Search results for: improved handling

Authors: Lu Yang, Meiyang Song, Xiang Yu, Wenhao Zhou, Chuntao Feng

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To address the problem that the FM continuous-wave radar (FMCW) extracts human vital sign signals which are susceptible to noise interference and low reconstruction accuracy, a new detection scheme for the sign signals is proposed. Firstly, an improved complete ensemble empirical modal decomposition with adaptive noise (ICEEMDAN) algorithm is applied to decompose the radar-extracted thoracic signals to obtain several intrinsic modal functions (IMF) with different spatial scales, and then the IMF components are optimized by a BP neural network improved by immune genetic algorithm (IGA). The simulation results show that this scheme can effectively separate the noise and accurately extract the respiratory and heartbeat signals and improve the reconstruction accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio of the sign signals.

Keywords: frequency modulated continuous wave radar, ICEEMDAN, BP neural network, vital signs signal

Procedia PDF Downloads 136

Authors: Ki-Jin Kim, Suk-Hui LEE, Sanghoon Park, K. H. Ahn

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A high power, low loss asymmetric single pole double through(SPDT) antenna switch for LTE-A Front-End Module(FEM) is presented in this paper by using CMOS technology. For the usage of LTE-A applications, low loss and high linearity are the key features which are very challenging works under CMOS process. To enhance insertion loss(IL) and power handling capability, this paper adopts asymmetric Transmitter (TX) and RX (Receiver) structure, floating body technique, multi-stacked structure, and feed forward capacitor technique. The designed SPDT switch shows TX IL 0.34 dB, RX IL 0.73 dB, P1dB 38.9 dBm at 0.9 GHz and TX IL 0.37 dB, RX IL 0.95 dB, P1dB 39.1 dBm at 2.5 GHz respectively.

Keywords: CMOS switch, SPDT switch, high power CMOS switch, LTE-A FEM

Procedia PDF Downloads 350

Authors: Maxat Bokambayev, Bella Tussupova, Aisha Mamyrova, Erlan Izbasarov

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Optimization of business processes in trading companies is reviewed in the report. There is the presentation of the “Wholesale Customer Order Handling Process” business process model applicable for small and medium businesses. It is proposed to apply the algorithm for automation of the customer order processing which will significantly reduce labor costs and time expenditures and increase the profitability of companies. An optimized business process is an element of the information system of accounting of spare parts trading network activity. The considered algorithm may find application in the trading industry as well.

Keywords: business processes, discrete-event simulation, management, trading industry

Procedia PDF Downloads 328

Authors: Chad Goldsworthy, B. Rajeswari Matam

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The use of deep learning for species identification in camera trap images has revolutionised our ability to study, conserve and monitor species in a highly efficient and unobtrusive manner, with state-of-the-art models achieving accuracies surpassing the accuracy of manual human classification. The high imbalance of camera trap datasets, however, results in poor accuracies for minority (rare or endangered) species due to their relative insignificance to the overall model accuracy. This paper investigates the use of Focal Loss, in comparison to the traditional Cross Entropy Loss function, to improve the identification of minority species in the “255 Bird Species” dataset from Kaggle. The results show that, although Focal Loss slightly decreased the accuracy of the majority species, it was able to increase the F1-score by 0.06 and improve the identification of the bottom two, five and ten (minority) species by 37.5%, 15.7% and 10.8%, respectively, as well as resulting in an improved overall accuracy of 2.96%.

Keywords: convolutional neural networks, data imbalance, deep learning, focal loss, species classification, wildlife conservation

Procedia PDF Downloads 164

Authors: A. P .I. Popoola, V. S. Aigbodion, O. S. I. Fayomi

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The experimental study of the microstructure and properties of Al-Cu-Mg alloy/bean pod ash (BPA) nanoparticles was investigated. The aluminium matrix composites (AMCs) were produced by varying the BPA nanoparticles from 1-4wt%. The microstructure and phases of the composites produced were examined by SEM/EDS and XRD. Properties such as: hardness, tensile strength, impact energy, fatigue and wear were evaluated. The results showed that tensile strength and hardness values increased by 35 and 44.1% at 4wt% BPA nanoparticles with appreciable impact energy. The fatigue limit of 167MPa, 135 MPa and 75Mpa were obtained for the nano-particle (55nm), micro-particle (100µm) BPA composites and unreinforced alloy respectively. The wear properties of the as-cast Al–3.7%Cu-1.4%Mg/BPA nanoparticle have been improved significantly even with a low weight percent of BPA nanoparticle. The properties of the as-cast aluminium nanoparticles (MMNCs) have been improved significantly even with a low weight percent of nano-sized BPAp.

Keywords: bean pod ash nanoparticles, al-cu-mg alloy, mechanical properties, wear, microstructures

Procedia PDF Downloads 246

Authors: Mohamed Amine Ben Abdallah, Imed Khemili, Nizar Aifaoui

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This work denotes an insight into dynamic synthesis of multibody systems. A set of mechanism parameters design variable are synthetized based on a desired mechanism response, such as, velocity, acceleration and bodies deformations. Moreover, knowing the work space, for a robot, and mechanism response allow defining optimal parameters mechanism handling with the desired target response. To this end, evolutionary genetic algorithm has been deployed. A demonstrative example for imperfect mechanism has been treated, mainly, a slider crank mechanism with a flexible connecting rod. The transversal deflection of the connecting rod has been chosen as response to identify the mechanism design parameters.

Keywords: dynamic response, evolutionary genetic algorithm, flexible bodies, optimization

Procedia PDF Downloads 295

Authors: Benjamin Kuester, Bjoern Eilert, Malte Stonis, Ludger Overmeyer

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Increasing quality requirements make reliable and effective quality management indispensable. This includes the complaint handling in which the 8D method is widely used. The 8D report as a written documentation of the 8D method is one of the key quality documents as it internally secures the quality standards and acts as a communication medium to the customer. In practice, however, the 8D report is mostly faulty and of poor quality. There is no quality control of 8D reports today. This paper describes the use of natural language processing for the automated evaluation of 8D reports. Based on semantic analysis and text-mining algorithms the presented system is able to uncover content and formal quality deficiencies and thus increases the quality of the complaint processing in the long term.

Keywords: 8D report, complaint management, evaluation system, text-mining

Procedia PDF Downloads 290

Authors: Sushant Singh, Anurag Jain, Seema Sabharwal

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Cloud computing is advancing with a rapid speed. Already, it has been adopted by a huge set of users. Easy to use and anywhere access like potential of cloud computing has made it more attractive relative to other technologies. This has resulted in reduction of deployment cost on user side. It has also allowed the big companies to sell their infrastructure to recover the installation cost for the organization. Roots of cloud computing have extended from Grid computing. Along with the inherited characteristics of its predecessor technologies it has also adopted the loopholes present in those technologies. Some of the loopholes are identified and corrected recently, but still some are yet to be rectified. Two major areas where still scope of improvement exists are security and performance. The proposed work is devoted to performance enhancement for the user of the existing cloud system by improving the basic throttled mapping approach between task and resources. The improved procedure has been tested using the cloud analyst simulator. The results are compared with the original and it has been found that proposed work is one step ahead of existing techniques.

Keywords: cloud analyst, cloud computing, load balancing, throttled

Procedia PDF Downloads 223

Authors: Dangut Maren David, Skaf Zakwan

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Adequate monitoring of vehicle component in other to obtain high uptime is the goal of predictive maintenance, the major challenge faced by businesses in industries is the significant cost associated with a delay in service delivery due to system downtime. Most of those businesses are interested in predicting those problems and proactively prevent them in advance before it occurs, which is the core advantage of Prognostic Health Management (PHM) application. The recent emergence of industry 4.0 or industrial internet of things (IIoT) has led to the need for monitoring systems activities and enhancing system-to-system or component-to- component interactions, this has resulted to a large generation of data known as big data. Analysis of big data represents an increasingly important, however, due to complexity inherently in the dataset such as imbalance classification problems, it becomes extremely difficult to build a model with accurate high precision. Data-driven predictive modeling for condition-based maintenance (CBM) has recently drowned research interest with growing attention to both academics and industries. The large data generated from industrial process inherently comes with a different degree of complexity which posed a challenge for analytics. Thus, imbalance classification problem exists perversely in industrial datasets which can affect the performance of learning algorithms yielding to poor classifier accuracy in model development. Misclassification of faults can result in unplanned breakdown leading economic loss. In this paper, an advanced approach for handling imbalance classification problem is proposed and then a prognostic model for predicting aircraft component replacement is developed to predict component replacement in advanced by exploring aircraft historical data, the approached is based on hybrid ensemble-based method which improves the prediction of the minority class during learning, we also investigate the impact of our approach on multiclass imbalance problem. We validate the feasibility and effectiveness in terms of the performance of our approach using real-world aircraft operation and maintenance datasets, which spans over 7 years. Our approach shows better performance compared to other similar approaches. We also validate our approach strength for handling multiclass imbalanced dataset, our results also show good performance compared to other based classifiers.

Keywords: prognostics, data-driven, imbalance classification, deep learning

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Authors: Anthony D. Rhodes, Manan Goel

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We provide a high fidelity deep learning algorithm (HyperSeg) for interactive video segmentation tasks using a dense convolutional network with context-aware skip connections and compressed, 'hypercolumn' image features combined with a convolutional tessellation procedure. In order to maintain high output fidelity, our model crucially processes and renders all image features in high resolution, without utilizing downsampling or pooling procedures. We maintain this consistent, high grade fidelity efficiently in our model chiefly through two means: (1) we use a statistically-principled, tensor decomposition procedure to modulate the number of hypercolumn features and (2) we render these features in their native resolution using a convolutional tessellation technique. For improved pixel-level segmentation results, we introduce a boundary loss function; for improved temporal coherence in video data, we include temporal image information in our model. Through experiments, we demonstrate the improved accuracy of our model against baseline models for interactive segmentation tasks using high resolution video data. We also introduce a benchmark video segmentation dataset, the VFX Segmentation Dataset, which contains over 27,046 high resolution video frames, including green screen and various composited scenes with corresponding, hand-crafted, pixel-level segmentations. Our work presents a improves state of the art segmentation fidelity with high resolution data and can be used across a broad range of application domains, including VFX pipelines and medical imaging disciplines.

Keywords: computer vision, object segmentation, interactive segmentation, model compression

Procedia PDF Downloads 101

Authors: Ahmad Al-Omari, Osama Khreis, Ahmad M. K. Dagamseh, Abdullah Ababneh, Kevin Lear

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High-speed infrared vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes (VCSELs) with Cu-plated heat sinks were fabricated and tested. VCSELs with 10 mm aperture diameter and 4 mm of electroplated copper demonstrated a -3dB modulation bandwidth (f_-3dB) of 14 GHz and a resonance frequency (f_R) of 9.5 GHz at a bias current density (J_bias) of only 4.3 kA/cm², which corresponds to an improved f_-3dB²/J_bias ratio of 44 GHz²/kA/cm². At higher and lower bias current densities, the f_-3dB²/ J_bias ratio decreased to about 30 GHz²/kA/cm² and 18 GHz²/kA/cm², respectively. Examination of the analogue modulation response demonstrated that the presented VCSELs displayed a steady f_-3dB/ f_R ratio of 1.41±10% over the whole range of the bias current (1.3I_th to 6.2I_th). The devices also demonstrated a maximum modulation bandwidth (f_{-3dB max}) of more than 16 GHz at a bias current less than the industrial bias current standard for reliability by 25%.

Keywords: current density, high-speed VCSELs, modulation bandwidth, small-signal characteristics, thermal impedance, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Procedia PDF Downloads 544

Authors: Mai Ali

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The abstract underscores the critical importance of junior paediatricians acquiring expertise in handling paediatric emergencies, with a particular focus on Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA). Existing literature reveals a wealth of research on healthcare professionals' knowledge regarding DKA, encompassing diverse cultural backgrounds and medical specialties. Consistently, challenges such as the absence of standardized protocols and inadequacies in training emerge as common issues across healthcare centres. This research proposal seeks to conduct a thematic analysis of the proficiency of paediatric trainees in the United Kingdom in managing DKA within various clinical contexts. The primary objective is to assess their level of competence and propose effective strategies to enhance DKA training comprehensively.

Keywords: DKA, knowledge, Junior paediatricians, local protocols

Procedia PDF Downloads 54

Authors: Sankha Chakrabortty, Biswajit Ruj, Parimal Pal

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Methanol is one of the most important chemical products and intermediates. It can be used as a solvent, intermediate or raw material for a number of higher valued products, fuels or additives. From the last one decay, the total global demand of methanol has increased drastically which forces the scientists to produce a large amount of methanol from a renewable source to meet the global demand with a sustainable way. Different types of non-renewable based raw materials have been used for the synthesis of methanol on a large scale which makes the process unsustainable. In this circumstances, photocatalytic conversion of CO₂ into methanol under solar/UV excitation becomes a viable approach to give a sustainable production approach which not only meets the environmental crisis by recycling CO₂ to fuels but also reduces CO₂ amount from the atmosphere. Development of such sustainable production approach for CO₂ conversion into methanol still remains a major challenge in the current research comparing with conventional energy expensive processes. In this backdrop, the development of environmentally friendly materials, like photocatalyst has taken a great perspective for methanol synthesis. Scientists in this field are always concerned about finding an improved photocatalyst to enhance the photocatalytic performance. Graphene-based hybrid and composite materials with improved properties could be a better nanomaterial for the selective conversion of CO₂ to methanol under visible light (solar energy) or UV light. The present invention relates to synthesis an improved heterogeneous graphene-based photocatalyst with improved catalytic activity and surface area. Graphene with enhanced surface area is used as coupled material of copper-loaded titanium oxide to improve the electron capture and transport properties which substantially increase the photoinduced charge transfer and extend the lifetime of photogenerated charge carriers. A fast reduction method through H₂ purging has been adopted to synthesis improved graphene whereas ultrasonication based sol-gel method has been applied for the preparation of graphene coupled copper loaded titanium oxide with some enhanced properties. Prepared photocatalysts were exhaustively characterized using different characterization techniques. Effects of catalyst dose, CO₂ flow rate, reaction temperature and stirring time on the efficacy of the system in terms of methanol yield and productivity have been studied in the present study. The study shown that the newly synthesized photocatalyst with an enhanced surface resulting in a sustained productivity and yield of methanol 0.14 g/Lh, and 0.04 g/gcat respectively, after 3 h of illumination under UV (250W) at an optimum catalyst dosage of 10 g/L having 1:2:3 (Graphene: TiO₂: Cu) weight ratio.

Keywords: renewable energy, CO₂ capture, photocatalytic conversion, methanol

Procedia PDF Downloads 90

Authors: Yahaya Salihu Emeje, Amuchie Austine Anthony

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The topic examined the prospects of entrepreneurship as an emerging dynamic and strategic tool in the upliftment of human and non-human resources in the Nigerian university system, with a view of showcasing the abundant positive impact, on the Nigerian University system in particular and Nigerian economy at large. It is end at bringing out the benefits of entrepreneurship in the university system which includes, namely cultivating the culture of enterprise in University system; improvement in the quality and quantity of both human and non-human resources; innovative and creative methods of production; new employment strategies in the University system; improved sources of internal generated revenue; entrepreneurship as the culture of sustainability within and outside the university system. Secondary data was used in analyzing entrepreneurship as a productivity tool in the Nigeria University system. From the findings, the university system could be enriched through innovative ideas and technical revenue and employment generation; sustainable financial and economic base; university autonomy and improved international ranking of Nigerian Universities system; therefore, recommended that entrepreneurship is necessary therapy for reviving the ailing, Nigerian universities system.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, strategic, productivity, universities

Procedia PDF Downloads 370

Authors: Abdelhadi Adel, Kadri Ouahab

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This paper proposes an improved approach based on MAS Architecture and Heuristic Algorithm for systematic maintenance to minimize makespan. We have implemented a problem-solving approach for optimizing the processing time, methods based on metaheuristics. The proposed approach is inspired by the behavior of the human body. This hybridization is between a multi-agent system and inspirations of the human body, especially genetics. The effectiveness of our approach has been demonstrated repeatedly in this paper. To solve such a complex problem, we proposed an approach which we have used advanced operators such as uniform crossover set and single point mutation. The proposed approach is applied to three preventive maintenance policies. These policies are intended to maximize the availability or to maintain a minimum level of reliability during the production chain. The results show that our algorithm outperforms existing algorithms. We assumed that the machines might be unavailable periodically during the production scheduling.

Keywords: multi-agent systems, emergence, genetic algorithm, makespan, systematic maintenance, scheduling, hybrid flow shop scheduling

Procedia PDF Downloads 276

Authors: Babatunde Femi Bakare

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Groundwater quality was evaluated at a site for three years after the site was used for entrenchment of Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) latrine sludge. Analysis performed on the soil characteristics at the entrenchment site indicated that, the soils at the entrenchment site are predominantly sandy. Depth of the water table at the entrenchment site was found to be approximately five meters. Five monitoring boreholes were dug along the perimeter of the sludge trenches and water samples taken from these monitoring boreholes were analyzed for pH, conductivity, sodium ions, chloride ions, phosphate, nitrate, ammonia, and bacteriological analysis. The results obtained from the analysis conducted were compared with the South African Bureau of Standards for drinking water and it was found that the parameters analyzed falls below the specified range. The data obtained from this study indicate that, given the relatively high sludge loading rates, poor soil quality, and the duration of the groundwater quality monitoring, it is unlikely that contamination of groundwater at the entrenchment site will be a major concern. However, caution is advised in extrapolating these results to other locations.

Keywords: boreholes, contamination, entrenchment, groundwater quality, VIP latrines

Procedia PDF Downloads 391

Authors: Vivek Kumar Singh, Tripti Singh

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An ad hoc wireless network consists of mobile networks which creates an underlying architecture for communication without the help of traditional fixed-position routers. Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) is a routing protocol used for Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET). Nevertheless, the architecture must maintain communication routes although the hosts are mobile and they have limited transmission range. There are different protocols for handling the routing in the mobile environment. Routing protocols used in fixed infrastructure networks cannot be efficiently used for mobile ad-hoc networks, so that MANET requires different protocols. This paper presents the performance analysis of the routing protocols used various parameter-patterns with Two-ray model.

Keywords: AODV, packet transmission rate, pause time, ZRP, QualNet 6.1

Procedia PDF Downloads 805

Authors: Bandana Koirala, Shivalal Sharma

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Introduction: Gingival enlargements are quite common and may be either inflammatory, non-inflammatory or a combination of both. Idiopathic gingival enlargement is a rare condition with a proliferative fibrous lesion of the gingival tissue that causes esthetic and functional problems. It is of undetermined etiology. Case Description: This case report addresses the diagnosis and treatment of a case of idiopathic gingival enlargement in a 9-year-old male patient. The patient presented with a generalized diffuse gingival enlargement involving the entire maxillary and the mandibular arch with extension on occlusal, buccal, lingual, and palatal surfaces with just parts of occlusal surfaces of few upper and lower molars visible resulting in open mouth, difficulty in mastication and speech. Biopsy report confirmed the diagnosis of fibromatosis gingivae. Gingivectomy was carried out in all four quadrants by using external bevel incision. Conclusion: Though total esthetics could not be restored due to unusual bony enlargement, the general appearance improved satisfactorily. Treatment after complete excision however, improved the masticatory competence to a great extent.

Keywords: idiopathic gingival fibromatosis, gingival enlargement, gingivectomy, medical and health sciences

Procedia PDF Downloads 314

Authors: Eric Asare, Jamie Evans, Mark Newton, Emiliano Bilotti

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High-density polyethylene (HDPE) filled with silver coated glass flakes (5µm) was investigated and the effect on PTC by addition of a second filler (100µm silver coated glass flake) or matrix (polypropylene elastomer) to the composite were examined. The addition of the secondary filler promoted the electrical properties of the composite. The bigger flakes acted like a bridge between the small flakes and this helped to enhance the electrical properties. The PTC behaviour of the composite was also improved by the addition of the bigger flakes due to the increase in separation distance between particles caused by the bigger flakes. Addition of small amount of polypropylene elastomer enhanced not only PTC effect but also improved substantially the flexibility of the composite as well as reduces the overall filler content. SEM images showed that the fillers were dispersed in the HDPE phase.

Keywords: positive temperature coefficient, conductive polymer composite, electrical conductivity, high density polyethylene

Procedia PDF Downloads 452

Authors: Akhilesh Mishra, Geeta Rai, Arvind Srivastava, Nalini Tiwari

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A field experiment was conducted during two consecutive Rabi seasons of 2007 and 2008 to study the economics of different bio-fertilizer’s inoculations in fieldpea (cv. Jai) at Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur (India). Results indicated that the seed inoculation with Rhizobium + PSB + PGPR improved all the growth; yield attributes and yields of field pea. Fresh and dry weight plant-1, nodules number and dry weight plant-1 were found significantly maximum. Number of grains pod-1, number and weight of pods plant-1 at maturity attributed significantly in increasing the grain yield as well as net return. On pooled basis, maximum net income (Rs.22169 ha-1) was obtained with the use of Rhizobium + PSB + PGPR which was improved by a margin of Rs.1502 (6.77%), 2972 (13.40%), 2672 (12.05%), 5212 (23.51%), 6176 (27.85%), 4666 (21.04%) and 8842/ha (39.88%) over the inoculation of PSB + PGPR, Rhizobium + PGPR, Rhizobium + PSB, PGPR, PSB, Rhizobium and control, respectively. Thus, it can be recommended that to earn the maximum net profit from dwarf field pea, seed should be inoculated with Rhizobium + PSB + PGPR.

Keywords: rhizobium, phosphorus solubilizing bacteria, plant growth promoting rhizobacteria, field pea

Procedia PDF Downloads 390

Authors: Oluwatoyin Joseph Gbadeyan, Sarp Adali, Bright Glen, Bruce Sithole

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Sodium lauryl surfactant concentration optimization, for nanoparticle production, provided the platform for advanced research studies. Different concentrations (0.05 %, 0.1 %, and 0.2 %) of sodium lauryl surfactant was added to snail shells powder during milling processes for producing CaCO3 at smaller particle size. Epoxy nanocomposites prepared at filler content 2 wt.% synthesized with different volumes of sodium lauryl surfactant were fabricated using a conventional resin casting method. Mechanical properties such as tensile strength, stiffness, and hardness of prepared nanocomposites was investigated to determine the effect of sodium lauryl surfactant concentration on nanocomposite properties. It was observed that the loading of the synthesized nano-calcium carbonate improved the mechanical properties of neat epoxy at lower concentrations of sodium lauryl surfactant 0.05 %. Meaningfully, loading of achatina fulica snail shell nanoparticles manufactures, with small concentrations of sodium lauryl surfactant 0.05 %, increased the neat epoxy tensile strength by 26%, stiffness by 55%, and hardness by 38%. Homogeneous dispersion facilitated, by the addition of sodium lauryl surfactant during milling processes, improved mechanical properties. Research evidence suggests that nano-CaCO3, synthesized from achatina fulica snail shell, possesses suitable reinforcement properties that can be used for nanocomposite fabrication. The evidence showed that adding small concentrations of sodium lauryl surfactant 0.05 %, improved dispersion of nanoparticles in polymetrix material that provided mechanical properties improvement.

Keywords: sodium lauryl surfactant, mechanical properties , achatina fulica snail shel, calcium carbonate nanopowder

Procedia PDF Downloads 124

Authors: G. Tamanza, A. Bossoni

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84 deaf students (from primary school to college) and their families participated in this inclusion project in cooperation with numerous institutions in northern Italy (Brescia-Lombardy). Participants were either congenitally deaf or their deafness was related to other pathologies. This research promoted the integration of deaf students as they pass from primary school to high school to college. Learning methods and processes were studied that focused on encour­aging individual autonomy and socialization. The research team and its collaborators included school teachers, speech ther­apists, psychologists and home tutors, as well as teaching assistants, child neuropsychiatrists and other external authorities involved with deaf persons social inclusion programs. Deaf children and their families were supported, in terms of inclusion, and were made aware of the research team that focused on the Bisogni Educativi Speciali (BES or Special Educational Needs) (L.170/2010 - DM 5669/2011). This project included a diagnostic and evaluative phase as well as an operational one. Results demonstrated that deaf children were highly satisfied and confident; academic performance improved and collaboration in school increased. Deaf children felt that they had access to high school and college. Empowerment for the families of deaf children in terms of networking among local services that deal with the deaf also improved while family satisfaction also improved. We found that teachers and those who gave support to deaf children increased their professional skills. Achieving autonomy, instrumental, communicative and relational abilities were also found to be crucial. Project success was determined by temporal continuity, clear theoretical methodology, strong alliance for the project direction and a resilient team response.

Keywords: autonomy, inclusion, skills, well-being

Procedia PDF Downloads 269

Authors: A. A. Adekunle, A. M. Omoare, W. O. Oyediran

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This study was carried out to assess rural women’s skill acquisition in the processing of locust bean in Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 90 women locust bean processors for this study. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The result showed that the mean age of respondents was 40.72 years. Most (70.00%) of the respondents were married. The mean processing experience was 8.63 years. 93.30% of the respondents relied on information from fellow locust beans processors and friends. All (100%) the respondents did not acquire improved processing skill through trainings and workshops. It can be concluded that the rural women’s skill acquisition on modernized processing techniques was generally low. It is hereby recommend that the rural women processors should be trained by extension service providers through series of workshops and seminars on improved processing techniques.

Keywords: locust bean, processing, skill acquisition, rural women

Procedia PDF Downloads 446

Authors: Rawan K. Al-Duaij, Salem A. Al-Salem

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Projects, the unique and temporary process of achieving a set of requirements have always been challenging; Planning the schedule and budget, managing the resources and risks are mostly driven by a similar past experience or the technical consultations of experts in the matter. With that complexity of Projects in Scope, Time, and execution environment, Adjustment Orders are tools to reflect changes to the original project parameters after Contract signature. Adjustment Orders are the official/legal amendments to the terms and conditions of a live Contract. Reasons for issuing Adjustment Orders arise from changes in Contract scope, technical requirement and specification resulting in scope addition, deletion, or alteration. It can be as well a combination of most of these parameters resulting in an increase or decrease in time and/or cost. Most business leaders (handling projects in the interest of the owner) refrain from using Adjustment Orders considering their main objectives of staying within budget and on schedule. Success in managing the changes results in uninterrupted execution and agreed project costs as well as schedule. Nevertheless, this is not always practically achievable. In this paper, a detailed study through utilizing Industrial Engineering & Systems Management tools such as Six Sigma, Data Analysis, and Quality Control were implemented on the organization’s five years records of the issued Adjustment Orders in order to investigate their prevalence, and time and cost impact. The analysis outcome revealed and helped to identify and categorize the predominant causations with the highest impacts, which were considered most in recommending the corrective measures to reach the objective of minimizing the Adjustment Orders impacts. Data analysis demonstrated no specific trend in the AO frequency in past five years; however, time impact is more than the cost impact. Although Adjustment Orders might never be avoidable; this analysis offers’ some insight to the procedural gaps, and where it is highly impacting the organization. Possible solutions are concluded such as improving project handling team’s coordination and communication, utilizing a blanket service contract, and modifying the projects gate system procedures to minimize the possibility of having similar struggles in future. Projects in the Oil and Gas sector are always evolving and demand a certain amount of flexibility to sustain the goals of the field. As it will be demonstrated, the uncertainty of project parameters, in adequate project definition, operational constraints and stringent procedures are main factors resulting in the need for Adjustment Orders and accordingly the recommendation will be to address that challenge.

Keywords: adjustment orders, data analysis, oil and gas sector, systems management

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: Xian Xie, Qinghua Fang

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This study used quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the characteristics of flipped classroom’s influence on classroom environment of college English reading, writing, and translating, and to summarize and reflect on the teaching characteristics of college English Reading, writing, and translating. The results of the study indicated that after the flipped classroom applied to reading, writing, and translating, students’ performance was improved to a certain extent, the classroom environment was improved to some extent, students of the flipped classroom are generally satisfied with the classroom environment; students showed a certain degree of individual differences to the degree of cooperation, participation, self-responsibility, task-orientation, and the teacher leadership and innovation. The study indicated that the implementation of flipped classroom teaching mode can optimize College English reading, writing, and translating classroom environment and realize target－learner as the center in foreign language teaching and learning, but bring a greater challenge to teachers.

Keywords: classroom environment, college English reading, writing and translating, individual differences, flipped classroom

Procedia PDF Downloads 245

Authors: Najeeb Niazi, Salman Nisar, Aqueel Shah

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In this study a special heat treatment process named austempering on AISI 4340 steel is carried out. Heat treatment on steel is carried out to enhance mechanical properties. In this regard, it is considered essential to undertake a study to evaluate different changes occurred in AISI 4340 steel in terms of hardness, tensile strength and impact strength at different austempering temperatures and cooling times and achieving the best combination of these improved mechanical properties for better and optimum utilization of this grade of steel. By using software Design Expert DOE is formulated with Taguchi orthogonal arrays comprising of L18 (3*3) with 03 factors and 03 responses to be calculated. Results of experiments are analyzed via Taguchi method. Signal to noise ratio of responses are carried out to determine the significant factors among the 03 factors chosen for experimental runs. Overall analysis showed that impact factor along with hardness is improved to great extent by austempering process.

Keywords: austempering temperature, AISI 4340 steel, bainite, Taguchi

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Authors: Ling Ai Wong, Hussain Shareef, Azah Mohamed, Ahmad Asrul Ibrahim

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The installation of photovoltaic based distributed generation (PVDG) in active distribution system can lead to voltage fluctuation due to the intermittent and unpredictable PVDG output power. This paper presented a method in mitigating the voltage rise by optimally locating and sizing the battery energy storage system (BESS) in PVDG integrated distribution network. The improved firefly algorithm is used to perform optimal placement and sizing. Three objective functions are presented considering the voltage deviation and BESS off-time with state of charge as the constraint. The performance of the proposed method is compared with another optimization method such as the original firefly algorithm and gravitational search algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed optimum BESS location and size improve the voltage stability.

Keywords: BESS, firefly algorithm, PVDG, voltage fluctuation

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Authors: Ibrahim Hakeem

Abstract:

Biosolids are stabilised sewage sludge produced from wastewater treatment processes. Biosolids contain valuable plant nutrient which facilitates their beneficial reuse in agricultural land. However, the increasing levels of legacy and emerging contaminants such as heavy metals (HMs), PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, microbial pathogens etc., are restraining the direct land application of biosolids. Pyrolysis of biosolids can effectively degrade microbial and organic contaminants; however, HMs remain a persistent problem with biosolids and their pyrolysis-derived biochar. In this work, we demonstrated the integrated processing of biosolids involving the acid pre-treatment for HMs removal and selective reduction of ash-forming elements followed by the bench-scale pyrolysis of the treated biosolids to produce quality biochar and bio-oil enriched with valuable platform chemicals. The pre-treatment of biosolids using 3% v/v H₂SO₄ at room conditions for 30 min reduced the ash content from 30 wt% in raw biosolids to 15 wt% in the treated sample while removing about 80% of limiting HMs without degrading the organic matter. The preservation of nutrients and reduction of HMs concentration and mobility via the developed hydrometallurgical process improved the grade of the treated biosolids for beneficial land reuse. The co-removal of ash-forming elements from biosolids positively enhanced the fluidised bed pyrolysis of the acid-treated biosolids at 700 ℃. Organic matter devolatilisation was improved by 40%, and the produced biochar had higher surface area (107 m²/g), heating value (15 MJ/kg), fixed carbon (35 wt%), organic carbon retention (66% dry-ash free) compared to the raw biosolids biochar with surface area (56 m²/g), heating value (9 MJ/kg), fixed carbon (20 wt%) and organic carbon retention (50%). Pre-treatment also improved microporous structure development of the biochar and substantially decreased the HMs concentration and bioavailability by at least 50% relative to the raw biosolids biochar. The integrated process is a viable approach to enhancing value recovery from biosolids.

Keywords: biosolids, pyrolysis, biochar, heavy metals

Procedia PDF Downloads 60

Authors: Midhun Xavier

Abstract:

This paper introduces a method to verify multi-agent systems in industrial control systems using blockchain technology. The proposed solution enables to record and verify each process that occurs while generating a customized product using Ethereum-based smart contracts. Node-Red software agents are developed with the help of semantic web technologies, and these software agents interact with IEC 61499 function blocks to execute the processes. The agent associated with each mechatronic component and its controller can communicate with the blockchain to record various events that occur during each process, and the latter smart contract helps to verify these process orders of the customized product.

Keywords: blockchain, Ethereum, node-red, IEC 61499, multi-agent system, MQTT

Procedia PDF Downloads 67

Authors: Hafiz A. Sakandar, M. Afzaal, U. Khan, M. N. Akhtar

Abstract:

Food is the primary concern of living organisms, provision of diet for maintenance of good physical and mental health is a basic right of an individual and the outcome of factors related to diet on health has been matter of apprehension since ancient times. Healthy and fresh food always demanded by the consumers. Modern research has find out many alternatives of traditional packaging. Now the consumer knows that good packaging system is that which protects the food from the contaminants and increases shelf life of food product. While in Pakistan about 40% of fruits and vegetables lost due to spoilage caused by poor handling, transportation, and poor packaging interaction with other environmental conditions. So it is crucial for developing countries like Pakistan to pay attention to these exacerbating situations for economy losses by considering food packaging an ultimate solution to the problem.

Keywords: packaging, food safety, antimicrobial, food losses

Procedia PDF Downloads 529