Polymeric electronic gas sensor for determining alcohol content in automotive fuels

In this paper we describe the electrosynthesis of poly[(2-bromo-5-hexyloxy- 1,4-phenylenevinylene)-co-(1,4-phenylenevinylene)] (BHPPV-co-PPV), a novel conducting copolymer, and its application as active layer of a chemiresistive gas sensor suitable for quantification of ethanol present in ethanol-gasoline mixtures normally present in the fuel tanks of flex-fuel vehicles. This information is crucial for the smooth operation of the engine since it permits optimal air:fuel ratio regulation. The sensor consists of an interdigitated electrode coated with a thin polymer film doped with dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid. On exposure to fuel vapours at room temperature, the device presents a linear correlation between its electrical conductance and the ethanol concentration in the fuel. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Electrocatalysis of oxygen reduction on carbon-supported Pt-Co nanoparticles with low Pt content

The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) was investigated on carbon-supported Pt-Co nanoparticle electrocatalysts with low Pt content in alkaline electrolyte. High resolution transmission electron microscopy, In situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction analysis evidenced large structural differences of the Pt-Co particles depending oil the route of the catalyst synthesis. It was demonstrated that although the Pt-Co materials contain low amounts of Pt, they show very good activities when the particles are formed by a Pt-rich shell and a Pt-Co core, which was obtained after submitting the electrocatalyst to a potential cycling in acid electrolyte. The high activity of this material was due to a major contribution from its higher surface area, as a result of the leaching of the Co atoms from the particle Surface. Furthermore, its high activity was ascribed to a minor contribution from the electronic interaction of the Pt atoms, at the particle surface, and the Co atoms located in the beneath layer, lowering the Pt cl-band center. As these electrocatalysts presented high activity for the ORR with low Pt content, the cost of the fuel cell cathodes could be lowered considerably. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Scholarly E-book Across Disciplines: Content Analysis of Usage Reports and Search Terms

This presentation was offered as part of the CUNY Library Assessment Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment, held at the City University of New York in June 2014.

Load balancing solution and evaluation of F5 content switch equipment

The Thesis focused on hardware based Load balancing solution of web traffic through a load balancer F5 content switch. In this project, the implemented scenario for distributing HTTPtraffic load is based on different CPU usages (processing speed) of multiple member servers.Two widely used load balancing algorithms Round Robin (RR) and Ratio model (weighted Round Robin) are implemented through F5 load balancer. For evaluating the performance of F5 content switch, some experimental tests has been taken on implemented scenarios using RR and Ratio model load balancing algorithms. The performance is examined in terms of throughput (bits/sec) and Response time of member servers in a load balancing pool. From these experiments we have observed that Ratio Model load balancing algorithm is most suitable in the environment of load balancing servers with different CPU usages as it allows assigning the weight according to CPU usage both in static and dynamic load balancing of servers.

A dislocation based theory for the deformation hardening behavior of DP steels : Impact of martensite content and ferrite grain size

A dislocation model, accurately describing the uniaxial plastic stress-strain behavior of dual phase (DP) steels, is proposed and the impact of martensite content and ferrite grain size in four commercially produced DP steels is analyzed. It is assumed that the plastic deformation process is localized to the ferrite. This is taken into account by introducing a non-homogeneity parameter, f(e), that specifies the volume fraction of ferrite taking active part in the plastic deformation process. It is found that the larger the martensite content the smaller the initial volume fraction of active ferrite which yields a higher initial deformation hardening rate. This explains the high energy absorbing capacity of DP steels with high volume fractions of martensite. Further, the effect of ferrite grain size strengthening in DP steels is important. The flow stress grain size sensitivity for DP steels is observed to be 7 times larger than that for single phase ferrite.

Using structured observation and content analysis to explore the presence of older people in public fora in developing countries

There is a lack of research on the everyday lives of older people in developing countries. This exploratory study used structured observation and content analysis to examine the presence of older people in public fora, and considered the methods’ potential for understanding older people’s social integration and inclusion. Structured observation occurred of public social spaces in six cities each located in a different developing country, and in one city in the United Kingdom, together with content analysis of the presence of people in newspaper pictures and on television in the selected countries. Results indicated that across all fieldwork sites and data sources, there was a low presence of older people, with women considerably less present than men in developing countries. There was variation across fieldwork sites in older people’s presence by place and time of day, and in their accompanied status. The presence of older people in images drawn from newspapers was associated with the news/non-news nature of the source. The utility of the study’s methodological approach is considered, as is the degree to which the presence of older people in public fora might relate to social integration and inclusion in different cultural contexts.

Mercury content of tobacco products

Mercury contamination of food products results from contact with soil, water, and air polluted with mercury from industrial sources, as well as from the use of mercury-containing pesticides and fungicides on plants. A method was developed for extracting mercury from tobacco products. The mercury content of various tobacco products was determined, using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer.

Combining collaborative and content-based filtering to recommend research papers

The number of research papers available today is growing at a staggering rate, generating a huge amount of information that people cannot keep up with. According to a tendency indicated by the United States’ National Science Foundation, more than 10 million new papers will be published in the next 20 years. Because most of these papers will be available on the Web, this research focus on exploring issues on recommending research papers to users, in order to directly lead users to papers of their interest. Recommender systems are used to recommend items to users among a huge stream of available items, according to users’ interests. This research focuses on the two most prevalent techniques to date, namely Content-Based Filtering and Collaborative Filtering. The first explores the text of the paper itself, recommending items similar in content to the ones the user has rated in the past. The second explores the citation web existing among papers. As these two techniques have complementary advantages, we explored hybrid approaches to recommending research papers. We created standalone and hybrid versions of algorithms and evaluated them through both offline experiments on a database of 102,295 papers, and an online experiment with 110 users. Our results show that the two techniques can be successfully combined to recommend papers. The coverage is also increased at the level of 100% in the hybrid algorithms. In addition, we found that different algorithms are more suitable for recommending different kinds of papers. Finally, we verified that users’ research experience influences the way users perceive recommendations. In parallel, we found that there are no significant differences in recommending papers for users from different countries. However, our results showed that users’ interacting with a research paper Recommender Systems are much happier when the interface is presented in the user’s native language, regardless the language that the papers are written. Therefore, an interface should be tailored to the user’s mother language.

Ontology-based metadata for e-learning content

Nowadays, the popularity of the Web encourages the development of Hypermedia Systems dedicated to e-learning. Nevertheless, most of the available Web teaching systems apply the traditional paper-based learning resources presented as HTML pages making no use of the new capabilities provided by the Web. There is a challenge to develop educative systems that adapt the educative content to the style of learning, context and background of each student. Another research issue is the capacity to interoperate on the Web reusing learning objects. This work presents an approach to address these two issues by using the technologies of the Semantic Web. The approach presented here models the knowledge of the educative content and the learner’s profile with ontologies whose vocabularies are a refinement of those defined on standards situated on the Web as reference points to provide semantics. Ontologies enable the representation of metadata concerning simple learning objects and the rules that define the way that they can feasibly be assembled to configure more complex ones. These complex learning objects could be created dynamically according to the learners’ profile by intelligent agents that use the ontologies as the source of their beliefs. Interoperability issues were addressed by using an application profile of the IEEE LOM- Learning Object Metadata standard.

Luxury brands and online consumer-generated content: dealing with the new lead of customers in brand perception

User-generated content – conteúdo gerado por usuários – cresceu consideravelmente na Internet nos cinco últimos anos, levando a grandes mudanças nas práticas de marketing. A força do e-word-of mouth, está aumentando e tem uma influência muito forte na percepção da marca pelos consumidores (Allsop, Basset & Hoskins, 2007). Todos os novos instrumentos fornecidos pela Internet permitiram a criação de comunidades de marca online, impactando o compromisso e a lealdade dos consumidores para com a marca (De Valk, Van Bruggen, Wierenga 2009). Todas essas interações criadas entre os consumidores e a marca são relativamente novas e incomuns para as empresas que devem adaptar suas práticas de marketing a essas mudanças. Dadas as especificidades que aplicam as marcas de luxo nas suas políticas de marketing (Kapferer and Bastien, 2009), a questão da adaptação das suas estratégias ao fenômeno de user-generated content é particularmente complicada. As marcas de luxo costumam ter habitualmente uma relação muito reservada com os seus consumidores, baseada em princípios de exclusividade e raridade (Kapferer, 1997). Esta dissertação busca proporcionar algumas pistas de entendimento sobre como as marcas de cosméticos de luxo podem adaptar suas estratégias de marketing em relação à expansão do conteúdo gerado por usuários na Internet. Esta pesquisa qualitativa sugere meios de controlar o conteúdo gerado por usuários, como o incentivar positivamente com certas práticas de marketing e como tirar proveito dele. A seguinte análise mostra que o conteúdo gerado por usuários tem duas facetas: pode atuar como um mídia digital para as empresas de luxo e como uma fonte de informação, inspiração e criação para o desenho dos novos produtos. Sendo um meio de comunicação, as empresas de cosméticos de luxo podem contar com a nova potência do “e-word-of-mouth” a fim de promover sua imagem de marca e seus produtos através do conteúdo gerado por usuários. Sendo uma fonte de inspiração, o conteúdo gerado por usuários pode conduzir a ótimos processos de co-criação e cooperação entre as marcas de cosméticos de luxo e seus consumidores com o objetivo de projetar produtos perfeitamente ajustados ao pedido dos consumidores.

Co-creation in hospitality industry: a case study on the drivers of traveler-generated content

User-generated content in travel industry is the phenomenon studied in this research, which aims to fill the literature gap on the drivers to write reviews on TripAdvisor. The object of study is relevant from a managerial standpoint since the motivators that drive users to co-create can shape strategies and be turned into external leverages that generate value for brands through content production. From an academic perspective, the goal is to enhance literature on the field, and fill a gap on adherence of local culture to UGC given industry structure specificities. The business’ impact of UGC is supported by the fact that it increases e-commerce conversion rates since research undertaken by Ye, Law, Gu and Chen (2009) states each 10% in traveler review ratings boosts online booking in more than 5%. The literature review builds a theoretical framework on required concepts to support the TripAdvisor case study methodology. Quantitative and qualitative data compound the methodological approach through literature review, desk research, executive interview, and user survey which are analyzed under factor and cluster analysis to group users with similar drivers towards UGC. Additionally, cultural and country-specific aspects impact user behavior. Since hospitality industry in Brazil is concentrated on long tail – 92% of hotels in Brazil are independent ones (Jones Lang LaSalle, 2015, p. 7) – and lesser known hotels take better advantage of reviews – according to Luca (2011) each one Yelp-star increase in rating, increases in 9% independent restaurant revenue whereas in chain restaurants the reviews have no effect – , this dissertation sought to understand UGC in the context of travelers from São Paulo (Brazil) and adopted the case of TripAdvisor to describe what are the incentives that drives user’s co-creation among targeted travelers. It has an outcome of 4 different clusters with different drivers for UGC that enables to design marketing strategies, and it also concludes there’s a big potential to convert current content consumers into producers, the remaining importance of friends and family referrals and the role played by incentives. Among the conclusions, this study lead us to an exploration of positive feedback and network effect concepts, a reinforcement of the UGC relevance for long tail hotels, the interdependence across content production, consumption and participation; and the role played by technology allied with behavioral analysis to take effective decisions. The adherence of UGC to hospitality industry, also outlines the formulation of the concept present in the dissertation title of “Traveler-Generated Content”.

Content marketing and brand engagement on social media: a study of Facebook´s posts in the ecommerce industry in Brazil

Content marketing refers to marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers. It is focused not on selling, but on communicating with customers and prospects. In today world´s, a trend has been seen in brands becoming publishers in order to keep up with their competition and more importantly to keep their base of fans and followers. Content Marketing is making companies to engage consumers by publishing engaging and value-filled content. This study aims to investigate if there is a link between brand engagement and Facebook Content Marketing practices in the e-commerce industry in Brazil. Based on the literature review, this study defines brand engagement on Facebook as the numbers of "likes" "comments" and "shares" that a company receives from its fans. These actions reflect the popularity of the brand post and leads to engagement. The author defines a scale where levels of Content Marketing practices are developed in order to analyze brand posts on Facebook of an ecommerce company in Brazil. The findings reveal that the most important criterion for the company is the one regarding the picture of the post, where it examines whether the photo content is appealing to the audience. Moreover, it was perceived that the higher the level of these criterion in a post, the greater the number of likes, comments and shares the post receives. The time when a post is published does not present a significant role in determining customer engagement and the most important factor within a publication is to reach the maximum level in the Content Marketing Scale.