Search results for: Government Consumption

Authors: Florence Uchendu, Tola Atinmo

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Nigerian bread is baked with vitamin A fortified wheat flour. Study aimed at determining its contribution to preschoolers- vitamin A nutriture. A cross-sectional/experimental study was carried out in four poor-urban Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria. A pretested food frequency questionnaire was administered to randomly selected mothers of 1600 preschoolers (24-59 months). Retinyl Palmitate content of fourteen bread samples randomly collected from bakeries in all LGAs was analyzed at 0 and 5 days at 25oC using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. Data analysis was done at p<.05. Mean total intake of vitamin A from bread was 220.40μgRAE (733.94±775.68i.u). Bread contributed 6.5–178.4% of preschoolers RDA (1333i.u/400μgRAE). Mean contribution to vitamin A intake was 55.06±58.18%. Strong statistical significant relationship existed between total vitamin A intake and % RDA which was directly proportional (p<.01). Result indicates that bread made an important contribution towards vitamin A intake in poor-urban Lagosian preschoolers.

Keywords: Bread, dietary intake, Lagos metropolis, preschoolers

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Authors: Sourabh Jain, Sukhvir Singh Jain, Gaurav V. Jain

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Intelligent Transportation System is an integrated application of communication, control and monitoring and display process technologies for developing a user–friendly transportation system for urban areas in developing countries. In fact, the development of a country and the progress of its transportation system are complementary to each other. Urban traffic has been growing vigorously due to population growth as well as escalation of vehicle ownership causing congestion, delays, pollution, accidents, high-energy consumption and low productivity of resources. The development and management of urban transport in developing countries like India however, is at tryout stage with very few accumulations. Under the umbrella of ITS, urban corridor management strategy have proven to be one of the most successful system in accomplishing these objectives. The present study interprets and figures out the performance of the 27.4 km long Urban Bus route having six intersections, five flyovers and 29 bus stops that covers significant area of the city by causality analysis. Performance interpretations incorporate Passenger Boarding and Alighting, Dwell time, Distance between Bus Stops and Total trip time taken by bus on selected urban route.

Keywords: Congestion, Dwell time, delay, passengers boarding alighting, travel time.

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Authors: Lenka Hurtalová, Eva Tillová, Mária Chalupová, Juraj Belan, Milan Uhríčik

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The secondary alloy A226 is used for many automotive casting produced by mould casting and high pressure die casting. This alloy has excellent castability, good mechanical properties and cost-effectiveness. Production of primary aluminium alloys belong to heavy source fouling of life environs. The European Union calls for the emission reduction and reduction in energy consumption therefore increase production of recycled (secondary) aluminium cast alloys. The contribution is deal with influence of recycling on the quality of the casting made from A226 in automotive industry. The properties of the casting made from secondary aluminium alloys were compared with the required properties of primary aluminium alloys. The effect of recycling on microstructure was observed using combination different analytical techniques (light microscopy upon black-white etching, scanning electron microscopy - SEM upon deep etching and energy dispersive X-ray analysis - EDX). These techniques were used for the identification of the various structure parameters, which was used to compare secondary alloy microstructure with primary alloy microstructure.

Keywords: A226 secondary aluminium alloy, deep etching, mechanical properties, recycling foundry aluminium alloy.

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Authors: Hanifah Jambari, Naziha A. Azli, M. Afendi M. Piah

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This paper presents the generation of bipolar square wave pulses with characteristics that are suitable for liquid food sterilization using a Cascaded H-bridge Multilevel Inverter (CHMI). Bipolar square waves pulses have been reported as stable for a longer time during the sterilization process with minimum heat emission and increased efficiency. The CHMI allows the system to produce bipolar square wave pulses and yielding high output voltage without using a transformer while fulfilling the pulse requirements for effective liquid food sterilization. This in turn can reduce power consumption and cost of the overall liquid food sterilization system. The simulation results have shown that pulses with peak output voltage of 2.4 kV, pulse width of between 1 2s and 1 ms at frequencies of 50 Hz and 100 Hz can be generated by a 7-level CHMI. Results from the experimental set-up based on a 5-level CHMI has indicated the potential of the proposed circuit in producing bipolar square wave output pulses with peak values that depends on the DC source level supplied to the CHMI modules, pulse width of between 12.5 2s and 1 ms at frequencies of 50 Hz and 100 Hz.

Keywords: pulsed electric field, multilevel inverter, bipolarsquare wave, food sterilization

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Authors: Z. Didar, A. Pourfarzad, M. H. Haddad Khodaparast

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Nowadays, consumption of whole flours and flours with high extraction rate is recommended, because of their high amount of fibers, vitamins and minerals. Despite nutritional benefits of whole flour, concentration of some undesirable components such as phytic acid is higher than white flour. In this study, effect of several lactic acid bacteria sourdough on Toast bread is investigated. Sourdough from lactic acid bacteria (Lb. plantarum, Lb. reuteri) with different dough yield (250 and 300) is made and incubated at 30°C for 20 hour, then added to dough in the ratio of 10, 20 and 30% replacement. Breads that supplemented with Lb. plantarum sourdough had lower phytic acid. Higher replacement of sourdough and higher DY cause higher decrease in phytic acid content. Sourdough from Lb. plantarum, DY = 300 and 30% replacement cause the highest decrease in phytic acid content (49.63 mg/100g). As indicated by panelists, Lb. reuteri sourdough can present the greatest effect on overall quality score of the breads. DY reduction cause a decrease in bread quality score. Sensory score of Toast bread is 81.71 in the samples that treated with Lb. reuteri sourdough with DY = 250 and 20% replacement.

Keywords: Phytic Acid, Sourdough, Toast Bread, Whole Wheat Flour, Lactic Acid Bacteria.

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Authors: Eu Tteum Ha, Kwang Ryel Ryu

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As smartphones are equipped with various sensors, there have been many studies focused on using these sensors to create valuable applications. Human activity recognition is one such application motivated by various welfare applications, such as the support for the elderly, measurement of calorie consumption, lifestyle and exercise patterns analyses, and so on. One of the challenges one faces when using smartphone sensors for activity recognition is that the number of sensors should be minimized to save battery power. In this paper, we show that a fairly accurate classifier can be built that can distinguish ten different activities by using only a single sensor data, i.e., the smartphone accelerometer data. The approach that we adopt to deal with this twelve-class problem uses various methods. The features used for classifying these activities include not only the magnitude of acceleration vector at each time point, but also the maximum, the minimum, and the standard deviation of vector magnitude within a time window. The experiments compared the performance of four kinds of basic multi-class classifiers and the performance of four kinds of ensemble learning methods based on three kinds of basic multi-class classifiers. The results show that while the method with the highest accuracy is ECOC based on Random forest.

Keywords: Ensemble learning, activity recognition, smartphone accelerometer.

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Authors: Cesar Eduardo Hernández Curiel, Victor Hugo Benítez Baltazar, Jesús Horacio Pacheco Ramírez

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This paper is devoted to present the advances in the design of a prototype that is able to supervise the complex behavior of water quality parameters such as pH and temperature, via a real-time monitoring system. The current water quality tests that are performed in government water quality institutions in Mexico are carried out in problematic locations and they require taking manual samples. The water samples are then taken to the institution laboratory for examination. In order to automate this process, a water quality monitoring system based on wireless sensor networks is proposed. The system consists of a sensor node which contains one pH sensor, one temperature sensor, a microcontroller, and a ZigBee radio, and a base station composed by a ZigBee radio and a PC. The progress in this investigation shows the development of a water quality monitoring system. Due to recent events that affected water quality in Mexico, the main motivation of this study is to address water quality monitoring systems, so in the near future, a more robust, affordable, and reliable system can be deployed.

Keywords: pH measurement, water quality monitoring, wireless sensor networks, ZigBee.

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Authors: Samah Said, Muhsin Elie Rahhal

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, disposable plastic-based face-masks were excessively used worldwide. Therefore, the production and consumption rates of these masks were significantly brought up, which led to severe environmental problems. The main purpose of this research is to test the possibility of reinforcing soil deposits with mask fibers to reuse pandemic-generated waste materials. When testing the compaction properties, the sand was reinforced with a fiber content that increased from 0% to 0.5%, with successive small increments of 0.1%. The optimum content of 0.1% remarkably increased the maximum dry density of the soil and dropped its optimum moisture content. Added to that, it was noticed that 15 mm and rectangular chips were, respectively, the optimum fiber length and shape to maximize the improvement of the sand compaction properties. Regarding the shear strength, fiber contents of 0.1%, 0.25%, and 0.5% were adopted. The direct shear tests have shown that the highest enhancement was observed for the optimum fiber content of 0.25%. Similar to compaction tests, 15 mm and rectangular chips were respectively the optimum fiber length and shape to extremely enhance the shear resistance of the tested sand.

Keywords: COVID-19, mask fibers, compaction properties, soil reinforcement, shear resistance.

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Authors: Futoshi Kakuta, Takashi Ishida

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Sewage sludge is a biomass resource that can create a solid fuel and electricity. Utilizing sewage sludge as a renewable energy can contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases. In Japan, the "National Plan for the Promotion of Biomass Utilization" and the “Priority Plan for Social Infrastructure Development" were approved at cabinet meetings in December 2010 and August 2012, respectively, to promote the energy utilization of sewage sludge. This study investigated costs and greenhouse gas emission in different sewage sludge treatments with technologies for energy from sewage sludge. Expenses were estimated based on capital costs and O&M costs including energy consumption of solid fuel plants and biogas power generation plants for sewage sludge. Results showed that the cost of sludge digestion treatment with solid fuel technologies was 8% lower than landfill disposal. The greenhouse gas emission of sludge digestion treatment with solid fuel technologies was also 6,390t as CO2 smaller than landfill disposal. Biogas power generation reduced the electricity of a wastewater treatment plant by 30% and the cost by 5%.

Keywords: Global warming counter measure, energy technology, solid fuel production, biogas.

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Authors: V.Sekar, T.G.Palanivelu, B.Revathi

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Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is one of the serious problems in most electrical and electronic appliances including fluorescent lamps. The electronic ballast used to regulate the power flow through the lamp is the major cause for EMI. The interference is because of the high frequency switching operation of the ballast. Formerly, some EMI mitigation techniques were in practice, but they were not satisfactory because of the hardware complexity in the circuit design, increased parasitic components and power consumption and so on. The majority of the researchers have their spotlight only on EMI mitigation without considering the other constraints such as cost, effective operation of the equipment etc. In this paper, we propose a technique for EMI mitigation in fluorescent lamps by integrating Frequency Modulation and Evolutionary Programming. By the Frequency Modulation technique, the switching at a single central frequency is extended to a range of frequencies, and so, the power is distributed throughout the range of frequencies leading to EMI mitigation. But in order to meet the operating frequency of the ballast and the operating power of the fluorescent lamps, an optimal modulation index is necessary for Frequency Modulation. The optimal modulation index is determined using Evolutionary Programming. Thereby, the proposed technique mitigates the EMI to a satisfactory level without disturbing the operation of the fluorescent lamp.

Keywords: Ballast, Electromagnetic interference (EMI), EMImitigation, Evolutionary programming (EP), Fluorescent lamp, Frequency Modulation (FM), Modulation index.

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Authors: Seda Yavuz, Anıl Çelebi, Aysun Taşyapı Çelebi, Oğuzhan Urhan

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Nowadays, demand for using real-time video transmission capable devices is ever-increasing. So, high resolution videos have made efficient video compression techniques an essential component for capturing and transmitting video data. Motion estimation has a critical role in encoding raw video. Hence, various motion estimation methods are introduced to efficiently compress the video. Low bit‑depth representation based motion estimation methods facilitate computation of matching criteria and thus, provide small hardware footprint. In this paper, a hardware implementation of a two-bit transformation based low-complexity motion estimation method using local binary pattern approach is proposed. Image frames are represented in two-bit depth instead of full-depth by making use of the local binary pattern as a binarization approach and the binarization part of the hardware architecture is explained in detail. Experimental results demonstrate the difference between the proposed hardware architecture and the architectures of well-known low-complexity motion estimation methods in terms of important aspects such as resource utilization, energy and power consumption.

Keywords: Binarization, hardware architecture, local binary pattern, motion estimation, two-bit transform.

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Authors: Muhammad Tariq A. Chaudhary

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The tremendous loss of life that resulted in the aftermath of recent earthquakes in developing countries is mostly due to the collapse of non-engineered and semi-engineered building structures. Such structures are used as houses, schools, primary healthcare centers and government offices. These building are classified structurally into two categories viz. non-engineered and semi-engineered. Non-engineered structures include: adobe, unreinforced masonry (URM) and wood buildings. Semi-engineered buildings are mostly low-rise (up to 3 story) light concrete frame structures or masonry bearing walls with reinforced concrete slab. This paper presents an overview of the typical damage observed in non-engineered structures and their most likely causes in the past earthquakes with specific emphasis on the performance of such structures in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. It is demonstrated that seismic performance of these structures can be improved from life-safety viewpoint by adopting simple low-cost modifications to the existing construction practices. Incorporation of some of these practices in the reconstruction efforts after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake are examined in the last section for mitigating seismic risk hazard.

Keywords: Kashmir earthquake, non-engineered buildings, seismic hazard, structural details, structural strengthening.

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Authors: Zheng Dian Xun, Cheng Bo, Lin Hetong

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This paper focuses on the orbit avoidance strategy of the optical remote sensing satellite. The optical remote sensing satellite, moving along the Sun-synchronous orbit, is equipped with laser warning equipment to alert CCD camera from laser attacks. This paper explores the strategy of satellite avoidance to protect the CCD camera and also the satellite. The satellite could evasive to several target points in the orbital coordinates of virtual satellite. The so-called virtual satellite is a passive vehicle which superposes the satellite at the initial stage of avoidance. The target points share the consistent cycle time and the same semi-major axis with the virtual satellite, which ensures the properties of the satellite’s Sun-synchronous orbit remain unchanged. Moreover, to further strengthen the avoidance capability of satellite, it can perform multi-target-points avoid maneuvers. On occasions of fulfilling the satellite orbit tasks, the orbit can be restored back to virtual satellite through orbit maneuvers. There into, the avoid maneuvers adopts pulse guidance. In addition, the fuel consumption is optimized. The avoidance strategy discussed in this article is applicable to optical remote sensing satellite when it is encountered with hostile attack of space-based laser anti-satellite.

Keywords: Optical remote sensing satellite, satellite avoidance, virtual satellite, avoid target-point, avoid maneuver.

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Authors: Amir Amiri, Naghmeh Morakabati

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During the recent years the six-fold growth of cancer in Iran has led the production of healthy products to become a challenge in the food industry. Due to the young population in the country, the consumption of fast foods is growing. The chemical cancer-causing preservatives are used to produce these products more than the standard; so using an appropriate alternative seems to be important. On the one hand, the plant essential oils show the high antimicrobial potential against pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms and on the other hand they are highly volatile and decomposed under the processing conditions. The study aims to produce the loaded chitosan nanoparticles with different concentrations of savory essential oil to improve the anti-microbial property and increase the resistance of essential oil to oxygen and heat. The encapsulation efficiency was obtained in the range of 32.07% to 39.93% and the particle size distribution of the samples was observed in the range of 159 to 210 nm. The range of Zeta potential was obtained between -11.9 to -23.1 mV. The essential oil loaded in chitosan showed stronger antifungal activity against Rhizopus stolonifer. The results showed that the antioxidant property is directly related to the concentration of loaded essential oil so that the antioxidant property increases by increasing the concentration of essential oil. In general, it seems that the savory essential oil loaded in chitosan particles can be used as a food processor.

Keywords: Chitosan, encapsulation, essential oil, nanogel.

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Authors: S. Farahat, E. Khorasani Nejad, S. M. Hoseini Sarvari

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In this paper multi-objective genetic algorithms are employed for Pareto approach optimization of ideal Turboshaft engines. In the multi-objective optimization a number of conflicting objective functions are to be optimized simultaneously. The important objective functions that have been considered for optimization are specific thrust (F/m& 0), specific fuel consumption ( P S ), output shaft power 0 (& /&) shaft W m and overall efficiency( ) O η . These objectives are usually conflicting with each other. The design variables consist of thermodynamic parameters (compressor pressure ratio, turbine temperature ratio and Mach number). At the first stage single objective optimization has been investigated and the method of NSGA-II has been used for multiobjective optimization. Optimization procedures are performed for two and four objective functions and the results are compared for ideal Turboshaft engine. In order to investigate the optimal thermodynamic behavior of two objectives, different set, each including two objectives of output parameters, are considered individually. For each set Pareto front are depicted. The sets of selected decision variables based on this Pareto front, will cause the best possible combination of corresponding objective functions. There is no superiority for the points on the Pareto front figure, but they are superior to any other point. In the case of four objective optimization the results are given in tables.

Keywords: Multi-objective, Genetic algorithm, Turboshaft Engine.

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Authors: Achmad Zamroni, Masahiro Yamao

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Coastal resource management, community empowerment and socio economic development are the cornerstones for uplifting the lives of coastal area inhabitants. This paper aims to identify the positive impacts of coastal management projects toward fishermen-s economic well-being, to analyze the role of fishermen and their families in effecting economic change and to analyze the roles of stakeholders in managing coastal resources. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires were prepared to obtain qualitative data, and interviews were conducted with fishermen. Findings show that community empowerment and conservation of coastal resources through local and central government projects have exerted positive impact on the coastal community. Some activities involved women who are more active particularly in “off-fishing" season. Traditionally, local fishermen together with local stakeholders have set up a zoning system to minimize conflicts between fishermen. In addition, zoning is used to protect certain ecosystems that can provide benefits well into the future.

Keywords: Economic development, Off-fishing, Resource management, Stakeholders' participation, Women's participation

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Authors: Chen Zhang, Jiwu Wang

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With China's urbanization continuing to accelerate, a amount of rural people flood into China's cities in recent years, and the issue of agriculture, rural areas and farmers is getting more and more serious. In 2005, the Chinese government put forward a plan for “the construction of new rural village", in order to coordinate the development of both urban and rural areas. The planning method of rural region differs sharply from that of urban areas, as same as village social structure and habits of farmer-s life, so the studies which can consider the special needs of village construction in China are absolutely essential. This paper expresses explore current situation and problems existing in the construction of China-s new rural village, such as bigger gap between urban and rural areas, excessive new construction projects, extinct traditional village style and so on. It tries to analyze the deep reason of the present situation of the village from law system, industrial structure, financial sources and planning method. Then it also provides a guide for developing policies and procedures promoting the development of china-s rural areas.

Keywords: Rural areas, village construction, physical planning, law system, financial sources, Public participation, China.

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Authors: Nopadol Burananuth

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This research was aimed to investigate (1) the relationship among local social movements, non-governmental Organization activities and state measures deployment; and (2) the effects of local social movements, non-governmental Organization activities, and state measures deployment on conflict of local people towards the Thai-Malaysian gas pipeline project. These people included 1,000 residents of the four districts in Songkhla province. The methods of data analysis consist of multiple regression analysis. The results of the analysis showed that: (1) local social movements depended on information, and mass communication; deployment of state measures depended on compromise, coordination, and mass communication; and (2) the conflict of local people depended on mobilization, negotiation, and campaigning for participation of people in the project. Thus, it is recommended that to successfully implement any government policy, consideration must be paid to the conflict of local people, mobilization, negotiation, and campaigning for people’s participation in the project.

Keywords: Conflict, NGO activities, social movements, state measures.

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Authors: M. M. Rahman, Thamir K. Ibrahim, M. Y. Taib, M. M. Noor, Rosli A. Bakar

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Regenerative gas turbine engine cycle is presented that yields higher cycle efficiencies than simple cycle operating under the same conditions. The power output, efficiency and specific fuel consumption are simulated with respect to operating conditions. The analytical formulae about the relation to determine the thermal efficiency are derived taking into account the effected operation conditions (ambient temperature, compression ratio, regenerator effectiveness, compressor efficiency, turbine efficiency and turbine inlet temperature). Model calculations for a wide range of parameters are presented, as are comparisons with simple gas turbine cycle. The power output and thermal efficiency are found to be increasing with the regenerative effectiveness, and the compressor and turbine efficiencies. The efficiency increased with increase the compression ratio to 5, then efficiency decreased with increased compression ratio, but in simple cycle the thermal efficiency always increase with increased in compression ratio. The increased in ambient temperature caused decreased thermal efficiency, but the increased in turbine inlet temperature increase thermal efficiency.

Keywords: Gas turbine, power plant, thermal analysis, regeneration

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Authors: Izaz Ahmad, Farhatullah, Shahbaz Ali, Farhad Ali, Faiza, Hazrat Junaid, Farhan Zaid

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Current trends in remote health monitoring to monetize on the Internet of Things applications have been raised in efficient and interference free communications in Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) scenario. Co-existence interference in WBANs have aggravates the over-congested radio bands, thereby requiring efficient Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) strategies and improve interference management. Existing solutions utilize simplistic heuristics to approach interference problems. The scope of this research article is to investigate reinforcement learning for efficient interference management under co-existing scenarios with an emphasis on homogenous interferences. The aim of this paper is to suggest a smart CSMA/CA mechanism based on reinforcement learning called QIM-MAC that effectively uses sense slots with minimal interference. Simulation results are analyzed based on scenarios which show that the proposed approach maximized Average Network Throughput and Packet Delivery Ratio and minimized Packet Loss Ratio, Energy Consumption and Average Delay.

Keywords: WBAN, IEEE 802.15.4 Standard, CAP Super-frame, Q-Learning.

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Authors: A. Montazar

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The great challenge of the agricultural sector is to produce more crop from less water, which can be achieved by increasing crop water productivity. The modernization of the irrigation systems offers a number of possibilities to expand the economic productivity of water and improve the virtual water status. The objective of the present study is to assess the global water productivity (GWP) within the major irrigation command areas of I.R. Iran. For this purpose, fourteen irrigation command areas where located in different areas of Iran were selected. In order to calculate the global water productivity of irrigation command areas, all data on the delivered water to cropping pattern, cultivated area, crops water requirement, and yield production rate during 2002-2006 were gathered. In each of the command areas it seems that the cultivated crops have a higher amount of virtual water and thus can be replaced by crops with less virtual water. This is merely suggested due to crop water consumption and at the time of replacing crops, economic value as well as cultural and political factors must be considered. The results indicated that the lowest GWP belongs to Mahyar and Borkhar irrigation areas, 0.24 kg m-3, and the highest is that of the Dez irrigation area, 0.81 kg m-3. The findings demonstrated that water management in the two irrigation areas is just efficient. The difference in the GWP of irrigation areas is due to variations in the cropping pattern, amount of crop productions, in addition to the effective factors in the water use efficiency in the irrigation areas.

Keywords: Iran, Irrigation command area, Water productivity, Virtual water.

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Authors: Ramin Vafadary, Maryam Khanbaghi

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Forecasting electricity load is important for various purposes like planning, operation and control. Forecasts can save operating and maintenance costs, increase the reliability of power supply and delivery systems, and correct decisions for future development. This paper compares various time series methods to forecast 24 hours ahead of electricity load. The methods considered are the Holt-Winters smoothing, SARIMA Modeling, LSTM Network, Fbprophet and Tensorflow probability. The performance of each method is evaluated by using the forecasting accuracy criteria namely, the Mean Absolute Error and Root Mean Square Error. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) residential energy consumption data are used to train the models. The results of this study show that SARIMA model is superior to the others for 24 hours ahead forecasts. Furthermore, a Bagging technique is used to make the predictions more robust. The obtained results show that by Bagging multiple time-series forecasts we can improve the robustness of the models for 24 hour ahead electricity load forecasting.

Keywords: Bagging, Fbprophet, Holt-Winters, LSTM, Load Forecast, SARIMA, tensorflow probability, time series.

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Authors: Vakhtang Geladze, Nana Bolashvili, Nino Machavariani, Tamazi Karalashvili, Nino Chikhradze, Davit Kartvelishvili

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Fresh water deficit is one of the most important global problems today. In the countries with scarce water resources, they often become a reason of armed conflicts. The peaceful settlement of relations connected with management and water consumption issues within and beyond the frontiers of the country is an important guarantee of the region stability. The said problem is urgent in Georgia as well because of its water objects are located at the borders and the transit run-off that is 12% of the total one. Fresh water resources are the major natural resources of Georgia. Despite of this, water supply of population at its Eastern part is an acute issue. Southeastern part of the country has been selected to carry out the research. This region is notable for deficiency of water resources in the country. The region tends to desertification which aggravates fresh water problem even more and presumably may lead to migration of local population from the area. The purpose of study was creation geographical information system (GIS) of water resources. GIS contains almost all layers of different content (water resources, springs, channels, hydrological stations, population water supply, etc.). The results of work provide an opportunity to identify the resource potential of the mentioned region, control and manage it, carry out monitoring and plan regional economy.

Keywords: GIS, irrigation, water resources.

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Authors: R. Simutis, V. Galvanauskas, D. Levisauskas, J. Repsyte, V. Grincas

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This paper deals with advanced state estimation algorithms for estimation of biomass concentration and specific growth rate in a typical fed-batch biotechnological process. This biotechnological process was represented by a nonlinear mass-balance based process model. Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Particle Filter (PF) was used to estimate the unmeasured state variables from oxygen uptake rate (OUR) and base consumption (BC) measurements. To obtain more general results, a simplified process model was involved in EKF and PF estimation algorithms. This model doesn’t require any special growth kinetic equations and could be applied for state estimation in various bioprocesses. The focus of this investigation was concentrated on the comparison of the estimation quality of the EKF and PF estimators by applying different measurement noises. The simulation results show that Particle Filter algorithm requires significantly more computation time for state estimation but gives lower estimation errors both for biomass concentration and specific growth rate. Also the tuning procedure for Particle Filter is simpler than for EKF. Consequently, Particle Filter should be preferred in real applications, especially for monitoring of industrial bioprocesses where the simplified implementation procedures are always desirable.

Keywords: Biomass concentration, Extended Kalman Filter, Particle Filter, State estimation, Specific growth rate.

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Authors: Musa Seymen, Duran Yavuz, Nurcan Yavuz, Önder Türkmen

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Edible seed pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L.) is one of the important edibles preferred by consumer in Turkey due to its higher nutrient contents. However, there is almost very few study on water consumption and irrigation water requirement of confectionary edible seed pumpkin in Turkey. Therefore, a 2-year study (2013-2014) was conducted to determine the effects of irrigation levels on the seed yield and yield components of drip-irrigated confectionary edible seed pumpkin under Turkey conditions. In the study, the experimental design was made in randomized blocks with three replications. Treatments consisted of five irrigation water levels that compensated for the 100% (I₁₀₀, full irrigation), 75% (I₇₅), 50% (I₅₀), 25% (I₂₅) and 0% (I₀, no irrigation) of crop water requirements at 14-day irrigation intervals. Seasonal evapotranspiration of treatments varied from 194.2 to 625.2 mm in 2013 and from 208.6 to 556.6 mm in 2014. In both years, the highest seasonal evapotranspiration was obtained in I₁₀₀ treatment. Average across years, the seed yields ranged between 1090 (I₁₀₀) and 422 (I₀) kg ha^-1. The irrigation treatments were found to significantly affect the yield parameters such as the seed yield, oil seed yield number of seeds per fruit, seed size, seed width, fruit size, fruit width and fruit index.

Keywords: Irrigation level, edible seed pumpkin, seed quality, seed yield.

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Authors: Ram Babu Mallavarapu

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This paper discusses the issue of tribal development, displacement, rehabilitation and resettlement policies, and implementation in the agency (scheduled / tribal) areas of the West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh State, India. This study is based on action anthropological approach, conducted among the displaced tribal communities i.e. Konda Reddis and Nayakapods of this region, under the 'Kovvada Reservoir' Project. These groups are traditionally shifting cultivators and popularly known as the Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) in the government records. This paper also focuses on the issues of tribal displacement and land alienation due to construction of the Kovvada reservoir, without proper rehabilitation and resettlement, although there are well defined guidelines, procedures and norms for the rehabilitation of Project Affected Persons (PAPs). It is necessary to begin with, to provide an overview of the issues in tribal development and policies related to displacement and rehabilitation in the Indian context as a background to the Kovvada Reservoir Project, the subject of this study.

Keywords: Tribal development, displacement, rehabilitation & resettlement policies, and practice.

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Authors: Chun-Wei Lin, Yu-Lin Chen

Abstract:

As global industry developed rapidly, the energy demand also rises simultaneously. In the production process, there’s a lot of energy consumed in the process. Formally, the energy used in generating the heat in the production process. In the total energy consumption, 40% of the heat was used in process heat, mechanical work, chemical energy and electricity. The remaining 50% were released into the environment. It will cause energy waste and environment pollution. There are many ways for recovering the waste heat in factory. Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system can produce electricity and reduce energy costs by recovering the waste of low temperature heat in the factory. In addition, ORC is the technology with the highest power generating efficiency in low-temperature heat recycling. However, most of factories executives are still hesitated because of the high implementation cost of the ORC system, even a lot of heat are wasted. Therefore, this study constructs a nonlinear mathematical model of waste heat recovery equipment configuration to maximize profits. A particle swarm optimization algorithm is developed to generate the optimal facility installation plan for the ORC system.

Keywords: Green facility planning, organic rankine cycle, particle swarm optimization, waste heat recovery.

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Authors: H. P. Kerry

Abstract:

Drone technology has become a significant discourse in a nation’s national security, while this technology could constitute a danger to national security on the one hand, on the other hand, it is used in developed and developing countries for border security, and in some cases, for protection of security agents and migrants. In the case of Nigeria, drones are used by the military to monitor and tighten security around the borders. However, terrorist groups have devised a means to utilize the technology to their advantage. Therefore, the potential danger in the widespread proliferation of this technology has become a myriad of risks. The research on the effects of cross-border use of drones in Nigerian national security looks at the negative and positive consequences of using drone technology. The study employs the use of interviews and relevant documents to obtain data while the study applied the Just War theory to justify the reason why countries use force; it further buttresses the points with what the realist theory thinks about the use of force. In conclusion, the paper recommends that the Nigerian government through the National Assembly should pass a bill for the establishment of a law that will guide the use of armed and unarmed drones in Nigeria enforced by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and the office of the National Security Adviser.

Keywords: Armed drones, cross-border, drones, national security.

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Authors: A. K. Pradhan, M. K. Mohanty, S. K. Kar

Abstract:

The power system utility has started to think about the green power technology in order to have an eco-friendly environment. The green power technology utilizes renewable energy sources for reduction of GHG emissions. Odisha state (India) is very rich in potential of renewable energy sources especially in solar energy (about 300 solar days), for installation of grid connected photovoltaic system. This paper focuses on the utilization of photovoltaic systems in an Institute building of Bhubaneswar city, Odisha. Different data like solar insolation (kW/m²/day), sunshine duration has been collected from metrological stations for Bhubaneswar city. The required electrical power and cost are calculated for daily load of 1.0 kW. The HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Model of Electric Renewable) software is used to estimate system size and its performance analysis. The simulation result shows that the cost of energy (COE) is $ 0.194/kWh, the Operating cost is $63/yr and the net present cost (NPC) is $3,917. The energy produced from PV array is 1,756kWh/yr and energy purchased from grid is 410kWh/yr. The AC primary load consumption is 1314 kWh/yr and the Grid sales are 746 kWh/yr. One battery is connected in parallel with 12V DC Bus and the usable nominal capacity 2.4 kWh with 9.6 h autonomy capacity.

Keywords: Economic assessment, HOMER, Optimization, Photovoltaic (PV), Renewable energy.

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Authors: Camilo Aldana, Sara Cabra, Carlos A. Ospina, Fredy Carvajal, Fernando Rodríguez

Abstract:

It has been proven that early establishment of microbial flora in digestive tract of ruminants, has a beneficial effect on their health condition and productivity. A probiotic compound, made from five bacteria isolated from adult bovine cattle, was dosed to 15 Holstein newborn calves in order to measure its capacity of improving body weight gain and reduce diarrhea incidence. The test was performed in the municipality of Cajicá (Colombia), at 2580 m.a.s.l., throughout rainy season, with environmental temperature that oscillated between 4 to 25 °C. Five calves were allotted to control (no addition of probiotic). Treatments 1, and 2 (5 calves per group) received 10 ml Probiotic mix 1 and 2, respectively. Probiotic mixes 1 and 2 where similar in microbial composition but different in production process. Probiotics were added to the morning milk and dosed on a daily basis by a month and then on a weekly basis for three additional months. Diarrhea incidence was measured by observance of number of animals affected in each group; each animal was weighed up on a daily basis for obtaining weight gain and rumen fluid samples were extracted with oro-esophageal catheter for determining level of fiber and grain consumption.

Keywords: Calve, diarrhea, probiotic, rumen microorganisms.

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