Objectives: Maxillofacial silicone is used to restore abnormalities due to congenital or acquired causes. However, the quality of silicone is far from ideal. This study was aimed at assessing the influence of the addition of cellulose nanofibers (CNFs; several nanometers wide and 2-5 micro m long) on the physical and mechanical characteristics of maxillofacial silicone elastomers. Methods: Two CNF weight percentages (0.5% and 1%) were tested, and 180 specimens were divided into one control and two experimental groups. Each group was subdivided into six subgroups. In each subgroup, ten specimens subjected to each of the following tests: tearing strength, Shore-A hardness, tensile strength, elongation percentage, surface roughness, and color

Liquid electrodes of domperidone maleate (DOMP) imprinted polymer were synthesis based on precipitation polymerization mechanism. The molecularly imprinted (MIP) and non-imprinted (NIP) polymers were synthesized using DOMP as a template. By methyl methacrylate (MMA) as monomer, N,Nmethylenebisacrylamide (NMAA) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as cross-linkers and benzoyl peroxide (BP) as an initiator. The molecularly imprinted membranes were synthesis using acetophenone (APH), di-butyl sabacate (DBS), Di octylphthalate (DOPH) and triolyl phosphate (TP)as plasticizers in PVC matrix. The slopes and limit of detection of l

The flexible joint robot (FJR) typically experiences parametric variations, nonlinearities, underactuation, noise propagation, and external disturbances which seriously degrade the FJR tracking. This article proposes an adaptive integral sliding mode controller (AISMC) based on a singular perturbation method and two state observers for the FJR to achieve high performance. First, the underactuated FJR is modeled into two simple second-order fast and slow subsystems by using Olfati transformation and singular perturbation method, which handles underactuation while reducing noise amplification. Then, the AISMC is proposed to effectively accomplish the desired tracking performance, in which the integral sliding surface is designed to reduce cha

This paper reports a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) as a biosensor. The FBGs were etched using a chemical agent,namely,hydrofluoric acid (HF). This implies the removal of some part of the cladding layer. Consequently, the evanescent field propagating out of the core will be closer to the environment and become more sensitive to the change in the surrounding. The proposed FBG sensor was utilized to detect toxic heavy metal ions aqueous medium namely, copper ions (Cu2+). Two FBG sensors were etched with 20 and 40 μm diameters and fabricated. The sensors were studied towards Cu2+ with different concentrations using wavelength shift as a result of the interaction between the evanescent field and copper ions. The FBG sensors showed

<p>Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANET) suffer from dynamic network environment and topological instability that caused by high mobility feature and varying vehicles density. Emerging 5G mobile technologies offer new opportunities to design improved VANET architecture for future intelligent transportation system. However, current software defined networking (SDN) based handover schemes face poor handover performance in VANET environment with notable issues in connection establishment and ongoing communication sessions. These poor connectivity and inflexibility challenges appear at high vehicles speed and high data rate services. Therefore, this paper proposes a flexible handover solution for VANET networks by integrating SDN and

The transmitting and receiving of data consume the most resources in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The energy supplied by the battery is the most important resource impacting WSN's lifespan in the sensor node. Therefore, because sensor nodes run from their limited battery, energy-saving is necessary. Data aggregation can be defined as a procedure applied for the elimination of redundant transmissions, and it provides fused information to the base stations, which in turn improves the energy effectiveness and increases the lifespan of energy-constrained WSNs. In this paper, a Perceptually Important Points Based Data Aggregation (PIP-DA) method for Wireless Sensor Networks is suggested to reduce redundant data before sending them to the

This article presents a new cascaded extended state observer (CESO)-based sliding-mode control (SMC) for an underactuated flexible joint robot (FJR). The control of the FJR has many challenges, including coupling, underactuation, nonlinearity, uncertainties and external disturbances, and the noise amplification especially in the high-order systems. The proposed control integrates the CESO and SMC, in which the CESO estimates the states and disturbances, and the SMC provides the system robustness to the uncertainty and disturbance estimation errors. First, a dynamic model of the FJR is derived and converted from an underactuated form to a canonical form via the Olfati transformation and a flatness approach, which reduces the complexity of th

This work focuses on the preparation of pure nanocrystalline SnO2 and SnO2:Cu thin films on cleaned glass substrates utilizing a sol-gel spin coating and chemical bath deposition (CBD) procedures. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the possible use of these thin films in the context of gas sensor applications. The films underwent annealing in an air environment at a temperature of 500 ^◦C for duration of 60 minutes. The thickness of the film that was deposited may be estimated to be around 300 nm. The investigation included an examination of the structural, optical, electrical, and sensing characteristics, which were explored across various preparation circumstances, specifically focusing on varied