Search results for: minimum inhibitory concentration

Authors: Satyendra Nath Mandal, J. Pal Choudhury, Dilip De, S. R. Bhadra Chaudhuri

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The production of a plant can be measured in terms of seeds. The generation of seeds plays a critical role in our social and daily life. The fruit production which generates seeds, depends on the various parameters of the plant, such as shoot length, leaf number, root length, root number, etc When the plant is growing, some leaves may be lost and some new leaves may appear. It is very difficult to use the number of leaves of the tree to calculate the growth of the plant.. It is also cumbersome to measure the number of roots and length of growth of root in several time instances continuously after certain initial period of time, because roots grow deeper and deeper under ground in course of time. On the contrary, the shoot length of the tree grows in course of time which can be measured in different time instances. So the growth of the plant can be measured using the data of shoot length which are measured at different time instances after plantation. The environmental parameters like temperature, rain fall, humidity and pollution are also play some role in production of yield. The soil, crop and distance management are taken care to produce maximum amount of yields of plant. The data of the growth of shoot length of some mustard plant at the initial stage (7,14,21 & 28 days after plantation) is available from the statistical survey by a group of scientists under the supervision of Prof. Dilip De. In this paper, initial shoot length of Ken( one type of mustard plant) has been used as an initial data. The statistical models, the methods of fuzzy logic and neural network have been tested on this mustard plant and based on error analysis (calculation of average error) that model with minimum error has been selected and can be used for the assessment of shoot length at maturity. Finally, all these methods have been tested with other type of mustard plants and the particular soft computing model with the minimum error of all types has been selected for calculating the predicted data of growth of shoot length. The shoot length at the stage of maturity of all types of mustard plants has been calculated using the statistical method on the predicted data of shoot length.

Keywords: Fuzzy time series, neural network, forecasting error, average error.

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Authors: M. A. Kassim, R. Potumarthi, A. Tanksale, S. C. Srivatsa, S. Bhattacharya

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Enzymatic saccharification of biomass for reducing sugar production is one of the crucial processes in biofuel production through biochemical conversion. In this study, enzymatic saccharification of dilute potassium hydroxide (KOH) pre-treated Tetraselmis suecica biomass was carried out by using cellulase enzyme obtained from Trichoderma longibrachiatum. Initially, the pre-treatment conditions were optimised by changing alkali reagent concentration, retention time for reaction, and temperature. The T. suecica biomass after pre-treatment was also characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectra and Scanning Electron Microscope. These analyses revealed that the functional group such as acetyl and hydroxyl groups, structure and surface of T. suecica biomass were changed through pre-treatment, which is favourable for enzymatic saccharification process. Comparison of enzymatic saccharification of untreated and pre-treated microalgal biomass indicated that higher level of reducing sugar can be obtained from pre-treated T. suecica. Enzymatic saccharification of pre-treated T. suecica biomass was optimised by changing temperature, pH, and enzyme concentration to solid ratio ([E]/[S]). Highest conversion of carbohydrate into reducing sugar of 95% amounted to reducing sugar yield of 20 (wt%) from pre-treated T. suecica was obtained from saccharification, at temperature: 40°C, pH: 4.5 and [E]/[S] of 0.1 after 72 h of incubation. Hydrolysate obtained from enzymatic saccharification of pretreated T. suecica biomass was further fermented into biobutanol using Clostridium saccharoperbutyliticum as biocatalyst. The results from this study demonstrate a positive prospect of application of dilute alkaline pre-treatment to enhance enzymatic saccharification and biobutanol production from microalgal biomass.

Keywords: Microalgal biomass, enzymatic saccharification, biobutanol, fermentation.

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Authors: S. Khamsawang, S. Jiriwibhakorn

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This paper proposes an application of the differential evolution (DE) algorithm for solving the economic dispatch problem (ED). Furthermore, the regenerating population procedure added to the conventional DE in order to improve escaping the local minimum solution. To test performance of DE algorithm, three thermal generating units with valve-point loading effects is used for testing. Moreover, investigating the DE parameters is presented. The simulation results show that the DE algorithm, which had been adjusted parameters, is better convergent time than other optimization methods.

Keywords: Differential evolution, Economic dispatch problem, Valve-point loading effect, Optimization method.

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Authors: Ram Kumar Soni, Alok Jain, Rajiv Saxena

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This paper proposes an efficient method for the design of two channel quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank. To achieve minimum value of reconstruction error near to perfect reconstruction, a linear optimization process has been proposed. Prototype low pass filter has been designed using Kaiser window function. The modified algorithm has been developed to optimize the reconstruction error using linear objective function through iteration method. The result obtained, show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is better than that of the already exists methods.

Keywords: Filterbank, near perfect reconstruction, Kaiserwindow, QMF.

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Authors: F. Pourhasanzade, S. H. Sabzpoushan

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The heart tissue is an excitable media. A Cellular Automata is a type of model that can be used to model cardiac action potential propagation. One of the advantages of this approach against the methods based on differential equations is its high speed in large scale simulations. Recent cellular automata models are not able to avoid flat edges in the result patterns or have large neighborhoods. In this paper, we present a new model to eliminate flat edges by minimum number of neighbors.

Keywords: Cellular Automata, Action Potential Simulation, Isotropic Pattern.

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Authors: Seyed R Mousavi

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In most rule-induction algorithms, the only operator used against nominal attributes is the equality operator =. In this paper, we first propose the use of the inequality operator, ≠, in addition to the equality operator, to increase the expressiveness of induced rules. Then, we present a new method, Binary Coding, which can be used along with an arbitrary rule-induction algorithm to make use of the inequality operator without any need to change the algorithm. Experimental results suggest that the Binary Coding method is promising enough for further investigation, especially in cases where the minimum number of rules is desirable.

Keywords: Data mining, Inequality operator, Number of rules, Rule-induction.

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Authors: Raghvendra Kumar, Lillie Dewan

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Exchange algorithm with constraints on magnitude and phase error separately in new way is presented in this paper. An important feature of the algorithms presented in this paper is that they allow for design constraints which often arise in practical filter design problems. Meeting required minimum stopband attenuation or a maximum deviation from the desired magnitude and phase responses in the passbands are common design constraints that can be handled by the methods proposed here. This new algorithm may have important advantages over existing technique, with respect to the speed and stability of convergence, memory requirement and low ripples.

Keywords: Least square estimation, Constraints, Exchange algorithm.

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Authors: S. Pesina, T. Solonchak

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In the process of information transmission (concept verbalization) we deal mostly with the substance (contents), and then pay attention to the form. Recalling events from the remote past, often we cannot exactly reproduce specific heard or pronounced words, as well as the syntactic structures. We remember events, feelings, images; we recall the general contents of the discourse. The thought gets a specific language form only during the concept verbalization phase. With minimum time for pondering, depending on the language competence level, the grammar and syntactic shaping often occurs automatically with the use of famous models and stereotypes. This means that the language form adapts itself to the consciousness, and not vice versa.

Keywords: Lexical eidos, phenomenology, noema, polysemantic word, semantic core.

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Authors: Kavita Burse, R.N. Yadav, S.C. Shrivastava, Vishnu Pratap Singh Kirar

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During signal transmission, the combined effect of the transmitter filter, the transmission medium, and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) are included in the channel which distort and add noise to the signal. This causes the well defined signal constellation to spread causing errors in bit detection. A compact pi neural network with minimum number of nodes is proposed. The replacement of summation at each node by multiplication results in more powerful mapping. The resultant pi network is tested on six different channels.

Keywords: Additive white Gaussian noise, digitalcommunication system, multiplicative neuron, Pi neural network.

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Authors: Volodymyr Chegel

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The computer modeling is carried out for parameter of sensitivity of optoelectronic chemical and biosensors, using phenomena of surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The physical model of SPR-sensor-s is described with (or without) of modifications of sensitive gold film surface by a dielectric layer. The variants of increasing of sensitivity for SPR-biosensors, constructed on the principle gold – dielectric – biomolecular layer are considered. Two methods of mathematical treatment of SPR-curve are compared – traditional, with estimation of sensor-s response as shift of the SPRcurve minimum and proposed, for system with dielectric layer, using calculating of the derivative in the point of SPR-curve half-width.

Keywords: Surface Plasmon Resonance, modeling, sensitivity, biosensor

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Authors: Dong-Woo Lim, Chang-Jae Chun, Hyung-Myung Kim

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We consider a two-way relay network where two sources exchange information. A relay helps the two sources exchange information using the decode-and-XOR-forward protocol. We investigate the power minimization problem with minimum rate constraints. The system needs two time slots and in each time slot the required rate pair should be achievable. The power consumption is minimized in each time slot and we obtained the closed form solution. The simulation results confirm that the proposed power allocation scheme consumes lower total power than the conventional schemes.

Keywords: Decode-and-XOR-forward, power minimization, two-way relay

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Authors: Jiashang Jiang

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Model updating is an inverse eigenvalue problem which concerns the modification of an existing but inaccurate model with measured modal data. In this paper, an efficient gradient based iterative method for updating the mass, damping and stiffness matrices simultaneously using a few of complex measured modal data is developed. Convergence analysis indicates that the iterative solutions always converge to the unique minimum Frobenius norm symmetric solution of the model updating problem by choosing a special kind of initial matrices.

Keywords: Model updating, iterative algorithm, damped structural system, optimal approximation.

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Authors: Bimali Sanjeevani Weerakoon, Toshiaki Osuga, Takehisa Konishi

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrast Agents (MRI-CM) are significant in the clinical and biological imaging as they have the ability to alter the normal tissue contrast, thereby affecting the signal intensity to enhance the visibility and detectability of images. Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles, coated with dextran or carboxydextran are currently available for clinical MR imaging of the liver. Most SPIO contrast agents are T2 shortening agents and Resovist (Ferucarbotran) is one of a clinically tested, organ-specific, SPIO agent which has a low molecular carboxydextran coating. The enhancement effect of Resovist depends on its relaxivity which in turn depends on factors like magnetic field strength, concentrations, nanoparticle properties, pH and temperature. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the impact of field strength and different contrast concentrations on enhancement effects of Resovist. The study explored the MRI signal intensity of Resovist in the physiological range of plasma from T2-weighted spin echo sequence at three magnetic field strengths: 0.47 T (r1=15, r2=101), 1.5 T (r1=7.4, r2=95), and 3 T (r1=3.3, r2=160) and the range of contrast concentrations by a mathematical simulation. Relaxivities of r1 and r2 (L mmol-1 Sec-1) were obtained from a previous study and the selected concentrations were 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, 0.08, 0.09, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 mmol/L. T2-weighted images were simulated using TR/TE ratio as 2000 ms /100 ms. According to the reference literature, with increasing magnetic field strengths, the r1 relaxivity tends to decrease while the r2 did not show any systematic relationship with the selected field strengths. In parallel, this study results revealed that the signal intensity of Resovist at lower concentrations tends to increase than the higher concentrations. The highest reported signal intensity was observed in the low field strength of 0.47 T. The maximum signal intensities for 0.47 T, 1.5 T and 3 T were found at the concentration levels of 0.05, 0.06 and 0.05 mmol/L, respectively. Furthermore, it was revealed that, the concentrations higher than the above, the signal intensity was decreased exponentially. An inverse relationship can be found between the field strength and T2 relaxation time, whereas, the field strength was increased, T2 relaxation time was decreased accordingly. However, resulted T2 relaxation time was not significantly different between 0.47 T and 1.5 T in this study. Moreover, a linear correlation of transverse relaxation rates (1/T2, s–1) with the concentrations of Resovist can be observed. According to these results, it can conclude that the concentration of SPIO nanoparticle contrast agents and the field strengths of MRI are two important parameters which can affect the signal intensity of T2-weighted SE sequence. Therefore, when MR imaging those two parameters should be considered prudently.

Keywords: Concentration, Resovist, Field strength, Relaxivity, Signal intensity.

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Authors: Madhu Aneja, Sapna Sharma

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The water-based bioconvection of a nanofluid containing motile gyrotactic micro-organisms over nonlinear inclined stretching sheet has been investigated. The governing nonlinear boundary layer equations of the model are reduced to a system of ordinary differential equations via Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation and similarity transformations. Further, the modified set of equations with associated boundary conditions are solved using Finite Element Method. The impact of various pertinent parameters on the velocity, temperature, nanoparticles concentration, density of motile micro-organisms profiles are obtained and analyzed in details. The results show that with the increase in angle of inclination δ, velocity decreases while temperature, nanoparticles concentration, a density of motile micro-organisms increases. Additionally, the skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number, Sherwood number, density number are computed for various thermophysical parameters. It is noticed that increasing Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter leads to an increase in temperature of fluid which results in a reduction in Nusselt number. On the contrary, Sherwood number rises with an increase in Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter. The findings have been validated by comparing the results of special cases with existing studies.

Keywords: Bioconvection, inclined stretching sheet, Gyrotactic micro-organisms, Brownian motion, thermophoresis, finite element method.

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Authors: Abraham V. M., I. Sahul Hamid

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A decomposition of a graph G is a collection ψ of graphs H1,H2, . . . , Hr of G such that every edge of G belongs to exactly one Hi. If each Hi is either an induced path in G, then ψ is called an induced acyclic path decomposition of G and if each Hi is a (induced) cycle in G then ψ is called a (induced) cycle decomposition of G. The minimum cardinality of an induced acyclic path decomposition of G is called the induced acyclic path decomposition number of G and is denoted by ¤Çia(G). Similarly the cyclic decomposition number ¤Çc(G) is defined. In this paper we begin an investigation of these parameters.

Keywords: Cycle decomposition, Induced acyclic path decomposition, Induced acyclic path decomposition number.

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Authors: Yong-jun Zhao, Heng-li Zhang, Zong-yun Hu

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Based on the sources- smoothed rank profile (SRP) and modified minimum description length (MMDL) principle, a method for estimation of the source coherency structure (SCS) and the number of wideband sources is proposed in this paper. Instead of focusing, we first use a spatial smoothing technique to pre-process the array covariance matrix of each frequency for de-correlating the sources and then use smoothed rank profile to determine the SCS and the number of wideband sources. We demonstrate the availability of the method by numerical simulations.

Keywords: Wideband sources, source coherency structure (SCS), smoothed rank profile (SRP).

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Authors: Alan Luo, Hunter N. B. Moseley

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Many macromolecular structure entries in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) have a range of regional (localized) quality issues, be it derived from X-ray crystallography, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, or other experimental approaches. However, most PDB entries are judged by global quality metrics like R-factor, R-free, and resolution for X-ray crystallography or backbone phi-psi distribution statistics and average restraint violations for NMR. Regional quality is often ignored when PDB entries are re-used for a variety of structurally based analyses. The binding of ligands, especially ligands involved in energy metabolism, is of particular interest in many structurally focused protein studies. Using a regional quality metric that provides chemically interpretable information from electron density maps, a significant number of outliers in regional structural quality was detected across X-ray crystallographic PDB entries for proteins bound to biochemically critical ligands. In this study, a series of analyses was performed to evaluate both specific and general potential factors that could promote these outliers. In particular, these potential factors were the minimum distance to a metal ion, the minimum distance to a crystal contact, and the isotropic atomic b-factor. To evaluate these potential factors, Fisher’s exact tests were performed, using regional quality criteria of outlier (top 1%, 2.5%, 5%, or 10%) versus non-outlier compared to a potential factor metric above versus below a certain outlier cutoff. The results revealed a consistent general effect from region-specific normalized b-factors but no specific effect from metal ion contact distances and only a very weak effect from crystal contact distance as compared to the b-factor results. These findings indicate that no single specific potential factor explains a majority of the outlier ligand-bound regions, implying that human error is likely as important as these other factors. Thus, all factors, including human error, should be considered when regions of low structural quality are detected. Also, the downstream re-use of protein structures for studying ligand-bound conformations should screen the regional quality of the binding sites. Doing so prevents misinterpretation due to the presence of structural uncertainty or flaws in regions of interest.

Keywords: Biomacromolecular structure, coenzyme, electron density discrepancy analysis, X-ray crystallography.

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Authors: J. Samuel, S. Al-Enezi, A. Al-Banna

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High-density polyethylene reinforced with carbon nanofibers (HDPE/CNF) have been prepared via melt processing using dialkylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (ionic liquid) as a dispersion agent. The prepared samples were characterized by thermogravimetric (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) analyses. The samples blended with imidazolium ionic liquid exhibit higher thermal stability. DSC analysis showed clear miscibility of ionic liquid in the HDPE matrix and showed single endothermic peak. The melt rheological analysis of HDPE/CNF composites was performed using an oscillatory rheometer. The influence of CNF and ionic liquid concentration (ranging from 0, 0.5, and 1 wt%) on the viscoelastic parameters was investigated at 200 °C with an angular frequency range of 0.1 to 100 rad/s. The rheological analysis shows the shear-thinning behavior for the composites. An improvement in the viscoelastic properties was observed as the nanofiber concentration increases. The progress in the modulus values was attributed to the structural rigidity imparted by the high aspect ratio CNF. The modulus values and complex viscosity of the composites increased significantly at low frequencies. Composites blended with ionic liquid exhibit slightly lower values of complex viscosity and modulus over the corresponding HDPE/CNF compositions. Therefore, reduction in melt viscosity is an additional benefit for polymer composite processing as a result of wetting effect by polymer-ionic liquid combinations.

Keywords: HDPE, carbon nanofiber, ionic liquid, complex viscosity, modulus.

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Authors: Z. Khoshnood, R. Khoshnood

Abstract:

The aim of present study was to monitor the presence of Trichodina sp. in Rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss collected from various fish farms in the western provinces of Iran during January, 2013- January, 2014. Out of 675 sampled fish 335, (49.16%) were infested with Trichodina. The highest prevalence was observed in the spring and winter followed by autumn and summer. In general, the intensity of infection was low except in cases where outbreaks of Trichodiniasis endangered the survival of fish in some ponds. In light infestation Trichodina is usually present on gills, fins and skin of apparently healthy fish. Clinical signs of Trichodiniasis only appear on fish with heavy infections and cases of moderate ones that are usually exposed to one or more stress factors including, rough handling during transportation from ponds, overcrowdness, malnutrition, high of free ammonia and low of oxygen concentration. Clinical signs of Trichodiniasis in sampled fish were sluggish movement, loss of appetite, black coloration, necrosis and ulcer on different parts of the body, detached scales and excessive accumulation of mucous in gill pouches. The most obvious histopathological changes in diseased fish were sloughing of the epidermal layer, aggregation of leucocytes and melanine-carrying cells (between the dermis and hypodermis) and proliferative changes including hyperplasia and hypertrophy of the epithelial lining cells of gill filaments which resulted in fusion of secondary lamellae. Control of Trichodiniasis, has been achieved by formalin bath treatment at a concentration of 250 ppm for one hour.

Keywords: Gill, Histopathology, Rainbow trout, Trichodina.

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Authors: Hirbod Varasteh, Hamidreza Gohari Darabkhani

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The global warming and its impact on climate change is one of main challenges for current century. Global warming is mainly due to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) is known to be the major contributor to the GHG emission profile. Whilst the energy sector is the primary source for CO₂ emission, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) are believed to be the solution for controlling this emission. Oxyfuel combustion (Oxy-combustion) is one of the major technologies for capturing CO₂ from power plants. For gas turbines, several Oxy-combustion power cycles (Oxyturbine cycles) have been investigated by means of thermodynamic analysis. NetPower cycle is one of the leading oxyturbine power cycles with almost full carbon capture capability from a natural gas fired power plant. In this manuscript, sensitivity analysis of the heat exchanger design in NetPower cycle is completed by means of process modelling. The heat capacity variation and supercritical CO₂ with gaseous admixtures are considered for multi-zone analysis with Aspen Plus software. It is found that the heat exchanger design has a major role to increase the efficiency of NetPower cycle. The pinch-point analysis is done to extract the composite and grand composite curve for the heat exchanger. In this paper, relationship between the cycle efficiency and the minimum approach temperature (∆Tmin) of the heat exchanger has also been evaluated.  Increase in ∆Tmin causes a decrease in the temperature of the recycle flue gases (RFG) and an overall decrease in the required power for the recycled gas compressor. The main challenge in the design of heat exchangers in power plants is a tradeoff between the capital and operational costs. To achieve lower ∆Tmin, larger size of heat exchanger is required. This means a higher capital cost but leading to a better heat recovery and lower operational cost. To achieve this, ∆Tmin is selected from the minimum point in the diagrams of capital and operational costs. This study provides an insight into the NetPower Oxy-combustion cycle’s performance analysis and operational condition based on its heat exchanger design.

Keywords: Carbon capture and storage, oxy-combustion, netpower cycle, oxyturbine power cycles, heat exchanger design, supercritical carbon dioxide, pinch point analysis.

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Authors: Joon Y. Lee, Seung H. Shin, Ho H. Chun, Wan K. Jo

Abstract:

Poly vinyl acetate (PVA)-based titania (TiO2)–carbon nanotube composite nanofibers (PVA-TCCNs) with various PVA-to-solvent ratios and PVA-based TiO2 composite nanofibers (PVA-TN) were synthesized using an electrospinning process, followed by thermal treatment. The photocatalytic activities of these nanofibers in the degradation of airborne monocyclic aromatics under visible-light irradiation were examined. This study focuses on the application of these photocatalysts to the degradation of the target compounds at sub-part-per-million indoor air concentrations. The characteristics of the photocatalysts were examined using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. For all the target compounds, the PVA-TCCNs showed photocatalytic degradation efficiencies superior to those of the reference PVA-TN. Specifically, the average photocatalytic degradation efficiencies for benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and o-xylene (BTEX) obtained using the PVA-TCCNs with a PVA-to-solvent ratio of 0.3 (PVA-TCCN-0.3) were 11%, 59%, 89%, and 92%, respectively, whereas those observed using PVA-TNs were 5%, 9%, 28%, and 32%, respectively. PVA-TCCN-0.3 displayed the highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency for BTEX, suggesting the presence of an optimal PVA-to-solvent ratio for the synthesis of PVA-TCCNs. The average photocatalytic efficiencies for BTEX decreased from 11% to 4%, 59% to 18%, 89% to 37%, and 92% to 53%, respectively, when the flow rate was increased from 1.0 to 4.0 L min1. In addition, the average photocatalytic efficiencies for BTEX increased 11% to ~0%, 59% to 3%, 89% to 7%, and 92% to 13%, respectively, when the input concentration increased from 0.1 to 1.0 ppm. The prepared PVA-TCCNs were effective for the purification of airborne aromatics at indoor concentration levels, particularly when the operating conditions were optimized.

Keywords: Mixing ratio, nanofiber, polymer, reference photocatalyst.

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Authors: Kavita Khairnar, Shikha Nema

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DS-CDMA system is well known wireless technology. This system suffers from MAI (Multiple Access Interference) caused by Direct Sequence users. Multi-User Detection schemes were introduced to detect the users- data in presence of MAI. This paper focuses on linear multi-user detection schemes used for data demodulation. Simulation results depict the performance of three detectors viz-conventional detector, Decorrelating detector and Subspace MMSE (Minimum Mean Square Error) detector. It is seen that the performance of these detectors depends on the number of paths and the length of Gold code used.

Keywords: Cross Correlation Matrix, MAI, Multi-UserDetection, Multipath Effect.

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Authors: Zane Bulderberga

Abstract:

Spatial dimension in development planning is becoming more topical in 21^st century as a result of changes in population structure. Sustainable spatial development focuses on identifying and using territorial advantages to foster the harmonized development of the entire country, reducing negative effects of population concentration, increasing availability and mobility. EU and national development planning documents state polycentrism as main tool for balance spatial development, including investment concentration in growth centres. If mutual cooperation of growth centres as well as urban–rural cooperation is not fostered, then territorial differences can deepen and create unbalanced development.

The aim of research: to evaluate the urban–rural interaction, elaborating spatial development scenarios in framework of Latvian regional policy. To perform the research monographic, comparison, abstract–logical method, synthesis and analysis will be used when studying the theoretical aspects of research aiming at collecting the ideas of scientists from different countries, concepts, regulations as well as to create meaningful scientific discussion. Hierarchy analysis process (AHP) will be used to state further scenarios of spatial development in Latvia.

Experts from various institutions recognized urban – rural interaction and co-operation as an essential tool for the development. The most important factors for balanced spatial development in Latvia are availability of public transportation and improvement of service availability. Evaluating the three alternative scenarios, it was concluded that the urban – rural partnership will ensure a balanced development in Latvian regions.

Keywords: Rural – urban interaction, rural – urban cooperation, spatial development, AHP.

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Authors: S. Yessengabulov, A. Uyzbayeva

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Residential buildings fund of Kazakhstan was built in the Soviet time about 35-60 years ago without considering energy efficiency measures. Currently, most of these buildings are in a rundown condition and fail to meet the minimum of hygienic, sanitary and comfortable living requirements. The paper aims to examine the reports of recent building energy survey activities in the country and provide a possible solution for retrofitting existing housing stock built before 1989 which could be applicable for building envelope in cold climate. Methodology also includes two-dimensional modeling of possible practical solutions and further recommendations.

Keywords: Energy audit, energy efficient buildings in Kazakhstan, retrofit, two-dimensional conduction heat transfer analysis

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Authors: Mohsen Hayati, Zahra Mohebi

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In this paper, the application of neural networks to study the design of short-term temperature forecasting (STTF) Systems for Kermanshah city, west of Iran was explored. One important architecture of neural networks named Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) to model STTF systems is used. Our study based on MLP was trained and tested using ten years (1996-2006) meteorological data. The results show that MLP network has the minimum forecasting error and can be considered as a good method to model the STTF systems.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, Forecasting, Weather, Multi-layer perceptron.

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Authors: Dhruvit S. Berawala, Jann R. Ursin, Obrad Slijepcevic

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Shale gas is one of the most rapidly growing forms of natural gas. Unconventional natural gas deposits are difficult to characterize overall, but in general are often lower in resource concentration and dispersed over large areas. Moreover, gas is densely packed into the matrix through adsorption which accounts for large volume of gas reserves. Gas production from tight shale deposits are made possible by extensive and deep well fracturing which contacts large fractions of the formation. The conventional reservoir modelling and production forecasting methods, which rely on fluid-flow processes dominated by viscous forces, have proved to be very pessimistic and inaccurate. This paper presents a new approach to forecast shale gas production by detailed modeling of gas desorption, diffusion and non-linear flow mechanisms in combination with statistical representation of these processes. The representation of the model involves a cube as a porous media where free gas is present and a sphere (SiC: Sphere in Cube model) inside it where gas is adsorbed on to the kerogen or organic matter. Further, the sphere is considered consisting of many layers of adsorbed gas in an onion-like structure. With pressure decline, the gas desorbs first from the outer most layer of sphere causing decrease in its molecular concentration. The new available surface area and change in concentration triggers the diffusion of gas from kerogen. The process continues until all the gas present internally diffuses out of the kerogen, gets adsorbs onto available surface area and then desorbs into the nanopores and micro-fractures in the cube. Each SiC idealizes a gas pathway and is characterized by sphere diameter and length of the cube. The diameter allows to model gas storage, diffusion and desorption; the cube length takes into account the pathway for flow in nanopores and micro-fractures. Many of these representative but general cells of the reservoir are put together and linked to a well or hydraulic fracture. The paper quantitatively describes these processes as well as clarifies the geological conditions under which a successful shale gas production could be expected. A numerical model has been derived which is then compiled on FORTRAN to develop a simulator for the production of shale gas by considering the spheres as a source term in each of the grid blocks. By applying SiC to field data, we demonstrate that the model provides an effective way to quickly access gas production rates from shale formations. We also examine the effect of model input properties on gas production.

Keywords: Sphere in Cube Grid Approach to Modelling of Shale Gas Production Using Non-Linear Flow Mechanisms

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Authors: M.Zadshakouyan, E.Abdi Sobbouhi, H.Jafarzadeh

Abstract:

In this study, the precision heading process of spur gears has been investigated by means of numerical analysis. The effect of some parameters such as teeth number and module on the forming force and material flow were presented. The simulation works were performed rigid-plastic finite element method using DEFORM 3D software. In order to validate the estimated numerical results, they were compared with those obtained experimentally during heading of spur gear using lead as a model material. Results showed that the optimum number of gear teeth is between 10 to 20, that is because of being the specific pressure in its minimum value.

Keywords: Heading, spur gear, numerical analysis, experiments.

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Authors: Vahid Rostami, Saeed Ebrahimijam, P.khajehpoor, P.Mirzaei, Mahdi Yousefiazar

Abstract:

This paper introduces our first efforts of developing a new team for RoboCup Middle Size Competition. In our robots we have applied omni directional based mobile system with omnidirectional vision system and fuzzy control algorithm to navigate robots. The control architecture of MRL middle-size robots is a three layered architecture, Planning, Sequencing, and Executing. It also uses Blackboard system to achieve coordination among agents. Moreover, the architecture should have minimum dependency on low level structure and have a uniform protocol to interact with real robot.

Keywords: Robocup, Soccer robots, Fuzzy controller, Multi agent.

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Authors: M. Azadbakht, A. Rezaei Asl, K. Tamaskani Zahedi

Abstract:

Corn is cultivated in most countries because of high consumption, quality, and food value. This study evaluated needed energy for cutting corn stems in different levels of cutting height and moisture content. For this reason, test device was fabricated and then calibrated. The device works on the principle of conservation of energy. The results were analyzed using split plot design and SAS software. The results showed that effect of height and moisture content and their interaction effect on cutting energy are significant (P<1%). The maximum cutting energy was 3.22 kJ in 63 (w.b.%) moisture content and the minimum cutting energy was 1.63 kJ in 83.25 (w.b.%) moisture content.

Keywords: Cutting energy, Corn stalk, Cutting height, Moisture content, Impact cutting.

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Authors: Arshia Azam, J. Amarnath, Ch. D. V. Paradesi Rao

Abstract:

The advantage of solving the complex nonlinear problems by utilizing fuzzy logic methodologies is that the experience or expert-s knowledge described as a fuzzy rule base can be directly embedded into the systems for dealing with the problems. The current limitation of appropriate and automated designing of fuzzy controllers are focused in this paper. The structure discovery and parameter adjustment of the Branched T-S fuzzy model is addressed by a hybrid technique of type constrained sparse tree algorithms. The simulation result for different system model is evaluated and the identification error is observed to be minimum.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, branch T-S fuzzy model, tree modeling, complex nonlinear system.

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