Search results for: finite elements method

Authors: R. Devicharan

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In a short span 3D Printing is expected to play a vital role in our life. The possibility of creativity and speed in manufacturing through various 3D printing processes is infinite. This study is performed on the FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) method of 3D printing, which is one of the pre-dominant methods of 3D printing technologies. This study focuses on physical properties of the objects produced by 3D printing which determine the applications of the 3D printed objects. This paper specifically aims at the study of the tensile strength and the folding endurance of the 3D printed objects through the FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) method using the ABS (Acronitirile Butadiene Styrene) and PLA (Poly Lactic Acid) plastic materials. The study is performed on a controlled environment and the specific machine settings. Appropriate tables, graphs are plotted and research analysis techniques will be utilized to analyse, verify and validate the experiment results.

Keywords: FDM process, 3D printing, ABS for 3D printing, PLA for 3D printing, rapid prototyping

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Authors: Raghvendra Singh Yadav, Ivo Kuřitka, Jaromir Havlica, Zuzana Kozakova, Jiri Masilko, Lukas Kalina, Miroslava Hajdúchová, Vojtěch Enev, Jaromir Wasserbauer

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In this work, we investigated the structural and magnetic properties of CoFe2O4:Nd3+/Dy3+/Pr3+/Gd3+ nanoparticles synthesized by starch-assisted sol-gel combustion method. X-ray diffraction pattern confirmed the formation of cubic spinel structure of rare-earth ions (Nd3+, Dy3+, Pr3+, Gd3+) doped CoFe2O4 spinel ferrite nanoparticles. Raman and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy study also confirmed cubic spinel structure of rare-earth ions (Nd3+, Dy3+, Pr3+, Gd3+) substituted CoFe2O4 nanoparticles. The field emission scanning electron microscopy study revealed the effect of annealing temperature on size of rare-earth ions (Nd3+, Dy3+, Pr3+, Gd3+) substituted CoFe2O4 nanoparticles and particles were in the range of 10-100 nm. The magnetic properties of rare-earth ions (Nd3+, Dy3+, Pr3+, Gd3+) substituted CoFe2O4 nanoparticles were investigated by using vibrating sample magnetometer. The variation in saturation magnetization, coercivity and remanent magnetization with annealing temperature/ particle size of rare-earth ions (Nd3+, Dy3+, Pr3+, Gd3+) substituted CoFe2O4 nanoparticles was observed. Acknowledgment: This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic – Program NPU I (LO1504).

Keywords: starch, sol-gel combustion method, rare-earth ions, spinel ferrite nanoparticles, magnetic properties

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Authors: Qamar Ul Haq, Talat Hussain, Mufti Fahad Ahmed Qureshi

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From the Islamic perspective, managing human resource meets various challenges, especially in the modern organizations. The adoption of Western practices in various aspects of management have caused gaps in justice, trustworthy, responsibility and other values of workers in Muslim countries. Thus, the interference of Islamic principles in human resource management (HRM) can be considered as a great solution for treating employees fairly and justly. This research aims to examine the level of Islamic practices in HRM, in which includes recruitment and selection, training and development, career development, performance management and rewards. The paper will analyze the relationships between HRM practices and organizational justice which focus on three elements, which are distributive justice, procedure justice and interactional justice. The data will be collected from selected Malaysian Government-Linked Company (GLC). Convenience sampling will be used to select the respondents for completing questionnaires. This conceptual paper essentially provides organizations with effective ways of understanding and implementing HRM by using Islamic principles. It also can be used as guidance for decision-making and day-today HR activities and will help organization to face uncertainties in the business world as well.

Keywords: human resource management, organizational justice, Islam, Islamic banking

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Authors: Gonzalez Carlos, Martinez Fransisco

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The creation of a seismic prediction model that considers all the regional variations and perfectly adjusts its results to the response spectra is very complicated. To achieve statistically acceptable results, it is necessary to process a sufficiently robust data set, and even if high efficiencies are achieved, this model will only work properly in this region. However, when using it in other regions, differences are found due to different parameters that have not been calibrated to other regions, such as the site effect. The fact that impedance contrasts, as well as other factors belonging to the site, have a great influence on the local response is well known, which is why this work, using the residual method, is intended to establish a regional calibration of the corresponding parameters site effect for the Spain region in the global GMPM BSSA 14.

Keywords: GMPM, seismic prediction equations, residual method, response spectra, impedance contrast

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Authors: Saad M. Darwish, Mohamed A. El-Iskandarani, Guitar M. Shawkat

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Nowadays, the amount of available multimedia data is continuously on the rise. The need to find a required image for an ordinary user is a challenging task. Content based image retrieval (CBIR) computes relevance based on the visual similarity of low-level image features such as color, textures, etc. However, there is a gap between low-level visual features and semantic meanings required by applications. The typical method of bridging the semantic gap is through the automatic image annotation (AIA) that extracts semantic features using machine learning techniques. In this paper, a multi-label image annotation system guided by Firefly and Bayesian method is proposed. Firstly, images are segmented using the maximum variance intra cluster and Firefly algorithm, which is a swarm-based approach with high convergence speed, less computation rate and search for the optimal multiple threshold. Feature extraction techniques based on color features and region properties are applied to obtain the representative features. After that, the images are annotated using translation model based on the Net Bayes system, which is efficient for multi-label learning with high precision and less complexity. Experiments are performed using Corel Database. The results show that the proposed system is better than traditional ones for automatic image annotation and retrieval.

Keywords: feature extraction, feature selection, image annotation, classification

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Authors: Zhenqiu Liu

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Visualizing the heterogeneity within cell-populations for single-cell RNA-seq data is crucial for studying the functional diversity of a cell. However, because of the high level of noises, outlier, and dropouts, it is very challenging to measure the cell-to-cell similarity (distance), visualize and cluster the data in a low-dimension. Minimum volume embedding (MVE) projects the data into a lower-dimensional space and is a promising tool for data visualization. However, it is computationally inefficient to solve a semi-definite programming (SDP) when the sample size is large. Therefore, it is not applicable to single-cell RNA-seq data with thousands of samples. In this paper, we develop an efficient algorithm with an accelerated proximal gradient method and visualize the single-cell RNA-seq data efficiently. We demonstrate that the proposed approach separates known subpopulations more accurately in single-cell data sets than other existing dimension reduction methods.

Keywords: single-cell RNA-seq, minimum volume embedding, visualization, accelerated proximal gradient method

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Authors: Xitong Liu, Yutong Huang, Shu-Ching Yang

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The phenomena of hypergamous and hypogamous marriages have become popular due to the imbalanced sex ratio caused by Chinese social preference for sons. Our research explores the spillover effect of husbands' lifestyles on their wives' marital satisfaction in China. Both personal and spouse lifestyle elements are utilized to develop regression models to study husbands' spillover effects on women's marital satisfaction. With data from China Family Panel Study and Stata for analysis, we tested our hypothesis that both smoking and substance use by a spouse will negatively impact women's marital satisfaction. Our empirical findings suggest that substance use has negative implications on marriage satisfaction. In particular, husbands' substance use is more critical to wives' marriage satisfaction than wives' behaviours. Conversely, another behavior indicating bad habits, the number of times the spouse drank alcohol, had no significant effect on the wife's marital satisfaction. We concluded our investigation and provided future implications for scholars in the family economics field.

Keywords: Asian/Pacific Islander families, family economics, housework/division of labor, spillover

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Authors: Safia Rabaaoui, Héla Hachicha, Ezzeddine Zagrouba

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Nowadays, cloud computing is becoming the more popular technology to various companies and consumers, which benefit from its increased efficiency, cost optimization, data security, unlimited storage capacity, etc. One of the biggest challenges of cloud computing is resource allocation. Its efficiency directly influences the performance of the whole cloud environment. Finding an effective method to address these critical issues and increase cloud performance was necessary. This paper proposes a mobile agents-based framework for dynamic resource allocation in cloud computing to minimize both the cost of using virtual machines and the makespan. Furthermore, its impact on the best response time and power consumption has been studied. The simulation showed that our method gave better results than here.

Keywords: cloud computing, multi-agent system, mobile agent, dynamic resource allocation, cost, makespan

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Authors: Hayder H. Kareem

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Groundwater recharge is a crucial parameter for any groundwater management system. The variability of the recharge rates and the difficulty in estimating this factor in many processes by direct observation leads to the complexity of estimating the recharge value. Various methods are existing to estimate the groundwater recharge, with some limitations for each method to be able for application. This paper focuses particularly on a real study area, Al-Najaf City, Iraq. In this city, there are few groundwater aquifers, but the aquifer which is considered in this study is the closest one to the ground surface, the Dibdibba aquifer. According to the Aridity Index, which is estimated in the paper, Al-Najaf City is classified as a region located in an arid climate, and this identified that the most appropriate method to estimate the groundwater recharge is Thornthwaite's formula or Thornthwaite's method. From the calculations, the estimated average groundwater recharge over the period 1980-2014 for Al-Najaf City is 40.32 mm/year. Groundwater recharge is completely affected the groundwater table level (groundwater head). Therefore, to make sure that this value of recharge is true, the MODFLOW program has been used to apply this value through finding the relationship between the calculated and observed heads where a groundwater model for the Al-Najaf City study area has been built by MODFLOW to simulate this area for different purposes, one of these purposes is to simulate the groundwater recharge. MODFLOW results show that this value of groundwater recharge is extremely high and needs to be reduced. Therefore, a further sensitivity test has been carried out for the Al-Najaf City study area by the MODFLOW program through changing the recharge value and found that the best estimation of groundwater recharge value for this city is 16.5 mm/year where this value gives the best fitting between the calculated and observed heads with minimum values of RMSE % (13.175) and RSS m² (1454).

Keywords: Al-Najaf City, groundwater modelling, recharge estimation, visual MODFLOW

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Authors: Divya Dharshini Omprakash, Anjali Subramani

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Most of the tall structures are constructed using shear walls and tube systems in the recent decades. This makes the structure heavy and less resistant to lateral effects as the height of the structure goes up. This paper aims in the reduction of self-weight in tall structures by the use of Taper Cladding System (TCS) and also enumerates the construction techniques used in TCS. TCS has a tapering clad either fixed at the top or bottom of the structural core at the tapered end. This system eliminates the use of RC structural elements on the exterior of the structure and uses fewer columns only on the interior part to take up the gravity loads in order to reduce the self-weight of the structure. The self-weight reduction by TCS is 50% more compared to the present structural systems. The lateral loads on the hull will be taken care of by the tapered steel frame. Analysis were done to study the structural behaviour of taper cladded buildings subjected to lateral loads. TCS has a great impact in the construction of tall structures in seismic and dense urban areas. An effective construction management can be done by the use of Taper Cladding System. In this paper, sustainability, design considerations and implications of the system has also been discussed.

Keywords: Lateral Loads Resistance, reduction of self-weight, sustainable, taper clads

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Authors: Jiwuer Jilili, Iogann Tolbatov, Mousumi U. Kahaly

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Metal to insulator transition and interfacial magnetism of the LaNiO₃ based superlattice are main interest due to thickness dependent electronic response and tunable magnetic behavior. We investigate the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of recently experimentally synthesized (LaNiO₃)n/(CaMnO₃)m superlattices with varying LaNiO₃ thickness using density functional theory. The effect of the on-site Coulomb interaction is discussed. In switching from zero to finite U value for Ni atoms, LaNiO₃ shows transitions from half-metallic to metallic character, while spinning ordering changes from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic (FM). For CaMnO₃, U < 3 eV on Mn atoms results in G-type anti-FM spin ordering whereas increasing U value yields FM ordering. In superlattices, metal to insulator transition was achieved with a reduction of LaNiO₃ thickness. The system with one layer of LaNiO₃ yields insulating character. Increasing LaNiO₃ to two layers and above results in the onset of the metallic character with a major contribution from Ni and Mn 3d eg states. Our results for interfacial ferromagnetism, induced Ni magnetic moments and novel antiferromagnetically coupled Ni atoms are consistent with the recent experimental findings. The possible origin of the emergent magnetism is proposed in terms of the exchange interaction and Anderson localization.

Keywords: density functional theory, interfacial magnetism, metal-insulator transition, Ni magnetism.

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Authors: Anastasia K. Eleftheriadou, Athanasios Sfetsos, Nikolaos Gounaris

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The present work examines the suitability of a seasonal forecasting model downscaled with a very high spatial resolution in order to assess the energy performance and requirements of buildings. The application of the developed model is applied on Greece for a period and with a forecast horizon of 5 months in the future. Greece, as a country in the middle of a financial crisis and facing serious societal challenges, is also very sensitive to climate changes. The commonly used method for the correlation of climate change with the buildings energy consumption is the concept of Degree Days (DD). This method can be applied to heating and cooling systems for a better management of environmental, economic and energy crisis, and can be used as medium (3-6 months) planning tools in order to predict the building needs and country’s requirements for residential energy use.

Keywords: downscaled seasonal models, degree days, energy performance

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Authors: Karolína Vozková, Matěj Kuc

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Net fee and commission income is one of the key elements of a bank’s core income. In the current low-interest rate environment, this type of income is gaining importance relative to net interest income. This paper analyses the effects of bank and country specific determinants of net fee and commission income on a set of cooperative banks from European countries in the 2007-2014 period. In order to do that, dynamic panel data methods (system Generalized Methods of Moments) were employed. Subsequently, alternative panel data methods were run as robustness checks of the analysis. Strong positive impact of bank concentration on the share of net fee and commission income was found, which proves that cooperative banks tend to display a higher share of fee income in less competitive markets. This is probably connected with the fact that they stick with their traditional deposit-taking and loan-providing model and fees on these services are driven down by the competitors. Moreover, compared to commercial banks, cooperatives do not expand heavily into non-traditional fee bearing services under competition and their overall fee income share is therefore decreasing with the increased competitiveness of the sector.

Keywords: cooperative banking, dynamic panel data models, net fee and commission income, system GMM

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Authors: R. Harman Dwi, Ryan Avirsa, P. Abraham Ivan

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Understanding of temperatures in the past, present, and future temperatures can be possible to do by analysis abundance of fossil foraminifera. This research was conducted in Sambipitu Formation, Ngalang River, Nglipar, Gunung Kidul Regency. The research method is divided into 3 stages: 1) study of literature, research based on previous researchers, 2) spatial, observation and sampling every 5-10 meters, 3) descriptive, analyzing samples consisting of a 10-gram sample weight, washing sample using 30% peroxide, biostratigraphy analysis, paleotemperature analysis using abundance of fossil, diversity analysis using Simpson diversity index method, and comparing current temperature data. There are two phases based on the appearance of Globorotalia menardii and Pulleniatina obliqueculata pointed to Phase Tropical Area, and the appearance of fossil Globigerinoides ruber and Orbulina universa fossil shows the phase of Subtropical Area. Paleotemperatur based on the appearance of Globorotalia menardii, Globigerinoides trilobus, Globigerinoides ruber, Orbulina universa, and Pulleniatina obliqueculata pointed to Warm Water Area and Warm Water Area (average surface water approximate 25°C).

Keywords: abundance, biostratigraphy, Simpson diversity index method, paleotemperature

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Authors: Mohammed Mohsin Ali H., Mohamed Haneef

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The connecting rod transmits the piston load to the crank causing the latter to turn, thus converting the reciprocating motion of the piston into a rotary motion of the crankshaft. Connecting rods are subjected to forces generated by mass and fuel combustion. This study investigates and compares the fatigue behavior of forged steel, powder forged and ASTM a 514 steel cold quenched connecting rods. The objective is to suggest for a new material with reduced weight and cost with the increased fatigue life. This has entailed performing a detailed load analysis. Therefore, this study has dealt with two subjects: first, dynamic load and stress analysis of the connecting rod, and second, optimization for material, weight and cost. In the first part of the study, the loads acting on the connecting rod as a function of time were obtained. Based on the observations of the dynamic FEA, static FEA, and the load analysis results, the load for the optimization study was selected. It is the conclusion of this study that the connecting rod can be designed and optimized under a load range comprising tensile load and compressive load. Tensile load corresponds to 360^o crank angle at the maximum engine speed. The compressive load is corresponding to the peak gas pressure. Furthermore, the existing connecting rod can be replaced with a new connecting rod made of ASTM a 514 steel cold quenched that is 12% lighter and 28% cheaper.

Keywords: connecting rod, ASTM a514 cold quenched material, static analysis, fatigue analysis, stress life approach

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Authors: Hamed Seddighi Khavidak

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Voluntary work has a lot of economic and social benefits for a country, but the economic value is ignored because it is voluntary. The aim of this study is reviewing Monetary Value of Voluntary Work methods and comparing opportunity cost method and replacement cost method both in theory and in practice. Beside monetary value, in this study, we discuss cost-benefit analysis of health and safety plan in the New Year that conducted by young volunteers of Red Crescent society of Iran. Method: We discussed eight methods for monetary value of voluntary work including: Alternative-Employment Wage Approach, Leisure-Adjusted OCA, Volunteer Judgment OCA, Replacement Wage Approach, Volunteer Judgment RWA, Supervisor Judgment RWA, Cost of Counterpart Goods and Services and Beneficiary Judgment. Also, for cost benefit analysis we drew on 'value audit and volunteer investment' (VIVA) technique that is used widely in voluntary organizations like international federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. Findings: In this study, using replacement cost approach, voluntary work by 1034 youth volunteers was valued 938000000 Riyals and using Replacement Wage Approach it was valued 2268713232 Riyals. Moreover, Yazd Red Crescent Society spent 212800000 Riyals on food and other costs for these volunteers. Discussion and conclusion: In this study, using cost benefit analysis method that is Volunteer Investment and Value Audit (VIVA), VIVA rate showed that for every Riyal that the Red Crescent Society invested in the health and safety of New Year's travelers in its volunteer project, four Riyals returned, and using the wage replacement approach, 11 Riyals returned. Therefore, New Year's travelers health and safety project were successful and economically, it was worthwhile for the Red Crescent Society because the output was much bigger than the input costs.

Keywords: voluntary work, monetary value, youth, red crescent society

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Authors: M. Tahir Demirsel, Mustafa Atsan

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Many elements of the environment in which businesses operate today leave them faced with unexpected threats and opportunities. One of the major threats is business crisis. The crisis is a state of affairs in a business wherein the executives must take urgent and unprecedented action to try to save the business from failure. In order to survive in the business environment, organizations should be prepared for the potential crises. Technological developments, uncertainty in the market and the intense competition increase the probability of encountering a crisis for organizations. Therefore, by acting proactively to predict crisis, to detect signals of crisis and be prepared for a crisis by taking necessary precautions accordingly, is of great importance for businesses. In this context, the objective of this study is to reveal that how much organizations are proactive and can predict the future crises and investigate whether they are prepared for possible crises or not. The research was conducted on 222 business executives in one of the major industrial zones of Turkey, Konya Organized Industrial Zone (KOS). The findings are analyzed through descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. According to the results, it has been observed that organizations cannot predict the crisis signals and are not prepared for potential crises.

Keywords: crisis preparedness, crisis signals, industrial organizations, proactivity

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Authors: P. Ahuja, K. S. S. Sai Krishna

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There is a concern over the energy shortage in the modern societies as it is one of the primary necessities. Renewable energy, mainly biomass, is found to be one feasible solution as it is inexhaustible and clean energy source all over the world. Out of various methods, thermo chemical conversion is considered to be the most common and convenient method to extract energy from biomass. The thermo-chemical methods that are employed are gasification, liquefaction and combustion. On gasification biomass yields biogas, on liquefaction biomass yields bio-oil and on combustion biomass yields bio-char. Any attempt to biomass gasification, liquefaction or combustion calls for a good understanding of biomass pyrolysis. So, Irrespective of the method used the first step towards the thermo-chemical treatment of biomass is pyrolysis. Pyrolysis mainly converts the solid mass into liquid with gas and residual char as the byproducts. Liquid is used for the production of heat, power and many other chemicals whereas the gas and char can be used as fuels to generate heat.

Keywords: biomass, fluidisation, pyrolysis, simulation

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Authors: Gi Ryung Song, Kyoung Seok Kim

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This study reviewed the literature that focused on similarity of various characteristics such as values, personality, or demographics between employee and other elements in its organization for example employee with leader, job, and organization. We divided a body of this study into two parts and organized and demonstrated recent studies in first part. Three issues appeared in this part, which are statistical ways of measuring similarity, supervisor-subordinate similarity, and person-organization fit with person-job fit. In the latter part, based on the three issues of recent studies, we suggested three propositions about points that the recent studies missed or the studies did not orient. First proposition argued about the direction of similarity, which could also be interpreted as there is causal relation between employee and its workplace environments. Second, we suggested a consideration of eliminating common variance buried in one’s characteristics or its profiles. Third proposition was about the similarity of extra role behavior between individual and organization, and we treated this organization’s level of extra role behavior as a kind of its culture. In doing so, similarity of individual’s extra role behavior and organization’s has the meaning that individual’s congruence against their organization culture.

Keywords: similarity, person-organization fit, supervisor-subordinate similarity, literature review

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Authors: Xi-Wen Xiao, Tzy-Rong Lin, Chien-Hao Liu

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Ventilated acoustic metamaterials have attracted considerable research attention due to their low-frequency absorptions and efficient fluid ventilations. In this research, a wideband acoustic metamaterial with auditory filtering ability and efficient ventilation capacity were proposed. In contrast to a conventional Fano-like resonator, a Fano-like resonator composed of a resonant unit and two nonresonant units with a large opening area of 68% for fluid passages was developed. In addition, the coupling mechanism to improve the narrow bandwidths of conventional Fano-resonance-based meta-materials was included. With a suitable design, the output sound waves of the resonant and nonresonant states were out of phase to achieve sound absorptions in the far fields. Therefore, three-element and five-element coupled Fano-like metamaterials were designed and simulated with the help of the finite element software to obtain the filtering fractional bandwidths of 42.5% and 61.8%, respectively. The proposed approach can be extended to multiple coupled resonators for obtaining ultra-wide bandwidths and can be implemented with 3D printing for practical applications. The research results are expected to be beneficial for sound filtering or noise reductions in duct applications and limited-volume spaces.

Keywords: fano resonance, noise reduction, resonant coupling, sound filtering, ventilated acoustic metamaterial

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Authors: Shrikrishna Mishra, Badri Yadav

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In this complex society of today where experiences are innumerable and varied, it is not at all possible to present every situation in its original colors hence the opportunities for learning by actual experiences always are not at all possible. It is only through the use of proper audio visual aids that the life situation can be trough in the class room by an enlightened teacher in their simplest form and representing the original to the highest point of similarity which is totally absent in the verbal or lecture method. In the presence of audio aids, the attention is attracted interest roused and suitable atmosphere for proper understanding is automatically created, but in the existing traditional method greater efforts are to be made in order to achieve the aforesaid essential requisite. Inspire of the best and sincere efforts on the side of the teacher the net effect as regards understanding or learning in general is quite negligible.

Keywords: Audio-Visual Aids, the secondary school teaching, complex society, audio

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Authors: H. Elgubbi, A. Mlitan, A. Alzridy

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Ninhydrin is the most well known spray reagent for identification of amino acids. Spring with Ninhydrin as a non-specific reagent is well-known and widely used for its remarkable high sensitivity. Using Ninhydrin reagent alone to detect amino acid on thin layer chromatography (TLA) paper is not advisable due to its lower sensitivity. A new spray reagent, Stannus chloride solution (Sn CL2) has been used to detect amino acids on filtter paper (witman 14) and TLC paper, silica Gel, 60 F254 TLC Aluminium Sheet 20x20cm Merck- Germany. Also, modified TLC pre-staining method was used, which only consisted of 3 steps: spotting, separating and color. The improved method was rapid and inexpensive and the results obtained were clear and reliable. In addition, it is suitable for screening different amino acid.

Keywords: amino acid, ninhydrin, modified ninhydrin reagent, stannus chloride reagent, thin-layer chromatography (TLC), TLC pre-staining

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Authors: Jesús Horacio, Alfredo Ollero, Víctor Bouzas-Blanco, Augusto Pérez-Alberti

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Rivers have traditionally been classified, assessed and managed in terms of hydrological, chemical and / or biological criteria. Geomorphological classifications had in the past a secondary role, although proposals like River Styles Framework, Catchment Baseline Survey or Stroud Rural Sustainable Drainage Project did incorporate geomorphology for management decision-making. In recent years many studies have been attracted to the geomorphological component. The geomorphological processes and their associated forms determine the structure of a river system. Understanding these processes and forms is a critical component of the sustainable rehabilitation of aquatic ecosystems. The fluvial auto-classification approach suggests that a river is a self-built natural system, with processes and forms designed to effectively preserve their ecological function (hydrologic, sedimentological and biological regime). Fluvial systems are formed by a wide range of elements with multiple non-linear interactions on different spatial and temporal scales. Besides, the fluvial auto-classification concept is built using data from the river itself, so that each classification developed is peculiar to the river studied. The variables used in the classification are specific stream power and mean grain size. A discriminant analysis showed that these variables are the best characterized processes and forms. The statistical technique applied allows to get an individual discriminant equation for each geomorphological type. The geomorphological classification was developed using sites with high naturalness. Each site is a control point of high ecological and geomorphological quality. The changes in the conditions of the control points will be quickly recognizable, and easy to apply a right management measures to recover the geomorphological type. The study focused on Galicia (NW Spain) and the mapping was made analyzing 122 control points (sites) distributed over eight river basins. In sum, this study provides a method for fluvial geomorphological classification that works as an open and flexible tool underlying the fluvial auto-classification concept. The hydrographic mapping is the visual expression of the results, such that each river has a particular map according to its geomorphological characteristics. Each geomorphological type is represented by a particular type of hydraulic geometry (channel width, width-depth ratio, hydraulic radius, etc.). An alteration of this geometry is indicative of a geomorphological disturbance (whether natural or anthropogenic). Hydrographic mapping is also dynamic because its meaning changes if there is a modification in the specific stream power and/or the mean grain size, that is, in the value of their equations. The researcher has to check annually some of the control points. This procedure allows to monitor the geomorphology quality of the rivers and to see if there are any alterations. The maps are useful to researchers and managers, especially for conservation work and river restoration.

Keywords: fluvial auto-classification concept, mapping, geomorphology, river

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Authors: Abderrahmane Kechich, Othmane Abdelkhalek

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Static converters behave as nonlinear loads that inject harmonic currents into the grid and increase the consumption of the inactive power. On the other hand, the increased use of sensitive equipment requires the application of sinusoidal voltages. As a result, the electrical power quality control has become a major concern in the field of power electronics. In this context, the active power conditioner (UPQC) was developed. It combines both serial and parallel structures; the series filter can protect sensitive loads and compensate for voltage disturbances such as voltage harmonics, voltage dips or flicker when the shunt filter compensates for current disturbances such as current harmonics, reactive currents and imbalance. This double feature is that it is one of the most appropriate devices. Calculating parameters is an important step and in the same time it’s not easy for that reason several researchers based on trial and error method for calculating parameters but this method is not easy for beginners researchers especially what about the controller’s parameters, for that reason this paper gives a mathematical way to calculate of almost all of UPQC parameters away from trial and error method. This paper gives also a new approach for calculating of PI regulators parameters for purpose to have a stable UPQC able to compensate for disturbances acting on the waveform of line voltage and load current in order to improve the electrical power quality.

Keywords: UPQC, Shunt active filer, series active filer, PI controller, PWM control, dual-loop control

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Authors: Chia-Hau Liu, Tai-Yue Wang

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Traditional multivariate control charts assume that measurement from manufacturing processes follows a multivariate normal distribution. However, this assumption may not hold or may be difficult to verify because not all the measurement from manufacturing processes are normal distributed in practice. This study develops a new multivariate control chart for monitoring the processes with non-normal data. We propose a mechanism based on integrating the one-class classification method and the adaptive technique. The adaptive technique is used to improve the sensitivity to small shift on one-class classification in statistical process control. In addition, this design provides an easy way to allocate the value of type I error so it is easier to be implemented. Finally, the simulation study and the real data from industry are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the propose control charts.

Keywords: multivariate control chart, statistical process control, one-class classification method, non-normal data

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Authors: Lorenzo Casagrande, Antonio Bonati, Ferdinando Auricchio, Antonio Occhiuzzi

Abstract:

This paper summarizes the results of a survey on smart non-structural element dynamic dissipation when installed in modern high-rise mega-frame prototypes. An innovative glazed curtain wall was designed using Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) joints in order to increase the energy dissipation and enhance the seismic/wind response of the structures. The studied buildings consisted of thirty- and sixty-storey planar frames, extracted from reference three-dimensional steel Moment Resisting Frame (MRF) with outriggers and belt trusses. The internal core was composed of a CBF system, whilst outriggers were placed every fifteen stories to limit second order effects and inter-storey drifts. These structural systems were designed in accordance with European rules and numerical FE models were developed with an open-source code, able to account for geometric and material nonlinearities. With regard to the characterization of non-structural building components, full-scale crescendo tests were performed on aluminium/glass curtain wall units at the laboratory of the Construction Technologies Institute (ITC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), deriving force-displacement curves. Three-dimensional brick-based inelastic FE models were calibrated according to experimental results, simulating the fac¸ade response. Since recent seismic events and extreme dynamic wind loads have generated the large occurrence of non-structural components failure, which causes sensitive economic losses and represents a hazard for pedestrians safety, a more dissipative glazed curtain wall was studied. Taking advantage of the mechanical properties of SMA, advanced smart joints were designed with the aim to enhance both the dynamic performance of the single non-structural unit and the global behavior. Thus, three-dimensional brick-based plastic FE models were produced, based on the innovated non-structural system, simulating the evolution of mechanical degradation in aluminium-to-glass and SMA-to-glass connections when high deformations occurred. Consequently, equivalent nonlinear links were calibrated to reproduce the behavior of both tested and smart designed units, and implemented on the thirty- and sixty-storey structural planar frame FE models. Nonlinear time history analyses (NLTHAs) were performed to quantify the potential of the new system, when considered in the lateral resisting frame system (LRFS) of modern high-rise MRFs. Sensitivity to the structure height was explored comparing the responses of the two prototypes. Trends in global and local performance were discussed to show that, if accurately designed, advanced materials in non-structural elements provide new sources of energy dissipation.

Keywords: advanced technologies, glazed curtain walls, non-structural elements, seismic-action reduction, shape memory alloy

Procedia PDF Downloads 322

Authors: Neda Jalaliyoon, Nooh Abu Bakar, Hamed Taherdoost

Abstract:

The present research recommended balanced scorecard (BSC) framework to appraise the performance of the universities. As the original model of balanced scorecard has four perspectives in order to implement BSC in present research the same model with “financial perspective”, “customer”,” internal process” and “learning and growth” is used as well. With applying fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) and questionnaire sixteen measures of performance were identified. Moreover, with using the analytic network process (ANP) the weights of the selected indicators were determined. Results indicated that the most important BSC’s aspect were Internal Process (0.3149), Customer (0.2769), Learning and Growth (0.2049), and Financial (0.2033) respectively. The proposed BSC framework can help universities to enhance their efficiency in competitive environment.

Keywords: balanced scorecard, higher education, fuzzy delphi method, analytic network process (ANP)

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Authors: Mokhtar Kouki Inès Rekik

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the assessment of the air pollution and morbidity relationship in Tunisia. Air pollution is measured by ozone air concentration and the morbidity is measured by the number of respiratory-related restricted activity days during the 2-week period prior to the interview. Socioeconomic data are also collected in order to adjust for any confounding covariates. Our sample is composed by 407 Tunisian respondents; 44.7% are women, the average age is 35.2, near 69% are living in a house built after the 1980, and 27.8% have reported at least one day of respiratory-related restricted activity. The model consists on the regression of the number of respiratory-related restricted activity days on the air quality measure and the socioeconomic covariates. In order to correct for zero-inflation and heterogeneity, we estimate several models (Poisson, Negative binomial, Zero inflated Poisson, Poisson hurdle, Negative binomial hurdle and finite mixture Poisson models). Bootstrapping and post-stratification techniques are used in order to correct for any sample bias. According to the Akaike information criteria, the hurdle negative binomial model has the greatest goodness of fit. The main result indicates that, after adjusting for socioeconomic data, the ozone concentration increases the probability of positive number of restricted activity days.

Keywords: bootstrapping, hurdle negbin model, overdispersion, ozone concentration, respiratory-related restricted activity days

Procedia PDF Downloads 250

Authors: Lukasz Szydlowski, Jiri Ehlich, Igor Goryanin

Abstract:

We demonstrate a single chamber, 96-well-plated based Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) with printed, electronic components. This invention is aimed at robust selection of electrogenic microbial community under specific conditions, e.g., electrode potential, pH, nutrient concentration, salt concentration that can be altered within the 96 well plate array. This invention enables robust selection of electrogenic microbial community under the homogeneous reactor, with multiple conditions that can be altered to allow comparative analysis. It can be used as a standalone technique or in conjunction with other selective processes, e.g., flow cytometry, microfluidic-based dielectrophoretic trapping. Mobile conductive elements, like carbon paper, carbon sponge, activated charcoal granules, metal mesh, can be inserted inside to increase the anode surface area in order to collect electrogenic microorganisms and to transfer them into new reactors or for other analytical works. An array of 96-well plate allows this device to be operated by automated pipetting stations.

Keywords: bioengineering, electrochemistry, electromicrobiology, microbial fuel cell

Procedia PDF Downloads 133

Authors: A. Bahadoran, M. Zomorodian

Abstract:

The synthesizer of cobalt oxide nanoballs (length 3−4 μm, width 250−400 nm) was achieved by a simple high-temperature supercritical solution method. Multiwalled carbon aerogels are a step towards high-density nanometer-scale nanostructures. Cobalt oxide nanoballs were prepared by supercritical solution method. Synthesis in an aqueous solution containing cobalt hydroxide at ∼80 °C without any further heat treatment at high temperature. The formation of cobalt oxide nanoballs on carbon aerogel was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The FE-SEM images showed the presence of cobalt oxide nanoballs. The reaction mechanism of the ultrasound-assisted synthesis of cobalt oxide nanostructures was proposed on the basis of the XRD, X-ray absorption spectroscopy analysis and FE-SEM observation of the reaction products taken during the course of the synthesis.

Keywords: cobalt oxide nano balls, carbon aerogel, synthesize, nanostructure

Procedia PDF Downloads 349