Search results for: image quality assessment metric

Authors: Mohamed Belaid, Edison Muzenda, Getrude Mitilene, Mansoor Mollagee

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A feasibility study for the design and construction of a pilot plant for the extraction of castor oil in South Africa was conducted. The study emphasized the four critical aspects of project feasibility analysis, namely technical, financial, market and managerial aspects. The technical aspect involved research on existing oil extraction technologies, namely: mechanical pressing and solvent extraction, as well as assessment of the proposed production site for both short and long term viability of the project. The site is on the outskirts of Nkomazi village in the Mpumalanga province, where connections for water and electricity are currently underway, potential raw material supply proves to be reliable since the province is known for its commercial farming. The managerial aspect was evaluated based on the fact that the current producer of castor oil will be fully involved in the project while receiving training and technical assistance from Sasol Technology, the TSC and SEDA. Market and financial aspects were evaluated and the project was considered financially viable with a Net Present Value (NPV) of R2 731 687 and an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 18% at an annual interest rate of 10.5%. The payback time is 6years for analysis over the first 10 years with a net income of R1 971 000 in the first year. The project was thus found to be feasible with high chance of success while contributing to socio-economic development. It was recommended for lab tests to be conducted to establish process kinetics that would be used in the initial design of the plant.

Keywords: Mechanical pressing, Net Present Value, Oilextraction, Project feasibility, Solvent extraction

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Authors: Diako Azizi, Ahmad Gholami, Vahid Abbasi

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High voltage generators are being subject to higher voltage rating and are being designed to operate in harsh conditions. Stator windings are the main component of generators in which Electrical, magnetical and thermal stresses remain major failures for insulation degradation accelerated aging. A large number of generators failed due to stator winding problems, mainly insulation deterioration. Insulation degradation assessment plays vital role in the asset life management. Mostly the stator failure is catastrophic causing significant damage to the plant. Other than generation loss, stator failure involves heavy repair or replacement cost. Electro thermal analysis is the main characteristic for improvement design of stator slot-s insulation. Dielectric parameters such as insulation thickness, spacing, material types, geometry of winding and slot are major design consideration. A very powerful method available to analyze electro thermal performance is Finite Element Method (FEM) which is used in this paper. The analysis of various stator coil and slot configurations are used to design the better dielectric system to reduce electrical and thermal stresses in order to increase the power of generator in the same volume of core. This paper describes the process used to perform classical design and improvement analysis of stator slot-s insulation.

Keywords: Electrical field, field distribution, insulation, winding, finite element method, electro thermal

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Authors: Shun-Kai Yang, Kuo-Feng Ssu

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Target tracking and localization are important applications in wireless sensor networks. In these applications, sensor nodes collectively monitor and track the movement of a target. They have limited energy supplied by batteries, so energy efficiency is essential for sensor networks. Most existing target tracking protocols need to wake up sensors periodically to perform tracking. Some unnecessary energy waste is thus introduced. In this paper, an energy efficient protocol for target localization is proposed. In order to preserve energy, the protocol fixes the number of sensors for target tracking, but it retains the quality of target localization in an acceptable level. By selecting a set of sensors for target localization, the other sensors can sleep rather than periodically wake up to track the target. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol saves a significant amount of energy and also prolongs the network lifetime.

Keywords: Coverage, energy efficiency, target localization, wireless sensor network.

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Authors: Cornelia-Eugenia Munteanu

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The goal of this paper is to present the diagnostic contribution that the screening instrument, Mini-Mental State Examination-2: Expanded Version (MMSE-2:EV), brings in detecting the cognitive impairment or in monitoring the progress of degenerative disorders. The diagnostic signification is underlined by the interpretation of the MMSE-2:EV scores, resulted from the test application to patients with mild and major neurocognitive disorders. The cases were selected from current practice, in order to cover vast and significant neurocognitive pathology: mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, mixed dementia, Parkinson’s disease, conversion of the mild cognitive impairment into Alzheimer’s disease. The MMSE-2:EV version was used: it was applied one month after the initial assessment, three months after the first reevaluation and then every six months, alternating the blue and red forms. Correlated with age and educational level, the raw scores were converted in T scores and then, with the mean and the standard deviation, the z scores were calculated. The differences of raw scores between the evaluations were analyzed from the point of view of statistic signification, in order to establish the progression in time of the disease. The results indicated that the psycho-diagnostic approach for the evaluation of the cognitive impairment with MMSE-2:EV is safe and the application interval is optimal. In clinical settings with a large flux of patients, the application of the MMSE-2:EV is a safe and fast psychodiagnostic solution. The clinicians can draw objective decisions and for the patients: it does not take too much time and energy, it does not bother them and it doesn’t force them to travel frequently.

Keywords: MMSE-2, dementia, cognitive impairment, neuropsychology.

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Authors: M. V. Ramana Rao, T. Adilakshmi

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Based on application requirements, nodes are static or mobile in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Mobility poses challenges in protocol design, especially at the link layer requiring mobility adaptation algorithms to localize mobile nodes and predict link quality to be established with them. This study implements XMAC and Berkeley Media Access Control (BMAC) routing protocols to evaluate performance under WSN’s static and mobility conditions. This paper gives a comparative study of mobility-aware MAC protocols. Routing protocol performance, based on Average End to End Delay, Average Packet Delivery Ratio, Average Number of hops, and Jitter is evaluated.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), Medium Access Control (MAC), Berkeley Media Access Control (BMAC), mobility.

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Authors: I. Ismail, A.I. Che-Ani, N.M. Tawil, H. Yahaya, M.Z. Abd-Razak

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Housing is a basic human right. The provision of new house shall be free from any defects, even for the defects that people do normally considered as 'cosmetic defects'. This paper studies about the building defects of newly completed house of 72 unit of double-storey terraced located in Bangi, Selangor. The building survey implemented using protocol 1 (visual inspection). As for new house, the survey work is very stringent in determining the defects condition and priority. Survey and reporting procedure is carried out based on CSP1 Matrix that involved scoring system, photographs and plan tagging. The analysis is done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The finding reveals that there are 2119 defects recorded in 72 terraced houses. The cumulative score obtained was 27644 while the overall rating is 13.05. These results indicate that the construction quality of the newly terraced houses is low and not up to an acceptable standard as the new house should be.

Keywords: terraced houses, building defects, construction, CSP1 Matrix, Malaysia.

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Authors: M. Bounechada, F. Benia, M. Aiouaz, S. Bouharati, N. Djirar, H. Benamrani

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The cuticular hydrocarbons of Pamphagus elephas (Orthoptera: Pamphagidae) has been analysed by gas chromatography and by combined gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry. The following hydrocarbon classes have been identified in insect cuticular hydrocarbons are: n-alkanes and methylalkanes comprising Monomethyl-, dimethyl-and trimethylalkanes. Sexual dimorphism is observed in long chain alkanes (C24-C36) present on male and female. The cuticulars hydrocarbons of P.elephas ranged from 24 to 36 carbons and incluted n-alkanes, Dimethylalkanes and Trimethylalkanes. nalkanes represented by (C24-C36,72,7% on male and 79,2% on female), internally branched Monomethylalkanes identified were (C25, C30-C32,C35-C37;11% on male and 9,4% on female), Dimethylalkanes detected are (C31-C32, C36; 2,2% on male and 2,06% on female) and Trimethylalkanes detected are (C32, C36; 3,1% on male and 4, 97 on female). Larvae male and female (stage 7) showed the same quality of n-alkanes observed in adults. However a difference quantity is noted.

Keywords: Cuticular hydrocarbons, Gas chromatography, Mass spectrometry, Pamphagus elephas, , Sexual dimorphism

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Authors: A. Baloğlu, A. Çınar

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Different tools and technologies were implemented for Crisis Response and Management (CRM) which is generally using available network infrastructure for information exchange. Depending on type of disaster or crisis, network infrastructure could be affected and it could not be able to provide reliable connectivity. Thus any tool or technology that depends on the connectivity could not be able to fulfill its functionalities. As a solution, a new message exchange framework has been developed. Framework provides offline/online information exchange platform for CRM Information Systems (CRMIS) and it uses XML compression and packet prioritization algorithms and is based on open source web technologies. By introducing offline capabilities to the web technologies, framework will be able to perform message exchange on unreliable networks. The experiments done on the simulation environment provide promising results on low bandwidth networks (56kbps and 28.8 kbps) with up to 50% packet loss and the solution is to successfully transfer all the information on these low quality networks where the traditional 2 and 3 tier applications failed.

Keywords: Crisis Response and Management, XML Messaging, Web Services, XML compression, Mining.

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Authors: Gülşah Kanbur, Veysel Ayhan

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Feed oil samples which are used as mixed feed raw material were taken from six different feed factories in March, May and July. All factories make production in Konya, Turkey and all of the samples were crude soybean oils. Physical and chemical analyses, free radical scavenger effect, and total phenol content were determined on these oil samples. Moisture (M) content was found between 0.10-22.23%, saponification number (SF) was determined 143.13 to 167.93 KOH/kg, free fatty acidity (FFA) was varied 0.73 to 35.00%, peroxide value (PV) was found between 1.53 and 28.43 meq/kg, unsaponifiable matter (USM) was determined from 0.40 to 17.10%, viscosity (V) was found between 34.30 and 625.67 mPas, sediment (S) amount was determined between 0.60-18.16%, free radical scavenger effect (FRSE) was varied 20.7 to 43.04% inhibition of the extract and total phenol (TPC) content was found between 1.20 and 2.69mg/L extract. Different results were found between months and factories.

Keywords: Crude soybean oil, Feed oils, mixed feed.

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Authors: Eshagh Rasouli Sarabi, Mir Saeed Moosavi

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In Iran, due to abundance of energy resources, energy consumption is extraordinarily higher than international standards and transportation sector is considered to be one of the major consumers of energy. Moreover, air pollution in urban areas as a result of high dependence on private vehicle and lower standards of vehicles, high subsidies spent on fuel and time waste due to traffic congestion in urban areas all have led to speculations on new strategies and policies in order to control energy consumption in transportation sector. These strategies and policies will be introduced in this paper and their consequences will be analyzed with consideration to socio-economic factors affecting the urban society of Iran. Besides, the intention is to suggest and analyze new approaches such as broader application of public transportation system, demand management in transport sector, replacement of deteriorated vehicles, quality improvement in car manufacture and introduction of substitute fuels.

Keywords: Consumption, energy, fuel, transportation.

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Authors: H. M. Farghally, N. M. Ahmed, H. T. El-Madany, D. M. Atia, F. H. Fahmy

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Energy is required in almost every aspect of human activities and development of any nation in the world. Increasing fossil fuel price, energy security and climate change have important bearings on sustainable development of any nation. The renewable energy technology is considered one of the drastic approaches which taken over the world to reduce the energy problem. The preservation of vegetables by freezing is one of the most important methods of retaining quality in agricultural products over long-term storage periods. Freezing factories show high demand of energy for both heat and electricity; the hybrid Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) systems could be used in order to meet this requirement. This paper presents PV/T system design for freezing factory. Also, the complete mathematical modeling and MATLAB SIMULINK of PV/T collector is introduced. The sensitivity analysis for the manufacturing parameters of PV/T collector is carried out to study their effect on both thermal and electrical efficiency.

Keywords: Renewable energy, Hybrid PV/T system, Sensitivity analysis.

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Authors: Claude Alavoine, Ferkan Kaplanseren

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Negotiation is a specific form of interaction based on communication in which the parties enter into deliberately, each with clear but different interests or goals and a mutual dependency towards a decision due to be taken at the end of the confrontation. Consequently, negotiation is a complex activity involving many different disciplines from the strategic aspects and the decision making process to the evaluation of alternatives or outcomes and the exchange of information. While gender differences can be considered as one of the most researched topic within negotiation studies, empirical works and theory present many conflicting evidences and results about the role of gender in the process or the outcome. Furthermore, little interest has been shown over gender differences in the definition of what is negotiation, its essence or fundamental elements. Or, as differences exist in practices, it might be essential to study if the starting point of these discrepancies does not come from different considerations about what is negotiation and what will encourage the participants in their strategic decisions. Some recent and promising experiments made with diverse groups show that male and female participants in a common and shared situation barely consider the same way the concepts of power, trust or stakes which are largely considered as the usual driving forces of any negotiation. Furthermore, results from Human Resource self-assessment tests display and confirm considerable differences between individuals regarding essential behavioral dimensions like capacity to improvise and to achieve, aptitude to conciliate or to compete and orientation towards power and group domination which are also part of negotiation skills. Our intention in this paper is to confront these dimensions with negotiation’s usual driving forces in order to build up new paths for further research.

Keywords: Gender, negotiation, personality, power, stakes, trust.

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Authors: Srinivasan Chandrasekaran, Thailammai Chithambaram, Shihas A. Khader

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The early-stage damage detection in offshore structures requires continuous structural health monitoring and for the large area the position of sensors will also plays an important role in the efficient damage detection. Determining the dynamic behavior of offshore structures requires dense deployment of sensors. The wired Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems are highly expensive and always needs larger installation space to deploy. Wireless sensor networks can enhance the SHM system by deployment of scalable sensor network, which consumes lesser space. This paper presents the results of wireless sensor network based Structural Health Monitoring method applied to a scaled experimental model of offshore structure that underwent wave loading. This method determines the serviceability of the offshore structure which is subjected to various environment loads. Wired and wireless sensors were installed in the model and the response of the scaled BLSRP model under wave loading was recorded. The wireless system discussed in this study is the Raspberry pi board with Arm V6 processor which is programmed to transmit the data acquired by the sensor to the server using Wi-Fi adapter, the data is then hosted in the webpage. The data acquired from the wireless and wired SHM systems were compared and the design of the wireless system is verified.

Keywords: Condition assessment, damage detection, structural health monitoring, structural response, wireless sensor network.

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Authors: Ernawati Mustafa Kamal, Hasnanywati Hassan, Atasya Osmadi

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The housing industry is crucial for sustainable development of every country. Housing is a basic need that can enhance the quality of life. Owning a house is therefore the main aim of individuals. However, affordability has become a critical issue towards homeownership. In recent years, housing price in the main cities has increased tremendously to unaffordable level. This paper investigates factors influencing the housing price from developer’s perspective and provides recommendation on strategies to tackle this issue. Online and face-to-face survey was conducted on housing developers operating in Penang, Malaysia. The results indicate that (1) location; (2) macroeconomics factor; (3) demographic factors; (4) land/zoning and; (5) industry factors are the main factors influencing the housing price. This paper contributes towards better understanding on developers’ view on how the housing price is determined and form a basis for government to help tackle the housing affordability issue.

Keywords: Factors influencing house price, housing affordability, housing developers, Malaysia.

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Authors: M. Mohamed, X. Zhang, K. Wu, M. Elfituri, A. Legnain

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Performance of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) ultrawideband (UWB) signal generation using frequency quadrupling technique and transmission over fiber is experimentally investigated. The frequency quadrupling is achived by using only one Mach- Zehnder modulator (MZM) that is biased at maximum transmission (MATB) point. At the output, a frequency quadrupling signal is obtained then sent to a second MZM. This MZM is used for MBOFDM UWB signal modulation. In this work, we demonstrate 30- GHz mm-wave wireless that carries three-bands OFDM UWB signals, and error vector magnitude (EVM) is used to analyze the transmission quality. It is found that our proposed technique leads to an improvement of 3.5 dB in EVM at 40% of local oscillator (LO) modulation with comparison to the technique using two cascaded MZMs biased at minimum transmission (MITB) point.

Keywords: Optical communication, Frequency up-conversion, Mach-Zehnder modulator, millimeter wave generation, radio over fiber

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Authors: Pavel Dostrašil, Petr Jirásko

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The paper deals with the kinematics and automated calculation of intermittent mechanisms with radial cams. Currently, electronic cams are increasingly applied in the drives of working link mechanisms. Despite a huge advantage of electronic cams in their reprogrammability or instantaneous change of displacement diagrams, conventional cam mechanisms have an irreplaceable role in production and handling machines. With high frequency of working cycle periods, the dynamic load of the proper servomotor rotor increases and efficiency of electronic cams strongly decreases. Though conventional intermittent mechanisms with radial cams are representatives of fixed automation, they have distinct advantages in their high speed (high dynamics), positional accuracy and relatively easy manufacture. We try to remove the disadvantage of firm displacement diagram by reducing costs for simple design and automated calculation that leads reliably to high-quality and inexpensive manufacture.

Keywords: Cam mechanism, displacement diagram, intermittentmechanism, radial parallel cam

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Authors: So Jeong Nam, Seung Woo Lee, Jai-Kyung Lee

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With the globalized production and logistics environment, the need for reducing the product development interval and lead time, having a faster response to orders, conforming to quality standards, fair tracking, and boosting information exchanging activities with customers and partners, and coping with changes in the management environment, manufacturers are in dire need of an information management system in their manufacturing environments. There are lots of information systems that have been designed to manage the condition or operation of equipment in the field but existing systems have a decentralized architecture, which is not unified. Also, these systems cannot effectively handle the status data extraction process upon encountering a problem related to protocols or changes in the equipment or the setting. In this regard, this paper will introduce a system for processing and saving the status info of production equipment, which uses standard representation formats, to enable flexible responses to and support for variables in the field equipment. This system can be used for a variety of manufacturing and equipment settings and is capable of interacting with higher-tier systems such as MES.

Keywords: DAS, Equipment Status, Regular Expression

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Authors: Jaramillo G. Maria Luisa, Turriago H. Álvaro, Thoene Ulf

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Financial inclusion has become a crucially important factor in debates on economic inequality posing challenges to the financial systems of countries around the world. Nowadays governments and banks are concerned about creating products that allow access to wide sectors of the population. The creation of banking products by the financial sector for people with low incomes tends to lead to improvements in the quality of life of vulnerable parts of the population. In countries with notable social and economic inequalities, financial inclusion is a key aspect for equitable economic growth. This study is based on the case of Colombia, which is a country with a strong record of economic growth over the past decade. Nevertheless, corruption, unemployment, and poverty contribute to uncertainty regarding the country’s future growth prospects. This study wants to explain the situation of financial exclusion and financial inclusion with respect to the Colombian case. Financial inclusion is going to be studied from the perspective of social innovation.

Keywords: Colombia, financial exclusion, financial inclusion, social innovation.

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Authors: A. Akın, H. Çoban

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This study was carried out to determine the effects of Control (C), 1/3 Cluster Tip Reduction (1/3 CTR), 1/6 Cluster Tip Reduction (1/6 CTR), 1/9 Cluster Tip Reduction (1/9 CTR), 1/3 CTR + Boric Acid (BA), 1/6 CTR + BA, 1/9 CTR + BA applications on yield and yield components of four years old Alphonse Lavallee grape variety (Vitis vinifera L.) grown on grafted 110 Paulsen rootstock in Konya province in Turkey in the vegetation period in 2015. According to the results, the highest maturity index 21.46 with 1/9 CTR application; the highest grape juice yields 736.67 ml with 1/3 CTR + BA application; the highest L* color value 32.07 with 1/9 CTR application; the highest a* color value 1.74 with 1/9 CTR application; the highest b* color value 3.72 with 1/9 CTR application were obtained. The effects of applications on grape fresh yield, cluster weight and berry weight were not found statistically significant.

Keywords: Alphonse Lavallee grape cultivar, different cluster tip reduction (1/3, 1/6, 1/9), foliar boric acid application, yield, quality.

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Authors: Bruno B. Oliveira, Arnaldo P. Mourão, Teógenes A. da Silva

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The Brazilian legislation has only established diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) in terms of Multiple Scan Average Dose (MSAD) as a quality control parameter for computed tomography (CT) scanners. Compliance with DRLs can be verified by measuring the Computed Tomography Kerma Index (Ca,100) with a pencil ionization chamber or by obtaining the kerma distribution in CT scans with radiochromic films or rod shape lithium fluoride termoluminescent dosimeters (TLD-100). TL dosimeters were used to record kerma profiles and to determine MSAD values of a Bright Speed model GE CT scanner. Measurements were done with radiochromic films and TL dosimeters distributed in cylinders positioned in the center and in four peripheral bores of a standard polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) body CT dosimetry phantom. Irradiations were done using a protocol for adult chest. The maximum values were found at the midpoint of the longitudinal axis. The MSAD values obtained with three dosimetric techniques were compared.

Keywords: Kerma profile, CT, MSAD, patient dosimetry

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Authors: F. Halek, A. Kavousi, M. Banifatemi

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There is growing interest in biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester or FAME) because of the similarity in its properties when compared to those of diesel fuels. Diesel engines operated on biodiesel have lower emissions of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, particulate matter, and air toxics than when operated on petroleum-based diesel fuel. Production of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) from rapeseed (nonedible oil) fatty acid distillate having high free fatty acids (FFA) was investigated in this work. Conditions for esterification process of rapeseed oil were 1.8 % H2SO4 as catalyst, MeOH/oil of molar ratio 2 : 0.1 and reaction temperature 65 °C, for a period of 3h. The yield of methyl ester was > 90 % in 1 h. The amount of FFA was reduced from 93 wt % to less than 2 wt % at the end of the esterification process. The FAME was pureed by neutralization with 1 M sodium hydroxide in water solution at a reaction temperature of 62 °C. The final FAME product met with the biodiesel quality standard, and ASTM D 6751.

Keywords: Alternative Fuels, Biodiesel, Fatty Acid, MethylEster, Seed Oil, Transesterification.

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Authors: Khaled Elbehiery, Hussam Elbehiery

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Smart cities are a framework of technologies along with sustainable infrastructure to provide their citizens an improved quality of life, safer environment, affordability, and more, which in turn helps with the society's economic growth. The proposed research will focus on the primary building block of the smart city; the infrastructure of the house itself. The traditional method of building houses has been, for a long time, nothing but a costly manufacturing process, and consequently, buying a house becomes not an option for everyone anymore. The smart cities' Modular Houses are not using traditional building construction materials; the design reduces the common lengthy construction times and associated high costs. The Modular Houses are technological homes, low-cost and customizable based on a family's requirements. In addition, the Modular Houses are environmentally friendly and healthy enough to assist with the pandemic situation.

Keywords: Smart cities, modular houses, single-unit property, multi-unit property, mobility features, chain-supply, livable environment, carbon footprint.

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Authors: Mohammad Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury, Tania Taharima Chowdhary, Hasan Sarwar

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The challenge for software development house in Bangladesh is to find a path of using minimum process rather than CMMI or ISO type gigantic practice and process area. The small and medium size organization in Bangladesh wants to ensure minimum basic Software Process Improvement (SPI) in day to day operational activities. Perhaps, the basic practices will ensure to realize their company's improvement goals. This paper focuses on the key issues in basic software practices for small and medium size software organizations, who are unable to effort the CMMI, ISO, ITIL etc. compliance certifications. This research also suggests a basic software process practices model for Bangladesh and it will show the mapping of our suggestions with international best practice. In this IT competitive world for software process improvement, Small and medium size software companies that require collaboration and strengthening to transform their current perspective into inseparable global IT scenario. This research performed some investigations and analysis on some projects- life cycle, current good practice, effective approach, reality and pain area of practitioners, etc. We did some reasoning, root cause analysis, comparative analysis of various approach, method, practice and justifications of CMMI and real life. We did avoid reinventing the wheel, where our focus is for minimal practice, which will ensure a dignified satisfaction between organizations and software customer.

Keywords: Compare with CMMI practices, Key success factors, Small and medium software house, Software process improvement; Software process optimization.

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Authors: María-Dolores Afonso-Suárez, Nayra Pumar-Carreras, Juan Ruiz-Alzola

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This research addresses the use of an e-Learning creation methodology for learning objects. Throughout the process, indicators are being gathered, to determine if it responds to the main objectives of an engineering discipline. These parameters will also indicate if it is necessary to review the creation cycle and readjust any phase. Within the project developed for this study, apart from the use of structured methods, there has been a central objective: the establishment of a learning atmosphere. A place where all the professionals involved are able to collaborate, plan, solve problems and determine guides to follow in order to develop creative and innovative solutions. It has been outlined as a blended learning program with an assessment plan that proposes face to face lessons, coaching, collaboration, multimedia and web based learning objects as well as support resources. The project has been drawn as a long term task, the pilot teaching actions designed provide the preliminary results object of study. This methodology is been used in the creation of learning content for the African countries of Senegal, Mauritania and Cape Verde. It has been developed within the framework of the MACbioIDi, an Interreg European project for the International cooperation and development. The educational area of this project is focused in the training and advice of professionals of the medicine as well as engineers in the use of applications of medical imaging technology, specifically the 3DSlicer application and the Open Anatomy Browser.

Keywords: Teaching contents engineering, e-learning, blended learning, international cooperation, 3DSlicer, open anatomy browser.

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Authors: T.A. Adegbola, IEA Aghachi, E.R. Sadiku

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To investigates the effect of fiberglass clamping process improvement on drape simulation prediction. This has great effect on the mould and the fiber during manufacturing process. This also, improves the fiber strain, the quality of the fiber orientation in the area of folding and wrinkles formation during the press-forming process. Drape simulation software tool was used to digitalize the process, noting the formation problems on the contour sensitive part. This was compared with the real life clamping processes using single and double frame set-ups to observe the effects. Also, restrains are introduced by using clips, and the G-clamps with predetermine revolution to; restrain the fabric deformation during the forming process.The incorporation of clamping and fabric restrain deformation improved on the prediction of the simulation tool. Therefore, for effective forming process, incorporation of clamping process into the drape simulation process will assist in the development of fiberglass application in manufacturing process.

Keywords: clamping, fiberglass, drape simulation, pressforming.

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Authors: Jeremy Faludi, Zhongyin Hu, Shahd Alrashed, Christopher Braunholz, Suneesh Kaul, Leulekal Kassaye

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Environmental impacts of six 3D printers using various materials were compared to determine if material choice drove sustainability, or if other factors such as machine type, machine size, or machine utilization dominate. Cradle-to-grave life-cycle assessments were performed, comparing a commercial-scale FDM machine printing in ABS plastic, a desktop FDM machine printing in ABS, a desktop FDM machine printing in PET and PLA plastics, a polyjet machine printing in its proprietary polymer, an SLA machine printing in its polymer, and an inkjet machine hacked to print in salt and dextrose. All scenarios were scored using ReCiPe Endpoint H methodology to combine multiple impact categories, comparing environmental impacts per part made for several scenarios per machine. Results showed that most printers’ ecological impacts were dominated by electricity use, not materials, and the changes in electricity use due to different plastics was not significant compared to variation from one machine to another. Variation in machine idle time determined impacts per part most strongly. However, material impacts were quite important for the inkjet printer hacked to print in salt: In its optimal scenario, it had up to 1/38th the impacts coreper part as the worst-performing machine in the same scenario. If salt parts were infused with epoxy to make them more physically robust, then much of this advantage disappeared, and material impacts actually dominated or equaled electricity use. Future studies should also measure DMLS and SLS processes / materials.

Keywords: 3D printing, Additive Manufacturing, Sustainability, Life-cycle assessment, Design for Environment.

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Authors: N. Sapari, S. Mustapha, H. Jusoh

Abstract:

Landfill gas, particularly methane is one of the greenhouse gases which contributes to global warming. This paper presents the findings of a study on methane gas production from simulated landfill reactor under saturated conditions. A reactor was constructed to represent a landfill cell of 2.5 m thickness on sandy soil. The reactor was 0.2 m in diameter and 4 m in height. One meter of sand and pebble layer was packed at the bottom of the reactor followed by 2.5 m of solid waste layer and 0.4 m of sand layer as the cover soil. Degradation of waste in the solid waste layer was at acidification stage as indicated by the leachate quality with COD as high as 55,511 mg/L and pH as low as 5.1. However, methanogenic environment was established at the bottom sand layer after one year of operation indicated by pH of 7.2 and methane gas generation. Leachate degradation took place as the leachate moved through the sand layer at an infiltration of rate 0.7 cm/day. This resulted in landfill gas production of 77 mL/day/kg containing 55 to 65% methane. The application of sand layer contributed to the gas production from landfill by an in-situ degradation of leachate in the sand at the bottom of the landfill.

Keywords: Gas production, methane, methanogenic sand layer, municipal solid waste, saturated landfill

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Authors: D. Estrella, A. Silva, R. Zapata, H. Rubio

Abstract:

A total of 100 primary caregivers (mothers, fathers, grandparents) with at least one child or grandchild with a diagnosis of congenital bilateral profound deafness were assessed in order to evaluate the functionality of families with a deaf member, who was evaluated by specialists in audiology, molecular biology, genetics and psychology. After confirmation of the clinical diagnosis, DNA from the patients and parents were analyzed in search of the 35delG deletion of the GJB2 gene to determine who possessed the mutation. All primary caregivers were provided psychological support, regardless of whether or not they had the mutation, and prior and subsequent, the family APGAR test was applied. All parents, grandparents were informed of the results of the genetic analysis during the psychological intervention. The family APGAR, after psychological and genetic counseling, showed that 14% perceived their families as functional, 62% moderately functional and 24% dysfunctional. This shows the importance of psychological support in family functionality that has a direct impact on the quality of life of these families.

Keywords: Deafness, psychological support, family, adaptation to disability.

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Authors: H. Barati, M. Wu, A. Kharicha, A. Ludwig

Abstract:

A transient model for nozzle clogging has been developed and successfully validated against a laboratory experiment. Key steps of clogging are considered: transport of particles by turbulent flow towards the nozzle wall; interactions between fluid flow and nozzle wall, and the adhesion of the particle on the wall; the growth of the clog layer and its interaction with the flow. The current paper is to investigate the mesh (size and type) sensitivity of the model in both two and three dimensions. It is found that the algorithm for clog growth alone excluding the flow effect is insensitive to the mesh type and size, but the calculation including flow becomes sensitive to the mesh quality. The use of 2D meshes leads to overestimation of the clog growth because the 3D nature of flow in the boundary layer cannot be properly solved by 2D calculation. 3D simulation with tetrahedron mesh can also lead to an error estimation of the clog growth. A mesh-independent result can be achieved with hexahedral mesh, or at least with triangular prism (inflation layer) for near-wall regions.

Keywords: Clogging, nozzle, numerical model, simulation.

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Authors: Duane Barker, John Holliday

Abstract:

In a 10-week (May – August, 2008) Phase I trial, 840, 1+ rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, received a commercial oral immunomodulator, Fin Immune™, at four different dosages (0, 10, 20 and 30 mg g-1) to evaluate immune response and growth. The overall objective of was to determine an optimal dosage of this product for rainbow trout that provides enhanced immunity with maximal growth and health. Biweekly blood samples were taken from 10 randomly selected fish in each tank (30 samples per treatment) to evaluate the duration of enhanced immunity conferred by Fin-Immune™. The immunological assessment included serum white blood cell (lymphocyte, neutrophil) densities and blood hematocrit (packed cell volume %). Of these three variables, only lymphocyte density increased significantly among trout fed Fin- Immune™ at 20 and 30 mg g-1 which peaked at week 6. At week 7, all trout were switched to regular feed (lacking Fin-Immune™) and by week 10, lymphocyte levels decreased among all levels but were still greater than at week 0. There was growth impairment at the highest dose of Fin-Immune™ tested (30 mg g-1) which can be associated with a physiological compensatory mechanism due to a dose-specific threshold level. Thus, our main objective of this Phase I study was achieved, the 20 mg g-1 dose of Fin-Immune™ should be the most efficacious (of those we tested) to use for a Phase II disease challenge trial.

Keywords: Blood Lymphocyte, Neutrophil Response of Cultured Rainbow Trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, Oral Immunomodulator – 'Fin-ImmuneTM'.

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