Search results for: Power Flow Solution

Authors: Kiran Ijaz, Umar Manzoor, Arshad Ali Shahid

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In this paper we present an extension to Vision Based LRTA* (VLRTA*) known as Vision Based Moving Target Search (VMTS) for capturing unknown moving target in unknown territory with randomly generated obstacles. Target position is unknown to the agents and they cannot predict its position using any probability method. Agents have omni directional vision but can see in one direction at some point in time. Agent-s vision will be blocked by the obstacles in the search space so agent can not see through the obstacles. Proposed algorithm is evaluated on large number of scenarios. Scenarios include grids of sizes from 10x10 to 100x100. Grids had obstacles randomly placed, occupying 0% to 50%, in increments of 10%, of the search space. Experiments used 2 to 9 agents for each randomly generated maze with same obstacle ratio. Observed results suggests that VMTS is effective in locate target time, solution quality and virtual target. In addition, VMTS becomes more efficient if the number of agents is increased with proportion to obstacle ratio.

Keywords: Vision, MTS, Unknown Target, Coordination, VMTS, Multi-Agent.

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Authors: Eggertson, E.C. Kapulla, R, Fokken, J, Prasser, H.M.

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The turbulent mixing of coolant streams of different temperature and density can cause severe temperature fluctuations in piping systems in nuclear reactors. In certain periodic contraction cycles these conditions lead to thermal fatigue. The resulting aging effect prompts investigation in how the mixing of flows over a sharp temperature/density interface evolves. To study the fundamental turbulent mixing phenomena in the presence of density gradients, isokinetic (shear-free) mixing experiments are performed in a square channel with Reynolds numbers ranging from 2-500 to 60-000. Sucrose is used to create the density difference. A Wire Mesh Sensor (WMS) is used to determine the concentration map of the flow in the cross section. The mean interface width as a function of velocity, density difference and distance from the mixing point are analyzed based on traditional methods chosen for the purposes of atmospheric/oceanic stratification analyses. A definition of the mixing layer thickness more appropriate to thermal fatigue and based on mixedness is devised. This definition shows that the thermal fatigue risk assessed using simple mixing layer growth can be misleading and why an approach that separates the effects of large scale (turbulent) and small scale (molecular) mixing is necessary.

Keywords: Concentration measurements, Mixedness, Stablystratified turbulent isokinetic mixing layer, Wire mesh sensor

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Authors: Lei Dou, Mitsuhiro Nakagawa, Fei Yan, Ping Li

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Participation in global trade means that Chinas vegetables and fruits industry faces international food safety standards and increased scrutiny worldwide. The objectives of this paper were to investigate how existing food safety standards and regulations in the importing countries impact the export of vegetables and fruits from China. This paper discussed the current and historical situations of Chinas vegetables and fruits export from 1996 to 2010, analyzed the Maximum Residual Limit (MRL) standards of pesticides imposed by importing countries, quantitatively estimated the impacts of food safety standards on Chinas vegetables and fruits export based on a gravity model. The results showed that although transportation distance between trade partners and tariff rates on vegetables and fruits were still the importantly resistant factors for China export, vegetables and fruits export was sensitive to the number of regulated pesticides, the strictness, and the level of food safety standards imposed by importing countries, which showed a significant trade flow effect, stricter food safety standards, increased number of regulated pesticides significantly inhibit China export of vegetables and fruits. Moreover, Chinas food safety standards also showed a significantly effect on vegetables and fruits export, which inhibited export to some extent. KeywordsFood safety standards, MRL, Vegetables, Fruits, Export.

Keywords: Food safety standards, MRL, Vegetables, Fruits, Export.

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Authors: Ahmed Arara

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Information sharing and exchange, rather than information processing, is what characterizes information technology in the 21st century. Ontologies, as shared common understanding, gain increasing attention, as they appear as the most promising solution to enable information sharing both at a semantic level and in a machine-processable way. Domain Ontology-based modeling has been exploited to provide shareability and information exchange among diversified, heterogeneous applications of enterprises. Contextual ontologies are “an explicit specification of contextual conceptualization". That is: ontology is characterized by concepts that have multiple representations and they may exist in several contexts. Hence, contextual ontologies are a set of concepts and relationships, which are seen from different perspectives. Contextualization is to allow for ontologies to be partitioned according to their contexts. The need for contextual ontologies in enterprise modeling has become crucial due to the nature of today's competitive market. Information resources in enterprise is distributed and diversified and is in need to be shared and communicated locally through the intranet and globally though the internet. This paper discusses the roles that ontologies play in an enterprise modeling, and how ontologies assist in building a conceptual model in order to provide communicative and interoperable information systems. The issue of enterprise modeling based on contextual domain ontology is also investigated, and a framework is proposed for an enterprise model that consists of various applications.

Keywords: Contextual ontologies, Enterprise model, domainontology.

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Authors: N. Demirsoy, N. Uçar, A. Önen, N. Kızıldağ, Ö. F. Vurur, O. Eren, İ. Karacan

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Polymer composite nano-fibers including (1, 3 wt %) silver nano-particles have been produced by electrospinning method. Polyacrylonitrile/N,N-dimethylformamide (PAN/DMF) solution have been prepared and the amount of silver nitrate have been adjusted to PAN weight. Silver nano-particles were obtained from reduction of silver ions into silver nano-particles by chemical reduction by hydrazine hydroxide (N2H5OH). The different amount of silver salt was loaded into polymer matrix to obtain polyacrylonitrile composite nano-fiber containing silver nano-particles. The effect of the amount of silver nano-particles on the properties of composite nano-fiber web was investigated. Electrical conductivity, mechanical properties, thermal properties were examined by Microtest LCR Meter 6370 (0.01 mΩ-100 MΩ), Tensile tester, Differential scanning calorimeter DSC (Q10) and SEM respectively. Also antimicrobial efficiency test (ASTM E2149-10) was done against to Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. It has been seen that breaking strength, conductivity, antimicrobial effect, enthalpy during cyclization increase by use of silver nano-particles while the diameter of nano-fiber decreases.

Keywords: Composite polyacrylonitrile nano-fiber, electrical conductivity, electrospinning, mechanical and thermal properties, silver nano-particles.

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Authors: L. Bertola, T. Cox, P. Wheeler, S. Garvey, H. Morvan

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Electromagnetic Launch (EML) systems have been proposed for military applications to accelerate jet planes on aircraft carriers. This paper proposes the implementation of similar technology to aid civil aircraft take-off, which can provide significant economic, environmental and technical benefits. Assisted launch has the potential of reducing on ground noise and emissions near airports and improving overall aircraft efficiency through reducing engine thrust requirements. This paper presents a take-off performance analysis for an Airbus A320-200 taking off with and without the assistance of the electromagnetic catapult. Assisted take-off allows for a significant reduction in take-off field length, giving more capacity with existing airport footprints and reducing the necessary footprint of new airports, which will both reduce costs and increase the number of suitable sites. The electromagnetic catapult may allow the installation of smaller engines with lower rated thrust. The consequent fuel consumption and operational cost reduction is estimated. The potential of reducing the aircraft operational costs and the runway length required make EML system an attractive solution to the air traffic growth in busy airports.

Keywords: EML system, fuel consumption, take-off analysis, weight reduction.

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Authors: Pedro Gómez-del-Hoyo, Jose-Luis Bárcena-Humanes, Nerea del-Rey-Maestre, María-Pilar Jarabo-Amores, David Mata-Moya

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A study of achievable coverages using passive radar systems in terrestrial traffic monitoring applications is presented. The study includes the estimation of the bistatic radar cross section of different commercial vehicle models that provide challenging low values which make detection really difficult. A semi-urban scenario is selected to evaluate the impact of excess propagation losses generated by an irregular relief. A bistatic passive radar exploiting UHF frequencies radiated by digital video broadcasting transmitters is assumed. A general method of coverage estimation using electromagnetic simulators in combination with estimated car average bistatic radar cross section is applied. In order to reduce the computational cost, hybrid solution is implemented, assuming free space for the target-receiver path but estimating the excess propagation losses for the transmitter-target one.

Keywords: Bistatic radar cross section, passive radar, propagation losses, radar coverage.

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Authors: Li Xinyao, Hong Jianzhong, Wu Wenkai

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In order to make environmental test centrifuge balance automatically and accurately, reduce unbalance centrifugal force, balance adjusting system of centrifuge is designed. The new balance adjusting system comprises motor-reducer, timing belt, screw pair, slider-guideway and four rocker force sensors. According to information obtained by the four rocker force sensors, unbalanced value at both ends of the big arm is computed and heavy block is moved to achieve balance adjusting. In this paper, motor power and torque to move the heavy block is calculated. In full load running progress of centrifuge, the stress-strain of screw pair composed by adjusting nut and big arm are analyzed. A successful application of the balance adjusting system is also put forwarded. The results show that the balance adjusting system can satisfy balance require of environmental test centrifuge.

Keywords: balance adjusting system, centrifuge, screw pair, timing belt

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Authors: Amira Shakila Razali, Faridah Lisa Supian, Muhammad Mat Salleh, Suraini Abu Bakar

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Water contamination by toxic compound is one of the serious environmental problems today. These toxic compounds mostly originated from industrial effluents, agriculture, natural sources and human waste. These studies focus on modification of multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) with nanoparticle of calixarene and explore the possibility of using this modification for the remediation of cadmium in water. The nanocomposites were prepared by dissolving calixarene in chloroform solution as solvent, followed by additional multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) then sonication process for 3 hour and fabricated the nanocomposites on substrate by spin coating method. Finally, the nanocomposites were tested on cadmium ion (10 mg/ml). The morphology of nanocomposites was investigated by FESEM showing the formation of calixarene on the outer walls of carbon nanotube and cadmium ion also clearly seen from the micrograph. This formation was supported by using energy dispersive x-ray (EDX). The presence of cadmium ions in the films, leads to some changes in the surface potential and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).The nanocomposites MWCNTs-calixarene have potential for development of sensor for pollutant monitoring and nanoelectronics devices applications.

Keywords: Calixarene, Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes, Cadmium, Surface Potential.

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Authors: R. Balamurugan, A. M. Natarajan, K. Premalatha

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Microarray gene expression data play a vital in biological processes, gene regulation and disease mechanism. Biclustering in gene expression data is a subset of the genes indicating consistent patterns under the subset of the conditions. Finding a biclustering is an optimization problem. In recent years, swarm intelligence techniques are popular due to the fact that many real-world problems are increasingly large, complex and dynamic. By reasons of the size and complexity of the problems, it is necessary to find an optimization technique whose efficiency is measured by finding the near optimal solution within a reasonable amount of time. In this paper, the algorithmic concepts of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Shuffled Frog Leaping (SFL) and Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithms have been analyzed for the four benchmark gene expression dataset. The experiment results show that CS outperforms PSO and SFL for 3 datasets and SFL give better performance in one dataset. Also this work determines the biological relevance of the biclusters with Gene Ontology in terms of function, process and component.

Keywords: Particle swarm optimization, Shuffled frog leaping, Cuckoo search, biclustering, gene expression data.

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Authors: Ghassan H. Halasa

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Elementary particles are created in pairs of equal and opposite momentums at a reference frame at the speed of light. The speed of light reference frame is viewed as a point in space as observed by observer at rest. This point in space is the bang location of the big bang theory. The bang in the big bang theory is not more than sustained flow of pairs of positive and negative elementary particles. Electrons and negative charged elementary particles are ejected from this point in space at velocities faster than light, while protons and positively charged particles obtain velocities lower than light. Subsonic masses are found to have real and positive charge, while supersonic masses are found to be negative and imaginary indicating that the two masses are of different entities. The electron-s super-sonic speed, as viewed by rest observer was calculated and found to be less than the speed of light and is little higher than the electron speed in Bohr-s orbit. The newly formed hydrogen gas temperature was found to be in agreement with temperatures found on newly formed stars. Universe expansion was found to be in agreement. Partial mass and charge elementary particles and particles with momentum only were explained in the context of this theoretical approach.

Keywords: Evolution of Matter, Multidimensional spaces, relativity, Big Bang Theory

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Authors: William Anderson, Kyle Kobold, Oleg Yakimenko

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Green microgrids using mostly renewable energy (RE) for generation, are complex systems with inherent nonlinear dynamics. Among a variety of different optimization tools there are only a few ones that adequately consider this complexity. This paper evaluates applicability of two somewhat similar optimization tools tailored for standalone RE microgrids and also assesses a machine learning tool for performance prediction that can enhance the reliability of any chosen optimization tool. It shows that one of these microgrid optimization tools has certain advantages over another and presents a detailed routine of preparing input data to simulate RE microgrid behavior. The paper also shows how neural-network-based predictive modeling can be used to validate and forecast solar power generation based on weather time series data, which improves the overall quality of standalone RE microgrid analysis.

Keywords: Microgrid, renewable energy, complex systems, optimization, predictive modeling, neural networks.

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Authors: A. Ashok, K.Satapathy, B. Prerana Nashine

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The objective of this research work is to investigate for one dimensional transient radiative transfer equations with conduction using finite volume method. Within the infrastructure of finite-volume, we obtain the conservative discretization of the terms in order to preserve the overall conservative property of finitevolume schemes. Coupling of conductive and radiative equation resulting in fluxes is governed by the magnitude of emissivity, extinction coefficient, and temperature of the medium as well as geometry of the problem. The problem under consideration has been solved, for a slab dominating radiation coupled with transient conduction based on finite volume method. The boundary conditions are also chosen so as to give a good model of the discretized form of radiation transfer equation. The important feature of the present method is flexibility in specifying the control angles in the FVM, while keeping the simplicity in the solution procedure. Effects of various model parameters are examined on the distributions of temperature, radiative and conductive heat fluxes and incident radiation energy etc. The finite volume method is considered to effectively evaluate the propagation of radiation intensity through a participating medium.

Keywords: Radiative transfer equation, finite volume method, conduction, transient radiation.

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Authors: W. Srisang, K. Jaroensutasinee, M. Jaroensutasinee

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This study examined a habitat-suitability assessment method namely the Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA). A virtual species was created and then dispatched in a geographic information system model of a real landscape in three historic scenarios: (1) spreading, (2) equilibrium, and (3) overabundance. In each scenario, the virtual species was sampled and these simulated data sets were used as inputs for the ENFA to reconstruct the habitat suitability model. The 'equilibrium' scenario gives the highest quantity and quality among three scenarios. ENFA was sensitive to the distribution scenarios but not sensitive to sample sizes. The use of a virtual species proved to be a very efficient method, allowing one to fully control the quality of the input data as well as to accurately evaluate the predictive power of the analyses.

Keywords: Habitat-Suitability Models, Ecological niche factoranalysis, Climatic factors, Geographic information system.

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Authors: E. Karoui Chaabane, S. Hadouaj, K. Ghedira

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Inter-organizational Workflow (IOW) is commonly used to support the collaboration between heterogeneous and distributed business processes of different autonomous organizations in order to achieve a common goal. E-government is considered as an application field of IOW. The coordination of the different organizations is the fundamental problem in IOW and remains the major cause of failure in e-government projects. In this paper, we introduce a new coordination model for IOW that improves the collaboration between government administrations and that respects IOW requirements applied to e-government. For this purpose, we adopt a Multi-Agent approach, which deals more easily with interorganizational digital government characteristics: distribution, heterogeneity and autonomy. Our model integrates also different technologies to deal with the semantic and technologic interoperability. Moreover, it conserves the existing systems of government administrations by offering a distributed coordination based on interfaces communication. This is especially applied in developing countries, where administrations are not necessary equipped with workflow systems. The use of our coordination techniques allows an easier migration for an e-government solution and with a lower cost. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed model, we present a case study of an identity card creation in Tunisia.

Keywords: E-government, Inter-organizational workflow, Multi-agent systems, Semantic web services.

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Authors: M. Velasco, D. While, P. Raju, J. Krasniewicz, A. Amini, L. Hernandez-Munoz

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Web service adaptation involves the creation of adapters that solve Web services incompatibilities known as mismatches. Since the importance of Web services adaptation is increasing because of the frequent implementation and use of online Web services, this paper presents a literature review of web services to investigate the main methods of adaptation, their theoretical underpinnings and the metrics used to measure adapters performance. Eighteen publications were reviewed independently by two researchers. We found that adaptation techniques are needed to solve different types of problems that may arise due to incompatibilities in Web service interfaces, including protocols, messages, data and semantics that affect the interoperability of the services. Although adapters are non-invasive methods that can improve Web services interoperability and there are current approaches for service adaptation; there is, however, not yet one solution that fits all types of mismatches. Our results also show that only a few research projects incorporate theoretical frameworks and that metrics to measure adapters’ performance are very limited. We conclude that further research on software adaptation should improve current adaptation methods in different layers of the service interoperability and that an adaptation theoretical framework that incorporates a theoretical underpinning and measures of qualitative and quantitative performance needs to be created.

Keywords: Web services adapters, software adaptation, web services mismatches, web services interoperability.

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Authors: Ali A. Mehna, Mohmed A. Ali, Ali S. Zayed

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A numbers of important developments have led to an increasing attractiveness for very high speed electrical machines (either motor or generator). Specifically the increasing switching speed of power electronics, high energy magnets, high strength retaining materials, better high speed bearings and improvements in design analysis are the primary drivers in a move to higher speed. The design challenges come in the mechanical design both in terms of strength and resonant modes and in the electromagnetic design particularly in respect of iron losses and ac losses in the various conducting parts including the rotor. This paper describes detailed design work which has been done on a 50,000 rpm, 50kW permanent magnet( PM) synchronous machine. It describes work on electromagnetic and rotor eddy current losses using a variety of methods including both 2D finite element analysis

Keywords: High speed, PM motor, rotor and stator losses, finiteelement analysis

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Authors: Rezki Akkal, Mohamed Khodja, Slimane Azzi

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Acidification is a technique used in oil reservoirs to improve annual production, reduce the skin and increase the pressure of an oil well while eliminating the formation damage that occurs during the drilling process, completion and, amongst others, to create new channels allowing the easy circulation of oil around a producing well. This is achieved by injecting an acidizing fluid at a relatively low pressure to prevent fracturing formation. The treatment fluid used depends on the type and nature of the reservoir rock traversed as well as its petrophysical properties. In order to understand the interaction mechanisms between the treatment fluids used for the reservoir rock acidizing, several candidate wells for stimulation were selected in the large Hassi Messaoud deposit in southern Algeria. The stimulation of these wells is completed using different fluids composed mainly of HCl acid with other additives such as corrosion inhibitors, clay stabilizers and iron controllers. These treatment fluids are injected over two phases, namely with clean tube (7.5% HCl) and matrix aidizing with HCl (15%). The stimulation results obtained are variable according to the type of rock traversed and its mineralogical composition. These results show that there has been an increase in production flow and head pressure respectively from 1.99 m3 / h to 3.56 m3 / h and from 13 Kgf / cm2 to 20 kgf / cm2 in the sands formation having good petrophysical properties of (porosity = 16%) and low amount of clay (Vsh = 6%).

Keywords: Acidizing, Hassi-Messaoud reservoir, tube clean, matrix stimulation.

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Authors: Nichanant Sermsri, Chonmapat Torasa

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The objective of this research was to investigate the efficiency of the light emitting diode (LED) tube in various color lights used to lure the adult coconut hispine beetle. The research was conducted by setting the forward bias on LED tubes, and the next step was to test luminous efficacy and quantity of electricity used to power each LED tube in different color lights. Finally, the researcher examined the efficiency of each color-light LED tube to lure the adult coconut hispine beetle.

The results showed that the ultraviolet LED tubes had the most capacity to allure the adult coconut hispine beetles with the percentage of 82.92, followed by the blue LED tubes with the percentage of 59.76. Whereas the yellow, pink, red and warm white LED tubes had no influence to the adult coconut hispine beetles.

Keywords: Coconut Hispine Beetle, Color Lights, Lighting Efficiency, LED Tubes.

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Authors: Chaghoub Soraya, Zhang Xiaoyan

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This research presents the first constant approximation algorithm to the p-median network design problem with multiple cable types. This problem was addressed with a single cable type and there is a bifactor approximation algorithm for the problem. To the best of our knowledge, the algorithm proposed in this paper is the first constant approximation algorithm for the p-median network design with multiple cable types. The addressed problem is a combination of two well studied problems which are p-median problem and network design problem. The introduced algorithm is a random sampling approximation algorithm of constant factor which is conceived by using some random sampling techniques form the literature. It is based on a redistribution Lemma from the literature and a steiner tree problem as a subproblem. This algorithm is simple, and it relies on the notions of random sampling and probability. The proposed approach gives an approximation solution with one constant ratio without violating any of the constraints, in contrast to the one proposed in the literature. This paper provides a (21 + 2)-approximation algorithm for the p-median network design problem with multiple cable types using random sampling techniques.

Keywords: Approximation algorithms, buy-at-bulk, combinatorial optimization, network design, p-median.

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Authors: Hamid Abbasdokht , Mohammad Reza Edalatpishe, Ahmad Gholami

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In order to study of hydropriming and halopriming on germination and early growth stage of wheat (Triticum aestivum) an experiment was carried out in laboratory of the Department of Agronomy and Plant breeding, Shahrood University of Technology. Seed treatments consisted of T1: control (untreated seeds), T2: soaking in distilled water for 18 h (hydropriming). T3: soaking in - 1.2 MPa solution of CaSO4 for 36 h (halopriming). Germination and early seedling growth were studied using distilled water (control) and under osmotic potentials of -0.4, -0.8 and -1.2 MPa for NaCl and polyethylene glycol (PEG 6000), respectively. Results showed that Hydroprimed seeds achieved maximum germination seedling dry weight, especially during the higher osmotic potentials. Minimum germination was recorded at untreated seeds (control) followed by osmopriming. Under high osmotic potentials, hydroprimed seeds had higher GI (germination index) as compared to haloprimed or untreated seeds. Interaction effect of seed treatment and osmotic potential significantly affected the seedling vigour index (SVI).

Keywords: Wheat, hydropriming, halopriming, germination

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Authors: Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, Ong Hai Liaw, Wan Norhasniah Wan Husin

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The main issue discussed is on the role of education system in the process of nation building as a means in uniting different community ethnics which later on, hoped to shape the future ethnic relation of this country. It is generally known that political socialization experienced by each ethnic community has given birth to a vernacular education system, separated along the ethnic line. Every community shapes their own education system based on their respective mother tongue language, however all are based on the same curriculum. As a result the role of education as a uniting force is not significantly effective. Historically, it has been shown that government efforts to unite the country education system under the wing of national education system (national school) is not that successful since every community (Chinese) will defend the existence of their community education system because they want to spur their mother tongue language. The clash between national education system and vernacular education system is the root cause of stalemate in the ethnic relation in Malaysia and it always becomes a flash point when the issue is raised. The question now is what is the best solution to enhance the national education system in multiethnic Malaysia?

Keywords: Political socialization, education, national unity, national school, vernacular school and 1Malaysia

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Authors: Chuan-Kun Liu, Chi-Wang Li

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Simultaneous recovery of copper and DCA from simulated MEUF concentrated stream was investigated. Effects of surfactant (DCA) and metal (copper) concentrations, surfactant to metal molar ratio (S/M ratio), electroplating voltage, EDTA concentration, solution pH, and salt concentration on metal recovery and current efficiency were studied. Electric voltage of -0.5 V was shown to be optimum operation condition in terms of Cu recovery, current efficiency, and surfactant recovery. Increasing Cu recovery and current efficiency were observed with increases of Cu concentration while keeping concentration of DCA constant. However, increasing both Cu and DCA concentration while keeping S/M ratio constant at 2.5 showed detrimental effect on Cu recovery at DCA concentration higher than 15 mM. Cu recovery decreases with increasing pH while current efficiency showed an opposite trend. It is believed that conductivity is the main cause for discrepancy of Cu recovery and current efficiency observed at different pH. Finally, it was shown that EDTA had adverse effect on both Cu recovery and current efficiency while addition of NaCl salt had negative impact on current efficiency at concentration higher than 8000 mg/L.

Keywords: metal recovery, MEUF waste, surfactant, electroplating.

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Authors: Justina I. R. Udotong

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Toxicity of copper (Cu), lead (Pb) and iron (Fe) to Tilapia guinensis was carried out for 4 days with a view to determining their effects on the liver and muscle tissues. Tilapia guinensis samples of about 10 - 14cm length and 0.2 – 0.4kg weight each were obtained from University of Calabar fish ponds and acclimated for three (3) days before the experimental set up. Survivors after the 96-hr LC50 test period were selected from test solutions of the heavy metals for the histopathological studies. Histological preparations of liver and muscle tissues were randomly examined for histopathological lesions. Results of the histological examinations showed gross abnormalities in the liver tissues due to pathological and degenerative changes compared to liver and muscle tissues from control samples (tilapia fishes from aquaria without heavy metals). Extensive hepatocyte necrosis with chronic inflammatory changes was observed in the liver of fishes exposed to Cu solution. Similar but less damaging effects were observed in the liver of fishes exposed to Pb and Fe. The extent of lesion observed was therefore heavy metal-related. However, no pathologic changes occurred in the muscle tissues.

Keywords: Degenerative changes, heavy metal, hepatocyte necrosis, histopathology, toxicity.

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Authors: Chun-Yuan Huang, Chiao-Yang Cheng, Chun-Yem Huang, Yan-Kuin Su, James Chin-Lung Fang

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ZnO nanostructures including nanowires, nanorods, and nanoneedles were successfully deposited on GaAs substrates, respectively, by simple two-step chemical method for the first time. A ZnO seed layer was firstly pre-coated on the O2-plasma treated substrate by sol-gel process, followed by the nucleation of ZnO nanostructures through hydrothermal synthesis. Nanostructures with different average diameter (15-250 nm), length (0.9-1.8 μm), density (0.9-16×109 cm-2) were obtained via adjusting the growth time and concentration of precursors. From the reflectivity spectra, we concluded ordered and taper nanostructures were preferential for photovoltaic applications. ZnO nanoneedles with an average diameter of 106 nm, a moderate length of 2.4 μm, and the density of 7.2×109 cm-2 could be synthesized in the concentration of 0.04 M for 18 h. Integrated with the nanoneedle array, the power conversion efficiency of single junction solar cell was increased from 7.3 to 12.2%, corresponding to a 67% improvement.

Keywords: Anti-reflection, Chemical synthesis, Solar cells, ZnO nanostructures.

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Authors: Gary Marlin Sandquist

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Currently, a large number of license activities (Early Site Permits, Combined Operating License, reactor certifications, etc.), are pending for review before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US NRC). Much of the senior staff at the NRC is now committed to these review and licensing actions. To address this additional workload, the NRC has recruited a large number of new Regulatory Staff for dealing with these and other regulatory actions such as the US Fleet of Research and Test Reactors (RTRs). These reactors pose unusual demands on Regulatory Staff since the US Fleet of RTRs, although few (32 Licensed RTRs as of 2010), they represent a broad range of reactor types, operations, and research and training aspects that nuclear reactor power plants (such as the 104 LWRs) do not pose. The NRC must inspect and regulate all these facilities. This paper addresses selected training topics and regulatory activities providedNRC Inspectors for RTRs.

Keywords: Regulations, Research and Test Reactors, Training, US NRC

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Authors: Surinder Deswal, D. V. S. Verma

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Aeration by a plunging water jet is an energetically attractive way to effect oxygen-transfer than conventional oxygenation systems. In the present study, a new type of conical shaped plunging aeration device is fabricated to generate hollow inclined ined plunging jets (jet plunge angle of π/3 ) to investigate its oxygen transfer capacity. The results suggest that the volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient and oxygen-transfer efficiency of the conical plunging jet aerator are competitive with other types of aeration systems. Relationships of volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient with jet power per unit volume and jet parameters are also proposed. The suggested relationships predict the volumetric oxygentransfer coefficient within a scatter of ± 15% . Further, the application of Support Vector Machines on the experimental data revealed its utility in the prediction of volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient and development of conical plunging jet aerators.

Keywords: Conical plunging jet, oxygen-transfer efficiency, support vector machines, volumetric oxygen-transfer coefficient.

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Authors: Hesham A. Ali, Mofreh M. Salem, Ahmed A. Hamza

Abstract:

Recently, there have been considerable efforts towards the convergence between P2P and Grid computing in order to reach a solution that takes the best of both worlds by exploiting the advantages that each offers. Augmenting the peer-to-peer model to the services of the Grid promises to eliminate bottlenecks and ensure greater scalability, availability, and fault-tolerance. The Grid Information Service (GIS) directly influences quality of service for grid platforms. Most of the proposed solutions for decentralizing the GIS are based on completely flat overlays. The main contributions for this paper are: the investigation of a novel resource discovery framework for Grid implementations based on a hierarchy of structured peer-to-peer overlay networks, and introducing a discovery algorithm utilizing the proposed framework. Validation of the framework-s performance is done via simulation. Experimental results show that the proposed organization has the advantage of being scalable while providing fault-isolation, effective bandwidth utilization, and hierarchical access control. In addition, it will lead to a reliable, guaranteed sub-linear search which returns results within a bounded interval of time and with a smaller amount of generated traffic within each domain.

Keywords: Grid computing, grid information service, P2P, resource discovery.

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Authors: A.Venkadesan, S.Himavathi, A.Muthuramalingam

Abstract:

Rotor Flux based Model Reference Adaptive System (RF-MRAS) is the most popularly used conventional speed estimation scheme for sensor-less IM drives. In this scheme, the voltage model equations are used for the reference model. This encounters major drawbacks at low frequencies/speed which leads to the poor performance of RF-MRAS. Replacing the reference model using Neural Network (NN) based flux estimator provides an alternate solution and addresses such drawbacks. This paper identifies an NN based flux estimator using Single Neuron Cascaded (SNC) Architecture. The proposed SNC-NN model replaces the conventional voltage model in RF-MRAS to form a novel MRAS scheme named as SNC-NN-MRAS. Through simulation the proposed SNC-NN-MRAS is shown to be promising in terms of all major issues and robustness to parameter variation. The suitability of the proposed SNC-NN-MRAS based speed estimator and its advantages over RF-MRAS for sensor-less induction motor drives is comprehensively presented through extensive simulations.

Keywords: Sensor-less operation, vector-controlled IM drives, SNC-NN-MRAS, single neuron cascaded architecture, RF-MRAS, artificial neural network

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Authors: Brehme D’napoli Reis de Mesquita, Marcus Vin´ıcius de Souza Almeida, Caio Vin´ıcius Silva do Carmo

Abstract:

Educational robotics has emerged as a pedagogical tool, utilizing technological artifacts to engage students’ curiosity and interest. It fosters active learning of STEM education competencies while also cultivating essential behavioral skills. Robotic competitions provide students with platforms to collaboratively devise diverse solutions to shared problems, fostering experience exchange, collaboration, and personal growth. Despite the prevalence of current robotic competitions, especially in Brazil, simulating real-world challenges like natural disasters, there is a notable absence of industry-related tasks. This article presents an educational robotics initiative centered around material transportation within smart manufacturing using automated guided vehicles. The proposed robotics challenge was executed in a competition held in Ac¸ailˆandia city, Maranh˜ao, Brazil, yielding satisfactory results and inspiring teams to develop time-limited solution strategies.

Keywords: Educational robotics, STEM education, robotic competitions, material transportation, smart manufacturing.

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