Search results for: dephasing rates

Authors: E. Batista, R. Mendes, A. Furtado, M. C. Ferreira, I. Godinho, J. A. Sousa, M. Alvares, R. Martins

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Syringe pumps are commonly used for drug delivery in hospitals and clinical environments. These instruments are critical in neonatology and oncology, where any variation in the flow rate and drug dosing quantity can lead to severe incidents and even death of the patient. Therefore it is very important to determine the accuracy and precision of these devices using the suitable calibration methods. The Volume Laboratory of the Portuguese Institute for Quality (LVC/IPQ) uses two different methods to calibrate syringe pumps from 16 nL/min up to 20 mL/min. The Interferometric method uses an interferometer to monitor the distance travelled by a pusher block of the syringe pump in order to determine the flow rate. Therefore, knowing the internal diameter of the syringe with very high precision, the travelled distance, and the time needed for that travelled distance, it was possible to calculate the flow rate of the fluid inside the syringe and its uncertainty. As an alternative to the gravimetric and the interferometric method, a methodology based on the application of optical technology was also developed to measure flow rates. Mainly this method relies on measuring the increase of volume of a drop over time. The objective of this work is to compare the results of the calibration of two syringe pumps using the different methodologies described above. The obtained results were consistent for the three methods used. The uncertainties values were very similar for all the three methods, being higher for the optical drop method due to setup limitations.

Keywords: Calibration, interferometry, syringe pump, optical method, uncertainty.

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Authors: Dinh-Ha Tran, Chung-Ruey Yen, Yu-Kuang H. Chen

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A collection of thirty cultivars/clones of a red pitaya was used to investigate flowering response to lighting supplementation in the winter season of 2013-2014 in southern Taiwan. The night-breaking treatment was conducted during the period of 10 Oct. 2013 to 5 Mar. 2014 with 4-continuous hours (22.00 – 02.00 hrs) of additional lighting daily using incandescent bulbs (100W). Among cultivars and clones tested, twenty-three genotypes, most belonging to the red-magenta flesh type, were found to have positively flowering response to the lighting treatment. The duration of night-breaking treatment for successful flowering initiation varied from 33- 48 days. The lighting-sensitive genotypes bore 1-2 flowering flushes. Floral and fruiting stages took 21-26 and 46-59 days, respectively. Among sixteen fruiting genotypes, the highest fruit set rates were found in Damao 9, D4, D13, Chaozou large, Chaozhou 5, Small Nick and F22. Five cultivars and clones (Orejona, D4, Chaozhou large, Chaozhou 5 and Small Nick) produced fruits with an average weight of more than 300 g per fruit which were higher than those of the fruits formed in the summer of 2013. Fruits produced during off-season containing total soluble solids (TSS) from 17.5 to 20.7oBrix, which were higher than those produced inseason.

Keywords: Flowering response, long-day plant, night-breaking treatment, off-season production, pitaya.

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Authors: Jameela Ali Alkrimi, Loay E. George, Azizah Suliman, Abdul Rahim Ahmad, Karim Al-Jashamy

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Red blood cells (RBCs) are among the most commonly and intensively studied type of blood cells in cell biology. Anemia is a lack of RBCs is characterized by its level compared to the normal hemoglobin level. In this study, a system based image processing methodology was developed to localize and extract RBCs from microscopic images. Also, the machine learning approach is adopted to classify the localized anemic RBCs images. Several textural and geometrical features are calculated for each extracted RBCs. The training set of features was analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA). With the proposed method, RBCs were isolated in 4.3secondsfrom an image containing 18 to 27 cells. The reasons behind using PCA are its low computation complexity and suitability to find the most discriminating features which can lead to accurate classification decisions. Our classifier algorithm yielded accuracy rates of 100%, 99.99%, and 96.50% for K-nearest neighbor (K-NN) algorithm, support vector machine (SVM), and neural network RBFNN, respectively. Classification was evaluated in highly sensitivity, specificity, and kappa statistical parameters. In conclusion, the classification results were obtained within short time period, and the results became better when PCA was used.

Keywords: Red blood cells, pre-processing image algorithms, classification algorithms, principal component analysis PCA, confusion matrix, kappa statistical parameters, ROC.

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Authors: Ching-Feng Chen, Shih-Kai Chen

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The Floating Photovoltaic (FPV) system highlights economic benefits and energy performance to carbon dioxide (CO2) discharges. Due to land resource scarcity and many negligent water territories, such as reservoirs, dams, and lakes in Japan and Taiwan, both countries are actively developing FPV and responding to the pricing of the emissions trading systems (ETS). This paper performs a case study through a synthesis approach to compare the economic indicators between the FPVs of Taiwan’s Agongdian Reservoir and Japan’s Yamakura Dam. The research results show that the metrics of the system capacity, installation costs, bank interest rates, and ETS and Electricity Bills affect FPV operating gains. In the post-Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) phase, investing in FPV in Japan is more profitable than in Taiwan. The former’s positive net present value (NPV), eminent internal rate of return (IRR) (11.6%), and benefit-cost ratio (BCR) above 1 (2.0) at the discount rate of 10% indicate that investing the FPV in Japan is more favorable than in Taiwan. In addition, the breakeven point is modest (about 61.3%). The presented methodology in the study helps investors evaluate schemes’ pros and cons and determine whether a decision is beneficial while funding PV or FPV projects.

Keywords: Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, Floating Photovoltaic, Emissions Trading Systems, Net Present Value, NPV, Internal Rate of Return, IRR, Benefit-Cost Ratio.

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Authors: J. Sarkar, Souvik Bhattacharyya, M. Ramgopal

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This paper presents the experimental as well as the simulated performance studies on the transcritical CO2 heat pumps for simultaneous water cooling and heating; effects of water mass flow rates and water inlet temperatures of both evaporator and gas cooler on the cooling and heating capacities, system COP and water outlets temperatures are investigated. Study shows that both the water mass flow rate and inlet temperature have significant effect on system performances. Test results show that the effect of evaporator water mass flow rate on the system performances and water outlet temperatures is more pronounced (COP increases 0.6 for 1 kg/min) compared to the gas cooler water mass flow rate (COP increases 0.4 for 1 kg/min) and the effect of gas cooler water inlet temperature is more significant (COP decreases 0.48 for given ranges) compared to the evaporator water inlet temperature (COP increases 0.43 for given ranges). Comparisons of experimental values with simulated results show the maximum deviation of 5% for cooling capacity, 10% for heating capacity, 16% for system COP. This study offers useful guidelines for selecting appropriate water mass flow rate to obtain required system performance.

Keywords: CO2 heat pump, experiment, simulation, performance characteristics.

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Authors: Muhammad Rehan Khalid, Ahmed Farhan Hanif, Adnan Ahmed Khan

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This paper investigates the performance of Multiple- Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) feedback system combined with Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Two types of codebook based channel feedback techniques are used in this work. The first feedback technique uses a combination of both the long-term and short-term channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter, whereas the second technique uses only the short term CSI. The long-term and short-term CSI at the transmitter is used for efficient channel utilization. OFDM is a powerful technique employed in communication systems suffering from frequency selectivity. Combined with multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver, OFDM proves to be robust against delay spread. Moreover, it leads to significant data rates with improved bit error performance over links having only a single antenna at both the transmitter and receiver. The effectiveness of these techniques has been demonstrated through the simulation of a MIMO-OFDM feedback system. The results have been evaluated for 4x4 MIMO channels. Simulation results indicate the benefits of the MIMO-OFDM channel feedback system over the one without incorporating OFDM. Performance gain of about 3 dB is observed for MIMO-OFDM feedback system as compared to the one without employing OFDM. Hence MIMO-OFDM becomes an attractive approach for future high speed wireless communication systems.

Keywords: MIMO systems, OFDM, Codebooks, Channel Feedback

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Authors: M. Tarawneh

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Two-phase frictional pressure drop data were obtained for condensation of carbon dioxide in single horizontal micro tube of inner diameter ranged from 0.6 mm up to 1.6 mm over mass flow rates from 2.5*10-5 to 17*10-5 kg/s and vapor qualities from 0.0 to 1.0. The inlet condensing pressure is changed from 33.5 to 45 bars. The saturation temperature ranged from -1.5 oC up to 10 oC. These data have then been compared against three (two-phase) frictional pressure drop prediction methods. The first method is by Muller-Steinhagen and Heck (Muller-Steinhagen H, Heck K. A simple friction pressure drop correlation for two-phase flow in pipes. Chem. Eng. Process 1986;20:297–308) and that by Gronnerud R. Investigation of liquid hold-up, flow-resistance and heat transfer in circulation type evaporators, part IV: two-phase flow resistance in boiling refrigerants, Annexe 1972. Then the method used by FriedelL. Improved friction pressures drop in horizontal and vertical two-phase pipe flow. European Two-Phase Flow Group Meeting, Paper E2; 1979 June, Ispra, Italy. The methods are used by M.B Ould Didi et al (2001) “Prediction of two-phase pressure gradients of refrigerant in horizontal tubes". Int.J.of Refrigeration 25(2002) 935- 947. The best available method for annular flow was that of Muller- Steinhagen and Heck. It was observed that the peak in the two-phase frictional pressure gradient is at high vapor qualities.

Keywords: Two-phase flow, frictional pressure drop, horizontalmicro tube, carbon dioxide, condensers.

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Authors: A. H. Kheireddine, A. A. Khalil, A. H. Ammouri, G. T. Kridli, R. F. Hamade

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Solidification cracking and hydrogen cracking are some defects generated in the fusion welding of ultrahigh carbon steels. However, friction stir welding (FSW) of such steels, being a solid-state technique, has been demonstrated to alleviate such problems encountered in traditional welding. FSW include different process parameters that must be carefully defined prior processing. These parameters included but not restricted to: tool feed, tool RPM, tool geometry, tool tilt angle. These parameters form a key factor behind avoiding warm holes and voids behind the tool and in achieving a defect-free weld. More importantly, these parameters directly affect the microstructure of the weld and hence the final mechanical properties of weld. For that, 3D finite element (FE) thermo-mechanical model was developed using DEFORM 3D to simulate FSW of carbon steel. At points of interest in the joint, tracking is done for history of critical state variables such as temperature, stresses, and strain rates. Typical results found include the ability to simulate different weld zones. Simulations predictions were successfully compared to experimental FSW tests. It is believed that such a numerical model can be used to optimize FSW processing parameters to favor desirable defect free weld with better mechanical properties.

Keywords: Carbon Steels, DEFORM 3D, FEM, Friction stir welding.

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Authors: X. Gu, K. L. Blackmore

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The impact factor was introduced to measure the quality of journals. Various impact measures exist from multiple bibliographic databases. In this research, we aim to provide a broader understanding of the relationship between scholarly impact and other characteristics of academic journals. Data used for this research were collected from Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory (Ulrichs), Cabell’s (Cabells), and SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) from 1999 to 2015. A master journal dataset was consolidated via Journal Title and ISSN. We adopted a two-step analysis process to study the quantitative relationships between scholarly impact and other journal characteristics. Firstly, we conducted a correlation analysis over the data attributes, with results indicating that there are no correlations between any of the identified journal characteristics. Secondly, we examined the quantitative relationship between scholarly impact and other characteristics using quartile analysis. The results show interesting patterns, including some expected and others less anticipated. Results show that higher quartile journals publish more in both frequency and quantity, and charge more for subscription cost. Top quartile journals also have the lowest acceptance rates. Non-English journals are more likely to be categorized in lower quartiles, which are more likely to stop publishing than higher quartiles. Future work is suggested, which includes analysis of the relationship between scholars and their publications, based on the quartile ranking of journals in which they publish.

Keywords: Academic journal, acceptance rate, impact factor, journal characteristics.

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Authors: Chia-Min Lai, Wan-Ching Lin, Hahn-Ming Lee, Ching-Hao Mao

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As world wild internet has non-stop developments, making profit by lending registered domain names emerges as a new business in recent years. Unfortunately, the larger the market scale of domain lending service becomes, the riskier that there exist malicious behaviors or malwares hiding behind parked domains will be. Also, previous work for differentiating parked domain suffers two main defects: 1) too much data-collecting effort and CPU latency needed for features engineering and 2) ineffectiveness when detecting parked domains containing external links that are usually abused by hackers, e.g., drive-by download attack. Aiming for alleviating above defects without sacrificing practical usability, this paper proposes ParkedGuard as an efficient and accurate parked domain detector. Several scripting behavioral features were analyzed, while those with special statistical significance are adopted in ParkedGuard to make feature engineering much more cost-efficient. On the other hand, finding memberships between external links and parked domains was modeled as a graph mining problem, and a coarse-to-fine strategy was elaborately designed by leverage the graphical locality such that ParkedGuard outperforms the state-of-the-art in terms of both recall and precision rates.

Keywords: Coarse-to-fine strategy, domain parking service, graphical locality analysis, parked domain.

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Authors: Kayijuka Idrissa

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This work investigates a mathematical study for traffic flow and traffic density in Kigali city roads and the data collected from the national police of Rwanda in 2012. While working on this topic, some mathematical models were used in order to analyze and compare traffic variables. This work has been carried out on Kigali roads specifically at roundabouts from Kigali Business Center (KBC) to Prince House as our study sites. In this project, we used some mathematical tools to analyze the data collected and to understand the relationship between traffic variables. We applied the Poisson distribution method to analyze and to know the number of accidents occurred in this section of the road which is from KBC to Prince House. The results show that the accidents that occurred in 2012 were at very high rates due to the fact that this section has a very narrow single lane on each side which leads to high congestion of vehicles, and consequently, accidents occur very frequently. Using the data of speeds and densities collected from this section of road, we found that the increment of the density results in a decrement of the speed of the vehicle. At the point where the density is equal to the jam density the speed becomes zero. The approach is promising in capturing sudden changes on flow patterns and is open to be utilized in a series of intelligent management strategies and especially in noncurrent congestion effect detection and control.

Keywords: Statistical methods, Poisson distribution, car moving techniques, traffic flow.

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Authors: Rajaram Kr. Gupta, Bhupendra Kumar, T. V. K. Gupta, D. S. Ramteke

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Machining of hard materials is a recent technology for direct production of work-pieces. The primary challenge in machining these materials is selection of cutting tool inserts which facilitates an extended tool life and high-precision machining of the component. These materials are widely for making precision parts for the aerospace industry. Nickel-based alloys are typically used in extreme environment applications where a combination of strength, corrosion resistance and oxidation resistance material characteristics are required. The present paper reports the theoretical and experimental investigations carried out to understand the influence of machining parameters on the response parameters. Considering the basic machining parameters (speed, feed and depth of cut) a study has been conducted to observe their influence on material removal rate, surface roughness, cutting forces and corresponding tool wear. Experiments are designed and conducted with the help of Central Composite Rotatable Design technique. The results reveals that for a given range of process parameters, material removal rate is favorable for higher depths of cut and low feed rate for cutting forces. Low feed rates and high values of rotational speeds are suitable for better finish and higher tool life.

Keywords: Speed, feed, depth of cut, roughness, cutting force, flank wear.

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Authors: Peerapong Uthansakul, Monthippa Uthansakul

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The rapid growth of e-Commerce services is significantly observed in the past decade. However, the method to verify the authenticated users still widely depends on numeric approaches. A new search on other verification methods suitable for online e-Commerce is an interesting issue. In this paper, a new online signature-verification method using angular transformation is presented. Delay shifts existing in online signatures are estimated by the estimation method relying on angle representation. In the proposed signature-verification algorithm, all components of input signature are extracted by considering the discontinuous break points on the stream of angular values. Then the estimated delay shift is captured by comparing with the selected reference signature and the error matching can be computed as a main feature used for verifying process. The threshold offsets are calculated by two types of error characteristics of the signature verification problem, False Rejection Rate (FRR) and False Acceptance Rate (FAR). The level of these two error rates depends on the decision threshold chosen whose value is such as to realize the Equal Error Rate (EER; FAR = FRR). The experimental results show that through the simple programming, employed on Internet for demonstrating e-Commerce services, the proposed method can provide 95.39% correct verifications and 7% better than DP matching based signature-verification method. In addition, the signature verification with extracting components provides more reliable results than using a whole decision making.

Keywords: Online signature verification, e-Commerce services, Angular transformation.

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Authors: Manish K. Khandelwal, P. Bera, A. Chakrabarti

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This article presents a numerical study of the doublediffusive mixed convection in a vertical channel filled with porous medium by using non-equilibrium model. The flow is assumed fully developed, uni-directional and steady state. The controlling parameters are thermal Rayleigh number (RaT ), Darcy number (Da), Forchheimer number (F), buoyancy ratio (N), inter phase heat transfer coefficient (H), and porosity scaled thermal conductivity ratio (γ). The Brinkman-extended non-Darcy model is considered. The governing equations are solved by spectral collocation method. The main emphasize is given on flow profiles as well as heat and solute transfer rates, when two diffusive components in terms of buoyancy ratio are in favor (against) of each other and solid matrix and fluid are thermally non-equilibrium. The results show that, for aiding flow (RaT = 1000), the heat transfer rate of fluid (Nuf ) increases upto a certain value of H, beyond that decreases smoothly and converges to a constant, whereas in case of opposing flow (RaT = -1000), the result is same for N = 0 and 1. The variation of Nuf in (N, Nuf )-plane shows sinusoidal pattern for RaT = -1000. For both cases (aiding and opposing) the flow destabilize on increasing N by inviting point of inflection or flow separation on the velocity profile. Overall, the buoyancy force have significant impact on the non-Darcy mixed convection under LTNE conditions.

Keywords: buoyancy ratio, mixed convection, non-Darcy model, thermal non-equilibrium

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Authors: Ashiquer Rahman, Hares Mohammad, Ummey Salma

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A country’s hourly compensation and unemployment rates are two of its most crucial components. They are not merely statistics but they have profound effects on individual, families, country, and the economy. They are inversely related to one another. The increased hourly compensation in the manufacturing sector can have a favorable effect on job changing issues. Moreover, the relationship between hourly compensation and unemployment is complex and influenced by broader economic factors. In this paper, in order to determine the effect of hourly compensation on unemployment rate, we use the panel data regression models and evaluate the expected link between hourly compensation and unemployment rate. We estimate the fixed effects model (FEM), evaluate the error components model (ECM), and determine which model (the FEM or ECM) is better through pooling all 60 observations. We then analyze and review the data by comparing countries (United States, Canada and the United Kingdom) using panel data regression models. Finally, we provide result, analysis and a summary of this extensive research on how the hourly compensation affects unemployment rate. Additionally, this paper offers relevant and useful guideline for the government and academic community to use an econometrics and social approach for the hourly compensation on unemployment rate to eliminate the problem.

Keywords: Hourly compensation, unemployment rate, panel data regression models, dummy variables, random effects model, fixed effects model, the linear regression model.

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Authors: Abdul Khaliq Amiri, Shigeyuki Date

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This study investigates the effect of using carbon-free fly ash (CfFA) and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) on the compressive strength of mortar. The CfFA used in this investigation is high-quality fly ash and the carbon content is 1.0% or less. In this study, three types of blends with a 30% water-binder ratio (w/b) were prepared: control, binary and ternary blends. The Control blend contained only Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), in binary and ternary blends OPC was partially replaced with CfFA and GGBFS at different substitution rates. Mortar specimens were cured for 1 day, 7 days and 28 days under two curing conditions: steam curing and water curing. The steam cured specimens were exposed to two different pre-curing times (1.5 h and 2.5 h) and one steam curing duration (6 h) at 45 °C. The test results showed that water cured specimens revealed higher compressive strength than steam cured specimens at later ages. An increase in CfFA and GGBFS contents caused a decrease in the compressive strength of mortar. Ternary mixes exhibited better compressive strength than binary mixes containing CfFA with the same replacement ratio of mineral admixtures.

Keywords: Carbon-free fly ash, compressive strength, ground granulated blast-furnace slag, steam curing, water curing.

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Authors: M. L. Yeung

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With the surge of divorce rate and male cancer onset/death rates, the phenomenon of divorced wives in the facing cancer death of their ex-husbands is not uncommon in Hong Kong. Yet, there is a dearth of study on the experiences of bereaved-divorced wives in the Hong Kong cultural context. This project fills the knowledge gap by conducting a qualitative study for having interviewed four bereaved ex-wives, who returned to ex-husbands’ end-of-life caregiving and eventually grieved for the ex-spousal’s death. From the perspectives of attachment theory and disenfranchised grief in the Hong Kong cultural context, a ‘double-loss’ experience is found in which interviewees suffer from the first loss of divorce and the second loss of ex-husbands’ death. Traumatic childhood experiences, attachment needs, role ambiguity, unresolved emotions and unrecognized grief are found significant in their lived experiences which alert the ‘double-loss’ is worthy of attention. Extending a family-centered end-of-life and bereavement care services to divorced couples is called for, in which validation on the attachment needs, ex-couple reconciliation, and acknowledgement on the disenfranchised grief are essential for social work practice on this group of clienteles specifically in Hong Kong cultural context.

Keywords: Changing family, disenfranchised grief, divorce, ex-spousal death, marriage.

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Authors: Jeng-Wei Tsai

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The purpose of this study was to understand the main sources of copper (Cu) accumulation in target organs of tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) and to investigate how the organism mediate the process of Cu accumulation under prolonged conditions. By measuring both dietary and waterborne Cu accumulation and total concentrations in tilapia with biokinetic modeling approach, we were able to clarify the biokinetic coping mechanisms for the long term Cu accumulation. This study showed that water and food are both the major source of Cu for the muscle and liver of tilapia. This implied that control the Cu concentration in these two routes will be correlated to the Cu bioavailability for tilapia. We found that exposure duration and level of waterborne Cu drove the Cu accumulation in tilapia. The ability for Cu biouptake and depuration in organs of tilapia were actively mediated under prolonged exposure conditions. Generally, the uptake rate, depuration rate and net bioaccumulation ability in all selected organs decreased with the increasing level of waterborne Cu and extension of exposure duration.Muscle tissues accounted for over 50%of the total accumulated Cu and played a key role in buffering the Cu burden in the initial period of exposure, alternatively, the liver acted a more important role in the storage of Cu with the extension of exposures. We concluded that assumption of the constant biokinetic rates could lead to incorrect predictions with overestimating the long-term Cu accumulation in ecotoxicological risk assessments.

Keywords: Biokinetics, Chronic exposure, Copper, Coping mechanism, Tilapia

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Authors: Anupama Pande, Vishik Goel

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A complex valued neural network is a neural network, which consists of complex valued input and/or weights and/or thresholds and/or activation functions. Complex-valued neural networks have been widening the scope of applications not only in electronics and informatics, but also in social systems. One of the most important applications of the complex valued neural network is in image and vision processing. In Neural networks, radial basis functions are often used for interpolation in multidimensional space. A Radial Basis function is a function, which has built into it a distance criterion with respect to a centre. Radial basis functions have often been applied in the area of neural networks where they may be used as a replacement for the sigmoid hidden layer transfer characteristic in multi-layer perceptron. This paper aims to present exhaustive results of using RBF units in a complex-valued neural network model that uses the back-propagation algorithm (called 'Complex-BP') for learning. Our experiments results demonstrate the effectiveness of a Radial basis function in a complex valued neural network in image recognition over a real valued neural network. We have studied and stated various observations like effect of learning rates, ranges of the initial weights randomly selected, error functions used and number of iterations for the convergence of error on a neural network model with RBF units. Some inherent properties of this complex back propagation algorithm are also studied and discussed.

Keywords: Complex valued neural network, Radial BasisFunction, Image recognition.

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Authors: Okafor C. Uche, Agbo P. Ejiofor, Okezie C. Eziuche

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This study provides a regeneration protocol for Treculia africana Decne (an endangered plant) through embryo culture. Mature zygotic embryos of T. africana were excised from the seeds aseptically and cultured on varied strengths (full, half and quarter) of Murashige and Skoog (MS) basal medium supplemented. All treatments experienced 100±0.00 percent sprouting except for half and quarter strengths. Plantlets in MS full strength had the highest fresh weight, leaf area, and longest shoot length when compared to other treatments. All explants in full, half, quarter strengths and control had the same number of leaves and sprout rate. Between the treatments, there was a significant difference (P>0.05) in their effect on the length of shoot and root, number of adventitious root, leaf area, and fresh weight. Full strength had the highest mean value in all the above-mentioned parameters and differed significantly (P>0.05) from others except in shoot length, number of adventitious roots, and root length where it did not differ (P<0.05) from half strength. The result of this study indicates that full strength MS basal medium offers a better option for the optimum growth for Treculia africana regeneration in vitro.

Keywords: Medium strengths, Murashige and Skoog, Treculia africana, zygotic embryos.

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Authors: José M. Brotons, Manuel E. Sansalvador

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The relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and financial performance (FP) is a subject of great interest that has not yet been resolved. In this work, we have developed a new and original tool to measure this relation. The tool quantifies the value contributed to companies that are committed to CSR. The theoretical model used is the fuzzy discounted cash flow method. Two assumptions have been considered, the first, the company has implemented the IQNet SR10 certification, and the second, the company has not implemented that certification. For the first one, the growth rate used for the time horizon is the rate maintained by the company after obtaining the IQNet SR10 certificate. For the second one, both, the growth rates company prior to the implementation of the certification, and the evolution of the sector will be taken into account. By using triangular fuzzy numbers, it is possible to deal adequately with each company’s forecasts as well as the information corresponding to the sector. Once the annual growth rate of the sales is obtained, the profit and loss accounts are generated from the annual estimate sales. For the remaining elements of this account, their regression with the nets sales has been considered. The difference between these two valuations, made in a fuzzy environment, allows obtaining the value of the IQNet SR10 certification. Although this study presents an innovative methodology to quantify the relation between CSR and FP, the authors are aware that only one company has been analyzed. This is precisely the main limitation of this study which in turn opens up an interesting line for future research: to broaden the sample of companies.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, case study, financial performance, company valuation.

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Authors: K. Krishnaprasad, Raghu V. Prakash

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Constant amplitude fatigue crack growth (FCG) tests were performed on dissimilar metal welded plates of Type 316L Stainless Steel (SS) and IS 2062 Grade A Carbon steel (CS). The plates were welded by TIG welding using SS E309 as electrode. FCG tests were carried on the Side Edge Notch Tension (SENT) specimens of 5 mm thickness, with crack initiator (notch) at base metal region (BM), weld metal region (WM) and heat affected zones (HAZ). The tests were performed at a test frequency of 10 Hz and at load ratios (R) of 0.1 & 0.6. FCG rate was found to increase with stress ratio for weld metals and base metals, where as in case of HAZ, FCG rates were almost equal at high ΔK. FCG rate of HAZ of stainless steel was found to be lowest at low and high ΔK. At intermediate ΔK, WM showed the lowest FCG rate. CS showed higher crack growth rate at all ΔK. However, the scatter band of data was found to be narrow. Fracture toughness (Kc) was found to vary in different locations of weldments. Kc was found lowest for the weldment and highest for HAZ of stainless steel. A novel method of characterizing the FCG behavior using an Infrared thermography (IRT) camera was attempted. By monitoring the temperature rise at the fast moving crack tip region, the amount of plastic deformation was estimated.

Keywords: Dissimilar metal weld, Fatigue Crack Growth, fracture toughness, Infrared thermography.

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Authors: Mpai Mokoena, Nsenda Lukumwena

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South Africa is one of the driest countries in the world and is facing a water crisis. In addition to inadequate infrastructure and poor planning, the country is experiencing high rates of water wastage due to pipe leaks. This study outlines the level of water wastage and develops a smart solution to efficiently manage and reduce the effects of pipe leaks, while monitoring the situation before and after fixing the pipe leaks. To understand the issue in depth, a literature review of journal papers and government reports was conducted. A questionnaire was designed and distributed to the general public. Additionally, the municipality office was contacted from a managerial perspective. The analysis from the study indicated that the majority of the citizens are aware of the water crisis and are willing to participate positively to decrease the level of water wasted. Furthermore, the response from the municipality acknowledged that more practical solutions are needed to reduce water wastage, and resources to attend to pipe leaks swiftly. Therefore, this paper proposes a specific solution for municipalities, local plumbers and citizens to minimize the effects of pipe leaks. The solution provides web and mobile application platforms to report and manage leaks swiftly. The solution is beneficial to the country in achieving water security and would promote a culture of responsibility toward water usage.

Keywords: Urban Distribution Networks, leak management, mobile application, responsible citizens, water crisis, water security.

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Authors: Esma Gizem Daskiran, Mehmet Mustafa Daskiran, Mustafa Gencoglu

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Textile reinforced cementitious composite (TRCC) is a development of a composite material where textile and fine-grained concrete (matrix) materials are used in combination. These matrices offer high performance properties in many aspects. To achieve high performance, polymer modified fine-grained concretes were used as matrix material which have high flexural strength. In this study, ten latex polymers and ten powder polymers were added to fine-grained concrete mixtures. These latex and powder polymers were added to the mixtures at different rates related to binder weight. Mechanical properties such as compressive and flexural strength were studied. Results showed that latex polymer and redispersible polymer modified fine-grained concretes showed different mechanical performance. A wide range of both latex and redispersible powder polymers were studied. As the addition rate increased compressive strength decreased for all mixtures. Flexural strength increased as the addition rate increased but significant enhancement was not observed through all mixtures.

Keywords: Textile reinforced composite, cement, fine grained concrete, latex, redispersible powder.

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Authors: Tania Bose, Minto Rattan, Neeraj Chamoli

Abstract:

In this paper, an attempt has been made to study the effect of thermal gradation on the steady-state creep behavior of rotating isotropic disc made of functionally graded material using threshold stress based Sherby’s creep law. The composite discs made of aluminum matrix reinforced with silicon carbide particulate have been taken for analysis. The stress and strain rate distributions have been calculated for the discs rotating at elevated temperatures having thermal gradation. The material parameters of creep vary radially and have been estimated by regression fit of the available experimental data. Investigations for discs made up of linearly increasing particle content operating under linearly decreasing temperature from inner to outer radii have been done using von Mises’ yield criterion. The results are displayed and compared graphically in designer friendly format for the above said disc profile with the disc made of particle reinforced composite operating under uniform temperature profile. It is observed that radial and tangential stresses show minor variation and the strain rates vary significantly in the presence of thermal gradation as compared to disc having uniform temperature.

Keywords: Creep, functionally graded isotropic material, steady-state, thermal gradation.

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Authors: Doaa M. Atia, Faten H. Fahmy, Ninet M. Ahmed, Hassen T. Dorrah

Abstract:

Fuel cells have become one of the major areas of research in the academia and the industry. The goal of most fish farmers is to maximize production and profits while holding labor and management efforts to the minimum. Risk of fish kills, disease outbreaks, poor water quality in most pond culture operations, aeration offers the most immediate and practical solution to water quality problems encountered at higher stocking and feeding rates. Many units of aeration system are electrical units so using a continuous, high reliability, affordable, and environmentally friendly power sources is necessary. Aeration of water by using PEM fuel cell power is not only a new application of the renewable energy, but also, it provides an affordable method to promote biodiversity in stagnant ponds and lakes. This paper presents a new design and control of PEM fuel cell powered a diffused air aeration system for a shrimp farm in Mersa Matruh in Egypt. Also Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques control is used to control the fuel cell output power by control input gases flow rate. Moreover the mathematical modeling and simulation of PEM fuel cell is introduced. A comparison study is applied between the performance of fuzzy logic control (FLC) and neural network control (NNC). The results show the effectiveness of NNC over FLC.

Keywords: PEM fuel cell, Diffused aeration system, Artificialintelligence (AI) techniques, neural network control, fuzzy logiccontrol

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Authors: P. Niranatlumpong, H. Koiprasert, C. Sukhonket, K. Ninon, N. Coompreedee

Abstract:

The use of a conventional air plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coating (TBC) and a porous, functionally graded TBC as a thermal insulator for Al7075 alloy was explored. A quench test at 1200°C employing fast heating and cooling rates was setup to represent a dynamic thermal condition of an aerospace component. During the test, coated samples were subjected the ambient temperature of 1200°C for a very short time. This was followed by a rapid drop in temperature resulting in cracking of the coatings. For the conventional TBC, it was found that the temperature of the Al7075 substrate decreases with the increase in the ZrO₂ topcoat thickness. However, at the topcoat thickness of 1100 µm, large horizontal cracks can be observed in the topcoat and at the topcoat thickness of 1600 µm, the topcoat delaminate during cooling after the quench test. The porous, functionally graded TBC with 600 µm thick topcoat, on the other hand, was found to be as effective at reducing the substrate temperature as the conventional TBC with 1100 µm thick topcoat. The maximum substrate temperature is about 213°C for the former and 208°C for the latter when a heating rate of 38°C/s was used. When the quench tests were conducted with a faster heating rate of 128°C/s, the Al7075 substrate heat up faster with a reduction in the maximum substrate temperatures. The substrate temperatures dropped from 297 to 212°C for the conventional TBC and from 213 to 155°C for the porous TBC, both with 600 µm thick topcoat. Segmentation cracks were observed in both coating after the quench test.

Keywords: Thermal barrier coating, Al7075, porous TBC, Quenching.

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Authors: Sule Yucelbas, Gulay Tezel, Cuneyt Yucelbas, Seral Ozsen

Abstract:

In this study, it was tried to identify some heart rhythm disorders by electrocardiography (ECG) data that is taken from MIT-BIH arrhythmia database by subtracting the required features, presenting to artificial neural networks (ANN), artificial immune systems (AIS), artificial neural network based on artificial immune system (AIS-ANN) and particle swarm optimization based artificial neural network (PSO-NN) classifier systems. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of hybrid AIS-ANN and PSO-ANN classifiers with regard to the ANN and AIS. For this purpose, the normal sinus rhythm (NSR), atrial premature contraction (APC), sinus arrhythmia (SA), ventricular trigeminy (VTI), ventricular tachycardia (VTK) and atrial fibrillation (AF) data for each of the RR intervals were found. Then these data in the form of pairs (NSR-APC, NSR-SA, NSR-VTI, NSR-VTK and NSR-AF) is created by combining discrete wavelet transform which is applied to each of these two groups of data and two different data sets with 9 and 27 features were obtained from each of them after data reduction. Afterwards, the data randomly was firstly mixed within themselves, and then 4-fold cross validation method was applied to create the training and testing data. The training and testing accuracy rates and training time are compared with each other.

As a result, performances of the hybrid classification systems, AIS-ANN and PSO-ANN were seen to be close to the performance of the ANN system. Also, the results of the hybrid systems were much better than AIS, too. However, ANN had much shorter period of training time than other systems. In terms of training times, ANN was followed by PSO-ANN, AIS-ANN and AIS systems respectively. Also, the features that extracted from the data affected the classification results significantly.

Keywords: AIS, ANN, ECG, hybrid classifiers, PSO.

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Authors: Sumiko Anno, Keiji Imaoka, Takeo Tadono, Tamotsu Igarashi, Subramaniam Sivaganesh, Selvam Kannathasan, Vaithehi Kumaran, Sinnathamby Noble Surendran

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Dengue outbreaks are affected by biological, ecological, socio-economic and demographic factors that vary over time and space. These factors have been examined separately and still require systematic clarification. The present study aimed to investigate the spatial-temporal clustering relationships between these factors and dengue outbreaks in the northern region of Sri Lanka. Remote sensing (RS) data gathered from a plurality of satellites were used to develop an index comprising rainfall, humidity and temperature data. RS data gathered by ALOS/AVNIR-2 were used to detect urbanization, and a digital land cover map was used to extract land cover information. Other data on relevant factors and dengue outbreaks were collected through institutions and extant databases. The analyzed RS data and databases were integrated into geographic information systems, enabling temporal analysis, spatial statistical analysis and space-time clustering analysis. Our present results showed that increases in the number of the combination of ecological factor and socio-economic and demographic factors with above the average or the presence contribute to significantly high rates of space-time dengue clusters.

Keywords: ALOS/AVNIR-2, Dengue, Space-time clustering analysis, Sri Lanka.

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Authors: Zainab M. Almutairi, Amjad Alharbi

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The use of engineered nanomaterials has increased as a result of their positive impact on many sectors of the economy, including agriculture. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are now used to enhance seed germination, plant growth, and photosynthetic quantum efficiency and as antimicrobial agents to control plant diseases. In this study, we examined the effect of AgNP dosage on the seed germination of three plant species: corn (Zea mays L.), watermelon (Citrullus lanatus [Thunb.] Matsum. & Nakai) and zucchini (Cucurbita pepo L.). This experiment was designed to study the effect of AgNPs on germination percentage, germination rate, mean germination time, root length and fresh and dry weight of seedlings for the three species. Seven concentrations (0.05, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 mg/ml) of AgNPs were examined at the seed germination stage. The three species had different dose responses to AgNPs in terms of germination parameters and the measured growth characteristics. The germination rates of the three plants were enhanced in response to AgNPs. Significant enhancement of the germination percentage values was observed after treatment of the watermelon and zucchini plants with AgNPs in comparison with untreated seeds. AgNPs showed a toxic effect on corn root elongation, whereas watermelon and zucchini seedling growth were positively affected by certain concentrations of AgNPs. This study showed that exposure to AgNPs caused both positive and negative effects on plant growth and germination.

Keywords: Citrullus lanatus, Cucurbita pepo, seed germination, seedling growth, silver nanoparticles, Zea mays.

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