Search results for: farm scale

Authors: Nichanant Sermsri, Chananchida Yuktirat

Abstract:

This research was the experimental research. Its purpose was to find out how coconut shells can be adapted to be equipment for foot and calf reflexology. The sample group was 58 female street vendors in Thewet Market, Bangkok, selected by selection criteria and voluntary. The data collecting tool was the Visual Analogue Scale. The massaging tool made from coconut shells was the key equipment for this research. The research team assessed the level of exhaustion and heart rate among sample group before and after the massage, then analyzed the data by mean, standard deviation and paired sample t-test.

We found out from the research that

1. The level of exhaustion decreased 4.529 levels after the massage and the standard deviation was 1.6195. The heart rates went down 11.67 times/minute and the standard deviation was 6.742.
2. The level of exhaustion and heart rate after the massage decreased with the statistically significance at 0.01

Keywords: Coconut Shells, Foot Massage, Foot Reflexology, Massaging Plate.

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Authors: Petr Květon, Martin Jelínek

Abstract:

We try to identify the role of various aspects of parenting style in the phenomenon of videogame playing addiction. Relevant self-report questionnaires were part of a wider set of methods focused on the constructs related to videogame playing. The battery of methods was administered in school settings in paper and pencil form. The research sample consisted of 333 (166 males, 167 females) elementary and high school students at the age between 10 and 19 years (m=14.98, sd=1.77). Using stepwise regression analysis, we assessed the influence of demographic variables (gender and age) and parenting styles. Age and gender together explained 26.3% of game addiction variance (F(2,330)=58.81, p<.01). By adding four aspect of parenting styles (inconsistency, involvement, control, and warmth) another 10.2% of variance was explained (∆F(4,326)=13.09, p<.01). The significant predictor was gender of the respondent, where males scored higher on game addiction scale (B=0.70, p<.01), age (β=-0.18, p<.01), where younger children showed higher level of addiction, and parental inconsistency (β=0.30, p<.01), where the higher the inconsistency in upbringing, the more developed game playing addiction.

Keywords: Gender, parenting styles, video games, addiction.

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Authors: Azam Beg, P. W. Chandana Prasad, S.M.N.A Senenayake

Abstract:

When binary decision diagrams are formed from uniformly distributed Monte Carlo data for a large number of variables, the complexity of the decision diagrams exhibits a predictable relationship to the number of variables and minterms. In the present work, a neural network model has been used to analyze the pattern of shortest path length for larger number of Monte Carlo data points. The neural model shows a strong descriptive power for the ISCAS benchmark data with an RMS error of 0.102 for the shortest path length complexity. Therefore, the model can be considered as a method of predicting path length complexities; this is expected to lead to minimum time complexity of very large-scale integrated circuitries and related computer-aided design tools that use binary decision diagrams.

Keywords: Monte Carlo circuit simulation data, binary decision diagrams, neural network modeling, shortest path length estimation

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Authors: Nina Bijedic, Drazena Gaspar, Mirsad Hadzikadic

Abstract:

Corruption is an influential and widespread problem. One part of it is so-called petty corruption, related to large-scale bribe giving by ordinary citizens trying to influence the works of public administration or public services. As it is with all means of corruption, petty corruption is related to the level of democracy (or administration efficiency) in a society. The developed model captures some of the factors related to corruptive behavior, as well as people’s attitude towards petty corruption. It has four basic elements: user’s perception of corruption in the society of interest, the influence of social interactions, the influence of penalizing mechanism, and influence of campaigns against petty corruption. The model is agent-based, developed in NetLogo, with a lot of random settings that provide a wider scope of responses. Interactions of different settings for variables of elements provide insight into the influence of each element on attitude towards petty corruption, as well as petty corruptive behavior.

Keywords: Agent based model, attitude, influence, petty corruption, society.

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Authors: Byung-Wan Jo, Kwang-Won Yoon, Ji-Sun Choi

Abstract:

Load managing method on road became necessary since overloaded vehicles occur damage on road facilities and existing systems for preventing this damage still show many problems.Accordingly, efficient managing system for preventing overloaded vehicles could be organized by using the road itself as a scale by applying genetic algorithm to analyze the load and the drive information of vehicles.Therefore, this paper organized Ubiquitous sensor network system for development of intelligent overload vehicle regulation system, also in this study, to use the behavior of road, the transformation was measured by installing underground box type indoor model and indoor experiment was held using genetic algorithm. And we examined wireless possibility of overloaded vehicle regulation system through experiment of the transmission and reception distance.If this system will apply to road and bridge, might be effective for economy and convenience through establishment of U-IT system..

Keywords: Overload Vehicle. Genetic Algorithm, EmbeddedSystem, Wim Sensor, overload vehicle regulation

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Authors: Bashirah Ishak, Jacyln JiaYing Thye, Bariah Mohd Ali, Norhani Mohidin

Abstract:

Background Contact lens (CL) wear can cause changes in blinking and corneal staining. Aims and Objectives To determine the effects of CL materials (HEMA and SiHy) on spontaneous blink rate, blinking patterns and corneal staining after 2 months of wear. Methods Ninety subjects in 3 groups (control, HEMA and SiHy) were assessed at baseline and 2-months. Blink rate was recorded using a video camera. Blinking patterns were assessed with digital camera and slit lamp biomicroscope. Corneal staining was graded using IER grading scale Results There were no significant differences in all parameters at baseline. At 2 months, CL wearers showed significant increment in average blink rate (F1.626, 47.141 = 7.250, p = 0.003; F2,58 = 6.240, p = 0.004) and corneal staining (χ2 2, n=30 = 31.921, p < 0.001; χ2 2, n=30 = 26.909, p < 0.001). Conclusion Blinking characteristics and corneal staining were not influence by soft CL materials.

Keywords: Spontaneous blinking, cornea staining, grading, soft contact lenses.

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Authors: Iryna Atamaniuk, Hannah Boysen, Nils Wieczorek, Natalia Politaeva, Iuliia Bazarnova, Kerstin Kuchta

Abstract:

Over the last decade due to climate change and a strategy of natural resources preservation, the interest for the aquatic biomass has dramatically increased. Along with mitigation of the environmental pressure and connection of waste streams (including CO₂ and heat emissions), microalgae bioeconomy can supply food, feed, as well as the pharmaceutical and power industry with number of value-added products. Furthermore, in comparison to conventional biomass, microalgae can be cultivated in wide range of conditions without compromising food and feed production, thus addressing issues associated with negative social and the environmental impacts. This paper presents the state-of-the art technology for microalgae bioeconomy from cultivation process to production of valuable components and by-streams. Microalgae Chlorella sorokiniana were cultivated in the pilot-scale innovation concept in Hamburg (Germany) using different systems such as race way pond (5000 L) and flat panel reactors (8 x 180 L). In order to achieve the optimum growth conditions along with suitable cellular composition for the further extraction of the value-added components, process parameters such as light intensity, temperature and pH are continuously being monitored. On the other hand, metabolic needs in nutrients were provided by addition of micro- and macro-nutrients into a medium to ensure autotrophic growth conditions of microalgae. The cultivation was further followed by downstream process and extraction of lipids, proteins and saccharides. Lipids extraction is conducted in repeated-batch semi-automatic mode using hot extraction method according to Randall. As solvents hexane and ethanol are used at different ratio of 9:1 and 1:9, respectively. Depending on cell disruption method along with solvents ratio, the total lipids content showed significant variations between 8.1% and 13.9 %. The highest percentage of extracted biomass was reached with a sample pretreated with microwave digestion using 90% of hexane and 10% of ethanol as solvents. Proteins content in microalgae was determined by two different methods, namely: Total Kejadahl Nitrogen (TKN), which further was converted to protein content, as well as Bradford method using Brilliant Blue G-250 dye. Obtained results, showed a good correlation between both methods with protein content being in the range of 39.8–47.1%. Characterization of neutral and acid saccharides from microalgae was conducted by phenol-sulfuric acid method at two wavelengths of 480 nm and 490 nm. The average concentration of neutral and acid saccharides under the optimal cultivation conditions was 19.5% and 26.1%, respectively. Subsequently, biomass residues are used as substrate for anaerobic digestion on the laboratory-scale. The methane concentration, which was measured on the daily bases, showed some variations for different samples after extraction steps but was in the range between 48% and 55%. CO₂ which is formed during the fermentation process and after the combustion in the Combined Heat and Power unit can potentially be used within the cultivation process as a carbon source for the photoautotrophic synthesis of biomass.

Keywords: Bioeconomy, lipids, microalgae, proteins, saccharides.

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Authors: Samee Ullah Khan, Ishfaq Ahmad

Abstract:

This paper proposes a novel game theoretical technique to address the problem of data object replication in largescale distributed computing systems. The proposed technique draws inspiration from computational economic theory and employs the extended Vickrey auction. Specifically, players in a non-cooperative environment compete for server-side scarce memory space to replicate data objects so as to minimize the total network object transfer cost, while maintaining object concurrency. Optimization of such a cost in turn leads to load balancing, fault-tolerance and reduced user access time. The method is experimentally evaluated against four well-known techniques from the literature: branch and bound, greedy, bin-packing and genetic algorithms. The experimental results reveal that the proposed approach outperforms the four techniques in both the execution time and solution quality.

Keywords: Auctions, data replication, pricing, static allocation.

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Authors: Vaishali P. Joshi, Pallav Joshi

Abstract:

The objective of this study is to examine the differences fashion innovators and non-fashion innovators in their fashion consumption behavior in terms of their pre-purchase behavior, purchase behavior and post purchase behavior. The questionnaire was distributed to a female college student for data collection for achieving the objective of the first part of the study. Question-related to fashion innovativeness and fashion consumption behavior was asked. The sample was comprised of 81 college females ages 18 through 30 who were attending Business Management degree. A series of attitude questions was used to categorize respondents on the Innovativeness Scale. 32 respondents with a score of 21 and above were designated as Fashion innovators and the remainder (49) as Non-fashion innovators. Findings showed that there exist significant differences between innovators and non-innovators in their fashion consumption behavior. Data was analyzed through frequency distribution table. Many differences were found in the behavior of innovators and non-innovators in terms of their pre-purchase, actual purchase, and post-purchase behavior.

Keywords: Consumption behavior, fashion, innovativeness, frequency distribution table.

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Authors: Kwok W. Mui, Ling T. Wong, Chin T. Cheung, Ho C. Yu

Abstract:

Based on an indoor environmental quality (IEQ) index established by previous work that indicates the overall IEQ acceptance from the prospect of an occupant in residential buildings in terms of four IEQ factors - thermal comfort, indoor air quality, visual and aural comforts, this study develops a user-friendly IEQ calculator for iOS and Android users to calculate the occupant acceptance and compare the relative performance of IEQ in apartments. “IEQ calculator” is easy to use and it preliminarily illustrates the overall indoor environmental quality on the spot. Users simply input indoor parameters such as temperature, number of people and windows are opened or closed for the mobile application to calculate the scores in four areas: the comforts of temperature, brightness, noise and indoor air quality. The calculator allows the prediction of the best IEQ scenario on a quantitative scale. Any indoor environments under the specific IEQ conditions can be benchmarked against the predicted IEQ acceptance range. This calculator can also suggest how to achieve the best IEQ acceptance among a group of residents. 

Keywords: Calculator, indoor environmental quality (IEQ), residential buildings, 5-star benchmarks.

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Authors: C.C. Chen, C.C. Wei, S.H. Chen, S.J. Hsieh, W.G. Diau

Abstract:

This paper aims to scale up Dye-sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) production using a commonly available industrial material – stainless steel - and industrial plasma equipment. A working DSSC electrode formed by (1) coating titania nanotube (TiO2 NT) film on 304 stainless steel substrate using a plasma spray technique; then, (2) filling the nano-pores of the TiO2 NT film using a TiF4 sol-gel method. A DSSC device consists of an anode absorbed photosensitive dye (N3), a transparent conductive cathode with platinum (Pt) nano-catalytic particles adhered to its surface, and an electrolytic solution sealed between the anode and the transparent conductive cathode. The photo-current conversion efficiency of the DSSC sample was tested under an AM 1.5 Solar Simulator. The sample has a short current (Isc) of 0.83 mA cm-2, open voltage (Voc) of 0.81V, filling factor (FF) of 0.52, and conversion efficiency (η) of 2.18% on a 0.16 cm2 DSSC work-piece.

Keywords: DSSC, Spray, stainless steel, TiO2 NT, efficiency

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Authors: Omer Rashid, Ayoub Al-Hamadi, Axel Panning, Bernd Michaelis

Abstract:

It is hard to percept the interaction process with machines when visual information is not available. In this paper, we have addressed this issue to provide interaction through visual techniques. Posture recognition is done for American Sign Language to recognize static alphabets and numbers. 3D information is exploited to obtain segmentation of hands and face using normal Gaussian distribution and depth information. Features for posture recognition are computed using statistical and geometrical properties which are translation, rotation and scale invariant. Hu-Moment as statistical features and; circularity and rectangularity as geometrical features are incorporated to build the feature vectors. These feature vectors are used to train SVM for classification that recognizes static alphabets and numbers. For the alphabets, curvature analysis is carried out to reduce the misclassifications. The experimental results show that proposed system recognizes posture symbols by achieving recognition rate of 98.65% and 98.6% for ASL alphabets and numbers respectively.

Keywords: Feature Extraction, Posture Recognition, Pattern Recognition, Application.

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Authors: Shivali D. Kulkarni, Ameya K. Naik, Nitin S. Nagori

Abstract:

In this paper we present simulation results for the application of a bandwidth efficient algorithm (mapping algorithm) to an image transmission system. This system considers three different real valued transforms to generate energy compact coefficients. First results are presented for gray scale and color image transmission in the absence of noise. It is seen that the system performs its best when discrete cosine transform is used. Also the performance of the system is dominated more by the size of the transform block rather than the number of coefficients transmitted or the number of bits used to represent each coefficient. Similar results are obtained in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise. The varying values of the bit error rate have very little or no impact on the performance of the algorithm. Optimum results are obtained for the system considering 8x8 transform block and by transmitting 15 coefficients from each block using 8 bits.

Keywords: Additive white Gaussian noise channel, mapping algorithm, peak signal to noise ratio, transform encoding.

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Authors: Rossella Arcucci, Luisa D’Amore, Simone Celestino, Giuseppe Scotti, Giuliano Laccetti

Abstract:

This work is the first dowel in a rather wide research activity in collaboration with Euro Mediterranean Center for Climate Changes, aimed at introducing scalable approaches in Ocean Circulation Models. We discuss designing and implementation of a parallel algorithm for solving the Variational Data Assimilation (DA) problem on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). The algorithm is based on the fully scalable 3DVar DA model, previously proposed by the authors, which uses a Domain Decomposition approach (we refer to this model as the DD-DA model). We proceed with an incremental porting process consisting of 3 distinct stages: requirements and source code analysis, incremental development of CUDA kernels, testing and optimization. Experiments confirm the theoretic performance analysis based on the so-called scale up factor demonstrating that the DD-DA model can be suitably mapped on GPU architectures.

Keywords: Data Assimilation, Parallel Algorithm, GPU architectures, Ocean Models.

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Authors: U. P. L. Wijayarathne, K. C. Wasalathilake

Abstract:

This work presents the modelling and simulation of saponification of ethyl acetate in the presence of sodium hydroxide in a plug flow reactor using Aspen Plus simulation software. Plug flow reactors are widely used in the industry due to the non-mixing property. The use of plug flow reactors becomes significant when there is a need for continuous large scale reaction or fast reaction. Plug flow reactors have a high volumetric unit conversion as the occurrence for side reactions is minimum. In this research Aspen Plus V8.0 has been successfully used to simulate the plug flow reactor. In order to simulate the process as accurately as possible HYSYS Peng- Robinson EOS package was used as the property method. The results obtained from the simulation were verified by the experiment carried out in the EDIBON plug flow reactor module. The correlation coefficient (r2) was 0.98 and it proved that simulation results satisfactorily fit for the experimental model. The developed model can be used as a guide for understanding the reaction kinetics of a plug flow reactor.

Keywords: Aspen Plus, Modelling, Plug Flow Reactor, Simulation.

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Authors: Liu Xuedong, Liu Hanpeng, Zhou Ling

Abstract:

Study fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of microchannel in a primary Cross-corrugated(CC) surface recuperators with corrugations and without corrugations, using CFD method. The pitch-over-height ratios P/H of Cross-corrugated (CC) surface is from 1.5 to 4.0, included angles β=75º. The study was performed using CFD software FLUENT to create unit model and simulate fluid temperature, velocity, heat transfer coefficient and other parameters. The results from these simulations were compared to experimental data. It is concluded that, when the Reynolds number is constant, if increase P/H, j/f will decrease, also the decreasing trend will become weak. Under the condition of P/H=2.2, if increase the inlet velocity j/f will decrease; in addition, the heat transfer performance in surface with corrugation will increase 10% compared to that without corrugation. The study results can provide the basis to optimize the design, select the type of heat transfer surface, the scale structure, and heat-transfer surface arrangement for recuperators.

Keywords: Cross-corrugated surface, Primary surface, Numerical simulation, Heat transfer.

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Authors: Ashish Pathak, Dong-Jin Kim, S. Singh, H. Srichandan, Byoung-Gon Kim

Abstract:

The desulfurization of coal using biological methods is an emerging technology. The biodesulfurization process uses the catalytic activity of chemolithotrophic acidpohiles in removing sulfur and pyrite from the coal. The present study was undertaken to examine the potential of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans in removing the pyritic sulfur and iron from high iron and sulfur containing US coal. The experiment was undertaken in 10 L batch stirred tank reactor having 10% pulp density of coal. The reactor was operated under mesophilic conditions and aerobic conditions were maintained by sparging the air into the reactor. After 35 days of experiment, about 64% of pyrite and 21% of pyritic sulfur was removed from the coal. The findings of the present study indicate that the biodesulfurization process does have potential in treating the high pyrite and sulfur containing coal. A good mass balance was also obtained with net loss of about 5% showing its feasibility for large scale application.

Keywords: At.ferrroxidans, Batch reactor, Coal desulfurization, Pyrite.

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Authors: A. Gorin

Abstract:

The lecture represents significant advances in understanding of the transfer processes mechanism in turbulent separated flows. Based upon experimental data suggesting the governing role of generated local pressure gradient that takes place in the immediate vicinity of the wall in separated flow as a result of intense instantaneous accelerations induced by large-scale vortex flow structures similarity laws for mean velocity and temperature and spectral characteristics and heat and mass transfer law for turbulent separated flows have been developed. These laws are confirmed by available experimental data. The results obtained were employed for analysis of heat and mass transfer in some very complex processes occurring in technological applications such as impinging jets, heat transfer of cylinders in cross flow and in tube banks, packed beds where processes manifest distinct properties which allow them to be classified under turbulent separated flows. Many facts have got an explanation for the first time.

Keywords: impinging jets, packed beds, turbulent separatedflows, 'two-thirds power law'

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Authors: Shiraz Ahmad, Zhe-Ming Lu

Abstract:

An effective visual error concealment method has been presented by employing a robust rotation, scale, and translation (RST) invariant partial patch matching model (RSTI-PPMM) and exemplar-based inpainting. While the proposed robust and inherently feature-enhanced texture synthesis approach ensures the generation of excellent and perceptually plausible visual error concealment results, the outlier pruning property guarantees the significant quality improvements, both quantitatively and qualitatively. No intermediate user-interaction is required for the pre-segmented media and the presented method follows a bootstrapping approach for an automatic visual loss recovery and the image and video error concealment.

Keywords: Exemplar-based image and video inpainting, outlierpruning, RST-invariant partial patch matching model (RSTI-PPMM), visual error concealment.

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Authors: Jürgen Geiser, Robert Röhle

Abstract:

In this paper we present modeling and simulation for physical vapor deposition for metallic bipolar plates. In the models we discuss the application of different models to simulate the transport of chemical reactions of the gas species in the gas chamber. The so called sputter process is an extremely sensitive process to deposit thin layers to metallic plates. We have taken into account lower order models to obtain first results with respect to the gas fluxes and the kinetics in the chamber. The model equations can be treated analytically in some circumstances and complicated multi-dimensional models are solved numerically with a software-package (UG unstructed grids, see [1]). Because of multi-scaling and multi-physical behavior of the models, we discuss adapted schemes to solve more accurate in the different domains and scales. The results are discussed with physical experiments to give a valid model for the assumed growth of thin layers.

Keywords: Convection-diffusion equations, multi-scale problem, physical vapor deposition, reaction equations, splitting methods.

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Authors: Nurcan Tuncbag, Turkan Haliloglu, Ozlem Keskin

Abstract:

Understanding the cell's large-scale organization is an interesting task in computational biology. Thus, protein-protein interactions can reveal important organization and function of the cell. Here, we investigated the correspondence between protein interactions and function for the yeast. We obtained the correlations among the set of proteins. Then these correlations are clustered using both the hierarchical and biclustering methods. The detailed analyses of proteins in each cluster were carried out by making use of their functional annotations. As a result, we found that some functional classes appear together in almost all biclusters. On the other hand, in hierarchical clustering, the dominancy of one functional class is observed. In the light of the clustering data, we have verified some interactions which were not identified as core interactions in DIP and also, we have characterized some functionally unknown proteins according to the interaction data and functional correlation. In brief, from interaction data to function, some correlated results are noticed about the relationship between interaction and function which might give clues about the organization of the proteins, also to predict new interactions and to characterize functions of unknown proteins.

Keywords: Pair-wise protein interactions, DIP database, functional correlations, biclustering.

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Authors: O. M. Omar, A. M. Heniegal, G. D. Abd Elhameed, H. A. Mohamadien

Abstract:

Local steel slag is produced as a by-product during the oxidation of steel pellets in an electric arc furnace. Using local steel slag waste as a hundred substitutes of crashed stone in construction materials would resolve the environmental problems caused by the large-scale depletion of the natural sources of crashed stone. This paper reports the experimental study to investigate the influence of a hundred replacement of crashed stone as a coarse aggregate with local steel slag, on the fresh and hardened geopolymer concrete properties. The investigation includes traditional testing of hardening concrete, for selected mixes of cement and geopolymer concrete. It was found that local steel slag as a coarse aggregate enhanced the slump test of the fresh state of cement and geopolymer concretes. Nevertheless, the unit weight of concretes was affected. Meanwhile, the good performance was observed when fly ash used as geopolymer concrete based.

Keywords: Geopolymer, molarity, steel slag, sodium hydroxide, sodium silicate.

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Authors: Miika Toivanen, Jouko Lampinen

Abstract:

This paper presents an online method that learns the corresponding points of an object from un-annotated grayscale images containing instances of the object. In the first image being processed, an ensemble of node points is automatically selected which is matched in the subsequent images. A Bayesian posterior distribution for the locations of the nodes in the images is formed. The likelihood is formed from Gabor responses and the prior assumes the mean shape of the node ensemble to be similar in a translation and scale free space. An association model is applied for separating the object nodes and background nodes. The posterior distribution is sampled with Sequential Monte Carlo method. The matched object nodes are inferred to be the corresponding points of the object instances. The results show that our system matches the object nodes as accurately as other methods that train the model with annotated training images.

Keywords: Bayesian modeling, Gabor filters, Online learning, Sequential Monte Carlo.

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Authors: Jouhra Dad, Mohammed Ouali, Yahia Lebbah

Abstract:

Urban road network traffic has become one of the most studied research topics in the last decades. This is mainly due to the enlargement of the cities and the growing number of motor vehicles traveling in this road network. One of the most sensitive problems is to verify if the network is congestion-free. Another related problem is the automatic reconfiguration of the network without building new roads to alleviate congestions. These problems require an accurate model of the traffic to determine the steady state of the system. An alternative is to simulate the traffic to see if there are congestions and when and where they occur. One key issue is to find an adequate model for road intersections. Once the model established, either a large scale model is built or the intersection is represented by its performance measures and simulation for analysis. In both cases, it is important to seek the queueing model to represent the road intersection. In this paper, we propose to model the road intersection as a BCMP queueing network and we compare this analytical model against a simulation model for validation.

Keywords: Queueing theory, transportation systems, BCMPqueueing network, performance measures, modeling, simulation

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Authors: Pei-Te Chiueh, Hsiao-Ting Wu, Shang-Lien Lo

Abstract:

Protecting is the sources of drinking water is the first barrier of contamination of drinking water. The Feitsui Reservoir watershed of Taiwan supplies domestic water for around 5 million people in the Taipei metropolitan area. Understanding the spatial patterns of water quality trends in this watershed is an important agenda for management authorities. This study examined 7 sites in the watershed for water quality parameters regulated in the standard for drinking water source. The non-parametric seasonal Mann-Kendall-s test was used to determine significant trends for each parameter. Significant trends of increasing pH occurred at the sampling station in the uppermost stream watershed, and in total phosphorus at 4 sampling stations in the middle and downstream watershed. Additionally, the multi-scale land cover assessment and average land slope were used to explore the influence on the water quality in the watershed. Regression models for predicting water quality were also developed.

Keywords: Seasonal Mann-Kendall's test, Flow-adjusted concentrations, Water quality trends, Land-use

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Authors: Thaniya Kaosol, Narumol Sohgrathok

Abstract:

In this research, an anaerobic co-digestion using decanter cake from palm oil mill industry to improve the biogas production from frozen seafood wastewater is studied using Continuously Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) process. The experiments were conducted in laboratory-scale. The suitable Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) was observed in CSTR experiments with 24 hours of mixing time using the mechanical mixer. The HRT of CSTR process impacts on the efficiency of biogas production. The best performance for biogas production using CSTR process was the anaerobic codigestion for 20 days of HRT with the maximum methane production rate of 1.86 l/d and the average maximum methane production of 64.6%. The result can be concluded that the decanter cake can improve biogas productivity of frozen seafood wastewater.

Keywords: anaerobic co-digestion, frozen seafood wastewater, decanter cake, biogas, hydraulic retention time

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Authors: M. B. Limooei, Hadi Ebrahimifar, Sh. Hosseini

Abstract:

Protective coatings that resist oxide scale growth and decrease chromium evaporation are necessary to make stainless steel interconnect materials for long-term durable operation of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). In this study a layer of cobalt was electroplated on the surface of AISI 441 ferritic stainless steel which is used in solid oxide fuel cells for interconnect applications. The oxidation behavior of coated substrates was studied as a function of time at operating conditions of SOFCs. Cyclic oxidation has been also tested at 800ºC for 100 cycles. Cobalt coating during isothermal oxidation caused to the oxide growth resistance by limiting the outward diffusion of Cr cation and the inward diffusion of oxygen anion. Results of cyclic oxidation exhibited that coated substrates demonstrate an excellent resistance against the spallation and cracking.

Keywords: Oxidation resistance, full cell, Cobalt coating, ferritic stainless steel.

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Authors: Tsuyoshi Yamazaki, Etsuo Morishita

Abstract:

Cyclists often run through a crosswind and sometimes we experience the adverse pressure. We came to an idea that Wells turbine can be used as power augmentation device in the crosswind something like sails of a yacht. Wells turbine always rotates in the same direction irrespective of the incoming flow direction, and we use it in the small-scale power generation in the ocean where waves create an oscillating flow. We incorporate the turbine to the wheel of a bike. A commercial device integrates strain gauges in the crank of a bike and transmitted force and torque applied to the pedal of the bike as an e-mail to the driver’s mobile phone. We can analyze the unsteady data in a spreadsheet sent from the crank sensor. We run the bike with the crank sensor on the rollers at the exit of a low-speed wind tunnel and analyze the effect of the crosswind to the wheel with a Wells turbine. We also test the aerodynamic characteristics of the turbine separately. Although power gain depends on the flow direction, several Watts increase might be possible by the Wells turbine incorporated to a bike wheel.

Keywords: Aerodynamics, wells turbine, bicycle, wind engineering.

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Authors: M. Shirinbayan, J. Fitoussi, N. Abbasnezhad, A. Lucas, A. Tcharkhtchi

Abstract:

Sheet Molding Compounds (SMCs) with special microstructures are very attractive to use in automobile structures especially when they are accidentally subjected to collision type accidents because of their high energy absorption capacity. These are materials designated as standard SMC, Advanced Sheet Molding Compounds (A-SMC), Low-Density SMC (LD-SMC) and etc. In this study, testing methods have been performed to compare the mechanical responses and damage phenomena of SMC, LD-SMC, and A-SMC under quasi-static and high strain rate tensile tests. The paper also aims at investigating the effect of an initial pre-damage induced by fatigue on the tensile dynamic behavior of A-SMC. In the case of SMCs and A-SMCs, whatever the fibers orientation and applied strain rate are, the first observed phenomenon of damage corresponds to decohesion of the fiber-matrix interface which is followed by coalescence and multiplication of these micro-cracks and their propagations. For LD-SMCs, damage mechanisms depend on the presence of Hollow Glass Microspheres (HGM) and fibers orientation.

Keywords: SMC, LD-SMC, A-SMC, HGM, damage.

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Authors: M. Sedighizadeh, A. Rezazadeh

Abstract:

In this paper presents a technique for developing the computational efficiency in simulating double output induction generators (DOIG) with two rotor circuits where stator transients are to be included. Iterative decomposition is used to separate the flux– Linkage equations into decoupled fast and slow subsystems, after which the model order of the fast subsystems is reduced by neglecting the heavily damped fast transients caused by the second rotor circuit using integral manifolds theory. The two decoupled subsystems along with the equation for the very slowly changing slip constitute a three time-scale model for the machine which resulted in increasing computational speed. Finally, the proposed method of reduced order in this paper is compared with the other conventional methods in linear and nonlinear modes and it is shown that this method is better than the other methods regarding simulation accuracy and speed.

Keywords: DOIG, Iterative separation, Integral manifolds, Reduced order.

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