Search results for: fixed effects
2994 Modeling and Analysis of the Effects of Nephrolithiasis in Kidney Using a Computational Tactile Sensing Approach
Authors: Elnaz Afshari, Siamak Najarian
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Having considered tactile sensing and palpation of a surgeon in order to detect kidney stone during open surgery; we present the 2D model of nephrolithiasis (two dimensional model of kidney containing a simulated stone). The effects of stone existence that appear on the surface of kidney (because of exerting mechanical load) are determined. Using Finite element method, it is illustrated that the created stress patterns on the surface of kidney and stress graphs not only show existence of stone inside kidney, but also show its exact location.Keywords: Nephrolithiasis, Minimally Invasive Surgery, Artificial Tactile Sensing, Finite Element Method.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13632993 Influence of Environmental Temperature on Dairy Herd Performance and Behaviour
Authors: L. Krpalkova, N. O' Mahony, A. Carvalho, S. Campbell, S. Harapanahalli, J. Walsh
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The objective of this study was to determine the effects of environmental stressors on the performance of lactating dairy cows and discuss some future trends. There exists a relationship between the meteorological data and milk yield prediction accuracy in pasture-based dairy systems. New precision technologies are available and are being developed to improve the sustainability of the dairy industry. Some of these technologies focus on welfare of individual animals on dairy farms. These technologies allow the automatic identification of animal behaviour and health events, greatly increasing overall herd health and yield while reducing animal health inspection demands and long-term animal healthcare costs. The data set consisted of records from 489 dairy cows at two dairy farms and temperature measured from the nearest meteorological weather station in 2018. The effects of temperature on milk production and behaviour of animals were analyzed. The statistical results indicate different effects of temperature on milk yield and behaviour. The “comfort zone” for animals is in the range 10 °C to 20 °C. Dairy cows out of this zone had to decrease or increase their metabolic heat production, and it affected their milk production and behaviour.
Keywords: Behaviour, milk yield, temperature, precision technologies.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6322992 Effects of Temperature-Dependent Material Properties on Stress and Temperature in Cracked Metal Plate under Electric Current Load
Authors: Thomas Jin-Chee Liu
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Using the finite element analyses, this paper discusses the effects of temperature-dependent material properties on the stress and temperature fields in a cracked metal plate under the electric current load. The practical and complicated results are obtained when the temperature-dependent material properties are adopted in the analysis. If the simplified (temperature-independent) material properties are used, incorrect results will be obtained.
Keywords: Joule heating, temperature-dependent, crack tip, finite element.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20032991 Thermal Fatigue Behavior of 400 Series Ferritic Stainless Steels
Authors: Seok Hong Min, Tae Kwon Ha
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In this study, thermal fatigue properties of 400 series ferritic stainless steels have been evaluated in the temperature ranges of 200-800oC and 200-900oC. Systematic methods for control of temperatures within the predetermined range and measurement of load applied to specimens as a function of temperature during thermal cycles have been established. Thermal fatigue tests were conducted under fully constrained condition, where both ends of specimens were completely fixed. It has been revealed that load relaxation behavior at the temperatures of thermal cycle was closely related with the thermal fatigue property. Thermal fatigue resistance of 430J1L stainless steel is found to be superior to the other steels.Keywords: Ferritic stainless steel, automotive exhaust, thermal fatigue, microstructure, load relaxation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21312990 Fuzzy Fingerprint Vault using Multiple Polynomials
Authors: Daesung Moon, Woo-Yong Choi, Kiyoung Moon
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Fuzzy fingerprint vault is a recently developed cryptographic construct based on the polynomial reconstruction problem to secure critical data with the fingerprint data. However, the previous researches are not applicable to the fingerprint having a few minutiae since they use a fixed degree of the polynomial without considering the number of fingerprint minutiae. To solve this problem, we use an adaptive degree of the polynomial considering the number of minutiae extracted from each user. Also, we apply multiple polynomials to avoid the possible degradation of the security of a simple solution(i.e., using a low-degree polynomial). Based on the experimental results, our method can make the possible attack difficult 2192 times more than using a low-degree polynomial as well as verify the users having a few minutiae.
Keywords: Fuzzy vault, fingerprint recognition multiple polynomials.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15482989 A Feasibility-study of a Micro- Communications Sonobuoy Deployable by UAV Robots
Authors: B. Munro, D. Lim, A. Anvar
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This paper describes a feasibility study that is included with the research, development and testing of a micro communications sonobuoy deployable by Maritime Fixed wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (M-UAV) and rotor wing Quad Copters which are both currently being developed by the University of Adelaide. The micro communications sonobuoy is developed to act as a seamless communication relay between an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and an above water human operator some distance away. Development of such a device would eliminate the requirement of physical communication tethers attached to submersible vehicles for control and data retrieval.Keywords: Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, AUV, Maritime, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, UAV, Micro Sonobuoy, Communication.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20542988 Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Flow Control Using a Novel Active Slat
Authors: Basman Elhadidi, Islam Elqatary, Osama Mohamady, Hesham Othman
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An active slat is developed to increase the lift and delay the separation for a DU96-W180 airfoil. The active slat is a fixed slat that can be closed, fully opened or intermittently opened by a rotating vane depending on the need. Experimental results show that the active slat has reduced the mean pressure and increased the mean velocity on the suction side of the airfoil for all positive angles of attack, indicating an increase of lift. The experimental data and numerical simulations also show that the direction of actuator vane rotation can influence the mixing of the flow streams on the suction side and hence influence the aerodynamic performance.
Keywords: Active slat, flow control.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27792987 Nonlinear Effects in Stiffness Modeling of Robotic Manipulators
Authors: A. Pashkevich, A. Klimchik, D. Chablat
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The paper focuses on the enhanced stiffness modeling of robotic manipulators by taking into account influence of the external force/torque acting upon the end point. It implements the virtual joint technique that describes the compliance of manipulator elements by a set of localized six-dimensional springs separated by rigid links and perfect joints. In contrast to the conventional formulation, which is valid for the unloaded mode and small displacements, the proposed approach implicitly assumes that the loading leads to the non-negligible changes of the manipulator posture and corresponding amendment of the Jacobian. The developed numerical technique allows computing the static equilibrium and relevant force/torque reaction of the manipulator for any given displacement of the end-effector. This enables designer detecting essentially nonlinear effects in elastic behavior of manipulator, similar to the buckling of beam elements. It is also proposed the linearization procedure that is based on the inversion of the dedicated matrix composed of the stiffness parameters of the virtual springs and the Jacobians/Hessians of the active and passive joints. The developed technique is illustrated by an application example that deals with the stiffness analysis of a parallel manipulator of the Orthoglide familyKeywords: Robotic manipulators, Stiffness model, Loaded mode, Nonlinear effects, Buckling, Orthoglide manipulator
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14592986 The Influence of the Commons Structure Modification on the Active Power Losses Allocation
Authors: O. Pop, C. Barbulescu, M. Nemes, St. Kilyeni
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The tracing methods determine the contribution the power system sources have in their supplying. These methods can be used to assess the transmission prices, but also to recover the transmission fixed cost. In this paper is presented the influence of the modification of commons structure has on the specific price of transfer and on active power losses. The authors propose a power losses allocation method, based on Kirschen-s method. The system operator must make use of a few basic principles about allocation. The only necessary information is the power flows on system branches and the modifications applied to power system buses. In order to illustrate this method, the 25-bus test system is used, elaborated within the Electrical Power Engineering Department, from Timisoara, Romania.Keywords: Power systems, P-U bus, P-Q bus, loss allocation, traceability methods.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15262985 Numerical and Experimental Studies of Joule Heating Effects around Crack and Notch Tips
Authors: Thomas Jin-Chee Liu, Ji-Fu Tseng, Yu-Shen Chen
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This paper investigates the thermo-electric effects around the crack and notch tips under the electric current load. The research methods include the finite element analysis and thermal imaging experiment. The finite element solutions show that the electric current density field concentrates at the crack tip. Due to the Joule heating, this electric concentration causes the hot spot at the tip zone. From numerical and experimental results, this hot spot is identified. The temperature of the hot spot is affected by the electric load, operation time and geometry of the sample.Keywords: Thermo-electric, Joule heating, crack tip, notch tip.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14612984 Heat and Mass Transfer in a Saturated Porous Medium Confined in Cylindrical Annular Geometry
Authors: A. Ja, J. Belabid, A. Cheddadi
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This paper reports the numerical simulation of doublediffusive natural convection flows within a horizontal annular filled with a saturated porous medium. The analysis concerns the influence of the different parameters governing the problem, namely, the Rayleigh number Ra, the Lewis number Le and the buoyancy ratio N, on the heat and mass transfer and on the flow structure, in the case of a fixed radius ratio R = 2. The numerical model used for the discretization of the dimensionless equations governing the problem is based on the finite difference method, using the ADI scheme. The study is focused on steady-state solutions in the cooperation situation.
Keywords: Natural convection, double-diffusion, porous medium, annular geometry, finite differences.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22142983 Appraisal on Link Lifetime Prediction Using Geographical Information
Authors: C. Nallusamy, A. Sabari, K. Suganya
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Geographical routing protocol requires node physical location information to make forwarding decision. Geographical routing uses location service or position service to obtain the position of a node. The geographical information is a geographic coordinates or can be obtained through reference points on some fixed coordinate system. Link can be formed between two nodes. Link lifetime plays a crucial role in MANET. Link lifetime represent how long the link is stable without any failure between the nodes. Link failure may occur due to mobility and because of link failure energy of nodes can be drained. Thus this paper proposes survey about link lifetime prediction using geographical information.Keywords: MANET, Geographical routing, Link lifetime, Link stability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17262982 2n Almost Periodic Attractors for Cohen-Grossberg Neural Networks with Variable and Distribute Delays
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In this paper, we investigate dynamics of 2n almost periodic attractors for Cohen-Grossberg neural networks (CGNNs) with variable and distribute time delays. By imposing some new assumptions on activation functions and system parameters, we split invariant basin of CGNNs into 2n compact convex subsets. Then the existence of 2n almost periodic solutions lying in compact convex subsets is attained due to employment of the theory of exponential dichotomy and Schauder-s fixed point theorem. Meanwhile, we derive some new criteria for the networks to converge toward these 2n almost periodic solutions and exponential attracting domains are also given correspondingly.
Keywords: CGNNs, almost periodic solution, invariant basins, attracting domains.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13812981 Hand Written Digit Recognition by Multiple Classifier Fusion based on Decision Templates Approach
Authors: Reza Ebrahimpour, Samaneh Hamedi
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Classifier fusion may generate more accurate classification than each of the basic classifiers. Fusion is often based on fixed combination rules like the product, average etc. This paper presents decision templates as classifier fusion method for the recognition of the handwritten English and Farsi numerals (1-9). The process involves extracting a feature vector on well-known image databases. The extracted feature vector is fed to multiple classifier fusion. A set of experiments were conducted to compare decision templates (DTs) with some combination rules. Results from decision templates conclude 97.99% and 97.28% for Farsi and English handwritten digits.Keywords: Decision templates, multi-layer perceptron, characteristics Loci, principle component analysis (PCA).
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19562980 Mathematical Modeling of Switching Processes in Magnetically Controlled MEMS Switches
Authors: Sergey M. Karabanov, Dmitry V. Suvorov, Dmitry Yu. Tarabrin
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The operating principle of magnetically controlled microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switches is based on controlling the beam movement under the influence of a magnetic field. Currently, there is a MEMS switch design with a flexible ferromagnetic electrode in the form of a fixed-terminal beam, with an electrode fastened on a straight or cranked anchor. The basic performance characteristics of magnetically controlled MEMS switches (service life, sensitivity, contact resistance, fast response) are largely determined by the flexible electrode design. To ensure the stable and controlled motion of the flexible electrode, it is necessary to provide the optimal design of a flexible electrode.
Keywords: MEMS switch, magnetic sensitivity, magnetic concentrator.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7322979 Searching k-Nearest Neighbors to be Appropriate under Gamming Environments
Authors: Jae Moon Lee
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In general, algorithms to find continuous k-nearest neighbors have been researched on the location based services, monitoring periodically the moving objects such as vehicles and mobile phone. Those researches assume the environment that the number of query points is much less than that of moving objects and the query points are not moved but fixed. In gaming environments, this problem is when computing the next movement considering the neighbors such as flocking, crowd and robot simulations. In this case, every moving object becomes a query point so that the number of query point is same to that of moving objects and the query points are also moving. In this paper, we analyze the performance of the existing algorithms focused on location based services how they operate under gaming environments.
Keywords: Flocking behavior, heterogeneous agents, similarity, simulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15462978 Effects of Recognition of Customer Feedback on Relationships between Emotional Labor and Job Satisfaction: Focusing on a Call Center that Offers Professional Services
Authors: Kiyoko Yoshimura, Yasunobu Kino
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Focusing on professional call centers where workers with expertise perform services, this study aims to clarify the relationships between emotional labor and job satisfaction and the effects of recognition of customer feedback. Since the professional call center operators consist of professional license holders (qualification holders) and those who do not (non-holders), the following three points are analyzed in the two groups by using covariance structure analysis and simultaneous multi-population analysis: 1) The relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction, 2) customer feedback and job satisfaction, and 3) the intermediation effect between the emotional labor of customer feedback and job satisfaction. The following results are obtained: i) No direct effect is found between job satisfaction and emotional labor for qualification holders and non-holders, ii) for qualification holders and non-holders, recognition of positive feedback and recognition of negative feedback had positive and negative effects on job satisfaction, respectively, iii) for qualification and non-holders, “consideration for colleagues” influences job satisfaction by recognizing positive feedback, and iv) only for qualification holders, the factors “customer-oriented emotional expression” and “emotional disharmony” have a positive and negative effect on job satisfaction, respectively, through recognition of positive feedback and recognition of negative feedback.
Keywords: Call center, emotional labor, professional service, job satisfaction, customer feedback.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 762977 Generating Concept Trees from Dynamic Self-organizing Map
Authors: Norashikin Ahmad, Damminda Alahakoon
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Self-organizing map (SOM) provides both clustering and visualization capabilities in mining data. Dynamic self-organizing maps such as Growing Self-organizing Map (GSOM) has been developed to overcome the problem of fixed structure in SOM to enable better representation of the discovered patterns. However, in mining large datasets or historical data the hierarchical structure of the data is also useful to view the cluster formation at different levels of abstraction. In this paper, we present a technique to generate concept trees from the GSOM. The formation of tree from different spread factor values of GSOM is also investigated and the quality of the trees analyzed. The results show that concept trees can be generated from GSOM, thus, eliminating the need for re-clustering of the data from scratch to obtain a hierarchical view of the data under study.
Keywords: dynamic self-organizing map, concept formation, clustering.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14602976 Dynamic Response of Strain Rate Dependent Glass/Epoxy Composite Beams Using Finite Difference Method
Authors: M. M. Shokrieh, A. Karamnejad
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This paper deals with a numerical analysis of the transient response of composite beams with strain rate dependent mechanical properties by use of a finite difference method. The equations of motion based on Timoshenko beam theory are derived. The geometric nonlinearity effects are taken into account with von Kármán large deflection theory. The finite difference method in conjunction with Newmark average acceleration method is applied to solve the differential equations. A modified progressive damage model which accounts for strain rate effects is developed based on the material property degradation rules and modified Hashin-type failure criteria and added to the finite difference model. The components of the model are implemented into a computer code in Mathematica 6. Glass/epoxy laminated composite beams with constant and strain rate dependent mechanical properties under dynamic load are analyzed. Effects of strain rate on dynamic response of the beam for various stacking sequences, load and boundary conditions are investigated.Keywords: Composite beam, Finite difference method, Progressive damage modeling, Strain rate.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19902975 Dynamic Variational Multiscale LES of Bluff Body Flows on Unstructured Grids
Authors: Carine Moussaed, Stephen Wornom, Bruno Koobus, Maria Vittoria Salvetti, Alain Dervieux,
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The effects of dynamic subgrid scale (SGS) models are investigated in variational multiscale (VMS) LES simulations of bluff body flows. The spatial discretization is based on a mixed finite element/finite volume formulation on unstructured grids. In the VMS approach used in this work, the separation between the largest and the smallest resolved scales is obtained through a variational projection operator and a finite volume cell agglomeration. The dynamic version of Smagorinsky and WALE SGS models are used to account for the effects of the unresolved scales. In the VMS approach, these effects are only modeled in the smallest resolved scales. The dynamic VMS-LES approach is applied to the simulation of the flow around a circular cylinder at Reynolds numbers 3900 and 20000 and to the flow around a square cylinder at Reynolds numbers 22000 and 175000. It is observed as in previous studies that the dynamic SGS procedure has a smaller impact on the results within the VMS approach than in LES. But improvements are demonstrated for important feature like recirculating part of the flow. The global prediction is improved for a small computational extra cost.Keywords: variational multiscale LES, dynamic SGS model, unstructured grids, circular cylinder, square cylinder.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18252974 Antinociceptive and Anti-inflammatory Effects of Hydroalcohol Extract of Vitex agnus castus Fruit
Authors: M. Ramezani, Gh. Amin, E. Jalili
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In present study the effects of anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive of vitex hydro-alcoholic extract were evaluated on male mice. In inflammatory test mice were divided into 7 groups: first group was control. The second group, positive control group, received dexamethasone (15 mg/kg) and the other five groups received different doses of hydroalcohol extract of Vitex fruit (265, 365, 465, 565, and 665 mg/kg). The inflammation was caused by xylene-induced ear edema. Formalin test was used for evaluation of antinociceptive effect of extract. In this test, mice were divided into 7 groups: control, morphine (10mg/kg) as positive control group, and Vitex extract groups ((265, 365, 465, 565, and 665 mg/kg). All drugs were administered intrapritoneally, 30 min before each test. The data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey-kramer multiple comparison test. Results have shown significant antiinflammatory effects of extract at all dosed as compared with control (P<0.05). In the first phase of formalin test (0-5 min) none doses of extract could inhibit acute pain, but in the second phase (15-30 min) chronic pain decreased at 265, 365, 465, and 565 mg/kg doses (P<0.05). The results of this research indicated that Vitex extract remarkably inhibited inflammation and second phase of nociception (inflammatory pain) and can be used for treatment of inflammatory diseases.Keywords: Anti-inflammatory, Antinociceptive, Mice, Vitexagnus castus.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20932973 An Experimental Study of Tip Vortex Cavitation Inception in an Axial Flow Pump
Authors: Mohammad Taghi Shervani Tabar, Zahra Poursharifi
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The interaction of the blade tip with the casing boundary layer and the leakage flow may lead to a kind of cavitation namely tip vortex cavitation. In this study, the onset of tip vortex cavitation was experimentally investigated in an axial flow pump. For a constant speed and a fixed angle of attack and by changing the flow rate, the pump head, input power, output power and efficiency were calculated and the pump characteristic curves were obtained. The cavitation phenomenon was observed with a camera and a stroboscope. Finally, the critical flow region, which tip vortex cavitation might have occurred, was identified. The results show that just by adjusting the flow rate, out of the specified region, the possibility of occurring tip vortex cavitation, decreases to a great extent.Keywords: Axial flow pump, Gap cavitation, Leakage vortex, Tip vortex cavitation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27002972 Removal of Nitrogen Compounds from Industrial Wastewater Using Sequencing Batch Reactor: The Effects of React Time
Authors: Ali W. Alattabi, Khalid S. Hashim, Hassnen M. Jafer, Ali Alzeyadi
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This study was performed to optimise the react time (RT) and study its effects on the removal rates of nitrogen compounds in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) treating synthetic industrial wastewater. The results showed that increasing the RT from 4 h to 10, 16 and 22 h significantly improved the nitrogen compounds’ removal efficiency, it was increased from 69.5% to 95%, 75.7 to 97% and from 54.2 to 80.1% for NH3-N, NO3-N and NO2-N respectively. The results obtained from this study showed that the RT of 22 h was the optimum for nitrogen compounds removal efficiency.Keywords: Ammonia-nitrogen, retention time, nitrate, nitrite, sequencing batch reactor, sludge characteristics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10652971 Adaptive Total Variation Based on Feature Scale
Authors: Jianbo Hu, Hongbao Wang
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The widely used Total Variation de-noising algorithm can preserve sharp edge, while removing noise. However, since fixed regularization parameter over entire image, small details and textures are often lost in the process. In this paper, we propose a modified Total Variation algorithm to better preserve smaller-scaled features. This is done by allowing an adaptive regularization parameter to control the amount of de-noising in any region of image, according to relative information of local feature scale. Experimental results demonstrate the efficient of the proposed algorithm. Compared with standard Total Variation, our algorithm can better preserve smaller-scaled features and show better performance.
Keywords: Adaptive, de-noising, feature scale, regularizationparameter, Total Variation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12402970 Nitrogen Effects on Ignition Delay Time in Supersonic Premixed and Diffusion Flames
Authors: A. M. Tahsini
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Computational study of two dimensional supersonic reacting hydrogen-air flows is performed to investigate the nitrogen effects on ignition delay time for premixed and diffusion flames. Chemical reaction is treated using detail kinetics and the advection upstream splitting method is used to calculate the numerical inviscid fluxes. The results show that just in stoichiometric condition for both premixed and diffusion flames, there is monotone dependency of the ignition delay time to the nitrogen addition. In other situations, the optimal condition from ignition viewpoint should be found using numerical investigations.
Keywords: Diffusion flame, Ignition delay time, Mixing layer, Numerical simulation, Premixed flame, Supersonic flow.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19802969 Analysing the Cost of Immigrants to the National Health System in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace
Authors: T. Theodosiou, P. Polychronidou, A. G. Karasavvoglou
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The latest years the number of immigrants at Greece has increased dramatically. Their impact on the National Health System (NHS) has not been yet thoroughly investigated. This paper analyses the cost of immigrants to the NHS hospitals of the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace. The data are collected from 2005 to 2011 from five different hospitals and are analysed using linear mixed effects models in order to investigate the effects of nationality and year on the cost of hospitalization and treatment. The results show that generally the Greek nationality patients have a higher mean cost of hospitalization compared to the immigrants and that there is an increasing trend for the cost except for the year 2010.Keywords: Cost, Eastern Macedonia, Thrace, immigrants, national health system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15342968 Investigation of the Effects of Sampling Frequency on the THD of 3-Phase Inverters Using Space Vector Modulation
Authors: Khattab Ibrahim Al Qaisi, Nicholas Bowring
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This paper presents the simulation results of the effects of sampling frequency on the total harmonic distortion (THD) of three-phase inverters using the space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) and space vector control (SVC) algorithms. The relationship between the variables was studied using curve fitting techniques, and it has been shown that, for 50 Hz inverters, there is an exponential relation between the sampling frequency and THD up to around 8500 Hz, beyond which the performance of the model becomes irregular, and there is an negative exponential relation between the sampling frequency and the marginal improvement to the THD. It has also been found that the performance of SVPWM is better than that of SVC with the same sampling frequency in most frequency range, including the range where the performance of the former is irregular.
Keywords: SVPWM, THD, DC-AC Inverter, Sampling Frequency.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29772967 Nano Effects of Nitrogen Ion Implantation on TiN Hard Coatings Deposited by PVD and IBAD
Authors: Branko Skoric, Aleksandar Miletic, Pal Terek, Lazar Kovacevic, Milan Kukuruzovic
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In this paper, we present the results of a study of TiN thin films which are deposited by a Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) and Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD). In the present investigation the subsequent ion implantation was provided with N5+ ions. The ion implantation was applied to enhance the mechanical properties of surface. The thin film deposition process exerts a number of effects such as crystallographic orientation, morphology, topography, densification of the films. A variety of analytic techniques were used for characterization, such as scratch test, calo test, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX).Keywords: Steel, coating, super hard, ion implantation, nanohardness.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12162966 Simulation Study of Radial Heat and Mass Transfer Inside a Fixed Bed Catalytic Reactor
Authors: K. Vakhshouri, M.M. Y. Motamed Hashemi
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A rigorous two-dimensional model is developed for simulating the operation of a less-investigated type steam reformer having a considerably lower operating Reynolds number, higher tube diameter, and non-availability of extra steam in the feed compared with conventional steam reformers. Simulation results show that reasonable predictions can only be achieved when certain correlations for wall to fluid heat transfer equations are applied. Due to severe operating conditions, in all cases, strong radial temperature gradients inside the reformer tubes have been found. Furthermore, the results show how a certain catalyst loading profile will affect the operation of the reformer.
Keywords: Steam reforming, direct reduction, heat transfer, two-dimensional model, simulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 36442965 Health Risk Assessment in Lead Battery Smelter Factory: A Bayesian Belief Network Method
Authors: Kevin Fong-Rey Liu, Ken Yeh, Cheng-Wu Chen, Han-Hsi Liang
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This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief networks (BBN) as a higher level of health risk assessment for a dumping site of lead battery smelter factory. On the basis of the epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic relationships between the hazardous substances and their adverse health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity of the adverse health effects. The provision of the morbidity rates of the related diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of conventional methods.Keywords: Bayesian belief networks, lead battery smelter factory, health risk assessment.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1726