Search results for: Investment cost recovery

Authors: Matthias Minich, B. Harriehausen-Muehlbauer, C. Wentzel

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Today-s economy is in a permanent change, causing merger and acquisitions and co operations between enterprises. As a consequence, process adaptations and realignments result in systems integration and software development projects. Processes and procedures to execute such projects are still reliant on craftsman-ship of highly skilled workers. A generally accepted, industrialized production, characterized by high efficiency and quality, seems inevitable. In spite of this, current concepts of software industrialization are aimed at traditional software engineering and do not consider the characteristics of systems integration. The present work points out these particularities and discusses the applicability of existing industrial concepts in the systems integration domain. Consequently it defines further areas of research necessary to bring the field of systems integration closer to an industrialized production, allowing a higher efficiency, quality and return on investment.

Keywords: Software Industrialization, Systems Integration, Software Product Lines, Component Based Development, Model Driven Development.

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Authors: Kyoung Hoon Kim

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Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) has potential in reducing fossil fuels and relaxing environmental problems. In this work performance analysis of ORC is conducted based on the second law of thermodynamics for recovery of low temperature heat source from 100^oC to 140^oC using R134a as the working fluid. Effects of system parameters such as turbine inlet pressure or source temperature are theoretically investigated on the exergy destructions (anergies) at various components of the system as well as net work production or exergy efficiency. Results show that the net work or exergy efficiency has a peak with respect to the turbine inlet pressure when the source temperature is low, however, increases monotonically with increasing turbine inlet pressure when the source temperature is high.

Keywords: Organic Rankine cycle (ORC), low temperature heat source, exergy, source temperature.

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Authors: Manish Kumar

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Reinforced cement concrete is getting extensively used for construction of different type of structures for the last one century. During this period, we have constructed many structures like buildings, bridges, industrial structures, pavement, water tanks etc. using this construction material. These structures have been created with huge investment of resources. It is essential to maintain those structures in functional condition. Since deterioration in RCC Structures is a common and natural phenomenon it is required to have a detailed plan, methodology for structural repair and rehabilitation shall be in place for dealing such issues. It is important to know exact reason of distress, type of distress and correct method of repair concrete structures. The different methods of repair are described in paper according to distress category which can be refereed for repair. Major finding of the study is that to protect our structure we need to have maintenance frequency and correct material to be chosen for repair. Also workmanship during repair needs to be taken utmost care for quality repair.

Keywords: Deterioration, functional condition, reinforced cement concrete, resources.

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Authors: Saad Chakkor, Mostafa Baghouri, Abderrahmane Hajraoui

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ESPRIT-TLS method appears a good choice for high resolution fault detection in induction machines. It has a very high effectiveness in the frequency and amplitude identification. Contrariwise, it presents a high computation complexity which affects its implementation in real time fault diagnosis. To avoid this problem, a Fast-ESPRIT algorithm that combined the IIR band-pass filtering technique, the decimation technique and the original ESPRIT-TLS method was employed to enhance extracting accurately frequencies and their magnitudes from the wind stator current with less computation cost. The proposed algorithm has been applied to verify the wind turbine machine need in the implementation of an online, fast, and proactive condition monitoring. This type of remote and periodic maintenance provides an acceptable machine lifetime, minimize its downtimes and maximize its productivity. The developed technique has evaluated by computer simulations under many fault scenarios. Study results prove the performance of Fast- ESPRIT offering rapid and high resolution harmonics recognizing with minimum computation time and less memory cost.

Keywords: Spectral Estimation, ESPRIT-TLS, Real Time, Diagnosis, Wind Turbine Faults, Band-Pass Filtering, Decimation.

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Authors: Ahmed Fathi Mohamed, Nasir Shafiq, M. F. Nuruddin, Ali Elheber

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Implementing significant advantages in the supply of self-compacting concrete (SCC) is necessary because of the, negative features of SCC. Examples of these features are the ductility problem along with the very high cost of its constituted materials. Silica fume with steel fiber can fix this matter by improving the ductility and decreasing the total cost of SCC by varying the cement ingredients. Many different researchers have found that there have not been enough research carried out on the steel fiber-reinforced self-compacting concrete (SFRSCC) produced with silica fume. This paper inspects both the fresh and the mechanical properties of SFRSCC with silica fume, the fresh qualities where slump flow, slump T₅₀ and V- funnel. While, the mechanical characteristics were the compressive strength, ultrasound pulse velocity (UPV) and elastic modulus of the concrete samples. The experimental results have proven that steel fiber can enhance the mechanical features. In addition, the silica fume within the entire hybrid mix may possibly adapt the fiber dispersion and strengthen deficits due to the fibers. It could also improve the strength plus the bond between the fiber and the matrix with a dense calcium silicate-hydrate gel in SFRSCC. The concluded result was predicted using linear mathematical models and was found to be in great agreement with the experimental results.

Keywords: Self-compacting concrete, silica fume, steel fiber, fresh and mechanical properties.

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Authors: Wanida Suwunniponth

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The objectives of this research were to study the influencing factors that contributed to the success of e-collaborative in e-commerce of B2C (Business to Customer) business in Bangkok, Thailand. The influencing factors included organization, people, information technology and the process of e-collaborative. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 200 small e-commerce businesses and the path analysis was utilized as the tool for data analysis. By using the path analysis, it was revealed that the factors concerning with organization, people and information technology played an influence on e-collaborative process and the success of ecollaborative, whereas the process of e-collaborative factor manipulated its success. The findings suggested that B2C ecommerce business in Thailand should opt in improvement approach in terms of managerial structure, leaderships, staff’s skills and knowledge, and investment of information technology in order to capacitate higher efficiency of e-collaborative process that would result in profit and competitive advantage.

Keywords: E-collaborative, E-commerce, B2C.

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Authors: M. H. Mehrabi, S. S. Ghodsi, Zainah Ibrahim, Meldi Suhatril

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Standard routes for upgrading existing buildings to improve their seismic response can be expensive in terms of both time and cost due to the modifications required to the foundations. As a result, interest has grown in the installation of viscoelastic dampers (VEDs) in mid and high-rise buildings. Details of a low-cost viscoelastic passive control device, the rotary rubber braced damper (RRBD), are presented in this paper. This design has the added benefits of being lightweight and simple to install. Experimental methods and finite element modeling were used to assess the performance of the proposed VED design and its effect on building response during earthquakes. The analyses took into account the behaviors of non-linear materials and large deformations. The results indicate that the proposed RRBD provides high levels of energy absorption, ensuring the stable cyclical response of buildings in all scenarios considered. In addition, time history analysis was employed in this study to evaluate the RRBD’s ability to control the displacements and accelerations experienced by steel frame structures. It was demonstrated that the device responds well even at low displacements, highlighting its suitability for use in seismic events of varying severity.

Keywords: Dynamic response, passive control, performance test, seismic protection.

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Authors: Kyonghoon Kim, Wonyoung Park, Taeil Park

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Aging infrastructures became a serious social problem. This brought out the increased need for the legislation of a new strict guideline for infrastructure management. Although existing guidelines provided basics of how to evaluate and manage the condition of infrastructures, they needed improvements for their evaluation procedures. Most guidelines mainly focused on the structural condition of infrastructures and did not properly reflect service aspects of infrastructures such as performance, public demand, capacity, etc., which were significantly valuable to public. Regardless of the importance, these factors were often neglected in infrastructure evaluations, because they were quite subjective and difficult to quantify in rational manner. Thus, this study proposed a framework to properly identify and evaluate the service indicators. This study showed that service indicators could be grouped into two categories and properly evaluated using AHP and Fuzzy. Overall, proposed framework is expected to assist governmental agency in establishing effective investment strategies for infrastructure improvements.

Keywords: Infrastructure, evaluation, serviceability, fuzzy.

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Authors: Yih-Chuan Lin, Jung-Hong Li

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In this paper, we propose a reversible watermarking scheme based on histogram shifting (HS) to embed watermark bits into the H.264/AVC standard videos by modifying the last nonzero level in the context adaptive variable length coding (CAVLC) domain. The proposed method collects all of the last nonzero coefficients (or called last level coefficient) of 4×4 sub-macro blocks in a macro block and utilizes predictions for the current last level from the neighbor block-s last levels to embed watermark bits. The feature of the proposed method is low computational and has the ability of reversible recovery. The experimental results have demonstrated that our proposed scheme has acceptable degradation on video quality and output bit-rate for most test videos.

Keywords: Reversible data hiding, H.264/AVC standard, CAVLC, Histogram shifting

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Authors: Alaaddin Cerit, Suheyla Kocaman, Ulku Soydal

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During the past two decades, photoinitiated polymerization has been attracting a great interest in terms of scientific and industrial activity. The wide recognition of UV treatment in the polymer industry results not only from its many practical applications but also from its advantage for low-cost processes. Unlike most thermal curing systems, radiation-curable systems can polymerize at room temperature without additional heat, and the curing is completed in a very short time. The advantage of cationic UV technology is that post-cure can continue in the ‘dark’ after radiation. In this study, bio-based acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO) was cured with UV radiation using radicalic photoinitiator Irgacure 184. Triarylsulphonium hexafluoroantimonate was used as cationic photoinitiator for curing of 3,4-epoxycyclohexylmethyl-3,4-epoxycyclohexanecarboxylate. The effect of curing time and the amount of initiators on the curing degree and thermal properties were investigated. The thermal properties of the coating were analyzed after crosslinking UV irradiation. The level of crosslinking in the coating was evaluated by FTIR analysis. Cationic UV-cured coatings demonstrated excellent adhesion and corrosion resistance properties. Therefore, our study holds a great potential with its simple and low-cost applications.

Keywords: Acrylated epoxidized soybean oil, epoxy carboxylate, thermal properties, UV-curing.

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Authors: Qing Dai, Zhengkui Lin, Jiajia Zhang, Yi Qu

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Based on activity method, this paper focuses on morning commuting behavior when commuters travel with autonomous vehicles (AVs). Firstly, a net utility function of commuters is constructed by the activity utility of commuters at home, in car and at workplace, and the disutility of travel time cost and that of schedule delay cost. Then, this net utility function is applied to build an equilibrium model. Finally, under the assumption of constant marginal activity utility, the properties of equilibrium are analyzed. The results show that, in autonomous driving, the starting and ending time of morning peak and the number of commuters who arrive early and late at workplace are the same as those in manual driving. In automatic driving, however, the departure rate of arriving early at workplace is higher than that of manual driving, while the departure rate of arriving late is just the opposite. In addition, compared with manual driving, the departure time of arriving at workplace on time is earlier and the number of people queuing at the bottleneck is larger in automatic driving. However, the net utility of commuters and the total net utility of system in automatic driving are greater than those in manual driving.

Keywords: Autonomous cars, bottleneck model, activity utility, user equilibrium.

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Authors: F. Taouche-Kheloui, O. Fedaoui-Akmoussi, K. Ait tahar, Li. Alex

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Currently, the reduction of energy consumption, through the use of abundant and recyclable natural materials, for better thermal insulation represents an important area of research. To this end, the use of bio-sourced materials has been identified as one of the green sectors with a very high economic development potential for the future. Because of its role in reducing the consumption of fossil-based raw materials, it contributes significantly to the storage of atmospheric carbon, limits greenhouse gas emissions and creates new economic opportunities. This study constitutes a contribution to the elaboration and the experimental characterization of the thermal behavior of a sawdust-reduced mortar matrix. We have taken into account the influence of the size of the grain fibers of sawdust, hence the use of three different ranges and also different percentage in the different confections. The intended practical application consists of producing a light weight compound at a lower cost to ensure a better thermal and acoustic behavior compared to that existing in the field, in addition to the desired resistances. Improving energy performance, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector, is amongst the objectives to be achieved. The results are very encouraging and highlight the value of the proposed design of organic-source mortar panels which have specific mechanical properties acceptable for their use, low densities, lower cost of manufacture and labor, and above all a positive impact on the environment.

Keywords: Mortar, sawdust waste, thermal, experimental, analysis.

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Authors: Mohammed Golam Sarwer, Lai Man Po, Kai Guo, Q.M. Jonathan Wu

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In H.264/AVC video encoding, rate-distortion optimization for mode selection plays a significant role to achieve outstanding performance in compression efficiency and video quality. However, this mode selection process also makes the encoding process extremely complex, especially in the computation of the ratedistortion cost function, which includes the computations of the sum of squared difference (SSD) between the original and reconstructed image blocks and context-based entropy coding of the block. In this paper, a transform-domain rate-distortion optimization accelerator based on fast SSD (FSSD) and VLC-based rate estimation algorithm is proposed. This algorithm could significantly simplify the hardware architecture for the rate-distortion cost computation with only ignorable performance degradation. An efficient hardware structure for implementing the proposed transform-domain rate-distortion optimization accelerator is also proposed. Simulation results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm reduces about 47% of total encoding time with negligible degradation of coding performance. The proposed method can be easily applied to many mobile video application areas such as a digital camera and a DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) phone.

Keywords: Context-adaptive variable length coding (CAVLC), H.264/AVC, rate-distortion optimization (RDO), sum of squareddifference (SSD).

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Authors: Kazunari Meguro, Shinichi Motomura, Takao Kawamura, Kazunori Sugahara

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In this paper, backup and recovery technique for Peer to Peer applications, such as a distributed asynchronous Web-Based Training system that we have previously proposed. In order to improve the scalability and robustness of this system, all contents and function are realized on mobile agents. These agents are distributed to computers, and they can obtain using a Peer to Peer network that modified Content-Addressable Network. In the proposed system, although entire services do not become impossible even if some computers break down, the problem that contents disappear occurs with an agent-s disappearance. As a solution for this issue, backups of agents are distributed to computers. If a failure of a computer is detected, other computers will continue service using backups of the agents belonged to the computer.

Keywords: Distributed Multimedia Systems, e-Learning, P2P, Mobile Agent

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Authors: C. Nobre, C. C. Castro, A.-L. Hantson, J. A. Teixeira, L. R. Rodrigues, G. De Weireld

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Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) are produced from sucrose by Aureobasidium pullulans in yields between 40-60% (w/w). To increase the amount of FOS it is necessary to remove the small, non-prebiotic sugars, present. Two methods for producing high-purity FOS have been developed: the use of microorganisms able to consume small saccharides; and the use of continuous chromatography to separate sugars: simulated moving bed (SMB). It is herein proposed the combination of both methods. The aim of this study is to optimize the composition of the fermentative broth (in terms of salts and sugars) that will be further purified by SMB. A yield of 0.63 gFOS.gSucrose^-1 was obtained with A. pullulans using low amounts of salts in the initial fermentative broth. By removing the small sugars, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Zymomonas mobilis increased the percentage of FOS from around 56.0% to 83% (w/w) in average, losing only 10% (w/w) of FOS during the recovery process.

Keywords: Fructo-oligosaccharides, microbial treatment, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Zymomonas mobilis.

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Authors: Nikolaos Georgantzis, Efi Vasileiou

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We present results from experimental price-setting oligopolies in which green firms undertake different levels of energy-saving investments motivated by public subsidies and demand-side advantages. We find that consumers reveal higher willingness to pay for greener sellers’ products. This observation in conjunction to the fact that greener sellers set higher prices is compatible with the use and interpretation of energy-saving behaviour as a differentiation strategy. However, sellers do not exploit the resulting advantage through sufficiently high price-cost margins, because they seem trapped into “run to stay still” competition. Regarding the use of public subsidies to energy-saving sellers we uncover an undesirable crowding-out effect of consumers’ intrinsic tendency to support green manufacturers. Namely, consumers may be less willing to support a green seller whose energy-saving strategy entails a direct financial benefit. Finally, we disentangle two alternative motivations for consumer’s attractions to pro-social firms; first, the self-interested recognition of the firm’s contribution to the public and private welfare and, second, the need to compensate a firm for the cost entailed in each pro-social action. Our results show the prevalence of the former over the latter.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, energy savings, public good, experiments, vertical differentiation, altruism.

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Authors: Payel Ghosh, Rama Chandra Pradhan, Sabyasachi Mishra

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Jamun (Syzygium cuminii L.) is one of the important indigenous minor fruit with high medicinal value. The jamun cultivation is unorganized and there is huge loss of this fruit every year. The perishable nature of the fruit makes its postharvest management further difficult. Due to the strong cell wall structure of pectin-protein bonds and hard seeds, extraction of juice becomes difficult. Enzymatic treatment has been commercially used for improvement of juice quality with high yield. The objective of the study was to optimize the best treatment method for juice extraction. Enzymes (Pectinase and Tannase) from different stains had been used and for each enzyme, best result obtained by using response surface methodology. Optimization had been done on the basis of physicochemical property, nutritional property, sensory quality and cost estimation. According to quality aspect, cost analysis and sensory evaluation, the optimizing enzymatic treatment was obtained by Pectinase from Aspergillus aculeatus strain. The optimum condition for the treatment was 44 ^oC with 80 minute with a concentration of 0.05% (w/w). At these conditions, 75% of yield with turbidity of 32.21NTU, clarity of 74.39%T, polyphenol content of 115.31 mg GAE/g, protein content of 102.43 mg/g have been obtained with a significant difference in overall acceptability.

Keywords: Jamun, enzymatic treatment, physicochemical property, sensory analysis, optimization.

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Authors: Osamah A. Alsayegh

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This paper contributes to the literature by updating the analysis of the impact of the recent oil prices fall on the renewable energy (RE) industry and deployment. The research analysis uses the Renewable Energy Industrial Index (RENIXX), which tracks the world’s 30 largest publicly traded companies and oil prices daily data from January 2003 to March 2016. RENIXX represents RE industries developing solar, wind, geothermal, bioenergy, hydropower and fuel cells technologies. This paper tests the hypothesis that claims high oil prices encourage the substitution of alternate energy sources for conventional energy sources. Furthermore, it discusses RENIXX performance behavior with respect to the governments’ policies factor that investors should take into account. Moreover, the paper proposes a theoretical model that relates RE industry progress with oil prices and policies through the fuzzy logic system.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, investment, policy, stock exchange index.

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Authors: Kyoung Hoon Kim

Abstract:

The absorption power generation cycle based on the ammonia-water mixture has attracted much attention for efficient recovery of low-grade energy sources. In this paper a thermodynamic performance analysis is carried out for a Kalina cycle using ammonia-water mixture as a working fluid for efficient conversion of low-temperature heat source in the form of sensible energy. The effects of the source temperature on the system performance are extensively investigated by using the thermodynamic models. The results show that the source temperature as well as the ammonia mass fraction affects greatly on the thermodynamic performance of the cycle.

Keywords: Ammonia-water mixture, Kalina cycle, low-grade heat source, source temperature.

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Authors: B. O. Olawale, C. R. Chatwin, R. C. D. Young, P. M. Birch, F. O. Faithpraise, A. O. Olukiran

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In this paper, we present a four-step ortho-rectification procedure for real-time geo-referencing of video data from a low-cost UAV equipped with a multi-sensor system. The basic procedures for the real-time ortho-rectification are: (1) decompilation of the video stream into individual frames; (2) establishing the interior camera orientation parameters; (3) determining the relative orientation parameters for each video frame with respect to each other; (4) finding the absolute orientation parameters, using a self-calibration bundle and adjustment with the aid of a mathematical model. Each ortho-rectified video frame is then mosaicked together to produce a mosaic image of the test area, which is then merged with a well referenced existing digital map for the purpose of geo-referencing and aerial surveillance. A test field located in Abuja, Nigeria was used to evaluate our method. Video and telemetry data were collected for about fifteen minutes, and they were processed using the four-step ortho-rectification procedure. The results demonstrated that the geometric measurement of the control field from ortho-images is more accurate when compared with those from original perspective images when used to pin point the exact location of targets on the video imagery acquired by the UAV. The 2-D planimetric accuracy when compared with the 6 control points measured by a GPS receiver is between 3 to 5 metres.

Keywords: Geo-referencing, ortho-rectification, video frame, self-calibration, UAV, target tracking.

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Authors: N. Manavizadeh, A. Dehghani, M. Rabbani

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Mixed model assembly lines (MMAL) are a type of production line where a variety of product models similar in product characteristics are assembled. The effective design of these lines requires that schedule for assembling the different products is determined. In this paper we tried to fit the sequencing problem with the main characteristics of make to order (MTO) environment. The problem solved in this paper is a multiple objective sequencing problem in mixed model assembly lines sequencing using weighted Sum Method (WSM) using GAMS software for small problem and an effective GA for large scale problems because of the nature of NP-hardness of our problem and vast time consume to find the optimum solution in large problems. In this problem three practically important objectives are minimizing: total utility work, keeping a constant production rate variation, and minimizing earliness and tardiness cost which consider the priority of each customer and different due date which is a real situation in mixed model assembly lines and it is the first time we consider different attribute to prioritize the customers which help the company to reduce the cost of earliness and tardiness. This mechanism is a way to apply an advance available to promise (ATP) in mixed model assembly line sequencing which is the main contribution of this paper.

Keywords: Available to promise, Earliness & Tardiness, GA, Mixed-Model assembly line Sequencing.

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Authors: Kyoung Hoon Kim

Abstract:

A thermodynamic analysis of a partial evaporating Rankine cycle with regeneration using zeotropic ammonia-water mixture as a working fluid is presented in this paper. The thermodynamic laws were applied to evaluate the system performance. Based on the thermodynamic model, the effects of the vapor quality and the ammonia mass fraction on the system performance were extensively investigated. The results showed that thermal efficiency has a peak value with respect to the vapor quality as well as the ammonia mass fraction. The partial evaporating ammonia based Rankine cycle has a potential to improve recovery of low-grade finite heat source.

Keywords: Ammonia-water, Rankine cycle, partial evaporating, thermodynamic performance.

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Authors: Saleem Z. Ramadan

Abstract:

This paper discusses the effects of using progressive Type-I right censoring on the design of the Simple Step Accelerated Life testing using Bayesian approach for Weibull life products under the assumption of cumulative exposure model. The optimization criterion used in this paper is to minimize the expected pre-posterior variance of the P^th percentile time of failures. The model variables are the stress changing time and the stress value for the first step. A comparison between the conventional and the progressive Type-I right censoring is provided. The results have shown that the progressive Type-I right censoring reduces the cost of testing on the expense of the test precision when the sample size is small. Moreover, the results have shown that using strong priors or large sample size reduces the sensitivity of the test precision to the censoring proportion. Hence, the progressive Type-I right censoring is recommended in these cases as progressive Type-I right censoring reduces the cost of the test and doesn't affect the precision of the test a lot. Moreover, the results have shown that using direct or indirect priors affects the precision of the test.

Keywords: Reliability, Accelerated life testing, Cumulative exposure model, Bayesian estimation, Progressive Type-I censoring, Weibull distribution.

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Authors: Surasak Siripornadulsil, Nutt Poomai, Wilailak Siripornadulsil

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Due to a high ethanol demand, the approach for  effective ethanol production is important and has been developed  rapidly worldwide. Several agricultural wastes are highly  abundant in celluloses and the effective cellulase enzymes do exist  widely among microorganisms. Accordingly, the cellulose  degradation using microbial cellulase to produce a low-cost substrate  for ethanol production has attracted more attention. In this  study, the cellulase producing bacterial strain has been isolated  from rich straw and identified by 16S rDNA sequence analysis as Acinetobacter sp. KKU44. This strain is able to grow and exhibit the cellulase activity. The optimal temperature for its growth and  cellulase production is 37°C. The optimal temperature of bacterial  cellulase activity is 60°C. The cellulase enzyme from  Acinetobacter sp. KKU44 is heat-tolerant enzyme. The bacterial culture of 36h. showed highest cellulase activity at 120U/mL when  grown in LB medium containing 2% (w/v). The capability of  Acinetobacter sp. KKU44 to grow in cellulosic agricultural wastes as a sole carbon source and exhibiting the high cellulase activity at high temperature suggested that this strain could be potentially developed further as a cellulose degrading strain for a production of low-cost substrate used in ethanol production. 

 

Keywords: Acinetobacter sp. KKU44, bagasse, cellulase enzyme, rice husk.

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Authors: C. Rattanakawin, S. Vasailor

Abstract:

Acid leaching of flotation concentrate of oxide copper ore containing mainly of malachite was performed in a standard agitation tank with various parameters. The effects of solid to liquid ratio, sulfuric acid concentration, agitation speed, leaching temperature and time were examined to get proper conditions. The best conditions are 1:8 solid to liquid ratio, 10% concentration by weight, 250 rev/min, 30 ^oC and 5-min leaching time in respect. About 20% Cu grade assayed by atomic absorption technique with 98% copper recovery was obtained from these combined optimum conditions. Dissolution kinetics of the concentrate was approximated as a logarithmic function. As a result, the first-order reaction rate is suggested from this leaching study.

Keywords: Agitation leaching, dissolution kinetics, flotation concentrate, oxide copper ore, sulfuric acid.

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Authors: Hsiu-Pi Lin, Wen-Chen Huang, Hui-Fang Chen, Yan-Pin Ke

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a new trend of business governance. Few research studies on CSR published in Taiwanese academia, especially for medical settings, we were interested in probing the relationship of CSR and financial performance in medical settings in Taiwan. The results illustrate that: (1) a time delay effect exists with a lag between CSR effort and its performance in the hospital foundation, (2) input into the internal domains of CSR will be helpful to improve employee productivity in the hospital foundation, and (3) input into the external domains of CSR will be helpful in improving financial performance in the hospital foundation. This study overviews CSR in the medical industry in Taiwan and the relationship of CSR and financial performance. Discussions of possible implications from the study results are applied to consult the CSR concept that will be transferred into a business strategy for the organization manager.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), financialperformance, hospital foundation,

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Authors: Christopher Spiewak, M. R. Islam, Mohammad Arifur Rahaman, Mohammad H. Rahman, Roger Smith, Maarouf Saad

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For those who have lost the ability to move their hand, going through repetitious motions with the assistance of a therapist is the main method of recovery. We have been developed a robotic assistive device to rehabilitate the hand motions in place of the traditional therapy. The developed assistive device (RAD-HR) is comprised of four degrees of freedom enabling basic movements, hand function, and assists in supporting the hand during rehabilitation. We used a nonlinear computed torque control technique to control the RAD-HR. The accuracy of the controller was evaluated in simulations (MATLAB/Simulink environment). To see the robustness of the controller external disturbance as modelling uncertainty (±10% of joint torques) were added in each joints.

Keywords: Biorobotics, rehabilitation, nonlinear control, robotic assistive device, exoskeleton.

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Authors: Yun-Ho Ahn, Hyery Kang, Dong-Yeun Koh, Huen Lee

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In this study, we demonstrate the production of natural gas hydrates from permeable marine sediments with simultaneous mechanisms for methane recovery and methane-air or methane-air/carbon dioxide replacement. The simultaneous melting happens until the chemical potentials become equal in both phases as natural gas hydrate depletion continues and self-regulated methane-air replacement occurs over an arbitrary point. We observed certain point between dissociation and replacement mechanisms in the natural gas hydrate reservoir, and we call this boundary as critical methane concentration. By the way, when carbon dioxide was added, the process of chemical exchange of methane by air/carbon dioxide was observed in the natural gas hydrate. The suggested process will operate well for most global natural gas hydrate reservoirs, regardless of the operating conditions or geometrical constraints.

Keywords: Air injection, Carbon dioxide sequestration, Hydrate production, Natural gas hydrate.

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Authors: Azam Tabatabaee, Fereshteh Dastgoshadeh, Akram Tabatabaee

Abstract:

This paper describes the use of by-products as adsorbents for removing heavy metals from aqueous effluent solutions. Products of almond skin, walnut shell, saw dust, rice bran and egg shell were evaluated as metal ion adsorbents in aqueous solutions. A comparative study was done with commercial adsorbents like ion exchange resins and activated carbon too. Batch experiments were investigated to determine the affinity of all of biomasses for, Cd(ΙΙ), Cr(ΙΙΙ), Ni(ΙΙ), and Pb(ΙΙ) metal ions at pH 5. The rate of metal ion removal in the synthetic wastewater by the biomass was evaluated by measuring final concentration of synthetic wastewater. At a concentration of metal ion (50 mg/L), egg shell adsorbed high levels (98.6 – 99.7%) of Pb(ΙΙ) and Cr(ΙΙΙ) and walnut shell adsorbed high levels (35.3 – 65.4%) of Ni(ΙΙ) and Cd(ΙΙ). In this study, it has been shown that by-products were excellent adsorbents for removal of toxic ions from wastewater with efficiency comparable to commercially available adsorbents, but at a reduced cost. Also statistical studies using Independent Sample t Test and ANOVA Oneway for statistical comparison between various elements adsorption showed that there isn’t a significant difference in some elements adsorption percentage by by-products and commercial adsorbents.

Keywords: Adsorbents, heavy metals, commercial adsorbents, wastewater, by-products.

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Authors: Siyuan Jing, Kun She

Abstract:

Virtualization-based server consolidation has been proven to be an ideal technique to solve the server sprawl problem by consolidating multiple virtualized servers onto a few physical servers leading to improved resource utilization and return on investment. In this paper, we solve this problem by using existing servers, which are heterogeneous and diversely preferred by IT managers. Five practical consolidation rules are introduced, and a decision model is proposed to optimally allocate source services to physical target servers while maximizing the average resource utilization and preference value. Our model can be regarded as a multi-objective multi-dimension bin-packing (MOMDBP) problem with constraints, which is strongly NP-hard. An improved grouping generic algorithm (GGA) is introduced for the problem. Extensive simulations were performed and the results are given.

Keywords: GGA-based Heuristics, Preference, Real-worldConstraints, Resource Utilization, Server Consolidation

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