Structural, elastic, mechanical and thermodynamic properties of Terbium oxide: First-principles investigations

First-principles investigations of the Terbium oxide TbO are performed on structural, elastic, mechanical and thermodynamic properties. The investigations are accomplished by employing full potential augmented plane wave FP-LAPW method framed within density functional theory DFT as implemented in the WIEN2k package. The exchange-correlation energy functional, a part of the total energy functional, is treated through Perdew Burke Ernzerhof scheme of the Generalized Gradient Approximation PBEGGA. The calculations of the ground state structural parameters, like lattice constants a0, bulk moduli B and their pressure derivative B′ values, are done for the rock-salt RS, zinc-blende ZB, cesium chloride CsCl, wurtzite WZ and nickel arsenide NiAs polymorphs of the TbO compound. The elastic constants (C11, C12, C13, C33, and C44) and mechanical properties (Young's modulus Y, Shear modulus S, Poisson's ratio σ, Anisotropic ratio A and compressibility β), were also calculated to comprehend its potential for valuable applications. From our calculations, the RS phase of TbO compound was found strongest one mechanically amongst the studied cubic structures whereas from hexagonal phases, the NiAs type structure was found stronger than WZ phase of the TbO. To analyze the ductility of the different structures of the TbO, Pugh's rule (B/SH) and Cauchy pressure (C12–C44) approaches are used. It was found that ZB, CsCl and WZ type structures of the TbO were of ductile nature with the obvious dominance of the ionic bonding while RS and NiAs structures exhibited brittle nature with the covalent bonding dominance. Moreover, Debye temperature was calculated for both cubic and hexagonal structures of TbO in question by averaging the computed sound velocities

The Economic Determinants of Systematic Risk in the Jordanian Capital Market

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An Intelligent Hybrid Sentiment Analyzer for Personal Protective Medical Equipments Based on Word Embedding Technique: The COVID-19 Era

Due to the accelerated growth of symmetrical sentiment data across different platforms, experimenting with different sentiment analysis (SA) techniques allows for better decision-making and strategic planning for different sectors. Specifically, the emergence of COVID-19 has enriched the data of people’s opinions and feelings about medical products. In this paper, we analyze people’s sentiments about the products of a well-known e-commerce website named Alibaba.com. People’s sentiments are experimented with using a novel evolutionary approach by applying advanced pre-trained word embedding for word presentations and combining them with an evolutionary feature selection mechanism to classify these opinions into different levels of ratings. The proposed approach is based on harmony search algorithm and different classification techniques including random forest, k-nearest neighbor, AdaBoost, bagging, SVM, and REPtree to achieve competitive results with the least possible features. The experiments are conducted on five different datasets including medical gloves, hand sanitizer, medical oxygen, face masks, and a combination of all these datasets. The results show that the harmony search algorithm successfully reduced the number of features by 94.25%, 89.5%, 89.25%, 92.5%, and 84.25% for the medical glove, hand sanitizer, medical oxygen, face masks, and whole datasets, respectively, while keeping a competitive performance in terms of accuracy and root mean square error (RMSE) for the classification techniques and decreasing the computational time required for classification

Ensuring telecommunication network security through cryptology: a case of 4G and 5G LTE cellular network providers

This paper aims to present the details regarding telecommunication network security through cryptology protocols. The data was based on scientific data collection and the quantitative method was adopted. The questionnaire was developed and the primary respondents were approached who were working in 4 telecommunication networking companies namely Huawei, Ericsson, SK Telecom and Telefonica. The sample size of the research was 60 participants and the statistical analysis was used to analyze research. The finding shows that cryptology protocol such as SSH, SSL, Kerberos PGP and SET are implemented within the companies in order to secure network

Numerical Study of Stress Distribution in Soft Clay Treated with Stone Column

This study used a finite element analysis approach employing Plaxis 3D to analyze the stress concentration ratio, a critical parameter in geotechnical engineering, to examine stresses operating on stone columns and soft soils. This study also looked at the effect of the stiffness ratio between the stone column and the neighboring soil. With the same length and three different diameters, 0.8 m, 1.0 m, and 1.2 m, or three area replacement ratios ranging from 7% to 16%, respectively, floating and end-bearing stone columns were used. The influence of soft soil undrained cohesion, cu ranging from 6 kPa to 40 kPa, was also considered in the current study. The stiffness ratio for columns to adjacent soil, end bearing or floating stone column, and area ratio all have a significant impression on the performance of the stone column in treating soft soil and stress transmission mechanisms in the enhanced soil body, according to parametric studies. The average stress concentration ratio in soil improved with an end-bearing stone column of φ= 35° and raised to 2.63 and 4.71 at φ = 50°, ranging from 1.41 to 2.35 for area replacement ratios of 7% and 16%

Evaluation of recommended maximum voluntary contraction exercises for back muscles commonly investigated in ergonomics

Maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) exercises are commonly employed for normalizing electromyography (EMG) data to enable comparisons between different individuals and muscles. The purpose of this research was to test various recommended MVC exercises for two commonly investigated back muscles in ergonomics and, based on EMG results, determine the most appropriate exercise for each muscle. Through a preliminary review, these two muscles were identified as the lumbar erector spinae (LES) and thoracic erector spinae (TES). Fifteen healthy male participants were recruited. Five different recommended MVC exercises were performed for both muscles, including declined trunk extension, prone trunk extension, standing trunk extension, hip extension, and the arch test. Results showed that no single exercise was capable of eliciting the highest EMG amplitude in all the participants. The largest EMG average was reported using hip extension for the LES and prone trunk extension for the TES; however, no statistically significant differences were detected between them and other exercises, apart from declined trunk extension. Overall, the arch test showed the most favorable results for both the LES and TES, in that it: had a high EMG average; was the most consistent to elicit the highest EMG amplitude in participants; and had relatively low variability. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Electromyography analysis: Comparison of maximum voluntary contraction exercises for the latissimus dorsi

BACKGROUND: A prerequisite for interpreting electromyography (EMG) data is to normalize them to a maximum voluntary contraction (MVC), expressing them as percentage of the MVC. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to compare different recommended MVC exercises for the latissimus dorsi and identify the exercise that elicits the highest EMG amplitude. METHODS: Fifteen male participants were recruited. Five recommended MVC exercises were investigated, including chest-supported shoulder extension, prone shoulder extension, lat-pull down, abducted shoulder flexion, and internal shoulder rotation. RESULTS: Chest-supported shoulder extension reported the highest mean EMG, which was not significantly different from the mean EMG of prone shoulder extension. Both of these exercises led to significantly greater EMG means than the other exercises. Sixty percent of the participants achieved their highest EMG amplitude with chest-supported shoulder extension and 40% with prone shoulder extension. None of the other exercises elicited the highest EMG amplitude in any of the participants. CONCLUSIONS: Both chest-supported shoulder extension and prone shoulder extension proved to be effective MVC exercises, with the former showing more consistency in eliciting the highest EMG amplitude. If the true MVC is desired, the authors recommend performing both exercises and then using the overall highest EMG amplitude for normalization purposes

SPARC 2017 retrospect & prospects : Salford postgraduate annual research conference book of abstracts

Welcome to the Book of Abstracts for the 2017 SPARC conference. This year we not only celebrate the work of our PGRs but also the 50th anniversary of Salford as a University, which makes this year’s conference extra special. Once again we have received a tremendous contribution from our postgraduate research community; with over 130 presenters, the conference truly showcases a vibrant PGR community at Salford. These abstracts provide a taster of the research strengths of their works, and provide delegates with a reference point for networking and initiating critical debate. With such wide-ranging topics being showcased, we encourage you to exploit this great opportunity to engage with researchers working in different subject areas to your own. To meet global challenges, high impact research inevitably requires interdisciplinary collaboration. This is recognised by all major research funders. Therefore engaging with the work of others and forging collaborations across subject areas is an essential skill for the next generation of researchers

Leaky Gut’s Contribution to Inefficient Nutrient Utilization

There are a variety of situations in an animal’s life when nutrient utilization is reprioritized from productive towards agriculturally unproductive purposes. Two well-known examples that markedly reduce production are heat stress and ketosis. Decreased feed intake, experienced during both disorders, is unable to fully explain production losses. Additionally, both disorders are characterized by negative energy balance, body weight loss, inflammation, and liver fat accumulation. While the metabolism of ketosis and heat stress has been thoroughly studied for the last 40 years, the initial insult in the cascade of events ultimately reducing productivity in both heat-stressed and ketotic cows has not been identified. To that end, we have generated preliminary data strongly implicating a metabolic disruptor, endotoxin, as the underlying cause in each case