A recent field of investigation concerns the efficiency of flapping flyers, the major interrogation being about how natural systems optimize energy saving together with performance enhancement. In particular, the passive role of wing flexibility to increase flight efficiency through the bending of the wings while flapping has attracted a lot of attention. It is commonly agreed that this efficie...

This article focuses on sati:sfactions derived from the recycling of household solid waste materials. Data from 107 respondents to a mail-back questionnaire were subjected to dimension~1 analysis and analysis of variance. The results indicate that people derive a series ofseparate and distinct satisfactions from both recycling and reusing materials. The satisfactions were quite specific, involv...

This paper is based on the findings of a field study which was planned to ascertain by metabolic measurement the rates of energy expenditure of men and women on productive effort at work in modern factories. The investigation which is described was carried out during a period of peace-time full employment, mainly in factories associated with the Slough Industrial Health Service in which a nutri...

The mixing of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids in a magnetic micro-mixer was studied numerically using  ferrofluid. The mixing process was performed in a three-dimensional steady-state micro-mixer. A magnetic source was mounted at the entrance of the micro-channel to oscillate the magnetic particles. The effects of electric current, inlet velocity, size of magnetic particles, and non-Newtonia...

The efficiency of automated fingerprint identification system depends highly on fingerprint image enhancement algorithms. Fingerprint image enhancement can be divided into two stages: 1) At the first stage we enhance the image with conventional filters, where filter parameters do not change. 2) At the second stage we enhance the structure of ridges and valleys with contextual filters, where fil...

Integrating plasmon resonant nanostructures with photocatalytic semiconductors shows great promise for high efficiency photocatalytic water splitting. However, the electrochemical instability of most III-V semiconductors severely limits their applicability in photocatalysis. In this work, we passivate p-type GaP with a thin layer of n-type TiO2 using atomic layer deposition. The TiO2 passivatio...

Any instant of conscious perception is shaped by the differential contributions of all of our sensory organs. Complementary information in distinct sensory streams can be exploited by crossmodal integration. The principles that govern these integrative processes are not yet completely understood. The traditional bimodal nature of multisensory research hampers the exploration of the complex inte...

In this paper, we use the transfer matrix method to calculate the optical absorptance of vertically-aligned silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays. For fixed filling ratio, significant optical absorption enhancement occurs when the lattice constant is increased from 100 nm to 600 nm. The enhancement arises from an increase in field concentration within the nanowire as well as excitation of guided reson...

Poly(lauryl methacrylate) (PLMA) thin film doped with Mn:ZnSe quantum dots (QDs) was spin-deposited on the front surface of Si solar cell for enhancing the solar cell efficiency via photoluminescence (PL) conversion. Significant solar cell efficiency enhancements (approximately 5% to 10%) under all-solar-spectrum (AM0) condition were observed after QD-doped PLMA coatings. Furthermore, the real ...

Graphene has been used to synthesize graphene quantum dots (GQDs) via pulsed laser ablation. By depositing the synthesized GQDs on the surface of InGaP/InGaAs/Ge triple-junction solar cells, the short-circuit current, fill factor, and conversion efficiency were enhanced remarkably. As the GQD concentration is increased, the conversion efficiency in the solar cell increases accordingly. A conver...