Nano particles contribute as a partial substitute in the production of eco-friendly building materials. This research presents a quantitative assessment of the sustainability effect of partially replacing cement in the green concrete mix with two types of nano-waste particles. The assessment is achieved using two weighing criteria developed by a Sustainable Decision Support System (SDSS) model. This assesses the alternatives using scoring systems based on both the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) technique and Multi-Criteria decision analysis method. Ten sustainable aspects comprising four

Much research has focused on the development of optimal strategies for rehabilitation and replacement of water and sewer infrastructures. Condition assessment is an integral component in any asset management program for assessing the asset physical condition. Determining the condition of buried infrastructure tends to be cumbersome, costly and error-prone. As such, decision makers must balance the value of obtained information through condition assessments with the cost of obtaining this information. Such decisions must balance between conflicting needs and need to consider the sought level of

Sensor Actor NETworks (SANET) represent a major component of ubiquitous service environments promising interesting solutions to a wide range of problems. Despite the obvious increase in the research activities proposing architectures and protocols for SANETs, we are still no where near the production of industrial-grade SANET software that can be relied upon for mission critical applications. The cost of programming, deploying and maintaining SANET environments is still highly prohibitive due to the lack of industrial tools capable of realizing adaptive SANET software in a cost effective way

In this paper, we investigate the performance of an ALOHA random access wireless network consisting of nodes with and without RF energy harvesting capability. We develop and analyze a Markov model for the system when nodes with RF energy harvesting capability are infinitely backlogged. Our results indicate that the network throughput is improved when the conventional nodes are underloaded. On the contrary, when all types of nodes have finite backlogs, we numerically demonstrate that the network throughput and delay are improved when the overall system is overloaded. We show that there exists a

Improvement of structural efficiency in various materials is critically important for sustainable society development and the efficient use of natural resources. Recently, a lot of attention in science and engineering has been attracted to heterogeneous-structure materials because of high structural efficiency. However, strategies for the efficient design of heterogenous structures are still in their infancy therefore demanding extensive exploration. In this work, two-dimensional finite-element models for pure nickel with bimodal distributions of grain sizes having ‘harmonic’ and ‘random’

The problem of hazardous wastewater remediation is a complicated issue and a global challenge. Herein, a layered Co0.5Ni0.5Fe2O4/SiO2/TiO2 composite matrix was prepared and incorporated with three carbon nanomaterials having different dimensionalities, carbon dots (C-dots, 0D), single-walled carbon nanotubes (1D), and reduced graphene oxide (2D), in an effort to create effective photocatalytic nanocomposites for chloramine-T removal from water. Microstructural analyses confirmed the formation of nanocomposites and revealed their chemistry and structure. Elemental mapping revealed a uniform

With recently increasing the environmental problems and expected energy crisis, it is necessary to synthesis a low-cost, efficient, and UV-light responsive photocatalyst for contaminants’ degradation. The nanostructured spinel ferrite Mn0.5Zn0.5-xMgxFe2O4 NPs (x = 0.0, 0.125, 0.25, 0.375 and 0.50) were synthesized via the sol-gel method. The crystallite size was lied in nano regime ranging from 21.8 to 36.5 nm. The surface chemical composition of the Mn0.5Zn0.5-xMgxFe2O4 NPs was investigated via XPS analysis. Mossbauer spectra showed that the peaks were shifted to higher values of the maximum

Cu2ZnSi(S,Se)4 and Cu2Si(S,Se)3 are potential materials to obtain cost effective high band gap absorbers for tandem thin film solar cell devices. A method to synthesize Cu2SiS3, Cu2SiSe3and Cu2ZnSiSe4thin film absorbers is proposed. This method is based on a multistep process, using sequential deposition and annealing processes. X-ray diffraction analysis performed on the final thin films have confirmed the presence of the Cu2Si(S,Se)3 and Cu2ZnSiSe4phases. Scanning electron microscopy images revealed the formation of polycrystalline layers with grains size up to 1 μm. The band gap of the

Due to the fabrication processes, inaccurate manufacturing of the photonic crystals (PCs) might occur which affect their performance. In this paper, we examine the effects of tolerance variations of the radii of the rods and the permittivity of the material of the two-dimensional PCs on their performance. The presented stochastic analysis relies on plane wave expansion method and Mote Carlo simulations. We focus on two structures, namely Si-Rods PCs and Air-Holes PCs. Numerical results show—for both structures—that uncertainties in the dimensions of the PCs have higher impact on its photonic

This paper presents an improved memristor-based relaxation oscillator which offers higher frequency and wider tunning range than the existing reactance-less oscillators. It also has the capability of operating on two positive supplies or alternatively a positive and negative supply. Furthermore, it has the advantage that it can be fully integrated on-chip providing an area-efficient solution. On the other hand, The oscillation concept is discussed then a complete mathematical analysis of the proposed oscillator is introduced. Furthermore, the power consumption of the new relaxation circuit is