Sol-gel-derived coating's corrosion resistance and mechanical properties were studied a lot in the literature individually. However, there was a limitation in the studies that considered both mutually, as is common in all sol-gel hybrid coating, for instance, mechanical failures such as cracks that influence the mechanical durability of coatings as well as their corrosion resistance. Therefore, this research will study the impact of adding Fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) in silica-based sol-gel on its mechanical properties by using atomic force microscopy (AFM) nanoindentation, cross-cut adhesion, Micro-hardness and water contact angle, inline with a short investigation of corrosion resistance by using electrochemical coating testing for the new modified coatings will be discussed. The results showed that the new modified coating with Fluoroalkylsilane was more flexible and could produce mechanical and corrosion protection stability, enhancing the hydrophobicity of the new surface, which is essential within the coating industry.

Today, specialized software (called IoT platforms or, alternatively, IoT middleware) is available to build and manage IoT solutions from scratch, without having to write endless lines of code. Unfortunately, the selection of the IoT platform that best fits the requirements of the application of interest is not trivial and may take a long time. The challenge comes from the huge number of today available candidates. IoT Analytics’s latest research found 613 IoT platform companies currently operating.

The present work aims to relieve IT developers of the need to take charge of the IoT platform selection process. A Systematic Mapping Study was carried out.

The SMS was devoted to search the state-of-the-art of open source projects with the final aim of maturing an overall picture about IoT platforms ready to be used for the prototyping of IoT applications. According to the guidelines in [Kitchenham & Charters, 2007], our SMS comprised the following three main phases: Planning, Conducting and Reporting the review results. The third phase is self-explanatory, while the second one consists in the implementation of the first phase. Therefore, in the paper, we detail the Conducting phase of the SMS which has been articulated in terms of three activities: (a) definition of the study need; (b) definition of the research questions; and (c) definition of the mapping protocol. The latter, in turn, comprised six activities. Section “Materials & Methods” of the paper provides full details of the mapping protocol, too.

At the end of the SMS, ThingsBoard emerged as the most mature open source IoT platform to be used for the prototyping of IoT applications without having to be an expert programmer.

The target audience of the present paper are IT firms (in special way, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Very Small Entities) who are interested in expanding the number of their clients without being forced to allocate money to designing and developing sophisticated IoT systems before they have got a formal assignment by the potential stakeholders.

Radiation dosimetry using EPR is one of the most recent and accurate techniques which is characterized by non-destructive evaluation of the radiation-induced radicals. Alanine was considered as the reference EPR dosimeter for several applications over decades due to its consistent response and the stability of its radiation-induced radicals. Ammonium tartrate was proposed as an EPR promising dosimeter as it possesses several prominent dosimetric features.

In this work, ammonium tartrate is being investigated as a possible alternative to alanine. Studied properties included the sensitivity to different radiation doses, energy dependence, detection limit, and the stability of the induced radicals. Response to Cs-137 gamma radiation was studies over two ranges, the first range from 47 to 2500 Gy, and the second one range from 1.46 to 87.8 Gy and was compared to alanine. Uncertainties associated to the evaluated radiation doses using EPR/ ammonium tartrate dosimetry system were evaluated and presented in details.

Synchronous generator-based power stations with their inherent inertia, can maintain frequency stability during sudden load switching. While distributed generating stations driven microgrids suffer from a lack of natural inertia. Cascaded power, voltage, and current controllers are a widespread control strategy used to regulate the power output of distributed generating stations to maintain frequency and voltage within stable limits. Virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control for the power controller is used as a potential solution to emulate inertia. To derive maximum benefit from VSG, proper tuning of its multiple parameters is required. In this direction, earlier works proposed the equivalence between the droop and VSG schemes which suggested that the droop coefficient value can be directly used in the design of VSG. As an improvement to these conventional works, the proposed work in this paper identifies that VSG delivers a better response when an equalizing constant is used to adjust the droop coefficient value than using it directly. This paper proposes implementing the VSG with equalizing constant as a new design parameter. A description of designing the parameters of this improved VSG considering the equalizing constant is also discussed in this paper. The performance of the conventional VSG and the proposed improved VSG are compared. From the results, it is observed that, at load switching, the output frequency of the proposed method in all test cases has settled in less than 3sec while the conventional method took a maximum of 6sec in critical case. Further, the output frequency’s maximum peak with the proposed method is 3Hz lesser than the conventional method. These, along with other metrics, validate the importance of the proposed improved VSG-based control scheme for the enhancement of transient response in microgrids.

The integration of photonics and artificial intelligence (AI) has led to the emergence of intelligent photonics which offers significant advancements in medical imaging. In this paper, a Hollow Core Photonic Crystal Fiber (HC-PCF) based sensor is presented for tumour detection. The finite element method is used to simulate the proposed sensor. By varying the geometrical parameters of the proposed sensor an optimized sensor is proposed.Meanwhile, the latest AI techniques used in medical imaging, such as deep learning (DL) and convolutional neural networks (CNN) are also analysed to improve upon the ability of the sensor. This paper highlights the potential of intelligent photonics in improving efficiency, sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of medical imaging, particularly in the areas of tumour detection and treatment. Result shows that DL have shown an efficiency of 95%, sensitivity as 92%, specificity as 93% and accuracy as 94 % which are more than that of CNN. Additionally, it discusses the challenges and limitations that need to be addressed in order to fully realize the potential of these technologies. This paper demonstrates that the integration of photonics and AI has great potential to revolutionize medical imaging.

Dhaka, the economic hub of Bangladesh, houses numerous healthcare facilities resulting in increased medical waste generation. However, waste management systems in these facilities are often inadequate, posing a threat to public health and the environment. Wastewater characteristics vary regionally, making treatment strategies location-specific. This study characterizes medical waste streams in Dhaka and suggests appropriate treatment strategies. Twenty samples from four major public hospitals were analyzed for various parameters including dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS), color, total coliform counts, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD₅). Samples were categorized as acceptable, moderate, or highly polluted. Results were compared to the standard values provided by the department of Environment of Bangladesh to find that samples show moderate to high pollution levels in terms of TDS, TSS, color, and bacteria. Effective wastewater treatment strategies are needed to mitigate pollution and ensure health safety. Treatment recommendations include the implementation of pre-treatment processes such as sedimentation and filtration to remove solids and aeration to increase dissolved oxygen levels. To reduce organic pollution, treatment methods including activated sludge process (ASP), sequencing batch reactor (SBR) or moving bed bio reactor (MBBR) etc. were recommended according to the applicability of the processes in respective hospitals. Advanced treatment methods such as activated carbon adsorption and ultraviolet disinfection processes were also suggested to address the specific issues like color and bacterial contamination.

Rainfall Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) relationships are crucial in the design and management of hydraulic structures. At the core of the assumption for IDF development is that, the statistics of past rainfall events will represent future rainfall events. It has been proven that climate change is a major trigger for this non-stationarity therefore, the assumption is untenable. This work is aimed at considering the impact of climate change in the development of IDF curves for a city. To account for this non-stationarity, an RCM was combined with measured data through a climate factor (CF) to develop a rainfall IDF for the coastal city of Calabar. The baseline and future climatic periods of the RCM were 1971-2010 and 2021-2060 respectively. The Annual Maxima Series (AMS) were disaggregated and fitted to Gumbel distribution. Results revealed that, the magnitude of trend for measured AMS and measured annual rainfall are -0.351 and +3.628 respectively. A CF value of 0.86 was obtained and a generalized non-stationary rainfall IDF model was derived. When compared to models from similar studies, this model has conserved values with r²=1 and an error margin of ±6% for all return periods. This will introduce economy in the design of hydraulic structures. Excess runoffs in Calabar were therefore related to frequent short duration rainfall with low intensities.

The utilization of alternative materials in pavement construction offers environmental and economic benefits. One such alternative material is industrial waste plastic dust (IWPD) derived from high-density polyethylene (HDPE), which can enhance the rheological performance of bitumen to withstand the challenges posed by increasing traffic volumes worldwide. This study investigates the effects of incorporating IWPD into bitumen at various percentages (3%, 6%, and 9% by weight of the optimum bitumen content) on the physical, rheological, and morphological properties of IWPD-modified binders, as well as the moisture susceptibility of asphalt mixtures containing these binders. The penetration, softening point, rotational viscosities, rutting factor, and fatigue resistance of the IWPD-modified bitumen blends are evaluated using methods such as dynamic shear rheometer, short- and long-term aging tests using the rolling thin film oven (RTFO) and pressure aging vessel (PAV). The results indicate that the modified bitumen blends enhance the properties of the neat bitumen. Particularly, the blends with 6% and 9% IWPD content exhibit optimal performance in terms of increased rutting and fatigue resistance, as well as improved moisture susceptibility of hot mix asphalt (HMA). However, the 6% IWPD content is considered the most suitable due to better miscibility compared to the 9% content, which exhibited phase separation as observed in the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the impact of plastic fines as bitumen modifiers on the rheological and performance characteristics of HMA, offering insights into sustainable practices for pavement construction.

The world's plastic production is expected to double in the next 20 years, causing significant environmental and sustainability challenges. That’s where the necessity to shift to a circular economy (CE) from a linear economy becomes evident. CE aims to solve the huge plastic waste challenges by introducing newer strategies of repairing, recycling, reusing, and designing products with a longer life cycle and lesser environmental impacts. While most of the existing approaches to quantifying circularity consider different economic and environmental factors, they often neglect the health aspects. This article emphasizes the need to incorporate health impacts into the concept of the circular economy, focusing on the plastic industry. It highlights the health effects on the workers during production and on consumers throughout the product's life span, including recycling and reuse. The health risks associated with the occupational safety hazards, chemicals utilized in plastic production and recycling, and chemicals released from plastic containers (such as carcinogens, bisphenol A, and phthalates) during prolonged use were analyzed. It also examines the challenges of connecting health impacts to circularity and proposes methods to address worker and consumer health aspects in assessing circularity. Three examples of plastic production and recycling industries are presented to illustrate the fact that, despite significant recycling efforts, the circularity scores of their products need to be lower due to the substantial health impacts experienced by the workers.

Copper (Cu) or germanium (Ge) was added to the perovskite compounds to stabilize the photoactive α-phase of formamidinium-cesium lead triiodide. The strain for the PbI₆ octahedra was relaxed by the Cu doping, which increased the displacement of formamidinium (FA) molecules, resulting in increasing the kinetic energy. The 3d orbitals of Cu were localized near the conduction band minimum and valence band maximum, which suppressed carrier diffusion resulting in lower efficiencies of the cells. The structural distortion for PbI₆ octahedra was caused by the Ge doping, which decreased the displacement of FA molecules, resulting in a decrease in the kinetic energy. Suppression of formation of photo-inactive δ-phase resulted in formation of α-phase. Electron density distribution showed the charge transfer from Ge to iodine (I) ions, which promoted carrier diffusion from I 5p to Ge 4p orbitals. The cells doped with 12.5% Ge also provided photovoltaic properties.