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Applied Sciences, Volume 6, Issue 12

2016 December - 69 articles

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Articles (69)

  • Article
  • Open Access
10 Citations
6,478 Views
14 Pages

20 December 2016

This paper proposes a new voltage control methodology using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique for smart grid loadability enhancement. The goal of this paper is to achieve reliable and efficient voltage profile/stability regulation in po...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the 2016 International Conference on Inventions)
  • Article
  • Open Access
13 Citations
11,105 Views
14 Pages

Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of a Swash-Plate Axial Piston Pump

  • Guangjun Liu,
  • Zhaocheng Zhou,
  • Xin Qian,
  • Xiaofeng Wu and
  • Weihai Pang

19 December 2016

This work proposes an MDO (multidisciplinary design optimization) procedure for a swash-plate axial piston pump based on co-simulation and integrated optimization. The integrated hydraulic-mechanical model of the pump is built to reflect its actual p...

  • Article
  • Open Access
23 Citations
6,459 Views
9 Pages

Wavelength Selection for Detection of Slight Bruises on Pears Based on Hyperspectral Imaging

  • Hao Jiang,
  • Chu Zhang,
  • Yong He,
  • Xinxin Chen,
  • Fei Liu and
  • Yande Liu

19 December 2016

Hyperspectral imaging technology was employed to detect slight bruises on Korla pears. The spectral data of 60 bruised samples and 60 normal samples were collected by a hyperspectral imaging system. To select the characteristic wavelengths for detect...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Hyperspectral Imaging for Food and Agriculture)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
6,559 Views
15 Pages

Modeling of Integrated Nanoneedle-Microfluidic System for Single Cell Temperature Measurement

  • Salma Abdullah Binsilm,
  • Maryam Alsadat Rad and
  • Mohd Ridzuan Ahmad

18 December 2016

In this research, a finite element study on a nanoneedle-microfluidic system for single cell temperature measurement is presented. The nanoneedle design and electrical and mechanical characterization are analyzed, in which tungsten is used as the sen...

(This article belongs to the Section Nanotechnology and Applied Nanosciences)
  • Article
  • Open Access
39 Citations
11,068 Views
12 Pages

Automatic Taxonomic Classification of Fish Based on Their Acoustic Signals

  • Juan J. Noda,
  • Carlos M. Travieso and
  • David Sánchez-Rodríguez

17 December 2016

Fish as well as birds, mammals, insects and other animals are capable of emitting sounds for diverse purposes, which can be recorded through microphone sensors. Although fish vocalizations have been known for a long time, they have been poorly studie...

  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
19 Citations
7,286 Views
26 Pages

Biodegradable Nanoparticles Made of Amino-Acid-Based Ester Polymers: Preparation, Characterization, and In Vitro Biocompatibility Study

  • Temur Kantaria,
  • Tengiz Kantaria,
  • Sophio Kobauri,
  • Mariam Ksovreli,
  • Tinatin Kachlishvili,
  • Nina Kulikova,
  • David Tugushi and
  • Ramaz Katsarava

17 December 2016

A systematic study of fabricating nanoparticles (NPs) by cost-effective polymer deposition/solvent displacement (nanoprecipitation) method has been carried out. Five amino acid based biodegradable (AABB) ester polymers (four neutral and one cationic)...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biodegradable and Biocompatible Nanoparticles)
  • Feature Paper
  • Review
  • Open Access
3 Citations
7,694 Views
16 Pages

Poly(α-hydroxy Acids)-Based Cell Microcarriers

  • Aitor Larrañaga and
  • Jose-Ramon Sarasua

16 December 2016

Biodegradable poly(α-hydroxyacids) have gained increasing interest in the biomedical field for their use as cell microcarriers thanks to their biodegradability, biocompatibility, tunable mechanical properties/degradation rates and processability. The...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biodegradable and Biocompatible Nanoparticles)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
6,053 Views
9 Pages

Enhancement and Reduction of Nonradiative Decay Process in Organic Light-Emitting Diodes by Gold Nanoparticles

  • Chia-Yuan Gao,
  • Kan-Lin Chen,
  • Po-Wen Sze,
  • Ying-Chung Chen and
  • Chien-Jung Huang

16 December 2016

The influences of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) and the buffer layer on the performance of organic light-emitting diodes are investigated in this study. The GNPs are doped into poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and the...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from International Conference on Applied System Innovation 2016)
  • Article
  • Open Access
20 Citations
6,516 Views
12 Pages

A High-Thrust Screw-Type Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Motor with Three-Wavelength Exciting Mode

  • Hengyu Li,
  • Liang Wang,
  • Tinghai Cheng,
  • Meng He,
  • Hongwei Zhao and
  • Haibo Gao

16 December 2016

A high-thrust screw-type piezoelectric ultrasonic motor with a three-wavelength exciting mode is proposed in this paper. The motor mainly includes a stator and a screw output shaft, and the stator is composed of twelve rectangular piezoelectric plate...

  • Article
  • Open Access
23 Citations
10,049 Views
12 Pages

Design, Development and Implementation of a Smartphone Overdependence Management System for the Self-Control of Smart Devices

  • Seo-Joon Lee,
  • Mi Jung Rho,
  • In Hye Yook,
  • Seung-Ho Park,
  • Kwang-Soo Jang,
  • Bum-Joon Park,
  • Ook Lee,
  • Dong Kyun Lee,
  • Dai-Jin Kim and
  • In Young Choi

16 December 2016

Background: Smartphone overdependence is a type of mental disorder that requires continuous treatment for cure and prevention. A smartphone overdependence management system that is based on scientific evidence is required. This study proposes the des...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Healthcare)
  • Article
  • Open Access
27 Citations
6,427 Views
19 Pages

16 December 2016

Accurate forecasting of icing thickness has great significance for ensuring the security and stability of the power grid. In order to improve the forecasting accuracy, this paper proposes an icing forecasting system based on the fireworks algorithm a...

  • Feature Paper
  • Review
  • Open Access
246 Citations
47,626 Views
21 Pages

Photonic Packaging: Transforming Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuits into Photonic Devices

  • Lee Carroll,
  • Jun-Su Lee,
  • Carmelo Scarcella,
  • Kamil Gradkowski,
  • Matthieu Duperron,
  • Huihui Lu,
  • Yan Zhao,
  • Cormac Eason,
  • Padraic Morrissey and
  • Peter O’Brien
  • + 3 authors

15 December 2016

Dedicated multi-project wafer (MPW) runs for photonic integrated circuits (PICs) from Si foundries mean that researchers and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) can now afford to design and fabricate Si photonic chips. While these bare Si-PICs are ade...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Silicon Photonics Components and Applications)
  • Article
  • Open Access
6 Citations
6,555 Views
11 Pages

15 December 2016

When a blackout occurs, it is important to reduce the time for power system restoration to minimize damage. For fast restoration, it is important to reduce taking time for the selection of generators, transmission lines and transformers. In addition,...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Integrated Energy Systems Design, Control and Optimization)
  • Article
  • Open Access
36 Citations
7,468 Views
6 Pages

A Label-Free Aptamer-Based Fluorescent Assay for Cadmium Detection

  • Yunxia Luan,
  • Anxiang Lu,
  • Jiayi Chen,
  • Hailong Fu and
  • Li Xu

14 December 2016

Selective detection of ultratrace amounts of cadmium (Cd2+) is extremely important for food safety and environmental monitoring because of its toxicity and widespread use. In this work, we developed a facile, rapid, sensitive, and highly selective me...

(This article belongs to the Section Chemical and Molecular Sciences)
  • Article
  • Open Access
26 Citations
8,159 Views
17 Pages

14 December 2016

It is well known that the best way of convective heat transfer is the flow of nanofluids through a porous medium. In this regard, a mathematical model is presented to study the effects of variable viscosity, thermal conductivity and slip conditions o...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments of Nanofluids)
  • Article
  • Open Access
29 Citations
8,681 Views
6 Pages

14 December 2016

A simple, green, and efficient approach was used to synthesize 3,4-dihydropyrimidines derivatives. We showed that the application of the planetary ball milling method with a ball-to-reagent weight ratio of 8 for the Biginelli reaction provides 3,4-di...

(This article belongs to the Section Chemical and Molecular Sciences)
  • Article
  • Open Access
16 Citations
6,951 Views
16 Pages

A Psychoacoustic Investigation on the Effect of External Shading Devices on Building Facades

  • Nicolò Zuccherini Martello,
  • Francesco Aletta,
  • Patrizio Fausti,
  • Jian Kang and
  • Simone Secchi

14 December 2016

Due to energetic and natural lighting factors, building facades often present external shading devices, but the acoustic properties of such devices have not yet been well studied. This study was carried out using a full-scale model of a portion of a...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Noise and Vibration Control in the Built Environment)
  • Article
  • Open Access
17 Citations
6,654 Views
11 Pages

14 December 2016

Thin-walled integrated flexible support structures are the major trend in the development of current rolling bearing technology. A thin-walled, integrated, squirrel-cage flexible support roller bearing, quasi-dynamic iterative finite element analysis...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Thin-Walled Structures)
  • Article
  • Open Access
16 Citations
6,377 Views
17 Pages

13 December 2016

This paper presents a dominant channel occupancy (DCO) mechanism for the Wi-Fi backscatter uplink in the industrial Internet of things (IIoT). The DCO provides high-priority channel access and reliable burst transmission to the Wi-Fi backscatter devi...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the International Multi-Conference on Engineering and Technology Innovation 2015 (IMETI2015))
  • Review
  • Open Access
20 Citations
9,216 Views
11 Pages

13 December 2016

Simultaneous spatial and temporal focusing (SSTF) of femtosecond laser pulses gives rise to strong suppression of nonlinear self-focusing during the propagation of the femtosecond laser beam. In this paper, we begin with an introduction of the princi...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ultrashort Optical Pulses)
  • Article
  • Open Access
18 Citations
8,488 Views
19 Pages

Maximum Efficiency per Torque Control of Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Machines

  • Qingbo Guo,
  • Chengming Zhang,
  • Liyi Li,
  • Jiangpeng Zhang and
  • Mingyi Wang

12 December 2016

High-efficiency permanent-magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) drive systems need not only optimally designed motors but also efficiency-oriented control strategies. However, the existing control strategies only focus on partial loss optimization. This...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the International Multi-Conference on Engineering and Technology Innovation 2015 (IMETI2015))
  • Article
  • Open Access
55 Citations
11,606 Views
15 Pages

10 December 2016

The effects of compressor aerodynamic parameters, such as pitch-chord ratio, aspect ratio, and fillet, on the cascade performance have been studied in this paper. Slot configuration at the root of the blade has been proved to be an efficient passive...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Gas Turbines Propulsion and Power)
  • Article
  • Open Access
12 Citations
7,342 Views
14 Pages

Improved ADRC for a Maglev Planar Motor with a Concentric Winding Structure

  • Baoquan Kou,
  • Feng Xing,
  • Chaoning Zhang,
  • Lu Zhang,
  • Yiheng Zhou and
  • Tiecheng Wang

10 December 2016

In the semiconductor industry, positioning accuracy and acceleration are critical parameters. To improve the acceleration speed of a motor, this paper proposes the moving-coil maglev planar motor with a concentric winding structure. The coordinate sy...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the International Multi-Conference on Engineering and Technology Innovation 2015 (IMETI2015))
  • Article
  • Open Access
8 Citations
14,209 Views
12 Pages

Investigation of an Ironless Permanent Magnet Linear Synchronous Motor with Cooling System

  • Lu Zhang,
  • Baoquan Kou,
  • Yinxi Jin,
  • Yusheng Chen and
  • Yanjie Liu

10 December 2016

In this paper, a novel ironless linear synchronous motor with a cooling system is proposed. Firstly, the topology of this ironless linear synchronous motor with a cooling system is introduced. Flux density in the cooling system is obtained analytical...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the International Multi-Conference on Engineering and Technology Innovation 2015 (IMETI2015))
  • Article
  • Open Access
13 Citations
6,090 Views
16 Pages

10 December 2016

This paper presents a method for evaluating the reliability of an in-service highway bridge that considers the resistance capacity loss due to various corrosive environments. To demonstrate the application of the suggested method, a pre-stressed conc...

  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
8,790 Views
12 Pages

Axial Turbine Cascade Correlation

  • Guilherme Leibsohn Martins

10 December 2016

The performance simulation of an axial turbine is achieved in a simple way from the calculation of velocity diagrams. For this purpose, a reliable loss model is needed for the flow through each stationary or rotating axial blade cascade. A loss coeff...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Gas Turbines Propulsion and Power)
  • Technical Note
  • Open Access
1 Citations
6,668 Views
14 Pages

10 December 2016

This paper addresses the analysis for the nonlinear vibration response of a rectangular tube with a flexible end and non-rigid acoustic boundaries. The structural–acoustic modal formulations are developed from the Duffing differential equation and wa...

  • Article
  • Open Access
12 Citations
6,910 Views
9 Pages

Stabilization of Iron (Micro)Particles with Polyhydroxybutyrate for In Situ Remediation Applications

  • Laura Chronopoulou,
  • Cleofe Palocci,
  • Francesco Valentino,
  • Ida Pettiti,
  • Stanisław Wacławek,
  • Miroslav Černík and
  • Marco Petrangeli Papini

9 December 2016

Groundwater is an extremely important resource that may, however, contain a variety of toxic and bioaccumulative contaminants. Traditional “Pump and Treat” technologies for treating contaminated groundwater are no longer time- or cost-effective; ther...

(This article belongs to the Section Chemical and Molecular Sciences)
  • Article
  • Open Access
6 Citations
6,523 Views
11 Pages

9 December 2016

The effects of temperature load on the dynamic responses of cable-stayed bridges have attracted the attention of researchers in recent years. However, these investigations mainly focus on the influence of temperature on the dynamic characteristics of...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the International Multi-Conference on Engineering and Technology Innovation 2015 (IMETI2015))
  • Article
  • Open Access
27 Citations
6,644 Views
19 Pages

9 December 2016

Since renewable energy resource is universally accepted as a promising method to solve the global energy problem, optimal planning and utilization of various distributed generators (DG) and energy storage (ES) devices deserve special concern. ES devi...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancing Grid-Connected Renewable Generation Systems)
  • Article
  • Open Access
13 Citations
7,555 Views
16 Pages

9 December 2016

Recently, the rapid advancement in technologies of modern intelligent objects has led to a new network paradigm, called the Internet of Things (IoT), in which every networked and automated object has been connected in a pervasive manner. New types of...

  • Article
  • Open Access
111 Citations
5,818 Views
19 Pages

8 December 2016

Personalized medicine is a hot topic to develop a medical procedure for healthcare. Motivated by molecular dynamics simulation-based personalized medicine, we propose a novel numerical simulation-based personalized diagnosis methodology and explain t...

  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
19 Citations
7,201 Views
22 Pages

7 December 2016

Nowadays, the use of freeform surfaces in various functional applications has become more widespread. Multi-sensor coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) are becoming popular and are produced by many CMM manufacturers since their measurement ability ca...

  • Article
  • Open Access
23 Citations
8,378 Views
18 Pages

Hyperspectral Imaging to Evaluate the Effect of IrrigationWater Salinity in Lettuce

  • Miguel Ángel Lara,
  • Belén Diezma,
  • Lourdes Lleó,
  • Jean Michel Roger,
  • Yolanda Garrido,
  • María Isabel Gil and
  • Margarita Ruiz-Altisent

7 December 2016

Salinity is one of the most important stress factors in crop production, particularly in arid regions. This research focuses on the effect of salinity on the growth of lettuce plants; three solutions with different levels of salinity were considered...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Hyperspectral Imaging for Food and Agriculture)
  • Article
  • Open Access
12 Citations
6,969 Views
13 Pages

Tunable Degradation Rate and Favorable Bioactivity of Porous Calcium Sulfate Scaffolds by Introducing Nano-Hydroxyapatite

  • Jianhua Zhou,
  • Fulai Yuan,
  • Shuping Peng,
  • Hui Xie,
  • Ping Wu,
  • Pei Feng,
  • Chengde Gao,
  • Youwen Yang,
  • Wang Guo and
  • Cijun Shuai
  • + 3 authors

7 December 2016

The bone scaffolds should possess suitable physicochemical properties and osteogenic activities. In this study, porous calcium sulfate (CaSO4) scaffolds were fabricated successfully via selected laser sintering (SLS). Nano-hydroxyapatite (nHAp), a bi...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomaterials and Scaffolds in Tissue Engineering Applications and Cancer Therapies)
  • Review
  • Open Access
9 Citations
7,232 Views
16 Pages

7 December 2016

The use of microbots in biomedicine is a powerful tool that has been an object of study in the last few years. In the special case of using these microdevices in the human circulatory system to remove clots or to deliver drugs, the complex nature of...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Complex Fluids)
  • Article
  • Open Access
17 Citations
5,816 Views
8 Pages

Characterization of Transition-Metal Oxide Deposition on Carbon Electrodes of a Supercapacitor

  • Ying-Chung Chen,
  • Chih-Yu Wen,
  • Chih-Ming Wang,
  • Chia-Wei Ho,
  • Shih-Yuan Lin and
  • Ying-Lin Chen

7 December 2016

In order to fabricate the composite electrodes of a supercapacitor, transition-metal oxide materials NiO and WO3 were deposited on carbon electrodes by electron beam evaporation. The influences of various transition-metal oxides, scan rates of cyclic...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from International Conference on Applied System Innovation 2016)
  • Article
  • Open Access
13 Citations
5,345 Views
11 Pages

Enhancing the Drag Reduction Phenomenon within a Rotating Disk Apparatus Using Polymer-Surfactant Additives

  • Musaab K. Rashed,
  • Mohamad Amran Mohd Salleh,
  • Hayder A. Abdulbari and
  • Mohd Halim Shah Ismail

6 December 2016

Pipelines and tubes play important roles in transporting economic liquids, such as water, petroleum derivatives, and crude oil. However, turbulence reduces the initial flow rate at which liquids are pumped, thereby making liquid transportation throug...

  • Article
  • Open Access
7 Citations
4,851 Views
14 Pages

6 December 2016

The New Taipei City Government developed a Code-checking System (CCS) using Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology to facilitate an architectural design review in 2014. This system was intended to solve problems caused by cognitive gaps betwe...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from International Conference on Applied System Innovation 2016)
  • Article
  • Open Access
15 Citations
5,863 Views
16 Pages

6 December 2016

The technique of comparison and analysis of biological sequences is playing an increasingly important role in the field of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. One of the key steps in developing the technique is to identify an appropriate manner...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dynamical Models of Biology and Medicine)
  • Article
  • Open Access
6 Citations
5,192 Views
12 Pages

5 December 2016

We developed a new approach for sizing subsurface defects in the square pulse thermography of metallic plates by employing the oriented gradient of histograms. To size defects with high accuracies is still a challenge in infrared (IR) thermography to...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of Civil Structures)
  • Article
  • Open Access
19 Citations
10,516 Views
13 Pages

3 December 2016

Cone crushers are used in the aggregates and mining industries to crush rock material. The pressure on cone crusher liners is the key factor that influences the hydraulic pressure, power draw and liner wear. In order to dynamically analyze and calcul...

  • Article
  • Open Access
38 Citations
6,557 Views
17 Pages

3 December 2016

There have been few empirical investigations of how individual differences influence the perception of the sonic environment. The present study included the Big Five traits and noise sensitivity as personality factors in two listening experiments (n...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Noise and Vibration Control in the Built Environment)
  • Article
  • Open Access
13 Citations
7,561 Views
13 Pages

A Novel Ropes-Driven Wideband Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester

  • Jinhui Zhang,
  • Lingfeng Kong,
  • Luan Zhang,
  • Fang Li,
  • Wei Zhou,
  • Shenglin Ma and
  • Lifeng Qin

2 December 2016

This paper presents a novel piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH) in which a high-frequency generating beam (HFGB) is driven by an array of low-frequency driving beams (LFDBs) using ropes. Two mechanisms based on frequency upconversion and...

(This article belongs to the Section Energy Science and Technology)
  • Article
  • Open Access
24 Citations
5,352 Views
15 Pages

2 December 2016

Convex 1-D first-order total variation (TV) denoising is an effective method for eliminating signal noise, which can be defined as convex optimization consisting of a quadratic data fidelity term and a non-convex regularization term. It not only ensu...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of Civil Structures)
  • Article
  • Open Access
10 Citations
5,990 Views
15 Pages

Discrete-Time Sliding Mode Filter with Adaptive Gain

  • Shanhai Jin,
  • Yonggao Jin,
  • Xiaodan Wang and
  • Xiaogang Xiong

1 December 2016

In feedback control of mechatronic systems, sensor signals are usually noisy and uncertain because of measurement errors and environmental disturbances. Such uncertainty and noise of feedback signals may cause instability of the controlled systems. T...

  • Article
  • Open Access
73 Citations
10,680 Views
10 Pages

1 December 2016

Selective laser melting (SLM), used to fabricate metallic objects with high geometrical complexity, is currently of increasing interest to the fields of medicine and dentistry. SLM-fabricated products should have highly smooth surfaces to minimize th...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Materials for 3D Printing)
  • Article
  • Open Access
18 Citations
7,726 Views
7 Pages

30 November 2016

The zebrafish model provides an essential platform for the study of human diseases or disorders due to the possession of about 87% homologous genes with human. However, it is still very challenging to noninvasively visualize the structure and functio...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomedical Ultrasound)
  • Article
  • Open Access
20 Citations
7,510 Views
17 Pages

30 November 2016

Background: A change to new tramways in Graz (Austria) led to severe complaints in residential areas. To understand the underlying reasons for these complaints, a systematic measurement campaign was designed. Methods: Six locations in Graz and two lo...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Noise and Vibration Control in the Built Environment)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
7,735 Views
16 Pages

30 November 2016

An ultrasound (US) navigation system using global and local information is presented for transcatheter aortic stent deployment. The system avoids the use of contrast agents and radiation required in traditional fluoroscopically-guided procedures and...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomedical Ultrasound)

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Appl. Sci. - ISSN 2076-3417