Introduction: Spinal cord injuries, traumas, natural aging, and strokes are the main causes of arm impairment or even a chronic disability for an increasing part of the population. Therefore, robotic devices can be essential tools to help individuals afflicted with hand deficit with the activities of daily living in addition to the possibility of restoring hand functions by rehabilitation. Because the surface electromyography (sEMG) control paradigm has recently emerged as an interesting intention control method in devices applied to rehabilitation, the concentration in this study has been devoted to sEMG-controlled hand robotic devices, including gloves and exoskeletons that are used for rehabilitation and for assistance in daily activities. Materials and Methods: A brief description is given to the previous reviews and studies that have surveyed the robotic devices used for rehabilitation; a comparison is conducted among these studies with respect to the targeted part of the body and the device's control method. Important issues about controlling by sEMG signal are accentuated, and a review of sEMG-controlled hand robotic devices is presented with an abbreviated description for each endeavor. Some criteria related to sEMG control are specifically emphasized, for instance, the muscles used for control, the number of sEMG channels, and the type of sEMG sensor used. Discussion: It is noted that most of the sEMG-based controls for the devices included in this study have used the nonpattern recognition scheme due to the weak sEMG signals and abnormal pattern of muscle activation for stroke patients. In addition to sEMG-based control, additional control paradigms have been used in many of the listed robotic devices to increase the efficacy of the system; this cooperation is required because of the difficulty in dealing with the sEMG signals of stroke patients. Most of the listed studies have conducted the experiments on a healthy subject to evaluate the efficacy of the systems, whereas the studies that have recruited stroke patients for system assessment were predominately using additional control schemes. Conclusions: This article highlights the important issues about the sEMG control method and accentuates the weaknesses associated with this type of control to assist researchers in overcoming problems that impede sEMG-controlled robotic devices to be feasible and practical tools for people afflicted with hand impairment.

In this research work, silver nanoparticles (AgNP) were synthesized using a simple solvothermal technique, the obtained AgNP were used to prepare a titania/silver (TiO2/Ag) nanocomposites with varied amount of Ag contents and used to fabricated a photoanode of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to ascertain the presence of silver in the nanocomposite. A photoluminance (PL) spectra of the nanocomposite powder shows a low PL activity which indicates a reduced election- hole recombination within the material. UVâvis spectra reveal that the Ag in the DSSC photoanode enhances the light absorption of the solar cell device within the visible range between λ = 382 nm and 558 nm nm owing to its surface plasmon resonance effect. Power conversion efficiency was enhanced from 4.40% for the pure TiO2 photoanode based device to 6.56% for the device fabricated with TiO2/Ag due to the improvement of light harvesting caused by the localized surface plasmonic resonance effect of AgNP. The improvement of power conversion was also achieved due to the reduced charge recombination within the photoanode. Keywords: Nanoparticle, Silver, Plasmonic, Power, Photo

This study investigated the different thicknesses of TiO₂ photoanode films and the effect of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of Ag-TiO₂ nanocomposites on the current-voltage (I–V) performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). The TiO₂ layer was deposited using the doctor blade technique and the thickness of the TiO₂ films was controlled by using a different number of Scotch tape layers. The silver nanoparticles (AgNP) were synthesised using a chemical reduction method and the concentration of sodium citrate as a reducing agent was varied from 4 to 12 mM to study the effect of citrate ion on the size of the nanoparticles. Ag-TiO₂ nanopowder was prepared by adding pure anatase TiO₂ powder into AgNP colloidal solution. The mixture was left to dry for 24 h to obtain Ag-TiO₂ powder for paste preparation. The three-layer Scotch tape, with thickness of 14.38 µm, achieved a high efficiency of 4.14%. This results showed that three layers was the optimal thickness to improve dye loading and to reduce the charge recombination rate. As for the Ag-TiO₂ nanocomposites, 10 mM of AgNP, with a mean diameter of 65.23 nm and high efficiency of 6.92%, proved that SPR can enhance the absorption capability of dye and improve the photon-to-electron generation.

Real-Time Monitoring System for Parking Space Management Services is the evolution of traditional parking system that it does not only provide live information to users in order to make it easy for them to look for vacant parking lot, it also give authority to operators to monitor and perform simulations to illustrate the real parking system. The purpose of this project is to apply the principles of queue theory into parking system modeling. The queue system model enables the predictions of arrival and service time in the system through analysis and calculations. Aside of it, Graphical User Interface (GUI) is also designed and integrated into the parking system in order to allow parking zone operators to monitor the status of the parking lots and view the statistics of arrival rate, service time and so on. This project focuses on the system modeling and software development and implementation. It is expected that this project will be able to assist parking zone operators in designing their system that will work efficiently and generate high income. It will also provide convenience to the operators in managing the parking zone remotely. Users will also experience a time-saving and stress-free parking zone.