Search results for: effective capacity

Authors: Okolo Chimaobi Valentine

Abstract:

This paper seeks to assess the implications of bank consolidation on the performance of small and medium scale enterprises in the Nigerian economy. Multiple linear regression technique and correlation matrix test were employed to measure the extent to which small and medium scale enterprises asset size, survival and access to credit were influenced. The result showed that bank deposit (BD) and bank credit (L or BC) impacted on asset size and survival of small and medium scale enterprises. None of the variables had significant impact on SMEs access to credit. There is a shift of focus by commercial banks away from small and medium scale enterprises (small customers), which is evidenced by the significant negative influence of bank credit to both the survival and asset size of small and medium enterprises. While micro finance banks work hard at providing funds to small and medium scale entrepreneurs, their capacity to meet the needs of these entrepreneurs is constrained. CBN should make policies that will boost micro finance bank’s capital and also monitor closely the management of the banks to ensure prudent financing of small and medium scale investments.

Keywords: Bank consolidation, small and medium enterprises.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3909

Authors: Sachin Vrajlal Rajani, Vivek Pandya, Ankit Suvariya

Abstract:

Green and renewable energy is getting extraordinary consideration today, because of ecological concerns made by blazing of fossil powers. Photovoltaic and wind power generation are the basic decisions for delivering power in this respects. Producing power by the sun based photovoltaic systems is known to the world, yet control makers may get confounded to pick between on-grid and off-grid systems. In this exploration work, an endeavor is made to compare the off-grid (stand-alone) and on-grid (grid-connected) frameworks. The work presents relative examination, between two distinctive PV frameworks situated at V.V.P. Engineering College, Rajkot. The first framework is 100 kW remain solitary and the second is 60 kW network joined. The real-time parameters compared are; output voltage, load current, power in-flow, power output, performance ratio, yield factor, and capacity factor. The voltage changes and the power variances in both frameworks are given exceptional consideration and the examination is made between the two frameworks to judge the focal points and confinements of both the frameworks.

Keywords: Standalone PV systems, grid connected PV systems, comparison, real time data analysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3087

Authors: Shanar Askar, Shahzad Memon, LachhmanDas, MSKalhoro

Abstract:

Wimax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a promising technology which can offer high speed data, voice and video service to the customer end, which is presently, dominated by the cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies. The performance assessment of Wimax systems is dealt with. The biggest advantage of Broadband wireless application (BWA) over its wired competitors is its increased capacity and ease of deployment. The aims of this paper are to model and simulate the fixed OFDM IEEE 802.16d physical layer under variant combinations of digital modulation (BPSK, QPSK, and 16-QAM) over diverse combination of fading channels (AWGN, SUIs). Stanford University Interim (SUI) Channel serial was proposed to simulate the fixed broadband wireless access channel environments where IEEE 802.16d is to be deployed. It has six channel models that are grouped into three categories according to three typical different outdoor Terrains, in order to give a comprehensive effect of fading channels on the overall performance of the system.

Keywords: WIMAX, OFDM, Additive White Gaussian Noise, Fading Channel, SUI, Doppler Effect.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2138

Authors: PoiSim Khiew, WeeSiong Chiu, ThianKhoonTan, Shahidan Radiman, Roslan Abd-Shukor, Muhammad Azmi Abd-Hamid, ChinHua Chia

Abstract:

Magnetic and semiconductor nanomaterials exhibit novel magnetic and optical properties owing to their unique size and shape-dependent effects. With shrinking the size down to nanoscale region, various anomalous properties that normally not present in bulk start to dominate. Ability in harnessing of these anomalous properties for the design of various advance electronic devices is strictly dependent on synthetic strategies. Hence, current research has focused on developing a rational synthetic control to produce high quality nanocrystals by using organometallic approach to tune both size and shape of the nanomaterials. In order to elucidate the growth mechanism, transmission electron microscopy was employed as a powerful tool in performing real time-resolved morphologies and structural characterization of magnetic (Fe3O4) and semiconductor (ZnO) nanocrystals. The current synthetic approach is found able to produce nanostructures with well-defined shapes. We have found that oleic acid is an effective capping ligand in preparing oxide-based nanostructures without any agglomerations, even at high temperature. The oleate-based precursors and capping ligands are fatty acid compounds, which are respectively originated from natural palm oil with low toxicity. In comparison with other synthetic approaches in producing nanostructures, current synthetic method offers an effective route to produce oxide-based nanomaterials with well-defined shapes and good monodispersity. The nanocystals are well-separated with each other without any stacking effect. In addition, the as-synthesized nanopellets are stable in terms of chemically and physically if compared to those nanomaterials that are previous reported. Further development and extension of current synthetic strategy are being pursued to combine both of these materials into nanocomposite form that will be used as “smart magnetic nanophotocatalyst" for industry waste water treatment.

Keywords: Metal oxide nanomaterials, Nanophotocatalyst, Organometallic synthesis, Morphology Control

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2593

Authors: L. Bertola, T. Cox, P. Wheeler, S. Garvey, H. Morvan

Abstract:

Electromagnetic Launch (EML) systems have been proposed for military applications to accelerate jet planes on aircraft carriers. This paper proposes the implementation of similar technology to aid civil aircraft take-off, which can provide significant economic, environmental and technical benefits. Assisted launch has the potential of reducing on ground noise and emissions near airports and improving overall aircraft efficiency through reducing engine thrust requirements. This paper presents a take-off performance analysis for an Airbus A320-200 taking off with and without the assistance of the electromagnetic catapult. Assisted take-off allows for a significant reduction in take-off field length, giving more capacity with existing airport footprints and reducing the necessary footprint of new airports, which will both reduce costs and increase the number of suitable sites. The electromagnetic catapult may allow the installation of smaller engines with lower rated thrust. The consequent fuel consumption and operational cost reduction is estimated. The potential of reducing the aircraft operational costs and the runway length required make EML system an attractive solution to the air traffic growth in busy airports.

Keywords: EML system, fuel consumption, take-off analysis, weight reduction.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1089

Authors: Martina Drdlová, Michal Frank, Jaroslav Buchar, Josef Krátký

Abstract:

The main aim of the presented experiments is to improve behaviour of sandwich structures under dynamic loading, such as crash or explosion. Several cellular materials are widely used as core of the sandwich structures and their properties influence the response of the entire element under impact load. To optimize their performance requires the characterisation of the core material behaviour at high strain rates and identification of the underlying mechanism. This work presents the study of high strain-rate characteristics of a specific porous lightweight blast energy absorbing foam using a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) technique adapted to perform tests on low strength materials. Two different velocities, 15 and 30 m.s-1 were used to determine the strain sensitivity of the material. Foams were designed using two types of porous lightweight spherical raw materials with diameters of 30- 100 *m, combined with polymer matrix. Cylindrical specimens with diameter of 15 mm and length of 7 mm were prepared and loaded using a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar apparatus to assess the relation between the composition of the material and its shock wave attenuation capacity.

Keywords: Blast, foam, microsphere, resin.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2483

Authors: Ou Xie, Zhenyu Zhao

Abstract:

In this paper, we consider the problem for identifying the unknown source in the Poisson equation. A modified Tikhonov regularization method is presented to deal with illposedness of the problem and error estimates are obtained with an a priori strategy and an a posteriori choice rule to find the regularization parameter. Numerical examples show that the proposed method is effective and stable.

Keywords: Ill-posed problem, Unknown source, Poisson equation, Tikhonov regularization method, Discrepancy principle

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1450

Authors: Abdelsalam Omran Gebril, Ali Gh Saeid

Abstract:

Grazing and pastoral overloading through human factors result in significant land desertification. Failure to take into account the phenomenon of desertification as a serious problem can lead to an environmental disaster because of the damages caused by land encroachment. Therefore, soil on residential and urban areas is affected because of the deterioration of vegetation. Overgrazing or grazing in open and irregular lands is practiced in these areas almost throughout the year, especially during the growth cycle of edible plants, thereby leading to their disappearance. In addition, the large number of livestock in these areas exceeds the capacity of these pastures because of pastoral land overloading, which results in deterioration and desertification in the region. In addition, rare plants, the extinction of some edible plants in the region, and the emergence of plants unsuitable for grazing, must be taken into consideration, as along with the emergence of dust and sand storms during the dry seasons (summer to autumn) due to the degradation of vegetation. These results show that strategic plans and regulations that protect the environment from desertification must be developed. Therefore, increased pastoral load is a key human factor in the deterioration of vegetation cover, leading to land desertification in this region.

Keywords: Overloading, pastoral, grazing, desertification, Libya

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2131

Authors: R. Moradifar, M. Masahebfard, M. Zahir

Abstract:

In this article the investigation about installation heat recovery steam generation (HRSG) on the exhaust of turbo generators of phases 2&3 at South Pars Gas Complex is presented. The temperature of exhaust gas is approximately 665 degree centigrade, Installation of heat recovery boiler was simulated in ThermoFlow 17.0.2 software, based on test operation data and the equipments site operation conditions in Pars exclusive economical energy area, the affect of installation HRSG package on the available gas turbine and its operation parameters, ambient temperature, the exhaust temperatures steam flow rate were investigated. Base on the results recommended HRSG package should have the capacity for 98 ton per hour high pressure steam generation this refinery, by use of exhaust of three gas turbines for each package in operation condition of each refinery at 30 degree centigrade. Besides saving energy this project will be an Environment-Friendly project. The Payback Period is estimated approximately 1.8 year, with considering Clean Development Mechanism.

Keywords: HRSG, South pars Gas complex, ThermoFlow 17.0.2 software, energy, turbo generators.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2347

Authors: Ł. Kiedrowski, H. Gierszal, W. Hołubowicz

Abstract:

This paper presents the H-ARQ techniques comparison for OFDM systems with a new family of non-binary LDPC codes which has been developed within the EU FP7 DAVINCI project. The punctured NB-LDPC codes have been used in a simulated model of the transmission system. The link level performance has been evaluated in terms of spectral efficiency, codeword error rate and average number of retransmissions. The NB-LDPC codes can be easily and effective implemented with different methods of the retransmission needed if correct decoding of a codeword failed. Here the Optimal Symbol Selection method is proposed as a Chase Combining technique.

Keywords: H-ARQ, LDPC, Non-Binary, Punctured Codes.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1734

Authors: P. Vel, H. Mubarak, M. A. Malak

Abstract:

The elements for success in the service industry for many organizations have been studied and quantified. They range from effective performance evaluation and management to adequately implementing seven P’s. However, the success story of every organization is unique. What might work for one organization might not for another as every company is inherently distinctive. In this paper, the strategic framework behind the success of Liberty Automobiles Dubai is captured. The primary data necessary for this paper was collected through in-depth interviews with the managers for sales, service and marketing as well as the group general manager. Subsequently, the key areas that led to the success of Liberty Autos will be discussed in this paper.

Keywords: Services marketing, automotive retailing, and retailer success.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1532

Authors: G.R. Ashari, N.Hedayat, S. Shalbaf, E.Hajidavalloo

Abstract:

In this paper a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell power system including burner, steam reformer, heat exchanger and water heater has been considered to meet the electrical, heating, cooling and domestic hot water loads of residential building which in Tehran. The system uses natural gas as fuel and works in CHP mode. Design and operating conditions of a PEM fuel cell system is considered in this study. The energy requirements of residential building and the number of fuel cell stacks to meet them have been estimated. The method involved exergy analysis and entropy generation thorough the months of the year. Results show that all the energy needs of the building can be met with 12 fuel cell stacks at a nominal capacity of 8.5 kW. Exergy analysis of the CHP system shows that the increase in the ambient air temperature from 1oC to 40oC, will have an increase of entropy generation by 5.73%.Maximum entropy generates for 15 hour in 15th of June and 15th of July is estimated to amount at 12624 (kW/K). Entropy generation of this system through a year is estimated to amount to 1004.54 GJ/k.year.

Keywords: CHP mode, entropy, exergy, no of fuel cell stacks.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1900

Authors: Sang Keun Rhee, Hyojeong Jin, Jihye Lee, Misoo Kwon, Myon-Woong Park, Sungdo Ha

Abstract:

Extensive information is required within a R&D environment, and a considerable amount of time and efforts are being spent on finding the necessary information. An adaptive information providing system would be beneficial to the environment, and a conceptual model of the resources, people and context is mandatory for developing such applications. In this paper, an information model on various contexts and resources is proposed which provides the possibility of effective applications for use in adaptive information systems within a R&D project and meeting environment.

Keywords: Adaptive Hypermedia, Adaptive System, ContextAwareness, Information Model, Information System, Personalisation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1493

Authors: Farhad F. Yusifov

Abstract:

With the explosive growth of data available on the Internet, personalization of this information space become a necessity. At present time with the rapid increasing popularity of the WWW, Websites are playing a crucial role to convey knowledge and information to the end users. Discovering hidden and meaningful information about Web users usage patterns is critical to determine effective marketing strategies to optimize the Web server usage for accommodating future growth. The task of mining useful information becomes more challenging when the Web traffic volume is enormous and keeps on growing. In this paper, we propose a intelligent model to discover and analyze useful knowledge from the available Web log data.

Keywords: Clustering, Self organizing map, Web log files, Web traffic.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1603

Authors: Sami Baraketi, Jean-Marie Garcia, Olivier Brun

Abstract:

Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) is the dominant transport technology used in numerous high capacity backbone networks, based on optical infrastructures. Given the importance of costs (CapEx and OpEx) associated to these networks, resource management is becoming increasingly important, especially how the optical circuits, called “lightpaths”, are routed throughout the network. This requires the use of efficient algorithms which provide routing strategies with the lowest cost. We focus on the lightpath routing and wavelength assignment problem, known as the RWA problem, while optimizing wavelength fragmentation over the network. Wavelength fragmentation poses a serious challenge for network operators since it leads to the misuse of the wavelength spectrum, and then to the refusal of new lightpath requests. In this paper, we first establish a new Integer Linear Program (ILP) for the problem based on a node-link formulation. This formulation is based on a multilayer approach where the original network is decomposed into several network layers, each corresponding to a wavelength. Furthermore, we propose an efficient heuristic for the problem based on a greedy algorithm followed by a post-treatment procedure. The obtained results show that the optimal solution is often reached. We also compare our results with those of other RWA heuristic methods

Keywords: WDM, lightpath, RWA, wavelength fragmentation, optimization, linear programming, heuristic

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1871

Authors: Elnaz Saeedi, Jamileh Abolaghasemi, Mohsen Nasiri Tousi, Saeedeh Khosravi

Abstract:

Goals and Objectives: A typical analysis of survival data involves the modeling of time-to-event data, such as the time till death. A frailty model is a random effect model for time-to-event data, where the random effect has a multiplicative influence on the baseline hazard function. This article aims to investigate the use of gamma frailty model with concomitant variable in order to individualize the prognostic factors that influence the liver cirrhosis patients’ survival times. Methods: During the one-year study period (May 2008-May 2009), data have been used from the recorded information of patients with liver cirrhosis who were scheduled for liver transplantation and were followed up for at least seven years in Imam Khomeini Hospital in Iran. In order to determine the effective factors for cirrhotic patients’ survival in the presence of latent variables, the gamma frailty distribution has been applied. In this article, it was considering the parametric model, such as Exponential and Weibull distributions for survival time. Data analysis is performed using R software, and the error level of 0.05 was considered for all tests. Results: 305 patients with liver cirrhosis including 180 (59%) men and 125 (41%) women were studied. The age average of patients was 39.8 years. At the end of the study, 82 (26%) patients died, among them 48 (58%) were men and 34 (42%) women. The main cause of liver cirrhosis was found hepatitis 'B' with 23%, followed by cryptogenic with 22.6% were identified as the second factor. Generally, 7-year’s survival was 28.44 months, for dead patients and for censoring was 19.33 and 31.79 months, respectively. Using multi-parametric survival models of progressive and regressive, Exponential and Weibull models with regard to the gamma frailty distribution were fitted to the cirrhosis data. In both models, factors including, age, bilirubin serum, albumin serum, and encephalopathy had a significant effect on survival time of cirrhotic patients. Conclusion: To investigate the effective factors for the time of patients’ death with liver cirrhosis in the presence of latent variables, gamma frailty model with parametric distributions seems desirable.

Keywords: Frailty model, latent variables, liver cirrhosis, parametric distribution.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1058

Authors: Racha Khairallah, Lamia Ben Hamida

Abstract:

Our paper attempts to examine how Swiss manufacturing firms manage to learn from patent citations to improve their innovation performance. We argue that the assessment of these effects needs a detailed analysis of spillovers according to the source of knowledge with respect to formal and informal patent citations made in European and internal search, the horizontal and vertical mechanisms by which knowledge spillovers take place, and the technological characteristics of innovative firms that able them to absorb external knowledge and integrate it in their existing innovation process. We use Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data and find evidence that knowledge spillovers occur only from horizontal and backward linkages. The importance of these effects depends on the type of citation, in which the references to non-patent literature (informal citations made in European and international searches) have a greater impact. In addition, only firms with high technological capacities benefit from knowledge spillovers from formal and informal citations. Low-technology firms fail to catch up and efficiently learn external knowledge from patent citations.

Keywords: Innovation performance, patent citation, absorptive capacity, knowledge spillover mechanisms.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 49

Authors: M. Jalali Azizpour, H. Mohammadi Majd

Abstract:

In this paper, the effect of WC-12Co particle temperature in HVOF thermal spraying process on the coating thickness has been studied. The statistical results show that the spray distance and oxygen-to-fuel ratio are effective factors on particle characterization and thickness of HVOF thermal spraying coatings. Spray Watch diagnostic system, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction and thickness measuring system were used for this purpose.

Keywords: HVOF, Temperature, Thickness, Velocity, WC- 12Co.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1964

Authors: V. Endo, A. G. Silva Sobrinho, F. A. Almeida, N. L. L. Lima, G. M. Manzi, L. G. A. Cirne, N. M. B. L. Zeola

Abstract:

We used 24 Ile de France lambs, weighing between 15 and 32 kg (BW). Treatments were supplemented with concentrate: “in nature” sugarcane (IN), sugarcane hydrolyzed using 0.6% calcium oxide (CaO) under aerobic condition (AER), and sugarcane hydrolyzed using 0.6% CaO under anaerobic condition (ANA), constituting a completely randomized design with eight repetitions per treatment. Lambs were housed in individual stalls and fed into the through, allowing 10% of leftovers. Lambs were slaughtered when body weight reached 32 kg. The following parameters were determined on Longissimu lumborum muscle of hot and cold carcasses: pH and color, 45 minutes and 24 hours after slaughtering. Qualitative analysis of the meat were performed in the loins, water-holding capacity (WHC), cooking loss (CL), and shear force (SF). We used a completely randomized design with three treatments and eight repetitions. Means were compared by Tukey test at 5% significance. A higher value for redness (a*) 45 minutes after slaughter (10.48) were found for lambs fed hydrolyzed under anaerobic conditions sugarcane. The other qualitative characteristics of meat were not affected by treatments (P >0.05). The comparison of meat quality resulting from the treatments shows that it is possible to feed in nature sugarcane to lambs, thus waiving hydrolyses process and the spending with alkalizing agent.

Keywords: Calcium oxide, hydrolysis, meat quality, pH.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2054

Authors: Thomas K. Wanner

Abstract:

This paper examines the link between gender equality and climate change policies in Australia. It critically analyses the extent to which gender mainstreaming and gender dimensions have been taken into account in the national policy processes for climate change in Australia. The paper argues that climate change adaptation and mitigation policies in Australia neglect gender dimensions. This endangers the advances made in gender equality and works against socially equitable and effective climate change strategies.

Keywords: Climate change, gender equality, gendermainstreaming, sustainable development.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1651

Authors: H. Pasternak, A. Chwastek

Abstract:

The paper describes the results from a research project about repair of welds. The repair was carried out by grinding the flawed seams and re-welding them. The main task was to determine the FAT classes of original state and after repair of seams according to the assessment procedures, such as nominal, structural and effective notch stress approach. The first part shows the results of the tests, the second part encloses numerical analysis and evaluation of results to determine the fatigue strength classes according to three assessment procedures.

Keywords: Cyclic loading, fatigue crack, post-weld treatment, seams’ repair.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 956

Authors: Emad Alenany, M. Adel El-Baz

Abstract:

In this paper, the flow of different classes of patients into a hospital is modelled and analyzed by using the queueing network analyzer (QNA) algorithm and discrete event simulation. Input data for QNA are the rate and variability parameters of the arrival and service times in addition to the number of servers in each facility. Patient flows mostly match real flow for a hospital in Egypt. Based on the analysis of the waiting times, two approaches are suggested for improving performance: Separating patients into service groups, and adopting different service policies for sequencing patients through hospital units. The separation of a specific group of patients, with higher performance target, to be served separately from the rest of patients requiring lower performance target, requires the same capacity while improves performance for the selected group of patients with higher target. Besides, it is shown that adopting the shortest processing time and shortest remaining processing time service policies among other tested policies would results in, respectively, 11.47% and 13.75% reduction in average waiting time relative to first come first served policy.

Keywords: Queueing network, discrete-event simulation, health applications, SPT.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1529

Authors: Fawaz S. Al-Anzi, Dia AbuZeina

Abstract:

Speech recognition is of an important contribution in promoting new technologies in human computer interaction. Today, there is a growing need to employ speech technology in daily life and business activities. However, speech recognition is a challenging task that requires different stages before obtaining the desired output. Among automatic speech recognition (ASR) components is the feature extraction process, which parameterizes the speech signal to produce the corresponding feature vectors. Feature extraction process aims at approximating the linguistic content that is conveyed by the input speech signal. In speech processing field, there are several methods to extract speech features, however, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) is the popular technique. It has been long observed that the MFCC is dominantly used in the well-known recognizers such as the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Sphinx and the Markov Model Toolkit (HTK). Hence, this paper focuses on the MFCC method as the standard choice to identify the different speech segments in order to obtain the language phonemes for further training and decoding steps. Due to MFCC good performance, the previous studies show that the MFCC dominates the Arabic ASR research. In this paper, we demonstrate MFCC as well as the intermediate steps that are performed to get these coefficients using the HTK toolkit.

Keywords: Speech recognition, acoustic features, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1973

Authors: Y.Srinivasa Kishore Babu, G.Tulasi Ram Das

Abstract:

This paper presents a comparative study of two most popular control strategies for Induction motor (IM) drives: Field-Oriented Control (FOC) and Direct Torque Control (DTC). The comparison is based on various criteria including basic control characteristics, dynamic performance, and implementation complexity. The study is done by simulation using the Simulink Power System Block set that allows a complete representation of the power section (inverter and IM) and the control system.

Keywords: IM, FOC, DTC, Simulink

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2529

Authors: M. H. Syakira, L. Brenda

Abstract:

Antibacterial activity of Plumeria alba (Frangipani) petals methanolic extracts were evaluated against Escherichia coli, Proteus vulgaris,Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, Enterococcus faecalis and Serratia marcescens by using disk diffusion method. Concentration extracts (80 %) showed the highest inhibition zone towards Escherichia coli (14.3 mm). Frangipani extract also showed high antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus saprophyticus, Proteus vulgaris and Serratia marcescens, but not more than the zones of the positive control used. Comparison between two broad specrum antibiotics to frangipani extracts showed that the 80 % concentration extracts produce the same zone of inhibition as Streptomycin. Frangipani extracts showed no bacterial activity towards Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterococcus faecalis. There are differences in the sensitivity of different bacteria to frangipani extracts, suggesting that frangipani-s potency varies between these bacteria. The present results indicate that frangipani showed significant antibacterial activity especially to Escherichia coli.

Keywords: Frangipani, Plumeria alba, anti microbial, Escherichia coli

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2479

Authors: Eftah Bte. Moh Hj Abdullah, Izazol Binti Idris, Abd Aziz Bin Abd Shukor

Abstract:

This study aims to identify the understanding expectations of school administrators concerning school assessment. The researcher utilized a qualitative descriptive study on 19 administrators from three secondary schools in the North Kinta district. The respondents had been interviewed on their understanding expectations of school assessment using the focus group discussion method. Overall findings showed that the administrators’ understanding expectations of school assessment was weak; especially in terms of content focus, articulation across age and grade, transparency and fairness, as well as the pedagogical implications. Findings from interviews indicated that administrators explained their understanding expectations of school assessment from the aspect of school management, and not from the aspect of instructional leadership or specifically as assessment leaders. The study implications from the administrators’ understanding expectations may hint at the difficulty of the administrators to function as assessment leaders, in order to reduce their focus as manager, and move towards their primary role in the process of teaching and learning. The administrator, as assessment leaders, would be able to reach assessment goals via collaboration in identifying and listing teacher assessment competencies, how to construct assessment capacity, how to interpret assessment correctly, the use of assessment and how to use assessment information to communicate confidently and effectively to the public.

Keywords: Assessment leaders, assessment goals, instructional leadership, understanding expectation of assessment.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1273

Authors: M. R. Alrashidi, M. E. El-Hawary

Abstract:

Environmental awareness and the recent environmental policies have forced many electric utilities to restructure their operational practices to account for their emission impacts. One way to accomplish this is by reformulating the traditional economic dispatch problem such that emission effects are included in the mathematical model. This paper presents a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to solve the Economic- Emission Dispatch problem (EED) which gained recent attention due to the deregulation of the power industry and strict environmental regulations. The problem is formulated as a multi-objective one with two competing functions, namely economic cost and emission functions, subject to different constraints. The inequality constraints considered are the generating unit capacity limits while the equality constraint is generation-demand balance. A novel equality constraint handling mechanism is proposed in this paper. PSO algorithm is tested on a 30-bus standard test system. Results obtained show that PSO algorithm has a great potential in handling multi-objective optimization problems and is capable of capturing Pareto optimal solution set under different loading conditions.

Keywords: Economic emission dispatch, economic cost dispatch, particle swarm, multi-objective optimization.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1897

Authors: Tushar Vasant Salunkhe, Sariput M. Nawghare, Maheboobsab B. Nadaf, Sushovan Dutta, J. N. Mandal

Abstract:

The model tests were conducted in the laboratory without and with Plastic recycled polymer in fly ash steep slopes overlaying soft foundation soils like fly ash and powai soil in order to check the stability of steep slope. In this experiment, fly ash is used as a filling material and Plastic Recycled Polymers of diameter = 3mm and length = 4mm were made from waste plastic product (lower grade plastic product). The properties of fly ash and Plastic recycled polymers are determined. From the experiments, load and settlement have measured. From these data, load –settlement curves have reported. It has been observed from test results that load carrying capacity of mixture fly ash with Plastic Recycled Polymers slope is more than that of fly ash slope. The deformation of Plastic Recycled Polymers slope is slightly more than that of fly ash slope. A Finite Element Method (F.E.M.) was also evaluated using PLAXIS 3D version. The failure pattern, deformations and factor of safety are reported based on analytical programme. The results from experimental data and analytical programme are compared and reported.

Keywords: Fly ash, Plastic recycled polymer, Factor of safety, Finite element method (FEM), Bishop’s simplified method.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2552

Authors: R. Manaffar, R. Maleki, S. Zare, N. Agh, S. Soltanian, B. Sehatnia, P. Sorgeloos, P. Bossier, G. Van Stappen

Abstract:

Artemia is one of the most conspicuous invertebrates associated with aquaculture. It can be considered as a model organism, offering numerous advantages for comprehensive and multidisciplinary studies using morphologic or molecular methods. Since DNA extraction is an important step of any molecular experiment, a new and a rapid method of DNA extraction from adult Artemia was described in this study. Besides, the efficiency of this technique was compared with two widely used alternative techniques, namely Chelex® 100 resin and SDS-chloroform methods. Data analysis revealed that the new method is the easiest and the most cost effective method among the other methods which allows a quick and efficient extraction of DNA from the adult animal.

Keywords: APD, Artemia, DNA extraction, Molecularexperiments

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3192

Authors: Jose J.CarreñoZagarra, Rodolfo Villamizar Mejía

Abstract:

This work describes a CACSD tool for automatic design of robust controllers for hydraulic turbines. The tool calculates the optimal
 controller using the MATLAB hinfopt function and it serves as a practical and effective solution for the laborious task of designing a different controller for each type of turbine and generator, and different parameters and conditions of the plant. Results of the simulation of a generating unit subject to parameters variation show the accuracy and efficiency of the obtained robust controllers.

Keywords: Robust Control, Hydroelectric System Turbine, Control H∞, CACSD

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1569