The influence of the reaction gas composition during the DC magnetron sputtering process on the structural, chemical and optical properties of Ce-oxide thin films was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies confirmed that all thin films exhibited a polycrystalline character with cubic fluorite structure for cerium dioxide. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses revealed that cerium is present in two oxidation states, namely as CeO2 and Ce2O3, at the surface of the films prepared at oxygen/argon flow ratios between 0% and 7%, whereas the films are completely oxidized into CeO2 as the aforementioned ratio increases beyond 14%. Various optical parameters for the thin films (including an optical band gap in the range of 2.25–3.1 eV) were derived from the UV–Vis reflectance. A significant change in the band gap was observed as oxygen/argon flow ratio was raised from 7% to 14% and this finding is consistent with the high-resolution XPS analysis of Ce 3d that reports a mixture of Ce2O3 and CeO2 in the films. Density functional theory (DFT+U) implemented in the Cambridge Serial Total Energy Package (CASTEP) was carried out to simulate the optical constants of CeO2 clusters at ground state. The computed electronic density of states (DOSs) of the optimized unit cell of CeO2 yields a band gap that agrees well with the experimentally measured optical band gap. The simulated and measured absorption coefficient (α) exhibited a similar trend and, to some extent, have similar values in the wavelength range from 100 to 2500 nm. The combined results of this study demonstrate good correlation between the theoretical and experimental findings.
This paper presents L1-adaptive controller for controlling uncertain parameters and time-varying unknown parameters to control the position of a DC servomotor. For the purpose of comparison, the effectiveness of L1-adaptive controller for position control of studied servomotor has been examined and compared with another adaptive controller; Model Reference Adaptive Controller (MRAC). Robustness of both L1-adaptive controller and model reference adaptive controller to different input reference signals and different structures of uncertainty were studied. Three different types of input signals are taken into account; ramp, step and sinusoidal. The L1-adaptive controller ensured uniformly bounded
... Show MoreData steganography is a technique used to hide data, secret message, within another data, cover carrier. It is considered as a part of information security. Audio steganography is a type of data steganography, where the secret message is hidden in audio carrier. This paper proposes an efficient audio steganography method that uses LSB technique. The proposed method enhances steganography performance by exploiting all carrier samples and balancing between hiding capacity and distortion ratio. It suggests an adaptive number of hiding bits for each audio sample depending on the secret message size, the cover carrier size, and the signal to noise ratio (SNR). Comparison results show that the proposed method outperforms state of the art methods
... Show MoreData steganography is a technique used to hide data, secret message, within another data, cover carrier. It is considered as a part of information security. Audio steganography is a type of data steganography, where the secret message is hidden in audio carrier. This paper proposes an efficient audio steganography method that uses LSB technique. The proposed method enhances steganography performance by exploiting all carrier samples and balancing between hiding capacity and distortion ratio. It suggests an adaptive number of hiding bits for each audio sample depending on the secret message size, the cover carrier size, and the signal to noise ratio (SNR). Comparison results show that the proposed method outperforms state of the art methods
... Show MoreThe aim of the current study is to demonstrate the effect of honey on the sperms characteristics (sperm concentration, sperm motility, grade of activity and sperm normal morphology) as well as pregnancy rate in mice. Sperms were obtained from caudal epididymis of male mice and prepared by adding10% of honey to the IVF medium using direct sperms activation technique for 30 minute incubation period before artificial insemination.
The study revealed a significant (P > 0.05) increase in active sperm motility (grade A and grade B) 49% and pregnancy rate 53.3% in female mice artificially inseminated with sperms. On the other hand, there were no significant differences in sperm con
... Show MoreThe modified Hummers method was applied to prepare graphene oxide (GO) from the graphite powder. Tin oxide nanoparticles with different loading (10-20 wt.%) supported on reduced graphene oxide were synthesized to evaluate the oxidative desulfurization efficiency. The catalyst was synthesized by the incipient wetness impregnation (IWI) technique. Different analysis methods like FT-IR, XRD, FESEM, AFM, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) were utilized to characterize graphene oxide and catalysts. The XRD analysis showed that the average crystal size of graphene oxide was 6.05 nm. In addition, the FESEM results showed high metal oxide dispersions on the rGO. The EDX analysis shows the weight ratio of Sn is close to its theoretical weight.
... Show MoreNitinol (NiTi) is used in many medical applications, including hard tissue replacements, because of its suitable characteristics, including a close elastic modulus to that of bones. Due to the great importance of the mechanical properties of this material in tissue replacements, this work aims to study the hysteresis response in an attempt to explore the ability of the material to remember its previous mechanical state in addition to its ability to withstand stress and to obtain the optimal dimensions and specifications for the manufacturer of NiTi actuators. Stress-strain examination is done in a computational way using a mutable Lagoudas MATLAB code for various coil radii, environment temperatures, and coil lengths. The computational m
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Experimental work from Magnetic Abrasive Finishing (MAF) tests was carried out design parameters (amplitude, and number of cycle which are formed the shape of electromagnetic pole), and technological parameters (current, cutting speed, working gap, and finishing time) all have an influence on the mechanical properties of the surface layer in MAF process. This research has made to study the effect of design and technological parameters on the surface roughness (Ra), micro hardness (Hv) and material removal (MR) in working zone. A set of experimental tests has been planned using response surface methodology according to Taguchi matrix (36) with three levels and six factors
... Show MoreThe largest use of x-ray in medical by dentists, employers or persons that needed by patients with specific conditions, lead to higher exposure of x-ray that may cause many diseases. In the present work radiography films have been used in evaluating the efficiency of using unsaturated polyester polymer reinforced with lead oxide (PbO) as shield material for medical x-ray devices, many parameters studied like concentration and thickness that they are increasing the attenuation of x-ray in them. The results show that the attenuation of X-ray increasing with concentration of reinforced material and with thickness, and the optical density decreases with increasing concentration from 0% to 50%, we chose 30% as suitable concentration to increase
... Show MoreZ-scan has been utilized for studying the non-linear properties and optical limiting behaviors of the dye Copper Phthalocyanine thin films. The refractive index is negative, which indicates a self-defocusing behavior and non-linear absorption coefficient (
In this study, the kinetics for the reaction of tert-butanol esterification with acetic acid in the presence of Dowex 50Wx8 catalyst was investigated. The reaction kinetic experiments were conducted in 1000 milliliter vessel at temperatures ranged from 50 - 80 oC, catalyst loading 25-50 g/L, and the molar ratios of acetic acid to tert-butanol from 1/3 – 3/1. The reaction rate was found to increase with increasing temperature and catalyst loading. It was also found the conversion of the tert-butanol increases as the molar ratio of acid to alcohol increases from 1/3 – 3/1. The Non-ideality of the liquid phase was taken into account by using activities instead of molar fractions. The activity coefficients were calculated according to th
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