Applied Sciences, Volume 7, Issue 2

A series of structural vulnerability analyses are conducted on a reinforced cold-formed steel (RCFS) shear wall system and a traditional cold-formed steel (CFS) shear wall system subjected to earthquake hazard based on forms in order to investigate t...

We wish to make the following correction to the published paper [...]

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) systems exploit the laws of quantum mechanics to generate secure keying material for cryptographic purposes. To date, several commercially viable decoy state enabled QKD systems have been successfully demonstrated and s...

Simulating the impact of debris flows on structures and exploring the feasibility of applying energy dissipation devices or shock isolators to reduce the damage caused by debris flows can make great contribution to the design of disaster prevention s...

Renewable energy resources and new loads—such as electric vehicles—challenge grid management. Among several scenarios, the smart transformer represents a solution for simultaneously managing low- and medium-voltage grids, providing ancillary services...

Environmental pollution caused by the improper disposal of pharmaceuticals is a matter of global concern, and warrants immediate attention. Of particular concern is the aquatic contamination caused by the increasing use of antibiotics, which could gi...

In this paper, the direct current (DC) offset cancellation and S transform-based diagnosis method is verified using three case studies. For DC offset cancellation, correlated kurtosis (CK) is used instead of the cross-correlation coefficient in order...

A cost-effective light-emitting diode (LED) current balance strategy using a variable voltage regulator (VVR) with low dropout vDS control is proposed. This can regulate the multiple metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) of the...

Recently, P2P streaming techniques have been a promising solution to a large-scale live streaming system because of their high scalability and low installation cost. In P2P live streaming systems, however, it is difficult to manage peers’ buffers eff...

Aerodynamic noise increases with the sixth power of the running speed. As the speed increases, aerodynamic noise becomes predominant and begins to be the main noise source at a certain high speed. As a result, aerodynamic noise has to be focused on w...

Machined surface quality determines the reliability, wear resistance and service life of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) workpieces. In this work, the formation mechanism of the surface topography and the machining defects of CFRPs are propose...

The studies currently on soft galloping (SG) and hard galloping (HG) are scarce. In this study, SG and HG of spring-mounted triangular prisms in a water channel are investigated experimentally. A power take-off system (PTO), a spring system, addition...

Dielectric characterization of concrete is essential for the wireless structural health monitoring (SHM) of concrete structures. Guo Biao (GB) concrete refers to the concrete mixed and cast in accordance with the Chinese standard. Currently, China is...

The interactions of dihydroquinazolines with human serum albumin (HSA) were studied in pH 7.4 aqueous solution via fluorescence, circular dichroism (CD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic techniques. In this work, 6-chloro-1-(3,3-di...

A tunnel is a coupled system of the surrounding rock and the supporting structure. The health status of a tunnel structure is complex and is influenced by various factors. In addition, these factors are coupled and interacted with each other, which...

The behaviour of an asphalt concrete structure subjected to severe loading, such as blast and impact loadings, is becoming critical for safety and anti-terrorist reasons. With the development of high-speed computational capabilities, it is possible t...

Pulse-type near-fault earthquakes have obvious long-duration pulses, so they can cause large deformation in a base-isolated system in contrast to non-pulse-type near-fault and far-field earthquakes. This paper proposes a novel self-tuning fuzzy logic...

This paper describes a three-screen television system using a block recovery rate (BRR)-based unequal error protection (UEP). The proposed in-home wireless network uses scalable video coding (SVC) and UEP with forward error correction (FEC) for maxim...

In this paper, we present a comparison between several algorithms for oil spill classifications using fully and compact polarimetric SAR images. Oil spill is considered as one of the most significant sources of marine pollution. As a major difficulty...

To overcome the limitation of artificial judgment of meibomian gland morphology, we proposed a solution based on an improved fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm and rough sets theory. The rough sets reduced the redundant attributes while ensuring classific...

Nowadays, many more bridges with extra-width have been needed for vehicle throughput. In order to obtain a precise finite element (FE) model of those complex bridge structures, the practical hybrid updating method by integration of Gaussian mutation...

A time-sequential working, spatially-multiplexed autostereoscopic 3D display design consisting of a fast switchable RGB-color filter array and a fast color display is presented. The newly-introduced 3D display design is usable as a multi-user display...

A hybrid photovoltaic solar assisted loop heat pipe/heat pump (PV-SALHP/HP) water heater system has been developed and numerically studied. The system is the combination of loop heat pipe (LHP) mode and heat pump (HP) mode, and the two modes can be r...

Ontologies have been widely used to facilitate semantic interoperability and serve as a common information model in many applications or domains. The Smart and Networking Underwater Robots in Cooperation Meshes (SWARMs) project, aiming to facilitate...

Microwave-based all-analogue (orthogonal) subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) permits a direct processing of baseband data at Gbit/s while achieving low power consumption, low latency, low cost, and tolerance to dispersion. A key figure of merit in any SCM...

An efficient and environmental-friendly extraction method has been developed for extraction of ursolic acid (UA) from Hedyotis diffusa by using subcritical water extraction (SWE). The experiments were carried out at different particle sizes (20–100 m...

Clamped fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors have been widely applied in engineering strain measurements due to their advantages of high flexibility and efficiency. However, due to the existence of the interlayer, the strain measured by the encapsulated...

New, non-destructive sensing techniques for fast and more effective quality assessment of fruits and vegetables are needed to meet the ever-increasing consumer demand for better, more consistent and safer food products. Over the past 15 years, hypers...

The objective of this study is to design and briefly investigate the cooling performances of an air conditioning system for a special purpose vehicle under various experimental conditions. An air conditioning system with two parallel refrigeration c...

Due to the increasingly serious energy crisis and environmental pollution problem, traditional fossil energy is gradually being replaced by renewable energy in recent years. However, the introduction of renewable energy into power systems will lead t...

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is a popular polymer material for making membranes for several applications, including membrane distillation (MD), via the phase inversion process. Non-solvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) and vapor-induced phase sep...

The contribution of solar power in electric power systems has been increasing rapidly due to its environmentally friendly nature. Photovoltaic (PV) systems contain solar cell panels, power electronic converters, high power switching and often transfo...

Recently, high frequency bands (above 6 GHz) have attracted more attention for the next generation communication systems due to the limited frequency resources below 6 GHz. To reveal the influence of frequency on propagation channels, channel charact...

This study aims to investigate multi-objective configuration optimization of a hybrid energy storage system (HESS). In order to maximize the stability of the wind power output with minimized HESS investment, a multi-objective model for optimal HESS c...

Bioacoustic research of reptile calls and vocalizations has been limited due to the general consideration that they are voiceless. However, several species of geckos, turtles, and crocodiles are abletoproducesimpleandevencomplexvocalizationswhichares...

This review summarizes the current status of the research and development of natural ventilation-enabling noise control devices for use on the façades of high-rise residential buildings in congested cities. These devices are important for a sustainab...

This paper presents the realization of a resistorless third-order quadrature oscillator using two multiple-output current controlled current conveyor transconductance amplifiers (MO-CCCCTAs) and three grounded capacitors. The proposed circuit provide...

The ongoing undertaking of construction industrialization in China is redefining the industry and creating a new era for building construction. In order to identify the construction industrialization status and progress, a national survey is conducte...

Double-arched tunnel is a special and complex underground structure which needs to be monitored carefully during construction. Taking the Gangkou tunnel as the engineering background, this paper presents a case study of field monitoring of a represen...

Optical resonators are fundamental building-blocks for the development of Si-photonics-integrated circuits, as tunable on-chip optical filters. In addition to the specific spectral shape, which may vary according to a particular application, extremel...

The deterioration and failure of steel bridges around the world is of growing concern for asset managers and bridge engineers due to aging, increasing volume of traffic and introduction of heavier vehicles. Hence, a model that considers these heurist...

In this study, we introduce novel method of flow cytometry for cell detection based on impedance measurements. The state of the art method for impedance flow cytometry detection utilizes an embedded electrode in the microfluidic to perform measuremen...

An in-depth knowledge of the microbiota and metabolites in the solid-state fermentation (SSF) of Post-fermented Pu-erh tea (Pu-erh Shucha, PFPT), a Chinese traditional tea with various health benefits, is essential to develop modern fermentation tech...

The need to improve acoustic environments in our cities has led to increased interest in correcting or minimising noise pollution in urban environments, something that has been associated with the resurgence of the soundscape approach. This line of r...

This paper presents and implements a single-stage high-power-factor light-emitting diode (LED) driver with coupled inductors, suitable for streetlight applications. The presented LED driver integrates an interleaved buck-boost power factor correction...

This paper proposes a structured model for the identification of green tea, as well as tracing its geographical origins. Considering that the features of different types of green tea are similar under THz time-domain spectroscopy, we designed a progr...

To improve the energy efficiency and quality of the welding seam during the double-wire metal inert-gas (MIG) arc welding production, a new multi-frequency waveform control method was proposed in this paper. In this method, a multi-frequency modulati...

The influence of organic additives (Sasobit and RH) and water on the adhesion of the asphalt-aggregate interface was studied according to the surface free energy theory. Two asphalt binders (SK-70 and SK-90), and two aggregate types (limestone and ba...

In recent years, sparse representation approaches have been integrated into multi-focus image fusion methods. The fused images of sparse-representation-based image fusion methods show great performance. Constructing an informative dictionary is a key...

In order to research the effect of different layout forms of steel plate on the axial compression behavior of a steel plate-concrete composite shear wall, this paper presents the experimental results and analysis of the axial compression behavior of...