Scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, X‐ray diffractometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy techniques were used for the characterization studies. The PANI synthesized with a solvent had a mixed morphology (fibrillar and granular), whereas PANI synthesized without a solvent had only a granular morphology. The direct‐current electrical conductivities of the samples were evaluated with an electrometer. We observed that the PANIs with mixed morphology (with solvent) were more electrically conducting than those with a single morphology (without solvent). On drying in vacuo, the conductivity of PANI decreased from 3.3 × 10^?2 to 0.3 × 10^?2 S/cm with solvent treatment, whereas it decreased from 0.1 × 10^?2 to 0.3 × 10^?3 S/cm without solvent treatment. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 44091.     

Cross project defect prediction: a comprehensive survey with its SWOT analysis

Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering - Software fault prediction (SFP) refers to the process of identifying (or predicting) faulty modules based on its characteristics/software metrics....     

Investigating the effect of silver nanorods embedded in polydimethylsiloxane matrix using nanoindentation and its use for flexible electronics

The stretchable electrodes with excellent flexibility, electrical conductivity, and mechanical durability are the most fundamental components in the emerging and exciting field of flexible electronics. This article proposes a method for fabrication of such a stretchable electrode by embedding silver nanorods (AgNRs) into a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix that is grown by a unique glancing angle deposition technique. The surface, mechanical, and electrical properties of PDMS are significantly changed after embedding the AgNRs in it. The results show that surface roughness and polarity increase after AgNRs are embedded in the PDMS matrix. Elastic modulus (E) and hardness (H) decrease with an increase in the indentation load as a result of the indentation depth effect. Due to strong interfacial adhesion of AgNRs embedded in the PDMS matrix, the E and H of nanocomposite are increased by 167.6 and 93.3% compared with PDMS film, respectively. Furthermore, the AgNRs-PDMS film has an electrical resistivity value in the order of 10⁻⁷ Ωm. It remains conductive during various mechanical strains such as bending, twisting, and stretching, which is demonstrated using a light-emitting diode circuit. Simultaneously, the antimicrobial activity of silver could make it a promising candidate for wearable electronics.     

Effect of gum arabic concentration and inlet temperature during spray drying on physical and antioxidant properties of honey powder

The research studied the effect of gum arabic concentration at 35, 40 and 45 % with inlet temperatures of 160, 170 and 180 °C on the physico-chemical, functional and thermal properties of honey powder enriched with aonla (Emblica officinalis. Gaertn) and basil (Ocimum sanctum) extract, wherein other parameters like concentration of aonla extract (8 %), basil extract (6 %) and feed rate (0.11 mL/s) were kept as constant. Powder recovery and glass transition temperature (T_g) showed significant increase with the increase in inlet temperatures. On the other hand hygroscopicity, tapped density, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity and vitamin C content showed inverse response to the increase in inlet temperatures. However powder recovery, T_g, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity and vitamin C content increased with the increase in concentration of gum arabic. On the basis of obtained results it can be concluded that honey powder with the concentration of 45 % gum arabic at 170 °C inlet temperature was found to be less hygroscopic with better powder recovery and overwhelming antioxidant properties.     

Optimisation of process parameters to develop nutritionally rich spray‐dried honey powder with vitamin C content and antioxidant properties

The aim of present research was to optimise the conditions to develop nutritionally rich honey powder using honey, whey protein concentrate (WPC), aonla (Emblica officinalis. Gaertn) and basil (Ocimum sanctum) extract with the help of co‐current spray drier. Response surface methodology was applied to study the effects of inlet temperature (160–180 °C), whey protein concentrate (25–35%), feed flow rate (0.08–0.13 mL s^?1), aonla extract (6–8%) and basil extract (6–8%) on product responses, viz. bulk density, hygroscopicity, antioxidant activity (AOA), total phenolic content (TPC) and vitamin C. Statistical analysis revealed that independent variables significantly affected all the responses. The results demonstrated that increasing inlet temperature lowered the bulk density, hygroscopicity, AOA, TPC and vitamin C, whereas addition of aonla extract and basil extract increased the AOA (82.73%), TPC (63.27%) and total vitamin C content (94.89%) as these functional compounds were encapsulated by WPC. Similarly, with increase in feed flow rate and WPC, there was increase and decrease in the bulk density and hygroscopicity, respectively. The recommended optimum spray‐drying conditions were inlet air temperature (170 °C), feed rate (0.11 mL s^?1), whey protein concentrate (35%), aonla (8%) and basil extract (6%).     

Luminescence studies on Eu<Superscript>2+</Superscript> and Tb<Superscript>3+</Superscript> doped Ca<Subscript>2</Subscript>MgSi<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>7</Subscript> phosphors

Eu²⁺ and Tb³⁺ doped Ca₂MgSi₂O₇ phosphors were synthesized by conventional solid-state reaction. The phase formation was confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction technique and refined lattice parameters were calculated by rietveld refinement process using Celref v3. The photoluminescence (PL) excitation and emission spectra were investigated. The phosphors exhibited broaden green emitting luminescence peaking at 520 nm when excited at 374 nm source. Morphological studies were carried out using Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the sample with optimum PL emission. The dependence of photoluminescence intensity on co-dopant concentration and the kinetic parameters were also reported. Time resolved fluorescence spectroscopy (TRFS) is used to investigate the decay in luminescence signals with respect to time. The sample proved to be a good long lasting material, which makes it useful in emergency signs, textile printing, textile exit sign boards and electronic instrument dial pads etc.     

Can the liver with Gilbert's syndrome be used as graft of living-related liver transplantation?

Gilbert's syndrome is the common cause of non hemolytic unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia with a prevalance of 3-7%. Gilbert's syndrome may introduce a selection of potential liver donors from brain death patients. We present a case of living-related liver transplantation (LRLT) from a donor with Gilbert's syndrome. A 22-year-old woman had been diagnosed as having liver cirrhosis at the age of 5. She underwent liver transplantation with the donor's left lobe as the graft. The donor, who was the father of the patient, had been diagnosed with Gilbert's syndrome. Although the recipient was well until 11 months after surgery, she died of subacute fulminant hepatitis 16 months after surgery. However, it was clear that the liver with Gilbert's syndrome could be used as a graft of living-related liver transplantation for adult recipients.