Search results for: design for environment

Authors: Maad Kamal Al-Anni

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This study is about an algorithmic dependence of Artificial Neural Network on Multilayer Perceptron (MPL) pertaining to the classification and clustering presentations for Mobile Adhoc Network vulnerabilities. Moreover, mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is ubiquitous intelligent internetworking devices in which it has the ability to detect their environment using an autonomous system of mobile nodes that are connected via wireless links. Security affairs are the most important subject in MANET due to the easy penetrative scenarios occurred in such an auto configuration network. One of the powerful techniques used for inspecting the network packets is Intrusion Detection System (IDS); in this article, we are going to show the effectiveness of artificial neural networks used as a machine learning along with stochastic approach (information gain) to classify the malicious behaviors in simulated network with respect to different IDS techniques. The monitoring agent is responsible for detection inference engine, the audit data is collected from collecting agent by simulating the node attack and contrasted outputs with normal behaviors of the framework, whenever. In the event that there is any deviation from the ordinary behaviors then the monitoring agent is considered this event as an attack , in this article we are going to demonstrate the  signature-based IDS approach in a MANET by implementing the back propagation algorithm over ensemble-based Traffic Table (TT), thus the signature of malicious behaviors or undesirable activities are often significantly prognosticated and efficiently figured out, by increasing the parametric set-up of Back propagation algorithm during the experimental results which empirically shown its effectiveness  for the ratio of detection index up to 98.6 percentage. Consequently it is proved in empirical results in this article, the performance matrices are also being included in this article with Xgraph screen show by different through puts like Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), Through Put(TP), and Average Delay(AD).

Keywords: Mobile ad hoc network, MANET, intrusion detection system, back propagation algorithm, neural networks, traffic table, multilayer perceptron, feed-forward back-propagation, network simulator 2.

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Authors: R. Prakash, B. Meenakshipriya, R. Kumaravelan

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Fresh water is one of the resources which is getting depleted day by day. A wise method to address this issue is by the application of renewable energy-sun irradiation and by means of decentralized, cheap, energetically self-sufficient, robust and simple to operate plants, distillates can be obtained from sea, river or even sewage. Solar desalination is a technique used to desalinate water using solar energy. The present work deals with the comprehensive design and simulation of solar tracking system using LabVIEW, temperature and mass flow rate control of the solar desalination plant using LabVIEW and also analysis of single phase inverter circuit with LC filters for solar pumping system in MATLAB. The main objective of this work is to improve the performance of solar desalination system using automatic tracking system, output control using temperature and mass flow rate control system and also to reduce the harmonic distortion in the solar pumping system by means of LC filters. The simulation of single phase inverter was carried out using MATLAB and the output waveforms were analyzed. Simulations were performed for optimum output temperature control, which in turn controls the mass flow rate of water in the thermal collectors. Solar tracking system was accomplished using LABVIEW and was tested successfully. The thermal collectors are tracked in accordance with the sun’s irradiance levels, thereby increasing the efficiency of the thermal collectors.

Keywords: Desalination, Electro dialysis, LabVIEW, MATLAB, PWM inverter, Reverse osmosis.

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Authors: B. Coşgun, Ö. Öztürk

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Canola is a specific edible type of rapeseed, developed in the 1970s, which contains about 40 percent oil. This research was carried out to determine the yield and some quality characteristics of some winter canola cultivars during the 2010-2011 vegetation period in Central Anatolia of Turkey. In this research; Oase, Dante, Californium, Excalibur, Elvis, ES Hydromel, Licord, Orkan, Vectra, Nelson, Champlain and NK Petrol winter canola varieties were used as material. The field experiment was set up in a “Randomized Complete Block Design” with three replications on 21 September 2010. In this research; seed yield, oil content, protein content, oil yield and protein yield were examined. As a result of this research; seed yield, oil content, oil yield and protein yield (except protein content) were significant differences between the cultivars. The highest seed yield (6348 kg ha-1) was obtained from the NK Petrol, while the lowest seed yield (3949 kg ha-1) was determined from the Champlain cultivar was obtained. The highest oil content (46.73%) was observed from Oase and the lowest value was obtained from Vectra (41.87%) cultivar. The highest oil yield (2950 kg ha-1) was determined from NK Petrol while the least value (1681 kg ha-1) was determined from Champlain cultivar. The highest protein yield (1539.3 kg ha-1) was obtained from NK Petrol and the lowest protein yield (976.5 kg ha-1) was obtained from Champlain cultivar. The main purpose of the cultivation of oil crops, to increase the yield of oil per unit area. According the result of this research, NK Petrol cultivar which ranks first with regard to both seed yield and oil yield between cultivars as the most suitable winter canola cultivar of local conditions.

Keywords: Cultivar, Oil yield, Rapeseed, Seed Yield.

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Authors: Sima Ziaee, Khosro Jafarpur

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Among all mechanical joining processes, welding has been employed for its advantage in design flexibility, cost saving, reduced overall weight and enhanced structural performance. However, for structures made of relatively thin components, welding can introduce significant buckling distortion which causes loss of dimensional control, structural integrity and increased fabrication costs. Different parameters can affect buckling behavior of welded thin structures such as, heat input, welding sequence, dimension of structure. In this work, a 3-D thermo elastic-viscoplastic finite element analysis technique is applied to evaluate the effect of shell dimensions on buckling behavior and entropy generation of welded thin shells. Also, in the present work, the approximated longitudinal transient stresses which produced in each time step, is applied to the 3D-eigenvalue analysis to ratify predicted buckling time and corresponding eigenmode. Besides, the possibility of buckling prediction by entropy generation at each time is investigated and it is found that one can predict time of buckling with drawing entropy generation versus out of plane deformation. The results of finite element analysis show that the length, span and thickness of welded thin shells affect the number of local buckling, mode shape of global buckling and post-buckling behavior of welded thin shells.

Keywords: Buckling behavior, Elastic viscoplastic model, Entropy generation, Finite element method, Shell dimensions.

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Authors: A. W. J. Wong, I. H. Ibrahim

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Increasing urbanisation has driven building designers to incorporate natural ventilation in the designs of sustainable buildings. This project utilises Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to investigate the natural ventilation of an academic building, SIT@SP, using an assessment criterion based on daily mean temperature and mean velocity. The areas of interest are the pedestrian level of first and fourth levels of the building. A reference case recommended by the Architectural Institute of Japan was used to validate the simulation model. The validated simulation model was then used for coupled simulations on SIT@SP and neighbouring geometries, under two wind speeds. Both steady and transient simulations were used to identify differences in results. Steady and transient results are agreeable with the transient simulation identifying peak velocities during flow development. Under a lower wind speed, the first level was sufficiently ventilated while the fourth level was not. The first level has excessive wind velocities in the higher wind speed and the fourth level was adequately ventilated. Fourth level flow velocity was consistently lower than those of the first level. This is attributed to either simulation model error or poor building design. SIT@SP is concluded to have a sufficiently ventilated first level and insufficiently ventilated fourth level. Future works for this project extend to modifying the urban geometry, simulation model improvements, evaluation using other assessment metrics and extending the area of interest to the entire building.

Keywords: Buildings, CFD simulation, natural ventilation, urban airflow.

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Authors: Rully D. Purwati, Tantri D. A. Anggraeni, Bambang Heliyanto, M. Machfud, Joko Hartono

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Jatropha curcas L. is one of the crops producing non edible oil which is potential for bio-energy. Jatropha cultivation and development program in Indonesia is facing several problems especially low seed yield resulting in inefficient crop cultivation cost. To cope with the problem, development of high yielding varieties is necessary. Development of varieties to improve seed yield was conducted by hybridization and selection, and resulted in 14 potential genotypes. The yield potential of the 14 genotypes were evaluated and compared with two check varieties. The objective of the evaluation was to find Jatropha hybrids with some characters i.e. productivity higher than check varieties, oil content > 40% and harvesting age ≤ 110 days. Hybridization and individual plant selection were carried out from 2010 to 2014. Evaluation of high yield was conducted in Asembagus experimental station, Situbondo, East Java in three years (2015-2017). The experimental designed was Randomized Complete Block Design with three replication and plot size of 10 m x 8 m. The characters observed were number of capsules per plant, dry seed yield (kg/ha) and seed oil content (%). The results of this experiment indicated that all the hybrids evaluated have higher productivity than check variety IP-3A. There were two superior hybrids i.e. HS-49xSP-65/32 and HS-49xSP-19/28 with highest seed yield per hectare and number of capsules per plant during three years.

Keywords: Jatropha, biodiesel, hybrid, high seed yield.

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Authors: Imali T. Jayamanne, K. P. Asoka Ramanayake

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Transition from tertiary level education to employment is one of the challenges that many fresh university graduates face after graduation. The transition period or the waiting time to obtain the first employment varies with the socio-economic factors and the general characteristics of a graduate. Compared to other fields of study, Arts graduates in Sri Lanka, have to wait a long time to find their first employment. The objective of this study is to identify the determinants of the transition from higher education to employment of these graduates using survival models. The study is based on a survey that was conducted in the year 2016 on a stratified random sample of Arts graduates from Sri Lankan universities who had graduated in 2012. Among the 469 responses, 36 (8%) waiting times were interval censored and 13 (3%) were right censored. Waiting time for the first employment varied between zero to 51 months. Initially, the log-rank and the Gehan-Wilcoxon tests were performed to identify the significant factors. Gender, ethnicity, GCE Advanced level English grade, civil status, university, class received, degree type, sector of first employment, type of first employment and the educational qualifications required for the first employment were significant at 10%. The Cox proportional hazards model was fitted to model the waiting time for first employment with these significant factors. All factors, except ethnicity and type of employment were significant at 5%. However, since the proportional hazard assumption was violated, the lognormal Accelerated failure time (AFT) model was fitted to model the waiting time for the first employment. The same factors were significant in the AFT model as in Cox proportional model.

Keywords: AFT model, first employment, proportional hazard, survey design, waiting time.

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Authors: Hailu Dessalegn, T. Srinivas

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We propose new multiple-channel piezoelectric (PZT) actuated tunable optical filter based on racetrack multi-ring resonators for wavelength de-multiplexing network applications. We design tunable eight-channel wavelength de-multiplexer consisting of eight cascaded PZT actuated tunable multi-ring resonator filter with a channel spacing of 1.6nm. The filter for each channel is basically structured on a suspended beam, sandwiched with piezoelectric material and built in integrated ring resonators which are placed on the middle of the beam to gain uniform stress and linearly varying longitudinal strain. A reference single mode serially coupled multi stage racetrack ring resonator with the same radii and coupling length is designed with a line width of 0.8974nm with a flat top pass band at 1dB of 0.5205nm and free spectral range of about 14.9nm. In each channel, a small change in the perimeter of the rings is introduced to establish the shift in resonance wavelength as per the defined channel spacing. As a result, when a DC voltage is applied, the beams will elongate, which involves mechanical deformation of the ring resonators that induces a stress and a strain, which brings a change in refractive index and perimeter of the rings leading to change in the output spectrum shift providing the tunability of central wavelength in each channel. Simultaneous wave length shift as high as 45.54pm/

Keywords: Optical MEMS, piezoelectric (PZT) actuation, tunable optical filter, wavelength de-multiplexer.

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Authors: Yue Sun, Yuan Wang

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Most of the earliest national industries in Wuhan are located along the Hanjiang River, and Qiaokou is considered to be a gathering place for Dahankou old industrial base. Zongguan Waterworks, Pacific Soap Factory, Fuxin Flour Factory, Nanyang Tobacco Factory and other hundred-year-old factories are located along Hanjiang River in Qiaokou District, especially the Gutian Industrial Zone, which was listed as one of 156 national restoration projects at the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. After decades of development, Qiaokou has become the gathering place of the chemical industry and secondary industry, causing damage to the city and serious pollution, becoming a marginalized area forgotten by the central city. In recent years, with the accelerated pace of urban renewal, Qiaokou has been constantly reforming and innovating, and has begun drastic changes in the transformation of old cities and the development of new districts. These factories have been listed as key reconstruction projects, and a large number of industrial heritage with historical value and full urban memory have been relocated, demolished and reformed, with only a few factory buildings preserved. Through the methods of industrial archaeology, image analysis, typology and field investigation, this paper analyzes and summarizes the spatial characteristics of industrial heritage in Qiaokou District, explores urban renewal from the perspective of industrial heritage protection, and provides design strategies for the regeneration of urban industrial sites and industrial heritage.

Keywords: Industrial heritage, urban renewal, protection, urban memory.

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Authors: Ebrahim Panahpour, Ali Gholami, Amir Hossein Davami

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During this day a considerable amount of Leachate is produced with high amounts of organic material and nutrients needed plants. This study has done in order to scrutinize the effect of Leachate compost on the pH, EC and organic matter percentage in the form of statistical Factorial plan through randomizing block design with three main and two minor treatments and also three replications during three six month periods. Major treatments include N: Irrigation with the region-s well water as a control, I: Frequent irrigation with well water and Leachate, C: Mixing Leachate and water well (25 percent leachate + 75 percent ordinary well water) and secondary treatments, include DI: surface drip irrigation and SDI: sub surface drip irrigation. Results of this study indicated significant differences between treatments and also there were mixing up with the control treatment in the reduction of pH, increasing soluble salts and also increasing the organic matter percentage. This increase is proportional to the amount of added Leachate and in the treatment also proportional to higher mixture of frequent treatment. Therefore, since creating an acidic pH increases the ability to absorb some nutrient elements such as phosphorus, iron, zinc, copper and manganese are increased and the other hand, organic materials also improve many physical and chemical properties of soil are used in Leachate trash Consider health issues as refined in the green belts around cities as a liquid fertilizer recommended.

Keywords: Leachate, compost, drip irrigation, liquid fertilizer, soil reaction.

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Authors: Radin Siti Aishah Radin A Rahman, Norasmah Othman, Zaidatol Akmaliah Lope Pihie, Hariyaty Ab. Wahid

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The recent instability in economy was found to be influencing the situation in Malaysia whether directly or indirectly. Taking that into consideration, the government needs to find the best approach to balance its citizen’s socio-economic strata level urgently. Through education platform is among the efforts planned and acted upon for the purpose of balancing the effects of the influence, through the exposure of social entrepreneurial activity towards youth especially those in higher institution level. Armed with knowledge and skills that they gained, with the support by entrepreneurial culture and environment while in campus; indirectly, the students will lean more on making social entrepreneurship as a career option when they graduate. Following the issues of marketability and workability of current graduates that are becoming dire, research involving how far the willingness of student to create social innovation that contribute to the society without focusing solely on personal gain is relevant enough to be conducted. With that, this research is conducted with the purpose of identifying the level of entrepreneurial intention and social entrepreneurship among higher institution students in Malaysia. Stratified random sampling involves 355 undergraduate students from five public universities had been made as research respondents and data were collected through surveys. The data was then analyzed descriptively using min score and standard deviation. The study found that the entrepreneurial intention of higher education students are on moderate level, however it is the contrary for social entrepreneurship activities, where it was shown on a high level. This means that while the students only have moderate level of willingness to be a social entrepreneur, they are very committed to created social innovation through the social entrepreneurship activities conducted. The implication from this study can be contributed towards the higher institution authorities in prediction the tendency of student in becoming social entrepreneurs. Thus, the opportunities and facilities for realizing the courses related to social entrepreneurship must be created expansively so that the vision of creating as many social entrepreneurs as possible can be achieved.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial intention, higher education institutions (HEIs), social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurial activity, gender.

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Authors: A. Bouabid, B. Bielenberg, S. Ainane, N. Pasha

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In this paper, a team of faculty members of the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE representing six different courses across General Engineering (ENGR), Communication (COMM), and Design (STPS) worked together to establish a clear developmental progression of learning outcomes and performance indicators for targeted knowledge, areas of competency, and skills for the first three semesters of the Bachelor of Sciences in Engineering curriculum. The sequences of courses studied in this project were ENGR/COMM, COMM/STPS, and ENGR/STPS. For each course’s nine areas of knowledge, competency, and skills, the research team reviewed the existing learning outcomes and related performance indicators with a focus on identifying linkages across disciplines as well as within the courses of a discipline. The team reviewed existing performance indicators for developmental progression from semester to semester for same discipline related courses (vertical alignment) and for different discipline courses within the same semester (horizontal alignment). The results of this work have led to recommendations for modifications of the initial indicators when incoherence was identified, and/or for new indicators based on best practices (identified through literature searches) when gaps were identified. It also led to recommendations for modifications of the level of emphasis within each course to ensure developmental progression. The exercise has led to a revised Sequence Performance Indicator Mapping for the knowledge, skills, and competencies across the six core courses.

Keywords: Curriculum alignment, horizontal and vertical progression, performance indicators, skill level.

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Authors: Mohamed .S .Alazhari, Milad. M. Al Shebani

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Numerous concrete structures projects are currently running in Libya as part of a US$50 billion government funding. The quality of concrete used in 20 different construction projects were assessed based mainly on the concrete compressive strength achieved. The projects are scattered all over the country and are at various levels of completeness. For most of these projects, the concrete compressive strength was obtained from test results of a 150mm standard cube mold. Statistical analysis of collected concrete compressive strengths reveals that the data in general followed a normal distribution pattern. The study covers comparison and assessment of concrete quality aspects such as: quality control, strength range, data standard deviation, data scatter, and ratio of minimum strength to design strength. Site quality control for these projects ranged from very good to poor according to ACI214 criteria [1]. The ranges (Rg) of the strength (max. strength – min. strength) divided by average strength are from (34% to 160%). Data scatter is measured as the range (Rg) divided by standard deviation (
) and is found to be (1.82 to 11.04), indicating that the range is ±3σ. International construction companies working in Libya follow different assessment criteria for concrete compressive strength in lieu of national unified procedure. The study reveals that assessments of concrete quality conducted by these construction companies usually meet their adopted (internal) standards, but sometimes fail to meet internationally known standard requirements. The assessment of concrete presented in this paper is based on ACI, British standards and proposed Libyan concrete strength assessment criteria.

Keywords: Acceptance criteria, Concrete, Compressive strength, quality control

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Authors: Kevin Anderson, Sukhwinder Singh Sandhu, Nouh Anies, Shilpa Ravichandra, Steven Dobbs, Donald Edberg

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This paper presents the results of a Finite Element based vibration analysis of a solar powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The purpose of this paper was to quantify the free vibration, forced vibration response due to differing point inputs in order to predict the relative response magnitudes and frequencies at various wing locations of vibration induced power generators (magnet in coil) excited by gust and/or control surface pulse-decays used to help power the flight of the electric UAV. A Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) study was performed in order to ascertain pertinent design stresses and deflections as well as aerodynamic parameters of the UAV airfoil. The 10 ft span airfoil is modeled using Mylar as the primary material. Results show that the free mode in bending is 4.8 Hz while the first forced bending mode is on range of 16.2 to 16.7 Hz depending on the location of excitation. The free torsional bending mode is 28.3 Hz, and the first forced torsional mode is range of 26.4 to 27.8 Hz, depending on the location of excitation. The FSI results predict the coefficients of aerodynamic drag and lift of 0.0052 and 0.077, respectively, which matches hand-calculations used to validate the Finite Element based results. FSI based maximum von Mises stresses and deflections were found to be 0.282 MPa and 3.4 mm, respectively. Dynamic pressures on the airfoil range from 1.04 to 1.23 kPa corresponding to velocity magnitudes in range of 22 to 66 m/s.

Keywords: ANSYS, finite element, FSI, UAV, vibrations.

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Authors: Edison Muzenda, Corina M Mateescu

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Group contribution methods such as the UNIFAC are very useful to researchers and engineers involved in synthesis, feasibility studies, design and optimization of separation processes. They can be applied successfully to predict phase equilibrium and excess properties in the development of chemical and separation processes. The main focus of this work was to investigate the possibility of absorbing selected volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) using three selected UNIFAC group contribution methods. Absorption followed by subsequent stripping is the predominant available abatement technology of VOCs from flue gases prior to their release into the atmosphere. The original, modified and effective UNIFAC models were used in this work. The thirteen selected VOCs that have been considered in this research are: pentane, hexane, heptanes, trimethylamine, toluene, xylene, cyclohexane, butyl acetate, diethyl acetate, chloroform, acetone, ethyl methyl ketone and isobutyl methyl ketone. The computation was done for solute VOC concentration of 8.55x10-8 which is well in the infinite dilution region. The results obtained in this study compare very well with those published in literature obtained through both measurements and predictions. The phase equilibrium obtained in this study show that PDMS is a good absorbent for the removal of VOCs from contaminated air streams through physical absorption.

Keywords: Absorption, Computation, Feasibility studies, Infinite dilution, Volatile organic compounds

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Authors: S. V. Ukwungwu, A. J. Abbas, G. G. Nasr

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The increasing high price of natural gas and oil with attendant increase in energy demand on world markets in recent years has stimulated interest in recovering residual oil saturation across the globe. In order to meet the energy security, efforts have been made in developing new technologies of enhancing the recovery of oil and gas, utilizing techniques like CO₂ flooding, water injection, hydraulic fracturing, surfactant flooding etc. Surfactant flooding however optimizes production but poses risk to the environment due to their toxic nature. Amongst proven records that have utilized other type of bacterial in producing biosurfactants for enhancing oil recovery, this research uses a technique to combine biosurfactants that will achieve a scale of EOR through lowering interfacial tension/contact angle. In this study, three biosurfactants were produced from three Bacillus species from freeze dried cultures using sucrose 3 % (w/v) as their carbon source. Two of these produced biosurfactants were screened with the TEMCO Pendant Drop Image Analysis for reduction in IFT and contact angle. Interfacial tension was greatly reduced from 56.95 mN.m^-1 to 1.41 mN.m^-1 when biosurfactants in cell-free culture (Bacillus licheniformis) were used compared to 4. 83mN.m^-1 cell-free culture of Bacillus subtilis. As a result, cell-free culture of (Bacillus licheniformis) changes the wettability of the biosurfactant treatment for contact angle measurement to more water-wet as the angle decreased from 130.75^o to 65.17^o. The influence of microbial treatment on crushed rock samples was also observed by qualitative wettability experiments. Treated samples with biosurfactants remained in the aqueous phase, indicating a water-wet system. These results could prove that biosurfactants can effectively change the chemistry of the wetting conditions against diverse surfaces, providing a desirable condition for efficient oil transport in this way serving as a mechanism for EOR. The environmental friendly effect of biosurfactants applications for industrial purposes play important advantages over chemically synthesized surfactants, with various possible structures, low toxicity, eco-friendly and biodegradability.

Keywords: Bacillus, biosurfactant, enhanced oil recovery, residual oil, wettability.

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Authors: K. M. Ngcobo, S. D. Eyono Obono

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Science and technology has a major impact on many societal domains such as communication, medicine, food, transportation, etc. However, this dominance of modern technology can have a negative unintended impact on indigenous systems, and in particular on indigenous foods. This problem serves as a motivation to this study whose aim is to examine the perceptions of learners on the usefulness of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for learning about indigenous foods. This aim will be subdivided into two types of research objectives. The design and identification of theories and models will be achieved using literature content analysis. The objective on the empirical testing of such theories and models will be achieved through the survey of Hospitality studies learners from different schools in the iLembe and Umgungundlovu Districts of the South African Kwazulu-Natal province. SPSS is used to quantitatively analyze the data collected by the questionnaire of this survey using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations after the assessment of the validity and the reliability of the data. The main hypothesis behind this study is that there is a connection between the demographics of learners, their perceptions on the usefulness of ICTs for learning about indigenous foods, and the following personality and eLearning related theories constructs: Computer self-efficacy, Trust in ICT systems, and Conscientiousness; as suggested by existing studies on learning theories. This hypothesis was fully confirmed by the survey conducted by this study except for the demographic factors where gender and age were not found to be determinant factors of learners’ perceptions on the usefulness of ICTs for learning about indigenous foods.

Keywords: E-learning, Indigenous Foods, Information and Communication Technologies, Learning Theories, Personality.

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Authors: Fanny Guay

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Building resilience, sustainable buildings, urbanization, climate change, resilient cities, are just a few examples of where the focus of research has been in the last few years. It is obvious that there is a need to rethink how we are building our cities and how we are renovating our existing buildings. However, the question remaining is how can we assure that we are building sustainable yet resilient cities? There are many aspects one can touch upon when discussing resilience in cities, but after the event of Grenfell in June 2017, it has become clear that fire resilience must be a priority. We define resilience as a holistic approach including communities, society and systems, focusing not only on resisting the effects of a disaster, but also how it will cope and recover from it. Cities are an example of such a system, where components such as buildings have an important role to play. A building on fire will have an impact on the community, the economy, the environment, and so the entire system. Therefore, we believe that fire and resilience go hand in hand when we discuss building resilient cities. This article aims at discussing the current state of the concept of fire resilience and suggests actions to support the built of more fire resilient buildings. Using the case of Grenfell and the fire safety regulations in the UK, we will briefly compare the fire regulations in other European countries, more precisely France, Germany and Denmark, to underline the difference and make some suggestions to increase fire resilience via regulation. For this research, we will also include other types of resilience such as technological resilience, discussing the structure of buildings itself, as well as community resilience, considering the role of communities in building resilience. Our findings demonstrate that to increase fire resilience, amending existing regulations might be necessary, for example, how we performed reaction to fire tests and how we classify building products. However, as we are looking at national regulations, we are only able to make general suggestions for improvement. Another finding of this research is that the capacity of the community to recover and adapt after a fire is also an essential factor. Fundamentally, fire resilience, technological resilience and community resilience are closely connected. Building resilient cities is not only about sustainable buildings or energy efficiency; it is about assuring that all the aspects of resilience are included when building or renovating buildings. We must ask ourselves questions as: Who are the users of this building? Where is the building located? What are the components of the building, how was it designed and which construction products have been used? If we want to have resilient cities, we must answer these basic questions and assure that basic factors such as fire resilience are included in our assessment.

Keywords: Buildings, cities, fire, resilience.

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Authors: Ahmed Boutejdar, Bishoy I. Halim, Soumia El Hani, Larbi Bellarbi, Amal Afyf

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In this paper, a planar monopole antenna for multi band applications is proposed. The antenna structure operates at three operating frequencies at 3.7, 6.2, and 13.5 GHz which cover different communication frequency ranges. The antenna consists of a quasi-modified rectangular radiating patch with a partial ground plane and two parasitic elements (open-loop-ring resonators) to serve as coupling-bridges. A stepped cut at lower corners of the radiating patch and the partial ground plane are used, to achieve the multiband features. The proposed antenna is manufactured on the FR4 substrate and is simulated and optimized using High Frequency Simulation System (HFSS). The antenna topology possesses an area of 30.5 x 30 x 1.6 mm³. The measured results demonstrate that the candidate antenna has impedance bandwidths for 10 dB return loss and operates from 3.80 – 3.90 GHz, 4.10 – 5.20 GHz, 11.2 – 11.5 GHz and from 12.5 – 14.0 GHz, which meet the requirements of the wireless local area network (WLAN), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), C- (Uplink) and Ku- (Uplink) band applications. Acceptable agreement is obtained between measurement and simulation results. Experimental results show that the antenna is successfully simulated and measured, and the tri-band antenna can be achieved by adjusting the lengths of the three elements and it gives good gains across all the operation bands.

Keywords: Planar monopole antenna, FR4 substrate, HFSS, WLAN, WiMAX, C & Ku.

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Authors: Samaneh Nazeri, Bagher Mojazi Amiri, Hamid Farahmand

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Production of high quality fish eggs with reasonable hatching rate makes a success in aquaculture industries. It is influenced by the environmental stimulators and inhibitors. Diazinon is a widely-used pesticide in Golestan province (Southern Caspian Sea, North of Iran) which is washed to the aquatic environment (3 mg/L in the river). It is little known about the effect of this pesticide on the embryogenesis of sturgeon fish, the valuable species of the Caspian Sea. Hormonal content of the egg is an important factor to guaranty the successful passes of embryonic stages. In this study, the fate of Persian sturgeon embryo to 24, 48, 72, and 96-hours exposure of diazinon (LC₅₀ dose) was tested. Also, the effect of thyroid hormones (T3 and T4) on these embryos was tested concurrently or separately with diazinon LC ₅₀ dose. Fertilized eggs are exposed to T3 (low dose: 1 ng/ml, high dose: 10 ng/ml), T4 (low dose: 1 ng/ml, high dose: 10 ng/ml). Six eggs were randomly selected from each treatment (with three replicates) in five developmental stages (two cell- division, neural, heart present, heart beaten, and hatched larvae). The possibility of changing T3, T4, and cortisol contents of the embryos were determined in all treated groups and in every mentioned embryonic stage. The hatching rate in treated groups was assayed at the end of the embryogenesis to clarify the effect of thyroid hormones and diazinon. The results indicated significant differences in thyroid hormone contents, but no significant differences were recognized in cortisol levels at various early life stages of embryos. There was also significant difference in thyroid hormones in (T3, T4) + diazinon treated embryos (P˂0.05), while no significant difference between control and treatments in cortisol levels was observed. The highest hatching rate was recorded in HT3 treatment, while the lowest hatching rate was recorded for diazinon LC₅₀ treatment. The result confirmed that Persian sturgeon embryo is less sensitive to diazinon compared to teleost embryos, and thyroid hormones may increase hatching rate even in the presence of diazinon.

Keywords: Persian sturgeon, diazinon, thyroid hormones, cortisol, embryo.

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Authors: Ravi Kiran Pothamsetty, Radha Rani Ghosh, Baby Paul Thaliath

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Radiation therapy has undergone many advancements and evloved from 2D to 3D. Recently, with rapid pace of drug discoveries, cutting edge technology, and clinical trials has made innovative advancements in computer technology and treatment planning and upgraded to intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) which delivers in homogenous dose to tumor and normal tissues. The present study was a hospital-based experience comparing two different conformal radiotherapy techniques for brain tumors. This analytical study design has been conducted at Regional Cancer Centre, India from January 2014 to January 2015. Ten patients have been selected after inclusion and exclusion criteria. All the patients were treated on Artiste Siemens Linac Accelerator. The tolerance level for maximum dose was 6.0 Gyfor lenses and 54.0 Gy for brain stem, optic chiasm and optical nerves as per RTOG criteria. Mean and standard deviation values of PTV98%, PTV 95% and PTV 2% in IMRT were 93.16±2.9, 95.01±3.4 and 103.1±1.1 respectively; for 3DCRT were 91.4±4.7, 94.17±2.6 and 102.7±0.39 respectively. PTV max dose (%) in IMRT and 3D-CRT were 104.7±0.96 and 103.9±1.0 respectively. Maximum dose to the tumor can be delivered with IMRT with acceptable toxicity limits. Variables such as expertise, location of tumor, patient condition, and TPS influence the outcome of the treatment.

Keywords: IMRT, 3D CRT, Brain, tumors, OARs, RTOG.

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Authors: Tessy Treesa Jose, Sripathy M. Bhat

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Nursing is recognized as a stressful occupation and has indicated a probable high prevalence of distress. It is a helping profession requiring a high degree of commitment and involvement. If stress is intense, continuous and repeated, it becomes a negative phenomenon or "distress," which can lead to physical illness and psychological disorders. The frequency of common psychosomatic symptoms including sleeping problems, tension headache, chronic fatigue, palpitation etc. may be an indicator of nurses’ work-related stress level. Objectives of the study were to determine psychiatric morbidity among nurses and to find its association with selected variables. The study population consisted of 1040 registered nurses working in selected medical college hospitals and government hospitals of Udupi and Mangalore districts. Descriptive survey design was used to conduct the study. Subjects were selected by using purposive sampling. Data were gathered by administering background proforma and General Health questionnaire. Severe distress was experienced by 0.9% of nurses and 5.6% had some evidence of distress. Subjects who did not have any distress were 93.5%. No significant association between psychiatric morbidity in nurses and demographic variables was observed. With regard to work variables significant association is observed between psychiatric morbidity and total years of experience (z=10.67, p=0.03) and experience in current area of work (z=9.43, p=0.02).

Keywords: Psychiatric morbidity, nurse, selected hospitals, working.

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Authors: Oluwatoyin D. Kolawole, Oarabile Mogobe, Lapologang Magole

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Although many factors play a significant role in agricultural production and productivity, the importance of soil fertility cannot be underestimated. The extent to which small farmers are able to manage the fertility of their farmlands is crucial in agricultural development particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  This paper assesses the nutrient status of selected farmers’ fields in relation to how government policy addresses the allocation of and access to agricultural inputs (e.g. chemical fertilizers) in a unique social-ecological environment of the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. It also analyses small farmers and soil scientists’ perceptions about the political economy of integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) in the area. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to elicit quantitative and qualitative information from 228 farmers and 9 soil researchers through the use of interview schedules and questionnaires, respectively. Knowledge validation workshops and focus group discussions (FGDs) were also used to collect qualitative data from farmers. Thirty-three composite soil samples were collected from 30 farmers’ plots in three farming communities of Makalamabedi, Nokaneng and Mohembo for laboratory analysis. While meeting points exist, farmers and scientists have divergent perspectives on soil fertility management. Laboratory analysis carried out shows that most soils in the wetland and the adjoining dry-land/upland surroundings are low in essential nutrients as well as in cation exchange capacity (CEC). Although results suggest the identification and use of appropriate inorganic fertilizers, the low CEC is an indication that holistic cultural practices, which are beyond mere chemical fertilizations, are critical and more desirable for improved soil health and sustainable livelihoods in the area. Farmers’ age (t= -0.728; p≤0.10); their perceptions about the political economy (t = -0.485; p≤0.01) of ISFM; and their preference for the use of local knowledge in soil fertility management (t = -10.254; p≤0.01) had a significant relationship with how they perceived their involvement in the implementation of ISFM.

Keywords: Access, Botswana, ecology, inputs, Okavango Delta, policy, scientists, small farmers, soil fertility.

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Authors: Nadir A. Carreón, Christa Sonderer, Aakarsh Rao, Roman Lysecky

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With the advent of complex software and increased connectivity, security of life-critical medical devices is becoming an increasing concern, particularly with their direct impact to human safety. Security is essential, but it is impossible to develop completely secure and impenetrable systems at design time. Therefore, it is important to assess the potential impact on security and safety of exploiting a vulnerability in such critical medical systems. The common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) calculates the severity of exploitable vulnerabilities. However, for medical devices, it does not consider the unique challenges of impacts to human health and privacy. Thus, the scoring of a medical device on which a human life depends (e.g., pacemakers, insulin pumps) can score very low, while a system on which a human life does not depend (e.g., hospital archiving systems) might score very high. In this paper, we present a Medical Vulnerability Scoring System (MVSS) that extends CVSS to address the health and privacy concerns of medical devices. We propose incorporating two new parameters, namely health impact and sensitivity impact. Sensitivity refers to the type of information that can be stolen from the device, and health represents the impact to the safety of the patient if the vulnerability is exploited (e.g., potential harm, life threatening). We evaluate 15 different known vulnerabilities in medical devices and compare MVSS against two state-of-the-art medical device-oriented vulnerability scoring system and the foundational CVSS.

Keywords: Common vulnerability system, medical devices, medical device security, vulnerabilities.

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Authors: Ali Rahmani, Abbas Maleki, Mohammad Mirzaeiheydari, Rahim Naseri

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Most parts of the world such as Iran are facing the excessive consumption of fertilizers, that are used to achieve high yield, but increase the cost of production of fertilizer and degradation of soil and water resources. This experiment was carried out to study the effect of PGPR and planting pattern on yield and yield components of rice (Oryza sativa L.) using split plot based on randomized complete block design with three replications in Ilam province, Iran. Bio-fertilizer including Azotobacter, Nitroxin and control treatment (without consumption) were designed as a main plot and planting pattern including 15 × 10, 15 × 15 and 15 × 20 and the number of plant in hill including 3, 4 and 5 plants in hill were considered as a sub-plots. The results showed that the effect of bio-fertilizers, planting pattern and the number of plants in hill were significant affect on yield and yield components. Interaction effect between bio-fertilizer and planting pattern had important difference on the number spikelet of panicle and harvest index. Interaction effect between bio-fertilizer and the number of plants in hill were significant affect on the number of spikelet per panicle. The maximum grain yield was obtained by inoculation with Nitroxin, planting pattern of 15 × 15 and 4 plants in hill with mean of 1110.6 g.m^-2, 959.9 g.m^-2 and 928.4 g.m^-2, respectively.

Keywords: Bio-fertilizer, Grain yield, Planting pattern, Rice.

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Authors: Michel Han, Christophe Besson, Alain Savary, Yvan Becher

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The variable flux permanent magnet synchronous motor (VF-PMSM), also called "Memory Motor", is a new generation of motor capable of modifying the magnetization state with short pulses of current during operation or standstill. The impact of such operation is the expansion of the operating range in the torque-speed characteristic and an improvement in energy efficiency at high-speed in comparison to conventional permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs). This paper reviews the operating principle and the unique features of the proposed memory motor. The benefits of this concept are highlighted by comparing the performance of the rotor of the VF-PMSM to that of two PM rotors that are typically found in the industry. The investigation emphasizes the properties of the variable magnetization and presents the comparison of the torque-speed characteristic with the capability of loss reduction in a VF-PMSM by means of experimental results, especially when tests are conducted under identical conditions for each rotor (same stator, same inverter and same experimental setup). The experimental results demonstrated that the VF-PMSM gives an additional degree of freedom to optimize the efficiency over a wide speed range. Thus, with a design easy to manufacture and with the possibility of controlling the magnetization and the demagnetization of the magnets during operations, the VF-PMSM can be interesting for various applications.

Keywords: Efficiency, magnetization state, memory motors, performances, permanent-magnet, synchronous machine, variable-flux, variable magnetization, wide speed application.

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Authors: Alexandru Epureanu, Virgil Teodor

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One of the main research directions in CAD/CAM machining area is the reducing of machining time. The feedrate scheduling is one of the advanced techniques that allows keeping constant the uncut chip area and as sequel to keep constant the main cutting force. They are two main ways for feedrate optimization. The first consists in the cutting force monitoring, which presumes to use complex equipment for the force measurement and after this, to set the feedrate regarding the cutting force variation. The second way is to optimize the feedrate by keeping constant the material removal rate regarding the cutting conditions. In this paper there is proposed a new approach using an extended database that replaces the system model. The feedrate scheduling is determined based on the identification of the reconfigurable machine tool, and the feed value determination regarding the uncut chip section area, the contact length between tool and blank and also regarding the geometrical roughness. The first stage consists in the blank and tool monitoring for the determination of actual profiles. The next stage is the determination of programmed tool path that allows obtaining the piece target profile. The graphic representation environment models the tool and blank regions and, after this, the tool model is positioned regarding the blank model according to the programmed tool path. For each of these positions the geometrical roughness value, the uncut chip area and the contact length between tool and blank are calculated. Each of these parameters are compared with the admissible values and according to the result the feed value is established. We can consider that this approach has the following advantages: in case of complex cutting processes the prediction of cutting force is possible; there is considered the real cutting profile which has deviations from the theoretical profile; the blank-tool contact length limitation is possible; it is possible to correct the programmed tool path so that the target profile can be obtained. Applying this method, there are obtained data sets which allow the feedrate scheduling so that the uncut chip area is constant and, as a result, the cutting force is constant, which allows to use more efficiently the machine tool and to obtain the reduction of machining time.

Keywords: Reconfigurable machine tool, system identification, uncut chip area, cutting conditions scheduling.

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Authors: T. M. Agbede, A. O. Adekiya

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Field experiments were conducted during 2013, 2014 and 2015 cropping seasons at Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Ondo State, southwest Nigeria. The objective of the investigation was to determine the effect of Cocoa Pod Ash (CPA) and Poultry Manure (PM) applied solely and their combined form, as sources of fertilizers on soil properties, leaf nutrient composition, growth and yield of yam. Three soil amendments: CPA, PM (sole forms), CPA and PM (mixture), were applied at 20 t ha^-1 with an inorganic fertilizer (NPK 15-15-15) at 400 kg ha^-1 as a reference and a natural soil fertility, NSF (control). The five treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The test soil was slightly acidic, low in organic carbon (OC), N, P, K, Ca and Mg. Results showed that soil amendments significantly increased (p = 0.05) tuber weights and growth of yam, soil and leaf N, P, K, Ca and Mg, soil pH and OC concentrations compared with the NSF (control). The mixture of CPA+PM treatment increased tuber weights of yam by 36%, compared with inorganic fertilizer (NPK) and 19%, compared with PM alone. Sole PM increased tuber weight of yam by 15%, compared with NPK. Sole or mixed forms of soil amendments showed remarkable improvement in soil physical properties, nutrient availability, compared with NPK and the NSF (control). Integrated application of CPA at 10 t ha^-1 + PM at 10 t ha^-1 was the most effective treatment in improving soil physical properties, increasing nutrient availability and yam performance than sole application of any of the fertilizer materials.

Keywords: Cocoa pod ash, leaf nutrient composition, poultry manure, soil properties, yam.

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Authors: M. Analoui, M. Fadavi Amiri

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The design of a pattern classifier includes an attempt to select, among a set of possible features, a minimum subset of weakly correlated features that better discriminate the pattern classes. This is usually a difficult task in practice, normally requiring the application of heuristic knowledge about the specific problem domain. The selection and quality of the features representing each pattern have a considerable bearing on the success of subsequent pattern classification. Feature extraction is the process of deriving new features from the original features in order to reduce the cost of feature measurement, increase classifier efficiency, and allow higher classification accuracy. Many current feature extraction techniques involve linear transformations of the original pattern vectors to new vectors of lower dimensionality. While this is useful for data visualization and increasing classification efficiency, it does not necessarily reduce the number of features that must be measured since each new feature may be a linear combination of all of the features in the original pattern vector. In this paper a new approach is presented to feature extraction in which feature selection, feature extraction, and classifier training are performed simultaneously using a genetic algorithm. In this approach each feature value is first normalized by a linear equation, then scaled by the associated weight prior to training, testing, and classification. A knn classifier is used to evaluate each set of feature weights. The genetic algorithm optimizes a vector of feature weights, which are used to scale the individual features in the original pattern vectors in either a linear or a nonlinear fashion. By this approach, the number of features used in classifying can be finely reduced.

Keywords: Feature reduction, genetic algorithm, pattern classification, nearest neighbor rule classifiers (k-NNR).

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Authors: Satyasen Panda, Urmila Bhanja

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This paper presents a SAC-OCDMA code with zero cross correlation property to minimize the Multiple Access Interface (MAI) as New Zero Cross Correlation code (NZCC), which is found to be more scalable compared to the other existing SAC-OCDMA codes. This NZCC code is constructed using address segment and data segment. In this work, the proposed NZCC code is implemented in an optical system using the Opti-System software for the spectral amplitude coded optical code-division multiple-access (SAC-OCDMA) scheme. The main contribution of the proposed NZCC code is the zero cross correlation, which reduces both the MAI and PIIN noises. The proposed NZCC code reveals properties of minimum cross-correlation, flexibility in selecting the code parameters and supports a large number of users, combined with high data rate and longer fiber length. Simulation results reveal that the optical code division multiple access system based on the proposed NZCC code accommodates maximum number of simultaneous users with higher data rate transmission, lower Bit Error Rates (BER) and longer travelling distance without any signal quality degradation, as compared to the former existing SAC-OCDMA codes.

Keywords: Cross Correlation, Optical Code Division Multiple Access, Spectral Amplitude Coding Optical Code Division Multiple Access, Multiple Access Interference, Phase Induced Intensity Noise, New Zero Cross Correlation code.

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