Engineering Commons^™

Achieving High Catalytic Activity And Redox Stability Of Doped Ceria Through A Novel Sol Gel Synthesis, Christopher Riley

Shared Knowledge Conference

Ceria is widely studied in catalysis because of its high oxygen mobility and storage capacity. These properties are enhanced by the incorporation of dopant atoms into the ceria crystal structure. However, creating a homogenously doped structure requires a suitable synthesis technique. Otherwise, dopant atoms form an oxide phase on the ceria surface, which blocks highly active catalytic sites. Traditional production methods allow for cerium and dopant ions to segregate during synthesis. In this work, we demonstrate a novel sol gel synthesis method for producing homogeneously doped ceria. The method is easy and avoids the use of hazardous chemicals. Higher dopant …

Improving The Palatability Of Colonoscopy Preparations, Phuong Anh Hoang Nguyen, Sarah Mounho, Darnell Cuylear, Heather Canavan

Shared Knowledge Conference

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. The most reliable screening method of CRC is a colonoscopy which requires a 4-Liter polymer with electrolytes preparation. Two in five patients are non-compliant to their colonoscopy schedules, with many patients who abstain reporting refusal due to significant discomfort associated with this preparation. Furthermore, there are distinct gender differences in the tolerance of colonoscopy preparations in male and female populations. We hypothesize the differences in clinic are a result of toxic effects of the drug associated with poor mixing by individual patients. PEG, the drug, …

Comparison Of Emotion Evaluation Perception Using Human Voice Signals Of Robots And Humans, Vesna Kirandziska, Nevena Ackovska

International Journal of Business and Technology

Emotion perception is the process of perceiving other people’s emotions. It can be based on their facial expression, movement, voice and other biosignals people emit. The evaluation of human’s emotion is one characteristic of emotions. One of the research areas in Robotics is adapting humanistic behavior in robots. Today many robots are constructed. Some of them can even perceive emotions. In this paper a custom built emotion aware robot that perceives emotion evaluation is used to investigate the similarity and differences of the robot's and human's emotion perception. Voice signals from real human were recorded and the information for the …

Swarm Intelligence As An Optimization Technique, Alma Bregaj

International Journal of Business and Technology

Optimization techniques inspired by swarm intelligence have become increasingly popular during the last years. Swarm intelligence is based on nature-inspired behaviours and is successfully applied to optimisation problems in a variety of fields. The advantage of these approaches over traditional techniques is their robustness and flexibility. These properties make swarm intelligence a successful design paradigm for algorithms that deal with increasingly complex problems. In this paper I am focused on the comparison between different swarmbased optimisation algorithms and I have presented some examples of real practical applications of these algorithms.

Comparative Performance Simulation Of Dsdv Aodv And Dsr Manet Protocols In Ns2, Erion Cana

International Journal of Business and Technology

Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) are self-configured and infrastructure less networks with autonomous mobile nodes. Due to the high flexibility, these kind of networks are heavily used in rescue operations, military missions etc. Many routing protocols for this kind of networks exist. This article presents a comparative and quantitative performance study of DSDV, AODV and DSR routing protocols using different simulation models in NS2. Performance metrics like PDR, E2E Delay and Throughput are analyzed under varying network, traffic and mobility parameters like number of nodes, traffic flows, mobility speed and pause time. Results show that AODV outperforms DSDV and DSR …

Two-Dimensional Layered Materials (Graphene-Mos2) Nanocatalysts For Hydrogen Production, Jacob Dobler, Taylor Robinson, Sanju Gupta 7455940

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Recent development of two-dimensional layered materials including graphene-family and related nanomaterials have arisen as potential game changer for energy, water and sensing applications. While graphene is a form of carbon arranged hexagonally within atomic thin sheet, MoS₂ is becoming a popular, efficient, and cost-effective catalyst for electrochemical energy devices, in contrast to expensive platinum and palladium catalysts. In this work, we electrochemically desulfurize few-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) and aerogels with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) prepared under hydrothermal conditions ((P< 20 bar, T< 200 ^oC), for improving hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity via point defects (S-vacancy). Moreover, the interactions between rGO …

Physical Properties Of Engineered Nanocomposites For Defense Applications, Alex Henson, Sanju Gupta

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Polymer nanocomposites are significant for modern and future technologies (aerospace, defense, water purification etc.) due to their tailored properties, lightweight and low cost. However, ‘forward’ engineered polymer (host matrix) composites with smaller size nanoparticles (guest) providing desired properties targeting specific applications remains a challenging task as they depend largely on nanoparticles size, shape and loading (volume fraction). This study develops polymer nanocomposites impregnated with ‘organic-inorganic’ silsesquioxane nanoparticles and graphene nanoribbons, and investigates microscopic structure and dynamics of interfacial layer to predict macroscale properties. The nanocomposites consist of poly(2-vinylpyridine) (P2VP) polymer (segment ~5nm) with spherical silsesquioxane nanoparticles (diameter ~2-5nm) and planar …

Catalytic Deoxygenation Of Model And Realistic Feeds To Fuel-Like Hydrocarbons Over Supported Nickel-Copper Catalysts, Deyshon Ward, Kazi Javed

Posters-at-the-Capitol

The goal was to make a renewable fuel by using catalysts to remove oxygen molecules from fats. This is a current issue that society faces today because nonrenewable fossil fuels hurt the environment more than they help it. There are two components that make up a heterogeneous catalyst, a support and a reduced metal active phase. The active metal phases Nickel, Palladium, Platinum have been studied in the past on an alumina and carbon supports. We were investigating other supports using Nickel as the active phase component to determine the effect the support has on the catalyst removing oxygen of …

New Configurations Of Housing Facilities Developed In Height. Pico Hydraulics, Consumption Become Energy, Kliton Bylykbashi, Luca Rubini

International Journal of Business and Technology

The continuous growth of the population and the increasing demand of urbanization expansion towards the development of high-rise buildings.

To meet their energy demand, the European Community is trying to address the designers to nearly zero-energy buildings.

It is reasonably simple to produce a small residence totally energy efficient however it will be a real challenge to do the same for high-rise residential buildings.

In the general research of the “P> 20” a building of more than 20 floors, equipped with renewable energy systems and with low impact technologies, with complete energy efficiency is studied energy self-sufficient. The first technology …

Understanding Residential Electricity Consumption Considering Energy Efficiency Policies And The Impact On The Electricity System, Meryem Nur Morgül Tumbaz, Hatice Tekiner Muğlkoç

International Journal of Business and Technology

Electricity consumption increases substantially over the years where residential use significantly contributes to the overall consumption. The growth in the population and variety of home appliances together with increasing comfort levels of the people results in higher levels of residential electricity use. In fact, nearly one fourth of Turkey's total electricity consumption is due to the domestic use. To achieve global sustainability targets and reduce the overall electricity use, focusing on the domestic consumption is crucial. In this research, the energy consumptions patterns of households are determined to identify the potential electricity savings existing in the residential sector. Moreover, specific …

Energy Production In Kosova And Regional Perspectives, Ardian B. Gojani

International Journal of Business and Technology

This paper presents and analyses the current state of the energy sector in Kosova. It assesses the potential for development, and investigates the needs of the sector. Kosova’s energy sector is in a dire state presenting an obstacle for economic development of the country. The sector is not compliant with international standards and codes and has negative consequences for both system operators and consumers. In addition, this paper presents a general overview of energy production and use in the region, and discusses the possibility for coalescence. In conclusion, the report presents a few possible scenarios for the development of the …

“New” Subjects In Mechatronics Management Education, Peter Kopacek

International Journal of Business and Technology

Process – and manufacturing automation as well as robotics are currently one of the fast growing fields in automation. Advanced process control, cyber-physical systems, industry 4.0 and “advanced robots” are no longer a headline. They are in realization. As a consequence of these developments new social, ethical and human questions appear.

Therefore this contribution is a first report about the continuous “modernization” of the Mechatronics Management BSc and MSc programs which are successful running at UBT. Both programs were developed in the framework of two TEMPUS projects from an international consortium from 2006 to 2009. Since that time new “buzzwords” …

Optimal Control Of Dc Motors Using Pso Algorithm For Tuning Pid Controller, Arnisa Myrtellari, Petrika Marango, Margarita Gjonaj

International Journal of Business and Technology

The DC motors are widely used in the mechanisms that require control of speed. Different speed can be obtained by changing the field voltage and the armature voltage. The classic PID controllers are widely used in industrial process for speed control. But they aren’t suitable for high performance cases, because of the low robustness of PID controller. So many researchers have been studying various new control techniques in order to improve the system performance and tuning PID controllers. This paper presents particle swarm optimization (PSO) method for determining the optimal PID controller parameters to find the optimal parameters of DC …

Exploring The Role Of Sentiments In Identification Of Active And Influential Bloggers, Mohammad Alghobiri, Umer Ishfaq, Hikmat Ullah Khan, Tahir Afzal Malik

International Journal of Business and Technology

The social Web provides opportunities for the public to have social interactions and online discussions. A large number of online users using the social web sites create a high volume of data. This leads to the emergence of Big Data, which focuses on computational analysis of data to reveal patterns, and associations relating to human interactions. Such analyses have vast applications in various fields such as understanding human behaviors, studying culture influence, and promoting online marketing. The blogs are one of the social web channels that offer a way to discuss various topics. Finding the top bloggers has been a …

Perfect Metamaterial Absorber Based Energy Harvesting Application In Ism Band, Furkan Dincer, Mehmet Bakir, Muharrem Karaaslan, Kemal Delihacioglu, Cumali Sabah

International Journal of Business and Technology

An electromagnetic (EM) energy harvesting application based on metamaterial absorber (MA) is introduced and discussed in this paper. This application is operating at ISM band (2.40 GHz) which is especially chosen due to its wide usage area. Square ring resonator (SRR) which has two gaps and resistors across the gaps on it is used. Chips resistors are used to deliver power to any active component. Transmission and reflection characteristics of metamaterial absorber (MA) for energy harvesting application are investigated. 83.6% efficient for energy harvesting application is realized in this study.

The Analytic Hierarchic Process: A Model To Evaluate The Risk Of Getting Cancer, Daniela (Halidini) Qendraj, Markela Muça

International Journal of Business and Technology

The aim of this study is to classify the risk factors of being with a type of cancer by applying the AHP (analytic hierarchy process) scale. The Saaty’s analytic hierarchy process is applied for computing weights for the factors, is a modeling for classification. A case study of QSUT Tirana hospital data base is presented to rank four cancer types. By the data collect from the hospital during the years 2011-2015, the results show that lung cancer is mostly spread in humans, and the prostate cancer is lower spread in humans.

Internet Of Things: From Applications, Challenges And Standardization To Industry Implementations, Xhafer Krasniqi

International Journal of Business and Technology

The Internet of Things that is defined as anything that can be accessible anytime and anywhere provides connectivity to different objects and sensors around us and which will enable the transfer of different data between these objects and devices. A thing in the Internet of Things can be any natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address with a capability to exchange date over a network. There is a huge number of applications of IoT to benefit users, such as health monitors, smart homes, connected cars etc.

If everything around us is connected and information about these …

Hybrid Modelling In System Simulation, Andreas Körner

International Journal of Business and Technology

In times of increasing power and capacity in computer, simulation mathematical models are getting more and more important. For different technical applications and in natural science but also in economic systems and management processes appropriate mathematical model descriptions are necessary. Hybrid modelling is a special technique for more complex model descriptions in order to reduce the degree of complexity. In different fields of interest, the behavior of a model is dependent on the active state. When the model description is changing from one state to another, a so-called state event takes place. State event modelling is the overall term to …

E-Learning Systems In Higher Education Institutions: An Outlook Of Their Use In The Western Balkan Region, Blerta Abazi Chaushi, Agron Chaushi, Florije Ismaili

International Journal of Business and Technology

This study provides a review of the literature on e-learning systems evolution and environments. The argument is that e-learning systems should be embedded in the core strategy of the institution. To support this premise, studies for e-learning are analyzed and six recommendations are drawn for universities to follow in order to have successful e-learning environments. The main contribution of this study, however, is the identification of the trends and statistics regarding the e-learning usage in the Balkan region. These stats are identified through a survey conducted in 40 universities in 10 countries from this region. The results show that more …

Definition, Validation And Comparison Of Two Population Models For Austria, Martin Bicher, Barbara Glock, Florian Miksch, Niki Popper, Günter Schneckenreither

International Journal of Business and Technology

In this work we present two structurally different mathematical models for the prognostic simulation of Austria’s population: A time-continuous, macroscopic system dynamics approach and a time-discrete, microscopic agent-based approach. Both models were developed as case studies of a series of population concepts in order to support models for decision-support in Austria’s health care system. In the present work we want to focus on the definition, the parametrisation as well as especially the validation process of both population-models. The latter was of special interest as it included a cross-model validation with Statistics Austria’s own prognostic model SIKURS.

Case Studies For A Markov Chain Approach To Analyze Agent-Based Models, Florian Kitzler, Martin Bicher

International Journal of Business and Technology

Agent-Based Models have become a widely used tool in social sciences, health care management and other disciplines to describe complex systems from a bottom-up perspective. Some reasons for that are the easy understanding of Agent-Based Models, the high flexibility and the possibility to describe heterogeneous structures. Nevertheless problems occur when it comes to analyzing Agent-Based Models. This paper shows how to describe Agent-Based Models in a macroscopic way as Markov Chains, using the random map representation. The focus is on the implementation of this method for chosen examples of a Random Walk and Opinion Dynamic Models. It is also shown …

Microsimulation Models For Simulating Pathways Of Patients With Mental Diseases, Andreas Bauer, Felix Breitenecker, Christoph Urach

International Journal of Business and Technology

Predicting demand for care is necessary to provide sufficient capacities in hospitals and enable better planning to cope with challenges like changes in the structure of the population. Emphasis in this work is put on the analysis of the data and on the parametrization of a simulation model for the paths of patients with mental diseases through the health care system. Survival analysis and model selection methods are used for this purpose. Data on patients and their treatments is analyzed with methods of survival analysis. Different methods for modelling the survival and hazard function are presented and compared. Hereby, the …

Implementation Of The Aodv Routing In An Energy-Constrained Mesh Network, Altin Zejnullahu, Zhilbert Tafa

International Journal of Business and Technology

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) compose the fundamental platform for a number of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, especially those related to the environmental, health, and military surveillance. While being autonomous in power supply, the main challenge in node’s processing and communication architecture design remains the energy efficiency. However, this goal should not limit the main functionality of the system which is often related to the network coverage and connectivity.

This paper shows the implementation of the Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing algorithm in an XBee based platform. As shown, the network can achieve low power consumption per node primarily …

Security Concerns Of New Alternative Telecommunication Services, Arbnora Hyseni, Krenare Pireva, Miranda Kajtazi

International Journal of Business and Technology

With the advancing new era of communication, the so-called era of ‘being always online’ many providers offer their services for free. In that sense a small company or a virtual company becomes a huge competitor for different traditional telecommunication providers. Using the same services such as: voice calls, video calls, chat and similar services, the internet technology has made huge changes how users make use of such services . Instead of using these services, users shall install applications that are specialized for offering these services via applications, such as: Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook, Google Talk etc.. During the installation and update …

Labeled-Image Captcha: Concept Of A Secured And Universally Useful Captcha, Mokter Hossain, Ken Nguyen, Muhammad Asadur Rahman

International Journal of Business and Technology

Captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a widely used online security tool that ensures that a computer program is not posing as a human user. While smart programs with advanced image processing capability have already cracked picture based captcha systems there is a need for making the test harder. This paper presents a design prototype of a simplified type of labeled-image captcha where a picture of a common animal or household item is marked with a number of different labels and the users will be asked to provide the correct label for specific …

A Policeless Traffic Ticketing System With Autonomous Vehicles, Mükremin Özkul, Ilir Çapuni

International Journal of Business and Technology

Besides being expensive, traffic violation monitoring systems rely heavily on a huge infrastructure that incurs installation, operational, and maintenance costs.

Developing countries — where people do exhibit less traffic safety aware- ness — deployment of such systems becomes a daunting task. A police- men cannot be everywhere, and a policeman can also be bribed.

With the above goals in mind, in this paper we present an infrastructure- less and police-less traffic violation detection system that relies solely on the broadcast messages between the vehicles and secure communication of the vehicles with the transportation authority. Each vehicle should be equipped with …

Biaxial Bending Of Cold-Formed Steel Storage Rack Uprights – Part I: Parametric Studies And Response, Nima Talebian, Benoit P. Gilbert, Cao Hung Pham, Romain Chariere, Hassan Karampour

CCFSS Proceedings of International Specialty Conference on Cold-Formed Steel Structures (1971 - 2018)

This paper first introduces an advanced finite element model to determine the biaxial bending capacity of cold-formed steel storage rack upright sections. The model is found to accurately predict published experimental results with an average predicted to experimental capacity ratio of 1.02. Second, the validated model is used to run parametric studies and analyse the biaxial response of slender, semi-compact and compact unperforated storage rack upright cross-sections. Analyses are run for local and distortional buckling failure modes only. Ten and four different cross-sectional shapes are analysed for local and distortional buckling, respectively, and nine biaxial bending configurations are considered per …

Sidelap And Structural Fastener Tests For Steel Deck Diaphragms, Y. Shi, S. Torabian, Benjamin W. Schafer, W. S. Easterling, M. R. Eatherton

CCFSS Proceedings of International Specialty Conference on Cold-Formed Steel Structures (1971 - 2018)

Steel deck diaphragm systems, which are commonly used for roof construction in steel-framed buildings, consist of many parts such as corrugated steel deck sheets, sidelap fasteners between adjacent sheets, structural fasteners from the sheets to the supporting beams or joists, chord elements, and collectors. Load-deformation behavior of a steel deck diaphragm system is typically dominated by sidelap and structural fastener limit states. To understand and accurately model the behavior of steel deck diaphragm systems, it is therefore necessary to characterize the behavior of the individual fasteners. The effect of local geometry and detailing at these fasteners such as how the …

The 2017 Aisi Cold-Formed Steel Design Manual, Joshua Buckholt, Helen Chen

CCFSS Proceedings of International Specialty Conference on Cold-Formed Steel Structures (1971 - 2018)

The 2017 edition of AISI D100, the Cold-Formed Steel Design Manual (Manual) has been published. Updates to the Manual include: alignment with AISI S100-16, the North-American Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members (NA Specification); several new and varied design examples; additional discussions related to the design of cold-formed steel structures and components; and expanded bibliographies of relevant resources. The database of examples illustrating the Direct Strength Method (DSM) and new provisions in the NA Specification has been expanded. Also published with the Manual are the North-American Specification and its Commentary.

Distortional Buckling Of Cold-Formed Steel Flanges Under Stress Gradient, Robert S. Glauz

CCFSS Proceedings of International Specialty Conference on Cold-Formed Steel Structures (1971 - 2018)

The strength of cold-formed steel beams with stiffened flanges may be controlled by distortional buckling. Buckling stress prediction methods have been developed for flanges under uniform compression. However, channel sections are commonly used where bending occurs about the minor axis with flanges under stress gradient, such that the edges are in compression and the flanges may experience distortional buckling. Current design specifications do not explicitly address this failure mode, which could lead to unsafe designs. This paper presents and verifies an analytical approach for distortional buckling stress prediction for flanges under stress gradient. The approach is consistent with the design …