Advances and Challenges in Science and Technology Vol. 4

The world's population is growing by every day, so as the population grows, so are the number of cars on the road. Managing traffic is becoming increasingly difficult for those in charge of traffic. The traffic is high at the intersections, which is causing extra problems for emergency vehicles such as ambulances, fire engines, and police cars. The traffic on the roads results in time wasted and a rise in pollution levels. Previously, magnetic loop detectors were used to manage traffic, but now we utilize RFID tags for emergency vehicles and RFID readers at intersections. The traffic control system is handled using Raspberry Pi, RFID tags for emergency vehicles, and RFID readers at traffic intersections, as well as a dynamic color change algorithm.

Springback is inherent in sheet metal forming. It can be can be understood by looking at a material’s stress stain curve (discussed in the module on Tensile Testing) which characterizes the behavior of metal under applied force. During forming, the material is strained beyond the yield strength in order to induce permanent deformation. When the load is removed, the stress will return to zero along a path parallel to the slope of the elastic portion of the curve, which is the elastic modulus. A common deformation technique for producing seamless tubes is cold drawing. One of the main issues in tube drawing is springback. The elastic energy that was stored in the tubes during the forming process is what causes springback. It is discovered that the springback is dependent on the material's Young's modulus. In order to determine their Young's modulus and related springback, three kinds of steel—low carbon steel, medium carbon steel, and high carbon steel—were mechanically tested. The results shows that there is 10-20% variation in the Young’s modulus and inverse proportion between the springback and Young’s modulus. More the percentage of carbon, more the strength, less the value of Young’s modulus and more will springback. The study further leads to identify optimum die semi angle of 15 degree, land width of 10 mm and drawing speed of 8, 6 and 4 m/min for least springback in all the three grades respectively and die semi angle as a most dominant factor causing springback.

The purpose of the current study is to enhance the targeted distribution of the dihydroartemisinin (DHA) medication and model novel nanometric compounds for use in nanotechnologies by functionalizing DHA on the (5,5) single wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT, C₆₀H₂₀) utilizing the 1,3-diploar cycloaddition (DC) reaction of azomethine ylide. To examine the use of functionalized carbon nanotubes (fCNTs) as a nanovector for the intended delivery of the antimalarial drug dihydroartemisinin, density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the drug were performed in gas phase and in solution. According to the geometric optimization's findings, DHA's molecular structure is unaffected by functionalization. Based on the findings of binding and solvation energies, two energetically stable configurations were identified in 1st (fCNT1-2) and 2nd (2fCNT1-2) functionalization. For these stable configurations, the energy gap value goes from 1.52 eV for the (5,5) single wall pristine CNT to 1.27 eV for the 1st functionalization and to 1.06 eV for the 2nd functionalization regardless of the considered media; which gives these nanostructures excellent semiconductor properties. Global reactivity descriptor results reveal that the functionalized CNT has significantly enhanced reactivity in solvent conditions and that the functionalization of DHA has decreased stability while increasing reactivity. Thus, the fundamental gap (E_f) in gas phase decreases from 3.65 eV for the virgin CNT to 3.30 eV for fCNT2 and to 3.02 eV for 2fCNT2. On the contrary, in water E_f goes from 1.20 eV for the virgin CNT to 0.95 eV for fCNT2 and to 0.74 eV for 2fCNT2; demonstrating an improvement in the reactivity of the investigated fCNTs as nanovectors for targeted delivery of DHA drug. Finally, the results of this study indicate that these nanostructures could also have favorable NLO characteristics, making them potentially useful materials for NLO applications.

Monocular human 3D pose estimation has become more practical with deep neural network (DNN) technology. One of the next challenges is pose estimation including stick held in the hand. In this study, we propose a method to compute the coordinates of the stick tip using a human 3D pose estimation network that measures the position where the stick is held in the hand. In particular, when the stick is orthogonal to the camera's line-of-sight to the tip point, the coordinates of the measurement point may be imaginary, and we present a solution using the method of Lagrange multiplier. Experiments confirmed the ability of the proposed method to modify the solution to a real number when it would result in an imaginary solution. The proposed method is expected to be applied to monocular motion capture of humans holding various stick-shaped objects, for example, in sword fighting techniques and baseball batting.

A research study was conducted in the Kasempa district of the North-Western Province of Zambia to evaluate the effectiveness of aquaculture extension services and the degree to which policies and plans were being implemented regarding the growth of aquaculture. A sample of 55 aquaculture farmers was selected at random using simple random sampling in five areas within the district to measure the impact of extension services on rural residents' incomes and living standards. The study revealed that a lack of proper information for farmers could have a negative impact on the growth of the aquaculture sector. Inadequate advisory services could also lead to lower quality and quantity of aquaculture products. Aquaculture was being promoted in Zambia to provide high-income opportunities for poor rural residents and reduce the pressure on capture fisheries. Through extension services, 90% of the respondents had acquired technical skills such as fish farming methods, pond construction, fish health and nutrition, feeding and marketing, and accounting skills, which were used to ensure smooth operations and helped the farmers overcome various challenges they faced. Accordingly, 82% of the respondents indicated that their fish yield increased due to the increase in the number of their ponds. The results also showed that 65% of respondents improved their social well-being and earned enough incomes from aquaculture to meet various challenges, such as paying their children's school fees and buying roofing materials for their homes. Moreover, the extension service agencies’ performance in implementing policies and plans was rated as good. However, more than half of the respondents experienced a number of challenges that hindered further aquaculture growth, such as lack of start-up capital, clogged waterways, stunted fish growth, lack of fishing gear, attacks by piscivorous animals, etc. Overall, the study found that 60% of respondents could not raise market-size fish (>250g) due to high feed costs, while 40% of respondents were able to raise fish close to market size because they had more knowledge and were interested in that area.

Objective of this chapter is to reduce the implementation cost of the S-Box of Ultra Light-weight Block Cipher (ULBC), and make it cheaper than the two popular block ciphers GIFT and PRESENT. After explicitly observing the design criteria of the above two block ciphers, we have proposed in this chapter a new S-box that would be useful for designing light-weight block ciphers. We have find out the longest integral distinguisher of ULBC satisfying a bit constant. As we know that appending some rounds after that, some keybits can be recovered. By using division property, we generate some linear inequalities to formulate MILP program. In eleven round no integral distinguisher will be seen in ULBC. In this design, we have also developed a new property like BOGI which would be extremely helpful in building light-weight block ciphers. Depending on this property we design permutation layer, such that no bad output will go bad input. ULBC is composed of a S-box, associated bit wiring and key schedule. In this chapter, we have produced some of cryptanalytic attacks to assure certain security level.

The current study's objective is to evaluate the public's degree of understanding and awareness of the credit scoring system. A numerical expression for a credit score that represents a person's solvency condition through level examination of their credit files. It is mostly based on a credit report, which typically contains data obtained from credit agencies. Additionally, it looked at how demographic factors affected how well-informed and aware of the credit score system the general population was. A detailed questionnaire was used to gather information from 237 respondents in Bengaluru, the capital of the state of Karnataka. The data was collected during June-July 2019 by employing convenience sampling and snowball sampling methods. Bengaluru city was chosen as the study area because there are lot of different types of individuals been setup over there like businessmen, industrialists, IT employees, salaried individuals etc. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the statistical tools chi-square analysis and correspondence analysis were used. The statistical software SPSS version 22 was used for data analysis. The study found that that the demographic variables such as gender and number of dependents were significantly associated with level of knowledge on credit scoring system. It may be possible to undertake more research to examine public perceptions of the credit score system in different Indian areas and to evaluate how well it influences loan repayment.

Most extensively and recently adopted technology in a number of industries, including transportation, education, agriculture, retail sales, animal husbandry and others is RFID Technology. In order to create system for monitoring attendance in real time that can be accessible by lecturers, campus management, and parents, RFID in education is used in collaboration with IoT as well as cloud technologies. If there are any absent students, the monitoring system will allow for fast detection, prompt remediation, and efficient learning.

During the past century, CO₂ emissions around the world have continue to grow at an astonishing rate. In recent years, with the proposal of the global goal of “carbon neutralization”, high-temperature CO₂ electrolysis technology based on solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) has ushered in a rapid development opportunity. SOECs operating at elevated temperatures can not only make full use of industrial waste heat but also convert CO₂ into hydrocarbon fuels or high-value-added chemical products via electrochemical reactions. Currently, multiple countries around the world have deployed various high-temperature electrochemical CO₂ conversion projects. In 2017, Haldor Topsøe A/S (Denmark) reported the world’s first commercial CO₂ electrolysis system, which can produce CO gas through SOEC electrolysis of CO₂, with a production capacity of up to 10 Nm³ CO₂/h. In 2019, Sunfire GmbH (German) developed a high-temperature co-electrolysis demonstration system which can product syngas at 4 Nm³/h rate. In 2020, the University of Aarhus (Denmark) reported a CO₂ methanation reactor based on SOEC, which can upgrade biogas to pipeline mass methane in a 10 Nm³/h experimental device. Compared to the high-temperature water electrolysis for hydrogen production, the scale of the high-temperature CO₂ electrolysis device is relatively small. With the increasing demand for energy density and power density of CO₂ conversion devices in various new application fields, further research and development is necessary to overcome the challenges of high cost and low durability in large-scale application and commercialization.

This study concentrated on the use of interrogation audio and thermal imaging to identify deception. In the present study, a real-life database has been generated by creating a real crime of stealing scenario. During the interrogation process the thermal video and audio recordings have been carried out simultaneously in a concealed manner. The police department has long used polygraphy as the gold standard for liar detection. In due course, several contemporary techniques for lying or deception detection have emerged that are more accurate and straightforward. One of them is the analysis of thermal video. Thermal footage is recorded during an interrogation and afterwards examined to look for signs of lying. Additionally, it is possible to assess a person's behavior from the audio recording, which might be a crucial hint for uncovering deception. The temperature of the forehead and periorbital areas is extracted to measure the blood flow rate. It was observed that in case of person who is lying, the temperature of these areas increased more than those of truth-tellers. Analysis of the speech of the subjects was also carried out to understand the difference in the pattern of speech attributes of liars and truth-tellers. It was found that liars take more silent pauses and have higher values of the pitch in their voice when they were being interrogated. Finally, we have combined the effect of thermal video and audio analysis for decision making.