Abstract: The working conditions in oil sand mines in Northern Alberta, Canada, are greatly affected by the climate and geology. The ground is very hard and competent in winter but very soft during summer [1]. This changing behaviour of the ground has a great impact on the truck’s frame and the health of the operator because he is exposed to large Whole Body Vibrations (WBV). When the human body is exposed to large WBV for prolonged periods, it begins to have chronic back problems resultin...
Abstract: Research has shown that a huge portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is underutilized. Over the years, cognitive radio has been demonstrated as an efficient dynamic spectrum management technique. Energy detection is one of the widely used spectrum sensing techniques. However, its performance is limited by factors such as multipath fading and shadowing, which makes it prone to errors, particularly in low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. Yet, it still has a low computational cost,...
Abstract: LoRa is a communication scheme that is part of the low power wide area network (LPWAN) technology using ISM bands. It has seen extensive documentation and use in research and industry due to its long coverage ranges of up-to 20 km or more with less than 14 dB transmit power. Moreover, some applications report theoretical battery lives of up to 10 years for field deployed modules utilising the scheme in wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. Additionally, the scheme is very r...
Abstract: An investigation was carried out to evaluate the isothermal oxidation behavior of nickel based superalloys at 1100 °C for 120 h. The alloys which were microstructured and nanostructured were developed by spark plasma sintering system. The oxidation test was carried out at a temperature of 1100 °C in air at different exposure time up to 120 h. The nanostructured nickel based alloy possessed better oxidation resistance with the formation of continuous adherent alumina, chro...
Abstract: This paper investigates distributed algorithms for joint power allocation and user association in heterogeneous networks. We propose auction-based algorithms for offloading macrocell users (MUs) from the macrocell base station to privately owned small-cell access points (SCAs). We first propose a simultaneous multiple-round ascending auction (SMRA) for allocating MUs to SCAs. Taking into account the overheads incurred by SCAs during valuation in the SMRA, further improvements are p...
Abstract: The desire for advanced performing renewable materials and friendly to the environment has grown worldwide. Lignocellulosic materials have demonstrated great potential as reinforcing agents in the manufacturing of composite materials. Achieving such materials also depends on the optimization of parameters not limited to particle size, temperature, duration of treatment, manufacturing technique and the type of modification. Laccase enzyme, a biological modification deemed friendly t...
Abstract: Modern-day diamond sorting is achieved through the application of X-ray lumi- nescence (XRL) and X-ray transmission (XRT) techniques. Sorting with XRL is limited to the class range of 1.25 mm to 32 mm because of self-absorption associated with larger dia- monds, greater than 32mm. The effect of self-absorption is also a high-energy phenomenon in XRL. XRT is limited to sorting large size diamonds as the technique suffers poor contrast for diamonds smaller than 10mm. XRT measurements...
Abstract: This study investigated the use of copper smelter slag for the removal of phosphorus from secondary wastewater effluent through batch tests. The media was physically and chemically characterized and showed presence of Fe2O3 (45.22%), SiO2 (14.98%), Al2O3 (3.21%), CaO (1.99%), SO3 (1.77%) and MgO (1.33%). Scanning electron microscopy monographs revealed smooth and flat surface and no heterogeneity on the surface of the slag with visible micro pores before the experiment and less vis...
Abstract: A lot of effort and time is utilized in the planning and building of the cellular wireless networks to use minimum infrastructural components to provide the best network coverage as well as delivery of quality of service. Generally, path loss models are used for the prediction of wireless network coverage. Therefore, detailed knowledge of the appropriate path loss model suitable for the proposed geographical area is needed to determine the coverage quality of any wireless network d...
Abstract: The advancements in hardware technologies have driven the evolution of vehicular ad hoc networks into the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). The IoV is a decentralized network of IoT-enabled vehicles capable of smooth traffic flow to perform fleet management and accident avoidance. The IoV has many commercial applications due to improved security and safety on the roads. However, the rapidly increasing number of wireless applications have challenged the existing spectrum bands allocated t...
Abstract: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), an emerging large-scale network system can be embedded for any application. The designers of wireless sensor network have to consider the quality of service agreements from a user perspective. The WSN is very rapid in dynamic changing topology and has less energy, computing and communication resources.The network design has to fulfill the QoS parameters like reliability, timeliness and lifetime of the network. In wireless sensor network, when two no...
Abstract: Entire world is revolving towards digital space as a result of the Internet and other emerging web technologies are helping the society to reach the universe. ICT and e-learning are growing radically fast and have captured a major role in higher educational systems. To develop the coast-to-coast purposes, institutions are changing the teaching style from chalk and talk to Learning Management System (LMS), called e-learning systems. Impact of e-learning introduces various delivery m...
Abstract: Many countries desire to have a clean and healthy environment hence the need for effective and efficient Management of trash Bins. But for many years, the traditional way of collection and removal of trash has not proved to be effective. There are number of problems encountered with the usage of the traditional way of collecting trash in hospital and Healthcare Centers. These problems include among others: trash overflow, land and air pollution and unclean and unhealthy enviro...
Abstract: Renewable eco-friendly options for crop protection are fundamental in achieving sustainable agriculture. Here, we demonstrate the use of a biodegradable lignocellulosic banana-paper matrix as a seed wrap for the protection of potato plants against potato cyst nematode (PCN), Globodera rostochiensis. Potato cyst nematodes are devastating quarantine pests of potato globally. In East Africa, G. rostochiensis has recently emerged as a serious threat to potato production. Wrapping seed ...
Abstract: There is tremendous growth of data generated from different industries, i.e., health, agriculture, engineering, etc. Consequently, there is demand for more processing power. Compared to computer processing units, general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) are rapidly emerging as a promising solution to achieving high performance and energy efficiency in various computing domains. Multiple forms of parallelism and complexity in memory access have posed a challenge in developin...