A case study of green building in Malaysia: cost saving analysis

The building sector consumes about forty percent of world energy, making energy efficiency in existing buildings an important issue. This study has been undertaken to investigate energy consumption of a building that has been redesigned to incorporate energy efficient features. It was found that the introduction of energy efficient features has helped to achieve savings up to 46% of the total spent on energy particularly based on electricity bills

Evidence of Vortices on the Insulating Side of the Superconductor-Insulator Transition

The magnetoresistance of ultrathin insulating films of Bi has been studied with magnetic fields applied parallel and perpendicular to the plane of the sample. Deep in the strongly localized regime, the magnetoresistance is negative and independent of field orientation. As film thicknesses increase, the magnetoresistance becomes positive, and a difference between values measured in perpendicular and parallel fields appears, which is a linear function of the magnetic field and is positive. This is not consistent with the quantum interference picture. We suggest that it is due to vortices present on the insulating side of the superconductor-insulator transition.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Fabrication Of TiOâ‚‚ Nanoflowers Powder with Various Concentration Of CTAB

Nanostructures titanium dioxide (TiOâ‚‚) such as nanoflowers and nanorods have contribute in many application. Among TiOâ‚‚ nanostructures, TiOâ‚‚ nanoflowers gives high surface area that contribute in good binding properties and reducing internal stress and increasing strength of the ceramics.This paper presents fabrication of TiOâ‚‚ nanoflowers powder to overcome the cracking problem in ceramic industry. In this study, fabricated rutile-phased TiOâ‚‚ nanoflower powder has been successfully synthesized by using hydrothermal method and the surface morphology, structural properties, and the composition of TiOâ‚‚ nanoflower powder also identified. The fabricated TiOâ‚‚ are characterized using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) to observe the surface morphology of TiOâ‚‚, X-ray Dispersion (XRD) was used to determine the crystallite phase and EDX for element composition in fabricated TiOâ‚‚ powder. The synthesized TiOâ‚‚ powder was obtained from the reaction between deionized water (DI), hydrochloric acid (HCl), Titanium Butoxide (TBOT) and Cetyltrimethylammonium Bromide (CTAB). The hydrothermal temperature is 150  ÌŠC with fixed hydrothermal time of 10 hours. The parameters varied is the mass of surfactant used, CTAB. The hydrothermal method is proven suitable to fabricate semiconductor materials due to its advantages that parameters are easily modified and can be performed under closed system with low operational temperature. Increased amount of CTAB used make the gap between the nanorod become closer and stronger. The diffraction peaks of all sample hardly changed, but the intensity for each sample was enhanced as the mass of CTAB used increased. The structure also become well crystallined in rutile phase structure

Tapered microchannel for multi-particles passive separation based on hydrodynamic resistance

Researches on separation of multi-particles utilizing microfluidic have been flourishing in recent years with the aid from advancements in microfabrication design and technology. Generally, separation is beneficial for biomedical application especially involving heterogeneous samples. Due to inherent problems of samples isolation, a simple and efficient separation device is required. Here, we present a passive tapered microchannel for multi-particles separation using hydrodynamic principle. Our emphasis is on the effect of hydrodynamic resistance coupled with tapered microchannel design. In the experiment, successful multi-particles samples separation was observed. The results were further analyzed and were in agreement with the proposed concept. This method opens the route toward robust, low-cost and high-throughput, thus it may holds potential to be integrated as one functional module in Micro Total Analysis System (µTAS)

A Peer-reviewed Newspaper About_ Datafied Research

An examination of the implications of datafication for research: to investigate and propose actions that push against the limits of today’s pervasive quantification of life, work, and play. Publication resulting from research workshop at School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, organised in collaboration with School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, and transmediale festival of art and digital culture, Berlin

Higher dimensional flat embeddings of black strings in (2+1) dimensions

We obtain (3+1) and (3+2) dimensional global flat embeddings of (2+1) uncharged and charged black strings, respectively. In particular, the charged black string, which is the dual solution of the Banados-Teitelboim-Zanelli black holes, is shown to be embedded in the same global embedding Minkowski space structure as that of the (2+1) charged de Sitter black hole solution.Comment: 11 pages, REVTEX, no figur

Higher dimensional flat embeddings of (2+1) dimensional black holes

We obtain the higher dimensional global flat embeddings of static, rotating, and charged BTZ black holes. On the other hand, we also study the similar higher dimensional flat embeddings of the (2+1) de Sitter black holes which are the counterparts of the anti-de Sitter BTZ black holes. As a result, the charged dS black hole is shown to be embedded in (3+2) GEMS, contrast to the charged BTZ one having (3+3) GEMS structure.Comment: 16pages, revtex, no figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Global embeddings of scalar-tensor theories in (2+1)-dimensions

We obtain (3+3)- or (3+2)-dimensional global flat embeddings of four uncharged and charged scalar-tensor theories with the parameters B or L in the (2+1)-dimensions, which are the non-trivially modified versions of the Banados-Teitelboim-Zanelli (BTZ) black holes. The limiting cases B=0 or L=0 exactly are reduced to the Global Embedding Minkowski Space (GEMS) solution of the BTZ black holes.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

Size Dependence of Metal-Insulator Transition in Stoichiometric Fe3O4 Nanocrystals

Magnetite (Fe3O4) is one of the most actively studied materials with a famous metal-insulator transition (MIT), so-called the Verwey transition at around 123 K. Despite the recent progress in synthesis and characterization of Fe3O4 nanocrystals (NCs), it is still an open question how the Verwey transition changes on a nanometer scale. We herein report the systematic studies on size dependence of the Verwey transition of stoichiometric Fe3O4 NCs. We have successfully synthesized stoichiometric and uniform-sized Fe3O4 NCs with sizes ranging from 5 to 100 nm. These stoichiometric Fe3O4 NCs show the Verwey transition when they are characterized by conductance, magnetization, cryo-XRD, and heat capacity measurements. The Verwey transition is weakly size-dependent and becomes suppressed in NCs smaller than 20 nm before disappearing completely for less than 6 nm, which is a clear, yet highly interesting indication of a size effect of this well-known phenomena. Our current work will shed new light on this ages-old problem of Verwey transition.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, Nano Letters (accepted

Emergence of qualia from brain activity or from an interaction of proto-consciousness with the brain: which one is the weirder? Available evidence and a research agenda

This contribution to the science of consciousness aims at comparing how two different theories can explain the emergence of different qualia experiences, meta-awareness, meta-cognition, the placebo effect, out-of-body experiences, cognitive therapy and meditation-induced brain changes, etc. The first theory postulates that qualia experiences derive from specific neural patterns, the second one, that qualia experiences derive from the interaction of a proto-consciousness with the brain\u2019s neural activity. From this comparison it will be possible to judge which one seems to better explain the different qualia experiences and to offer a more promising research agenda