Search results for: product support
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 2959

Search results for: product support

1669 Field and Petrographic Relationships between the Charnockitic and Associated Granitic Rock, Akure Area, Southwestern Nigeria

Authors: Ademeso, Odunyemi Anthony

Abstract:

The charnockitic and associated granitic rocks of Akure area were studied for their field and petrographic relationship's. The outcrops locations were plotted in Surfer 8. The granitic rock exhibits a porphyritic texture and outcrops in the north-eastern side of the study area while the charnockitics outcrop in the central/western part. An essentially dark coloured and fine grained intrusive exhibiting xenoliths and xenocrysts (plagioclase phenocrysts) of the granite outcrops between the granitic and charnockitic rocks. Mineralogically, the central rock combines the content of the other two indicating that it is most likely a product of their hybridization. The charnockitic magma is believed to have intruded and assimilated the granite substantially thereby contaminating itself and consequently emplacing the hybrid. The presented model of emplacement elucidates the hybridization proposal. Conclusively, the charnockitics are believed to be (a) younger than the granite, (b) of Pan-African age and (c) of igneous origin.

Keywords: Charnockitic rock, Hybrid rock, ImageJ, Xenocryst

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1668 Poisoning Admission in Children Hospital in Benghazi-Libya, Three Years Review of Medical Record

Authors: Mudafara S Bengleil

Abstract:

Estimation of the magnitude and causes of poisoning was the objective of the current study. A retrospective study of medical records of all poisoning children admitted to Benghazi Children Hospital in Libya from January 2008 up to December 2010. Number of children admitted was 244; the age ranged from less than one to 13 years old. Most of cases were admitted with mild symptom and the majority of them were boys. Only few cases admitted to intensive care unit and there was no mortality recorded through the period of study. Age group 1 to 3 years (50.8%) had the highest frequency of admission and the peak of admission was during summer. The most common cause of admission was due to ingestion of medication (53.69%), House hold product exposure (26.64%) was the second causes of admission while, 19.67% of admissions were due to Food poisoning. Almost all admitted cases were accidental and medicines were the most consumed substances in addition, improper storage of toxic agents were the first risk factor of poisoning. Present results indicated that, children poisoning seems to be a common pediatric care problem which need to control and prevent.

Keywords: Children, hospital, poisoning.

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1667 Corporate Culture and Innovation: Implications for Reward Systems

Authors: Ivana Nacinovic, Lovorka Galetic, Nevenka Cavlek

Abstract:

Continuous innovation is becoming a necessity if firms want to stay competitive. Different factors influence the rate of innovation in a firm, among which corporate culture has often been recognized among the most important factors. In this paper we argue that the development of corporate culture that will support and foster innovation must be accompanied with an appropriate reward system. A research conducted among Croatian firms showed that a statistically significant relationship exists among corporate culture that supports innovations and reward system features.

Keywords: Corporate culture, innovation, reward systems, Croatia.

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1666 Water Vapor Plasma Torch: Design, Characteristics and Applications

Authors: A. Tamošiūnas, P. Valatkevičius, V. Grigaitiene, V. Valinčius

Abstract:

The atmospheric pressure plasma torch with a direct current arc discharge stabilized by water vapor vortex was experimentally investigated. Overheated up to 450K water vapor was used as plasma forming gas. Plasma torch design is one of the most important factors leading to a stable operation of the device. The electrical and thermal characteristics of the plasma torch were determined during the experimental investigations. The design and the basic characteristics of the water vapor plasma torch are presented in the paper. Plasma torches with the electric arc stabilized by water vapor vortex provide special performance characteristics in some plasma processing applications such as thermal plasma neutralization and destruction of organic wastes enabling to extract high caloric value synthesis gas as by-product of the process. Syngas could be used as a surrogate fuel partly replacing the dependence on the fossil fuels or used as a feedstock for hydrogen, methanol production.

Keywords: Arc discharge, atmospheric pressure thermal plasma, plasma torch, water vapor.

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1665 A Consideration of the Achievement of Productive Level Parallel Programming Skills

Authors: Tadayoshi Horita, Masakazu Akiba, Mina Terauchi, Tsuneo Kanno

Abstract:

This paper gives a consideration of the achievement of productive level parallel programming skills, based on the data of the graduation studies in the Polytechnic University of Japan. The data show that most students can achieve only parallel programming skills during the graduation study (about 600 to 700 hours), if the programming environment is limited to GPGPUs. However, the data also show that it is a very high level task that a student achieves productive level parallel programming skills during only the graduation study. In addition, it shows that the parallel programming environments for GPGPU, such as CUDA and OpenCL, may be more suitable for parallel computing education than other environments such as MPI on a cluster system and Cell.B.E. These results must be useful for the areas of not only software developments, but also hardware product developments using computer technologies.

Keywords: Parallel computing, programming education, GPU, GPGPU, CUDA, OpenCL, MPI, Cell.B.E.

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1664 Homogeneity of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties in Horizontal Continuous Cast Billet

Authors: V. Arbabi , I. Ebrahimzadeh, H. Ghanbari, M.M. Kaykha

Abstract:

Horizontal continuous casting is widely used to produce semi-finished non-Ferrous products. Homogeneity in the metallurgical characteristics and mechanical properties for this product is vital for industrial application. In the present work, the microstructure and mechanical properties of a horizontal continuous cast two-phase brass billet have been studied. Impact strength and hardness variations were examined and the phase composition and porosity studied with image analysis software. Distinct differences in mechanical properties were observed between the upper, middle and lower parts of the billet, which are explained in terms of the morphology and size of the phase in the microstructure. Hardness variation in the length of billet is higher in upper area but impact strength is higher in lower areas.

Keywords: Horizontal Continuous Casting, Two-phase brasses, CuZn40Al1 alloy, Microstructure, Impact Strength.

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1663 Best Proximity Point Theorems for MT-K and MT-C Rational Cyclic Contractions in Metric Spaces

Authors: M. R. Yadav, A. K. Sharma, B. S. Thakur

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to present a best proximity point theorems through rational expression for a combination of contraction condition, Kannan and Chatterjea nonlinear cyclic contraction in what we call MT-K and MT-C rational cyclic contraction. Some best proximity point theorems for a mapping satisfy these conditions have been established in metric spaces. We also give some examples to support our work.

Keywords: Cyclic contraction, rational cyclic contraction, best proximity point and complete metric space.

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1662 Process Simulation of Ethyl tert-Butyl Ether (ETBE) Production from Naphtha Cracking Wastes

Authors: Pakorn Traiprasertpong, Apichit Svang-Ariyaskul

Abstract:

The production of ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE) was simulated through Aspen Plus. The objective of this work was to use the simulation results to be an alternative platform for ETBE production from naphtha cracking wastes for the industry to develop. ETBE is produced from isobutylene which is one of the wastes in naphtha cracking process. The content of isobutylene in the waste is less than 30% weight. The main part of this work was to propose a process to save the environment and to increase the product value by converting a great majority of the wastes into ETBE. Various processes were considered to determine the optimal production of ETBE. The proposed process increased ETBE production yield by 100% from conventional process with the purity of 96% weight. The results showed a great promise for developing this proposed process in an industrial scale.

Keywords: ETBE, process simulation, naphtha cracking, Aspen Plus

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1661 Competitiveness of Animation Industry: The Case of Thailand

Authors: T. Niracharapa

Abstract:

The research studied and examined the competitiveness of the animation industry in Thailand. Data were collected based on articles, related reports and websites, news, research, and interviews of key persons from both public and private sectors. The diamond model was used to analyze the study. The major factor driving the Thai animation industry forward includes a quality workforce, their creativity and strong associations. However, discontinuity in government support, infrastructure, marketing, IP creation and financial constraints were factors keeping the Thai animation industry less competitive in the global market.

Keywords: Animation, competitiveness, digital content, Thailand.

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1660 Forecasting for Financial Stock Returns Using a Quantile Function Model

Authors: Yuzhi Cai

Abstract:

In this talk, we introduce a newly developed quantile function model that can be used for estimating conditional distributions of financial returns and for obtaining multi-step ahead out-of-sample predictive distributions of financial returns. Since we forecast the whole conditional distributions, any predictive quantity of interest about the future financial returns can be obtained simply as a by-product of the method. We also show an application of the model to the daily closing prices of Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) series over the period from 2 January 2004 - 8 October 2010. We obtained the predictive distributions up to 15 days ahead for the DJIA returns, which were further compared with the actually observed returns and those predicted from an AR-GARCH model. The results show that the new model can capture the main features of financial returns and provide a better fitted model together with improved mean forecasts compared with conventional methods. We hope this talk will help audience to see that this new model has the potential to be very useful in practice.

Keywords: DJIA, Financial returns, predictive distribution, quantile function model.

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1659 Large-Eddy Simulation of Hypersonic Configuration Aerodynamics

Authors: Huang Shengqin, Xiao Hong

Abstract:

LES with mixed subgrid-scale model has been used to simulate aerodynamic performance of hypersonic configuration. The simulation was conducted to replicate conditions and geometry of a model which has been previously tested. LES Model has been successful in predict pressure coefficient with the max error 1.5% besides afterbody. But in the high Mach number condition, it is poor in predict ability and product 12.5% error. The calculation error are mainly conducted by the distribution swirling. The fact of poor ability in the high Mach number and afterbody region indicated that the mixed subgrid-scale model should be improved in large eddied especially in hypersonic separate region. In the condition of attach and sideslip flight, the calculation results have waves. LES are successful in the prediction the pressure wave in hypersonic flow.

Keywords: Hypersonic, LES, mixed Subgrid-scale model, experiment.

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1658 Pre-Eliminary Design Adjustable Workstation for Piston Assembly Line Considering Anthropometric for Indonesian People

Authors: T. Yuri M. Zagloel, Inaki M. Hakim, A. M. Syarafi

Abstract:

Manufacturing process has been considered as one of the most important activity in business process. It correlates with productivity and quality of the product so industries could fulfill customer’s demand. With the increasing demand from customer, industries must improve their manufacturing ability such as shorten lead-time and reduce wastes on their process. Lean manufacturing has been considered as one of the tools to waste elimination in manufacturing or service industry. Workforce development is one practice in lean manufacturing that can reduce waste generated from operator such as waste of unnecessary motion. Anthropometric approach is proposed to determine the recommended measurement in operator’s work area. The method will get some dimensions from Indonesia people that related to piston workstation. The result from this research can be obtained new design for the work area considering ergonomic aspect.

Keywords: Adjustable, anthropometric, ergonomic, waste.

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1657 Effect of Preheating Temperature and Chamber Pressure on the Properties of Porous NiTi Alloy Prepared by SHS Technique

Authors: Wisutmethangoon S., Denmud N., Sikong L.

Abstract:

The fabrication of porous NiTi shape memory alloys (SMAs) from elemental powder compacts was conducted by selfpropagating high temperature synthesis (SHS). Effects of the preheating temperature and the chamber pressure on the combustion characteristics as well as the final morphology and the composition of products were studied. The samples with porosity between 56.4 and 59.0% under preheating temperature in the range of 200-300°C and Ar-gas chamber pressure of 138 and 201 kPa were obtained. The pore structures were found to be dissimilar only in the samples processed with different preheating temperature. The major phase in the porous product is NiTi with small amounts of secondary phases, NiTi2 and Ni4Ti3. The preheating temperature and the chamber pressure have very little effect on the phase constituent. While the combustion temperature of the sample was notably increased by increasing the preheating temperature, they were slightly changed by varying the chamber pressure.

Keywords: Combustion synthesis, porous materials, self propagating high temperature synthesis, shape memory alloy.

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1656 The World of Great Wines: The Douro Valley Experience

Authors: A. Oliveira-Brochado, R. Silva, C. Paulino

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to use an experiential view of wine tourism to develop a battery of items that can potentially capture the overall Douro Valley experience from the tourist’s perspective. The Douro Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage region located in Portugal, was the target of this study. The research took a mixed approach using both qualitative and quantitative designs. Firstly, we combine the literature review on service quality scales with a content analysis of five in-depth interviews with winery managers and a focus group with wine tourists to identify the main dimensions of the overall tourism experience and to develop a battery of items for each dimension. Eight dimensions of the overall wine tourism experience came out, as follows: winery service and staff, winery facilities, winery service, wine product, wine region environment, wine region accessibilities, wine region´s offerings, and the wine region and winery reputation.

Keywords: Wine tourism, Douro region, survey, wineries, experience.

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1655 Calculation of Inflation from Salaries Instead of Consumer Products: A Logical Exercise

Authors: E. Dahlen

Abstract:

Inflation can be calculated from either the prices of consumer products or from salaries. This paper presents a logical exercise that shows it is easier to calculate inflation from salaries than from consumer products. While the prices of consumer products may change due to technological advancement, such as automation, which must be corrected for, salaries do not. If technological advancements are not accounted for within calculations based on consumer product prices, inflation can be confused with real wage changes, since both inflation and real wage changes affect the prices of consumer products. The method employed in this paper is a logical exercise. Logical arguments are presented that suggest the existence of many different feasible ways by which inflation can be determined. Then a short mathematical exercise will be presented which shows that one of these methods –using salaries – contains the fewest number of unknown parameters, and hence, is the preferred method, since the risk of mistakes is lower. From the results, it can be concluded that salaries, rather than consumer products, should be used to calculate inflation.

Keywords: Inflation, logic, math, real wages.

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1654 Fuzzy Hierarchical Clustering Applied for Quality Estimation in Manufacturing System

Authors: Y. Q. Lv, C.K.M. Lee

Abstract:

This paper develops a quality estimation method with the application of fuzzy hierarchical clustering. Quality estimation is essential to quality control and quality improvement as a precise estimation can promote a right decision-making in order to help better quality control. Normally the quality of finished products in manufacturing system can be differentiated by quality standards. In the real life situation, the collected data may be vague which is not easy to be classified and they are usually represented in term of fuzzy number. To estimate the quality of product presented by fuzzy number is not easy. In this research, the trapezoidal fuzzy numbers are collected in manufacturing process and classify the collected data into different clusters so as to get the estimation. Since normal hierarchical clustering methods can only be applied for real numbers, fuzzy hierarchical clustering is selected to handle this problem based on quality standards.

Keywords: Quality Estimation, Fuzzy Quality Mean, Fuzzy Hierarchical Clustering, Fuzzy Number, Manufacturing system

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1653 Accelerated Microwave Extraction of Natural Product using the Cryogrinding

Authors: F. Benkaci-Ali, R. Mekaoui, G. Eppe, E. De Pau, J. F. Faucont

Abstract:

Team distillation assisted by microwave extraction (SDAM) considered as accelerated technique extraction is a combination of microwave heating and steam distillation, performed at atmospheric pressure. SDAM has been compared with the same technique coupled with the cryogrinding of seeds (SDAM -CG). Isolation and concentration of volatile compounds are performed by a single stage for the extraction of essential oil from Cuminum cyminum seeds. The essential oils extracted by these two methods for 5 min were quantitatively (yield) and qualitatively (aromatic profile) no similar. These methods yield an essential oil with higher amounts of more valuable oxygenated compounds, and allow substantial savings of costs, in terms of time, energy and plant material. SDAM and SDAM-CG is a green technology and appears as a good alternative for the extraction of essential oils from aromatic plants.

Keywords: Steam distillation, microwave extraction, Cuminum cyminum, chromatography, mass spectrometry

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1652 From Micro to Nanosystems: An Exploratory Study of Influences on Innovation Teams

Authors: Norbert Burger, Thorsten Staake

Abstract:

What influences microsystems (MEMS) and nanosystems (NEMS) innovation teams apart from technology complexity? Based on in-depth interviews with innovators, this research explores the key influences on innovation teams in the early phases of MEMS/NEMS. Projects are rare and may last from 5 to 10 years or more from idea to concept. As fundamental technology development in MEMS/NEMS is highly complex and interdisciplinary by involving expertise from different basic and engineering disciplines, R&D is rather a 'testing of ideas' with many uncertainties than a clearly structured process. The purpose of this study is to explore the innovation teams- environment and give specific insights for future management practices. The findings are grouped into three major areas: people, know-how and experience, and market. The results highlight the importance and differences of innovation teams- composition, transdisciplinary knowledge, project evaluation and management compared to the counterparts from new product development teams.

Keywords: Innovation teams, early phases, Microsystems, Nanosystems, technology developments.

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1651 Carotenoid Potential to Protect Cow-s Milk Fat Against Oxidative Deterioration

Authors: U. Antone, V. Sterna, J. Zagorska

Abstract:

Milk from differently fed cows (supplemented with carotenoids from carrots or palm oil product Carotino CAF 100) was obtained in a conventional dairy farm to assess the carotenoid potential to protect milk fat against oxidation. The extracted anhydrous milk fat (AMF) was tested by peroxide value, and Rancimat tests. Temperature, and light stimulation for reaction acceleration was used. The oxidative stability enhancement by carotenoids was detected in peroxide value test – the strongest effect was observed in palm oil, following by carrot supplemented group, compared to control group, whose feed was unchanged. Rancimat accelerated oxidation test results did not show any superiority of the oxidative stability of the AMF samples from milk of the carotenoidsupplemented cow groups. The average oxidation stability of AMF dark-stored samples was 12.59 ± 0.294 h, and it was significantly (p < 0.05) higher than that of AMF light-affected samples, i.e. 2.60 ± 0.191 h.

Keywords: antioxidants, dairy products, forages, lipid aging, peroxide

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1650 Elastic Lateral Features of a New Glass Fiber Reinforced Gypsum Wall

Authors: Zhengyong Liu, Huiqing Ying

Abstract:

GFRG(Glass Fiber Reinforced Gypsum) wall is a green product which can erect a building fast in prefabricated method, but its application to high-rise residential buildings is limited for its poor lateral stiffness. This paper has proposed a modification to GFRG walls structure to increase its lateral stiffness, which aiming to erect small high-rise residential buildings as load-bearing walls. The elastic finite element analysis to it has shown the lateral deformation feature and the distributions of the axial force and the shear force. The analysis results show that the new GFRG reinforced concrete wall can be used for small high-rise residential buildings.

Keywords: GFRG wall, lateral features, elastic analysis, residential building.

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1649 Enhancing the Error-Correcting Performance of LDPC Codes through an Efficient Use of Decoding Iterations

Authors: Insah Bhurtah, P. Clarel Catherine, K. M. Sunjiv Soyjaudah

Abstract:

The decoding of Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes is operated over a redundant structure known as the bipartite graph, meaning that the full set of bit nodes is not absolutely necessary for decoder convergence. In 2008, Soyjaudah and Catherine designed a recovery algorithm for LDPC codes based on this assumption and showed that the error-correcting performance of their codes outperformed conventional LDPC Codes. In this work, the use of the recovery algorithm is further explored to test the performance of LDPC codes while the number of iterations is progressively increased. For experiments conducted with small blocklengths of up to 800 bits and number of iterations of up to 2000, the results interestingly demonstrate that contrary to conventional wisdom, the error-correcting performance keeps increasing with increasing number of iterations.

Keywords: Error-correcting codes, information theory, low-density parity-check codes, sum-product algorithm.

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1648 Mechanical-Physical Characteristics Affecting the Durability of Fibre Reinforced Concrete with Recycled Aggregate

Authors: Vladimira Vytlacilova

Abstract:

The article presents findings from the study and analysis of the results of an experimental programme focused on the production of concrete and fibre reinforced concrete in which natural aggregate has been substituted with brick or concrete recyclate. The research results are analyzed to monitor the effect of mechanicalphysical characteristics on the durability properties of tested cementitious composites. The key parts of the fibre reinforced concrete mix are the basic components: aggregates – recyclate, cement, fly ash, water and fibres. Their specific ratios and the properties of individual components principally affect the resulting behaviour of fresh fibre reinforced concrete and the characteristics of the final product. The article builds on the sources dealing with the use of recycled aggregates from construction and demolition waste in the production of fibre reinforced concrete. The implemented procedure of testing the composite contributes to the building sustainability in environmental engineering.

Keywords: Recycled aggregate, Polypropylene fibres, Fibre Reinforced Concrete, Fly ash.

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1647 Digital Filter for Cochlear Implant Implemented on a Field- Programmable Gate Array

Authors: Rekha V. Dundur , M.V.Latte, S.Y. Kulkarni, M.K.Venkatesha

Abstract:

The advent of multi-million gate Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) with hardware support for multiplication opens an opportunity to recreate a significant portion of the front end of a human cochlea using this technology. In this paper we describe the implementation of the cochlear filter and show that it is entirely suited to a single device XC3S500 FPGA implementation .The filter gave a good fit to real time data with efficiency of hardware usage.

Keywords: Cochlea, FPGA, IIR (Infinite Impulse Response), Multiplier.

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1646 Signalling Cost Analysis of PDE-NEMO

Authors: Kamarularifin Abd Jalil, John Dunlop

Abstract:

A Personal Distributed Environment (PDE) is an example of an IP-based system architecture designed for future mobile communications. In a single PDE, there exist several Subnetworks hosting devices located across the infrastructure, which will inter-work with one another through the coordination of a Device Management Entity (DME). Some of these Sub-networks are fixed and some are mobile. In order to support Mobile Sub-networks mobility in the PDE, the PDE-NEMO protocol was proposed. This paper discussed the signalling cost analysis of PDE-NEMO by use of a detailed simulation model. The paper started with the introduction of the protocol, followed by the experiments and results and then followed by discussions.

Keywords: Mobile Network, PDE-NEMO, Signallling Cost.

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1645 A Generic and Extensible Spidergon NoC

Authors: Abdelkrim Zitouni, Mounir Zid, Sami Badrouchi, Rached Tourki

Abstract:

The Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous Network on Chip (GALS NoC) is the most efficient solution that provides low latency transfers and power efficient System on Chip (SoC) interconnect. This study presents a GALS and generic NoC architecture based on a configurable router. This router integrates a sophisticated dynamic arbiter, the wormhole routing technique and can be configured in a manner that allows it to be used in many possible NoC topologies such as Mesh 2-D, Tree and Polygon architectures. This makes it possible to improve the quality of service (QoS) required by the proposed NoC. A comparative performances study of the proposed NoC architecture, Tore architecture and of the most used Mesh 2D architecture is performed. This study shows that Spidergon architecture is characterised by the lower latency and the later saturation. It is also shown that no matter what the number of used links is raised; the Links×Diameter product permitted by the Spidergon architecture remains always the lower. The only limitation of this architecture comes from it-s over cost in term of silicon area.

Keywords: Dynamic arbiter, Generic router, Spidergon NoC, SoC.

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1644 Biodiesel Production from Soybean Oil over TiO2 Supported nano-ZnO

Authors: Mbala Mukenga, Edison Muzenda, Kalala Jalama, Reinout Meijboom

Abstract:

TiO2 supported nano-ZnO catalyst was prepared by deposition-precipitation and tested for the trans-esterification reaction of soybean oil to biodiesel. The TiO2 support stabilized the nano-ZnO in a dispersed form with limited crystallite size compared to the unsupported ZnO. The final ZnO dispersion and crystallite size and the material transfer resistance in the catalyst significantly influenced the supported nano-ZnO catalyst performance.

Keywords: nano-ZnO, soybean oil, TiO2, trans-esterification

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1643 Climate Safe House: A Community Housing Project Tackling Catastrophic Sea Level Rise in Coastal Communities

Authors: Chris Fersterer, Col Fay, Tobias Danielmeier, Kat Achterberg, Scott Willis

Abstract:

New Zealand, an island nation, has an extensive coastline peppered with small communities of iconic buildings known as Bachs. Post WWII, these modest buildings were constructed by their owners as retreats and generally were small, low cost, often using recycled material and often they fell below current acceptable building standards. In the latter part of the 20th century, real estate prices in many of these communities remained low and these areas became permanent residences for people attracted to this affordable lifestyle choice. The Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust (BRCT) is an organisation that recognises the vulnerability of communities in low lying settlements as now being prone to increased flood threat brought about by climate change and sea level rise. Some of the inhabitants of Blueskin Bay, Otago, NZ have already found their properties to be un-insurable because of increased frequency of flood events and property values have slumped accordingly. Territorial authorities also acknowledge this increased risk and have created additional compliance measures for new buildings that are less than 2 m above tidal peaks. Community resilience becomes an additional concern where inhabitants are attracted to a lifestyle associated with a specific location and its people when this lifestyle is unable to be met in a suburban or city context. Traditional models of social housing fail to provide the sense of community connectedness and identity enjoyed by the current residents of Blueskin Bay. BRCT have partnered with the Otago Polytechnic Design School to design a new form of community housing that can react to this environmental change. It is a longitudinal project incorporating participatory approaches as a means of getting people ‘on board’, to understand complex systems and co-develop solutions. In the first period, they are seeking industry support and funding to develop a transportable and fully self-contained housing model that exploits current technologies. BRCT also hope that the building will become an educational tool to highlight climate change issues facing us today. This paper uses the Climate Safe House (CSH) as a case study for education in architectural sustainability through experiential learning offered as part of the Otago Polytechnics Bachelor of Design. Students engage with the project with research methodologies, including site surveys, resident interviews, data sourced from government agencies and physical modelling. The process involves collaboration across design disciplines including product and interior design but also includes connections with industry, both within the education institution and stakeholder industries introduced through BRCT. This project offers a rich learning environment where students become engaged through project based learning within a community of practice, including architecture, construction, energy and other related fields. The design outcomes are expressed in a series of public exhibitions and forums where community input is sought in a truly participatory process.

Keywords: Community resilience, problem based learning, project based learning, case study.

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1642 Planning Rigid Body Motions and Optimal Control Problem on Lie Group SO(2, 1)

Authors: Nemat Abazari, Ilgin Sager

Abstract:

In this paper smooth trajectories are computed in the Lie group SO(2, 1) as a motion planning problem by assigning a Frenet frame to the rigid body system to optimize the cost function of the elastic energy which is spent to track a timelike curve in Minkowski space. A method is proposed to solve a motion planning problem that minimizes the integral of the Lorentz inner product of Darboux vector of a timelike curve. This method uses the coordinate free Maximum Principle of Optimal control and results in the theory of integrable Hamiltonian systems. The presence of several conversed quantities inherent in these Hamiltonian systems aids in the explicit computation of the rigid body motions.

Keywords: Optimal control, Hamiltonian vector field, Darboux vector, maximum principle, lie group, rigid body motion, Lorentz metric.

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1641 Internet Purchases in European Union Countries: Multiple Linear Regression Approach

Authors: Ksenija Dumičić, Anita Čeh Časni, Irena Palić

Abstract:

This paper examines economic and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development influence on recently increasing Internet purchases by individuals for European Union member states. After a growing trend for Internet purchases in EU27 was noticed, all possible regression analysis was applied using nine independent variables in 2011. Finally, two linear regression models were studied in detail. Conducted simple linear regression analysis confirmed the research hypothesis that the Internet purchases in analyzed EU countries is positively correlated with statistically significant variable Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc). Also, analyzed multiple linear regression model with four regressors, showing ICT development level, indicates that ICT development is crucial for explaining the Internet purchases by individuals, confirming the research hypothesis.

Keywords: European Union, Internet purchases, multiple linear regression model, outlier

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1640 Research and Development of Intelligent Cooling Channels Design System

Authors: Q. Niu, X. H. Zhou, W. Liu

Abstract:

The cooling channels of injection mould play a crucial role in determining the productivity of moulding process and the product quality. It’s not a simple task to design high quality cooling channels. In this paper, an intelligent cooling channels design system including automatic layout of cooling channels, interference checking and assembly of accessories is studied. Automatic layout of cooling channels using genetic algorithm is analyzed. Through integrating experience criteria of designing cooling channels, considering the factors such as the mould temperature and interference checking, the automatic layout of cooling channels is implemented. The method of checking interference based on distance constraint algorithm and the function of automatic and continuous assembly of accessories are developed and integrated into the system. Case studies demonstrate the feasibility and practicality of the intelligent design system.

Keywords: Injection mould, cooling channel, automatic layout, interference checking.

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