Examining the effect of nano-additions of rare earth elements on the hardness of body armor ceramic

64-72Body armor is a very critical entity in protecting soldier's live. Soldiers carry heavy stuff on duties, and the ceramic insert in those body armors is one of them. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of Nano-rare-earth elements as additives to the ceramic base material on the armor's performance. Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) has been selected as the base material of the ceramic in this study. This study has chosen two additives: Zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) and Nano-ceramic lab composite (NCLC). In this work, we have presented results of mechanical characterization for alumina-nanocomposites armor plates. Three different concentrations of NCLC and ZnO2 alumina-based compositions have been prepared and pressed at 40 and 50 MPa and sintered at 1350°C for 120 min. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques have been employed to characterize structural, morphological, and phase identification of the films. Mohs test hardness measurements of samples after sintering have been performed. Results have shown that the compositions with NCLC showed a higher hardness than a composition with ZrO2. This result has indicated that the addition of NCLC to Alumina enhances the microstructure and increases the ceramics' hardness

Fuzzy rule based classification system from vehicle-to-grid data

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) system is becoming a very popular concept since it has various benefits such as reducing energy consumption, being environmental friendly, bi-directional charging, and load balancing. Although, it gets highly remarkable and has many advantages, V2G system's security is extremely challenging. Any security flaw in V2G system can cause serious issues on the system. Security issues might open doors to severe damages on the system. One of the most danger damage on such systems is disclosed confidential information. This work therefore analyses what are confidential information features in a V2G system, it then analyses whether a V2G system is vulnerable to attacks or not if the system's confidential information is revealed. To do that, this study used fuzzy-classification technique in which a fuzzy system is developed. It also applied SVM and NB classification techniques in order to compare applied classification techniques in terms of their performances. Comparison results showed that fuzzy-classification technique performed better than other two techniques

Selecting the best forensic report by using a group decision making method: A case study on three forensic reports

Group decision making (GDM) techniques have been very popular to take the best and the most convenient decision from an alternative set. GDM techniques have been applied in various area of information sharing as well as forensic information sharing. In a forensic investigation process, different forensic reports are produced by different investigators. Produced forensic reports are taken to the court as a file of evidence however deciding which report should be taken to the court is a challenging. Because decision is single handed, officer makes decision. There are two main approaches s/he might follow in selection; the first one is to combine the forensic reports into one report if investigators are located in the same environment, the other one is to choose the most comprehensive report (individually decided). Both approaches may cause continuance by undue process because of insufficient evidence because reports which are not taken to the court might include the needed evidence. In order to solve such problems in forensic area, this work provides a consensus-reached GDM approach in which extended induced ordered weighted average technique is used. Three forensic master students' forensic reports are used for application of the work. The result of the application phase showed that consensus-reached GDM makes the taken decision better and more accurate

Evaluating mentorship-based learning in entrepreneurship education

Entrepreneurship education impacts students’ entrepreneurial intentions. However, the role of teachers’ mentorship in influencing students’ entrepreneurial intentions has received little attention in the extant literature. This paper examines the impact of entrepreneurship education teachers’ mentorship pedagogy on students’ entrepreneurial intentions using structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis on data collected from 220 students studying entrepreneurship at six UK universities. The novel results presented here demonstrate the power of entrepreneurship education teachers’ mentorship to effect students’ attitudes, perceived behavioural control and, subsequently, their entrepreneurial intentions. The paper integrates mentorship with the theory of planned behaviour and contributes to the ongoing efforts to improve entrepreneurship education at universities

Examining the effect of nano-additions of rare earth elements on the hardness of body armor ceramic

Body armor is a very critical entity in protecting soldier's live. Soldiers carry heavy stuff on duties, and the ceramic insert in those body armors is one of them. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of Nano-rare-earth elements as additives to the ceramic base material on the armor's performance. Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) has been selected as the base material of the ceramic in this study. This study has chosen two additives: Zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) and Nano-ceramic lab composite (NCLC). In this work, we have presented results of mechanical characterization for alumina-nanocomposites armor plates. Three different concentrations of NCLC and ZnO2 alumina-based compositions have been prepared and pressed at 40 and 50 MPa and sintered at 1350°C for 120 min. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques have been employed to characterize structural, morphological, and phase identification of the films. Mohs test hardness measurements of samples after sintering have been performed. Results have shown that the compositions with NCLC showed a higher hardness than a composition with ZrO2. This result has indicated that the addition of NCLC to Alumina enhances the microstructure and increases the ceramics' hardness

Fundamentals and Applications of Chitosan

International audienceChitosan is a biopolymer obtained from chitin, one of the most abundant and renewable material on Earth. Chitin is a primary component of cell walls in fungi, the exoskeletons of arthropods, such as crustaceans, e.g. crabs, lobsters and shrimps, and insects, the radulae of molluscs, cephalopod beaks, and the scales of fish and lissamphibians. The discovery of chitin in 1811 is attributed to Henri Braconnot while the history of chitosan dates back to 1859 with the work of Charles Rouget. The name of chitosan was, however, introduced in 1894 by Felix Hoppe-Seyler. Because of its particular macromolecular structure, biocompatibility, biode-gradability and other intrinsic functional properties, chitosan has attracted major scientific and industrial interests from the late 1970s. Chitosan and its derivatives have practical applications in food industry, agriculture, pharmacy, medicine, cos-metology, textile and paper industries, and chemistry. In the last two decades, chito-san has also received much attention in numerous other fields such as dentistry, ophthalmology, biomedicine and bio-imaging, hygiene and personal care, veterinary medicine, packaging industry, agrochemistry, aquaculture, functional textiles and cosmetotextiles, catalysis, chromatography, beverage industry, photography, wastewater treatment and sludge dewatering, and biotechnology. Nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals are actually growing markets, and therapeutic and biomedical products should be the next markets in the development of chitosan. Chitosan is also the N. Morin-Crini (*) · Laboratoire Chrono-environnement, UMR 6249, UFR Sciences et Techniques