Search results for: High Power CO2 Laser

Authors: G. Chandana Sushma, T. R. Jyothsna

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This paper presents optimal Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) Placement in network using a genetic algorithm approach as it is infeasible and require high installation cost to place PMUs at every bus in network. This paper proposes optimal PMU allocation considering observability and redundancy utilizing Genetic Algorithm (GA) approach. The nonlinear constraints of buses are modeled to give accurate results. Constraints associated with Zero Injection (ZI) buses and radial buses are modeled to optimize number of locations for PMU placement. GA is modeled with ZI bus constraints to minimize number of locations without losing complete observability. Redundancy of every bus in network is computed to show optimum redundancy of complete system network. The performance of method is measured by Bus Observability Index (BOI) and Complete System Observability Performance Index (CSOPI). MATLAB simulations are carried out on IEEE -14, -30 and -57 bus-systems and compared with other methods in literature survey to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Constraints, genetic algorithm, observability, phasor measurement units, redundancy, synchrophasors, zero injection bus.

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Authors: Rudy Djamaluddin, Arbain Tata, Rita Irmawaty

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The study conducted a simulation of the effect of sea water to the bonding capacity of GFRP sheet on the concrete beams using a simulation tank. Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) has been developed and applied in many fields civil engineering structures on the new structures and also for strengthening of the deteriorated structures. The FRP has advantages such as its corrosion resistance as well as high tensile strength to weight ratio. Compared to the other FRP materials, Glass composed FRP (GFRP) is relatively cheaper. GFRP sheet is applied externally by bonding it on the concrete surface. The studies regarding the application of GFRP sheet have been conducted such as strengthening system, bonding behavior of GFRP sheet including the application as reinforcement in new structures. For application to the structures with direct contact to sea environment, a study regarding the effect of sea water to the bonding capacity of GFRP sheet is important to be clarified. To achieve the objective of the study, a series of concrete beams strengthened with GFRP sheet on extreme tension surface were prepared. The beams then were stored on the sea water tank for six months. Results indicated the bonding capacity decreased after six month exposed to the sea water.

Keywords: GFRP sheet, sea water, concrete beams, bonding.

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Authors: Raquel M. de Sousa, Sofiane Labidi, Allan Kardec D. Barros, Alex O. Barradas Filho, Aldalea L. B. Marques

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Several parameters are established in order to measure biodiesel quality. One of them is the iodine value, which is an important parameter that measures the total unsaturation within a mixture of fatty acids. Limitation of unsaturated fatty acids is necessary since warming of higher quantity of these ones ends in either formation of deposits inside the motor or damage of lubricant. Determination of iodine value by official procedure tends to be very laborious, with high costs and toxicity of the reagents, this study uses artificial neural network (ANN) in order to predict the iodine value property as an alternative to these problems. The methodology of development of networks used 13 esters of fatty acids in the input with convergence algorithms of back propagation of back propagation type were optimized in order to get an architecture of prediction of iodine value. This study allowed us to demonstrate the neural networks’ ability to learn the correlation between biodiesel quality properties, in this caseiodine value, and the molecular structures that make it up. The model developed in the study reached a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.99 for both network validation and network simulation, with Levenberg-Maquardt algorithm.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks, Biodiesel, Iodine Value, Prediction.

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Authors: N. Zanganeh, M. Zabet

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Lactulose is a synthetic disaccharide which has remarkable applications in food and pharmaceutical fields. Lactulose is not found in nature and it is produced by isomerization reaction of lactose in an alkaline environment. It should be noted that this reaction has a very low yield since significant amount of lactose stays un-reacted in the system. Basically, purification of lactulose is difficult and costly. Previous studies have revealed that solubility of lactose and lactulose are significantly different in ethanol. Considering the fact that solubility is also affected by temperature itself, we investigated the effect of ethanol and temperature on separation process of lactose from the syrup containing lactose and lactulose. For this purpose, a saturated solution containing lactulose and lactose was made at three different temperatures; 25⁰C (room temperature), 31⁰C, and 37⁰C first.  Five samples containing 2g saturated solution was taken and then 2g, 3g, 4g, 5g, and 6g ethanol separately was added to the sampling tubes. Sampling tubes were kept at respective temperatures afterward. The concentration of lactose and lactulose after separation process measured and analyzed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Results showed that ethanol has such a greater impact than operating temperature on purification process. Also, it was observed that the maximum rate of separation occurred at initial amount of added ethanol.

Keywords: Ethanol, lactose, lactulose syrup, purification.

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Authors: C. Lanzerstorfer

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The off-gas from the basic oxygen furnace (BOF), where pig iron is converted into steel, is treated in the primary ventilation system. This system is in full operation only during oxygen-blowing when the BOF converter vessel is in a vertical position. When pig iron and scrap are charged into the BOF and when slag or steel are tapped, the vessel is tilted. The generated emissions during charging and tapping cannot be captured by the primary off-gas system. To capture these emissions, a secondary ventilation system is usually installed. The emissions are captured by a canopy hood installed just above the converter mouth in tilted position. The aim of this study was to investigate the dependence of Zn and other components on the particle size of BOF secondary ventilation dust. Because of the high temperature of the BOF process it can be expected that Zn will be enriched in the fine dust fractions. If Zn is enriched in the fine fractions, classification could be applied to split the dust into two size fractions with a different content of Zn. For this air classification experiments with dust from the secondary ventilation system of a BOF were performed. The results show that Zn and Pb are highly enriched in the finest dust fraction. For Cd, Cu and Sb the enrichment is less. In contrast, the non-volatile metals Al, Fe, Mn and Ti were depleted in the fine fractions. Thus, air classification could be considered for the treatment of dust from secondary BOF off-gas cleaning.

Keywords: Air classification, converter dust, recycling, zinc.

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Authors: Daniella Kucsma

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The examination of the Public Service Organization’s performance evaluation includes several steps that help public organizations to develop a more efficient system. Public sector organizations have different characteristics than the competitive sector, so it can be stated that other/new elements become more important in their performance processes. The literature in this area is diverse, so highlighting an indicator system can be useful for introducing a system, but it is also worthwhile to measure the specific elements of the organization. In the case of a public service organization, due to the service obligation, it is usually possible to talk about a high number of users, so compliance is more difficult. For the organization, it is an important target to place great emphasis on the increase of service standards and the development of related processes. In this research, the health sector is given a prominent role, as it is a sensitive area where both organizational and individual performance is important for all participants. As a primary step, the content of the strategy is decisive, as this is important for the efficient structure of the process. When designing any system, it is important to review the expectations of the stakeholders, as this is primary when considering the design. The goal of this paper is to build the foundations of a performance management and indexing framework that can help a hospital to provide effective feedback and a direction that is important in assessing and developing a service and can become a management philosophy.

Keywords: health sector, public sector, performance management, strategy

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Authors: M. Ahmadi Baseri, R. Mokhtari Malekabadi, A. Gandomkar

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Cities expansion, urban travels increase, the technology development, the automobile price cheapen, and the families' income ascending cause the considerable increase in automobile numbers of the city. This fact has led to the traffic creation and the automobile parking site shortage in the city. Also in Esfahan metropolis, the parking lots shortage has been the great problem of this town; in addition, in designing and constructing of the parking sites the traditional methods are utilized which do not have a reasonable and optimized usage of the valuable urban lands. In this article, by introducing the prefabricate mechanized parking system which is inexpensive, simple and quick, and occupies very small space, therefore provides the high content of parking site for the cities, we can eliminate the parking space shortage difficulty of the cities. The achieved results of this research represent that an optimized utilization of the existent urban spaces for parking site construction has not been accomplished. By employing the new parking site technologies such as mechanization categorized parking sites and the capacity prefabricate mechanized of each parking space have become 8 multiples; in this case, the valuable urban lands can be used in an optimized way.

Keywords: Public parking sites, New parking sites technologies, Prefabricate mechanized parking site, Isfahan City.

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Authors: S. Manzoor, A. Nadeem, M. Javed, ME. Babar

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A major goal in animal genetics is to understand the role of common genetic variants in diseases susceptibility and production traits. Sahiwal cattle can be considered as a global animal genetic resource due to its relatively high milk producing ability, resistance against tropical diseases and heat tolerant. CYP11B1 gene provides instructions for making a mitochondrial enzyme called steroid 11-beta-hydroxylase. It catalyzes the 11deoxy-cortisol to cortisol and 11deoxycorticosterone to corticosterone in cattle. The bovine CYP11B1 gene is positioned on BTA14q12 comprises of eight introns and nine exons and protein is associated with mitochondrial epithelium. The present study was aimed to identify the single-nucleotide polymorphisms in CYP11B1 gene in Sahiwal cattle breed of Pakistan. Four polymorphic sites were identified in exon one of CYP11B1 gene through sequencing approach. Significant finding was the incidence of the C→T polymorphism in 5'-UTR, causing amino acid substitution from alanine to valine (A30V) in Sahiwal cattle breed. That Ala/Val polymorphism may serve as a powerful genetic tool for the development of DNA markers that can be used for the particular traits for different local cattle breeds.

Keywords: CYP11B1, single nucleotide polymorphism, sahiwal cattle, Pakistan.

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Authors: Pedro H. S. Messetti, Mary L. G. S. Senna, Afonso R. Aquino

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Sustainability is a very important and heavily discussed subject, expanding through tourism as well. The study proposition was to collect data and present it to the competent bodies so they can mold their public policies to improve the conditions of the site. It was hypothesized that the lack of data is currently affecting the quality of life and the sustainable development of the site and the tourism. The research was held in Mateiros, a city in the state of Tocantins (TO)/Brasil near Palmas, its capital city. Because of the concentration of tourists during the high season and several tourist attractions being around, the research took place in Mateiros. The methodological procedure had a script of theoretical construction and investigation of the deductive scientific method parameters through a case study in the Jalapão/TO/Brazil region, using it as a tool for a questionnaire given to the competent bodies in an interview system with the UN sustainability indexes as a base. In the three sustainable development scope: environmental, social and economic, the results indicated that the data presented by the interviewed were scarce or nonexistent. It shows that more research is necessary, providing the tools for the ones responsible to propose action plans to improve the site, strengthening the tourism and making it even more sustainable.

Keywords: Jalapão/Brazil State Park, sustainable tourism, UN sustainability indexes.

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Authors: Diganta Kumar Pathak, Manashjyoti Bhuyan, Vaskar Deka

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Vertical Handover(VHO) among different communication technologies ensuring uninterruption and service continuity is one of the most important performance parameter in Heterogenous networks environment. In an integrated Universal Mobile Telecommunicatin System(UMTS) and Wireless Local Area Network(WLAN), WLAN is given an inherent priority over UMTS because of its high data rates with low cost. Therefore mobile users want to be associated with WLAN maximum of the time while roaming, to enjoy best possible services with low cost. That encourages reduction of number of VHO. In this work the reduction of number of VHO with respect to varying number of WLAN Access Points(APs) in an integrated UMTS and WLAN network is investigated through simulation to provide best possible cost effective service to the users. The simulation has been carried out for an area (7800 × 9006)m2 where COST-231 Hata model and 3GPP (TR 101 112 V 3.1.0) specified models are used for WLAN and UMTS path loss models respectively. The handover decision is triggered based on the received signal level as compared to the fade margin. Fade margin gives a probabilistic measure of the reliability of the communication link. A relationship between number of WLAN APs and the number of VHO is also established in this work.

Keywords: VHO, UMTS, WLAN, MT, AP, BS.

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Authors: Kuo-Lung Lor, Chi-Hsuan Tsou, Yeun-Chung Chang, Chung-Ming Chen

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For evaluating the severity of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), one is interested in inspecting the airway wall thickening due to inflammation. Although airway segmentations have being well developed to reconstruct in high order, airway wall segmentation remains a challenge task. While tackling such problem as a multi-surface segmentation, the interrelation within surfaces needs to be considered. We propose a new method for three-dimensional airway wall segmentation using spring structural active contour model. The method incorporates the gravitational field of the image and repelling force field of the inner lumen as the soft constraint and the geometric spring structure of active contour as the hard constraint to approximate a three-dimensional coupled surface readily for thickness measurements. The results show the preservation of topology constraints of coupled surfaces. In conclusion, our springy, soft-tissue-like structure ensures the globally optimal solution and waives the shortness following by the inevitable improper inner surface constraint.

Keywords: active contour model, airway wall, COPD, geometric spring structure

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Authors: Patsaraporn Somboonsak, Mud-Armeen Munlin

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In April 2009, a new variant of Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 emerged in Mexico and spread all over the world. The influenza has three subtypes in human (H1N1, H1N2 and H3N2) Types B and C influenza tend to be associated with local or regional epidemics. Preliminary genetic characterization of the influenza viruses has identified them as swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the Haemagglutinin (HA) and Neuraminidase (NA) are similar to each other and the majority of their genes of swine influenza viruses, two genes coding for the neuraminidase (NA) and matrix (M) proteins are similar to corresponding genes of swine influenza. Sequence similarity between the 2009 A (H1N1) virus and its nearest relatives indicates that its gene segments have been circulating undetected for an extended period. Nucleic acid sequence Maximum Likelihood (MCL) and DNA Empirical base frequencies, Phylogenetic relationship amongst the HA genes of H1N1 virus isolated in Genbank having high nucleotide sequence homology. In this paper we used 16 HA nucleotide sequences from NCBI for computing sequence relationships similarity of swine influenza A virus using the following method MCL the result is 28%, 36.64% for Optimal tree with the sum of branch length, 35.62% for Interior branch phylogeny Neighber – Join Tree, 1.85% for the overall transition/transversion, and 8.28% for Overall mean distance.

Keywords: Sequence DNA, Relationship of swine, Swineinfluenza, Sequence Similarity

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Authors: G. S. Dangayach

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For any country the project management has been a vital part for its development. The highly competitive business world has created tremendous pressure on the project managers to achieve success. The pressure is derived from survival and profit building in business organizations which compels the project managers to pursue unethical practices. As a result unethical activities in business projects can be found easily where situations or issues arise due to dubious business practice, high corruption, or absolute violation of the law. The recent spur on Commonwealth games to be organized in New Delhi indicates towards the same. It has been seen that the project managers mainly focus on cost, time, and quality rather than social impact and long term effects of the project. Surprisingly the literature as well as the practitioner-s perspective also does not identify the role of ethics in project success. This paper identifies ethics as the fourth most important dimension in the project based organizations. The paper predicts that the approach of considering ethics will result in sustainability of the project. It will increase satisfaction and loyalty of the customers as well as create harmony, trust, brotherhood, values and morality among the team members. This paper is conceptual in nature as inadequate literature exists linking the project success with an ethical approach.

Keywords: Ethics, Loyalty, Morality, Project success

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Authors: Dana Lee, Young Chan Kim

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the fashion corporate social responsibility (CSR) ad framing and consumer purchase behaviours with the focus on consumer’s concern and involvement towards fashion brands. A self-completion questionnaire was administered to 200 respondents. Factor analysis and other statistical analyses were applied to test hypotheses. The results suggested that the quality of the product was the most important factor when consumers purchase fashion brand products with high level of responsibility towards unethical practices but surprisingly favourability for fast fashion. Unexpectedly, it was shown that consumers took the plenty of blame, but not much responsibility on buying fast fashion evading their responsibility to CSR ad, and their purchase intentions remained unchanged. The result, on the other hand, showed that fashion CSR ads can significantly moderate individuals’ emotions even though this had no significant correlation with the purchase intentions. Despite the limited sample size and geographical region, this research has important implications for contemporary fashion brands that use ad framing to understand how consumers’ involvement and concernedness toward the CSR actions in ad, influence their favourability (purchase intention) for fashion brands.

Keywords: Framing effect, CSR advertisements, consumer behaviour, purchase intention.

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Authors: Mahmoud A. Rabah

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The present study shows a method to recover lead metal from wastewater of wet scrubber in secondary lead smelter. The wastewater is loaded with 42,000 ppm of insoluble lead compounds (TSP) submicron in diameter. The technical background benefits the use of cationic polyfloc solution to flocculate these colloidal solids before press filtration. The polymer solution is injected in the wastewater stream in a countercurrent flow design. The study demonstrates the effect of polymer dose, temperature, pH, flow velocity of the wastewater and different filtration media on the filtration extent. Results indicated that filtration rate (¦_r), quality of purified water, purifying efficiency (¦_e) and floc diameter decrease regularly with increase in mass flow rate and velocity up to turbulence of 0.5 m.sec^-1. Laminar flow is in favor of flocculation. Polyfloc concentration of 0.75 – 1.25 g/m³ wastewater is convenient. Increasing temperature of the wastewater and pneumatic pressure of filtration enhances ¦_r. High pH value deforms floc formation and assists degradation of the filtration fabric. The overall efficiency of the method amounts to 93.2 %. Lead metal was recovered from the filtrate cake using carbon as a reducing agent at 900°C.

Keywords: Wastewater, wet scrubbers, filtration, secondary lead.

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Authors: H. Dehghan, E. Mahdavi, M. M. Heyhat

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In pressure vessels contain hydrogen, the role of hydrogen will be important because of hydrogen cracking problem. It is difficult to predict what is happened in metallurgical field spite of a lot of studies have been searched. The main role in controlling the mass diffusion as driving force is related to stress. In this study, finite element analysis is implemented to estimate material-s behavior associated with hydrogen embrittlement. For this purpose, one model of a pressure vessel is introduced that it has definite boundary and initial conditions. In fact, finite element is employed to solve the sequentially coupled mass diffusion with stress near a crack front in a pressure vessel. Modeling simulation intergrarnular fracture of AISI 4135 steel due to hydrogen is investigated. So, distribution of hydrogen and stress are obtained and they indicate that their maximum amounts occur near the crack front. This phenomenon is happened exactly the region between elastic and plastic field. Therefore, hydrogen is highly mobile and can diffuse through crystal lattice so that this zone is potential to trap high volume of hydrogen. Consequently, crack growth and fast fracture will be happened.

Keywords: Stress Intensity Factor, Mass Diffusion, FEM, Pressure Vessel

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Authors: R. Sarathi, G. Koperundevi

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Design of Converter transformer insulation is a major challenge. The insulation of these transformers is stressed by both AC and DC voltages. Particle contamination is one of the major problems in insulation structures, as they generate partial discharges leading it to major failure of insulation. Similarly corona discharges occur in transformer insulation. This partial discharge due to particle movement / corona formation in insulation structure under different voltage wave shapes, are different. In the present study, UHF technique is adopted to understand the discharge activity and could be realized that the characteristics of UHF signal generated under low and high fields are different. In the case of corona generated signal, the frequency content of the UHF sensor output lies in the range 0.3-1.2 GHz and is not much varied except for its increase in magnitude of discharge with the increase in applied voltage. It is realized that the current signal injected due to partial discharges/corona is about 4ns duration measured for first one half cycle. Wavelet technique is adopted in the present study. It allows one to identify the frequency content present in the signal at different instant of time. The STD-MRA analysis helps one to identify the frequency band in which the energy content of the UHF signal is maximum.

Keywords: Contamination, Insulation, Partial Discharges, Transformer oil, UHF sensors.

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Authors: Hakim Aguedal, Abdelkader Iddou, Abdallah Aziz, Djillali Reda Merouani, Ferhat Bensaleh, Saleh Bensadek

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The textile industry produces high amount of colored effluent each year. The management or treatment of these discharges depends on the applied techniques. Adsorption is one of wastewater treatment techniques destined to treat this kind of pollution, and the performance and efficiency predominantly depend on the nature of the adsorbent used. Therefore, scientific research is directed towards the development of new materials using different physical and chemical treatments to improve their adsorption capacities. In the same perspective, we looked at the effect of the heat treatment on the effectiveness of diatomite, which is found in abundance in Algeria. The textile dye Orange Bezaktiv (SRL-150) which is used as organic pollutants in this study is provided by the textile company SOITEXHAM in Oran city (west Algeria). The effect of different physicochemical parameters on the adsorption of SRL-150 on natural and modified diatomite is studied, and the results of the kinetics and adsorption isotherms were modeled.

Keywords: Wastewater treatment, diatomite, adsorption, dye pollution, kinetic, Isotherm.

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Authors: Andrey V. Osipov, Sergey A. Kukushkin, Andrey V. Luk’yanov

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A method is developed for the solid-phase synthesis of epitaxial layers when the substrate itself is involved into a topochemical reaction and the reaction product grows in the interior of substrate layer. It opens up new possibilities for the relaxation of the elastic energy due to the attraction of point defects formed during the topochemical reaction in anisotropic media. The presented method of silicon carbide (SiC) formation employs a topochemical reaction between the single-crystalline silicon (Si) substrate and gaseous carbon monoxide (CO). The corresponding theory of interaction of point dilatation centers in anisotropic crystals is developed. It is eliminated that the most advantageous location of the point defects is the direction (111) in crystals with cubic symmetry. The single-crystal SiC films with the thickness up to 200 nm have been grown on Si (111) substrates owing to the topochemical reaction with CO. Grown high-quality single-crystal SiC films do not contain misfit dislocations despite the huge lattice mismatch value of ~20%. Also the possibility of growing of thick wide-gap semiconductor films on these templates SiC/Si(111) and, accordingly, its integration into Si electronics, is demonstrated. Finally, the ab initio theory of SiC formation due to the topochemical reaction has been developed.

Keywords: Epitaxy, silicon carbide, topochemical reaction, wide-bandgap semiconductors.

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Authors: Ö. Öztürk, G. P. Gerem, A. Yenici, B. Haspolat

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Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is one of the important non-edible oilseed crops having immense industrial and medicinal value. Oil yield per unit area is the ultimate target in growing oilseed plants and sowing date is one of the important factors which have a clear role on production of active substances particularly in oilseeds. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of sowing date on the seed and oil yield of castor in Central Anatolia of Turkey in 2011. The field experiment was set up in a completely randomized block design with three replications. Black Diamond-2 castor cultivar was used as plant material. The treatment was four sowing dates of May 10, May 25, June 10, June 25. In this research; seed yield, oil content and oil yield were investigated. Results showed that the effect of different sowing dates were significant on all of characteristics. In general; delayed sowing dates, resulted in decreased seed yield, oil content and oil yield. The highest value of seed yield, oil content and oil yield (respectively, 2523.7 kg ha-1, 51.18% and 1292.2 kg ha-1) were obtained from the first sowing date (May 10) while the lowest seed yield, oil content and oil yield (respectively, 1550 kg ha-1, 43.67%, 677.3 kg ha-1) were recorded from the latest sowing date (June 25). Therefore, it can be concluded that early May could be recommended as an appropriate sowing date in the studied location and similar climates for achieved high oil yield of castor.

Keywords: Castor bean, Ricinus communis L., sowing date, seed yield, oil content.

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Authors: Yin Runmin, Song Changfeng

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Image-based Rendering(IBR) techniques recently reached in broad fields which leads to a critical challenge to build up IBR-Driven visualization platform where meets requirement of high performance, large bounds of distributed visualization resource aggregation and concentration, multiple operators deploying and CSCW design employing. This paper presents an unique IBR-based visualization dataflow model refer to specific characters of IBR techniques and then discusses prominent feature of IBR-Driven distributed collaborative visualization (DCV) system before finally proposing an novel prototype. The prototype provides a well-defined three level modules especially work as Central Visualization Server, Local Proxy Server and Visualization Aid Environment, by which data and control for collaboration move through them followed the previous dataflow model. With aid of this triple hierarchy architecture of that, IBR oriented application construction turns to be easy. The employed augmented collaboration strategy not only achieve convenient multiple users synchronous control and stable processing management, but also is extendable and scalable.

Keywords: Image-Based Rendering, Distributed CollaborativeVisualization, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Model andSimulation, Modular Visualization Environment.

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Authors: Masoud Abedini, Azrul A. Mutalib, Shahrizan Baharom, Hong Hao

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This study was conducted published to investigate there liability of the equation pressure-impulse (PI) reinforced concrete column inprevious studies. Equation involves three different levels of damage criteria known as D =0. 2, D =0. 5 and D =0. 8.The damage criteria known as a minor when 0-0.2, 0.2-0.5is known as moderate damage, high damage known as 0.5-0.8, and 0.8-1 of the structure is considered a failure. In this study, two types of reliability analyzes conducted. First, using pressure-impulse equation with different parameters. The parameters involved are the concrete strength, depth, width, and height column, the ratio of longitudinal reinforcement and transverse reinforcement ratio. In the first analysis of the reliability of this new equation is derived to improve the previous equations. The second reliability analysis involves three types of columns used to derive the PI curve diagram using the derived equation to compare with the equation derived from other researchers and graph minimum standoff versus weapon yield Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The results showed that the derived equation is more accurate with FEMA standards than previous researchers.

Keywords: Blast load, RC column, P-I curve, Analytical formulae, Standard FEMA.

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Authors: Salfarina A.G., Nor Malina M., Azrina H.

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The right to housing is a basic need while good quality and affordable housing is a reflection of a high quality of life. However, housing remains a major problem for most, especially for the bottom billions. Satisfaction on housing and neighbourhood conditions are one of the important indicators that reflect quality of life. These indicators are also important in the process of evaluating housing policy with the objective to increase the quality of housing and neighbourhood. The research method is purely based on a quantitative method, using a survey. The findings show that housing purchasing trend in urban Malaysia is determined by demographic profiles, mainly by education level, age, gender and income. The period of housing ownership also influenced the socio-cultural interactions and satisfaction of house owners with their neighbourhoods. The findings also show that the main concerns for house buyers in urban areas are price and location of the house. Respondents feel that houses in urban Malaysia is too expensive and beyond their affordability. Location of houses and distance from work place are also regarded as the main concern. However, respondents are fairly satisfied with religious and socio-cultural facilities in the housing areas and most importantly not many regard ethnicity as an issue in their decision-making, when buying a house.

Keywords: Housing, Urban Housing, Malaysia

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Authors: M. Arabghahestani, A. Darwish Ahmad, N. K. Akafuah

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In this work, small-scale experiments of fire whirl were conducted to study the spinning fire phenomenon and to gain comprehensive understandings of fire tornadoes and the factors that affect their behavior. High speed imaging was used to track the flames at both temporal and spatial scales. This allowed us to better understand the role of the near-ground height in creating a boundary layer flow profile that, in turn contributes to formation of vortices around the fire, and consequent fire whirls. Based on the results obtained from these observations, we were able to spot the differences in the fuel burning rate of the fire itself as a function of a newly defined specific non-dimensional near-ground height. Based on our observations, there is a cutoff non-dimensional height, beyond which a normal fire can be turned into a fire whirl. Additionally, the results showed that the fire burning rate decreases by moving the fire to a height higher than the ground level. These effects were justified by the interactions between vortices formed by, the back pressure and the boundary layer velocity profile, and the vortices generated by the fire itself.

Keywords: Boundary layer profile, fire whirls, near-ground height, vortex interactions.

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Authors: Tianlai Yu, Zhengguo Yuan, Sidi Shan

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Adopting the measured constitutive relationship of stress-strain of river ice, the finite element analysis model of percussive force of river ice and pier is established, by the explicit dynamical analysis software package LS-DYNA. Effects of element types, contact method and arithmetic of ice and pier, coupled modes between different elements, mesh density of pier, and ice sheet in contact area on the collision force are studied. Some of measures for the collision force analysis of river ice and pier are proposed as follows: bridge girder can adopt beam161 element with 3-node; pier below the line of 1.30m above ice surface and ice sheet use solid164 element with 8-node; in order to accomplish the connection of different elements, the rigid body with 0.01-0.05m thickness is defined between solid164 and beam161; the contact type of ice and pier adopts AUTOMATIC_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE, using symmetrical penalty function algorithms; meshing size of pier below the line of 1.30m above ice surface should not less than 0.25×0.25×0.5m3. The simulation results have the advantage of high precision by making a comparison between measured and computed data. The research results can be referred for collision force study between river ice and pier.

Keywords: River ice, collision force, simulation analysis, ANSYS/LS-DYNA

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Authors: Kaustav Kundu, Alberto Portioli Staudacher

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Construction industry plays a vital role in the economy of the world. However, due to high uncertainty and variability in the industry, its performance is not as efficient in terms of quality, lead times, productivity and costs as of other industries. Moreover, there are continuous conflicts among the different actors in the construction supply chains in terms of profit sharing. Previous studies suggested partnership as an important approach to promote cooperation among the different actors in the construction supply chains and thereby it improves the overall performance. Construction practitioners tried to focus on partnership which can enhance the performance of construction supply chains but they are not fully aware of different approaches and techniques for improving partnership. In this research, a systematic review on partnership in relation to construction supply chains is carried out to understand different elements influencing the partnership. The research development of this domain is analyzed by reviewing selected articles published from 1996 to 2015. Based on the papers, three major elements influencing partnership in construction supply chains are identified: ‘Lean approach’, ‘Relationship building’ and ‘E-commerce applications’. This study analyses the contributions in the areas within each element and provides suggestions for future developments of partnership in construction supply chains.

Keywords: Partnership, construction, lean, SCM, supply chain management.

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Authors: Senda Trabelsi, Sébastien Poncet, Michel Poirier

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Ice slurries are considered as a promising phase-changing secondary fluids for air-conditioning, packaging or cooling industrial processes. An experimental study has been here carried out to measure the rheological characteristics of ice slurries. Ice slurries consist in a solid phase (flake ice crystals) and a liquid phase. The later is composed of a mixture of liquid water and an additive being here either (1) Propylene-Glycol (PG) or (2) Ethylene-Glycol (EG) used to lower the freezing point of water. Concentrations of 5%, 14% and 24% of both additives are investigated with ice mass fractions ranging from 5% to 85%. The rheological measurements are carried out using a Discovery HR-2 vane-concentric cylinder with four full-length blades. The experimental results show that the behavior of ice slurries is generally non-Newtonian with shear-thinning or shear-thickening behaviors depending on the experimental conditions. In order to determine the consistency and the flow index, the Herschel-Bulkley model is used to describe the behavior of ice slurries. The present results are finally validated against an experimental database found in the literature and the predictions of an Artificial Neural Network model.

Keywords: Ice slurry, propylene-glycol, ethylene-glycol, rheology, artificial neural network.

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Authors: Dalia Angeles-Wedler, Katrin Mackenzie, Frank-Dieter Kopinke

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Palladium-catalyzed hydrodechlorination is a promising alternative for the treatment of environmentally relevant water bodies, such as groundwater, contaminated with chlorinated organic compounds (COCs). In the aqueous phase hydrodechlorination of COCs, Pd-based catalysts were found to have a very high catalytic activity. However, the full utilization of the catalyst-s potential is impeded by the sensitivity of the catalyst to poisoning and deactivation induced by reduced sulfur compounds (e.g. sulfides). Several regenerants have been tested before to recover the performance of sulfide-fouled Pd catalyst. But these only delivered partial success with respect to re-establishment of the catalyst activity. In this study, the deactivation behaviour of Pd/Al2O3 in the presence of sulfide was investigated. Subsequent to total deactivation the catalyst was regenerated in the aqueous phase using potassium permanganate. Under neutral pH condition, oxidative regeneration with permanganate delivered a slow recovery of catalyst activity. However, changing the pH of the bulk solution to acidic resulted in the complete recovery of catalyst activity within a regeneration time of about half an hour. These findings suggest the superiority of permanganate as regenerant in re-activating Pd/Al2O3 by oxidizing Pd-bound sulfide.

Keywords: Deactivation, hydrodechlorination, Pd catalyst, regeneration.

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Authors: L. K. Singh, Riktesh Srivastava

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How to effectively allocate system resource to process the Client request by Gateway servers is a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose an improved scheme for autonomous performance of Gateway servers under highly dynamic traffic loads. We devise a methodology to calculate Queue Length and Waiting Time utilizing Gateway Server information to reduce response time variance in presence of bursty traffic. The most widespread contemplation is performance, because Gateway Servers must offer cost-effective and high-availability services in the elongated period, thus they have to be scaled to meet the expected load. Performance measurements can be the base for performance modeling and prediction. With the help of performance models, the performance metrics (like buffer estimation, waiting time) can be determined at the development process. This paper describes the possible queue models those can be applied in the estimation of queue length to estimate the final value of the memory size. Both simulation and experimental studies using synthesized workloads and analysis of real-world Gateway Servers demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system.

Keywords: M/M/1, M/G/1, G/M/1, G/G/1, Gateway Servers, Buffer Estimation, Waiting Time, Queuing Process.

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Authors: M. V. Sudhamani, C. R. Venugopal

Abstract:

Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR) aims at searching image databases for specific images that are similar to a given query image based on matching of features derived from the image content. This paper focuses on a low-dimensional color based indexing technique for achieving efficient and effective retrieval performance. In our approach, the color features are extracted using the mean shift algorithm, a robust clustering technique. Then the cluster (region) mode is used as representative of the image in 3-D color space. The feature descriptor consists of the representative color of a region and is indexed using a spatial indexing method that uses *R -tree thus avoiding the high-dimensional indexing problems associated with the traditional color histogram. Alternatively, the images in the database are clustered based on region feature similarity using Euclidian distance. Only representative (centroids) features of these clusters are indexed using *R -tree thus improving the efficiency. For similarity retrieval, each representative color in the query image or region is used independently to find regions containing that color. The results of these methods are compared. A JAVA based query engine supporting query-by- example is built to retrieve images by color.

Keywords: Content-based, indexing, cluster, region.

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