Search results for: loss circulation materials

Authors: Lee Sunghyoun, Yu Byeongkee, Kim Hyuckjoo, Yun Namkyu, Jung Jongcheon

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Most of the recent on-sale oyster mushrooms are raised in a oyster mushroom house, in which the necessary adjustment of growing condition is feasible. The rationale for such artificial growing is the impossibility of successive cultivation in the case of a natural cultivation due to external weather conditions. A oyster mushroom house adopts an equipment called growing bed, laying one growing bed upon another in a multi-column fashion, growing and developing the mushrooms on the respective equipments. The indispensable environment management factors of mushroom cultivation are temperature, humidity, and CO2; on which an appropriate regulation of the three requisites is a necessitated condition for the sake of the total output’s increase. However, due to the multiple layers of growing bed’s disturbance on air circulation, a oyster mushroom house’s internal environmental uniformity meets with considerable instability. This research presents a technology which assures the facilitation of environment regulation over all the internal space of a oyster mushroom house, irrespective of its location. The research staff reinforced the oyster mushroom house’s insulation in order to minimize the external environment’s influence on the oyster mushroom house’s internal environment and installed circulation fan to improve the oyster mushroom house’s interior environmental uniformity. Also, the humidifier nozzle’s position was set to prevent dew condensation when humidifying. As a result, a highly sophisticated management over all the oyster mushroom house‘s internal space was realized with the temperature of 0.2~1.3℃, and the relative humidity of 2~7% at the cultivating stage of mushroom’s growth. Therefore, to maximize oyster mushroom house‘s internal environmental uniformity, it can be concluded that consideration of various factors such as insulation reinforcement, decision on the humidifier nozzle’s location, disposition of circulation fan’s installation and the direction of wind discharge is needed.

Keywords: mushroom growing facility, environmental uniformity, temperature, relative humidity, CO2 concentration

Procedia PDF Downloads 496

Authors: Titap Yazicioglu

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Purpose: Losing an eye due to trauma is a challenging situation that reduces the quality of life by causing physical, cosmetic, and serious psychological problems. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of aesthetic rehabilitation on the change in psychological status and quality of life of patients with eye loss resulting in phthisis bulbi. Materials and Methods: The files of 25 males and 15 females with an average age of 27.5 years who had trauma-related phthisic eye and had applied to the Department of Ophthalmology at the Dr. Lütfi Kırdar Kartal Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey, for aesthetic rehabilitation during the years 2015-19 were retrospectively analyzed. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Scale(BAS), and Short Form 36 quality-of-life survey (SF-36) were used to collect data on admission and one-year follow-up. Results: Of the patients reviewed, 65% stated that eye loss had caused their avoidance of family and social environments; 30% had moderate anxiety and depression. The post-operative sub-dimension scores of general health, emotional role function, and physical and social functions were statistically significant (p = 0.001; p<0.01), but the variations in the sub-dimension scores of vitality, mental health, and total physical health were not (p>0.05). Conclusion: Lossing an eye is a traumatic event that can affect all aspects of a person’s social and professional life. A patient who has suffered from the psychological damage of physical loss of eye needs a prosthesis that can give the desired function and appearance in different aspects of life.

Keywords: eye loss, phthisis bulbi, quality of life, psychological trauma

Procedia PDF Downloads 91

Authors: Isabel Mousinho de Figueiredo

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Pure economic loss can be brought into the 21st century and become a useful tool to keep the tort of negligence within reasonable limits, provided the concept is minutely reexamined. The term came about when wealth was physical, and Law wanted to be a modern science. As a tool to draw the line, it leads to satisfactory decisions in most cases, but needlessly creates distressing conundrums in others, and these are the ones parties bother to litigate about. Economic loss is deemed to be pure based on a blind negative criterion of physical harm, that inadvertently smelts vastly disparate problems into an indiscernible mass, with arbitrary outcomes. These shortcomings are usually dismissed as minor byproducts, for the lack of a better formula. Law could instead stick to the sound paradigms of the intended rule, and be more specific in identifying the losses deserving of compensation. This would provide a better service to Bench and Bar, and effectively assist everyone navigating the many challenges of Accident Law.

Keywords: accident law, comparative tort law, negligence, pure economic loss

Procedia PDF Downloads 80

Authors: Jintang Zhou, Zhengjun Yao, Tiantian Yao

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Li₀.₃₅Zn₀.₃Fe₂.₃₅O₄(LZFO) grafted with polyaniline (PANI) fibers was synthesized by in situ polymerization. FTIR, XRD, SEM, and vector network analyzer were used to investigate chemical composition, micro-morphology, electromagnetic properties and microwave absorbing properties of the composite. The results show that PANI fibers were grafted on the surfaces of LZFO particles. The reflection loss exceeds 10 dB in the frequency range from 2.5 to 5 GHz and from 15 to 17GHz, and the maximum reflection loss reaches -33 dB at 15.9GHz. The enhanced microwave absorption properties of LZFO/PANI-fiber composites are mainly ascribed to the combined effect of both dielectric loss and magnetic loss and the improved impedance matching.

Keywords: Li₀.₃₅Zn₀.₃Fe₂.₃₅O₄, polyaniline, electromagnetic properties, microwave absorbing properties

Procedia PDF Downloads 402

Authors: Atefeh Omidkhah Kharashtomi, Rasoul Hedayat Nejad, Saeed Bakhtiyari

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Circulation paths and indoor connection network of the building play an important role both in the daily operation of the building and during evacuation in emergency situations. The degree of legibility of the paths for navigation inside the building has a deep connection with the perceptive and cognitive system of human, and the way the surrounding environment is being perceived. Human perception of the space is based on the sensory systems in a three-dimensional environment, and non-linearly, so it is necessary to avoid reducing its representations in architectural design as a two-dimensional and linear issue. Today, the advances in the field of virtual reality (VR) technology have led to various applications, and architecture and building science can benefit greatly from these capabilities. Especially in cases where the design solution requires a detailed and complete understanding of the human perception of the environment and the behavioral response, special attention to VR technologies could be a priority. Way-finding in the indoor circulation network is a proper example for such application. Success in way-finding could be achieved if human perception of the route and the behavioral reaction have been considered in advance and reflected in the architectural design. This paper discusses the VR technology applications for the way-finding improvements in indoor engineering of the building. In a systematic review, with a database consisting of numerous studies, firstly, four categories for VR applications for circulation way-finding have been identified: 1) data collection of key parameters, 2) comparison of the effect of each parameter in virtual environment versus real world (in order to improve the design), 3) comparing experiment results in the application of different VR devices/ methods with each other or with the results of building simulation, and 4) training and planning. Since the costs of technical equipment and knowledge required to use VR tools lead to the limitation of its use for all design projects, priority buildings for the use of VR during design are introduced based on case-studies analysis. The results indicate that VR technology provides opportunities for designers to solve complex buildings design challenges in an effective and efficient manner. Then environmental parameters and the architecture of the circulation routes (indicators such as route configuration, topology, signs, structural and non-structural components, etc.) and the characteristics of each (metrics such as dimensions, proportions, color, transparency, texture, etc.) are classified for the VR way-finding experiments. Then, according to human behavior and reaction in the movement-related issues, the necessity of scenario-based and experiment design for using VR technology to improve the design and receive feedback from the test participants has been described. The parameters related to the scenario design are presented in a flowchart in the form of test design, data determination and interpretation, recording results, analysis, errors, validation and reporting. Also, the experiment environment design is discussed for equipment selection according to the scenario, parameters under study as well as creating the sense of illusion in the terms of place illusion, plausibility and illusion of body ownership.

Keywords: virtual reality (VR), way-finding, indoor, circulation, design

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Authors: Talal Al-Bazali

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Air drilling has recently received increasing acceptance by the oil and gas industry due to its unique advantages. The main advantages of air drilling include the higher rate of penetration, less formation damage, lower risk of loss of circulation. However, these advantages cannot be fully realized if thermal effects in air drilling are not well understood and minimized. Due to its high frictional coefficient, low heat conductivity, and high compressibility, air can impact the temperature distribution of bit and thus affect its bit performances. Based on energy and mass balances, a transient thermal model that predicts bit temperature is presented along with numerical solutions in this paper. In addition, several important parameters that influence bit temperature distribution are analyzed. Simulation results show that the bit temperature increases with increasing weight on bit and rotary speed but decreases as the standpipe pressure and flow rate increase. These results can be used to optimize drilling operations and flow parameters for an improved bit performance as shown in this paper.

Keywords: air drilling, rate of penetration, temperature, rotary speed

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Authors: Habib Onsori, Somayeh Akrami, Mohammad Rahmati

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Deafness is the most common sensory disorder with the frequency of 1/1000 in many populations. Mutations in the GJB2 (CX26) gene at the DFNB1 locus on chromosome 13q12 are associated with congenital hearing loss. Approximately 80% of congenital hearing loss cases are recessively inherited and 15% dominantly inherited. Mutations of the GJB2 gene, encoding gap junction protein Connexin 26 (Cx26), are the most common cause of hereditary congenital hearing loss in many countries. This report presents two cases of different mutations from Iranian patients with bilateral hearing loss. DNA studies were performed for the GJB2 gene by PCR and sequencing methods. In one of them, direct sequencing of the gene showed a heterozygous T→C transition at nucleotide 604 resulting in a cysteine to arginine amino acid substitution at codon 202 (C202R) in the fourth extracellular domain (TM4) of the protein. The analyses indicate that the C202R mutation appeared de novo in the proband with a possible dominant effect (GenBank: KF 638275). In the other one, DNA sequencing revealed a compound heterozygous mutation (35delG, 363delC) in the Cx26 gene that is strongly associated with congenital non-syndromic hearing loss (NSHL). So screening the mutations for hearing loss individuals referring to genetics counseling centers before marriage and or pregnancy is recommended.

Keywords: CX26, deafness, GJB2, mutation

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Authors: Ma Lei-Lei, Zhou You

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Aiming at the problems of low detection accuracy of deep learning algorithm in traffic sign detection, this paper proposes improved EfficientDet based traffic sign detection algorithm. Multi-head self-attention is introduced in the minimum resolution layer of the backbone of EfficientDet to achieve effective aggregation of local and global depth information, and this study proposes an improved feature fusion pyramid with increased vertical cross-layer connections, which improves the performance of the model while introducing a small amount of complexity, the Balanced L1 Loss is introduced to replace the original regression loss function Smooth L1 Loss, which solves the problem of balance in the loss function. Experimental results show, the algorithm proposed in this study is suitable for the task of traffic sign detection. Compared with other models, the improved EfficientDet has the best detection accuracy. Although the test speed is not completely dominant, it still meets the real-time requirement.

Keywords: convolutional neural network, transformer, feature pyramid networks, loss function

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Authors: Jihene Jebeniani

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We proposed an approach combining both the techniques of experimental economy and the flexibility of discrete choice models in order to test the loss aversion. Our main objective was to test the loss aversion of the Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT). We developed an experimental laboratory in the context of the financial investments that aimed to analyze the attitude towards the risk of the investors. The study uses the lotteries and is basing on econometric modeling. The estimated model was the ordered probit.

Keywords: risk aversion, behavioral finance, experimental economic, lotteries, cumulative prospect theory

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Authors: Nadia Nisha Musa, Nur Atirah Hasmi, Hasnun Nita Ismail, Zulfadli Mahfodz

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In Malaysian Education System, subject related to biodiversity has started in the curriculum from Foundation Study until tertiary education. Biodiversity become the focus of attention due to awareness on global warming which potentially leads to a loss of biodiversity. A loss in biodiversity means a loss in medicinal discoveries and reduces food supply. It is of great important to ensure that young generations become aware of biodiversity conservation. The more interactive approaches are needed to build society with a high awareness for biodiversity conservation. To address this challenge, the goal of this study is to enhance intrinsic motivation of biological students via ARCS model of instruction. Self-access learning materials such as tutorial, module and fieldwork were designed with ARCS elements to a sample size of 70 university students from the beginning of the semester. Both paper and online surveys were used to collect data from the respondents. The results showed that elements of attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction have a positive impact on intrinsic motivation of students and their academic performance.

Keywords: intrinsic motivation, ARCS model of instruction, biodiversity, self-access learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Iqra Noor, Ihtzaz Qamar

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Pitot-tube Jet pump, single-stage pump with low flow rate and high head, consists of a radial impeller that feeds water to rotating cavity. Water then enters stationary pitot-tube collector (diffuser), which discharges to the outside. By means of ANSYS Fluent 15.0, the internal flow characteristics for Pitot-tube Jet pump with standard pitot and curved pitot are studied. Under design condition, realizable k-e turbulence model and SIMPLEC algorithm are used to calculate 3D flow field inside both pumps. The simulation results reveal that energy is imparted to the flow by impeller and inside the rotor, forced vortex type flow is observed. Total pressure decreases inside pitot-tube whereas static pressure increases. Changing pitot-tube from standard to curved shape results in minimum flow circulation inside pitot-tube and leads to a higher pump performance.

Keywords: CFD, flow circulation, high pressure pump, impeller, internal flow, pickup tube pump, rectangle channels, rotating casing, turbulence

Procedia PDF Downloads 130

Authors: Hasliza A. Rahim, Fareq Malek, Nur A. M. Affendi, Azuwa Ali, Norshafinash Saudin, Latifah Mohamed

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This paper presents the experimental investigation of on-body channel fading at 2.45 GHz considering two effects of the user body movement; stationary and mobile. A pair of body-worn antennas was utilized in this measurement campaign. A statistical analysis was performed by comparing the measured on-body path loss to five well-known distributions; lognormal, normal, Nakagami, Weibull and Rayleigh. The results showed that the average path loss of moving arm varied higher than the path loss in sitting position for upper-arm-to-left-chest link, up to 3.5 dB. The analysis also concluded that the Nakagami distribution provided the best fit for most of on-body static link path loss in standing still and sitting position, while the arm movement can be best described by log-normal distribution.

Keywords: on-body channel communications, fading characteristics, statistical model, body movement

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Authors: Pavle Dakić, Dimitrije Kotur, Zoran Stojanović

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This paper presents the results of the study in which the excitation system fault of synchronous generator is simulated. In a case of excitation system fault (loss of field), distance relay is used to prevent further damage. Loss-of-field relay calculates complex impedance using measured voltage and current at the generator terminals. In order to obtain phasors from sampled measured values, discrete Fourier transform is used. All simulations are conducted using Matlab and Simulink software package. The analysis is conducted on the two machine system which supplies equivalent load. While simulating loss of excitation on one generator in different conditions (at idle operation, weakly loaded, and fully loaded), diagrams of active power, reactive power, and measured impedance are analyzed and monitored. Moreover, in the simulations, the effect of generator load on relay tripping time is investigated. In conclusion, the performed tests confirm that the fault in the excitation system can be detected by measuring the impedance.

Keywords: loss-of-excitation, synchronous generator, distance protection, Fourier transformation

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Authors: Jafar Akbari, Masoud Rismanchian, Samira Ramezani

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Purpose: The photocatalytic degradation of pollutants is a novel technology with various advantages such as high efficiency and energy saving. In this research, the effects of operational variables on the photocatalytic efficiency of TiO₂ coated on nickel foam in the removal of toluene from the simulated indoor air have been investigated. Methods: TiO₂ film were prepared via the sol-gel method and coated on nickel foam. The characteristics and morphology were found using XRD, SEM, and BET technique. Then, the effects of relative humidity, UV-A intensity, the initial toluene concentration, TiO₂ loading, and the air circulation velocity on the photocatalytic degradation rate have been evaluated. Results: The optimal degradation of toluene has been achieved with loading 4.35 g TiO2 on the foam, 30% RH, 5.4 µW.cm−2 UV-A intensity, and 20 ppm initial concentration in the air circulation velocity of 0.15 fpm. Conclusion: The changes of toluene photocatalytic degradation rate have been studied at various times. Also, the kinetic behavior of toluene photocatalytic degradation has been investigated using Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) model.

Keywords: photocatalytic degradation, operational variables, tio₂, nickel foam, gaseous toluene, nanotechnology

Procedia PDF Downloads 48

Authors: Ceren Vardar Acar, Mine Caglar

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In finance, the price of a volatile asset can be modeled using fractional Brownian motion (fBm) with Hurst parameter H>1/2. The Black-Scholes model for the values of returns of an asset using fBm is given as, 〖Y_t=Y_0 e^((r+μ)t+σB)〗_t^H, 0≤t≤T where Y_0 is the initial value, r is constant interest rate, μ is constant drift and σ is constant diffusion coefficient of fBm, which is denoted by B_t^H where t≥0. Black-Scholes model can be constructed with some Markov processes such as Brownian motion. The advantage of modeling with fBm to Markov processes is its capability of exposing the dependence between returns. The real life data for a volatile asset display long-range dependence property. For this reason, using fBm is a more realistic model compared to Markov processes. Investors would be interested in any kind of information on the risk in order to manage it or hedge it. The maximum possible loss is one way to measure highest possible risk. Therefore, it is an important variable for investors. In our study, we give some theoretical bounds on the distribution of maximum possible loss of fBm. We provide both asymptotical and strong estimates for the tail probability of maximum loss of standard fBm and fBm with drift and diffusion coefficients. In the investment point of view, these results explain, how large values of possible loss behave and its bounds.

Keywords: maximum drawdown, maximum loss, fractional brownian motion, large deviation, Gaussian process

Procedia PDF Downloads 457

Authors: Lourdes Hanna, Edward Poluyi, Chibuikem Ikwuegbuenyi, Eghosa Morgan, Grace Imaguezegie

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Background: Degeneration of the central nervous system (CNS), also known as neurodegeneration, describes an age-associated progressive loss of the structure and function of neuronal materials, leading to functional and mental impairments. Main body: Neuroinflammation contributes to the continuous worsening of neurodegenerative states which are characterised by functional and mental impairments due to the progressive loss of the structure and function of neu-ronal materials. Some of the most common neurodegenerative diseases include Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Whilst neuroinflammation is a key contributor to the progression of such disease states, it is not the single cause as there are multiple factors which contribute. Theoretically, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have potential to target neuroinflammation to reduce the severity of disease states. Whilst some animal models investigating the effects of NSAIDs on the risk of neurodegenerative diseases have shown a beneficial effect, this is not the same finding. Conclusion: Further investigation using more advanced research methods is required to better understand neuroinflammatory pathways and understand if there is still a potential window for NSAID efficacy.

Keywords: intervention, central nervous system, neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation

Procedia PDF Downloads 47

Authors: Atul Dev, Pankaj Jha

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Dr. Genichi Taguchi looked at quality in a broader term and gave an excellent definition of quality in terms of loss to society. However the scope of this definition is limited to the losses imparted by a poor quality product to the customer only and are considered during the useful life of the product and further in a certain situation this loss can even be zero. In this paper, it has been proposed that the scope of quality of a product shall be further enhanced by considering the losses imparted by a poor quality product to society at large, due to associated environmental and safety related factors, over the complete life cycle of the product. Moreover, though these losses can be further minimized with the use of techno-safety interventions, the net losses to society however can never be made zero. This paper proposes an entirely new approach towards defining product quality and is based on Taguchi’s definition of quality.

Keywords: existing concept, goal post philosophy, life cycle, proposed concept, quality loss function

Procedia PDF Downloads 271

Authors: Jelena Bašić, Višnjica Vučetić, Mislav Anić, Tomislav Bašić

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Lack of precipitation combined with high temperatures causes great damage to the agriculture and economy in Croatia. Therefore, it is important to understand water circulation and balance. We decided to gain a better insight into the spatial distribution of water balance components (WBC) and their long-term changes in Croatia. WBC are precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (PET), actual evapotranspiration (ET), soil moisture content (S), runoff (RO), recharge (R), and soil moisture loss (L). Since measurements of the mentioned components in Croatia are very rare, the Palmer model has been applied to estimate them. We refined method by setting into the account the corrective factor to include influence effects of the wind as well as a maximum soil capacity for specific soil types. We will present one hundred years’ time series of PET and ET showing the trends at few meteorological stations and a comparison of components of two climatological periods. The meteorological data from 109 stations have been used for the spatial distribution map of the WBC of Croatia.

Keywords: croatia, long-term trends, the palmer method, water balance components

Procedia PDF Downloads 108

Authors: Salisu Dahiru, Jibrin M. Kaura, Abubakar I. Jumare, Sulaiman M. Mahmood

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Reclaimed asphalt, used automobile tires and rice husk, were regarded as waste. These materials could be used in construction of new roads and for roads rehabilitation. Investigation into the production of a Green Hot Mixed Asphalt (GHMA) pavement using Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) as partial replacement for coarse aggregate, Crumb Rubber (CR) from waste automobile tires as modifier for bitumen binder and Rice Husk Ash (RHA) as partial replacement of ordinary portland cement (OPC) filler, for roads construction and rehabilitation was presented. 30% Reclaimed asphalt of total aggregate, 15% Crumb Rubber of total binder content, 5% Rice Husk Ash of total mix, and 5.2% Crumb Rubber Modified Bitumen content were recommended for optimum performance. Loss of marshal stability was investigated on mix with the recommended optimum CRMB. The mix revealed good performance with only about 13% loss of stability after 24 hours of immersion in hot water bath, as against about 24% marshal stability lost reported in previous studies for conventional Hot Mixed Asphalt (HMA).

Keywords: rice husk, reclaimed asphalt, filler, crumb rubber, bitumen content green hot mix asphalt

Procedia PDF Downloads 293

Authors: Petcharat Kerdonfag, Surasak Taneepanichskul, Winai Wadwongtham

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Background: Although there have not been effective treatments for Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL), it can be definitely preventable with promoting the use of Hearing Protection devices (HPDs) among workers who have been exposed to excessive noise for a long period. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to explore the use of HPDs among steel industrial workers in the high noise level zone in Samut Prakan province, Thailand and to examine the relationships of the HPDs use and hearing loss. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, eligible ninety-three participants were recruited in the designated zone of higher noise (> 85dBA) of two factories, using simple random sampling. The use of HPDs was gathered by the self-record form, examined and confirmed by the researcher team. Hearing loss was assessed by the audiometric screening at the regional Samut Prakan hospital. If an average threshold level exceeds 25 dBA at high frequency (4 and 6 Hz) in each ear, participants would be lost of hearing. Data were collected from October to December, 2016. All participants were examined by the same examiners for the validity. An Audiometric testing was performed with the participants who have been exposed to high noise levels at least 14 hours from workplace. Results: Sixty participants (64.5%) had secondary level of education. The average mean score of percent time of using HPDs was 60.5% (SD = 25.34). Sixty-seven participants (72.0%) had abnormal hearing which they have still needed to increase lower percent time of using HPDs (Mean = 37.01, SD = 23.81) than those having normal hearing (Mean = 45.77, SD = 28.44). However, there was no difference in the mean average of percent time of using HPDs between these two groups.Conclusion: The findings of this study have confirmed that the steel industrial workers still need to be motivated to use HPDs regularly. Future research should pay more attentions for creating a meaningful innovation to steel industrial workers.

Keywords: hearing protection devices, noise induced hearing loss, audiometric testing, steel industry

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Authors: Julie A. LaRose

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Native American youth, ages 10-24, have the highest rate of suicide in the United States. The hopelessness experienced by the native American youth is linked to psychosocial reasons more than biological or intrapsychic reasons. Two significant social determinants of health that diminish their hope include historical trauma and cultural loss. Intergenerational grief is caused by historical trauma from hundreds of years of colonization, broken treaties, and forced migration, leading to land, resources, and sovereignty loss. Forced acculturation through boarding schools that native children were required to attend led to the loss of traditions and culture. The result is hopelessness. This paper reviewed peer-reviewed research literature, government reports, non-government organizations reports, and video and written publications by Native Americans. Building hope through healing historical trauma and embracing cultural traditions may reduce suicide rates among Native American youth.

Keywords: culture loss, historical trauma, Native American, suicide, suicide rates

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Authors: W. Swiderski

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In the paper introduced the diagnostic technique making possible the research of internal structures in composite materials reinforced fibres using in different applications. The main reason of damages in structures of these materials is the changing distribution of load in constructions in the lifetime. Appearing defect is largely complicated because of the appearance of disturbing of continuity of reinforced fibres, binder cracks and loss of fibres adhesiveness from binders. Defect in composite materials is usually more complicated than in metals. At present, infrared thermography is the most effective method in non-destructive testing composite. One of IR thermography methods used in non-destructive evaluation is vibrothermography. The vibrothermography is not a new non-destructive method, but the new solution in this test is use ultrasonic waves to thermal stimulation of materials. In this paper, both modelling and experimental results which illustrate the advantages and limitations of ultrasonic IR thermography in inspecting composite materials will be presented. The ThermoSon computer program for computing 3D dynamic temperature distribuions in anisotropic layered solids with subsurface defects subject to ulrasonic stimulation was used to optimise heating parameters in the detection of subsurface defects in composite materials. The program allows for the analysis of transient heat conduction and ultrasonic wave propagation phenomena in solids. The experiments at MIAT were fulfilled by means of FLIR SC 7600 IR camera. Ultrasonic stimulation was performed with the frequency from 15 kHz to 30 kHz with maximum power up to 2 kW.

Keywords: composite material, ultrasonic, infrared thermography, non-destructive testing

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Authors: Nana Saralidze, Nino Sharashenidze, Zurab Kevanishvili

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Hidden hearing loss may occur in humans exposed to prolonged high-level sound. It is the loss of ability to hear high-level background noise while having normal hearing in quiet. We compared the hearing of people who regularly listen 3 hours and more to personal music players and those who do not. Forty participants aged 18-30 years were divided into two groups: regular users of music players and people who had never used them. And the third group – elders aged 50-55 years, had 15 participants. Pure-tone audiometry (125-16000 Hz), auditory brainstem response (ABR) (70dB SPL), and ability to identify speech in noise (4-talker babble with a 65-dB signal-to-noise ratio at 80 dB) were measured in all participants. All participants had normal pure-tone audiometry (all thresholds < 25 dB HL). A significant difference between groups was observed in that regular users of personal audio systems correctly identified 53% of words, whereas the non-users identified 74% and the elder group – 63%. This contributes evidence supporting the presence of a hidden hearing loss in humans and demonstrates that speech-in-noise audiometry is an effective method and can be considered as the GOLD standard for detecting hidden hearing loss.

Keywords: mp3 player, hidden hearing loss, speech audiometry, pure tone audiometry

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Authors: Elison Eduardo Jardim Bierhals, Claudineia Brazil, Deivid Pires, Rafael Haag, Elton Gimenez Rossini

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The objective of this work is to evaluate the results of solar radiation projections between 2006 and 2013 for the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The projections are provided by the General Circulation Models (MCGs) belonging to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Phase 5 (CMIP5). In all, the results of the simulation of six models are evaluated, compared to monthly data, measured by a network of thirteen meteorological stations of the National Meteorological Institute (INMET). The performance of the models is evaluated by the Nash coefficient and the Bias. The results are presented in the form of tables, graphs and spatialization maps. The ACCESS1-0 RCP 4.5 model presented the best results for the solar radiation simulations, for the most optimistic scenario, in much of the state. The efficiency coefficients (CEF) were between 0.95 and 0.98. In the most pessimistic scenario, HADGen2-AO RCP 8.5 had the best accuracy among the analyzed models, presenting coefficients of efficiency between 0.94 and 0.98. From this validation, solar radiation projection maps were elaborated, indicating a seasonal increase of this climatic variable in some regions of the Brazilian territory, mainly in the spring.

Keywords: climate change, projections, solar radiation, validation

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Authors: Wentian Shi, Daming Shi, Maysam Orouskhani, Feng Tian

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Whereas currently the most prevalent deep learning methods require a large amount of data for training, few-shot learning tries to learn a model from limited data without extensive retraining. In this paper, we present a loss function based on triplet loss for solving few-shot problem using metric based learning. Instead of setting the margin distance in triplet loss as a constant number empirically, we propose an adaptive margin distance strategy to obtain the appropriate margin distance automatically. We implement the strategy in the deep siamese network for deep metric embedding, by utilizing an optimization approach by penalizing the worst case and rewarding the best. Our experiments on image recognition and co-segmentation model demonstrate that using our proposed triplet loss with adaptive margin distance can significantly improve the performance.

Keywords: few-shot learning, triplet network, adaptive margin, deep learning

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Authors: Aka S. Koffi, N’Goran Yao, Philippe Bastide, Denis Bruneau, Diby Kadjo

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Cocoa beans (Theobroma cocoa L.) are the main components for chocolate manufacturing. The beans must be correctly fermented at first. Traditional process to perform the first fermentation (lactic fermentation) often consists in confining cacao beans using banana leaves or a fermentation basket, both of them leading to a poor product thermal insulation and to an inability to mix the product. Box fermenter reduces this loss by using a wood with large thickness (e>3cm), but mixing to homogenize the product is still hard to perform. Automatic fermenters are not rentable for most of producers. Heat (T>45°C) and acidity produced during the fermentation by microbiology activity of yeasts and bacteria are enabling the emergence of potential flavor and taste of future chocolate. In this study, a cylindro-rotative fermenter (FCR-V1) has been built and coconut fibers were used in its structure to confine heat. An axis of rotation (360°) has been integrated to facilitate the turning and homogenization of beans in the fermenter. This axis permits to put fermenter in a vertical position during the anaerobic alcoholic phase of fermentation, and horizontally during acetic phase to take advantage of the mid height filling. For circulation of air flow during turning in acetic phase, two woven rattan with grid have been made, one for the top and second for the bottom of the fermenter. In order to reduce air flow during acetic phase, two airtight covers are put on each grid cover. The efficiency of the turning by this kind of rotation, coupled with homogenization of the temperature, caused by the horizontal position in the acetic phase of the fermenter, contribute to having a good proportion of well-fermented beans (83.23%). In addition, beans’pH values ranged between 4.5 and 5.5. These values are ideal for enzymatic activity in the production of the aromatic compounds inside beans. The regularity of mass loss during all fermentation makes it possible to predict the drying surface corresponding to the amount being fermented.

Keywords: cocoa fermentation, fermenter, microbial activity, temperature, turning

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Authors: Fei Gao, Xinyang Dong, Yisu Ge, Shufang Lu, Libo Weng

Abstract:

Vehicle color recognition plays an important role in traffic accident investigation. However, due to the influence of illumination, weather, and noise, vehicle color recognition still faces challenges. In this paper, a vehicle color classification network based on spatial cluster loss and channel attention mechanism (SCNet) is proposed for vehicle color recognition. A channel attention module is applied to extract the features of vehicle color representative regions and reduce the weight of nonrepresentative color regions in the channel. The proposed loss function, called spatial clustering loss (SC-loss), consists of two channel-specific components, such as a concentration component and a diversity component. The concentration component forces all feature channels belonging to the same class to be concentrated through the channel cluster. The diversity components impose additional constraints on the channels through the mean distance coefficient, making them mutually exclusive in spatial dimensions. In the comparison experiments, the proposed method can achieve state-of-the-art performance on the public datasets, VCD, and VeRi, which are 96.1% and 96.2%, respectively. In addition, the ablation experiment further proves that SC-loss can effectively improve the accuracy of vehicle color recognition.

Keywords: feature extraction, convolutional neural networks, intelligent transportation, vehicle color recognition

Procedia PDF Downloads 136

Authors: Taehan Bae

Abstract:

In this paper, a class of length-biased Weibull mixtures is presented to model loss severity data. The proposed model generalizes the Erlang mixtures with the common scale parameter, and it shares many important modelling features, such as flexibility to fit various data distribution shapes and weak-denseness in the class of positive continuous distributions, with the Erlang mixtures. We show that the asymptotic tail estimate of the length-biased Weibull mixture is Weibull-type, which makes the model effective to fit loss severity data with heavy-tailed observations. A method of statistical estimation is discussed with applications on real catastrophic loss data sets.

Keywords: Erlang mixture, length-biased distribution, transformed gamma distribution, asymptotic tail estimate, EM algorithm, expectation-maximization algorithm

Procedia PDF Downloads 195

Authors: Sai Chand, Ashish Dhamaniya, Satish Chandra

Abstract:

Curbside bus stops are provided on urban roads when sufficient land is not available to construct bus bays. The present study demonstrates the effect of curbside bus stops on midblock capacity of an urban arterial road. Data were collected on seven sections of 6-lane urban arterial roads in New Delhi. Three sections were selected without any side friction to estimate the base value of capacity. Remaining four sections were with curbside bus stop. Speed and volume data were collected in field and these data were used to estimate the capacity of a section. The average base midblock capacity of a 6–lane divided urban road was found to be 6314 PCU/hr which was further referred as base capacity. Effect of curbside bus stop on midblock capacity of urban road was evaluated by comparing the capacity of a section with curbside bus stop with that of the base capacity. Finally, a mathematical relation has been developed between bus frequency and capacity loss. Also a relation has been suggested between dwell time and capacity loss. The developed relations would be very useful for practising engineers to estimate capacity loss due to bus stop.

Keywords: bus frequency, bus stops, capacity loss, urban arterial

Procedia PDF Downloads 318

Authors: Yun Zhang

Abstract:

Urban housing in China is typified by residential districts that occupy 25 to 40 percentage of the urban land. In residential districts, squares, roads, and building facades, as well as plants, usually form a four-grade spatial structure: district entrances, central landscapes, housing cluster entrances, green spaces between dwellings. This spatial structure and its elements not only compose the visible residential landscape but also play a major role of carrying rain water. These elements, therefore, imply ecological significance to urban fitness. Based upon theories of landscape ecology, residential landscape can be understood as a pattern typified by minor soft patch of planted area and major hard patch of buildings and squares, as well as hard corridors of roads. Use five landscape districts in Hangzhou as examples; this paper finds that the size, shape and slope direction of soft patch, the bend of roads, and the form of the four-grade spatial structure are influential for adapting to natural rainwater circulation.

Keywords: Hangzhou China, rainwater, residential landscape, spatial character, urban housing

Procedia PDF Downloads 289