Search results for: L2 number forms

Authors: Amir Jalalian-Khakshour, T. N. Croft

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Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) systems are becoming increasingly popular as they have a number of advantages over traditional wind turbines. The advantages are reliability, ease of transportation and manufacturing. These attributes could make these technologies useful in developing economies. The performance characteristics of a VAWT are different from a horizontal axis wind turbine, which can be attributed to the low tip speed ratio operation. To unlock the potential of these VAWT systems, the operational behaviour in a number of system topologies and environmental conditions needs to be understood. In this study, a non-linear dynamic simulation method was developed in Matlab and validated against in field data of a large scale, 8-meter rotor diameter prototype. This simulation method has been utilised to determine the performance characteristics of a number of control methods and system topologies. The motivation for this research was to develop a simulation method which accurately captures the operating behaviour and is computationally inexpensive. The model was used to evaluate the performance through parametric studies and optimisation techniques. The study gave useful insights into the applications and energy generation potential of this technology.

Keywords: power generation, renewable energy, rotordynamics, wind energy

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Authors: Bandari Shankar, Yohannes Yirga

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In this paper, the problem of heat and mass transfer in unsteady MHD boundary-layer flow of nanofluids over stretching sheet with a non uniform heat source/sink is considered. The unsteadiness in the flow and temperature is caused by the time-dependent stretching velocity and surface temperature. The unsteady boundary layer equations are transformed to a system of non-linear ordinary differential equations and solved numerically using Keller box method. The velocity, temperature, and concentration profiles were obtained and utilized to compute the skin-friction coefficient, local Nusselt number, and local Sherwood number for different values of the governing parameters viz. solid volume fraction parameter, unsteadiness parameter, magnetic field parameter, Schmidt number, space-dependent and temperature-dependent parameters for heat source/sink. A comparison of the numerical results of the present study with previously published data revealed an excellent agreement

Keywords: unsteady, heat and mass transfer, manetohydrodynamics, nanofluid, non-uniform heat source/sink, stretching sheet

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Authors: Ravi Kant, Banshi D. Gupta

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The unbridled application of insecticides to enhance agricultural yield has become a matter of grave concern to both the environment and the human health and, thus pose a potential threat to sustainable development. Fenitrothion is an extensively used organophosphate insecticide whose residues are reported to be extremely toxic for birds, humans and aquatic life. A sensitive, swift and accurate detection protocol for fenitrothion is, thus, highly demanded. In this work, we report an SPR based fiber optic sensor for the detection of fenitrothion, where a nanocomposite arrangement of Ta2O5 and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) (Ta₂O₅: rGO) decorated on silver coated unclad core region of an optical fiber forms the sensing channel. A nanocomposite arrangement synergistically integrates the properties of involved components and consequently furnishes a conducive framework for sensing applications. The modification of the dielectric function of the sensing layer on exposure to fenitrothion solutions of diverse concentration forms the sensing mechanism. This modification is reflected in terms of the shift in resonance wavelength. Experimental variables such as the concentration of rGO in the nanocomposite configuration, dip time of silver coated fiber optic probe for deposition of sensing layer and influence of pH on the performance of the sensor have been optimized to extract the best performance of the sensor. SPR studies on the optimized sensing probe reveal the high sensitivity, wide operating range and good reproducibility of the fabricated sensor, which unveil the promising utility of Ta₂O₅: rGO nanocomposite framework for developing an efficient detection methodology for fenitrothion. FOSPR approach in cooperation with nanomaterials projects the present work as a beneficial approach for fenitrothion detection by imparting numerous useful advantages such as sensitivity, selectivity, compactness and cost-effectiveness.

Keywords: surface plasmon resonance, optical fiber, sensor, fenitrothion

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Authors: Nurudeen Oluwasola Lasisi

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Newcastle disease is a highly contagious disease of birds caused by a para-myxo virus. In this paper, we presented Novel quarantine-adjusted incident and linear incident of Newcastle disease model equations. We considered the dynamics of transmission and control of Newcastle disease. The existence and uniqueness of the solutions were obtained. The existence of disease-free points was shown, and the model threshold parameter was examined using the next-generation operator method. The sensitivity analysis was carried out in order to identify the most sensitive parameters of the disease transmission. This revealed that as parameters β,ω, and ᴧ increase while keeping other parameters constant, the effective reproduction number R_ev increases. This implies that the parameters increase the endemicity of the infection of individuals. More so, when the parameters μ,ε,γ,δ_1, and α increase, while keeping other parameters constant, the effective reproduction number R_ev decreases. This implies the parameters decrease the endemicity of the infection as they have negative indices. Analytical results were numerically verified by the Differential Transformation Method (DTM) and quantitative views of the model equations were showcased. We established that as contact rate (β) increases, the effective reproduction number R_ev increases, as the effectiveness of drug usage increases, the R_ev decreases and as the quarantined individual decreases, the R_ev decreases. The results of the simulations showed that the infected individual increases when the susceptible person approaches zero, also the vaccination individual increases when the infected individual decreases and simultaneously increases the recovery individual.

Keywords: disease-free equilibrium, effective reproduction number, endemicity, Newcastle disease model, numerical, Sensitivity analysis

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Authors: Moustapha H. Ibrahim, Dahir Abdourahman

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This document presents a short-circuit fault detection process in a photovoltaic (PV) system. The proposed method is developed in MATLAB/Simulink. It determines whatever the size of the installation number of the short circuit module. The proposed algorithm indicates the presence or absence of an abnormality on the power of the PV system through measures of hourly global irradiation, power output, and ambient temperature. In case a fault is detected, it displays the number of modules in a short circuit. This fault detection method has been successfully tested on two different PV installations.

Keywords: PV system, short-circuit, fault detection, modelling, MATLAB-Simulink

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Authors: Paula Lopez-Arce, Hector Altamirano, Dimitrios Rovas, James Berry, Bryan Hindle, Steven Hodgson

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Efficient mould remediation and accurate moisture diagnostics leading to condensation and mould growth in dwellings are largely untapped. Number of factors are contributing to the rising trend of excessive moisture in homes mainly linked with modern living, increased levels of occupation and rising fuel costs, as well as making homes more energy efficient. Environmental monitoring by means of data collection though loggers sensors and survey forms has been performed in a range of buildings from different UK regions. Air and surface temperature and relative humidity values of residential areas affected by condensation and/or mould issues were recorded. Additional measurements were taken through different trials changing type, location, and position of loggers. In some instances, IR thermal images and ventilation rates have also been acquired. Results have been interpreted together with environmental key parameters by processing and connecting data from loggers and survey questionnaires, both in buildings with and without moisture issues. Monitoring exercises carried out during Winter and Spring time show the importance of developing and following accurate protocols for guidance to obtain consistent, repeatable and comparable results and to improve the performance of environmental monitoring. A model and a protocol are being developed to build a diagnostic tool with the goal of performing a simple but precise residential atmospheric moisture diagnostics to distinguish the cause entailing condensation and mould generation, i.e., ventilation, insulation or heating systems issue. This research shows the relevance of monitoring and processing environmental data to assign moisture risk levels and determine the origin of condensation or mould when dealing with a building atmospheric moisture excess.

Keywords: environmental monitoring, atmospheric moisture, protocols, mould

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Authors: Diogo Silva, Fadul Rodor, Carlos Moraes

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This work compares the results of multidimensional function approximation using two algorithms: the classical Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and the Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO). These algorithms were both tested on three functions - The Rosenbrock, the Rastrigin, and the sphere functions - with different characteristics by increasing their number of dimensions. As a result, this study shows that the higher the function space, i.e. the larger the function dimension, the more evident the advantages of using the QPSO method compared to the PSO method in terms of performance and number of necessary iterations to reach the stop criterion.

Keywords: PSO, QPSO, function approximation, AI, optimization, multidimensional functions

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Authors: Mohanad Alhabo, Naveed Nawaz

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The ongoing call or data session must be maintained to ensure a good quality of service. This can be accomplished by performing the handover procedure while the user is on the move. However, the dense deployment of small cells in 5G networks is a challenging issue due to the extensive number of handovers. In this paper, a neighbour cell list method is proposed to reduce the number of target small cells and hence minimizing the number of handovers. The neighbour cell list is built by omitting cells that could cause an unnecessary handover and handover failure because of short time of stay of the user in these cells. A multi-attribute decision making technique, simple additive weighting, is then applied to the optimized neighbour cell list. Multi-tier small cells network is considered in this work. The performance of the proposed method is analysed and compared with that of the existing methods. Results disclose that our method has decreased the candidate small cell list, unnecessary handovers, handover failure, and short time of stay cells compared to the competitive method.

Keywords: handover, HetNets, multi-attribute decision making, small cells

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Authors: Obinna Emmanuel Nkomadu

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The sea attracts many criminal activities including drug trafficking. The illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances by sea poses a serious threat to maritime security globally. The seizure of drugs, particularly, on the African continent is on the raise. In terms of Southern Africa, South Africa is a major transit point for Latin American drugs and South Africa is the largest market for illicit drugs entering the Southern African region. Nigeria and South Africa have taken a number of steps to address this scourge, but, despite those steps, drugs trafficking at sea continues. For that reason and to combat a number of other threats to maritime security around the continent, a substantial number of AU members in 2016 adopted the African Charter on Maritime Security and Safety and Development in Africa (“the Charter”). However, the Charter is yet to come into force due to the number of States required to accede or ratify the Charter. This paper set out the pre-existing international instruments on drugs, to ascertain the domestic laws of Nigeria and South Africa relating to drugs with the relevant provisions of the Lomé Charter in order to establish whether any legal steps are required to ensure that Nigeria and South Africa comply with its obligations under the Charter. Indeed, should Nigeria and South Africa decide to ratify it and should it come into force, both States must cooperate with other relevant States in establishing policies, as well as a regional and continental institutions, and ensure the implementation of such policies. The paper urged the States to urgently ratify the Charter as it is a step in the right direction in the prevention and repression of drugs trafficking on the African maritime domain.

Keywords: cooperation against drugs trafficking at sea, Lomé Charter, maritime security, Nigerian and South Africa legislation on drugs

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Authors: Ndumbe Eric Esongami, Manga Veronica Ebot, Foba Josepha Tendo, Yengong Fabrice Lamfu, Tiku David Tambe

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The prevalence and unpleasant nature of plastics pollution constantly observed on beach shore on stormy events has prompt researchers worldwide to thesis on sustainable economic and environmental designs on plastics, especially in Cameroon, a major touristic destination in the Central Africa Region. The inconsistent protocols develop by researchers has added to this burden, thus the morphological nature of microplastic remediation is a call for concerns. The prime aim of the study is to morphologically identify, quantify and forensically understands the distribution of each plastics polymer composition. Duplicates of 2×2 m (4m2) quadrants were sampled in each beach/month over 8 months period across five purposive beaches along the Limbe – Idenau coastline, Cameroon. Collected plastic samples were thoroughly washed and separation done using a 2 mm sieve. Only particles of size, < 2 mm, were considered and forward follow the microplastics laboratory analytical processes. Established step by step methodological procedures of particle filtration, organic matter digestion, density separation, particle extraction and polymer identification including microscope and were applied for the beach microplastics samples. Microplastics were observed in each sample/beach/month with an overall abundance of 241 particles/number weighs 89.15 g in total and with a mean abundance of 2 particles/m2 (0.69 g/m2) and 6 particles/month (2.0 g/m2). The accumulation of beach shoreline MPs rose dramatically towards decreasing size with microbeads and fiber only found in the < 1 mm size fraction. Approximately 75% of beach MPs contamination were found in LDB 2, LDB 1 and IDN beaches/average particles/number while the most dominant polymer type frequently observed also were PP, PE, and PS in all morphologically parameters analysed. Beach MPs accumulation significantly varied temporally and spatially at p = 0.05. ANOVA and Spearman’s rank correlation used shows linear relationships between the sizes categories considered in this study. In terms of polymer MPs analysis, the colour class recorded that white coloured MPs was dominant, 50 particles/number (22.25 g) with recorded abundance/number in PP (25), PE (15) and PS (5). The shape class also revealed that irregularly shaped MPs was dominant, 98 particles/number (30.5 g) with higher abundance/number in PP (39), PE (33), and PS (11). Similarly, MPs type class shows that fragmented MPs type was also dominant, 80 particles/number (25.25 g) with higher abundance/number in PP (30), PE (28) and PS (15). Equally, the sized class forward revealed that 1.5 – 1.99 mm sized ranged MPs had the highest abundance of 102 particles/number (51.77 g) with higher concentration observed in PP (47), PE (41), and PS (7) as well and finally, the weight class also show that 0.01 g weighs MPs was dominated by 98 particles/number (56.57 g) with varied numeric abundance seen in PP (49), PE (29) and PS (13). The forensic investigation of the pollution indicated that majority of the beach microplastic is sourced from the site/nearby area. The investigation could draw useful conclusions regarding the pathways of pollution. The fragmented microplastic, a significant component in the sample, was found to be sourced from recreational activities and partly from fishing boat installations and repairs activities carried out close to the shore.

Keywords: forensic analysis, beach MPs, particle/number, polymer composition, cameroon

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Authors: Sonam Chorol, Sharvan Kumar, Pritam Mukhopadhyay

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In biology, supramolecular systems require the use of chemical fuels to stay in sustained nonequilibrium steady states termed dissipative self-assembly in contrast to synthetic self-assembly. Biomimicking these natural dynamic systems, some studies have demonstrated artificial self-assembly under nonequilibrium utilizing various forms of energies (fuel) such as chemical, redox, and pH. Naphthalene diimides (NDIs) are well-known organic molecules in supramolecular architectures with high electron affinity and have applications in controlled electron transfer (ET) reactions, etc. Herein, we report the endergonic ET from tetraphenylborate to highly electron-deficient phosphonium NDI²+ dication to generate NDI•+ radical. The formation of radicals was confirmed by UV-Vis-NIR absorption spectroscopy. Electron-donor and electron-acceptor energy levels were calculated from experimental electrochemistry and theoretical DFT analysis. The HOMO of the electron donor locates below the LUMO of the electro-acceptor. This indicates that electron transfer is endergonic (ΔE°ET = negative). The endergonic ET from NaBPh₄ to NDI²+ dication was achieved thermodynamically by the formation of coupled biphenyl product confirmed by GC-MS analysis. NDI molecule bearing octyl phosphonium at the core and H-bond forming imide moieties at the axial position forms a gel. The rheological properties of purified radical ion NDI⦁+ gels were evaluated. The atomic force microscopy studies reveal the formation of large branching-type networks with a maximum height of 70-80 nm. The endergonic ET from NaBPh₄ to NDI²+ dication was used to design the assembly and disassembly redox reaction cycle using reducing (NaBPh₄) and oxidizing agents (Br₂) as chemical fuels. A part of NaBPh₄ is used to drive assembly, while a fraction of the NaBPh₄ is dissipated by forming a useful product. The system goes back to the disassembled NDI²+ dication state with the addition of Br₂. We think bioinspired dissipative self-assembly is the best approach to developing future lifelike materials with autonomous behavior.

Keywords: Ionic-gel, redox-cycle, self-assembly, useful product

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Authors: Zahid Hussain

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Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Punjab was established under NDM Act 2010 and now working under Senior Member Board of Revenue, deals with the whole spectrum of disasters including preparedness, mitigation, early warning, response, relief, rescue, recovery and rehabilitation. The District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMA) are acting as implementing arms of PDMA in the districts to respond any disaster. DDMAs' role is very important in disaster mitigation, response and recovery as they are the first responder and closest tier to the community. Keeping in view the significant role of DDMAs, technical and human resource capacity are need to be checked. For calculating the technical efficiencies of District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) in Punjab, three inputs like number of labour, the number of transportation and number of equipment, two outputs like relief assistance and the number of rescue and 25 districts as decision making unit have been selected. For this purpose, 8 years secondary data from 2005 to 2012 has been used. Data Envelopment Analysis technique has been applied. DEA estimates the relative efficiency of peer entities or entities performing the similar tasks. The findings show that all decision making unit (DMU) (districts) are inefficient on techonological and scale efficiency scale while technically efficient on pure and total factor productivity efficiency scale. All DMU are found technically inefficient only in the year 2006. Labour and equipment were not efficiently used in the year 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2012. Furthermore, only three years 2006, 2010 and 2011 show that districts could not efficiently use transportation in a disaster situation. This study suggests that all districts should curtail labour, transportation and equipment to be efficient. Similarly, overall all districts are not required to achieve number of rescue and relief assistant, these should be reduced.

Keywords: DEA, DMU, PDMA, DDMA

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Authors: Pavel Shcherban, Vlad Golovanov

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Currently, there is an active geological exploration and development of the subsoil shelf of the Kaliningrad region. To carry out a comprehensive and accurate assessment of the volumes and degree of extraction of hydrocarbons from open deposits, it is necessary to establish not only a number of geological and lithological characteristics of the structures under study, but also to determine the oil quality, its viscosity, density, fractional composition as accurately as possible. In terms of considered works, gas chromatography is one of the most capacious methods that allow the rapid formation of a significant amount of initial data. The aspects of the application of the gas chromatography method for determining the chemical characteristics of the hydrocarbons of the Kaliningrad shelf fields are observed in the article, as well as the correlation-regression analysis of these parameters in comparison with the previously obtained chemical characteristics of hydrocarbon deposits located on the land of the region. In the process of research, a number of methods of mathematical statistics and computer processing of large data sets have been applied, which makes it possible to evaluate the identity of the deposits, to specify the amount of reserves and to make a number of assumptions about the genesis of the hydrocarbons under analysis.

Keywords: computer processing of large databases, correlation-regression analysis, hydrocarbon deposits, method of gas chromatography

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Authors: Tripatjot S. Panag, J. S. Dhillon

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The lifetime of a wireless sensor network can be effectively increased by using scheduling operations. Once the sensors are randomly deployed, the task at hand is to find the largest number of disjoint sets of sensors such that every sensor set provides complete coverage of the target area. At any instant, only one of these disjoint sets is switched on, while all other are switched off. This paper proposes a heuristic search method to find the maximum number of disjoint sets that completely cover the region. A population of randomly initialized members is made to explore the solution space. A set of heuristics has been applied to guide the members to a possible solution in their neighborhood. The heuristics escalate the convergence of the algorithm. The best solution explored by the population is recorded and is continuously updated. The proposed algorithm has been tested for applications which require sensing of multiple target points, referred to as point coverage applications. Results show that the proposed algorithm outclasses the existing algorithms. It always finds the optimum solution, and that too by making fewer number of fitness function evaluations than the existing approaches.

Keywords: coverage, disjoint sets, heuristic, lifetime, scheduling, Wireless sensor networks, WSN

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Authors: Zongyan Li, Matt Best

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This paper presents an optimization method for reducing the number of input channels and the complexity of the feed-forward NARX neural network (NN) without compromising the accuracy of the NN model. By utilizing the correlation analysis method, the most significant regressors are selected to form the input layer of the NN structure. An application of vehicle dynamic model identification is also presented in this paper to demonstrate the optimization technique and the optimal input layer structure and the optimal number of neurons for the neural network is investigated.

Keywords: correlation analysis, F-ratio, levenberg-marquardt, MSE, NARX, neural network, optimisation

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Authors: Khaled M. Alqahtani

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Copy number alterations (CNA) are variations in the structure of the genome, where certain regions deviate from the typical two chromosomal copies. These alterations are pivotal in understanding tumor progression and are indicative of patients' survival outcomes. However, effectively modeling patients' survival based on their genomic CNA profiles while identifying relevant genomic regions remains a statistical challenge. Various methods, such as the Cox proportional hazard (PH) model with ridge, lasso, or elastic net penalties, have been proposed but often overlook the inherent dependencies between genomic regions, leading to results that are hard to interpret. In this study, we enhance the elastic net penalty by incorporating an additional penalty that accounts for these dependencies. This approach yields smooth parameter estimates and facilitates variable selection, resulting in a sparse solution. Our findings demonstrate that this method outperforms other models in predicting survival outcomes, as evidenced by our simulation study. Moreover, it allows for a more meaningful interpretation of genomic regions associated with patients' survival. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach using both real data from a lung cancer cohort and simulated datasets.

Keywords: copy number alterations, cox proportional hazard, lung cancer, regression, sparse solution

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Authors: Ketankumar Gandabhai Patel, Jalpit Balvantkumar Prajapati

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Plate type heat exchangers has many thin plates that are slightly apart and have very large surface areas and fluid flow passages that are good for heat transfer. This can be a more effective heat exchanger than the tube or shell heat exchanger due to advances in brazing and gasket technology that have made this plate exchanger more practical. Plate type heat exchangers are most widely used in food processing industries and dairy industries. Mostly fouling occurs in plate type heat exchanger due to deposits create an insulating layer over the surface of the heat exchanger, that decreases the heat transfer between fluids and increases the pressure drop. The pressure drop increases as a result of the narrowing of the flow area, which increases the gap velocity. Therefore, the thermal performance of the heat exchanger decreases with time, resulting in an undersized heat exchanger and causing the process efficiency to be reduced. Heat exchangers are often over sized by 70 to 80%, of which 30 % to 50% is assigned to fouling. The fouling can be reduced by varying some geometric parameters and flow parameters. Based on the study, a correlation will estimate for Nusselt number as a function of Reynolds number, Prandtl number and chevron angle.

Keywords: heat transfer coefficient, single phase flow, mass flow rate, pressure drop

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Authors: Naima Umar

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Mid-1960’s has been landmark in the history of Indian agriculture. It was in 1966-67 when a New Agricultural Strategy was put into practice to tide over chronic shortages of food grains in the country. This strategy adopted was the use High-Yielding Varieties (HYV) of seeds (wheat and rice), which was popularly known as the Green Revolution. This phase of agricultural development has saved us from hunger and starvation and made the peasants more confident than ever before, but it has also created a number of socio-economic and environmental implications such as the reduction in area under forest, salinization, waterlogging, soil erosion, lowering of underground water table, soil, water and air pollution, decline in soil fertility, silting of rivers and emergence of several diseases and health hazards. The state of Uttar Pradesh in the north is bounded by the country of Nepal, the states of Uttrakhand on the northwest, Haryana on the west, Rajasthan on the southwest, Madhya Pradesh on the south and southwest, and Bihar on the east. It is situated between 23052´N and 31028´N latitudes and 7703´ and 84039´E longitudes. It is the fifth largest state of the country in terms of area, and first in terms of population. Forming the part of Ganga plain the state is crossed by a number of rivers which originate from the snowy peaks of Himalayas. The fertile plain of the Ganga has led to a high concentration of population with high density and the dominance of agriculture as an economic activity. Present paper highlights the negative impact of new agricultural technology on health of the people and environment and will attempt to find out factors which are responsible for these implications. Karl Pearson’s Correlation coefficient technique has been applied by selecting 1 dependent variable (i.e. Productivity Index) and some independent variables which may impact crop productivity in the districts of the state. These variables have categorized as: X1 (Cropping Intensity), X2 (Net irrigated area), X3 (Canal Irrigated area), X4 (Tube-well Irrigated area), X5 (Irrigated area by other sources), X6 (Consumption of chemical fertilizers (NPK) Kg. /ha.), X7 (Number of wooden plough), X8 (Number of iron plough), X9 (Number of harrows and cultivators), X10 (Number of thresher machines), X11(Number of sprayers), X12 (Number of sowing instruments), X13 (Number of tractors) and X14 (Consumption of insecticides and pesticides (in Kg. /000 ha.). The entire data during 2001-2005 and 2006- 2010 have been taken and 5 years average value is taken into consideration, based on secondary sources obtained from various government, organizations, master plan report, economic abstracts, district census handbooks and village and town directories etc,. put on a standard computer programmed SPSS and the results obtained have been properly tabulated.

Keywords: agricultural technology, environmental implications, health hazards, socio-economic problems

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Authors: Ching Kin Keong, Koh Tieng Wei, Abdul Azim Abd. Ghani, Khaironi Yatim Sharif

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Maintaining factory default battery endurance rate over time in supporting huge amount of running applications on energy-restricted mobile devices has created a new challenge for mobile applications developer. While delivering customers’ unlimited expectations, developers are barely aware of efficient use of energy from the application itself. Thus developers need a set of valid energy consumption indicators in assisting them to develop energy saving applications. In this paper, we present a few software product metrics that can be used as an indicator to measure energy consumption of Android-based mobile applications in the early of design stage. In particular, Trepn Profiler (Power profiling tool for Qualcomm processor) has used to collect the data of mobile application power consumption, and then analyzed for the 23 software metrics in this preliminary study. The results show that McCabe cyclomatic complexity, number of parameters, nested block depth, number of methods, weighted methods per class, number of classes, total lines of code and method lines have direct relationship with power consumption of mobile application.

Keywords: battery endurance, software metrics, mobile application, power consumption

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Authors: Zhanbo Cheng, Xueyu Geng

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Vegetation slope protection technique is economic, aesthetic and practical. Herbs are widely used in practice because of rapid growth, strong erosion resistance, obvious slope protection and simple method, in which the root system of grass plays a very important role. In this paper, through changing the variables value of grassroots quantity, grassroots diameter, grassroots length and grassroots reinforce layers, the direct shear tests were carried out to discuss the change of shear strength indexes of grassroots reinforced soil under different reinforce situations, and analyse the effects of grassroots characteristics on reinforced soil performance. The laboratory test results show that: (1) in the certain number of grassroots diameter, grassroots length and grassroots reinforce layers, the value of shear strength, and cohesion first increase and then reduce with the increasing of grassroots quantity; (2) in the certain number of grassroots quantity, grassroots length and grassroots reinforce layers, the value of shear strength and cohesion rise with the increasing of grassroots diameter; (3) in the certain number of grassroots diameter, and grassroots reinforce layers, the value of shear strength and cohesion raise with the increasing of grassroots length in a certain range of grassroots quantity, while the value of shear strength and cohesion first rise and then decline with the increasing of grassroots length when the grassroots quantity reaches a certain value; (4) in the certain number of grassroots quantity, grassroots diameter, and grassroots length, the value of shear strength and cohesion first climb and then decline with the increasing of grassroots reinforced layers; (5) the change of internal friction angle is small in different parameters of grassroots. The research results are of importance for understanding the mechanism of vegetation protection for slopes and determining the parameters of grass planting.

Keywords: direct shear test, reinforced soil, grassroots characteristics, shear strength indexes

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Authors: K. Godazandeh, K. Sadeghy

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In the present study, the effect of magnetic field on the hydrodynamic instability of Taylor-Couette flow between two concentric rotating cylinders has been numerically investigated. At the beginning the basic flow has been solved using continuity, Cauchy equations (with regards to Lorentz force) and the constitutive equations of a viscoelastic model called "Giesekus" model. Small perturbations, considered to be normal mode, have been superimposed to the basic flow and the unsteady perturbation equations have been derived consequently. Neglecting non-linear terms, the general eigenvalue problem obtained has been solved using pseudo spectral method (combination of Chebyshev polynomials). The objective of the calculations is to study the effect of magnetic fields on the onset of first mode of instability (axisymmetric mode) for different dimensionless parameters of the flow. The results show that the stability picture is highly influenced by the magnetic field. When magnetic field increases, it first has a destabilization effect which changes to stabilization effect due to more increase of magnetic fields. Therefor there is a critical magnetic number (Hartmann number) for instability of Taylor-Couette flow. Also, the effect of magnetic field is more dominant in large gaps. Also based on the results obtained, magnetic field shows a more considerable effect on the stability at higher Weissenberg numbers (at higher elasticity), while the "mobility factor" changes show no dominant role on the intense of suction and injection effect on the flow's instability.

Keywords: magnetic field, Taylor-Couette flow, Giesekus model, pseudo spectral method, Chebyshev polynomials, Hartmann number, Weissenberg number, mobility factor

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Authors: Hatem Mrad, Mohamed Bouazara, Fouad Erchiqui

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Fatigue, is considered as one of the main cause of mechanical properties degradation of mechanical parts. Probability and reliability methods are appropriate for fatigue analysis using uncertainties that exist in fatigue material or process parameters. Current work deals with the study of the effect of the number and counting Rainflow cycle on fatigue lifetime (cumulative damage) of an upper arm of the vehicle suspension system. The major part of the fatigue damage induced in suspension arm is caused by two main classes of parameters. The first is related to the materials properties and the second is the road excitation or the applied force of the passenger’s number. Therefore, Young's modulus and road excitation are selected as input parameters to conduct repetitive simulations by Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm. Latin hypercube sampling method is used to generate these parameters. Response surface method is established according to fatigue lifetime of each combination of input parameters according to strain-life method. A PYTHON script was developed to automatize finite element simulations of the upper arm according to a design of experiments.

Keywords: fatigue, monte carlo, rainflow cycle, response surface, suspension system

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Authors: B. Ben Amara, H. Mhiri Sellami

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Serious games adoption is increasing in multiple fields, including health, education, and business. In the same way, many research studied serious games (SGs) for various purposes such as classification, positive impacts, or learning outcomes. Although most of these research examine SG characteristics (SGCs) for conducting their studies, to author’s best knowledge, there is no consensus about features neither in number not in the description. In this paper, we conduct a literature review to collect essential game attributes regardless of the application areas and the study objectives. Firstly, we aimed to define Common SGCs (CSGCs) that characterize the game aspect, by gathering features having the same meanings. Secondly, we tried to identify specific features related to the application area or to the study purpose as a serious aspect. The findings suggest that any type of SG can be defined by a number of CSGCs depicting the gaming side, such as adaptability and rules. In addition, we outlined a number of specific SGCs describing the 'serious' aspect, including specific needs of the domain and indented outcomes. In conclusion, our review showed that it is possible to bridge the research gap due to the lack of consensus by using CSGCs. Moreover, these features facilitate the design and development of successful serious games in any domain and provide a foundation for further research in this area.

Keywords: serious game characteristics, serious games common aspects, serious games features, serious games outcomes

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Authors: Ioanna Pagoni, Annitsa Koumoutsidi

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The aim of this paper is to estimate the efficiency of airports that are located in touristic regions. It focuses on the regional airports of Greece, which are located at the mainland and the islands that constitute touristic destinations. Most of these airports share the following characteristics. They operate at levels below capacity with a high level of seasonality to their traffic. In addition, in such airports, the operation of charter and low-cost airlines is significant. The efficiency of the study airports is calculated by using the non-parametric data envelopment analysis during the period of 2010-2016. The selected inputs include several airport infrastructure measures such as passenger terminal size, aircraft parking area, runway length, and the number of check-in counters, while the number of employees in each airport is also used. The number of passengers and aircraft movements are selected as outputs. The effect of seasonality, as well as the operation of charter airlines and low-cost carriers on airport efficiency, is estimated by running proper regression models. Preliminary findings indicate that low-cost and charter airlines contribute to increasing airport efficiency for most of the study airports. The results of this research could be useful for airlines, airport operators, hotel businesses, and other tourism-related operators.

Keywords: airport efficiency, data envelopment analysis, low-cost carriers, charter airlines, seasonality

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Authors: Krittiya Pornmai, Sumaeth Chavadej

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The increasing in global energy demand has affected the climate change caused by the generation of greenhouse gases. Therefore, the objective of this work was to investigate a direct production of synthesis gas from a CO₂-containing natural gas by using gliding arc discharge plasma technology. In this research, the effects of steam reforming, combined steam reforming and partial oxidation, and using multistage gliding arc discharge system on the process performance have been discussed. The simulated natural gas used in this study contains 70% methane, 5% ethane, 5% propane, and 20% carbon dioxide. In comparison with different plasma reforming processes (under their optimum conditions), the steam reforming provides the highest H₂ selectivity resulting from the cracking reaction of steam. In addition, the combined steam reforming and partial oxidation process gives a very high CO production implying that the addition of both oxygen and steam can offer the acceptably highest synthesis gas production. The stage number of plasma reactor plays an important role in the improvement of CO₂ conversion. Moreover, 3 stage number of plasma reactor is considered as an optimum stage number for the reforming of CO₂-containing natural gas with steam and partial oxidation in term of providing low energy consumption as compared with other plasma reforming processes.

Keywords: natural gas, reforming process, gliding arc discharge, plasma technology

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Authors: Mona Alharbi

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Melioidosis has emerged as a lethal disease. Unfortunately, the molecular mechanisms of virulence and pathogenicity of Burkholderia pseudomallei remain unknown. However, proteomics research has selected putative targets in B. pseudomallei that might play roles in the B. pseudomallei virulence. BPSL 2418 putative protein has been predicted as a free methionine sulfoxide reductase and interestingly there is a link between the level of the methionine sulfoxide in pathogen tissues and its virulence. Therefore in this work, we describe the cloning expression, purification, and crystallization of BPSL 2418 and the solution of its 3D structure using X-ray crystallography. Also, we aimed to identify the substrate binding and reduced forms of the enzyme to understand the role of BPSL 2418. The gene encoding BPSL2418 from B. pseudomallei was amplified by PCR and reclone in pETBlue-1 vector and transformed into E. coli Tuner DE3 pLacI. BPSL2418 was overexpressed using E. coli Tuner DE3 pLacI and induced by 300μM IPTG for 4h at 37°C. Then BPS2418 purified to better than 95% purity. The pure BPSL2418 was crystallized with PEG 4000 and PEG 6000 as precipitants in several conditions. Diffraction data were collected to 1.2Å resolution. The crystals belonged to space group P2 21 21 with unit-cell parameters a = 42.24Å, b = 53.48Å, c = 60.54Å, α=γ=β= 90Å. The BPSL2418 binding MES was solved by molecular replacement with the known structure 3ksf using PHASER program. The structure is composed of six antiparallel β-strands and four α-helices and two loops. BPSL2418 shows high homology with the GAF domain fRMsrs enzymes which suggest that BPSL2418 might act as methionine sulfoxide reductase. The amino acids alignment between the fRmsrs including BPSL 2418 shows that the three cysteines that thought to catalyze the reduction are fully conserved. BPSL 2418 contains the three conserved cysteines (Cys⁷⁵, Cys⁸⁵ and Cys¹⁰⁹). The active site contains the six antiparallel β-strands and two loops where the disulfide bond formed between Cys⁷⁵ and Cys¹⁰⁹. X-ray structure of free methionine sulfoxide binding and native forms of BPSL2418 were solved to increase the understanding of the BPSL2418 catalytic mechanism.

Keywords: X-Ray Crystallography, BPSL2418, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Melioidosis

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Authors: Jonathan Rodriguez, Dominga Guerrero, Surupa Shaw

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Automobiles are modeled in various forms, and they interact with air when in motion. Aerodynamics is the study of such interactions where solid bodies affect the way air moves around them. The shape of solid bodies can impact the ease at which they move against the flow of air; due to which any additional freightage, or loads, impact its aerodynamics. It is important to transport people and cargo safely. Despite the various safety measures, there are a large number of vehicle-related accidents. This study precisely explores the effects an automobile experiences, with added cargo and covers. The addition of these items changes the original vehicle shape and the approved design for safe driving. This paper showcases the effects of the changed vehicle shape and design via experimental testing conducted on a physical 1:27 scale and CAD model of an F-150 pickup truck, the most common pickup truck in the United States, with differently shaped loads and weight traveling at a constant speed. The additional freightage produces unwanted drag or lift resulting in lower fuel efficiencies and unsafe driving conditions. This study employs an adjustable external shell on the F-150 pickup truck to create a controlled aerodynamic geometry to combat the detrimental effects of additional freightage. The results utilize colored powder [ which acts as a visual medium for the interaction of air with the vehicle], to highlight the impact of the additional freight on the automobile’s external shell. This will be done along with simulation models using Altair CFD software of twelve cases regarding the effects of an added load onto an F-150 pickup truck. This paper is an attempt toward standardizing the geometric design of the external shell, given the uniqueness of every load and its placement on the vehicle; while providing real-time data to be compared to simulation results from the existing literature.

Keywords: aerodynamics, CFD, freightage, pickup cover

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Authors: Nickolay Jelev, Andy Keane, Carren Holden, András Sóbester

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In aircraft design, the jump from the conceptual to preliminary design stage introduces a level of complexity which cannot be realistically handled by a single optimiser, be that a human (chief engineer) or an algorithm. The design process is often partitioned along disciplinary lines, with each discipline given a level of autonomy. This introduces a number of challenges including, but not limited to: coupling of design variables; coordinating disciplinary teams; handling of large amounts of analysis data; reaching an acceptable design within time constraints. A number of classical Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO) architectures exist in academia specifically designed to address these challenges. Their limited use in the industrial aircraft design process has inspired the authors of this paper to develop an alternative strategy based on well established ideas from Decision Support Systems. The proposed rule based architecture sacrifices possibly elusive guarantees of convergence for an attractive return in simplicity. The method is demonstrated on analytical and aircraft design test cases and its performance is compared to a number of classical distributed MDO architectures.

Keywords: Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation, Rule Based Architecture, Aircraft Design, Decision Support System

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Authors: Shafiqul Islam, Cordia Chu

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Bangladesh contributes little to global climate change, yet it is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews and literature review, focusing public spending distribution process, this paper demonstrates how the processes of political economy- enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment hinder the Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) efforts of Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF). Enclosure refers to when CCA projects allocated to less vulnerable areas or expand the roles of influencing actors into the public sphere. Exclusion refers to when CCA projects limit affected people's access to resources or marginalize particular stakeholders in decision-making activities. Encroachment refers to when allocation of CCA projects and selection of location and issues degrade the environmental affect or contribute to other forms of disaster risk. Entrenchment refers to when CCA projects aggravate the disempowerment of common people worsen the concentrations of wealth and income inequality within a community. In the case of Bangladesh, climate change policies implemented under the country’s National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) and Bangladesh Climate Change Strategic Action Plan (BCCSAP) have somehow enabled influential-elites to mobilize and distribute resources through bureaucracies. Exclusionary forms of fund distribution of CCA exist at both the national and local scales. CCA related allocations have encroached through the low land areas development project without consulting local needs. Most severely, CCA related unequal allocations have entrenched social class trapping the backward communities vulnerable to climate related disasters. Planners and practitioners of BCCTF need to take necessary steps to eliminate the potential risks from the processes of enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment happens in project fund allocations.

Keywords: Bangladesh, climate change adaptation, political economy, public fund distribution

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Authors: Masoud Mahdavi

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The use of sloping lands is increasing due to the reduction of suitable lands for the construction of buildings. In the design and construction of buildings on sloping lands, the foundation has special loading conditions that require the designer and executor to use the slopped foundation. The creation of underground cavities, including urban and subway tunnels, sewers, urban facilities, etc., inside the ground, causes the behavior of the foundation to be unknown. In the present study, using Abacus software, a 45-degree stepped foundation on the ground is designed. The foundations are placed on the ground in a cohesive (no-hole) manner with circular cavities that show the effect of increasing the cross-sectional area of ​​the underground cavities on the foundation's performance. The Kobe earthquake struck the foundation and ground for two seconds. The underground cavities have a circular cross-sectional area with a radius of 5 m, which is located at a depth of 22.54 m above the ground. The results showed that as the number of underground cavities increased, von Mises stress (in the vertical direction) increased. With the increase in the number of underground cavities, the plastic strain on the ground has increased. Also, with the increase in the number of underground cavities, the change in location and speed in the foundation has increased.

Keywords: stepped foundation, sloping ground, Kobe earthquake, Abaqus software, underground excavations

Procedia PDF Downloads 155