The atmospheric air cold plasma has been used to manufacture gold nanomaterials for treating parasitic leishmaniasis. This study experimentally assessed the treatment of Leishmania parasites (L. donovani and L. tropica) by gold nanoparticles. Specifically, atmospheric pressure nonthermal plasma was generated using different diameters (1.0, 2.8, 3.8 and 4.3 mm) of high voltage electrode. Aqueous gold tetrachloride salts (HAuCl4·4H2O) were used as precursor to produce gold nanoparticles. UV-vis spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction were conducted for characterization of the nanoparticles. The optimum condition (a diameter of 1 mm) was chosen to prepare gold nanoparticles, where the grain size was found to be 17 nm. Accordingly, the nanoparticle

To promote sustainable steel-concrete composite structures, it is essential to develop special shear connectors that facilitate accelerated construction and deconstruction. A lockbolt demountable shear connector (LBDSC) was recently proposed. While the LBDSC has been evaluated using horizontal and vertical (standard) push-out tests, it is essential to further assess the disassembly mechanism and the positive flexural performance of prefabricated demountable composite beams (PDCBs) under both serviceability and ultimate limit states. Two full-scale test specimens of PDCBs with LBDSC were designed with partial shear connections and assessed using a three or four-point load beam setup under both cyclic and static monotonic loading conditions.

To ensure fault tolerance and distributed management, distributed protocols are employed as one of the major architectural concepts underlying the Internet. However, inefficiency, instability and fragility could be potentially overcome with the help of the novel networking architecture called software-defined networking (SDN). The main property of this architecture is the separation of the control and data planes. To reduce congestion and thus improve latency and throughput, there must be homogeneous distribution of the traffic load over the different network paths. This paper presents a smart flow steering agent (SFSA) for data flow routing based on current network conditions. To enhance throughput and minimize latency, the SFSA distrib

Metasurface polarizers are essential optical components in modern integrated optics and play a vital role in many optical applications including Quantum Key Distribution systems in quantum cryptography. However, inverse design of metasurface polarizers with high efficiency depends on the proper prediction of structural dimensions based on required optical response. Deep learning neural networks can efficiently help in the inverse design process, minimizing both time and simulation resources requirements, while better results can be achieved compared to traditional optimization methods. Hereby, utilizing the COMSOL Multiphysics Surrogate model and deep neural networks to design a metasurface grating structure with high extinction rat

Priority of road maintenance can be viewed as a process influenced by decision-makers with varying decision-making power. Each decision-maker may have their view and judgment depending on their function and responsibilities. Therefore, determining the priority of road maintenance can be thought of as a process of MCDM. Regarding the priority of road maintenance, this is a difficult MCDM problem involving uncertainty, qualitative criteria, and possible causal relationships between choice criteria. This paper aims to examine the applicability of multiple MCDM techniques, which are used for assessing the priority of road maintenance, by adapting them to this sector. Priority of road maintenance problems subject to internal

In this paper, the computational method (CM) based on the standard polynomials has been implemented to solve some nonlinear differential equations arising in engineering and applied sciences. Moreover, novel computational methods have been developed in this study by orthogonal base functions, namely Hermite, Legendre, and Bernstein polynomials. The nonlinear problem is successfully converted into a nonlinear algebraic system of equations, which are then solved by Mathematica®12. The developed computational methods (D-CMs) have been applied to solve three applications involving well-known nonlinear problems: the Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer equation, the Blasius equation, and the Falkner-Skan equation, and a comparison between the met