bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Preparation of Silver Nanoparticles Dispersed in Almond Oil Using Laser Ablation Technique
Authors: Onsi Romany , Easawi Khaled , Abdallah Said , Negm Sohair , Talaat Hassan
Published: March 2020

Nanoparticle production by pulsed laser ablation (PLA) is a process that can generate pure nanoparticles (NPs) straight from a varied range of bulk substances and compounds. Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) are probably one of the most attractive noble metal nanostructures because of their unique and interesting physical and chemical properties. In this study, laser ablation of pure silver plate immersed in almond oil was carried out for Ag NPs production. Nd: Yag laser of wavelength 1064 nm, was used for the ablation of the Ag plate at different laser energies and ablation times. The almond oil permitted the formation of Ag NPs with a stable and homogeneity particle diameter in a reasonable time. The size distribution of the NPs was examined by High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM). The particle sizes of the produced Ag NPs at laser energy 200 mJ in the solution at 10,15 and 20-min ablation times were 4.82, 3.11 and 1.82 nm respectively. The particle sizes of Ag NPs produced at different laser energies 150,200 and 250 mJ and at ablation time 10 min inside the solution were 5.39,4.82 and 1.92 nm respectively. The absorption peaks of the produced nanoparticles have been characterized using a UV-Vis spectrophotometer.
Effect of CdS quantum dots size on Thermal and photovoltaic parameters of quantum dots sensitized solar cells
Authors: Khalid A. , Easawi K , Abdallah S. , El-Shaarawy M.G. , Negm S. , Talaat H.
Published: March 2020

The effect size of CdS Quantum Dots (QDs) on thermal and photovoltaic parameters is investigated. CdS QDs were adsorbed onto TiO2 electrodes using successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) to act as sensitizers of quantum dots solar cells (QDSSCs). The CdS QDs sizes are estimated using optical absorption spectra and application of effective mass approximation model (EMA) as well as high resolution transmission microscopes (HRTEM). The ratio of TiO2/CdS was confirmed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Thermal parameters (thermal diffusivity α, thermal effusivity e and thermal conductivity k are measured by using Photoacoustic (PA) Technique. The photovoltaic parameters (open circuit voltage Voc, short circuit current density Jsc, fill factor FF and efficiency η) of the assembled CdS QDs sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) were determined under a solar illumination of 100 mW/cm2 (AM 1.5 conditions. Our results show that both the effective thermal conductivity keff and efficiency η of CdS QDs deposited on TiO2 increase as the size of CdS QDs is increased.
Producing High Workable & High Strength Concrete Mix Having 6 Hour Retardation
Authors: Elrazek Mostafa Abd , Shafy Gamal Yasser Abdel
Published: March 2020

The goal of this study is to work out different experiments for retarding concrete setting time, which needed to reach slump 15 cm after six hours from mixing of concrete having grade C700. Six hours comprise 1.5 hour for transporting and 4.5 hours needed for constructability method, this long time for casting concrete is owing to a long transporting time of the concrete from the plant to the site and also the time needing for casting the concrete by using the slide form of high ring concrete wall, for these reasons there are needs to retard the concrete setting time with increasing the workability for concrete, using super-plasticizers is one of the best methods to improve the properties of the concrete, from fundamental experimental investigations on retardation, setting time and the concrete mixture with high strength of 626 kg / cm2 after 7days and 755kg / cm2 after 28 days can be achievable by using super-plasticizers
Application of FSS for Microstrip Antenna for Gain Enhancement
Authors: Zaid F.N.M. , Azemi S.N. , Rashidi C.B.M.
Published: March 2020

In this present paper, a dual-band microstrip patch antenna (MPA) using frequency selective surface (FSS) is proposed. The dual-band MPA is designed using the rectangular shaped patch with an elliptical slot at the center of the patch and full ground plane. The FSS in this paper act as a reflection plane which is loaded onto the dual-band MPA in order to improve the gain of the antenna at higher band. The FSS is obtained by the periodic array of 3 × 5-unit cell in the x-y direction, which based on the amalgamation of a square and circular loop elements. After merging the FSS, the gain and return loss at 5 GHz increased to 0.915 dB and -25.08 dB respectively. The dual-band MPA is simulated using the FR-4 substrate with a thickness of 1.6 mm and a relative permittivity of 4.4. The overall size of the MPA and FSS is relatively compact and easy to fabricate. The proposed antenna can be used in WiMAX and WLAN applications.
Defected Ground Plane of Wearable Circular Patch Antenna
Authors: Ali A , Azemi S N , Jusoh M , Sabapathy T
Published: March 2020

In this paper, Circular patch antenna design with defected ground plane is designed. The antenna is designed with circular patch and defected ground plane to allow it to operate in lower frequency as well as improved the antenna gain. The antenna has a feeding port and two defected ground slots to affect the frequency of the antenna. The proposed antenna is designed and simulated using Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Studio Suite 2016. The designed antenna has an operating frequency of 2.42GHz. A prototype has been fabricated and tested using network analyser and the measured results are in a good agreement with simulations.
Simulation of differential relay for transformer protection
Authors: Azizan N S , Wooi C L , Ismail B , Arshad S N M , Isa M , Mustafa W A , Rohani MNK
Published: March 2020

In electric power system, transformers are an important element and their protection are critical. As the transformer might be damaged during a fault, faster and more selective protection was required. For this purpose, the design of differential protection was utilized. In this study, the differential relay simulation has been successfully done using MATLAB/Simulink. The essential approach is to protect the power transformer against internal faults and avoid interference in the power system. The evaluation has been accomplished at different fault conditions. Several types of faults including double line-to-ground, single line-to-ground and line-to-line faults are studied. Simulation studies were performed and the relays performance with different system parameters and conditions were investigated. The obtained results illustrated for the differential relay represents an appropriate action.
Development of U-Shape Slot Wearable Antenna for In-Body Communications
Authors: Kamaruddin N A , Azemi S N , Ibrahim S Z , Mrashidi C B
Published: March 2020

The ability to have a communication with devices implanted inside a human body will cause a great improvement in current wireless medical applications technology. Wireless Capsule Endoscopy (WCE) is a medical device that could send images from inside of human’s intestines to the sensor outside the body. However, this device has few disadvantages like its location cannot be detected once it entered the body and it also cannot be control from outside the body. Considering these factors, an antenna that has the ability to penetrate into human body tissues for in-body communication is proposed. UWB system has considered as the solution for future in-body communication devices since current standard does not allow high data rate wireless connections between implanted nodes. Low part of UWB frequency band which is 3.1 GHz to 5.0 GHz is used in this research in order to reduce the attenuation through the body tissues as the frequency increase. The design of this antenna has taken in consideration of the propagation medium which is the human body tissues. Simulation for the designed antenna was done in CST Software. The size of this antenna is designed to be compact and wearable on human body. The substrate used for this antenna is cotton to ensure comfort once it is placed on the human body. The results that are considered in this research are the S11, directivity and gain of the antenna. Both simulation results and measured results are compared to evaluate the ability of this antenna.
A Review of Oil Palm Fruit Ripeness Monitoring Using Microwave Techniques in Malaysia
Authors: You K Y , Wee F H , Lee Y S , Abbas Z , Lee K Y , Cheng E M , Khe C S , Jamlos M F
Published: March 2020

Palm oil products are one of the most important sources of economic and export products in Malaysia. Furthermore, now, the evolution of industry 4.0 has begun to take place globally. The development of sensors has played a role in this evolution. In this paper, various microwave sensors used in oil palm monitoring are reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of each microwave sensor are discussed in detail. However, conventional and optical monitoring methods are also briefly described.
The Growth Morphology and Yield of Grey Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus sajor-caju) Subjected to Different Durations of Acoustic Sound Treatment
Authors: Hasnoel Mazidi Mazlin Nur Iman Binti , Ibrahim Roshita , Yaacob Noorulnajwa Diyana
Published: March 2020

Pleurotus sajor-caju (grey oyster mushroom) is a typical edible fleshy fungi. It has fruiting bodies shape like an oyster that contain high nutrient such as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals and multivitamins. Due to its high nutritional values, the demand of grey oyster mushrooms keeps increasing. In this study, the effect of different durations and intervals of acoustic sound treatment on growth morphology, yield enhancement and the quality of the mushroom were studied. Using sound of fire cracker at constant intensity of 75 dB, four different acoustic sound treatments had been applied on the mushroom bags which were 5 pops at 5-day interval, 15 pops at 5-day interval, 5 pops at 10-day interval and 15 pops at 10-day interval and mushroom bags without any sound treatment acted as control. The results showed that the controls had longer time for mycellium to fill-up the bags compared to sound treated bags. Besides, controls also showed lower yield in terms of number of fruiting bodies and biological efficiencies (%) compared to all acoustic sound treated bags. However, 15 pops at 10-day interval had the shortest time taken to complete all the growth stages (mycellium growth, emergence of pinhead and formation of fruiting bodies). For colour of the mushroom, there were significant differences (P<0.05) in L* values for 15 pops at 5-day interval and no significant different (P>0.05) was observed for a* (redness) and b* (yellowness) values. Controls had the highest firmness value compared to mushroom with sound treatment. In summary, 15 pops at 10-day interval was the best treatment duration and interval as it took the shortest time for different growth stages with the greatest yield of mushrooms.
Full Reference Image Quality Assessment Algorithm based on Haar Wavelet and Edge Perceptual Similarity
Authors: Mokhtar F , Ngadiran R
Published: March 2020

The research on image quality assessment (IQA) has been become a hot topic in image processing. Many studies show that HVS edge information plays crucial role when human perceive the quality of an image. The proposed metric is called HEPSI. The method from HaarPSI metric is combined with edge structural similarity and a contrast map is added for pooling the structural similarity map, Validation is taken by comparing HEPSI with the well-known state-of-the-art IQA metrics: PSNR, SSIM, MSSIM, FSIM and HaarPSI over the LIVE database. Experiment shows that HEPSI achieved better performance than other 5 IQA metrics.
Designing One Degree of Freedom Nursing Robot for Stroke Rehabilitation
Authors: Mohd Noor Nurul Muthmainnah , Suhaimi Muhammad Haziq
Published: March 2020

Rehabilitation training is a method of post-treatment for physically injured part of body especially the stroke patients. The training task such as massage and repetition exercises are needed to help them to have a normal life as before by a physiotherapist. The physiotherapist or physical therapy is a person who has experienced to treat disease or injury by physical methods. Therefore, a main objective of this paper is to develop a nursing-care robot system that can assist the stroke patient in doing daily activities. A one-degree of freedom nursing robot was designed based on the right-hand bicep using CATIA software. This robot was associated with the electromyography (EMG) sensors in order to collect the data from the muscle contractions. Meanwhile the EMG sensor is a muscle sensor that detect an electrical potential between the two-contraction flexion or extension muscle using the polymer Ag/AgCl coated electrodes. Then, the data from the muscle was sent to the Arduino microcontroller to control the servo motor. The different angle of servo motor can give the direction of movement of the nursing-care robot. The nursing robot was activated by electrical potential from the contraction of the muscle. The value of servo angle from 0 to 100 degrees angle made the robot will move up and down. The movement of robot in up and down direction is likely same as the therapist assistance doing to their patient. The size of robot is about 600 mm × 100 mm length and width and then was fabricated using 3D printer with one degree of freedom (DOF). The limitation of this project is focusing only the hand right hand bicep brachii muscle physiotherapy exercise.
Effect of RTV coating on the electrical performance of porcelain insulator string under dry condition
Authors: Othman M , Isa M , Kasa Z C M , Mazlee M N , Piah M A M
Published: March 2020

Pollution flashover is one of the primary reasons cause to power system failure in Malaysia. The presence of accumulation on the porcelain insulator surface reduces the electrical performance and also causes the failure of insulation in transmission and distribution lines. This research presents a study on the effect of Room Temperature Vulcanize (RTV) coating on the performances of a string porcelain insulator and their impact on environmental contamination. An attempt has been made to simulate the electric field distribution of 33 kV insulators using the finite element method (FEM). From the simulation results, the maximum electric field distribution is obtained at the pin insulator of a clean insulator, while the cap insulator indicated the minimum electric field. With the existence of the contamination layer, the electric field distribution of the porcelain surface results in a reduction trend.
Digital photonics parity bit error detection system
Authors: Uddin M. Rakib , Law F. K.
Published: March 2020

The optical communication medium is emerging to be one of the potential replacements to the current electronic systems widely used today. This is due to its much higher data transmission with extremely low loss properties, not to mention that it is almost invulnerable to electromagnetic interference. In this paper we demonstrated our proposed design of a digital photonic parity bit error detection system, one of the fundamental digital electronic circuits used during long-range digital signal transmission. Silicon photonic micro-ring resonators are used as its core component, where each of the rings operates as a digital logic XOR mode, by taking advantage of the resonance shifting properties of the silicon waveguide. Dynamic response characterization has been carried out by simulating the proposed circuits at the data rate of 1Gbps, with the data sampling rate of 1.6THz, and clear timing waveform was generated to show that the proposed circuit operates as the parity bit error detection system.
Characterizations of Cascaded Micro-ring Resonators
Authors: Uddin M Rakib , Yazid M , Law F K , Rashidi C B M
Published: March 2020

The effects of cascading the ring resonator to form wavelength filters is a major focus of this paper, the results tested between the two methods of cascading the rings are the trends between the two types of cascaded rings for the ON-OFF ratio where the serially cascaded method was found to make better filters, -3dB bandwidth which is the width of the pass-band of through-port and drop-port where both the two cascading methods have the same effect as the numbers of rings increases. The delay times of the output for use in telecommunication are also simulated illustrating that only the parallel cascaded method provides this property.
Beam Steering Monopole Antenna for Low Power Wireless Communication in WSN
Authors: Mahdir N A F , Osman M N , Sabapathy T , Jusoh M , Zainudin N A F M
Published: March 2020

Antenna for wireless sensor networks (WSN) application need to satisfy a number of additional properties like antenna efficiency. Since there are many WSN nodes, the use of low cost and high efficient antenna is highly important. Therefore, in this paper, a beam steering antenna resonate at 2.4 GHz with monopole element by using parasitic array technique is proposed. The parasitic array element is introduced to achieve a better gain and acts as a reflector to steer the beam to the desired degree of angles. The structure of the proposed design consists of monopole antenna as the radiating element, and to parasitic patches with the same dimension of monopole are placed next to the radiating patch. Two switches (PIN diode) are used and embedded at the back of the structure. By activating and deactivating of the switches (ON or OFF), the parasitic is either grounded or disconnected from ground. Consequently, depending on the switches configuration, the beam pattern can be steered two direction angles which ±25° left or right. The simulated and measured results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed antenna.
Implementation of Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithms to Tackle the PAPR Problem of OFDM System
Authors: Abdalmunam A , Anuar MS , Junta MN , Nawawi NM , Noori A
Published: March 2020

A multi-carrier modulation technique, which represented in this paper as orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM), ensured wireless high-speed data transmission. The transmission of modulated symbols uses a large number of subcarriers in the OFDM system. Consequently, the OFDM signals have an extended dynamic range, or a high output power peak envelope fluctuation or high PAPR. To mitigate the PAPR, in this paper, we implement two algorithms to reduce the output power envelope fluctuation of the OFDM system, namely PSO and GA. Also, the PTS method and PAPR in OFDM systems difficulty described briefly. We present an OFDM system through the use of conventional PTS based on PSO and GA. The simulation result shows that both evolutionary approaches outperform the conventional PTS OFDM in-terms of reducing the Peak-to-Average-Power-Ratio (PAPR). Furthermore, the performance of the PSO algorithm is found to be better than GA in-terms of its simplicity and the time execution. On the other hand, the GA algorithm outperforms the PSO and the conventional OFDM, in terms of the PAPR reduction.
A Mini-Review of Coupled Convection-Diffusion Equations in a Fixed-Bed Adsorption
Authors: Supian Nurhusnina Mohd , Halif Norzilah Abdul , Rusli Nursalasawati
Published: March 2020

Environmental contamination triggered by dyes has gained global attention. Industrial effluent of dye in high concentration into the rivers must be reduced to minimise the harmful effect on the quality of water that threatens human health. The removal of dye from wastewater is a significant step in addressing the problem of dye emission which can be achieved through adsorption separation technologies. In the most adsorption process, the adsorbent is in contact with fluid in a fixed bed. The performance of adsorptive separation of dye can be predicted through a fixed bed mathematical model which consists of coupled partial differential equations for optimizing the design and operating conditions. This paper presents a mini-review of mathematical modelling of fixed-bed adsorption of dye. The discussions are limited to the used of single component-dye separation in, convection-diffusion equations coupled with Langmuir isotherm. Besides, the numerical methods used for solving the convection-diffusion equations are also discussed in this paper.
Design of C-band Low-noise Amplifier (LNA) Using E-pHEMT Device for Satellite Communication System
Authors: Kamsaini F , Razalli M S , Ibrahim S Z , Ilyas M Z
Published: March 2020

A low-noise amplifier (LNA) plays an indispensable role in a communication system for amplification purposes at the transceiver. LNA design in radio frequency (RF) circuits involve various key attributes, namely noise figure (NF), gain, and power consumption. This paper focuses on the design of a C-band LNA for satellite communication system with a centre frequency of 6 GHz using ATF-55143 enhancement-mode pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistor (E-pHEMT) technology. The LNA performance is augmented by adding inductors to the drain and gate of the ATF-55143 transistor. Smith chart impedance matching technique is implemented to foster a more precise matching for input and output of the LNA. In this work, the C-band LNA is biased at VDS of 2.7 V and IDS of 10 mA. Electromagnetic (EM) software is used to design and simulate the performance of the LNA circuit layout. Simulation results indicate NF of 2.66 dB and power gain (S21) of 12.29 dB. The LNA consumes 27 mW from a 3 V DC supply.
Design and Development of GreedLea Routing Protocol for Internet of Vehicle (IoV)
Authors: Omar Normaliza , Yaakob Naimah , Husin Zulkifli , Elshaikh Mohamed
Published: March 2020

In Internet of Vehicle (IoV), each vehicle uses a routing protocol to find a path for sending its messages to the last destination. Nowadays, the studies of IoV routing protocols and their impact on the performances of network with different network scenarios has significantly developed a precise understanding of the requirements and goals for designing an IoV routing protocol. In IoV, topology of network diverse promptly which leads to the fragmentation of network, frequent route breakage, and packet loss. This paper discusses on the development of an integrated routing protocol for IoV scenario. Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing (GPSR) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) is integrate to determine a route based on demand. Then, the mobility model has been designed to reduce road collision. Lastly, traffic management also been focused to deal with the loss, mobility and network delay to meet the application demands.
Optimizing Speedup on Multicore Platform with OpenMP Schedule Clause and Chunk Size
Authors: Khalib Z I Abdul , Ng H Q , Elshaikh M , Othman M N
Published: March 2020

Despite the description of schedule type which can be easily found at any OpenMP reference material, little is known about the effect of different schedule type and chunk size on the parallel performance of shared memory multicore processor. Literature shows that performance analysis on different multicore platform overlooked the effect of different schedule type and chunk size, where often it was not explicitly specified. Hence, default assignment of the loop iterations among threads is assumed. By default, static schedule is used and size of chunk which is the ratio of total number of iteration to the number of threads is implemented. This research analyses the effect of different schedule type and chunk size on speedup achieved of different shared memory multicore platform under regular workload. Apart from that, the performance gain obtained after turning on/off certain multicore technologies and after turning on/off selected number of active cores per processor is also analysed. Results shows that different multicore technology exhibit different speedup value under different combination of schedule type and chunk size. Apart from that, it also observe that different multicore platform is better than the other in terms of speedup as the number of cores are increased.
Critical Review: Adaptive Pole Assignment PID Controller on DC-DC Converters
Authors: Husna A W N , Mat M H , Yasin M N M , Jusoh M , Irwan Y M , Rahim M S Abdul , Esa S Md
Published: March 2020

Recently, control usages of DC-DC converters have been widely investigated particularly in renewable energy; as the primary sources. Discovering the most appropriate control method to be applied in DC-DC converter topologies is the most significant interest of research and development in this field. Thus, the review is carried out in selecting a control method that capable to improve the functioning of the converters as well as reducing the effect of disturbances and load variances
Design and Implementation of Lifting Wavelet Transform Using Field Programmable Gate Arrays
Authors: Taha T B , Ngadiran R , Ehkan P L
Published: March 2020

Lifting Wavelet transform (LWT) has an extensive usage in different image processing applications as image compression and information hiding. LWT is considered a good solution for hardware designs as it relies only on integer calculations while applying the wavelet transform. In this paper, an FPGA design and implementation of LWT is presented, the implementation is achieved using VHDL coding without importing off-shelf components which make the proposed design applicable to a wide range of devices. The design is based on parallel execution to perform LWT implementation with real time response. The design utilized 421 logic registers of DE2 Cyclone II (EP2C35F672C6) FPGA device with 151.91MHz frequency.
Performance improvement of multi access OCDMA system based on a new zero cross correlation code
Authors: Alayedi M , Cherifi A , Hamida A F , Rashidi C B M , Bouazza B S
Published: March 2020

In this paper, a novel zero cross correlation (ZCC) code is proposed for spectral amplitude coding-optical code division multiple access (SAC-OCDMA) systems. The code construction method starts from the identity matrix and has several benefits summarized in both the code simplicity and flexibility. The proposed code presents also an adapted (or accepted) code length for SAC-OCDMA systems and a high SNR value that reaches respectively 3.18 and 1.84 times of the system capacity comparing to other existed codes such as modified quadratic congruence (MQC) and modified double weight (MDW) codes.
Potential of developing an energy self-sufficient village through mini hydro powerplant technology
Authors: Aminullah B , Wirawan R
Published: March 2020

Nowadays, electricity is one of the most important need for the human life. However, in developing countries, there are some areas that are not fully covered by the electrical power. The high cost of distribution is one of the reasons behind the problem. More efforts are needed to distribute the electricity to a remote area, such as a far mountainous region. On the other hand, there is a potential to provide electrical power from a river through the development of mini-hydro powerplant technology. In this study, potential of water power in a mountainous region of West Java Province, Indonesia, is measured. The measurements were taken in three different places of river, divided by the distance from a waterfall. As a result, it is found that the potential power obtained from the rivers are ranged between 17-137 kW, which is enough for lighting up 37-304 houses, indicating there is a potential of developing an energy-sufficient village through mini-hydro powerplant technology.
Pilot spacing controller in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems
Authors: Hassan M S Abu , Ahmad R B , Shoib N
Published: March 2020

As the backbone of the fifth generation, 5G communications, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, OFDM is seen to be reliable in addressing Inter-symbol Interference, ISI issues as well as providing high-speed access to broadband. Channel estimation and tracking are generally carried out by transmitting known pilot symbols in given positions of the frequency-time grid. However, the use of a fixed amount of pilot for all channel circumstances is hugely detrimental. Several methods, especially on block-type and comb-type pilot arrangement, have presented. In this paper, the method of determining the pilot space depends on the current channel quality. The proposed technique focused on improving estimation and bandwidth in time-varying and frequency-selective fading channels without increasing the complexity and sacrifice the bandwidth efficiency of the OFDM system.
Development of a synchronverter for a grid connected photovoltaic system
Authors: Liaw M J Y , Sarimuthu C R
Published: March 2020

As global population has grown exponentially since the past decade, the demand for a sustainable framework for cleaner, greener and stable energy production is becoming more important for a holistic society. Among multiple renewable energy sources, solar power is highly favoured to dominate the market due to improvements in solar energy conversion efficiency and reduction in production cost. Thus, many transmission grids will observe a high penetration of inverters as an interface between solar panels and the AC transmission grid. Consequently, inverter-dominated transmission grid will face issues with maintaining and achieving overall grid stability due to the characteristics of inverters which are composed of mainly solid state devices (SCR, MOSFETS or IGBTs). This is due mainly to the lack of rotational inertia, which is typically contributed and maintained by traditional synchronous generators when the stability of the transmission grid is disturbed. For this reason, conventional inverters can potentially be exploited to mimic the characteristics of synchronous generators to stabilize the transmission grid. Thus, this project is motivated to design a ‘smart’ inverter or synchronverter which can operate on islanded mode while integrated with solar panels. This project focuses on developing and prototyping a working three-phase inverter model using a Raspberry Pi microcontroller with Simulink support. Bipolar Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) technique is used to create the sinusoidal output waveform with a fixed frequency of 50Hz. The output waveform will also have a Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of less than 5%. A Proportional-Integral (PI) controller is also implemented to ensure that amplitude and frequency of output sinusoidal remains constant. In this work, simulation of a three-phase inverter is done using Simulink (MATLAB) to validate the performance of the inverter (hardware prototype). The developed hardware prototype is experimentally tested by integrating with 1000W solar panels.
A cloud-based automated parking system for smart campus
Authors: Yee O C , Yaakob N , Elshaikh M , Azahar F
Published: March 2020

Finding a vacant parking space is becoming a real problem especially in areas with limited parking spots such as airports, shopping centres, offices, as well as universities. Searching for available parking slots is normally time consuming and always results in frustration especially when time is the major constraints. Moreover, vacant parking is hard to be noticed due to unsystematic parking system. This will result in longer searching time which can also lead to traffic congestion. In addition, lack of security enforcement on cars entering universities campus is also one of the main issues contributing to insufficient parking spaces. This might cause some unauthorized cars to take opportunity to get inside the campus without any approval and consent from security department. Therefore, A Cloud-based Automated Parking System for Smart Campus is developed in this project. It consists of a sub-system that is developed to display availability number of parking slots so that it will assist authorize users to easily find their parking spots. The proposed system can also recognize car plate number through Automated Car Plate Recognition (ACPR) mechanism which is located at the campus main entrance gate to avoid unauthorized cars from getting in. This has strengthened security level inside campus and ensure the safety of students and staffs. All the information collected are sent into the cloud and stored inside a database system. The information regarding vacant parking can also be displayed using the developed mobile apps.
Development of system identification from traditional concepts to real-time soft computing based
Authors: Kwad A M , Hanafi D , Omar R , Rahman H Abdul
Published: March 2020

Advancement in computer and data acquisition technology gave the system identification a push forward, especially in the speed of the process and parallel calculation techniques. This article reviews the progress of system identification methods and techniques from traditional to modern methods and from offline to fast on-line analysis through previous years till these days. It takes into account part of artificial intelligence techniques (soft computing techniques), primarily artificial neural networks methods, for off-line system data analysis and real-time system identification, including the linear and non-linear issues. This study will provide a very concise survey for researchers about the development of system identification, its implementations, and techniques that have been used.
Implementation of Li-Fi based home automation system
Authors: Ismail S , Ahmad N , Arshad I D
Published: March 2020

This paper presents an Implementation of Li-Fi based home automation system prototype. This system was develop to verify the effect of LED types on VLC transmission. LED is used to transmit the input data information to the receiver LDR through visible light communication (VLC). Arduino microcontroller was used to retrieve information from the temperature sensor, light sensor, PIR sensor and MQ2 gas sensor. The output data of sensors were sent to LDR by LED. The result demonstrates that the colour types of LED has an effect on transmission distance and the voltage of LED is proportional to the distance. Red LED has better performance compared to others.
Plastic optical fibre power splitter for surface profiling of 3-D object
Authors: Mohamed-Kassim N Syafiqah , Abd-Rahman M Kamil
Published: March 2020

Single-mode fibre has established the intensity-based surface profiling application with the notable results such as surface topography of ancient stones and three-dimensional rigid-body shapes. However, cost and experimental handling has been the most common issue for single mode fibre related-applications. Thus, plastic optical fibre (POF) has become an alternative for surface structure monitoring due to its highly-multimode and larger cross-sectional area. Millions of light rays can be gathered and enhanced the light detection, aside from lower installation cost and offer easier handling of the fibre system. In this work, the operating principle and experimentation of the surface profiler on a reflective 3-D object is presented. The measurement of the profiler was investigated via a 0.7 dB low excess-loss, non-branching POF Y-shape power splitting coupler. The variation in light intensity reflected from the target surface provides details on the change in depth and thickness of the target. The 1-mm diameter POF end-facet provides excellent probing tip in measuring the diameter of 3-mm reflective spherical surface with good accuracy.
LaundryMama: Humanising Laundry Tasks using Laundry Management System and Laundry-On-Demand Mobile Applications
Authors: Mei Leong Yi , Ku Azir Ku Nurul Fazira , Ibrahim Siti Zuraidah , Azemi Saidatul Norlyana
Published: March 2020

Laundry Management System and Laundry-On-Demand Mobile Applications are presented in this paper. Using conventional laundry service method, customer is not informed about the laundry process stage, does not have option to arrange the preferred laundry pick up time for the deliveryman to pick up the unwashed laundry from the address provided by customer and the laundry ordering paper forms are often lost in transit between customer and admin. Therefore, a laundry management system software and laundry on demand mobile application is demanded to solve the problems. The software development is performed using an open source developing platform Android Studio IDE and Firebase Real-time Database, Authentication, Cloud Messaging and Cloud Storage. The method used to develop the software is waterfall modelling and two characters are involved, which is admin and customer. The two characters functions are separated in two different applications. A Laundry Management System Software is developed for admin to manage, make order and monitor the business. A Laundry-On-Demand Mobile Application is developed for customer to make order and monitor the order. These both applications can receive notification from each other. The data can be correctly written and read from Firebase Real-time database, Firebase Authentication, Firebase Cloud Storage. The developed software and mobile application are evaluated in term of its functionality.
Hybrid Animation: Implementation of Motion Capture
Authors: Hazry Asraf Syed Muhammad , Abdullasim Nazreen , Romli Rusnida
Published: March 2020

In the 21st century, much progress has been made following the industrial revolution 4.0. Therefore, the field of animation has also been injected into technological advances. The transmission of information is difficult to convey accurately and interactively to users. In providing users with more exposure and convenience in a more attractive and convenient way. Therefore, animation and motion capture are the best options for use today. As a result, the results of this project can have a huge impact on the animation industry in making video or animation more interesting.
A Proposal of Low Cost Home Automation System Using IoT and Voice Recognition
Authors: Ehkan Phaklen , Keraf Nui Din , Kelian Virakwan Hai , Zakaria Fazrul Faiz , Bei Sin Zhen
Published: March 2020

Home Automation System is becoming more popular day by day due to its numerous benefits. This project proposes an idea in the design of low cost home automation system by using the Internet of Things (IoT) and voice recognition. The layout of the home divided into four areas and each area has own function and system. The Raspberry Pi 3 (RPi) Model B+ used as the main controller for the processing and transmitting the input data. IoT provided huge storage for data collection from sensors and home appliances. An Android application is developed to monitor the home environment and remotely control the home devices by using the button or voice. The speaker-independent recognition system by using Google Voice to Text on Android embedded in this project for physically challenged people to control the electrical appliances without moving. All the data will be stored in Firebase and can be retrieved at any time by the application and the RPi board. There is a side view of a prototype model with two floors and divided into four home areas. This Low-Cost Home Automation System using IoT and Voice Recognition is successfully achieved the project’s objective.
Textile Bowtie Patch Antenna for Potential RF Energy Harvesting Application at GSM 1800
Authors: Saaid N M , Soh P J , Baharuddin S A , Said H M A , Abdi M K , Hirey A Hassan , Mansor M F Che
Published: March 2020

This paper presents the design and development of a textile bowtie patch antenna for potential RF energy harvesting application using the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM 1800) band. The size of the antenna is 80 mm × 40 mm, and is designed on a 6 mm thick Felt textile as the substrate and 0.08 mm-thick ShieldIt as its conducting material. The simulated and measured reflection coefficients justified that the bowtie antenna can be used for RF energy harvesting application at 1.8 GHz. This antenna has realized gain ranging from 2.56 dB to 2.55 dB and a total antenna efficiency of -4.3 dB.
Estimation of Harumanis (Mangifera indica L.) Sweetness using Near-Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy
Authors: Amirul M S , Endut R , Rashidi C B M , Aljunid S A , Ali N , Laili M H , Laili A R , Ismail M N M
Published: March 2020

Harumanis mango quality demanded by consumers is depending on the sweetness level of the fruit. The sweetness is evaluated by brix percentage using refractometer as a representative factor correlated with near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy spectral absorbance. NIR spectroscopy method of sampling have been tested to overcome the time consuming, complex chemical analysis more importantly invasive sampling methods in order to determine the sugar content in mangoes. Spectral absorbance data from range 941 nm to 1685 nm of mango skin is correlated with Brix reading then tested through five pre-processing techniques. Data calibration and prediction of both data is evaluated using Partial Least Square Regression (PLSR) model. In the final analysis, Unit vector normalization (UVN) technique has achieved as a best pre-processing technique for predicting results, with the coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.9836 and root mean square error (RMSE) values of 0.3131. Overall, the correlation of NIRS absorbance data and Brix data can be obtained using PLSR model with UVN pre-processing technique. Henceforth, we can conclude that the NIRS method of sampling can be used to identify sugar content in Harumanis mango by using time saving, non-invasive and less laborious method of sampling.
CRiSP: accurate structure prediction of disulfide-rich peptides with cystine-specific sequence alignment and machine learning
Authors: Liu Zi-Lin , Hu Jing-Hao , Jiang Fan , Wu Yun-Dong
Published: March 2020

Motivation

High-throughput sequencing discovers many naturally occurring disulfide-rich peptides or cystine-rich peptides (CRPs) with diversified bioactivities. However, their structure information, which is very important to peptide drug discovery, is still very limited.

Results

We have developed a CRP-specific structure prediction method called Cystine-Rich peptide Structure Prediction (CRiSP), based on a customized template database with cystine-specific sequence alignment and three machine-learning predictors. The modeling accuracy is significantly better than several popular general-purpose structure modeling methods, and our CRiSP can provide useful model quality estimations.

Availability and implementation

The CRiSP server is freely available on the website at http://wulab.com.cn/CRISP.

Contact

wuyd@pkusz.edu.cn or jiangfan@pku.edu.cn

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
A modified scar model with controlled tension on secondary wound healing in mice
Authors: Wang Zi , Huang Xin , Zan Tao , Li Qingfeng , Li Haizhou
Published: March 2020

Pathological scars might cause a distorted appearance and restricted mobility, and the study of scar pathophysiology has been hindered by the absence of a reliable model. In this study, we introduce a model with a modified device to induce controlled tension on a wound healing by secondary intention to overcome the shortcomings of the model generated by Aarabi et al. We investigated and recommend an induction of 0.1 N/mm2 tension on day 7 for 14 days to mimic the characteristics of human scars. A 3.5-fold increase in scar tissue and a 2-fold increase in collagen production were induced by the modified model. Histologically, the modified method increased scar thickness. However, no significant difference was found in cell density between the two groups. This modified procedure significantly increased scar tissue, which could be used for further cellular and biomolecular research. The mechanical force applied to the wound became measurable and controllable. This method is more convenient for researchers to observe in real-time and for providing timely adjustments of the tension used in this modified model.
THC Exposure is Reflected in the Microstructure of the Cerebral Cortex and Amygdala of Young Adults
Authors: Cabeen Ryan P , Allman John M , Toga Arthur W
Published: March 2020

The endocannabinoid system serves a critical role in homeostatic regulation through its influence on processes underlying appetite, pain, reward, and stress, and cannabis has long been used for the related modulatory effects it provides through tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). We investigated how THC exposure relates to tissue microstructure of the cerebral cortex and subcortical nuclei using computational modeling of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data in a large cohort of young adults from the Human Connectome Project. We report strong associations between biospecimen-defined THC exposure and microstructure parameters in discrete gray matter brain areas, including frontoinsular cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the lateral amygdala subfields, with independent effects in behavioral measures of memory performance, negative intrusive thinking, and paternal substance abuse. These results shed new light on the relationship between THC exposure and microstructure variation in brain areas related to salience processing, emotion regulation, and decision making. The absence of effects in some other cannabinoid-receptor-rich brain areas prompts the consideration of cellular and molecular mechanisms that we discuss. Further studies are needed to characterize the nature of these effects across the lifespan and to investigate the mechanistic neurobiological factors connecting THC exposure and microstructural parameters.
Reelin Improves Cognition and Extends the Lifespan of Mutant Ndel1 Mice with Postnatal CA1 Hippocampus Deterioration
Authors: Kiroski Ivana , Jiang Yulan , Gavrilovici Cezar , Gao Fan , Lee Sukyoung , Scantlebury Morris H , Vandal Milene , Park Sang Ki , Tsai Li-Huei , Teskey G Campbell , Rho Jong M , Nguyen Minh Dang
Published: March 2020

The glycoprotein Reelin maintains neuronal positioning and regulates neuronal plasticity in the adult brain. Reelin deficiency has been associated with neurological diseases. We recently showed that Reelin is depleted in mice with a targeted disruption of the Ndel1 gene in forebrain postnatal excitatory neurons (Ndel1 conditional knockout (CKO)). Ndel1 CKO mice exhibit fragmented microtubules in CA1 pyramidal neurons, profound deterioration of the CA1 hippocampus and a shortened lifespan (~10 weeks). Here we report that Ndel1 CKO mice (of both sexes) experience spatial learning and memory deficits that are associated with deregulation of neuronal cell adhesion, plasticity and neurotransmission genes, as assessed by genome-wide transcriptome analysis of the hippocampus. Importantly, a single injection of Reelin protein in the hippocampus of Ndel1 CKO mice improves spatial learning and memory function and this is correlated with reduced intrinsic hyperexcitability of CA1 pyramidal neurons, and normalized gene deregulation in the hippocampus. Strikingly, when treated with Reelin, Ndel1 CKO animals that die from an epileptic phenotype, live twice as long as nontreated, or vehicle-treated CKO animals. Thus, Reelin confers striking beneficial effects in the CA1 hippocampus, and at both behavioral and organismal levels.
The Immunity of Judge Akay of the MICT
Authors: HUANG Deming , SHAN Qintong
Published: March 2020

On 5 October 2016, the President of the UN Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals officially notified the United Nations Security Council of the failure of the Republic of Turkey to comply with a judicial order issued by the Mechanism which requested the authorities of Turkey to cease all legal proceedings against the MICT Judge Aydin Akay due to his immunity. This paper aims to examine issues pertinent to the immunity of an international judge arising from this situation. It also seeks to explore the conflicts behind the arrest of Judge Akay and draw some conclusions.