Photonic Crystal Fiber Interferometers (PCFIs) are widely used for sensing applications. This work presents the fabrication and the characterization of a relative humidity sensor based on a polymer-coated photonic crystal fiber that operates in a Mach- Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) transmission mode. The fabrication of the sensor involved splicing a short (1 cm) length of Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) between two single-mode fibers (SMF). It was then coated with a layer of agarose solution. Experimental results showed that a high humidity sensitivity of 29.37 pm/%RH was achieved within a measurement range of 27–95%RH. The sensor also showed good repeatability, small size, measurement accuracy and wide humidity range. The RH sensitivity of the sensor has a significant dependence on the thickness of the coating and the sensor with the highest sensitivity showed a linear response for RH change in the range of 27-95% RH and a fast response time of 0.8 sec for an RH change from 50% to 90%.
Identification of pathogens and locating their inocul¬um source (S) are the first strategies toward successful disease management program the pretransplating seedl¬ing damping - off problem on vegetable crops was found to be caused by Pythium aphanidermatum and Rhizocto¬nia solani. Both fungi were isolated from peat (moss) for the first time in Iraq. In addition, considerable num¬ber of pathogenic fungi was found as contaminants in soil samples from Alrashidiah vegetable covered farming station. Among the isolated fungi were: Pythium apha¬nidermatum, Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium solani phialophora spp., Cephalisporium spp Rizopus stolonfier and Botrytis cine¬rea, in addition to several
... Show MoreSoil water use and water storage vary by vegetative management practices, and these practices affect land productivity and hydrologic processes. This study investigated the effects of agroforestry buffers (AB), grass buffers (GB), and biofuel crops (BC), relative to row crops (RC) on soil water use for a claypan soil in northern Missouri, USA. The experiment located at the Greenley Memorial Research Center included RC, AB, GB, and BC established in 1991, 1997, 1997, and 2012, respectively. Soil water reflectometer sensors installed at 5‐, 10‐, 20‐, and 40‐cm depths monitored soil water from April to November in 2017 and 2018. Results showed significant differences in weekly volumetric water content (VWC) among treatments for all fou
... Show MoreData scarcity is a major challenge when training deep learning (DL) models. DL demands a large amount of data to achieve exceptional performance. Unfortunately, many applications have small or inadequate data to train DL frameworks. Usually, manual labeling is needed to provide labeled data, which typically involves human annotators with a vast background of knowledge. This annotation process is costly, time-consuming, and error-prone. Usually, every DL framework is fed by a significant amount of labeled data to automatically learn representations. Ultimately, a larger amount of data would generate a better DL model and its performance is also application dependent. This issue is the main barrier for
Seawater might serve as a fresh‐water supply for future generations to help meet the growing need for clean drinking water. Desalination and waste management using newer and more energy intensive processes are not viable options in the long term. Thus, an integrated and sustainable strategy is required to accomplish cost‐effective desalination via wastewater treatment. A microbial desalination cell (MDC) is a new technology that can treat wastewater, desalinate saltwater, and produce green energy simultaneously. Bio‐electrochemical oxidation of wastewater organics creates power using this method. Desalination and the creation of value‐added by‐products are expected because of this ionic mov
Corrosion experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of several operating parameters on the corrosion rate and corrosion potential of carbon steel in turbulent flow conditions in the absence and presence of sodium benzoate inhibitor using electrochemical polarization technique. These parameters were rotational velocity (0 - 1.57 m/s), temperature (30oC – 50oC), and time. The effect of these parameters on the corrosion rate and inhibition efficiency were investigated and discussed. It was found that the corrosion rate represented by limiting current increases considerably with increasing velocity and temperature and that it decreased with time due to the formation of corrosion product layer. The corrosion potential shifted t
... Show MoreEach organization struggles to exploit each possible opportunity for gaining success and continuing with its work carrier. In this field, organization success can be concluded by fulfilling end user requirements combined with optimizing available resources usage within a specified time and acceptable quality level to gain maximum profit. The project ranking process is governed by the multi-criteria environment, which is more difficult for the governmental organization because other organizations' main target is maximizing profit constrained with available resources. The governmental organization should consider human, social, economic and many more factors. This paper focused on building a multi-criteria optimizing proje
... Show MoreObjective: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of coating titanium (Ti) dental implant with polyether ketone ketone (PEKK) polymer using magnetron sputtering on osseointegration, trying to overcome some of the problems associated with Ti alloys. Material and Methods: Implants were prepared from grade (II) commercially pure titanium (CP Ti), then laser was used to induce roughness on the surface of Ti. PEKK was deposited on the surface of Ti implants by radiofrequency (RF) magnetron sputtering technique. The implants were divided in to three groups: without coating (Ls), with PEKK coating using argon (Ar) as sputtering gas (Ls-PEKK-Ar), and with PEKK coating using nitrogen (N) as sputtering gas (Ls-PEKK-N). All the implants were implante
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