Search results for: consumption pattern.

Authors: Tai Yuan Yu, Pei-Jen Wang

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Oil-free turbomachinery is considered one of the critical technologies for future green power generation systems as rotor machinery systems. Oil-free technology allows clean, compact, and maintenance-free working, and gas foil bearings (GFBs) are important for the technology. Since the first applications in the auxiliary power units and air cycle machines in the 1970s, obvious improvement has been created to the computational models for dynamic rotor behavior. However, many technical issues are still poorly understood or remain unsolved, and some of those are thermal management and the pattern of how pressure will be distributed in bearing clearance. This paper presents a three-dimensional (3D) fluid-structure interaction model of single pad foil bearings and three pad foil bearings to predict bearing working behavior that researchers could compare characteristics of those. The coupling analysis model involves dynamic working characteristics applied to all the gas film and mechanical structures. Therefore, the elastic deformation of foil structure and the hydrodynamic pressure of gas film can both be calculated by a finite element method program. As a result, the temperature distribution pattern could also be iteratively solved by coupling analysis. In conclusion, the working fluid state in a gas film of various pad forms of bearings working characteristic at constant rotational speed for both can be solved for comparisons with the experimental results.

Keywords: Fluid structure interaction multi-physics simulations, gas foil bearing, oil-free, transient thermohydrodynamic.

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Authors: Mahmood Ahmad, Asadullah Madni, Muhammad Usman, Abubakar Munir, Naveed Akhtar, Haji M. Shoaib Khan

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This article demonstrated development of controlled release system of an NSAID drug, Diclofenac sodium employing different ratios of Ethyl cellulose. Diclofenac sodium and ethyl cellulose in different proportions were processed by microencapsulation based on phase separation technique to formulate microcapsules. The prepared microcapsules were then compressed into tablets to obtain controlled release oral formulations. In-vitro evaluation was performed by dissolution test of each preparation was conducted in 900 ml of phosphate buffer solution of pH 7.2 maintained at 37 ± 0.5 °C and stirred at 50 rpm. At predetermined time intervals (0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20 and 24 hrs). The drug concentration in the collected samples was determined by UV spectrophotometer at 276 nm. The physical characteristics of diclofenac sodium microcapsules were according to accepted range. These were off-white, free flowing and spherical in shape. The release profile of diclofenac sodium from microcapsules was found to be directly proportional to the proportion of ethylcellulose and coat thickness. The in-vitro release pattern showed that with ratio of 1:1 and 1:2 (drug: polymer), the percentage release of drug at first hour was 16.91 and 11.52 %, respectively as compared to 1:3 which is only 6.87 % with in this time. The release mechanism followed higuchi model for its release pattern. Tablet Formulation (F2) of present study was found comparable in release profile the marketed brand Phlogin-SR, microcapsules showed an extended release beyond 24 h. Further, a good correlation was found between drug release and proportion of ethylcellulose in the microcapsules. Microencapsulation based on coacervation found as good technique to control release of diclofenac sodium for making the controlled release formulations.

Keywords: Diclofenac sodium, Microencapsulationtechnology, Ethylcellulose, In-Vitro Release Profile

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Authors: Kubra Sayin, Derya Arslan

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Red pepper (Capsicum annum L.) has long been recognized as a good source of antioxidants, being rich in ascorbic acid and other phytochemicals. In Turkish cuisine red pepper is sometimes consumed raw in salads and baked as a garnish, but its most wide consumption type is red pepper paste. The processing of red pepper into pepper paste includes various thermal treatment steps such as heating and pasteurizing. There are reports demonstrating an enhancement or reduction in antioxidant activity of vegetables after thermal treatment. So this study was conducted to investigate the total phenolic, ascorbic acid and total carotenoids as well as free radical scavenging activity of raw red pepper and various red pepper pastes obtainable on the market. The samples were analyzed for radical-scavenging activity (RSA) and total polyphenol (TP) content using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and Folin-Ciocalteu methods, respectively. Total carotenoids and ascorbic acid contents were determined spectrophotometrically. Results suggest that hot pepper paste contained significantly (P<0.05) higher concentrations of TP than sweet pepper paste. However there is no significant (P>0.05) difference in RSA, ascorbic acid and total carotenoids content between sweet and hot red pepper paste products. It is concluded that the red pepper paste, that has a wide range of consumption in Turkish cuisine, presents a good dose of phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity and it should be regarded as a functional food.

Keywords: Antioxidant properties, Red pepper paste, Total carotenoids, Total phenolic content.

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Authors: Andra Blumberga, Armands Gravelsins, Haralds Vigants, Dagnija Blumberga

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The paper discovers biotechonomy development analysis by use of system dynamics modelling. The research is connected with investigations of biomass application for production of bioproducts with higher added value. The most popular bioresource is wood, and therefore, the main question today is about future development and eco-design of products. The paper emphasizes and evaluates energy sector which is open for use of wood logs, wood chips, wood pellets and so on. The main aim for this research study was to build a framework to analyse development perspectives for wood pellet production. To reach the goal, a system dynamics model of energy wood supplies, processing, and consumption is built. Production capacity, energy consumption, changes in energy and technology efficiency, required labour source, prices of wood, energy and labour are taken into account. Validation and verification tests with available data and information have been carried out and indicate that the model constitutes the dynamic hypothesis. It is found that the more is invested into pellets production, the higher the specific profit per production unit compared to wood logs and wood chips. As a result, wood chips production is decreasing dramatically and is replaced by wood pellets. The limiting factor for pellet industry growth is availability of wood sources. This is governed by felling limit set by the government based on sustainable forestry principles.

Keywords: Bioenergy, biotechonomy, system dynamics modelling, wood pellets.

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Authors: Mohamed Al Mahdi Eshtawie, Masuri Bin Othman

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Finite impulse response (FIR) filters have the advantage of linear phase, guaranteed stability, fewer finite precision errors, and efficient implementation. In contrast, they have a major disadvantage of high order need (more coefficients) than IIR counterpart with comparable performance. The high order demand imposes more hardware requirements, arithmetic operations, area usage, and power consumption when designing and fabricating the filter. Therefore, minimizing or reducing these parameters, is a major goal or target in digital filter design task. This paper presents an algorithm proposed for modifying values and the number of non-zero coefficients used to represent the FIR digital pulse shaping filter response. With this algorithm, the FIR filter frequency and phase response can be represented with a minimum number of non-zero coefficients. Therefore, reducing the arithmetic complexity needed to get the filter output. Consequently, the system characteristic i.e. power consumption, area usage, and processing time are also reduced. The proposed algorithm is more powerful when integrated with multiplierless algorithms such as distributed arithmetic (DA) in designing high order digital FIR filters. Here the DA usage eliminates the need for multipliers when implementing the multiply and accumulate unit (MAC) and the proposed algorithm will reduce the number of adders and addition operations needed through the minimization of the non-zero values coefficients to get the filter output.

Keywords: Pulse shaping Filter, Distributed Arithmetic, Optimization algorithm.

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Authors: Vijaya Prakash.A.M, K.S.Gurumurthy

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In Image processing the Image compression can improve the performance of the digital systems by reducing the cost and time in image storage and transmission without significant reduction of the Image quality. This paper describes hardware architecture of low complexity Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) architecture for image compression[6]. In this DCT architecture, common computations are identified and shared to remove redundant computations in DCT matrix operation. Vector processing is a method used for implementation of DCT. This reduction in computational complexity of 2D DCT reduces power consumption. The 2D DCT is performed on 8x8 matrix using two 1-Dimensional Discrete cosine transform blocks and a transposition memory [7]. Inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) is performed to obtain the image matrix and reconstruct the original image. The proposed image compression algorithm is comprehended using MATLAB code. The VLSI design of the architecture is implemented Using Verilog HDL. The proposed hardware architecture for image compression employing DCT was synthesized using RTL complier and it was mapped using 180nm standard cells. . The Simulation is done using Modelsim. The simulation results from MATLAB and Verilog HDL are compared. Detailed analysis for power and area was done using RTL compiler from CADENCE. Power consumption of DCT core is reduced to 1.027mW with minimum area[1].

Keywords: Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Inverse DiscreteCosine Transform (IDCT), Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG), Low Power Design, Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) .

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Authors: Mehran Koleini, Jan Louis Van Rooy, Adam Bumby

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The Salman Farsi dam project is constructed on the Ghareh Agahaj River about 140km south of Shiraz city in the Zagros Mountains of southwestern Iran. This tectonic province of south-western Iran is characterized by a simple folded sedimentary sequence. The dam foundation rocks compose of the Asmari Formation of Oligo-miocene and generally comprise of a variety of karstified carbonate rocks varying from strong to weak rocks. Most of the rocks exposed at the dam site show a primary porosity due to incomplete diagenetic recrystallization and compaction. In addition to these primary dispositions to weathering, layering conditions (frequency and orientation of bedding) and the subvertical tectonic discontinuities channeled preferably the infiltrating by deep-sited hydrothermal solutions. Consequently the porosity results to be enlarged by dissolution and the rocks are expected to be karstified and to develop cavities in correspondence of bedding, major joint planes and fault zones. This kind of karsts is named hypogenic karsts which associated to the ascendant warm solutions. Field observations indicate strong karstification and vuggy intercalations especially in the middle part of the Asmari succession. The biggest karst in the dam axis which identified by speleological investigations is Golshany Cave with volume of about 150,000 m³. The tendency of the Asmari limestone for strong dissolution can alert about the seepage from the reservoir and area of the dam locality.      

Keywords: Asmari Limestone, Karstification, Salman Farsi Dam, Tectonic Pattern.

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Authors: Tobias Teich, Danny Szendrei, Markus Schrader, Franziska Jahn, Susan Franke

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The increasing demand for sufficient and clean energy forces industrial and service companies to align their strategies towards efficient consumption. This trend refers also to the residential building sector. There, large amounts of energy consumption are caused by house and facility heating. Many of the operated hot water heating systems lack hydraulic balanced working conditions for heat distribution and –transmission and lead to inefficient heating. Through hydraulic balancing of heating systems, significant energy savings for primary and secondary energy can be achieved. This paper addresses the use of KNX-technology (Smart Buildings) in residential buildings to ensure a dynamic adaption of hydraulic system's performance, in order to increase the heating system's efficiency. In this paper, the procedure of heating system segmentation into hydraulically independent units (meshes) is presented. Within these meshes, the heating valve are addressed and controlled by a central facility server. Feasibility criteria towards such drivers will be named. The dynamic hydraulic balance is achieved by positioning these valves according to heating loads, that are generated from the temperature settings in the corresponding rooms. The energetic advantages of single room heating control procedures, based on the application FacilityManager, is presented.

Keywords: building automation, dynamic hydraulic balance, energy savings, VPN-networks.

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Authors: Anna Costanza Russo, Daniele Landi, Michele Germani

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Nowadays, the European Ecodesign Directive has emerged as a new approach to integrate environmental concerns into the product design and related processes. Ecodesign aims to minimize environmental impacts throughout the product life cycle, without compromising performances and costs. In addition, the recent Ecodesign Directives require products which are increasingly eco-friendly and eco-efficient, preserving high-performances. It is very important for producers measuring performances, for electric cooking ranges, hobs, ovens, and grills for household use, and a low power consumption of appliances represents a powerful selling point, also in terms of ecodesign requirements. The Ecodesign Directive provides a clear framework about the sustainable design of products and it has been extended in 2009 to all energy-related products, or products with an impact on energy consumption during the use. The European Regulation establishes measures of ecodesign of ovens, hobs, and kitchen hoods, and domestic use and energy efficiency of a product has a significant environmental aspect in the use phase which is the most impactful in the life cycle. It is important that the product parameters and performances are not affected by ecodesign requirements from a user’s point of view, and the benefits of reducing energy consumption in the use phase should offset the possible environmental impact in the production stage. Accurate measurements of cooking appliance performance are essential to help the industry to produce more energy efficient appliances. The development of ecodriven products requires ecoinnovation and ecodesign tools to support the sustainability improvement. The ecodesign tools should be practical and focused on specific ecoobjectives in order to be largely diffused. The main scope of this paper is the development, implementation, and testing of an innovative tool, which could be an improvement for the sustainable design of induction hobs. In particular, a prototypical software tool is developed in order to simulate the energy performances of the induction hobs. The tool is focused on a multiphysics model which is able to simulate the energy performances and the efficiency of induction hobs starting from the design data. The multiphysics model is composed by an electromagnetic simulation and a thermal simulation. The electromagnetic simulation is able to calculate the eddy current induced in the pot, which leads to the Joule heating of material. The thermal simulation is able to measure the energy consumption during the operational phase. The Joule heating caused from the eddy currents is the output of electromagnetic simulation and the input of thermal ones. The aims of the paper are the development of integrated tools and methodologies of virtual prototyping in the context of the ecodesign. This tool could be a revolutionary instrument in the field of industrial engineering and it gives consideration to the environmental aspects of product design and focus on the ecodesign of energy-related products, in order to achieve a reduced environmental impact.

Keywords: Ecodesign, induction hobs, virtual prototyping, energy efficiency.

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Authors: Ali Shirazi, Robert A. Taylor, Stephen D. White, Graham L. Morrison

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In this paper, a detailed simulation model of a solar-powered triple-effect LiBr–H₂O absorption chiller is developed to supply both cooling and heating demand of a large-scale building, aiming to reduce the fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in building sector. TRNSYS 17 is used to simulate the performance of the system over a typical year. A combined energetic-economic-environmental analysis is conducted to determine the system annual primary energy consumption and the total cost, which are considered as two conflicting objectives. A multi-objective optimization of the system is performed using a genetic algorithm to minimize these objectives simultaneously. The optimization results show that the final optimal design of the proposed plant has a solar fraction of 72% and leads to an annual primary energy saving of 0.69 GWh and annual CO₂ emissions reduction of ~166 tonnes, as compared to a conventional HVAC system. The economics of this design, however, is not appealing without public funding, which is often the case for many renewable energy systems. The results show that a good funding policy is required in order for these technologies to achieve satisfactory payback periods within the lifetime of the plant.

Keywords: Economic, environmental, multi-objective optimization, solar air-conditioning, triple-effect absorption chiller.

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Authors: J. K Adedeji, O. H Olowomofe, C. O Alo, S.T Ijatuyi

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The issue of high blood sugar level, the effects of which might end up as diabetes mellitus, is now becoming a rampant cardiovascular disorder in our community. In recent times, a lack of awareness among most people makes this disease a silent killer. The situation calls for urgency, hence the need to design a device that serves as a monitoring tool such as a wrist watch to give an alert of the danger a head of time to those living with high blood glucose, as well as to introduce a mechanism for checks and balances. The neural network architecture assumed 8-15-10 configuration with eight neurons at the input stage including a bias, 15 neurons at the hidden layer at the processing stage, and 10 neurons at the output stage indicating likely symptoms cases. The inputs are formed using the exclusive OR (XOR), with the expectation of getting an XOR output as the threshold value for diabetic symptom cases. The neural algorithm is coded in Java language with 1000 epoch runs to bring the errors into the barest minimum. The internal circuitry of the device comprises the compatible hardware requirement that matches the nature of each of the input neurons. The light emitting diodes (LED) of red, green, and yellow colors are used as the output for the neural network to show pattern recognition for severe cases, pre-hypertensive cases and normal without the traces of diabetes mellitus. The research concluded that neural network is an efficient Accu-Chek design tool for the proper monitoring of high glucose levels than the conventional methods of carrying out blood test.

Keywords: Accu-Chek, diabetes, neural network, pattern recognition.

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Authors: R. Jitrwung, K. Krekkeitsakul, C. Kumpidet, J. Tepkeaw, K. Jaikengdee, A. Wannajampa, W. Pathaveekongka

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Flue gas discharging from coal fired or gas combustion power plant is containing partially carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is a greenhouse gas which has been concerned to the global warming. Carbon Capture Storage and Utilization (CCSU) is a topic which is a tool to deal with this CO2 realization. In this paper, the Flue gas is drawn down from the chimney and filtered then it is compressed to build up the pressure until 8 barg. This compressed flue gas is sent to three stages Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) which is filled with activated carbon. The experiment showed the optimum adsorption pressure at 7 barg at which CO2 can be adsorbed step by step in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd stages obtaining CO2 concentration 29.8, 66.4, and 96.7% respectively. The mixed gas concentration from the last step composed of 96.7% CO2, 2.7% N2 and 0.6% O2. This mixed CO2 product gas obtained from 3 stages PSA contained high concentration of CO2 which is ready to be used for methanol synthesis. The mixed CO2 was experimented in 5-liter methanol synthesis reactor skid by 3 step processes: steam reforming, reverse water gas shift then hydrogenation. The result showed that the ratio of mixed CO2 and CH4 70/30, 50/50, 30/70 and 10/90 yielded methanol 2.4, 4.3, 5.6 and 5.3 L/day and saved 40, 30, 15, and 7% CO2 respectively. The optimum condition (positive in both methanol and CO2 consumption) was mixed CO2/CH4 ratio 47/53% by volume which yielded 4.2 L/day methanol and saved 32% CO2 compared with traditional methanol production from methane steam reforming (5 L/day) but no CO2 consumption.

Keywords: Carbon capture storage and utilization, pressure swing adsorption, reforming, methanol.

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Authors: M. Saravanan, M. Madheswaran

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Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) clustering architecture enables features like network scalability, communication overhead reduction, and fault tolerance. After clustering, aggregated data is transferred to data sink and reducing unnecessary, redundant data transfer. It reduces nodes transmitting, and so saves energy consumption. Also, it allows scalability for many nodes, reduces communication overhead, and allows efficient use of WSN resources. Clustering based routing methods manage network energy consumption efficiently. Building spanning trees for data collection rooted at a sink node is a fundamental data aggregation method in sensor networks. The problem of determining Cluster Head (CH) optimal number is an NP-Hard problem. In this paper, we combine cluster based routing features for cluster formation and CH selection and use Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) for intra-cluster communication. The proposed method is based on optimizing MST using Simulated Annealing (SA). In this work, normalized values of mobility, delay, and remaining energy are considered for finding optimal MST. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in improving the packet delivery ratio and reducing the end to end delay.

Keywords: Wireless sensor network, clustering, minimum spanning tree, genetic algorithm, low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy, simulated annealing.

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Authors: Jinrui Ren, Li Wu

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Anthropogenic activities and changes of underlying surface affect the temporal and spatial distribution of surface temperature in Kunming. Taking Kunming city as the research area, the surface temperature in 2000, 2010 and 2020 as the research object, using ENVI 5.3 and ArcGIS 10.8 as auxiliary tools, and based on the spatial autocorrelation method, this paper devoted to exploring the interactions among the changes of surface temperature, urban heat island effect and land use type, so as to provide theoretical basis and scientific basis for mitigating climate change. The results showed that: (1) The heat island effect was obvious in Kunming City, the high temperature area increased from 604 km2 in 2000 to 1269 km2 in 2020, and the sub-high temperature area reached 1099 km2 in 2020; (2) In terms of space, the spatial distribution of LST was significantly different with the change of underlying surface. The high temperature zone extended in three directions: south, north and east. The overall spatial distribution pattern of LST was high in the east and low in the west. (3) The inter-annual fluctuation of land surface temperature (LST) was large, and the growth rate was faster, from 2000 to 2010. The lowest temperature in 2000 was 13.45 ℃, which raised to 19.71 ℃ in 2010, and the temperature difference in 10 years was 6.26 ℃. (4) The land use/land cover type has a strong effect on the change of LST: the man-made land made a great contribution to the increase of LST, followed by grassland and farmland, while forest and water have a significant cooling effect on LST. To sum up, the variation of surface temperature in Kunming is the result of the interactions of human activities and climate change.

Keywords: Surface temperature, urban heat island effect, land use cover type, spatiotemporal variation.

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Authors: Redouane Tlemsani, Abdelkader Benyettou

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Work is in on line Arabic character recognition and the principal motivation is to study the Arab manuscript with on line technology.

This system is a Markovian system, which one can see as like a Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN). One of the major interests of these systems resides in the complete models training (topology and parameters) starting from training data.

Our approach is based on the dynamic Bayesian Networks formalism. The DBNs theory is a Bayesians networks generalization to the dynamic processes. Among our objective, amounts finding better parameters, which represent the links (dependences) between dynamic network variables.

In applications in pattern recognition, one will carry out the fixing of the structure, which obliges us to admit some strong assumptions (for example independence between some variables). Our application will relate to the Arabic isolated characters on line recognition using our laboratory database: NOUN. A neural tester proposed for DBN external optimization.

The DBN scores and DBN mixed are respectively 70.24% and 62.50%, which lets predict their further development; other approaches taking account time were considered and implemented until obtaining a significant recognition rate 94.79%.

Keywords: Arabic on line character recognition, dynamic Bayesian network, pattern recognition.

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Authors: Y.C. Yeh, Y.S. Tsay, C.M. Chiang

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A good green building design project, designers should consider not only energy consumption, but also healthy and comfortable needs of inhabitants. In recent years, the Taiwan government paid attentions on both carbon reduction and indoor air quality issues, which be presented in the legislation of Building Codes and other regulations. Taiwan located in hot and humid climates, dampness in buildings leads to significant microbial pollution and building damage. This means that the high temperature and humidity present a serious indoor air quality issue. The interactions between vapor transfers and energy fluxes are essential for the whole building Heat Air and Moisture (HAM) response. However, a simulation tool with short calculation time, property accuracy and interface is needed for practical building design processes. In this research, we consider the vapor transfer phenomenon of building materials as well as temperature and humidity and energy consumption in a building space. The simulation bases on the EMPD method, which was performed by EnergyPlus, a simulation tool developed by DOE, to simulate the indoor moisture variation in a one-zone residential unit based on the Effective Moisture Penetration Depth Method, which is more suitable for practical building design processes.

Keywords: Effective Moisture Penetration Depth Method, Moisture Buffering Effect, Interior Material, Green Material, EnergyPlus

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Authors: Comingstarful Marthong, Deba Kumar Sarma

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Concrete is strong in compression however weak in tension. The tensile strength as well as ductile property of concrete could be improved by addition of short dispersed fibers. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fiber obtained from hand cutting or mechanical slitting of plastic sheets generally used as discrete reinforcement in substitution of steel fiber. PET fiber obtained from the former process is in the form of straight slit sheet pattern that impart weaker mechanical bonding behavior in the concrete matrix. To improve the limitation of straight slit sheet fiber the present study considered two additional geometry of fiber namely (a) flattened end slit sheet and (b) deformed slit sheet. The mix for plain concrete was design for a compressive strength of 25 MPa at 28 days curing time with a watercement ratio of 0.5. Cylindrical and beam specimens with 0.5% fibers volume fraction and without fibers were cast to investigate the influence of geometry on the mechanical properties of concrete. The performance parameters mainly studied include flexural strength, splitting tensile strength, compressive strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV). Test results show that geometry of fiber has a marginal effect on the workability of concrete. However, it plays a significant role in achieving a good compressive and tensile strength of concrete. Further, significant improvement in term of flexural and energy dissipation capacity were observed from other fibers as compared to the straight slit sheet pattern. Also, the inclusion of PET fiber improved the ability in absorbing energy in the post-cracking state of the specimen as well as no significant porous structures.

Keywords: Concrete matrix, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers, mechanical bonding, mechanical properties, UPV.

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Authors: N. Türkmenoğlu Bayraktar, E. Kishalı

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Campus buildings are educational facilities where various amount of energy consumption for lighting, heating, cooling and ventilation occurs. Some of the new universities in Turkey, where this investigation takes place, still continue their educational activities in existing buildings primarily designed for different architectural programs and converted to campus buildings via changes of function, space organizations and structural interventions but most of the time without consideration of appropriate micro climatic conditions. Reducing energy consumption in these structures not only contributes to the national economy but also mitigates the negative effects on environment. Furthermore, optimum thermal comfort conditions should be provided during the refurbishment of existing campus structures and their building envelope. Considering this issue, the first step is to investigate the climatic performance of building elements regarding refurbishment process. In the context of the study Kocaeli University, Faculty of Design and Architecture building constructed in 1980s in Anıtpark campus located in the central part of Kocaeli, Turkey was investigated. Climatic factors influencing thermal conditions; the deteriorations on building envelope; temperature distribution; heat losses from façade elements observed by thermography were presented in order to improve strategies for retrofit process for the building envelope. Within the scope of the survey, refurbishment strategies towards providing optimum climatic comfort conditions, increasing energy efficiency of building envelope were proposed.

Keywords: Building envelope, IRT, refurbishment, non-destructive test.

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Authors: W. Kongnoo, J. Loysongkroa, S. Chotivichien, N. Viriyautsahakul, N. Saiwongse

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Obesity, stunting and wasting problems among Thai school-aged children are increasing due to inappropriate food consumption behavior and poor environments for desirable nutritional behavior. Because of a low school lunch budget of only 0.40 USD per person per day, food quality is not up to nutritional standards. Therefore, the Health Department with the Education Ministry and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation have developed a quality school lunch project during 2009–2013. The program objectives were development and management of public policy to increase school lunch budget. The methods used a healthy public policy motivation process and movement in 241 local administrative organizations and 538 schools. The problem and solution research was organized to study school food and nutrition management, create a best practice policy mobilization model and hold a public hearing to motivate an increase of school meal funding. The results showed that local public policy has been motivated during 2009-2011 to increase school meal budget using local budgets. School children with best food consumption behavior and exercise increased from 13.2% in 2009 to 51.6% in 2013 and stunting decreased from 6.0% in 2009 to 4.7% in 2013. As the result of national policy motivation (2012-2013), the cabinet meeting on October 22, 2013 has approved an increase of school lunch budget from 0.40 USD to 0.62 USD per person per day. Thus, 5,800,469 school children nationwide have benefited from the budget increase.

Keywords: Public policy, Quality school lunch, Thailand.

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Authors: Ibrahim H. Kilic, A. B. Tugrul

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Energy is a fundamental component in economic development and energy consumption is an index of prosperity and the standard of living. The consumption of energy per capita has increased significantly over the last decades, as the standard of living has improved. Turkey’s geographical location has several advantages for extensive use of wind power. Among the renewable sources, Turkey has very high wind energy potential. Information such as installation capacity of wind power plants in installation, under construction and license stages in the country are reported in detail. Some suggestions are presented in order to increase the wind power installation capacity of Turkey. Turkey’s economic and social development has led to a massive increase in demand for electricity over the last decades. Since the Turkey has no major oil or gas reserves, it is highly dependent on energy imports and is exposed to energy insecurity in the future. But Turkey does have huge potential for renewable energy utilization. There has been a huge growth in the construction of wind power plants and small hydropower plants in recent years. To meet the growing energy demand, the Turkish Government has adopted incentives for investments in renewable energy production. Wind energy investments evaluated the impact of feed-in tariffs (FIT) based on three scenarios that are optimistic, realistic and pessimistic with APLUS software that is developed for rational evaluation for energy market. Results of the three scenarios are evaluated in the view of electricity market for Turkey.

Keywords: APLUS, energy policy, renewable energy, wind power, Turkey.

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Authors: M. Salmani Jelodar, M.J. Fadaeieslam, N. Mozayani, M. Fazeli

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Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a very old and of great interest in pattern recognition field. In this paper we introduce a very powerful approach to recognize Persian text. We have used morphological operators, especially Hit/Miss operator to descript each sub-word and by using a template matching approach we have tried to classify generated description. We used just one font in two different sizes to verify our approach. We achieved a very good rate, up to 99.9%.

Keywords: A Persian Optical Character Recognition.

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Authors: Sanjay Singh, M Sathish Kumar, H. S Mruthyunjaya

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Multicarrier transmission system such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising technique for high bit rate transmission in wireless communication system. OFDM is a spectrally efficient modulation technique that can achieve high speed data transmission over multipath fading channels without the need for powerful equalization techniques. However the price paid for this high spectral efficiency and less intensive equalization is low power efficiency. OFDM signals are very sensitive to nonlinear effects due to the high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR), which leads to the power inefficiency in the RF section of the transmitter. This paper investigates the effect of PAPR reduction on the performance parameter of multicarrier communication system. Performance parameters considered are power consumption of Power Amplifier (PA) and Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC), power amplifier efficiency, SNR of DAC and BER performance of the system. From our analysis it is found that irrespective of PAPR reduction technique being employed, the power consumption of PA and DAC reduces and power amplifier efficiency increases due to reduction in PAPR. Moreover, it has been shown that for a given BER performance the requirement of Input-Backoff (IBO) reduces with reduction in PAPR.

Keywords: BER, Crest Factor (CF), Digital-to-Analog Converter(DAC), Input-Backoff (IBO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing(OFDM), Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR), PowerAmplifier efficiency, SNR

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Authors: Robert H. Crawford, André Stephan

Abstract:

Certifications such as the Passive House Standard aim to reduce the final space heating energy demand of residential buildings. Space conditioning, notably heating, is responsible for nearly 70% of final residential energy consumption in Europe. There is therefore significant scope for the reduction of energy consumption through improvements to the energy efficiency of residential buildings. However, these certifications totally overlook the energy embodied in the building materials used to achieve this greater operational energy efficiency. The large amount of insulation and the triple-glazed high efficiency windows require a significant amount of energy to manufacture. While some previous studies have assessed the life cycle energy demand of passive houses, including their embodied energy, these rely on incomplete assessment techniques which greatly underestimate embodied energy and can lead to misleading conclusions. This paper analyses the embodied and operational energy demands of a case study passive house using a comprehensive hybrid analysis technique to quantify embodied energy. Results show that the embodied energy is much more significant than previously thought. Also, compared to a standard house with the same geometry, structure, finishes and number of people, a passive house can use more energy over 80 years, mainly due to the additional materials required. Current building energy efficiency certifications should widen their system boundaries to include embodied energy in order to reduce the life cycle energy demand of residential buildings.

Keywords: Embodied energy, Hybrid analysis, Life cycle energy analysis, Passive house.

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Authors: Van Chung Nguyen

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to study the current status of the value chain for fish distribution at Quang Binh Fishing Port with 360 research samples, in which the research subjects are fishermen, traders, retailers, and businesses. The research uses the approach of applying the value chain theoretical framework of Kaplinsky and Morris to quantify and describe market channels and actors participating in the value chain and analyze the value-added process of these companies according to market channels. The analysis results show that fishermen directly catch fish with high economic efficiency, but processing enterprises and, especially retailers, are the agents to obtain higher added value. Processing enterprises play a role that is not really clear due to outdated processing technology; in contrast, retailers have the highest added value. This shows that the added value of the fish supply chain at Quang Binh fishing port is still limited, leading to low output quality. Therefore, the selling price of fish to the market is still high compared to the abundant fish resources, leading to low consumption and limiting exports due to the quality of processing enterprises. This reduces demand and fishing capacity, and productivity is lower than potential. To improve the fish value chain at fishing ports, it is necessary to focus on improving product quality, strengthening linkages between actors, building brands and product consumption markets at the same time, improving the capacity of export processing enterprises.

Keywords: Quang Binh fishing port, value chain, fish market, distributions channel.

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Authors: Julio C. Gómez-Mancilla, Luis M. Palacios-Pineda, Yunuén López-Grijalba

Abstract:

A new mechanism responsible for structural life consumption due to resonant fatigue in turbine blades, or vanes, is presented and explained. A rotating blade or vane in a gas turbine can change its contour due to erosion and/or material build up, in any of these instances, the surface pressure distribution occurring on the suction and pressure sides of blades-vanes can suffer substantial modification of their pressure and temperatures envelopes and flow characteristics. Meanwhile, the relative rotation between the blade and duct vane while the pressurized gas flows and the consequent wake crossings, will induce a fluctuating thrust force or lift that will excite the blade. An actual totally used up set of vane-blade components in a HP turbine power stage in a gas turbine is analyzed. The blade suffered some material erosion mostly at the trailing edge provoking a peculiar surface pressure envelope which evolved as the relative position between the vane and the blade passed in front of each other. Interestingly preliminary modal analysis for this eroded blade indicates several natural frequencies within the aeromechanic power spectrum, moreover, the highest frequency component is 94% of one natural frequency indicating near resonant condition. Independently of other simultaneously occurring fatigue cycles (such as thermal, centrifugal stresses).

Keywords: Aeromechanic induced vibration, potential flowinteraction, turbine unsteady flow, rotor/stator interaction, turbinevane-blade aerodynamic interaction, airfoil clocking

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Authors: Er, A. C., Rosli, M. H., Asmahani A., Mohamad Naim M. R., Harsuzilawati M.

Abstract:

Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection that has peaked to an alarming rate in recent decades. It can be found in tropical and sub-tropical climate. In Malaysia, dengue has been declared as one of the national health threat to the public. This study aimed to map the spatial distributions of dengue cases in the district of Hulu Langat, Selangor via a combination of Geographic Information System (GIS) and spatial statistic tools. Data related to dengue was gathered from the various government health agencies. The location of dengue cases was geocoded using a handheld GPS Juno SB Trimble. A total of 197 dengue cases occurring in 2003 were used in this study. Those data then was aggregated into sub-district level and then converted into GIS format. The study also used population or demographic data as well as the boundary of Hulu Langat. To assess the spatial distribution of dengue cases three spatial statistics method (Moran-s I, average nearest neighborhood (ANN) and kernel density estimation) were applied together with spatial analysis in the GIS environment. Those three indices were used to analyze the spatial distribution and average distance of dengue incidence and to locate the hot spot of dengue cases. The results indicated that the dengue cases was clustered (p < 0.01) when analyze using Moran-s I with z scores 5.03. The results from ANN analysis showed that the average nearest neighbor ratio is less than 1 which is 0.518755 (p < 0.0001). From this result, we can expect the dengue cases pattern in Hulu Langat district is exhibiting a cluster pattern. The z-score for dengue incidence within the district is -13.0525 (p < 0.0001). It was also found that the significant spatial autocorrelation of dengue incidences occurs at an average distance of 380.81 meters (p < 0.0001). Several locations especially residential area also had been identified as the hot spots of dengue cases in the district.

Keywords: Dengue, geographic information system (GIS), spatial analysis, spatial statistics

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Authors: M. Santhalakshmi, P Suganthi

Abstract:

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have many advantages. Their deployment is easier and faster than wired sensor networks or other wireless networks, as they do not need fixed infrastructure. Nodes are partitioned into many small groups named clusters to aggregate data through network organization. WSN clustering guarantees performance achievement of sensor nodes. Sensor nodes energy consumption is reduced by eliminating redundant energy use and balancing energy sensor nodes use over a network. The aim of such clustering protocols is to prolong network life. Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) is a popular protocol in WSN. LEACH is a clustering protocol in which the random rotations of local cluster heads are utilized in order to distribute energy load among all sensor nodes in the network. This paper proposes Connected Dominant Set (CDS) based cluster formation. CDS aggregates data in a promising approach for reducing routing overhead since messages are transmitted only within virtual backbone by means of CDS and also data aggregating lowers the ratio of responding hosts to the hosts existing in virtual backbones. CDS tries to increase networks lifetime considering such parameters as sensors lifetime, remaining and consumption energies in order to have an almost optimal data aggregation within networks. Experimental results proved CDS outperformed LEACH regarding number of cluster formations, average packet loss rate, average end to end delay, life computation, and remaining energy computation.

Keywords: Wireless sensor network, connected dominant set, clustering, data aggregation.

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Authors: Qiong He, S. Thomas Ng

Abstract:

Upgrading the thermal performance of building envelope of existing residential buildings is an effective way to reduce heat gain or heat loss. Overhang device is a common solution for building envelope improvement as it can cut down solar heat gain and thereby can reduce the energy used for space cooling in summer time. Despite that, overhang can increase the demand for indoor heating in winter due to its function of lowering the solar heat gain. Obviously, overhang has different impacts on energy use in different climatic zones which have different energy demand. To evaluate the impact of overhang device on building energy performance under different climates of China, an energy analysis model is built up in a computer-based simulation program known as DesignBuilder based on the data of a typical high-rise residential building. The energy simulation results show that single overhang is able to cut down around 5% of the energy consumption of the case building in the stand-alone situation or about 2% when the building is surrounded by other buildings in regions which predominantly rely on space cooling though it has no contribution to energy reduction in cold region. In regions with cold summer and cold winter, adding overhang over windows can cut down around 4% and 1.8% energy use with and without adjoining buildings, respectively. The results indicate that overhang might not an effective shading device to reduce the energy consumption in the mixed climate or cold regions.

Keywords: Overhang, energy analysis, computer-based simulation, high-rise residential building, mutual shading, climate.

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Authors: Xiang Liu, Ciprian Coman

Abstract:

The wrinkling of a thin elastic bi-annular plate with piecewise-constant mechanical properties, subjected to radial stretching, is considered. The critical wrinkling stretching loading and the corresponding wrinkling patterns are extensively investigated, together with the roles played by both the geometrical and mechanical parameters.

Keywords: bi-annular plate, wrinkling pattern, critical stretching loading.

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Authors: V.D. Hatamipour, M.A. Akhavan-Behabadi

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Evaporator is an important and widely used heat exchanger in air conditioning and refrigeration industries. Different methods have been used by investigators to increase the heat transfer rates in evaporators. One of the passive techniques to enhance heat transfer coefficient is the application of microfin tubes. The mechanism of heat transfer augmentation in microfin tubes is dependent on the flow regime of two-phase flow. Therefore many investigations of the flow patterns for in-tube evaporation have been reported in literatures. The gravitational force, surface tension and the vapor-liquid interfacial shear stress are known as three dominant factors controlling the vapor and liquid distribution inside the tube. A review of the existing literature reveals that the previous investigations were concerned with the two-phase flow pattern for flow boiling in horizontal tubes [12], [9]. Therefore, the objective of the present investigation is to obtain information about the two-phase flow patterns for evaporation of R-134a inside horizontal smooth and microfin tubes. Also Investigation of heat transfer during flow boiling of R-134a inside horizontal microfin and smooth tube have been carried out experimentally The heat transfer coefficients for annular flow in the smooth tube is shown to agree well with Gungor and Winterton-s correlation [4]. All the flow patterns occurred in the test can be divided into three dominant regimes, i.e., stratified-wavy flow, wavy-annular flow and annular flow. Experimental data are plotted in two kinds of flow maps, i.e., Weber number for the vapor versus weber number for the liquid flow map and mass flux versus vapor quality flow map. The transition from wavy-annular flow to annular or stratified-wavy flow is identified in the flow maps.

Keywords: Flow boiling, Flow pattern, Heat transfer, Horizontal, Smooth tube, Microfin tube.

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