Search results for: households study

Authors: N. Klinpikul, P. Srichandr, N. Poolthong, N. Thavarungkul

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Breastfeeding has been receiving much attention of late. Prolonged sitting for breastfeeding often results in back pain of the mothers. This paper reports the findings of a study on the effect of some factors, especially lumbar support, on back pain of breastfeeding mothers. The results showed that the use of lumbar support can reduce back pain of breastfeeding mothers significantly. Back pain was found to increase with breastfeeding time and the rate of increase was lower when lumbar supports were used. When lumbar support thickness was increased gradually from zero (no support) to 11 cm., the degree of low back pain decreased; rapidly at first, then slowly, and leveled off when the thickness reached 9 cm. Younger mothers were less prone to back pain than older mothers. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords: back pain, breastfeeding, lumbar support

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Authors: Satish BM, Girish BM , Mahesh K

Abstract:

The aim of the present work is to study the effect of annealing on the vibration damping capacity of high-chromium (16%) ferromagnetic steel. The alloys were prepared from raw materials of 99.9% purity melted in a high frequency induction furnace under high vacuum. The samples were heat-treated in vacuum at various temperatures (800 to 1200ºC) for 1 hour followed by slow cooling (120ºC/h). The inverted torsional pendulum method was used to evaluate the vibration damping capacity. The results indicated that the vibration damping capacity of the alloys is influenced by annealing and there exists a critical annealing temperature after 1000ºC. The damping capacity increases quickly below the critical temperature since the magnetic domains move more easily.

Keywords: Vibration, Damping, Ferromagnetic, Steel.

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Authors: M. H. Chung, B. Y. Lee, Y. Kim, E. K. Rhee

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With an increase in the interest in the energy conservation for buildings, and the emergence of many methods and easily-understandable approaches to it, energy conservation has now become the public’s main interest, as compared to in the past when it was only focused upon by experts. This study aims to help the occupants of a building to understand the energy efficiency and consumption of the building by providing them information on the building’s energy efficiency through a mobile application. The energy performance assessment models are proposed on the basis of the actual energy usage and building characteristics such as the architectural scheme and the building equipment. The university buildings in Korea are used as a case to demonstrate the mobile application.

Keywords: Energy consumption, energy performance assessment, mobile application, university buildings.

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Authors: Thiago M. R. Dias, Gray F. Moita, Paulo E. M. Almeida

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Although the World Wide Web is considered the largest source of information there exists nowadays, due to its inherent dynamic characteristics, the task of finding useful and qualified information can become a very frustrating experience. This study presents a research on the information mining systems in the Web; and proposes an implementation of these systems by means of components that can be built using the technology of Web services. This implies that they can encompass features offered by a services oriented architecture (SOA) and specific components may be used by other tools, independent of platforms or programming languages. Hence, the main objective of this work is to provide an architecture to Web mining systems, divided into stages, where each step is a component that will incorporate the characteristics of SOA. The separation of these steps was designed based upon the existing literature. Interesting results were obtained and are shown here.

Keywords: Web Mining, Service Oriented Architecture, WebServices.

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Authors: Tri Poespowati

Abstract:

Experiments were conducted to characterize fire properties of wood exposed to the certain external heat flux and under variety of wood moisture content. Six kinds of Indonesian wood: keruing, sono, cemara, kamper, pinus, and mahoni were exposed to radiant heat from a conical heater, result in appearance of a stable flame on the wood surface caused by spontaneous ignition. A thermocouple K-type was used to measure the wood surface temperature. Temperature histories were recorded throughout each experiment at 1 s intervals using a TC-08. Data of first ignition time and temperature, end ignition time and temperature, and charring rate have been successfully collected. It was found that the ignition temperature and charring rate depend on moisture content of wood.

Keywords: Fire properties, moisture content, wood, charring rate.

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Authors: M. Karami Khorramabadi, A. R. Nezamabadi

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This paper studies mechanical buckling of functionally graded beams subjected to axial compressive load that is simply supported at both ends lies on a continuous elastic foundation. The displacement field of beam is assumed based on Engesser-Timoshenko beam theory. Applying the Hamilton's principle, the equilibrium equation is established. The influences of dimensionless geometrical parameter, functionally graded index and foundation coefficient on the critical buckling load of beam are presented. To investigate the accuracy of the present analysis, a compression study is carried out with a known data.

Keywords: Mechanical Buckling, Functionally graded beam- Engesser-Timoshenko beam theory

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Authors: N. Pekin Alakoç, A. Apaydın

Abstract:

Quality control charts indicate out of control conditions if any nonrandom pattern of the points is observed or any point is plotted beyond the control limits. Nonrandom patterns of Shewhart control charts are tested with sensitizing rules. When the processes are defined with fuzzy set theory, traditional sensitizing rules are insufficient for defining all out of control conditions. This is due to the fact that fuzzy numbers increase the number of out of control conditions. The purpose of the study is to develop a set of fuzzy sensitizing rules, which increase the flexibility and sensitivity of fuzzy control charts. Fuzzy sensitizing rules simplify the identification of out of control situations that results in a decrease in the calculation time and number of evaluations in fuzzy control chart approach.

Keywords: Fuzzy set theory, Quality control charts, Run Rules, Unnatural patterns.

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Authors: E. Selçuk, Z. Karaçor, P. Yardımcı

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Trade liberalization and its effects on the economies of developing countries have been investigated by many different studies, and some of them have focused on its impact on the current account balance. Turkey, as being one of the countries, which has liberalized its foreign trade in the 1980s, also needs to be studied in terms of the impact of liberalization on current account deficits. Therefore, the aim of this study is to find out whether trade liberalization has affected Turkey’s trade and current account balances. In order to determine this, yearly data of Turkey from 1980 to 2013 is used. As liberalization dummy, the year 1989, which was set for Turkey, is selected. Structural break test and model estimation results show that trade liberalization has a negative impact on trade balance but do not have a significant impact on the current account balance.

Keywords: Budget deficit, current account, liberalization, Turkish economy.

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Authors: Sirichai Chantara-arpornchai, Apanee Luengnaruemitchai, Samai Jai-In

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In this study, the transesterification of palm oil with methanol for biodiesel production was studied by using CaO–ZnO as a heterogeneous base catalyst prepared by incipient-wetness impregnation (IWI) and co-precipitation (CP) methods. The reaction parameters considered were molar ratio of methanol to oil, amount of catalyst, reaction temperature, and reaction time. The optimum conditions–15:1 molar ratio of methanol to oil, a catalyst amount of 6 wt%, reaction temperature of 60 °C, and reaction time of 8 h–were observed. The effects of Ca loading, calcination temperature, and catalyst preparation on the catalytic performance were studied. The fresh and spent catalysts were characterized by several techniques, including XRD, TPR, and XRF.

Keywords: CaO, ZnO, biodiesel, heterogeneous catalyst, trans-esterification.

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Authors: Satish Kolli, Adriana Ferancova, David Porter, Jukka Kömi

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Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) has been used to detect sensitization in austenitic stainless steels that are heat treated in the temperature regime 600-820 °C to produce different degrees of sensitization in the material. The tests were conducted at five different DC potentials in the transpassive region. The quantitative determination of degree of sensitization has been done using double loop electrochemical potentiokinetic reactivation tests (DL-EPR). The correlation between EIS Nyquist diagrams and DL-EPR degree of sensitization values has been studied. The EIS technique can be used as a qualitative tool in determining the intergranular corrosion in austenitic stainless steels that are heat treated at a given temperature.

Keywords: Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, intergranular corrosion, sensitization, stainless steel.

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Authors: Thiago M. R. Dias, Patrícia M. Dias, Gray F. Moita

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The production and publication of scientific works have increased significantly in the last years, being the Internet the main factor of access and distribution of these works. Faced with this, there is a growing interest in understanding how scientific research has evolved, in order to explore this knowledge to encourage research groups to become more productive. Therefore, the objective of this work is to explore repositories containing data from scientific publications and to characterize keyword networks of these publications, in order to identify the most relevant keywords, and to highlight those that have the greatest impact on the network. To do this, each article in the study repository has its keywords extracted and in this way the network is  characterized, after which several metrics for social network analysis are applied for the identification of the highlighted keywords.

Keywords: Extraction and data integration, bibliometrics, scientometrics.

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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.

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Authors: PeiWen Liao, Tsung Hau Jen

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This study was conducted to explore the effects of two countries model comparison program in Taiwan and Singapore in TIMSS database. The researchers used Multi-Group Hierarchical Linear Modeling techniques to compare the effects of two different country models and we tested our hypotheses on 4,046 Taiwan students and 4,599 Singapore students in 2007 at two levels: the class level and student (individual) level. Design quality is a class level variable. Student level variables are achievement and self-confidence. The results challenge the widely held view that retention has a positive impact on self-confidence. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: Teaching approach, self-confidence, achievement, multi-group HLM.

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Authors: Ankit R Patel, Ankit A Patel, Mahesh A Patel, Dhaval R Vyas

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Although lighting systems powered by Photovoltaic (PV) cells have existed for many years, they are not widely used, especially in lighting for buildings, due to their high initial cost and low conversion efficiency. One of the technical challenges facing PV powered lighting systems has been how to use dc power generated by the PV module to energize common light sources that are designed to operate efficiently under ac power. Usually, the efficiency of the dc light sources is very poor compared to ac light sources. Rapid developments in LED lighting systems have made this technology a potential candidate for PV powered lighting systems. This study analyzed the efficiency of each component of PV powered lighting systems to identify optimum system configurations for different applications.

Keywords: Energy Efficiency, LED, Modeling of systems, Photovoltaic.

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Authors: Zuzana Poborilova, Anna B. Ohlsson, Torkel Berglund, Anna Vildova, Petr Babula

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Lawsone is a pigment that occurs naturally in plants. It has been used as a skin and hair dye for a long time. Moreover, its different biological activities have been reported. The present study focused on the effect of lawsone on a plant cell model represented by tobacco BY-2 cell suspension culture, which is used as a model comparable with the HeLa cells. It has been shown that lawsone inhibits the cell growth in the concentration-dependent manner. In addition, changes in DNA methylation level have been determined. We observed decreasing level of DNA methylation in the presence of increasing concentrations of lawsone. These results were accompanied with overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Since epigenetic modifications can be caused by different stress factors, there could be a connection between the changes in the level of DNA methylation and ROS production caused by lawsone.

Keywords: DNA methylation, Lawsone, Naphthoquinone, Reactive Oxygen Species.

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Authors: J. Y. Woo, J. Lee, N. Kim, C.-S. Han

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This paper reports on the enhanced photoluminescence (PL) of nanocomposites through the layered structuring of phosphor and quantum dot (QD). Green phosphor of Sr2SiO4:Eu, red QDs of CdSe/CdS/CdZnS/ZnS core-multishell, and thermo-curable resin were used for this study. Two kinds of composite (layered and mixed) were prepared, and the schemes for optical energy transfer between QD and phosphor were suggested and investigated based on PL decay characteristics. It was found that the layered structure is more effective than the mixed one in the respects of PL intensity, PL decay and thermal loss. When this layered nanocomposite (QDs on phosphor) is used to make white light emitting diode (LED), the brightness is increased by 37 %, and the color rendering index (CRI) value is raised to 88.4 compared to the mixed case of 80.4.

Keywords: Quantum Dot, Nanocomposites, Photoluminescence, Light Emitting Diode

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Authors: S. K. Berdibayeva, Z. Z. Beissenova, A. Z. Ayaganova

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the aim of this study was to analyze ethnopsychological content of “Aitys" as a process of creative competition in Kazakh traditional folklore by means of Transaction analysis (three types of Ego states are Parent, Adult and Child). “Aitys" is as sources of Kazakh national self-consciousness and form of oral Kazakh national creativity. Comparative psychological analysis of classical and modern “aityses" is carried out. Empirical proved that the victory in “Aitys" is provided with a position of egostate “Adult".

Keywords: aitys, creative competition, Ego state, transaction analysis

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Authors: Tasnuva Tamanna, Aimin Yu

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Application of nanoscience in biomedical field has come across as a new era. This study involves the synthesis of nano drug carrier with antibiotic loading. Based on the founding that polydopamine (PDA) nanoparticles could be formed via self-polymerization of dopamine at alkaline pH, one-step synthesis of rifampicin coupled polydopamine (PDA-R) nanoparticles was achieved by adding rifampicin into the dopamine solution. The successful yield of PDA nanoparticles with or without the presence of rifampicin during the polymerization process was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. Drug loading was monitored by UV-vis spectroscopy and the loading efficiency of rifampicin was calculated to be 76%. Such highly capacious nano-reservoir was found very stable with little drug leakage at pH 3.

Keywords: Drug loading, nanoparticles, polydopamine, rifampicin.

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Authors: Asem M. Othman

Abstract:

The expansion of the hospitality industry is distinctive in the 21st century. Services, by nature, are intangible. Hence, service quality, in general, is a complicated process to be measured and evaluated. Hotels, as a service sector and part of the hospitality industry, are growing rapidly. This research paper was carried out to identify the quality determinants that may affect hotel guests’ service quality perception. In this research paper, each quality determinant will be discussed, illustrated, and justified thoroughly via a systematic literature review. This paper sets the stage to measure the significant influence of the service quality determinants on guest satisfaction. The knowledge contribution from this study proposes to practitioners and/or hotel service providers, fundamental elements to adopt the implications into their policies.

Keywords: Hotel service, service quality, quality determinants, quality management.

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Authors: Farahnaz Amini, Woo Yun Kin, Lazwani Kolandaiveloo

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Availability of different genetic tests after completion of Human Genome Project increases the physicians’ responsibility to keep themselves update on the potential implementation of these genetic tests in their daily practice. However, due to numbers of barriers, still many of physicians are not either aware of these tests or are not willing to offer or refer their patients for genetic tests. This study was conducted an anonymous, cross-sectional, mailed-based survey to develop a primary data of Malaysian physicians’ level of knowledge and perception of gene profiling. Questionnaire had 29 questions. Total scores on selected questions were used to assess the level of knowledge. The highest possible score was 11. Descriptive statistics, one way ANOVA and chi-squared test was used for statistical analysis. Sixty three completed questionnaires were returned by 27 general practitioners (GPs) and 36 medical specialists. Responders’ age ranges from 24 to 55 years old (mean 30.2 ± 6.4). About 40% of the participants rated themselves as having poor level of knowledge in genetics in general whilst 60% believed that they have fair level of knowledge; however, almost half (46%) of the respondents felt that they were not knowledgeable about available genetic tests. A majority (94%) of the responders were not aware of any lab or company which is offering gene profiling services in Malaysia. Only 4% of participants were aware of using gene profiling for detection of dosage of some drugs. Respondents perceived greater utility of gene profiling for breast cancer (38%) compared to the colorectal familial cancer (3%). The score of knowledge ranged from 2 to 8 (mean 4.38 ± 1.67). Non- significant differences between score of knowledge of GPs and specialists were observed, with score of 4.19 and 4.58 respectively. There was no significant association between any demographic factors and level of knowledge. However, those who graduated between years 2001 to 2005 had higher level of knowledge. Overall, 83% of participants showed relatively high level of perception on value of gene profiling to detect patient’s risk of disease. However, low perception was observed for both statements of using gene profiling for general population in order to alter their lifestyle (25%) as well as having the full sequence of a patient genome for the purpose of determining a patient’s best match for treatment (18%). The lack of clinical guidelines, limited provider knowledge and awareness, lack of time and resources to educate patients, lack of evidence-based clinical information and cost of tests were the most barriers of ordering gene profiling mentioned by physicians. In conclusion Malaysian physicians who participate in this study had mediocre level of knowledge and awareness in gene profiling. The low exposure to the genetic questions and problems might be a key predictor of lack of awareness and knowledge on available genetic tests. Educational and training workshop might be useful in helping Malaysian physicians incorporate genetic profiling into practice for eligible patients.

Keywords: Gene Profiling, Knowledge, Malaysia, Physician.

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Authors: R. Borghol, T. Aguili

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In this paper, we investigate theoretically the waves propagation in a lossless double-negative grounded slab (DNG). This study is performed by the Transverse Resonance Method (TRM). The proper or improper nature of real and complex modes is observed. They are highly dependent on metamaterial parameters, i.e. ɛ_r-negative, µ_r-negative, or both. Numerical results provided that only the proper complex modes (i.e., leaky modes) exist in DNG slab, and only the improper complex modes exist in single-negative grounded slab.

Keywords: Double-negative grounded slab, real and complex modes, single-negative grounded slab, transverse resonance method.

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Authors: Sung Ho Ahn, Jintae Hong, Chang Young Joung, Tae Ho Yang, Sung Ho Heo, Seo Yun Jang

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The performances of nuclear fuels and materials are qualified at an irradiation system in research reactors operating under the commercial nuclear power plant conditions. Fuel centerline temperature, coolant temperature, neutron flux, deformations of fuel stack and swelling are important parameters needed to analyze the nuclear fuel performances. The dimensional stability of nuclear fuels is a key parameter measuring the fuel densification and swelling. In this study, the fuel stack elongation is measured using a LVDT. A mockup LVDT instrumented fuel rod is developed. The performances of mockup LVDT instrumented fuel rod is evaluated by experiments.

Keywords: Axial deformation, elongation measurement, in-pile instrumentation, LVDT.

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Authors: Wael M. El-Mamlouk, Metwally A. El-Sharkawy, Hossam. E. Mostafa

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In this paper, we analyze and test a scheme for the estimation of electrical fundamental frequency signals from the harmonic load current and voltage signals. The scheme was based on using two different Multi Layer Artificial Neural Networks (ML-ANN) one for the current and the other for the voltage. This study also analyzes and tests the effect of choosing the optimum artificial neural networks- sizes which determine the quality and accuracy of the estimation of electrical fundamental frequency signals. The simulink tool box of the Matlab program for the simulation of the test system and the test of the neural networks has been used.

Keywords: Harmonics, Neural Networks, Modeling, Simulation, Active filters, electric Networks.

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Authors: Ewa. M. Sztendur, Neil T. Diamond

Abstract:

Random Forests are a powerful classification technique, consisting of a collection of decision trees. One useful feature of Random Forests is the ability to determine the importance of each variable in predicting the outcome. This is done by permuting each variable and computing the change in prediction accuracy before and after the permutation. This variable importance calculation is similar to a one-factor-at a time experiment and therefore is inefficient. In this paper, we use a regular fractional factorial design to determine which variables to permute. Based on the results of the trials in the experiment, we calculate the individual importance of the variables, with improved precision over the standard method. The method is illustrated with a study of student attrition at Monash University.

Keywords: Random Forests, Variable Importance, Fractional Factorial Designs, Student Attrition.

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Authors: B. Bahri, A. A. Aziz, M. Shahbakhti, M. F. Muhamad Said

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The greenhouse effect and limitations on carbon dioxide emissions concern engine maker and the future of the internal combustion engines should go toward substantially and improved thermal efficiency engine. Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) is an alternative high-efficiency technology for combustion engines to reduce exhaust emissions and fuel consumption. However, there are still tough challenges in the successful operation of HCCI engines, such as controlling the combustion phasing, extending the operating range, and high unburned hydrocarbon and CO emissions. HCCI and the exploitation of ethanol as an alternative fuel is one way to explore new frontiers of internal combustion engines with an eye towards maintaining its sustainability. This study was done to extend database knowledge about HCCI with ethanol a fuel.

Keywords: Ethanol combustion, Ethanol fuel, HCCI.

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Authors: N. Mungkung, S. Wongcharoen, C. Sukkongwari, Somchai Arunrungrasmi

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This study examines the design and construction of AC Electronics load surge protection in order to carry electric surge load arisen from faults in low voltage electricity system (single phase/220V) by using the principle of electronics load clamping voltage during induction period so that electric voltage could go through to safe load and continue to work. The qualification of the designed device could prevent both transient over voltage and voltage swell. Both will work in cooperation, resulting in the ability to improve and modify the quality of electrical power in Thailand electricity distribution system more effective than the past and help increase the lifetime of electric appliances, electric devices, and electricity protection equipments.

Keywords: Electronics Load, Transient Over Voltage, Voltage Swell.

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Authors: Maria Istvanova

Abstract:

The acquisition of the correct pronunciation in Chinese is closely linked to the initial phase of the study. Based on the contrastive analysis, we determine the differences in the pronunciation of stop consonants in Chinese and Slovak taking into consideration the place and manner of articulation to gain a better understanding of the students' main difficulties in the process of acquiring correct pronunciation of Chinese stop consonants. We employ the software Praat for the analysis of the recorded samples with an emphasis on the pronunciation of the students with a varying command of Chinese. The comparison of the voice onset time (VOT) length for the individual consonants in the students' pronunciation and the pronunciation of the native speaker exposes the differences between the correct pronunciation and the deviant pronunciation of the students.

Keywords: Chinese, contrastive analysis, Praat, pronunciation, Slovak.

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Authors: Basudev Ghosh, Sreyasi Banerjee

Abstract:

Using the pseudopotential technique the Sagdeev potential equation has been derived in a plasma consisting of twotemperature nonisothermal electrons, negatively charged dust grains and warm positive ions. The study shows that the presence of nonisothermal two-temperature electrons and charged dust grains have significant effects on the excitation and structure of the ionacoustic double layers in the model plasma under consideration. Only compressive type double layer is obtained in the present plasma model. The double layer solution has also been obtained by including higher order nonlinearity and nonisothermality, which is shown to modify the amplitude and deform the shape of the double layer.

Keywords: Two temperature non-isothermal electrons and charged dust grains.

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Authors: Fabrício José Piacente, Vanessa de Cillos Silva, Thigo Luiz Mello Melato

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The construction industry has been demonstrating increased growth and importance in Brazil’s national economic development. This study aims to evaluate the financial performance of the leading companies in the construction sector in Brazil in the period from 2009 to 2012. An analysis is made of the capital structure, liquidity, and profitability of the six largest companies in the construction sector in Brazil: Brookfield, Cyrela, Gafisa, MRV, PDG and Rossi. The results are then compared with standard industry ratios. It was found that among the companies analyzed, MRV and Cyrela showed the best relative performance in the period under consideration.

Keywords: Accounting ratios, construction, financial performance.

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Authors: E. Kaygan, A. Gatto

Abstract:

A numerical study of a design concept for actively controlling wing twist is described in this paper. The concept consists of morphing elements which were designed to provide a rigid and seamless skin while maintaining structural rigidity. The wing structure is first modeled in CATIA V5 then imported into ANSYS for structural analysis. Athena Vortex Lattice method (AVL) is used to estimate aerodynamic response as well as aerodynamic loads of morphing wings, afterwards a structural optimization performed via ANSYS Static. Overall, the results presented in this paper show that the concept provides efficient wing twist while preserving an aerodynamically smooth and compliant surface. Sufficient structural rigidity in bending is also obtained. This concept is suggested as a possible alternative for morphing skin applications. 

Keywords: Aircraft, morphing, skin, twist.

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