Search results for: lead time reduction

Authors: Fouzi Harrou, Ying Sun, Sofiane Khadraoui

Abstract:

Anomaly detection based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was studied intensively and largely applied to multivariate processes with highly cross-correlated process variables. Monitoring metrics such as the Hotelling's T2 and the Q statistics are usually used in PCA-based monitoring to elucidate the pattern variations in the principal and residual subspaces, respectively. However, these metrics are ill suited to detect small faults. In this paper, the Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) based on the Q and T statistics, T2-EWMA and Q-EWMA, were developed for detecting faults in the process mean. The performance of the proposed methods was compared with that of the conventional PCA-based fault detection method using synthetic data. The results clearly show the benefit and the effectiveness of the proposed methods over the conventional PCA method, especially for detecting small faults in highly correlated multivariate data.

Keywords: data-driven method, process control, anomaly detection, dimensionality reduction

Procedia PDF Downloads 294

Authors: Umar Salisu

Abstract:

This research presents the development of a hot air tomatoes drying system. To provide a more efficient and continuous temperature control, microcontroller-based optimal controller was developed. The system is based on a power control principle to achieve smooth power variations depending on a feedback temperature signal of the process. An LM35 temperature sensor and LM399 differential comparator were used to measure the temperature. The mathematical model of the system was developed and the optimal controller was designed and simulated and compared with the PID controller transient response. A controlled environment suitable for fruit drying is developed within a closed chamber and is a three step process. First, the infrared light is used internally to preheated the fruit to speedily remove the water content inside the fruit for fast drying. Second, hot air of a specified temperature is blown inside the chamber to maintain the humidity below a specified level and exhaust the humid air of the chamber. Third, the microcontroller disconnects the power to the chamber after the moisture content of the fruits is removed to minimal. Experiments were conducted with 1kg of fresh tomatoes at three different temperatures (40, 50 and 60 °C) at constant relative humidity of 30%RH. The results obtained indicate that the system is significantly reducing the drying time without affecting the quality of the fruits. In the context of temperature control, the results obtained showed that the response of the optimal controller has zero overshoot whereas the PID controller response overshoots to about 30% of the set-point. Another performance metric used is the rising time; the optimal controller rose without any delay while the PID controller delayed for more than 50s. It can be argued that the optimal controller performance is preferable than that of the PID controller since it does not overshoot and it starts in good time.

Keywords: drying, microcontroller, optimum controller, PID controller

Procedia PDF Downloads 293

Authors: M. Samadzadeh Mahabadi, J. Shanbehzadeh

Abstract:

This paper presents a hybrid digital image-watermarking scheme, which is robust against varieties of attacks and geometric distortions. The image content is represented by important feature points obtained by an image-texture-based adaptive Harris corner detector. These feature points are extracted from LL2 of 2-D discrete wavelet transform which are obtained by using the Harris-Laplacian detector. We calculate the Fourier transform of circular regions around these points. The amplitude of this transform is rotation invariant. The experimental results demonstrate the robustness of the proposed method against the geometric distortions and various common image processing operations such as JPEG compression, colour reduction, Gaussian filtering, median filtering, and rotation.

Keywords: digital watermarking, geometric distortions, geometrical attack, Harris Laplace, important feature points, rotation, scale invariant feature

Procedia PDF Downloads 497

Authors: S. Vadivukkarasi, K. Karthi, M. Karthick, C. Dinesh, S. Santhosh, A. Yogaraj

Abstract:

The appointment system was designed to minimize patient’s idle time overlooking patients waiting time in hospitals. This is no longer valid in today’s consumer oriented society. Long waiting times for treatment in the outpatient department followed by short consultations has long been a complaint. Nowadays, customers use waiting time as a decisive factor in choosing a service provider. Queuing theory constitutes a very powerful tool because queuing models require relatively little data and are simple and fast to use. Because of this simplicity and speed, modelers can be used to quickly evaluate and compare various alternatives for providing service. The application of queuing models in the analysis of health care systems is increasingly accepted by health care decision makers. Timely access to care is a key component of high-quality health care. However, patient delays are prevalent throughout health care systems, resulting in dissatisfaction and adverse clinical consequences for patients as well as potentially higher costs and wasted capacity for providers. Arguably, the most critical delays for health care are the ones associated with health care emergencies. The allocation of resources can be divided into three general areas: bed management, staff management, and room facility management. Effective and efficient patient flow is indicated by high patient throughput, low patient waiting times, a short length of stay at the hospital and overtime, while simultaneously maintaining adequate staff utilization rates and low patient’s idle times.

Keywords: appointment system, patient scheduling, bed management, queueing calculation, system analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 298

Authors: Parnian Kianfar, Navid Zarif Karimi, Giangiacomo Minak

Abstract:

Drilling is one of the most important machining operations as numerous holes must be drilled in order to install mechanical fasteners for assembly in composite structures. Delamination is a major problem associated with the drilling of fiber reinforced composite materials, which degrades the mechanical properties of these materials. In drilling, delamination is initiated when the drilling force exceeds a threshold value, particularly at the critical entry and exit locations of the drill bit. The chisel edge of twist drill is a major contributor to the thrust force which is the primary cause of delamination. The main objective of this paper is to study the effect of chisel edge and pilot hole on thrust force and delamination during drilling of glass fiber reinforced composites. For this purpose, two sets of experiments, with and without pilot hole, were conducted with different drilling conditions. The results show a great reduction in the thrust force when a pilot hole is present which removes the chisel edge contribution.

Keywords: composites, chisel edge, drilling, delamination

Procedia PDF Downloads 434

Authors: Sari F. Alkhatib, Chang Je Park, Gyuhong Roh

Abstract:

The iterative scheme which is used to treat buildup factors for stratified shields is being investigated here using the layer-splitting technique. A simple suggested formalism for the scheme based on the Kalos’ formula is introduced, based on which the implementation of the testing technique is carried out. The second layer in a double-layer shield was split into two equivalent layers and the scheme (with the suggested formalism) was implemented on the new “three-layer” shield configuration. The results of such manipulation on water-lead and water-iron shields combinations are presented here for 1 MeV photons. It was found that splitting the second layer introduces some deviation on the overall buildup factor value. This expected deviation appeared to be higher in the case of low Z layer followed by high Z. However, the overall performance of the iterative scheme showed a great consistency and strong coherence even with the introduced changes. The introduced layer-splitting testing technique shows the capability to be implemented in test the iterative scheme with a wide range of formalisms.

Keywords: buildup factor, iterative scheme, stratified shields, layer-splitting tecnique

Procedia PDF Downloads 413

Authors: Yared Assefa Demessie

Abstract:

This study may help to establish the appropriateness of ceramic waste aggregate for concrete production since it is obviously understood that the rising from continuous urbanization and industrialization development leads depletion of natural construction resource and the disposal of waste material. It can be used as base to conduct a study on the alternative readily available materials like ceramic industrial waste aggregates can lead to environmental concrete. The study assessed the fresh and hardened properties of the concrete produced by replacing part of the natural fine aggregate with an aggregate produced from ceramic industrial waste. In the study, experimental investigation was employed which involved two major tasks: material specifications and experimental evaluation of concrete were done in the laboratory. Experimental investigations such that workability, unit weight, compressive strength test, tensile strength test and flexural strength test for C-25 concrete mixes with different percentages of ceramic industrial waste aggregate after a curing period of 7 and 28 days has done and interpreted the result statically using mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variance.

Keywords: ceramic industrial waste, fresh concrete, hardened concrete, fine aggregate

Procedia PDF Downloads 61

Authors: Fatma M. Benrabha

Abstract:

The aim of the study was to determine the type and pattern of antibiotic susceptibility of the pathogenic microorganisms causing chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM), which could lead to better therapeutic decisions and consequently avoidance of appearance of resistance to specific antibiotics. Most frequently isolated agents were Pseudomonas aeruginosa 28.5%; followed by Staphylococcus aureus 18.2%; proteus mirabilis 13.9%; Providencia stuartti 6.7%; Bacteroides melaninogenicus, Aspergillus sp., candida sp., 4.2% each; and other microorganisms were represented in 3-0.2%. Drug sensitivities pattern of Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed that ciprofloxacin was active against the majority of isolates (93.9%) followed by ceftazidime 86.2%, amikacin 76.2% and gentamicin 40.8%. However, Staphylococcus aureus isolates were resistant to penicillin 72.7%, erythromycin 28.6%, cephalothin 18.2%, cloxacillin 8.3% and ciprofloxacin was active against 96.2% of isolates. The resistance pattern of proteus mirabilis were 55.6% to ampicillin, 47.1% to carbencillin, 29.4% to cephalothin, 14.3% to gentamicin and 4.8% to amikacin while 100% were sensitive to ciprofloxacin. We conclude that ciprofloxacin is the best drug of choice in treatment of CSOM caused by the common microorganisms.

Keywords: otitis media, chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM), microorganism, drug sensitivity

Procedia PDF Downloads 399

Authors: Azin Karami, Bahareh Heydari

Abstract:

There is a difference between national sovereignty ( national security guarantee) and human rights standards (human security guarantee). Under the pretext of providing security for the majority, Governments violate human rights standards and lead to populism. This paper illustrates despite the human rights standards of non-citizens, they mostly confront different practical and social realities. (a large gap between the reality and the truth). This paper has focused on one of vulnerable irregular non-citizens immigrants from Mediterranean . In addition, it has considered challenges of the basic and primary human rights standards of this group. It shows how government policies affect the flow of irregular immigration. This paper is based upon UN data about Mediterranean immigrants and polls answered by 68 people who intended to migrate from Mediterranean (28 female and 40 male people, the average age of 30 to 40). The model is supposed to be a convenient one to present objective, real evidence of irregular immigrants and discusses the challenges that this group of immigrants confront them .This paper shows clear concept of immigrants.

Keywords: human rights, human security, national sovereignty, irregular immigrants

Procedia PDF Downloads 177

Authors: Ehsan Eshtehardian, Saeed Khodaverdi

Abstract:

This paper surveys the studies on construction change and reveals some of the potential future works. A full-scale investigation of change literature, including change definitions, types, causes and effects, and change management systems, is accomplished to explore some of the coming change trends. It is tried to pick up the critical works in each section to deduct a true timeline of construction changes. The findings show that leaping from best practice guides in late 1990s and generic process models in the early 2000s to very advanced modeling environments in the mid-2000s and the early 2010s have made gaps along with opportunities for change researchers in order to develop some more easy and applicable models. Another finding is that there is a compelling similarity between the change and risk prediction models. Therefore, integrating these two concepts, specifically from proactive management point of view, may lead to a synergy and help project teams avoid rework. Also, the findings show that exploitation of cause-effect relationship models, in order to facilitate the dispute resolutions, seems to be an interesting field for future works.

Keywords: construction change, change management systems, dispute resolutions, change literature

Procedia PDF Downloads 294

Authors: Maciej Major, Izabela Major

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is a numerical analysis of three-layered block design to walls construction subjected to the dynamic load. The block consists of the layers: concrete with rubber pads in shape of crosses, space filled with air and concrete with I-shape rubber pads. The main purpose of rubber inserts embedded during the production process is additional protection against the transversal dynamic load. For the analysis, as rubber, the Zahorski hyperelastic incompressible material model was assumed. A concentrated force as dynamic load applied to the external block surface was investigated. The results for the considered block observed as the stress distribution plot were compared to the results obtained for the solid concrete block. In order to estimate the percentage damping of proposed composite, rubber-concrete block in relation to the solid block the numerical analysis with the use of finite element method based on ADINA software was performed.

Keywords: dynamics, composite, rubber, Zahorski

Procedia PDF Downloads 238

Authors: Binjuan Xu, Qian Zhao, Ping Jiang, Bo Guo, Zhijun Cheng, Xiaoyue Wu

Abstract:

Astronautical valves are key units in engine systems of astronautical products; their reliability will influence results of rocket or missile launching, even lead to damage to staff and devices on the ground. Besides failure in engine system may influence the hitting accuracy and flight shot of missiles. Therefore high reliability is quite essential to astronautical products. There are quite a few literature doing research based on few failure test data to estimate valves’ reliability, thus this paper proposed a new method to estimate valves’ reliability, according to the corresponding tests of different failure modes, this paper takes advantage of tests data which acquired from temperature, vibration, and action tests to estimate reliability in every failure modes, then this paper has regarded these three kinds of tests as three stages in products’ process to integrate these results to acquire valves’ reliability. Through the comparison of results achieving from tests data and simulated data, the results have illustrated how to obtain valves’ reliability based on the few failure data with failure modes and prove that the results are effective and rational.

Keywords: censored data, temperature tests, valves, vibration tests

Procedia PDF Downloads 340

Authors: Sayed Abdul Rahman Sadaat, Nsenda Lukumwena

Abstract:

Traffic congestion is a worldwide issue, especially in developing countries. This is also the case of Afghanistan, especially in Kabul-the capital city, whose rapid population growth makes it the fifth fastest growing city in the world. Traffic congestion affects not only the mobility of people and goods but also the air quality that leads to numerous deaths (3000 people) every year. There are many factors that contribute to traffic congestion. The insufficiency and inefficiency of public transportation system along with the increase of private vehicles can be considered among the most important contributing factors. This paper addresses the traffic congestion and attempts to suggest possible solutions that can help improve the current public transportation system in Kabul. To this end, the methodology used in this paper includes field work conducted in Kabul city and literature review. The outcome suggests that improving the public transportation system is likely to contribute to the reduction of traffic congestion and the improvement of air quality, thereby reducing the number of death related to air quality.

Keywords: air quality, Kabul, Afghanistan, public transportation system, improvements, traffic congestion

Procedia PDF Downloads 378

Authors: P. Chihomvu, P. Stegmann, M. Pillay

Abstract:

Pollution of the Klip River has caused microorganisms inhabiting it to develop protective survival mechanisms. This study isolated and characterized the heavy metal resistant bacteria in the Klip River. Water and sediment samples were collected from six sites along the course of the river. The pH, turbidity, salinity, temperature and dissolved oxygen were measured in-situ. The concentrations of six heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, and Zn) of the water samples were determined by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Biochemical and antibiotic profiles of the isolates were assessed using the API 20E® and Kirby Bauer Method. Growth studies were carried out using spectrophotometric methods. The isolates were identified using 16SrDNA sequencing. The uppermost part of the Klip River with the lowest pH had the highest levels of heavy metals. Turbidity, salinity and specific conductivity increased measurably at Site 4 (Henley on Klip Weir). MIC tests showed that 16 isolates exhibited high iron and lead resistance. Antibiotic susceptibility tests revealed that the isolates exhibited multi-tolerances to drugs such as tetracycline, ampicillin, and amoxicillin.

Keywords: Klip River, heavy metals, resistance, 16SrDNA

Procedia PDF Downloads 323

Authors: Danylo Brindak, Viktor Liashko, Olexander Chepurniy

Abstract:

Despite considerable experience in implementation of the best international approaches and services within response to epidemy of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, the results of situation analysis indicate the presence of faults in this area. In 2014, Ukraine (for the first time) was included in the world’s five countries with the highest level of drug-resistant tuberculosis. The effectiveness of its treatment constitutes only 35% in the country. In this context, the increase in allocation of funds to control the epidemic of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis does not produce perceptible positive results. During 2001-2016, only the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria allocated to Ukraine more than USD 521,3 million for programs of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS control. However, current conditions in post-Semashko system create little motivation for rational use of resources or cost control at inpatient TB facilities. There is no motivation to reduce overdue hospitalization and to target resources to priority sectors of modern tuberculosis control, including a model of care focused on the patient. In the presence of a line-item budget at medical institutions, based on the input factors as the ratios of beds and staff, there is a passive disposal of budgetary funds by health care institutions and their employees who have no motivation to improve quality and efficiency of service provision. Outpatient treatment of tuberculosis is being implemented in Ukraine since 2011 and has many risks, namely creation of parallel systems, low consistency through dependence on funding for the project, reduced the role of the family doctor, the fragmentation of financing, etc. In terms of reforming approaches to health system financing, which began in Ukraine in late 2016, NGO Infection Control in Ukraine conducted piloting of a new, motivating method of remuneration of employees in primary health care. The innovative aspect of this funding mechanism is cost according to results of treatment. The existing method of payment on the basis of the standard per inhabitant (per capita ratio) was added with motivating costs according to results of work. The effectiveness of such treatment of TB patients at the outpatient stage is 90%, while in whole on the basis of a current system the effectiveness of treatment of newly diagnosed pulmonary TB with positive swab is around 60% in the country. Even though Ukraine has 5.24 TB beds per 10 000 citizens. Implemented pilot model of ambulatory treatment will be used for the creation of costs system according to results of activities, the integration of TB and primary health and social services and their focus on achieving results, the reduction of inpatient treatment of tuberculosis.

Keywords: health care reform, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, outpatient treatment efficiency, tuberculosis

Procedia PDF Downloads 146

Authors: Souad Hassene Daouadji, Larbi Hammadi, Abdelkrim Hazzab

Abstract:

The slips intended for the manufacture of ceramics must have rheological properties well-defined in order to bring together the qualities required for the casting step (good fluidity for feeding the molds easily settles while generating a regular settling of the dough and for the dehydration phase of the dough in the mold a setting time relatively short is required to have a sufficient refinement which allows demolding both easy and fast). Many additives haveadded in slip of ceramic in order to improve their rheological properties. In this study, we investigated the impact of xanthan gumon rheological properties of ceramic Slip. The modified Cross model is used to fit the stationary flow curves of ceramic slip at different concentration of xanthan added. The thixotropic behavior studied of mixture ceramic slip-xanthan gumat constant temperature is analyzed by using a structural kinetic model (SKM) in order to account for time dependent effect.

Keywords: ceramic slip, xanthan gum, modified cross model, thixotropy, viscosity

Procedia PDF Downloads 187

Authors: Sundaresan Soundararajan, George Ezekiel Silvananthan, Chor Ngee Tan

Abstract:

Introduction: Transforaminal Interbody Fusion (TLIF) has been adopted for many decades now, however, XLIF, still in relative infancy, has grown to be accepted as a new Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) option. There is a paucity of reports directly comparing lateral approach surgery to other MIS options such as TLIF in the treatment of lumbar degenerative disc diseases. Aims/Objectives: The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy and clinical outcomes between Minimally Invasive Transforaminal Interbody Fusion (TLIF) and Minimally Invasive Lateral Interbody Fusion (XLIF) in the treatment of patients with degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine. Methods: A single center, retrospective cohort study involving a total of 38 patients undergoing surgical intervention between 2010 and 2013 for degenerative disc disease of lumbar spine at single L4/L5 level. 18 patients were treated with MIS TLIF, and 20 patients were treated with XLIF. Results: The XLIF group showed shorter duration of surgery compared to the TLIF group (176 mins vs. 208.3 mins, P = 0.03). Length of hospital stay was also significantly shorter in XLIF group (5.9 days vs. 9 days, p = 0.03). Intraoperative blood loss was favouring XLIF as 85% patients had blood loss less than 100cc compared to 58% in the TLIF group (P = 0.03). Radiologically, disc height was significantly improved post operatively in the XLIF group compared to the TLIF group (0.56mm vs. 0.39mm, P = 0.01). Foraminal height increment was also higher in the XLIF group (0.58mm vs. 0.45mm , P = 0.06). Clinically, back pain and leg pain improved in 85% of patients in the XLIF group and 78% in the TLIF group. Post op hip flexion weakness was more common in the XLIF group (40%) than in the TLIF group (0%). However, this weakness resolved within 6 months post operatively. There was one case of dural tear and surgical site infection in the TLIF group respectively and none in the XLIF group. Visual Analog Scale (VAS) score 6 months post operatively showed comparable reduction in both groups. TLIF group had Owsterty Disability Index (ODI) improvement on 67% while XLIF group showed improvement of 70% of its patients. Conclusions: Lateral approach surgery shows comparable clinical outcomes in resolution of back pain and radiculopathy to conventional MIS techniques such as TLIF. With significantly shorter duration of surgical time, minimal blood loss and shorter hospital stay, XLIF seems to be a reasonable MIS option compared to other MIS techniques in treating degenerative lumbar disc diseases.

Keywords: extreme lateral interbody fusion, lateral approach, minimally invasive, XLIF

Procedia PDF Downloads 213

Authors: Yosra Baaziz, Moez Labidi

Abstract:

Given limited research on monetary policy rules in revolutionary countries, this paper challenges the suitability of the Taylor rule in characterizing the monetary policy behavior of the Tunisian Central Bank (BCT), especially in turbulent times. More specifically, we investigate the possibility that the Taylor rule should be formulated as a threshold process and examine the validity of such nonlinear Taylor rule as a robust rule for conducting monetary policy in Tunisia. Using quarterly data from 1998:Q4 to 2013:Q4 to analyze the movement of nominal short-term interest rate of the BCT, we find that the nonlinear Taylor rule improves its performance with the advent of special events providing thus a better description of the Tunisian interest rate setting. In particular, our results show that the adoption of an appropriate nonlinear approach leads to a reduction in the errors of 150 basis points in 1999 and 2009, and 60 basis points in 2011, relative to the linear approach.

Keywords: policy rule, central bank, exchange rate, taylor rule, nonlinearity

Procedia PDF Downloads 294

Authors: Tian Lan, Yixiang Wang, Wenxin Tai, Yilan Lyu, Zufeng Wu

Abstract:

The monaural speech enhancement task in the time-frequencydomain has a myriad of approaches, with the stacked con-volutional neural network (CNN) demonstrating superiorability in feature extraction and selection. However, usingstacked single convolutions method limits feature represen-tation capability and generalization ability. In order to solvethe aforementioned problem, we propose an attention-basedadaptive convolutional network that integrates the multi-scale convolutional operations into a operation-specific blockvia input dependent attention to adapt to complex auditoryscenes. In addition, we introduce a two-stage progressivelearning method to enlarge the receptive field without a dra-matic increase in computation burden. We conduct a series ofexperiments based on the TIMIT corpus, and the experimen-tal results prove that our proposed model is better than thestate-of-art models on all metrics.

Keywords: speech enhancement, adaptive convolu-tion, progressive learning, time-frequency domain

Procedia PDF Downloads 118

Authors: O. Z. Jasim

Abstract:

An accuracy digital map must satisfy the users for two main requirements, first, map must be visually readable and second, all the map elements must be in a good representation. These two requirements hold especially true for map generalization which aims at simplifying the representation of cartographic data. Different scales of maps are very important for any decision in any maps with different scales such as master plan and all the infrastructures maps in civil engineering. Cartographer cannot project the data onto a piece of paper, but he has to worry about its readability. The map layout of any geodatabase is very important, this layout is help to read, analyze or extract information from the map. There are many principles and guidelines of generalization that can be find in the cartographic literature. A manual reduction method for generalization depends on experience of map maker and therefore produces incompatible results. Digital generalization, rooted from conventional cartography, has become an increasing concern in both Geographic Information System (GIS) and mapping fields. This project is intended to review the state of the art of the new technology and help to understand the needs and plans for the implementation of digital generalization capability as well as increase the knowledge of production topographic maps.

Keywords: cartography, digital generalization, mapping, GIS

Procedia PDF Downloads 300

Authors: Kiumars Shahbazi, Salah Salimian, Abdolrahim Hashemi Dizaj

Abstract:

Locating is one of the key elements in success and survival of industrial centers and has great impact on cost reduction of establishment and launching of various economic activities. In this study, streets with unequal length model have been used that is the classic extension of Spoke model; however with unlimited number of streets with uneven lengths. The results showed that the spoke model is a special case of streets with unequal length model. According to the results of this study, if the strategy of enterprises and firms is to select both price and location, there would be no balance in the game. Furthermore, increased length of streets leads to increased profit of enterprises and with increased number of streets, the enterprises choose locations that are far from center (the maximum differentiation), and the enterprises' output will decrease. Moreover, the enterprise production rate will incline toward zero when the number of streets goes to infinity, and complete competition outcome will be achieved.

Keywords: locating, Nash equilibrium, streets with unequal length model, streets with unequal length model

Procedia PDF Downloads 200

Authors: Mohammed S. Alqahtani, Paulo J. Bartolo

Abstract:

External fixation is a common technique for the treatment and stabilization of bone fractures. Different designs have been proposed by companies and research groups, but all of them present limitations such as high weight, not comfortable to use, and not customized to individual patients. This paper proposes a lightweight customized external fixator, overcoming some of these limitations. External fixators are designed using a set of techniques such as medical imaging, CAD modelling, finite element analysis, and full factorial design of experiments. Key design parameters are discussed, and the optimal set of parameters is used to design the final external fixator. Numerical simulations are used to validate design concepts. Results present an optimal external fixation design with weight reduction of 13% without compromising its stiffness and structural integrity. External fixators are also designed to be additively manufactured, allowing to develop a strategy for personalization.

Keywords: computer-aided design modelling, external fixation, finite element analysis, full factorial, personalization

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Khaled A. Madi, Abdulalhakim O. Naji, Hassouna A. Aalaoh, Elmahdi Eldeeb

Abstract:

Solar energy is one of the cleanest energy sources with no environmental impact. Due to rapid increase in industrial as well as domestic needs, solar energy becomes a good candidate for safe and easy to handle energy source, especially after it becomes available due to reduction of manufacturing price. The main part of the solar inverter system is the inverter where the DC is inverted to AC, where we try to minimize the loss of power to the minimum possible level by the use of microcontroller. In this work, a deep investigation is made experimentally as well as theoretically for a microcontroller based variable frequency power inverter. The microcontroller will provide the variable frequency Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) signal that will control the switching of the gate of the Insulating Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) with less harmonics at the output of power inverter which can be fed to the public grid at high quality. The proposed work for single phase as well as three phases is also simulated using Matlab/Simulink where we found a good agreement between the simulated and the practical results, even though the experimental work were done in the laboratory of the academy.

Keywords: solar, inverter, PV, solar inverter system

Procedia PDF Downloads 454

Authors: Vijayalakshmi Marella, NageswaraRaoPilli

Abstract:

This paper describes a simple, rapid and sensitive liquid chromatography / tandem mass spectrometry assay for the determination of montelukast in human plasma using montelukast d6 as an internal standard. Analyte and the internal standard were extracted from 50 µL of human plasma via solid phase extraction technique without evaporation, drying and reconstitution steps. The chromatographic separation was achieved on a C18 column by using a mixture of methanol and 5mM ammonium acetate (80:20, v/v) as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. Good linearity results were obtained during the entire course of validation. Method validation was performed as per FDA guidelines and the results met the acceptance criteria. A run time of 2.5 min for each sample made it possible to analyze more number of samples in short time, thus increasing the productivity. The proposed method was found to be applicable to clinical studies.

Keywords: Montelukast, tandem mass spectrometry, montelukast d6, FDA guidelines

Procedia PDF Downloads 312

Authors: Yu-Lin Shen, Ming-Kuen Chang

Abstract:

In addition to a considerable amount of machinery and equipment, intricacies of the transmission pipeline exist in Petrochemical plants. Long term corrosion may lead to pipeline thinning and rupture, causing serious safety concerns. With the advances in non-destructive testing technology, more rapid and long-range ultrasonic detection techniques are often used for pipeline inspection, EMAT without coupling to detect, it is a non-contact ultrasonic, suitable for detecting elevated temperature or roughened e surface of line. In this study, we prepared artificial defects in pipeline for Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducer testing (EMAT) to survey the relationship between the defect location, sizing and the EMAT signal. It was found that the signal amplitude of EMAT exhibited greater signal attenuation with larger defect depth and length. In addition, with bigger flat hole diameter, greater amplitude attenuation was obtained. In summary, signal amplitude attenuation of EMAT was affected by the defect depth, defect length and the hole diameter and size.

Keywords: EMAT, artificial defect, NDT, ultrasonic testing

Procedia PDF Downloads 342

Authors: Mahendrapal Singh Pachlaniya, Laxmi Kumre

Abstract:

The AOI (AND – OR- INVERTER) based design of XOR gate is proposed in this paper with less number of gates. This new XOR gate required four basic gates and basic gate include only AND, OR, Inverter (AOI). Conventional XOR gate required five basic gates. Ripple Carry Adder (RCA) used in parallel addition but propagation delay time is large. RCA replaced with Carry Select Adder (CSLA) to reduce propagation delay time. CSLA design with dual RCA considering carry = ‘0’ and carry = ‘1’, so it is not an area efficient adder. To make area efficient, modified CSLA is designed with single RCA considering carry = ‘0’ and another RCA considering carry = ‘1’ replaced with Binary to Excess 1 Converter (BEC). Now replacement of conventional XOR gate by new design of XOR gate in modified CSLA reduces much area compared to regular CSLA and modified CSLA.

Keywords: CSLA, BEC, XOR gate, area efficient

Procedia PDF Downloads 357

Authors: Daniela Tapusi, Adrian Andronic, Naomi Tufan, Ruxandra Erbașu, Ioana Teodorescu

Abstract:

The proposed theme of this article falls within the policy of reducing carbon emissions imposed by the ‘Green New Deal’ by replacing structural elements made of energy-intensive materials with ecological materials. In this sense, wood has many qualities (high strength/mass and stiffness/mass ratio, low specific gravity, recovery/recycling) that make it competitive with classic building materials. The topological optimization of the linear glulam elements, resulting from different types of analysis (Finite Element Method, simple regression on metamodels), tests on models or by Monte-Carlo simulation, leads to a material reduction of more than 10%. This article proposes a method of obtaining topologically optimized shapes for different types of glued laminated timber beams. The results obtained will constitute the database for AI training.

Keywords: timber, glued laminated timber, artificial-intelligence, environment, carbon emissions

Procedia PDF Downloads 29

Authors: Yasser Elhenaw, A. Farag, Mohamed El-Ghandour, M. Shatat, G. H. Moustafa

Abstract:

This study investigates the performance of two spiral-wound Air Gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD) units. These units are connected in two different configurations in order to be tested and compared experimentally. In AGMD, the coolant water is used to condensate water vapor leaving membrane via condensing plate. The rejected cooling water has a relativity high temperature which can be used, depending on operation parameters, to increase the thermal efficiency and water productivity. In the first configuration, the seawater feed flows parallel and equally through both units then rejected. The coolant water is divided into the two units, and the heat source is divided into the two heat exchangers. In the second one, only the feed of the first unit is heated while the cooling rejected from the unit is used in heating the feed to the second. The performance of the system, estimated by the water productivity as well as the Gain Output Ratio (GOR), is measured for the two configurations at different feed flow rates, temperatures and salinities. The results show that at steady state condition, the heat recovery configurations lead to an increase in water productivity by 25%.

Keywords: membrane distillation, heat transfer, heat recovery, desalination

Procedia PDF Downloads 259

Authors: M. G. Dirodi, G. Gugliotta, C. Leonardi

Abstract:

The member states shall establish zones and agglomerations throughout their territory to assess and manage air quality in order to comply with European directives. In Italy decree 155/2010, transposing Directive 2008/50/EC on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe, merged into a single act the previous provisions on ambient air quality assessment and management, including those resulting from the implementation of Directive 2004/107/EC relating to arsenic, cadmium, nickel, mercury, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air. Decree 155/2010 introduced stricter rules for identifying zones on the basis of the characteristics of the territory in spite of considering pollution levels, as it was in the past. The implementation of such new criteria has reduced the great variability of the previous zoning, leading to a significant reduction of the total number of zones and to a complete and uniform ambient air quality assessment and management throughout the Country. The present document is related to the new zones definition in Italy according to Decree 155/2010. In particular, the paper contains the description and the analysis of the outcome of zoning and classification.

Keywords: zones, agglomerations, air quality assessment, classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 325

Authors: Darren Zou

Abstract:

Forecasting the stock market is a very challenging task. Various economic indicators such as GDP, exchange rates, interest rates, and unemployment have a substantial impact on the stock market. Time series models are the traditional methods used to predict stock market changes. In this paper, a machine learning method, Bayesian Additive Regression Tree (BART) is used in predicting stock market indexes based on multiple economic indicators. BART can be used to model heterogeneous treatment effects, and thereby works well when models are misspecified. It also has the capability to handle non-linear main effects and multi-way interactions without much input from financial analysts. In this research, BART is proposed to provide a reliable prediction on day-to-day stock market activities. By comparing the analysis results from BART and with time series method, BART can perform well and has better prediction capability than the traditional methods.

Keywords: BART, Bayesian, predict, stock

Procedia PDF Downloads 125