ELECTROLYTE- GATED THIN FILM TRANSISTORS WITH SOLUTION- PROCESSED SEMICONDUCTORS

The work in this thesis is concentrated on studies of improving the functionality of electrolyte- gated thin film transistors with solution- processed semiconductors in order to provide a promising platform in particular for sensor as transducers and introduce sensitizer layer on the top of the devices to improve their response to specific analytes. Calixarenes, a family of organic macrocycles, were used to bind selectively to waterborne cations, making them an attractive sensitizer option for such species. Here, it is found that calixarenes deposited over the surface of semiconductors using the Langmuir trough also show a positive impact on the performance of TFTs in terms of reducing unwanted electrochemical doping, which often competes with field effect. Also, electron- transporting and electrolyte- gated thin film transistors were demonstrated using precursor- route zinc- oxide (ZnO) semiconductors with hydrophobic surface modifications. This avoids the well- known problem of electron trapping in organic semiconductors. ZnO also shows ambipolar behavior when gated by an ionic liquid (IL) at high applied voltages. Moreover, it is found some organic solvents may act as EDL gate media for TFTs, thus establishing a new family of gate media, in addition to the previously known options (water, ILs, solid electrolytes). This ability is a property of the solvent, not the semiconductor, and a criterion is identified to qualify an organic solvent to act as EDL gate medium. The organic nano- wire (NW) morphology is attractive for sensor applications, due to the high surface area of NWs. Here, both p- type and n- type organic NW films were gated by water. NW TFTs of the hole- transporting polymer P3HT, grown via different solution- based routes, showed lower drain currents, but also lower thresholds, compared to conventional P3HT film TFTs. Water- gated electron- transporting organic TFTs were demonstrated using nano- belts of the n- type organic semiconductor BBL. Performance was improved significantly when using an aprotic organic solvent as EDL gate medium for BBL nano- belt films

An investigation of building information modelling implementation in KSA

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been well recognised all around the world as a technology driven approach that can bring radical improvements in construction productivity. There is considerable demand for using BIM in the KSA due to the large scale of its construction industry that needs to improve its productivity to overcome the persistent problems, such as project delays, planning inefficiencies, and waste of resources. The aim of this study is to investigate how the KSA construction organisations are implementing BIM for competitive advantage. Qualitative research approach was adopted to collect and analyse data from 46 BIM professionals. As part of the analysis of the interviews, content analysis was employed. The unit of analysis adopted for this study is the ‘construction industry’ and the embedded unit is ‘individual employee’. The KSA construction industry is heading in the right direction for implementing BIM, however it is lacking BIM knowledge and does not understand BIM as a set of requirements. Therefore, an industry wide awareness-raising programme on the concept of BIM needs to be developed and deployed. The existing education and training programmes need some reorientation. Furthermore, the KSA construction organisations would not survive if they choose not to use BIM. BIM is widely used during planning and design stage. The four most important drivers for BIM implementation are: client pressure, competitive pressure, to improve collaboration, and government pressure. Eleven challenges were also revealed in this study of which organisational culture for change is the key challenge for adoption of BIM in the KSA construction organisations. Leaders of a change process need to realise that most changes within an organisation will usually cause and expect some change in its existing culture and sub-cultures. Therefore, having a better understanding of the effects change has on the sub-cultures of an organisation, group or team, will in turn help leaders of a change process better understand the resistance towards the change itself, and provide a more realistic approach on how to manage it. A BIM implementation framework is developed for the benefit of KSA construction organisations. It is recommended that KSA construction stakeholders including the government and professional regulatory bodies should work together in ensuring that the enablers of BIM adoption such as the provision of regulations and industry standards guiding the implementation are provided and strengthened to make the industry ready enough for BIM adoption

Types of glaucoma in a university health centre in Al‑Ahsa, Saudi Arabia: a pilot study

Objective: The objective was to assess the profile of different types of glaucoma in a University Health Centre in Al‑Ahsa, Saudi Arabia.Materials and Methods: It is a retrospective study in which the files of the patients at King Faisal University Health Centre were reviewed. The data collected included: Age, sex, race, visual acuity, the slit lamp examination findings, the intraocular pressure (IOP) as the average of 3 readings, the cup‑to‑disc ratio (CDR), the visual field changes, and the details of treatment received.Results: Eighty glaucomatous eyes from 50 patients were included in the study. The mean age was 54.8 ± 12.7 years, and the mean IOP was 19 ± 3.9 mmHg that ranged from 11 to 28 mmHg. The mean CDR mean was 0.48 ± 0.16 that ranged between 0.3 and 0.9. Ninety‑one percent of the visual field defects were arcuate scotomata. Primary open‑angle glaucoma (POAG) (60%) was the most predominant type of glaucoma, followed by primary angle closure glaucoma (ACG) (21.3%), secondary OAG (7.5%), and secondary ACG (6.3%). As for the anti‑glaucoma medications, 88% of the studied patients were on more than one medicine.Conclusion: This pilot study has demonstrated that POAG may be the predominant type of glaucoma in Al‑Ahsa, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Apopulation‑based study with a larger sample size is warranted to confirm the outcome and to provide a baseline data on the prevalence of types of glaucoma in this region of KSA.Keywords: Glaucoma, glaucoma types, prevalence, Saudi Arabi

Design of Cross Flow Heat Exchanger Using Performance Charts

The manuscript reviews the various steps involved in the design of a cross flow heat exchanger. Performance charts describing the thermal performance of the heat exchanger in terms of dimensionless parameters are used to develop the preliminary design of the heat exchanger. The preliminary design involves choosing the required number of heat exchanger passes, the required number of transfer units (NTU) and the capacity rate ratio for a given heat transfer application. These dimensionless parameters account for material, flow and thermal characteristics of the heat exchanger. In addition, NTU accounts for heat exchanger size, flow configuration and the type of heat exchanger. Since the preliminary design accounts for all the major characteristics of the heat exchanger, this approach is beneficial in optimizing the heat exchanger during the design phase. Performance charts indicate that indefinitely increasing the surface area (or NTU) does not increase the rate of heat transfer. There exists a threshold limit beyond which increasing the surface area adds no benefit to the heat exchanger. Instead, it just adds weight, material and cost of the heat exchanger. It must be noted that an undersized heat exchanger for a given application may not deliver the required heat transfer and while an oversized heat exchanger will increase the capital cost. Hence, it is very important to choose the right parameters during design of a heat exchanger. From the preliminary design, the detailed design for the heat exchanger can be readily extrapolated. The benefits of using performance charts in the design of a cross flow heat exchanger are described in the manuscript

Technology Platform for Sampling Water with Electrolyte-Gated Organic Transistors Sensitised with Langmuiur-Deposited Calixarene Surface Layers.

We demonstrate a technology platform that enables the development of new, surface-sensitised organic transistor sensors. We show that an organic semiconductor can still be gated by an electric double layer within the electrochemical window of water after the deposition of up to four Langmuir- Schäfer calixarene layers onto its surface. Since many calixarenes are known to selectively bind waterborne cations, this facilitates sensitising a conventional organic semiconductor with a physically deposited layer for specific cation recognition. When at least two Langmuir-Schäfer layers are deposited, these also block the electrochemical doping of the organic semiconductor, which otherwise competes with the field effect in water-gated organic transistors. Carrier mobility is reduced by the application of calixarene layers, but transistor current measurement remains accessible by simple methods. We find that for the present purpose, Langmuir-Schäfer-printed surface layers perform better than those deposited by Langmuir-Blodgett deposition

ViTs are Everywhere: A Comprehensive Study Showcasing Vision Transformers in Different Domain

Transformer design is the de facto standard for natural language processing tasks. The success of the transformer design in natural language processing has lately piqued the interest of researchers in the domain of computer vision. When compared to Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Vision Transformers (ViTs) are becoming more popular and dominant solutions for many vision problems. Transformer-based models outperform other types of networks, such as convolutional and recurrent neural networks, in a range of visual benchmarks. We evaluate various vision transformer models in this work by dividing them into distinct jobs and examining their benefits and drawbacks. ViTs can overcome several possible difficulties with convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The goal of this survey is to show the first use of ViTs in CV. In the first phase, we categorize various CV applications where ViTs are appropriate. Image classification, object identification, image segmentation, video transformer, image denoising, and NAS are all CV applications. Our next step will be to analyze the state-of-the-art in each area and identify the models that are currently available. In addition, we outline numerous open research difficulties as well as prospective research possibilities.Comment: ICCD-2023. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2208.04309 by other author

"Al-Urof" implementations in section one at the Omani civil law: a comparative study with the Egyptian and the Jordanian civil laws = إعمال العرف في الكتاب األول من قانون المعامالت المدنية العماني االلتزامات والحقوق الشخصية: دراسة مقارنة بالقانون المدني المصري والقانون المدني األردني

This study aimed to discuss: the implementation of custom in the introductory chapter, and the first book of the Omani Civil Transactions Law, personal obligations and rights, and its comparison with the Egyptian civil law and the Jordanian civil law. The study adopted two approaches: the inductive approach and the descriptive analytical approach. The study concluded many results, perhaps foremost among them: The Omani and Jordanian legislators agreed; If there is no text, the court rules in accordance with the provisions of Islamic jurisprudence, and if it does not exist, then according to the general principles of Islamic law, and if it does not exist, then according to custom. As for the Egyptian legislator, he presented the custom over the provisions of Islamic law. The three laws agreed on: Considering custom as a measure of abuse in the use of the right, as well as implementing custom in deciding on the finality of the contract with regard to the payment of the down payment. The Omani legislator agreed with the Jordanian legislator, if the contracting parties did not agree to specify the period, the judge may specify it according to custom, while the Egyptian legislator neglected to regulate the option of the condition. The Omani legislator agrees with the Jordanian legislator in implementing custom in the implementation of the contract. The Egyptian legislator agreed with them in determining the requirements of the contract, but he also dealt with what is among its requirements in accordance with the law, custom and justice according to the nature of the disposition. The first Omani and Jordanian legislator; The attribution of custom in determining what conditions are attached to contracts

DANet: Enhancing Small Object Detection through an Efficient Deformable Attention Network

Efficient and accurate detection of small objects in manufacturing settings, such as defects and cracks, is crucial for ensuring product quality and safety. To address this issue, we proposed a comprehensive strategy by synergizing Faster R-CNN with cutting-edge methods. By combining Faster R-CNN with Feature Pyramid Network, we enable the model to efficiently handle multi-scale features intrinsic to manufacturing environments. Additionally, Deformable Net is used that contorts and conforms to the geometric variations of defects, bringing precision in detecting even the minuscule and complex features. Then, we incorporated an attention mechanism called Convolutional Block Attention Module in each block of our base ResNet50 network to selectively emphasize informative features and suppress less useful ones. After that we incorporated RoI Align, replacing RoI Pooling for finer region-of-interest alignment and finally the integration of Focal Loss effectively handles class imbalance, crucial for rare defect occurrences. The rigorous evaluation of our model on both the NEU-DET and Pascal VOC datasets underscores its robust performance and generalization capabilities. On the NEU-DET dataset, our model exhibited a profound understanding of steel defects, achieving state-of-the-art accuracy in identifying various defects. Simultaneously, when evaluated on the Pascal VOC dataset, our model showcases its ability to detect objects across a wide spectrum of categories within complex and small scenes.Comment: ICCD-2

A water-gated organic thin film transistor as a sensor for water-borne amines

The p-type semiconducting polymer Poly(2,5-bis(3-hexadecylthiophen-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene) (PBTTT) displays innate sensitivity to water-borne amines. We demonstrate this with the help of water- gated PBTTT thin film transistors (TFTs). When octylamine is added to the gating water, TFTs respond with a significantly reduced saturated drain current. Underlying TFT drift is minimised by initial conditioning, and remaining drift can be accounted for by normalising current response to the current level under purge immediately before exposure. Normalised current response vs. amine concentration is reproducible between different transistors, and can be modelled by a Langmuir surface adsorption isotherm, which suggests physisorption of analyte at the PBTTT surface, rather than bulk penetration. Same PBTTT transistors do not respond to 1- octanol, confirming the specific affinity between amines and thiophene- based organic semiconductors

Rutin Isolated from Chrozophora tinctoria

Osteoporosis is a chronic disease in which the skeleton loses a weighty proportion of its mineralized mass and mechanical pliability. Currently available antiosteoporotic agents suffer adverse effects that include elevated risk of thrombosis and cancer. Phytochemicals may constitute a safer and effective option. In the current work, six flavonoids were obtained from Chrozophora tinctoria and identified as amentoflavone (1), apigenin-7-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (2), apigenin-7-O-6′′-E-p-coumaroyl-β-d-glucopyranoside (3), acacetin-7-O-β-d-[α-l-rhamnosyl(1→6)]3′′-E-p-coumaroyl glucopyranoside (4), apigenin-7-O-(6′′-Z-p-coumaroyl)-β-d-glucopyranoside (5), and rutin (6). An extensive review of the literature as well as NMR and mass spectral techniques was employed in order to elucidate the compound structures. Proliferation was enhanced in MCF7, MG-63, and SAOS-2 cells after exposure to subcytotoxic levels of the tested flavonoids. Rutin was chosen for subsequent studies in SAOS-2 cells. Rutin was not found to cause any alteration in the index of proliferation of these cells, when examining the cell cycle distribution by DNA flowcytometric analysis. Rutin was, however, found to increase osteocyte and osteoblast-related gene expression and lower the expression of RUNX suppressor and osteoclast genes. When examining the influence of rutin on vitamin D levels and the activity of alkaline phosphatase enzyme, it was found to enhance both, while decreasing acid phosphatase which is a marker of osteoporosis. Thus, rutin enhances proliferation and ossification markers in bone cells