Chemical and Structural Analysis of Rocks Using X-ray Fluorescence and X-ray Diffraction Techniques

Rock examinations for mining and commercial use are a vital process to save money and time. A variety of methods and approaches have been used to analyze rocks and among them, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques proved to be an accurate method. This research was conducted to evaluate the utility and reliability of XRF and XRD to analyze the major and trace elements of rocks as well as their crystalline structures. Results showed that XRF and XRD techniques are fast and reliable, nondestructive and non-invasive analytical tools for mineral analysis, particularly for rocks. For this purpose, the analysis of 28 samples of rocks, which collected from three different places of Kurdistan region-Iraq, is reported. These places are Haybat Sultan (HS) region in Koya city as well as TaqTaq (TA) and Garmuk (GT) district nearby Koya city. Throughout this analysis, 34 major and trace elements were detected in the rocks collected from HS region, whereas forty major and trace elements were detected in the rocks collected from TA district and GT district. In addition, it was found that the structures of these rocks were crystalline in nature. This was proved through the value of diffracted angle and it was found that the majority of these rocks are oxides. The external view (the appearance) of all collected rocks was also discussed and it was found that each rock consists of a variety of minerals which will be the reason that each rock has a specific color

A note on discontinuous problem with a free boundary

AbstractWe study a nonlinear elliptic problem with discontinuous nonlinearity(P)-Δu=f(u)H(μ-u)inΩ,u=0on∂Ω,where H is the Heaviside’s unit function, f, h are given functions and μ is a positive real parameter. We prove the existence of a unique solution and characterize the corresponding free boundary. Our methods relies on variational inequality approach combining with fixed point arguments

Merger and acquisition announcements and their effect on returns to shareholders of bidding firms and target firms: Empirical evidence from Malaysia

This study investigates the impact of announcements of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on stock prices of bidding firms and target firms in Malaysia. Using an event-study methodology to examine the market reaction to the announcements, 59 target firs and 26 bidding firms during the period from 1 January 2011 to 30 June 2015 have been identified. In addition, the acquirer’s status is taken into account in this study to examine their impact on abnormal returns (ARs). The data on M&As’ is obtained from Thomson SDC Platinum Merger and Acquisition Database and also from Bursa Malaysia website. The ARs are derived by using two models, namely the market model (MM) and market adjustment returns (MARs) model. FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBMKLCI) and FTSE Bursa Malaysia EMAS Index (FBMEMAS) are used as the benchmarks. The findings indicate target firms gain significantly on the announcement day (+3.5%). The multi-day windows around the announcement day also show positive cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs) for the two models and the two benchmarks. +15.83% is reported in the longer window (-20 to +20) and +8.92% in the 3- day window. For bidding firms, no evidence of value creation is observe

Portfolio peak algorithms achieving superior performance for maximizing throughput in WiMAX networks

The Mobile WiMAX IEEE 802.16 standards ensure provision of last mile wireless access, variable and high data rate, point to multi-point communication, large frequency range and QoS (Quality of Service) for various types of applications. The WiMAX standards are published by the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and specify the standards of services and transmissions. However, the way how to run these services and when the transmission should be started are not specified in the IEEE standards and it is up to computer scientists to design scheduling algorithms that can best meet the standards. Finding the best way to implement the WiMAX standards through designing efficient scheduler algorithms is a very important component in wireless systems and the scheduling period presents the most common challenging issue in terms of throughput and time delay. The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to design and develop an efficient scheduling algorithm to provide the QoS support for real-time and non-real-time services with the WiMAX Network. This was achieved by combining a portfolio of algorithms, which will control and update transmission with the required algorithm by the various portfolios for supporting QoS such as; the guarantee of a maximum throughput for real-time and non-real-time traffic. Two algorithms were designed in this process and will be discussed in this thesis: Fixed Portfolio Algorithms and Portfolio Peak Algorithm. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithms and test their efficiency for IEEE 802.16 networks, the authors simulated the algorithms in the NS2 simulator. Evaluation of the proposed Portfolio algorithms was carried out through comparing its performance with those of the conventional algorithms. On the other hand, the proposed Portfolio scheduling algorithm was evaluated by comparing its performance in terms of throughput, delay, and jitter. The simulation results suggest that the Fixed Portfolio Algorithms and the Portfolio Peak Algorithm achieve higher performance in terms of throughput than all other algorithms. Keywords: WiMAX, IEEE802.16, QoS, Scheduling Algorithms, Fixed Portfolio Algorithms, and Portfolio Peak Algorithms.The Mobile WiMAX IEEE 802.16 standards ensure provision of last mile wireless access, variable and high data rate, point to multi-point communication, large frequency range and QoS (Quality of Service) for various types of applications. The WiMAX standards are published by the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and specify the standards of services and transmissions. However, the way how to run these services and when the transmission should be started are not specified in the IEEE standards and it is up to computer scientists to design scheduling algorithms that can best meet the standards. Finding the best way to implement the WiMAX standards through designing efficient scheduler algorithms is a very important component in wireless systems and the scheduling period presents the most common challenging issue in terms of throughput and time delay. The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to design and develop an efficient scheduling algorithm to provide the QoS support for real-time and non-real-time services with the WiMAX Network. This was achieved by combining a portfolio of algorithms, which will control and update transmission with the required algorithm by the various portfolios for supporting QoS such as; the guarantee of a maximum throughput for real-time and non-real-time traffic. Two algorithms were designed in this process and will be discussed in this thesis: Fixed Portfolio Algorithms and Portfolio Peak Algorithm. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithms and test their efficiency for IEEE 802.16 networks, the authors simulated the algorithms in the NS2 simulator. Evaluation of the proposed Portfolio algorithms was carried out through comparing its performance with those of the conventional algorithms. On the other hand, the proposed Portfolio scheduling algorithm was evaluated by comparing its performance in terms of throughput, delay, and jitter. The simulation results suggest that the Fixed Portfolio Algorithms and the Portfolio Peak Algorithm achieve higher performance in terms of throughput than all other algorithms. Keywords: WiMAX, IEEE802.16, QoS, Scheduling Algorithms, Fixed Portfolio Algorithms, and Portfolio Peak Algorithms

The Influence of Tin Oxide Doping on Structural and Optical Properties of (Bi2O3) Thin Films

       في هذا البحث , تم استخدام تقنية خلط المساحيق للتحكم في نسبة الإضافة حيث تمت إضافة أكسيد القصدير الى أوكسيد البزموث بنسبة (1 ,3 , 5 , 7) % باستخدام طريقة التبخير بالفراغ ,  بمدى سمك للأغشية الرقيقة (40-100) نانومتر . اظهر تحليل مجهر الماسح الالكتروني  ان نتائج النسب كان قريبة من القيم المطلوبة . واظهر تحليل الاشعة السينية ان أكسيد البزموث النقي البلوري من الطور الرباعي(β-Bi2O3) , لوحظ ان الخصائص التركيبية تتحسن عند إضافة (1%) ونحصل على المركب ثلاثي (Bi64 SnO98) ومع إضافة بنسبة (5%) نحصل على مركب ثلاثي جديد (Bi12SnO20) , وبزيادة نسبة الشوائب تصبح الخصائص التركيبية  قريبة من العشوائية , ويبدا أوكسيد القصدير بالانفصال من أكسيد البزموث . اظهر مقياس AFM ان الاغشية الرقيقة تظهر على شكل قمم تشبه الابر النانوية , وفي حالة زيادة الشوائب يصبح السطح ناعم , أظهرت الخواص البصرية ارتفاعا في قيمة فجوة الطاقة الضوئية ev (3-2.6) فجوة الطاقة المباشرة ev (3.3-3.5) وفجوة الطاقة غير المباشرة تزيد نسبيا أيضا ev (2.73-2.48).          In this research, the powder mixing technology has been used to control the ratio of added, where the addition of tin oxide to the bismuth oxide of by (1,3,5,7)% by using vacuum evaporation method. The range of thickness for thin films (40-100)nm . EDX analysis shows the results of the ratios were close to the required values. XRD analysis shows pure bismuth oxide crystalline of the tetragonal phase (β-Bi2O3), observed that the structural properties improves with addition (1)% and the composition of a triangular compound (Bi64SnO98), and with addition (5)% we have a new triple compound (Bi12SnO20). By increasing the impurities, the structural properties become close from random, the tin oxide begins with bismuth oxide separation. AFM measurement shows the thin films surface a pekes like (nano needle) and the grain size rises to (20.2-22 nm). In the case of increased impurities, the surface becomes smooth, and the nano needle decrease with grain size . The optical properties showed a rise in the value of the optical power gap (2.6-3)eV and directly allowed transitions are simply increasing from (3.3-3.5) eV, and directly forbidden  transitions are simply increasing to from (2.48-2.73) eV

Developing a robust framework to reduce the size of a recorded video surveillance systems

Most of the video surveillance strategies take a significant amount of space for storage as surveillance camera's unexceptionally recorded everything during camera – on time. Whereby, it leads to consuming the storage capacity of the device of the system. In fact, many algorithms have been proposed solving in the dilemma to object recognition and compress the video to reduce the size whenever it save's data. Nevertheless, the technology deprived efficient methods to reducing the storage of space for consummation. The Idea of this paper is to propose a framework on how to possibly can be reduce the size of a recorded video of the surveillance system via recording only the part of the video that contains the motion, and ignore the other parts based on the motion detection. The result shows that the framework give an outstanding results on the uncompressed surveillance video recorded from a single fixed camera. The proposed framework enables to save 30% more of playback time and can provide more than 50% of storage of space saving

Extracting Double Diode Model Parameters Based on Cross Entropy Optimization Algorithm

A Cross Entropy (CE) optimization technique is suggested in this study in order to extract the optimal parameters of solar cell model. The solar cell model namely Double diode model, is used in this paper in the purpose to verify the proposed method. The seven unknown parameters of double diode model are: the photo-generated current, the diffusion current, saturation current, the series resistance, the shunt resistance, the diffusion ideality factor and recombination diode ideality factor. These parameters were used to determine the corresponding maximum power point (MPP) from the illuminated current–voltage (I–V) characteristic. The metaheuristic algorithms have created a center of attention due to the non-linearity of the solar cell models and the incapability of traditional optimization methods to precisely extract the parameters. Different cases and studies have been done to identify the unknown parameters of the solar cell double model. The efficiency of CE algorithm is investigated by comparing this method with various and different other techniques. This comparison is done using statistical indicators and analysis such as: mean absolute bias error, root mean square error and coefficient of determination. The results show that CE is a very efficient technique to identify the electrical parameters of the PV solar cells and modules