Search results for: Building thermal performance

Authors: M. A. Elghorab, A. Abou El-Azm Aly, A. S. Elwetedy, M. A. Kotb

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Later marine propeller is the main component of ship propulsion system. For a non-series propeller, it is difficult to indicate the open water marine propeller performance without an experimental study to measure the marine propeller parameters. In the present study, the open water performance of a non-series marine propeller has been carried out experimentally. The geometrical aspects of a commercial non-series marine propeller have been measured for a propeller blade area ratio of 0.3985. The measured propeller performance parameters were the thrust and torque coefficients for different propeller rotational speed and different water channel flow velocity, then the open water performance for the propeller has been plotted. In addition, a direct comparison between the obtained experimental results and a theoretical study of a B-series marine propeller of the same blade area ratio has been carried out. A correction factor has been introduced to apply the operating conditions of the experimental results to that of the theoretical study for the studied marine propeller.

Keywords: Advance speed, marine propeller, open water performance, thrust coefficient, torque coefficient.

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Authors: Bakare Babatunde Femi

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Municipal solid waste (MSW) comprises of a wide range of heterogeneous materials generated by individual, household or organization and may include food waste, garden wastes, papers, textiles, rubbers, plastics, glass, ceramics, metals, wood wastes, construction wastes but it is not limited to the above mentioned fractions. The most common Municipal Solid Waste pretreatment method in use is thermal pretreatment (incineration) and Mechanical Biological pretreatment. This paper presents an overview of these two pretreatment methods describing their benefits and laboratory scale reactors that simulate landfill conditions were constructed in order to compare emissions in terms of biogas production and leachate contamination between untreated Municipal Solid Waste and Mechanical Biological Pretreated waste. The findings of this study showed that Mechanical Biological pretreatment of waste reduces the emission level of waste and the benefit over the landfilling of untreated waste is significant.

Keywords: emissions, mechanical biological pretreatment, MSW, thermal pretreatment

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Authors: Jung-in Yoon, Seung-taek Oh, Seung-moon Baek, Jun-hyuk Choi, Jong-yeong Byun, Seok-kwon Jeong, Choon-guen Moon

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In this study, we experiment on precise control outlet temperature of water from the water cooler with hot-gas bypass method based on PI control logic for machine tool. Recently, technical trend for machine tools is focused on enhancement of speed and accuracy. High speedy processing causes thermal and structural deformation of objects from the machine tools. Water cooler has to be applied to machine tools to reduce the thermal negative influence with accurate temperature controlling system. The goal of this study is to minimize temperature error in steady state. In addition, control period of an electronic expansion valve were considered to increment of lifetime of the machine tools and quality of product with a water cooler.

Keywords: Hot-gas bypass, Water cooler, PI control, Electronic Expansion Valve, Gain tuning

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Authors: Noorfakhriah Yaakub, Madzlan Napiah

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Public bus service plays a significant role in our society as people movers and to facilitate travels within towns and districts. The quality of service of public bus is always being regarded as poor, or rather, underestimated as second class means of transportation. Reliability of service, or the ability to deliver service as planned, is one key element in perceiving the quality of bus service and the punctuality index is one of the performance parameters in determining the service reliability. This study concentrates on evaluating the reliability performance of bus operation using punctuality index assessment. A week data for each of six city bus routes is recorded using the on-board methodology to calculate the punctuality index for city bus service in Kota Bharu. The results revealed that the punctuality index for the whole city bus network is 94.25% (LOS B).

Keywords: Punctuality Index, Reliability Performance, Service Performance.

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Authors: Bruno Henrique Rocha Fernandes, Amir Rezaee, Jucelia Appio

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The relation between Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and organizational performance remains the subject of substantial literature. Though many studies demonstrated positive relationship, still major influencing variables are not yet clear. This study considers the Person-Environment Fit (PE Fit) and its components, Person-Supervisor (PS), Person-Group (PG), Person-Organization (PO) and Person-Job (PJ) Fit, as possible explanatory variables. We analyzed PE Fit as a moderator between HRM practices and financial performance in the “best companies to work” in Brazil. Data from HRM practices were classified through the High Performance Working Systems (HPWS) construct and data on PE-Fit were obtained through surveys among employees. Financial data, consisting of return on invested capital (ROIC) and price earnings ratio (PER) were collected for publicly traded best companies to work. Findings show that PO Fit and PJ Fit play a significant moderator role for PER but not for ROIC.

Keywords: Financial performance, human resource management, high performance working systems, person-environment fit.

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Authors: Fadi Eleiwi, Taous Meriem Laleg-Kirati

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This paper presents a complete dynamic modeling of a membrane distillation process. The model contains two consistent dynamic models. A 2D advection-diffusion equation for modeling the whole process and a modified heat equation for modeling the membrane itself. The complete model describes the temperature diffusion phenomenon across the feed, membrane, permeate containers and boundary layers of the membrane. It gives an online and complete temperature profile for each point in the domain. It explains heat conduction and convection mechanisms that take place inside the process in terms of mathematical parameters, and justify process behavior during transient and steady state phases. The process is monitored for any sudden change in the performance at any instance of time. In addition, it assists maintaining production rates as desired, and gives recommendations during membrane fabrication stages. System performance and parameters can be optimized and controlled using this complete dynamic model. Evolution of membrane boundary temperature with time, vapor mass transfer along the process, and temperature difference between membrane boundary layers are depicted and included. Simulations were performed over the complete model with real membrane specifications. The plots show consistency between 2D advection-diffusion model and the expected behavior of the systems as well as literature. Evolution of heat inside the membrane starting from transient response till reaching steady state response for fixed and varying times is illustrated.

Keywords: Membrane distillation, Dynamical modeling, Advection-diffusion equation, Thermal equilibrium, Heat equation.

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Authors: Supattra Kanchanopast

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The purpose of this paper was to study motivation factors affecting job performance effectiveness. This paper drew upon data collected from an Internal Audit Staffs of Internal Audit Line of Head Office of Krung Thai Public Company Limited. Statistics used included frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation, t-test, and one-way ANOVA test. The finding revealed that the majority of the respondents were female of 46 years of age and over, married and live together, hold a bachelor degree, with an average monthly income over 70,001 Baht. The majority of respondents had over 15 years of work experience. They generally had high working motivation as well as high job performance effectiveness. The hypotheses testing disclosed that employees with different working status had different level of job performance effectiveness at a 0.01 level of significance. Working motivation factors had an effect on job performance in the same direction with high level. Individual working motivation included working completion, reorganization, working progression, working characteristic, opportunity, responsibility, management policy, supervision, relationship with their superior, relationship with co-worker, working position, working stability, safety, privacy, working conditions, and payment. All of these factors related to job performance effectiveness in the same direction with medium level.

Keywords: Internal Audit Staffs, Job Performance Effectiveness, Working Motivation.

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Authors: Hyung Jong Ko, Kyoung Hoon Kim

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In this study thermodynamic performance analysis of a combined organic Rankine cycle and ejector refrigeration cycle is carried out for use of low-grade heat source in the form of sensible energy. Special attention is paid to the effects of system parameters including the turbine inlet temperature and turbine inlet pressure on the characteristics of the system such as ratios of mass flow rate, net work production, and refrigeration capacity as well as the coefficient of performance and exergy efficiency of the system. Results show that for a given source the coefficient of performance increases with increasing of the turbine inlet pressure. However, the exergy efficiency has an optimal condition with respect to the turbine inlet pressure.

Keywords: Coefficient of performance, ejector refrigeration cycle, exergy efficiency, low-grade energy, organic rankine cycle.

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Authors: Thomas Jin-Chee Liu, Yu-Shen Chen

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Using the numerical and experimental methods, this paper discusses some primary studies on the vibration and cooling performances of the piezoelectric cooling fan with the rectangular blade. When the fan works at its natural frequency, the vibrating displacement is largest and the cooling performance is best. Due to the vibration behavior, the cooling performance is affected by the geometry, material property, and working frequency of the piezoelectric cooling fan. 

Keywords: Piezoelectric cooling fan, finite element, vibration, natural frequency.

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Authors: M. A. Kamely, A. Y. Bani Hashim, S. H. Yahaya, H. Sihombing, H. Hazman

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Grinding requires high specific energy and the consequent development of high temperature at tool-workpiece contact zone impairs workpiece quality by inducing thermal damage to the surface. Finishing grinding process requires component to be cut more than one pass. This paper deals with an investigation on the effect of multipass cutting on grinding performance in term of surface roughness and surface defect. An experimental set-up has been developed for this and a detailed comparison has been done with a single pass and various numbers of cutting pass. Results showed that surface roughness increase with the increase in a number of cutting pass. Good surface finish of 0.26μm was obtained for single pass cutting and 0.73μm for twenty pass cutting. It was also observed that the thickness of the white layer increased with the increased in a number of cutting pass.

Keywords: Cylindrical grinding, Multipass cutting, Surface roughness, Surface defect.

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Authors: Mohd. Hasan, Ajmal Kafeel, S. D. Pable

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Ultra-low-power (ULP) circuits have received widespread attention due to the rapid growth of biomedical applications and Battery-less Electronics. Subthreshold region of transistor operation is used in ULP circuits. Major research challenge in the subthreshold operating region is to extract the ULP benefits with minimal degradation in speed and robustness. Process, Voltage and Temperature (PVT) variations significantly affect the performance of subthreshold circuits. Designed performance parameters of ULP circuits may vary largely due to temperature variations. Hence, this paper investigates the effect of temperature variation on device and circuit performance parameters at different biasing voltages in the subthreshold region. Simulation results clearly demonstrate that in deep subthreshold and near threshold voltage regions, performance parameters are significantly affected whereas in moderate subthreshold region, subthreshold circuits are more immune to temperature variations. This establishes that moderate subthreshold region is ideal for temperature immune circuits.

Keywords: Subthreshold, temperature variations, ultralow power.

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Authors: Siti Khairunniza-Bejo, Yusnida Yusoff, Nik Salwani Nik Yusoff, Idris Abu Seman, Mohamad Izzuddin Anuar

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Most of the oil palm plantations have been threatened by Basal Stem Rot (BSR) disease which causes serious economic impact. This study was conducted to identify the healthy and BSRinfected oil palm tree using thirteen color indices. Multispectral and thermal camera was used to capture 216 images of the leaves taken from frond number 1, 9 and 17. Indices of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), red (R), green (G), blue (B), near infrared (NIR), green – blue (GB), green/blue (G/B), green – red (GR), green/red (G/R), hue (H), saturation (S), intensity (I) and thermal index (T) were used. From this study, it can be concluded that G index taken from frond number 9 is the best index to differentiate between the healthy and BSR-infected oil palm trees. It not only gave high value of correlation coefficient (R=-0.962), but also high value of separation between healthy and BSR-infected oil palm tree. Furthermore, power and S model developed using G index gave the highest R2 value which is 0.985.

Keywords: Oil palm, image processing, disease, leaves.

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Authors: A. Soria-Salinas, M.-P. Zorzano, J. Martín-Torres, J. Sánchez-García-Casarrubios, J.-L. Pérez-Díaz, A. Vakkada-Ramachandran

Abstract:

The current state-of-the-art methods of mass gauging of Electric Propulsion (EP) propellants in microgravity conditions rely on external measurements that are taken at the surface of the tank. The tanks are operated under a constant thermal duty cycle to store the propellant within a pre-defined temperature and pressure range. We demonstrate using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations that the heat-transfer within the pressurized propellant generates temperature and density anisotropies. This challenges the standard mass gauging methods that rely on the use of time changing skin-temperatures and pressures. We observe that the domes of the tanks are prone to be overheated, and that a long time after the heaters of the thermal cycle are switched off, the system reaches a quasi-equilibrium state with a more uniform density. We propose a new gauging method, which we call the Improved PVT method, based on universal physics and thermodynamics principles, existing TRL-9 technology and telemetry data. This method only uses as inputs the temperature and pressure readings of sensors externally attached to the tank. These sensors can operate during the nominal thermal duty cycle. The improved PVT method shows little sensitivity to the pressure sensor drifts which are critical towards the end-of-life of the missions, as well as little sensitivity to systematic temperature errors. The retrieval method has been validated experimentally with CO₂ in gas and fluid state in a chamber that operates up to 82 bar within a nominal thermal cycle of 38 °C to 42 °C. The mass gauging error is shown to be lower than 1% the mass at the beginning of life, assuming an initial tank load at 100 bar. In particular, for a pressure of about 70 bar, just below the critical pressure of CO₂, the error of the mass gauging in gas phase goes down to 0.1% and for 77 bar, just above the critical point, the error of the mass gauging of the liquid phase is 0.6% of initial tank load. This gauging method improves by a factor of 8 the accuracy of the standard PVT retrievals using look-up tables with tabulated data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Keywords: Electric propulsion, mass gauging, propellant, PVT, xenon.

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Authors: Chuang-Hung Lin, Cheng-Yuan Hsu, Jia-Yan Lin

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It is an indispensible strategy to adopt greenery approach on architectural bases so as to improve ecological habitats, decrease heat-island effect, purify air quality, and relieve surface runoff as well as noise pollution, all of which are done in an attempt to achieve sustainable environment. How we can do with plant design to attain the best visual quality and ideal carbon dioxide fixation depends on whether or not we can appropriately make use of greenery according to the nature of architectural bases. To achieve the goal, it is a need that architects and landscape architects should be provided with sufficient local references. Current greenery studies focus mainly on the heat-island effect of urban with large scale. Most of the architects still rely on people with years of expertise regarding the adoption and disposition of plantation in connection with microclimate scale. Therefore, environmental design, which integrates science and aesthetics, requires fundamental research on landscape environment technology divided from building environment technology. By doing so, we can create mutual benefits between green building and the environment. This issue is extremely important for the greening design of the bases of green buildings in cities and various open spaces. The purpose of this study is to establish plant selection and allocation strategies under different building sunshade levels. Initially, with the shading of sunshine on the greening bases as the starting point, the effects of the shades produced by different building types on the greening strategies were analyzed. Then, by measuring the PAR (photosynthetic active radiation), the relative DLI (daily light integral) was calculated, while the DLI Map was established in order to evaluate the effects of the building shading on the established environmental greening, thereby serving as a reference for plant selection and allocation. The discussion results were to be applied in the evaluation of environment greening of greening buildings and establish the “right plant, right place” design strategy of multi-level ecological greening for application in urban design and landscape design development, as well as the greening criteria to feedback to the eco-city greening buildings.

Keywords: Daily light integral, plant design, urban open space.

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Authors: Narasimhaiah Gorla, Annibal Scavarda

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Nowadays, where most of the leading economies are service oriented and e-business is being widely used for their management, supply chain management has become one of the most studied and practiced fields. Quality has an important role on today-s business processes, so it is important to understand the impact of IT service quality on the performance of supply chains. This paper will start by analyzing the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model and each of its five activities: Plan, Source, Make, Delivery, and Return. This article proposes a framework for analyzing Effect of IT Service Quality on Supply Chain Performance. Using the proposed framework, hypotheses are framed for the direct effect of IT service quality on Supply Chain Performance and its indirect effect through effective Supply Chain Management. The framework will be validated empirically based on the surveys of executives of various organizations and statistical analyses of the data collected.

Keywords: IT service quality, SCOR model, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Performance

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Authors: Micheli Anna Paola, Intrisano Carmelo, Calce Anna Maria

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This research focused on the capability of health tourism to improve the economic and financial performance of healthcare companies. It is assumed that health tourism companies have better profitability and financial efficiency because they can also count on cross-border demand differently from no health tourism companies. A three-level gap analysis was conducted: the first concerns health tourism companies located in Italy and in the other EU28 states; in the second Italian and EU28, no health tourism companies were compared; the third level is about the Italian system with a comparison between health tourism and no health tourism companies. Findings highlighted that Italian healthcare companies have better profitability performance if compared to European ones, but they present weaknesses in the financial position given the illiquidity and excessive leverage. Furthermore, studying the Italian system, we found that health tourism companies are more profitable than no health tourism companies.

Keywords: Financial performance, gap analysis, health tourism, profitability performance, value creation.

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Authors: Jo Rhodes, Peter Lok, Zahra Sadeghinejad

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The aim of this study is to determine the impact of metacognition on top management team members and firm performance based on full team integration. A survey of 1500 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) was initiated and 140 firms were obtained in this study (with response rate of 9%). The result showed that different metacognitive abilities of managers [knowledge and experience] could enhance team decision-making and problem solving, resulting in greater firm performance. This is a significant finding for SMEs because these organisations have small teams with owner leadership and entrepreneurial orientation.

Keywords: Metacognition, behavioural integration, top management team, performance.

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Authors: Proud Arunrangsiwed

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This study analyzes the crisis management and image repair strategies during the crisis of Mahidol Wittayanusorn School (MWIT) library burning. The library of this school was burned by a 16-year-old-male student on June 6th, 2010. This student blamed the school that the lesson was difficult, and other students were selfish. Although no one was in the building during the fire, it had caused damage to the building, books and electronic supplies around 130 million bahts (4.4 million USD). This event aroused many discourses arguing about the education system and morality. The strategies which were used during crisis were denial, shift the blame, bolstering, minimization, and uncertainty reduction. The results of using these strategies appeared after the crisis. That was the numbers of new students, who registered for the examination to get into this school in the later years, have remained the same.

Keywords: School, crisis management, violence, image repair strategies, uncertainty, burn.

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Authors: M. Raciti Castelli, S. Mogno, S. Giacometti, E. Benini

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A boundary layer wind tunnel facility has been adopted in order to conduct experimental measurements of the flow field around a model of the Panorama Giustinelli Building, Trieste (Italy). Information on the main flow structures has been obtained by means of flow visualization techniques and has been compared to the numerical predictions of the vortical structures spread on top of the roof, in order to investigate the optimal positioning for a vertical-axis wind energy conversion system, registering a good agreement between experimental measurements and numerical predictions.

Keywords: Boundary layer wind tunnel, flow around buildings, atmospheric flow field, vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT).

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Authors: Mojtaba Molaahmadi, Morteza Raei Dehaghi, Abdolrahim Arghavan

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The present study aims to explore the effect of computerization on marketing performance in Snowa Company. In other words, this study intends to respond to this question that whether or not, is there any relationship between utilization of computerization in marketing activities and marketing performance? The statistical population included 60 marketing managers of Snowa Company. In order to test the research hypotheses, Pearson correlation coefficient was employed. The reliability was equal to 96.8%. In this study, computerization was the independent variable and marketing performance was the dependent variable with characteristics of market share, improving the competitive position, and sales volume. The results of testing the hypotheses revealed that there is a significant relationship between utilization of computerization and market share, sales volume and improving the competitive position.

Keywords: Computerization, e-marketing information, information technology, marketing performance.

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Authors: J. Šindler, A. Suleng, T. Jelstad Olsen, P. Bárta

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A subsea hydrocarbon production system can undergo planned and unplanned shutdowns during the life of the field. The thermal FEA is used to simulate the cool down to verify the insulation design of the subsea equipment, but it is also used to derive an acceptable insulation design for the cold spots. The driving factors of subsea analyses require fast responding and accurate models of the equipment cool down. This paper presents cool down analysis carried out by a Krylov subspace reduction method, and compares this approach to the commonly used FEA solvers. The model considered represents a typical component of a subsea production system, a closed valve on a dead leg. The results from the Krylov reduction method exhibits the least error and requires the shortest computational time to reach the solution. These findings make the Krylov model order reduction method very suitable for the above mentioned subsea applications.

Keywords: Model order reduction, Krylov subspace, subsea production system, finite element.

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Authors: Anita S. Gangal, P. K. Kalra, D. S. Chauhan

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The backpropagation algorithm in general employs quadratic error function. In fact, most of the problems that involve minimization employ the Quadratic error function. With alternative error functions the performance of the optimization scheme can be improved. The new error functions help in suppressing the ill-effects of the outliers and have shown good performance to noise. In this paper we have tried to evaluate and compare the relative performance of complex valued neural network using different error functions. During first simulation for complex XOR gate it is observed that some error functions like Absolute error, Cauchy error function can replace Quadratic error function. In the second simulation it is observed that for some error functions the performance of the complex valued neural network depends on the architecture of the network whereas with few other error functions convergence speed of the network is independent of architecture of the neural network.

Keywords: Complex backpropagation algorithm, complex errorfunctions, complex valued neural network, split activation function.

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Authors: Young S. Bang, Dong H. Yoon, Seung H. Yoo

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Emergency Core Coolant Bypass (ECC Bypass) has been regarded as an important phenomenon to peak cladding temperature of large-break loss-of-coolant-accidents (LBLOCA) in nuclear power plants (NPP). A modeling scheme to address the ECC Bypass phenomena and the calculation of LBLOCA using that scheme are discussed in the present paper. A hydraulic form loss coefficient (HFLC) from the reactor vessel downcomer to the broken cold leg is predicted by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code with a variation of the void fraction incoming from the downcomer. The maximum, mean, and minimum values of FLC are derived from the CFD results and are incorporated into the LBLOCA calculation using a system thermal-hydraulic code, MARS-KS. As a relevant parameter addressing the ECC Bypass phenomena, the FLC to the break and its range are proposed.

Keywords: CFD analysis, ECC Bypass, hydraulic form loss coefficient, system thermal-hydraulic code.

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Authors: Ntantos P.N, Karpouzos D.K

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In this paper, a benchmarking framework is presented for the performance assessment of irrigations systems. Firstly, a data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to measure the technical efficiency of irrigation systems. This method, based on linear programming, aims to determine a consistent efficiency ranking of irrigation systems in which known inputs, such as water volume supplied and total irrigated area, and a given output corresponding to the total value of irrigation production are taken into account simultaneously. Secondly, in order to examine the irrigation efficiency in more detail, a cross – system comparison is elaborated using a performance indicators set selected by IWMI. The above methodologies were applied in Thessaloniki plain, located in Northern Greece while the results of the application are presented and discussed. The conjunctive use of DEA and performance indicators seems to be a very useful tool for efficiency assessment and identification of best practices in irrigation systems management.

Keywords: Benchmarking, D.E.A, Performance Indicators, Irrigation systems.

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Authors: Masoud Mohammadpour, Blair Carlson, Radovan Kovacevic

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The quality of laser welded-brazed (LWB) joints were strongly dependent on the main process parameters, therefore the effect of laser power (3.2–4 kW), welding speed (60–80 mm/s) and wire feed rate (70–90 mm/s) on mechanical strength and surface roughness were investigated in this study. The comprehensive optimization process by means of response surface methodology (RSM) and desirability function was used for multi-criteria optimization. The experiments were planned based on Box– Behnken design implementing linear and quadratic polynomial equations for predicting the desired output properties. Finally, validation experiments were conducted on an optimized process condition which exhibited good agreement between the predicted and experimental results. AlSi3Mn1 was selected as the filler material for joining aluminum alloy 6022 and hot-dip galvanized steel in coach peel configuration. The high scanning speed could control the thickness of IMC as thin as 5 µm. The thermal simulations of joining process were conducted by the Finite Element Method (FEM), and results were validated through experimental data. The Fe/Al interfacial thermal history evidenced that the duration of critical temperature range (700–900 °C) in this high scanning speed process was less than 1 s. This short interaction time leads to the formation of reaction-control IMC layer instead of diffusion-control mechanisms.

Keywords: Laser welding-brazing, finite element, response surface methodology, multi-response optimization, cross-beam laser.

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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: Yaowaluck Ruampol, Suthakorn Wasupokin

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The research on the development of speaking using folk tales based on performance activities aimed to (1) study the development of speaking skill for early- childhood students, and (2) evaluate the development of speaking skill before and after speaking activities. Ten students of Kindergarten level 2, who have enrolled in the subject of the research for speaking development of semester 2 in 2013 were purposively selected as the research cohort. The research tools were lesson plans for speaking activities and pre-post test for speaking development that were approved as content validity and reliability (IOC=.66-1.00,α=0.967). The research found that the development of speaking skill of the research samples before using performance activities on folk tales in developing speaking skill was in the normal high level. Additionally, the results appeared that the preschoolers after applying speaking skill on performance activities also imaginatively created their speaking skill.

Keywords: Speaking development, folk tales, performance activities, early-childhood students.

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Authors: Doaa Hegazy, Joachim Denzler

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SoftBoost is a recently presented boosting algorithm, which trades off the size of achieved classification margin and generalization performance. This paper presents a performance evaluation of SoftBoost algorithm on the generic object recognition problem. An appearance-based generic object recognition model is used. The evaluation experiments are performed using a difficult object recognition benchmark. An assessment with respect to different degrees of label noise as well as a comparison to the well known AdaBoost algorithm is performed. The obtained results reveal that SoftBoost is encouraged to be used in cases when the training data is known to have a high degree of noise. Otherwise, using Adaboost can achieve better performance.

Keywords: SoftBoost algorithm, AdaBoost algorithm, Generic object recognition.

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Authors: Megumi Nishida, Naoya Motegi, Takurou Kikuchi, Tomoko Tokumura

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In recent years, the power system has been changed and a flexible power pricing system such as demand response has been sought in Japan. The demand response system works simply in the household sector and the owner as the decision-maker, can benefit from power saving. On the other hand, the execution of demand response in the office building is more complex than in the household because various people such as owners, building administrators and occupants are involved in the decision-making process. While the owners benefit from demand saving, the occupants are exposed to restricted benefits of a demand-saved environment. One of the reasons is that building systems are usually under centralized management and each occupant cannot choose freely whether to participate in demand response or not. In addition, it is unclear whether incentives give occupants the motivation to participate. However, the recent development of IT and building systems enables the personalized control of the office environment where each occupant can control the lighting level or temperature individually. Therefore, it can be possible to have a system which each occupant can make a decision of whether or not to participate in demand response in the office building. This study investigates personal responses to demand response requests, under the condition where each occupant can adjust their brightness individually in their workspace. Once workers participate in the demand response, their desk-lights are automatically turned off. The participation rates in the demand response events are compared among four groups, which are divided by different motivation, the presence, or absence of incentives and the method of participation. The result shows that there are significant differences of participation rates in demand response event between four groups. The method of participation has a large effect on the participation rate. The “Opt-out” groups where the occupants are automatically enrolled in a demand response event if they do not express non-participation have the highest participation rate in the four groups. Incentives also have an effect on the participation rate. This study also reports on the impact of low illumination office environment on the occupants, such as stress or fatigue. The electrocardiogram and the questionnaire are used to investigate the autonomic nervous activity and subjective fatigue symptoms of the occupants. There is no big difference between dim workspace during demand response event and bright workspace in autonomic nervous activity and fatigue.

Keywords: Demand response, illumination, questionnaire, electrocardiograph.

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Authors: Burak Yigit Katanalp, Murat Tastan, Perviz Ahmedzade, Çigdem Canbay Turkyilmaz, Emrah Turkyilmaz

Abstract:

This study evaluated the mechanical and rheological performance of fly ash-based geopolymer at high temperatures. A series of laboratory tests were conducted on neat bitumen and three modified bitumen samples, which incorporated fly ash-based geopolymer at various percentages. Low-calcium fly ash was used as the alumina-silica source. The dynamic shear rheometer and rotational viscometer were employed to determine high-temperature properties, while conventional tests such as penetration and softening point were used to evaluate the physical properties of bitumen. Short-term aging resistance of the samples was assessed using the rolling thin film oven. The results show that geopolymer has a compromising effect on bitumen properties, with improved stiffness, enhanced mechanical strength, and increased thermal susceptibility of the asphalt binder.

Keywords: Bitumen, geopolymer, rutting, dynamic mechanical analysis.

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