Search results for: DSSC (Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell)

Authors: H. López-Moreno, A. Rodríguez-Sánchez, C. Viñas-Arrebola, C. Porras-Amores

Abstract:

The ventilated façade has great advantages when compared to traditional façades as it reduces the air conditioning thermal loads due to the stack effect induced by solar radiation in the air chamber. Optimizing energy consumption by using a ventilated façade can be used not only in newly built buildings but also it can be implemented in existing buildings, opening the field of implementation to energy building retrofitting works. In this sense, the following three prototypes of façade where designed, built and further analyzed in this research: non-ventilated façade (NVF); slightly ventilated façade (SLVF) and strongly ventilated façade (STVF). The construction characteristics of the three facades are based on the Spanish regulation of building construction “Technical Building Code”. The façades have been monitored by type-k thermocouples in a representative day of the summer season in Madrid (Spain). Moreover, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures, studying the thermal lag in the ventilated and no-ventilated façades has been designed. Results show that STVF façade presents higher levels of thermal inertia as the thermal lag reduces up to 17% (daily mean) compared to the non-ventilated façade. In addition, the statistical analysis proves that an increase of the ventilation holes size in STVF façades can improve the thermal lag significantly (p >0.05) when compared to the SLVF façade.

Keywords: Energy efficiency, experimental study, statistical analysis, thermal behavior, ventilated façade.

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Authors: Nahid-Al-Masood, Rifat Mirza, Jubaer Ahmed, Amina Hasan Abedin, S.R. Deeba, Faeza Hafiz, Mahmuda Begum, A. Hasib Chowdhury

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Bangladesh is a developing country with large population. Demand of electrical energy is increasing day by day because of increasing population and industrialization. But due to limited resources, people here are suffering from power crisis problem which is considered as a major obstacle to the economic development. In most of the cases, it is extremely difficult to extend high tension transmission lines to some of the places that are separated from the mainland. Renewable energy is considered to be the right choice for providing clean energy to these remote settlements. This paper proposes a cost effective design of off-grid wind-diesel hybrid power system using combined heat and power (CHP) technology in a grid isolated island, Sandwip, Bangladesh. Design and simulation of the wind-diesel hybrid power system is performed considering different factors for the island Sandwip. Detailed economic analysis and comparison with solar PV system clearly reveals that wind-diesel hybrid power system can be a cost effective solution for the isolated island like Sandwip.

Keywords: renewable energy, off-grid, wind-diesel hybrid system, CHP technology, economic analysis

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Authors: Doaa M. Atia, Faten H. Fahmy, Ninet M. Ahmed, Hassen T. Dorrah

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In this paper, the optimum design for renewable energy system powered an aquaculture pond was determined. Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER) software program, which is developed by U.S National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is used for analyzing the feasibility of the stand alone and hybrid system in this study. HOMER program determines whether renewable energy resources satisfy hourly electric demand or not. The program calculates energy balance for every 8760 hours in a year to simulate operation of the system. This optimization compares the demand for the electrical energy for each hour of the year with the energy supplied by the system for that hour and calculates the relevant energy flow for each component in the model. The essential principle is to minimize the total system cost while HOMER ensures control of the system. Moreover the feasibility analysis of the energy system is also studied. Wind speed, solar irradiance, interest rate and capacity shortage are the parameters which are taken into consideration. The simulation results indicate that the hybrid system is the best choice in this study, yielding lower net present cost. Thus, it provides higher system performance than PV or wind stand alone systems.

Keywords: Wind stand-alone system, Photovoltaic stand-alone system, Hybrid system, Optimum system sizing, feasibility, Cost analysis.

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Authors: Assem M. F. Sallam, Ah. El-S. Makled

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This paper presents a study on the trajectory of a two stage launch vehicle. The study includes dynamic responses of motion parameters as well as the variation of angles affecting the orientation of the launch vehicle (LV). LV dynamic characteristics including state vector variation with corresponding altitude and velocity for the different LV stages separation, as well as the angle of attack and flight path angles are also discussed. A flight trajectory study for the drop zone of first stage and the jettisoning of fairing are introduced in the mathematical modeling to study their effect. To increase the accuracy of the LV model, atmospheric model is used taking into consideration geographical location and the values of solar flux related to the date and time of launch, accurate atmospheric model leads to enhancement of the calculation of Mach number, which affects the drag force over the LV. The mathematical model is implemented on MATLAB based software (Simulink). The real available experimental data are compared with results obtained from the theoretical computation model. The comparison shows good agreement, which proves the validity of the developed simulation model; the maximum error noticed was generally less than 10%, which is a result that can lead to future works and enhancement to decrease this level of error.

Keywords: Launch vehicle modeling, launch vehicle trajectory, mathematical modeling, MATLAB-Simulink.

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Authors: S. S. Salehi, A. Shamloo

Abstract:

Poor ability of cartilage tissue when experiencing a damage leads scientists to use tissue engineering as a reliable and effective method for regenerating or replacing damaged tissues. An artificial tissue should have some features such as biocompatibility, biodegradation and, enough mechanical properties like the original tissue. In this work, a composite hydrogel is prepared by using natural and synthetic materials that has high porosity. Mechanical properties of different combinations of polymers such as modulus of elasticity were tested, and a hydrogel with good mechanical properties was selected. Bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells were also seeded into the pores of the sponge, and the results showed the adhesion and proliferation of cells within the hydrogel after one month. In comparison with previous works, this study offers a new and efficient procedure for the fabrication of cartilage like tissue and further cartilage repair.

Keywords: Cartilage tissue engineering, hydrogel, mechanical strength, mesenchymal stem cell.

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Authors: S. Z. Sayed Hassen

Abstract:

The load frequency control problem of power systems has attracted a lot of attention from engineers and researchers over the years. Increasing and quickly changing load demand, coupled with the inclusion of more generators with high variability (solar and wind power generators) on the network are making power systems more difficult to regulate. Frequency changes are unavoidable but regulatory authorities require that these changes remain within a certain bound. Engineers are required to perform the tricky task of adjusting the control system to maintain the frequency within tolerated bounds. It is well known that to minimize frequency variations, a large proportional feedback gain (speed regulation constant) is desirable. However, this improvement in performance using proportional feedback comes about at the expense of a reduced stability margin and also allows some steady-state error. A conventional PI controller is then included as a secondary control loop to drive the steadystate error to zero. In this paper, we propose a robust controller to replace the conventional PI controller which guarantees performance and stability of the power system over the range of variation of the speed regulation constant. Simulation results are shown to validate the superiority of the proposed approach on a simple single-area power system model.

Keywords: Robust control, power system, integral action, minimax LQG control.

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Authors: Kyongsoo Lee, , Seong-Il Kim, Byeong-Kwon Ju

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An aqueous methanol sensor for use in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) applications is demonstrated; the methanol sensor is built using dispersed single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with Nafion117 solution to detect the methanol concentration in water. The study is aimed at the potential use of the carbon nanotubes array as a methanol sensor for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). The concentration of methanol in the fuel circulation loop of a DMFC system is an important operating parameter, because it determines the electrical performance and efficiency of the fuel cell system. The sensor is also operative even at ambient temperatures and responds quickly to changes in the concentration levels of the methanol. Such a sensor can be easily incorporated into the methanol fuel solution flow loop in the DMFC system.

Keywords: methanol concentration, SWCNT, nafion composites

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Authors: S. Ali. Tajer, Babak H. Khalaj

Abstract:

This paper represents an investigation on how exploiting multiple transmit antennas by OFDM based wireless LAN subscribers can mitigate physical layer error rate. Then by comparing the Wireless LANs that utilize spatial diversity techniques with the conventional ones it will reveal how PHY and TCP throughputs behaviors are ameliorated. In the next step it will assess the same issues based on a cellular context operation which is mainly introduced as an innovated solution that beside a multi cell operation scenario benefits spatio-temporal signaling schemes as well. Presented simulations will shed light on the improved performance of the wide range and high quality wireless LAN services provided by the proposed approach.

Keywords: Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and WirelessLocal Area Network (WLAN).

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Authors: Z. M. Biyasheva, M. Zh. Tleubergenova, Y. A. Zaripova, A. L. Shakirov, V. V. Dyachkov

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In recent years, interest in ecogenetic and biomedical problems related to the effects on the population of radon and its daughter decay products has increased significantly. Of particular interest is the assessment of the consequence of irradiation at hazardous radon areas, which includes the Almaty region due to the large number of tectonic faults that enhance radon emanation. In connection with the foregoing, the purpose of this work was to study the genetic effects of exposure to supernormal radon doses on the alpha-radiation model. Irradiation does not affect the growth of the cell, but rather its ability to differentiate. In addition, irradiation can lead to somatic mutations, morphoses and modifications. These damages most likely occur from changes in the composition of the substances of the cell. Such changes are epigenetic since they affect the regulatory processes of ontogenesis. Variability in the expression of regulatory genes refers to conditional mutations that modify the formation of signs of intraspecific similarity. Characteristic features of these conditional mutations are the dominant type of their manifestation, phenotypic asymmetry and their instability in the generations. Currently, the terms “morphosis” and “modification” are used to describe epigenetic variability, which are maintained in Drosophila melanogaster cultures using linkaged X- chromosomes, and the mutant X-chromosome is transmitted along the paternal line. In this paper, we investigated the epigenetic effects of alpha particles, whose source in nature is mainly radon and its daughter decay products. In the experiment, an isotope of plutonium-238 (Pu²³⁸), generating radiation with an energy of about 5500 eV, was used as a source of alpha particles. In an experiment in the first generation (F₁), deformities or morphoses were found, which can be called "radiation syndromes" or mutations, the manifestation of which is similar to the pleiotropic action of genes. The proportion of morphoses in the experiment was 1.8%, and in control 0.4%. In this experiment, the morphoses in the flies of the first and second generation looked like black spots, or melanomas on different parts of the imago body; "generalized" melanomas; curled, curved wings; shortened wing; bubble on one wing; absence of one wing, deformation of thorax, interruption and violation of tergite patterns, disruption of distribution of ocular facets and bristles; absence of pigmentation of the second and third legs. Statistical analysis by the Chi-square method showed the reliability of the difference in experiment and control at P ≤ 0.01. On the basis of this, it can be considered that alpha particles, which in the environment are mainly generated by radon and its isotopes, have a mutagenic effect that manifests itself, mainly in the formation of morphoses or deformities.

Keywords: Alpha-radiation, genotoxicity, morphoses, radioecology, radon.

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Authors: Malinee Pongsavee

Abstract:

Sodium formate is the chemical substance used for food additive. Catalase is the important antioxidative enzyme in protecting the cell from oxidative damage by reactive oxygen species (ROS). The resultant level of oxidative stress in sodium formatetreated lymphocytes was investigated. The sodium formate concentrations of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 mg/mL were treated in human lymphocytes for 12 hours. After 12 treated hours, catalase activity change was measured in sodium formate-treated lymphocytes. The results showed that the sodium formate concentrations of 0.4 and 0.6 mg/mL significantly decreased catalase activities in lymphocytes (P < 0.05). The change of catalase activity in sodium formate-treated lymphocytes may be the oxidative damage marker for detect sodium formate exposure in human.

Keywords: Sodium formate, catalase activity, oxidative damage marker, toxicity.

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Authors: Srikanta Bose, S.K. Mazumder

Abstract:

In the present simulation work, an attempt is made to study the switching dynamics of an optically controlled 4HSiC thyristor power semiconductor device with the use of GaAs optically triggered power transistor. The half-cell thyristor has the forward breakdown of 200 V and reverse breakdown of more than 1000 V. The optically controlled thyristor has a rise time of 0.14 μs and fall time of 0.065 μs. The turn-on and turn-off delays are 0.1 μs and 0.06 μs, respectively. In addition, this optically controlled thyristor is used as a control switch for the DC-DC Boost converter. The pn-diode used for the converter has the forward drop of 2.8 V and reverse breakdown of around 400 V.

Keywords: 4H-SiC, Boost converter, Optical triggering, Power semiconductor device, thyristor.

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Authors: Jyh J. Chen, Fu H. Yang, Ming H. Liao

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This study describes a capillary-based device integrated with the heating and cooling modules for polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The device consists of the reaction polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) capillary, the aluminum blocks, and is equipped with two cartridge heaters, a thermoelectric (TE) cooler, a fan, and some thermocouples for temperature control. The cartridge heaters are placed into the heating blocks and maintained at two different temperatures to achieve the denaturation and the extension step. Some thermocouples inserted into the capillary are used to obtain the transient temperature profiles of the reaction sample during thermal cycles. A 483-bp DNA template is amplified successfully in the designed system and the traditional thermal cycler. This work should be interesting to persons involved in the high-temperature based reactions and genomics or cell analysis.

Keywords: Polymerase chain reaction, thermal cycles, capillary, TE cooler.

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Authors: Wardah, T., Kamil, A.A., Sahol Hamid, A.B., Maisarah, W.W.I

Abstract:

Quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) from atmospheric model as input to hydrological model in an integrated hydro-meteorological flood forecasting system has been operational in many countries worldwide. High-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) models with grid cell sizes between 2 and 14 km have great potential in contributing towards reasonably accurate QPF. In this study the potential of two NWP models to forecast precipitation for a flood-prone area in a tropical region is examined. The precipitation forecasts produced from the Fifth Generation Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale (MM5) and Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) models are statistically verified with the observed rain in Kelantan River Basin, Malaysia. The statistical verification indicates that the models have performed quite satisfactorily for low and moderate rainfall but not very satisfactory for heavy rainfall.

Keywords: MM5, Numerical weather prediction (NWP), quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF), WRF

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Authors: F. Rezaie Moghaddam, J. Amani, T. Rezaie Moghaddam

Abstract:

Many computational techniques were applied to solution of heat conduction problem. Those techniques were the finite difference (FD), finite element (FE) and recently meshless methods. FE is commonly used in solution of equation of heat conduction problem based on the summation of stiffness matrix of elements and the solution of the final system of equations. Because of summation process of finite element, convergence rate was decreased. Hence in the present paper Cellular Automata (CA) approach is presented for the solution of heat conduction problem. Each cell considered as a fixed point in a regular grid lead to the solution of a system of equations is substituted by discrete systems of equations with small dimensions. Results show that CA can be used for solution of heat conduction problem.

Keywords: Heat conduction, Cellular automata, convergencerate, discrete system.

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Authors: Hyun-Jee Yang, Bit-Na Kwon, Yong-Jun Kim, Hyoung-Kyu Song

Abstract:

In the cooperative transmission scheme, both the cellular system and broadcasting system are composed. Two cellular base stations (CBSs) communicating with a user in the cell edge use cooperative transmission scheme in the conventional scheme. In the case that the distance between two CBSs and the user is distant, the conventional scheme does not guarantee the quality of the communication because the channel condition is bad. Therefore, if the distance between CBSs and a user is distant, the performance of the conventional scheme is decreased. Also, the bad channel condition has bad effects on the performance. The proposed scheme uses two relays to communicate well with CBSs when the channel condition between CBSs and the user is poor. Using the relay in the high attenuation environment can obtain both advantages of the high bit error rate (BER) and throughput performance.

Keywords: Cooperative communications, diversity gain, OFDM, interworking system.

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Authors: Derlis Gregor, Kevin Cikel, Mario Arzamendia, Raúl Gregor

Abstract:

This paper presents a self-sustaining mobile system for counting and classification of vehicles through processing video. It proposes a counting and classification algorithm divided in four steps that can be executed multiple times in parallel in a SBC (Single Board Computer), like the Raspberry Pi 2, in such a way that it can be implemented in real time. The first step of the proposed algorithm limits the zone of the image that it will be processed. The second step performs the detection of the mobile objects using a BGS (Background Subtraction) algorithm based on the GMM (Gaussian Mixture Model), as well as a shadow removal algorithm using physical-based features, followed by morphological operations. In the first step the vehicle detection will be performed by using edge detection algorithms and the vehicle following through Kalman filters. The last step of the proposed algorithm registers the vehicle passing and performs their classification according to their areas. An auto-sustainable system is proposed, powered by batteries and photovoltaic solar panels, and the data transmission is done through GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)eliminating the need of using external cable, which will facilitate it deployment and translation to any location where it could operate. The self-sustaining trailer will allow the counting and classification of vehicles in specific zones with difficult access.

Keywords: Intelligent transportation systems, object detection, video processing, road traffic, vehicle counting, vehicle classification.

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Authors: Musthafah b. Mohd.Tahir, Noboru Yamada, Tetsuya Hoshino

Abstract:

This paper describes the experimental efficiency of a compact organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system with a compact rotary-vane-type expander. The compact ORC system can be used for power generation from low-temperature heat sources such as waste heat from various small-scale heat engines, fuel cells, electric devices, and solar thermal energy. The purpose of this study is to develop an ORC system with a low power output of less than 1 kW with a hot temperature source ranging from 60°C to 100°C and a cold temperature source ranging from 10°C to 30°C. The power output of the system is rather less due to limited heat efficiency. Therefore, the system should have an economically optimal efficiency. In order to realize such a system, an efficient and low-cost expander is indispensable. An experimental ORC system was developed using the rotary-vane-type expander which is one of possible candidates of the expander. The experimental results revealed the expander performance for various rotation speeds, expander efficiencies, and thermal efficiencies. Approximately 30 W of expander power output with 48% expander efficiency and 4% thermal efficiency with a temperature difference between the hot and cold sources of 80°C was achieved.

Keywords: Organic Rankine cycle, Thermodynamic cycle, Thermal efficiency, Turbine efficiency, Waste heat recovery, Powergeneration, Low temperature heat engine.

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Authors: C. Nutphuang, S. Chirarattananon, V.D. Hien

Abstract:

In research on natural ventilation, and passive cooling with forced convection, is essential to know how heat flows in a solid object and the pattern of temperature distribution on their surfaces, and eventually how air flows through and convects heat from the surfaces of steel under roof. This paper presents some results from running the computational fluid dynamic program (CFD) by comparison between natural ventilation and forced convection within roof attic that is received directly from solar radiation. The CFD program for modeling air flow inside roof attic has been modified to allow as two cases. First case, the analysis under natural ventilation, is closed area in roof attic and second case, the analysis under forced convection, is opened area in roof attic. These extend of all cases to available predictions of variations such as temperature, pressure, and mass flow rate distributions in each case within roof attic. The comparison shows that this CFD program is an effective model for predicting air flow of temperature and heat transfer coefficient distribution within roof attic. The result shows that forced convection can help to reduce heat transfer through roof attic and an around area of steel core has temperature inner zone lower than natural ventilation type. The different temperature on the steel core of roof attic of two cases was 10-15 oK.

Keywords: CFD program, natural ventilation, forcedconvection, heat transfer, air flow.

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Authors: S. N. Hussain, H. M. A. Asghar, H. Sattar, N. W. Brown, E. P. L. Roberts

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A water treatment technology employing the adsorption of dissolved organic contaminants from water and their electrochemical regeneration has been commercialized by Arvia Technology Ltd, UK. This technology focuses the adsorption of pollutants onto the surface of low surface area graphite based adsorbents followed by the anodic oxidation of adsorbed species in an electrochemical cell. However, some of the adsorbed species may lead to the formation of intermediate breakdown products due to incomplete oxidation. The information regarding the formation of breakdown products during electrochemical regeneration of these adsorbents is important for the effective application of this process to water treatment. In the present paper, the formation of the break down products during electrochemical regeneration of various graphite based adsorbents has been demonstrated.

Keywords: Arvia®, Adsorption, Electrochemical Regeneration, Breakdown products.

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Authors: C. W. Lin, S.W. Chen

Abstract:

This study describes the preparation of a novel proton conducting membranes based on bacterial cellulose (BC) modified by grafting of 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1 -propanesulfonic acid (AMPS) through UV-induced graft polymerization. These AMPS-g-BC membranes have been characterized by various techniques including FTIR, SEM and TGA, to find their successful grafting of AMPS on BC, surface morphology and thermal stability, respectively. Physical properties of AMPS-g-BC membranes have been assessed in terms of Lamda value( λ ), ion exchange capacity(IEC) and proton conductivity. The relationship between degree of grafting and AMPS concentration used for grafting has been determined by weight gain method. An optimum proton conductivity equal to 2.89x10-2 S cm-1 and IEC value equal to 1.79 mmol g-1 have been obtained when 20 wt% AMPS concentration is used for grafting (i.e. the corresponding membrane is notated as AMPS20-g-BC).

Keywords: Bacterial cellulose, 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid, Proton conducting membrane, Self diffusioncoefficient, Fuel cell

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Authors: Lorenzo Putzu, Cecilia Di Ruberto

Abstract:

The counting and analysis of blood cells allows the evaluation and diagnosis of a vast number of diseases. In particular, the analysis of white blood cells (WBCs) is a topic of great interest to hematologists. Nowadays the morphological analysis of blood cells is performed manually by skilled operators. This involves numerous drawbacks, such as slowness of the analysis and a nonstandard accuracy, dependent on the operator skills. In literature there are only few examples of automated systems in order to analyze the white blood cells, most of which only partial. This paper presents a complete and fully automatic method for white blood cells identification from microscopic images. The proposed method firstly individuates white blood cells from which, subsequently, nucleus and cytoplasm are extracted. The whole work has been developed using MATLAB environment, in particular the Image Processing Toolbox.

Keywords: Automatic detection, Biomedical image processing, Segmentation, White blood cell analysis.

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Authors: N. Ghatwary, A. Ahmed, H. Jalab

Abstract:

In this paper, an approach for the liver tumor detection in computed tomography (CT) images is represented. The detection process is based on classifying the features of target liver cell to either tumor or non-tumor. Fractional differential (FD) is applied for enhancement of Liver CT images, with the aim of enhancing texture and edge features. Later on, a fusion method is applied to merge between the various enhanced images and produce a variety of feature improvement, which will increase the accuracy of classification. Each image is divided into NxN non-overlapping blocks, to extract the desired features. Support vector machines (SVM) classifier is trained later on a supplied dataset different from the tested one. Finally, the block cells are identified whether they are classified as tumor or not. Our approach is validated on a group of patients’ CT liver tumor datasets. The experiment results demonstrated the efficiency of detection in the proposed technique.

Keywords: Fractional differential (FD), Computed Tomography (CT), fusion.

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Authors: Tatheer Zahra

Abstract:

Auxetic materials have counteractive properties due to re-entrant geometry that enables them to possess Negative Poisson’s Ratio (NPR). These materials have better energy absorbing and shock resistance capabilities as compared to conventional positive Poisson’s ratio materials. The re-entrant geometry can be created through 3D printing for convenient application of these materials. This paper investigates the mechanical properties of 3D printed chiral auxetic geometries of various sizes. Small scale samples were printed using an ordinary 3D printer and were tested under compression and tension to ascertain their strength and deformation characteristics. A maximum NPR of -9 was obtained under compression and tension. The re-entrant chiral cell size has been shown to affect the mechanical properties of the re-entrant chiral auxetics.

Keywords: Auxetic materials, 3D printing, Negative Poisson’s Ratio, re-entrant chiral auxetics.

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Authors: Dehong Li, Yuchen Chen, Alireza Kaboorani, Denis Rodrigue, Xiaodong (Alice) Wang

Abstract:

Utilizing solar energy for thermal energy storage has emerged as an appealing option for lowering the amount of energy that is consumed by buildings. Due to their high heat storage density, non-corrosive and non-polluting properties, alcohols can be a good alternative to petroleum-derived paraffin phase change materials (PCMs). In this paper, ternary eutectic PCMs with suitable phase change temperatures were designed and prepared using lauryl alcohol (LA), cetyl alcohol (CA), stearyl alcohol (SA) and xylitol (X). The Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) results revealed that the phase change temperatures of LA-CA-SA, LA-CA-X, and LA-SA-X were 20.52 °C, 20.37 °C, and 22.18 °C, respectively. The latent heat of phase change of the ternary eutectic PCMs were all stronger than that of the paraffinic PCMs at roughly the same temperature. The highest latent heat was 195 J/g. It had good thermal energy storage capacity. The preparation mechanism was investigated using Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and it was found that the ternary eutectic PCMs were only physically mixed among the components. Ternary eutectic PCMs had a simple preparation process, suitable phase change temperature, and high energy storage density. They are suitable for low-temperature architectural packaging applications.

Keywords: Thermal energy storage, buildings, phase change materials, alcohols.

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Authors: Daomao Yang, Qizhi Wang

Abstract:

Monoterpenoids are mainly found in plant essential oils and they are ideal substrates for biotransformation into oxygen-containing derivatives with important commercial value due to their low price and simple structure. In this paper, eleven strains of endophytic fungi from Praxelis clematidea were used as test strains to conduct the whole cell biotransformation of the monoterpenoids: (+)-limonene, (-)-limonene and myrcene. The fungi were inoculated in 50 ml Sabouraud medium and incubated at 30 ℃ with the agitation of 150 r/min for 6 d, and then 0.5% (v/v) substrates were added into the medium and biotransformed for further 3 d. Afterwards the cultures were filtered, and extracted using equal volume of ethyl acetate. The metabolites were analyzed by GC-MS technique with NIST database. The Total Ion Chromatogram of the extractions from the eleven strains showed that the main product of (+)- and (-)-limonene biotransformation was limonene-1,2-diol, while it is limonene and linalool oxide for biotransformation of myrcene. This work will help screen the microorganisms to biotransform the monoterpenes.

Keywords: Endophytic fungi, (+)–limonene, (-)–limonene, myrcene.

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Authors: H. Higashiyama, M. Sano, F. Nakanishi, M. Sugiyama, O. Takahashi, S. Tsukuma

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The heat island phenomenon becomes one of the environmental problems. As countermeasures in the field of road engineering, cool pavements such as water retaining pavements and solar radiation reflective pavements have been developed to reduce the surface temperature of asphalt pavements in the hot summer climate in Japan. The authors have studied on the water retaining pavements with cement–based grouting materials. The cement–based grouting materials consist of cement, ceramic waste powder, and natural zeolite. The ceramic waste powder is collected through the recycling process of electric porcelain insulators. In this study, mixing ratio between the ceramic waste powder and the natural zeolite and a type of cement for the cement–based grouting materials is investigated to measure the surface temperature of asphalt pavements in the outdoor. All of the developed cement–based grouting materials were confirmed to effectively reduce the surface temperature of the asphalt pavements. Especially, the cement–based grouting material using the ultra–rapid hardening cement with the mixing ratio of 0.7:0.3 between the ceramic waste powder and the natural zeolite reduced mostly the surface temperature by 20 °C and more.

Keywords: Ceramic waste powder, natural zeolite, road surface temperature, water retaining pavements.

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Authors: Shan-Jen Cheng, Te-Jen Chang, Kuang-Hsiung Tan, Shou-Ling Kuo

Abstract:

Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is such a time-vary nonlinear dynamic system. The traditional linear modeling approach is hard to estimate structure correctly of PEMFC system. From this reason, this paper presents a nonlinear modeling of the PEMFC using Neural Network Auto-regressive model with eXogenous inputs (NNARX) approach. The multilayer perception (MLP) network is applied to evaluate the structure of the NNARX model of PEMFC. The validity and accuracy of NNARX model are tested by one step ahead relating output voltage to input current from measured experimental of PEMFC. The results show that the obtained nonlinear NNARX model can efficiently approximate the dynamic mode of the PEMFC and model output and system measured output consistently.

Keywords: PEMFC, neural network, nonlinear identification, NNARX.

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Authors: Reinhard Haas, Amela Ajanovic

Abstract:

In recent years various types of electric vehicles has gained again increasing attention as an environmentally benign technology in transport. Especially for urban areas with high local pollution this Zero-emission technology (at the point of use) is considered to provide proper solutions. Yet, the bad economics and the limited driving ranges are still major barriers for a broader market penetration of battery electric vehicles (BEV) and of fuel cell vehicles (FCV). The major result of our analyses is that the most important precondition for a further dissemination of BEV in urban areas are emission-free zones. This is an instrument which allows the promotion of BEV without providing excessive subsidies. In addition, it is important to note that the full benefits of EV can only be harvested if the electricity used is produced from renewable energy sources. That is to say, it has to be ensured that the use of BEV in urban areas is clearly linked to a green electricity purchase model. And moreover, the introduction of a CO2- emission-based tax system would support this requirement.

Keywords: Electric vehicles, economics, policies, history.

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Authors: S. Dehghan, B. Kiani, A. Kazemi, A. Parizad

Abstract:

The utilization of renewable energy sources in electric power systems is increasing quickly because of public apprehensions for unpleasant environmental impacts and increase in the energy costs involved with the use of conventional energy sources. Despite the application of these energy sources can considerably diminish the system fuel costs, they can also have significant influence on the system reliability. Therefore an appropriate combination of the system reliability indices level and capital investment costs of system is vital. This paper presents a hybrid wind/photovoltaic plant, with the aim of supplying IEEE reliability test system load pattern while the plant capital investment costs is minimized by applying a hybrid particle swarm optimization (PSO) / harmony search (HS) approach, and the system fulfills the appropriate level of reliability.

Keywords: Distributed Generation, Fuel Cell, HS, Hybrid Power Plant, PSO, Photovoltaic, Reliability.

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Authors: Nicole Pearcy, Jonathan J. Crofts, Nadia Chuzhanova

Abstract:

In this paper, we employ a directed hypergraph model to investigate the extent to which environmental variability influences the set of available biochemical reactions within a living cell. Such an approach avoids the limitations of the usual complex network formalism by allowing for the multilateral relationships (i.e. connections involving more than two nodes) that naturally occur within many biological processes. More specifically, we extend the concept of network reciprocity to complex hyper-networks, thus enabling us to characterise a network in terms of the existence of mutual hyper-connections, which may be considered a proxy for metabolic network complexity. To demonstrate these ideas, we study 115 metabolic hyper-networks of bacteria, each of which can be classified into one of 6 increasingly varied habitats. In particular, we found that reciprocity increases significantly with increased environmental variability, supporting the view that organism adaptability leads to increased complexities in the resultant biochemical networks.

Keywords: Complexity, hypergraphs, reciprocity, metabolism.

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