Search results for: Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO)
1062 Polyacrylate Modified Copper Nanoparticles with Controlled Size
Authors: Robert Prucek, Aleš Panáček, Jan Filip, Libor Kvítek, Radek Zbořil
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The preparation of Cu nanoparticles (NPs) through the reduction of copper ions by sodium borohydride in the presence of sodium polyacrylate with a molecular weight of 1200 is reported. Cu NPs were synthesized at a concentration of copper salt equal to 2.5, 5, and 10 mM, and at a molar ratio of copper ions and monomeric unit of polyacrylate equal to 1:2. The as-prepared Cu NPs have diameters of about 2.5–3 nm for copper concentrations of 2.5 and 5 mM, and 6 nm for copper concentration of 10 mM. Depending on the copper salt concentration and concentration of additionally added polyacrylate to Cu particle dispersion, primarily formed NPs grow through the process of aggregation and/or coalescence into clusters and/or particles with a diameter between 20–100 nm. The amount of additionally added sodium polyacrylate influences the stability of Cu particles against air oxidation. The catalytic efficiency of the prepared Cu particles for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol is discussed.
Keywords: Copper, nanoparticles, sodium polyacrylate, catalyst, 4-nitrophenol.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34381061 A Numerical Model Simulation for an Updraft Gasifier Using High Temperature Steam
Authors: T. M. Ismail, M. Abd El-Salam
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A mathematical model study was carried out to investigate gasification of biomass fuels using high temperature air and steam as a gasifying agent using high-temperature air up to 1000°C. In this study, a 2D computational fluid dynamics model was developed to study the gasification process in an updraft gasifier, considering drying, pyrolysis, combustion, and gasification reactions. The gas and solid phases were resolved using a Euler−Euler multiphase approach, with exchange terms for the momentum, mass, and energy. The standard k−ε turbulence model was used in the gas phase, and the particle phase was modeled using the kinetic theory of granular flow. The results show that the present model giving a promise way in its capability and sensitivity for the parameter affects that influence the gasification process.
Keywords: Computational fluid dynamics, gasification, biomass fuel, fixed bed gasifier
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 28131060 Topical Delivery of Thymidine Dinucleotide to Induce p53 Generation in the Skin by Elastic Liposome
Authors: Yi-Ping Fang, Yi-Ting Wong
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Transcription factor p53 has a powerful tumor suppressing function that is associated with many cancers. However, p53 of the molecular weight was higher make the limitation across to skin or cell membrane. Thymidine dinucleotide (pTT), an oligonucleotide, can activate the p53 transcription factor. pTT is a hydrophilic and negative charge oligonucleotide, which delivery in to cell membrane need an appropriate carrier. The aim of this study was to improve the bioavailability of the nucleotide fragment, thymidine dinucleotide (pTT), using elasic liposome carriers to deliver the drug into the skin. The study demonstrate that dioleoylphosphocholine (DOPC) incorporated with sodium cholate at molar ratio 1:1 can archived the particle size about 220 nm. This elastic liposome could penetration through skin from stratum corneum to whole epidermis by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Moreover, we observed the the slight increase in generation of p53 by western blot.Keywords: Elastic liposome, Tymidine dinucleotide, p53, Topical delivery
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18251059 Kinematic Analysis of a Novel Complex DoF Parallel Manipulator
Authors: M.A. Hosseini, P. Ebrahimi Naghani
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In this research work, a novel parallel manipulator with high positioning and orienting rate is introduced. This mechanism has two rotational and one translational degree of freedom. Kinematics and Jacobian analysis are investigated. Moreover, workspace analysis and optimization has been performed by using genetic algorithm toolbox in Matlab software. Because of decreasing moving elements, it is expected much more better dynamic performance with respect to other counterpart mechanisms with the same degrees of freedom. In addition, using couple of cylindrical and revolute joints increased mechanism ability to have more extended workspace.Keywords: Kinematics, Workspace, 3-CRS/PU, Parallel robot
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18601058 Evolutionary Design of Polynomial Controller
Authors: R. Matousek, S. Lang, P. Minar, P. Pivonka
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In the control theory one attempts to find a controller that provides the best possible performance with respect to some given measures of performance. There are many sorts of controllers e.g. a typical PID controller, LQR controller, Fuzzy controller etc. In the paper will be introduced polynomial controller with novel tuning method which is based on the special pole placement encoding scheme and optimization by Genetic Algorithms (GA). The examples will show the performance of the novel designed polynomial controller with comparison to common PID controller.Keywords: Evolutionary design, Genetic algorithms, PID controller, Pole placement, Polynomial controller
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21491057 Comparison between Separable and Irreducible Goppa Code in McEliece Cryptosystem
Authors: Thuraya M. Qaradaghi, Newroz N. Abdulrazaq
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The McEliece cryptosystem is an asymmetric type of cryptography based on error correction code. The classical McEliece used irreducible binary Goppa code which considered unbreakable until now especially with parameter [1024, 524, and 101], but it is suffering from large public key matrix which leads to be difficult to be used practically. In this work Irreducible and Separable Goppa codes have been introduced. The Irreducible and Separable Goppa codes used are with flexible parameters and dynamic error vectors. A Comparison between Separable and Irreducible Goppa code in McEliece Cryptosystem has been done. For encryption stage, to get better result for comparison, two types of testing have been chosen; in the first one the random message is constant while the parameters of Goppa code have been changed. But for the second test, the parameters of Goppa code are constant (m=8 and t=10) while the random message have been changed. The results show that the time needed to calculate parity check matrix in separable are higher than the one for irreducible McEliece cryptosystem, which is considered expected results due to calculate extra parity check matrix in decryption process for g2(z) in separable type, and the time needed to execute error locator in decryption stage in separable type is better than the time needed to calculate it in irreducible type. The proposed implementation has been done by Visual studio C#.Keywords: McEliece cryptosystem, Goppa code, separable, irreducible.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22021056 Artificial Intelligence-Based Chest X-Ray Test of COVID-19 Patients
Authors: Dhurgham Al-Karawi, Nisreen Polus, Shakir Al-Zaidi, Sabah Jassim
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The management of COVID-19 patients based on chest imaging is emerging as an essential tool for evaluating the spread of the pandemic which has gripped the global community. It has already been used to monitor the situation of COVID-19 patients who have issues in respiratory status. There has been increase to use chest imaging for medical triage of patients who are showing moderate-severe clinical COVID-19 features, this is due to the fast dispersal of the pandemic to all continents and communities. This article demonstrates the development of machine learning techniques for the test of COVID-19 patients using Chest X-Ray (CXR) images in nearly real-time, to distinguish the COVID-19 infection with a significantly high level of accuracy. The testing performance has covered a combination of different datasets of CXR images of positive COVID-19 patients, patients with viral and bacterial infections, also, people with a clear chest. The proposed AI scheme successfully distinguishes CXR scans of COVID-19 infected patients from CXR scans of viral and bacterial based pneumonia as well as normal cases with an average accuracy of 94.43%, sensitivity 95%, and specificity 93.86%. Predicted decisions would be supported by visual evidence to help clinicians speed up the initial assessment process of new suspected cases, especially in a resource-constrained environment.
Keywords: COVID-19, chest x-ray scan, artificial intelligence, texture analysis, local binary pattern transform, Gabor filter.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6591055 Newtonian Mechanics Descriptions for General Relativity Experimental Tests, Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Authors: Jing-Gang Xie
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As the continuation to the previous studies of gravitational frequency shift, gravitational time dilation, gravitational light bending, gravitational waves, dark matter, and dark energy are explained in the context of Newtonian mechanics. The photon is treated as the particle with mass of hν/C2 under the gravitational field of much larger mass of M. Hence the quantum mechanics theory could be applied to gravitational field on cosmology scale. The obtained results are the same as those obtained by general relativity considering weak gravitational field approximation; however, the results are different when the gravitational field is substantially strong.
Keywords: Gravitational time dilation, gravitational light bending, gravitational waves, dark matter, dark energy, General Relativity, gravitational frequency shift.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10391054 Surgery Scheduling Using Simulation with Arena
Authors: J. A. López, C.I. López, J.E. Olguín, C. Camargo, J. M. López
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The institutions seek to improve their performance and quality of service, so that their patients are satisfied. This research project aims, conduct a time study program in the area of gynecological surgery, to determine the current level of capacity and optimize the programming time in order to adequately respond to demand. The system is analyzed by waiting lines and uses the simulation using ARENA to evaluate proposals for improvement and optimization programming time each of the surgeries.
Keywords: Time study, waiting lines, reducing time, simulation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27391053 Hydrothermal Behavior of G-S Magnetically Stabilized Beds Consisting of Magnetic and Non-Magnetic Admixtures
Authors: Z. Al-Qodah, M. Al-Busoul, A. Khraewish
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The hydrothermal behavior of a bed consisting of magnetic and shale oil particle admixtures under the effect of a transverse magnetic field is investigated. The phase diagram, bed void fraction are studied under wide range of the operating conditions i.e., gas velocity, magnetic field intensity and fraction of the magnetic particles. It is found that the range of the stabilized regime is reduced as the magnetic fraction decreases. In addition, the bed voidage at the onset of fluidization decreases as the magnetic fraction decreases. On the other hand, Nusselt number and consequently the heat transfer coefficient is found to increase as the magnetic fraction decreases. An empirical equation is investigated to relate the effect of the gas velocity, magnetic field intensity and fraction of the magnetic particles on the heat transfer behavior in the bed.Keywords: Magnetic stabilization; Magnetic stabilized fluidizedbeds; Gas-fluidized beds.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13431052 Fused Structure and Texture (FST) Features for Improved Pedestrian Detection
Authors: Hussin K. Ragb, Vijayan K. Asari
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In this paper, we present a pedestrian detection descriptor called Fused Structure and Texture (FST) features based on the combination of the local phase information with the texture features. Since the phase of the signal conveys more structural information than the magnitude, the phase congruency concept is used to capture the structural features. On the other hand, the Center-Symmetric Local Binary Pattern (CSLBP) approach is used to capture the texture information of the image. The dimension less quantity of the phase congruency and the robustness of the CSLBP operator on the flat images, as well as the blur and illumination changes, lead the proposed descriptor to be more robust and less sensitive to the light variations. The proposed descriptor can be formed by extracting the phase congruency and the CSLBP values of each pixel of the image with respect to its neighborhood. The histogram of the oriented phase and the histogram of the CSLBP values for the local regions in the image are computed and concatenated to construct the FST descriptor. Several experiments were conducted on INRIA and the low resolution DaimlerChrysler datasets to evaluate the detection performance of the pedestrian detection system that is based on the FST descriptor. A linear Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used to train the pedestrian classifier. These experiments showed that the proposed FST descriptor has better detection performance over a set of state of the art feature extraction methodologies.Keywords: Pedestrian detection, phase congruency, local phase, LBP features, CSLBP features, FST descriptor.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14811051 The Link between Ergonomics and Occupational Diseases
Authors: Kateřina Sekulová, Michal Šimon
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Ergonomics is a useful tool for creating a healthy and safe workplace. The long-term action of harmful conditions on the health of workers is the emergence of occupational disease, and the firm-s increased compensation costs associated with these diseases, but is also the loss of time needed for educating and including new workers in the work process. The article deals with the link of ergonomics to occupational diseases, factors which influence these diseases. In the conclusion, a model is described to help reduce the risk of selected occupational diseases using ergonomic principles and knowledge.Keywords: ergonomics, occupational diseases, optimization, workplace health
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19821050 The Relation between the Organizational Trust Level and Organizational Justice Perceptions of Staff in Konya Municipality: A Theoretical and Empirical Study
Authors: Handan Ertaş
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The aim of the study is to determine the relationship between organizational trust level and organizational justice of Municipality officials. Correlational method has been used via descriptive survey model and Organizational Justice Perception Scale, Organizational Trust Inventory and Interpersonal Trust Scale have been applied to 353 participants who work in Konya Metropolitan Municipality and central district municipalities in the study. Frequency as statistical method, Independent Samples t test for binary groups, One Way-ANOVA analyses for multi-groups and Pearson Correlation analysis have been used to determine the relation in the data analysis process.It has been determined in the outcomes of the study that participants have high level of organizational trust, “Interpersonal Trust” is in the first place and there is a significant difference in the favor of male officials in terms of Trust on the Organization Itself and Interpersonal Trust. It has also been understood that officials in district municipalities have higher perception level in all dimensions, there is a significant difference in Trust on the Organization sub-dimension and work status is an important factor on organizational trust perception. Moreover, the study has shown that organizational justice implementations are important in raising trust of official on the organization, administrator and colleagues, and there is a parallel relation between Organizational Trust components and Organizational Trust dimensions.
Keywords: Konya, Organizational Justice, Organizational.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18611049 Synthesis of Vic-Dioxime Palladium (II) Complex: Precursor for Deposition on SBA-15 in ScCO2
Authors: Asım Egitmen, Aysen Demir, Burcu Darendeli, Fatma Ulusal, Bilgehan Güzel
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Synthesizing supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) soluble precursors would be helpful for many processes of material syntheses based on scCO2. Ligand (amphi-(1Z, 2Z)-N-(2-fluoro-3-(trifluoromethyl) phenyl)-N'-hydroxy-2-(hydroxyimino) were synthesized from chloro glyoxime and flourus aniline and Pd(II) complex (precursor) prepared. For scCO2 deposition method, organometallic precursor was dissolved in scCO2 and impregnated onto the SBA-15 at 90 °C and 3000 psi. Then the organometallic precursor was reduced with H2 in the CO2 mixture (150 psi H2 + 2850 psi CO2). Pd deposited support material was characterized by ICP-OES, XRD, FE-SEM, TEM and EDX analyses. The Pd loading of the prepared catalyst, measured by ICP-OES showed a value of about 1.64% mol/g Pd of catalyst. Average particle size was found 5.3 nm. The catalytic activity of prepared catalyst was investigated over Suzuki-Miyaura C-C coupling reaction in different solvent with K2CO3 at 50 oC. The conversion ratio was determined by gas chromatography.
Keywords: Nanoparticle, nanotube, oximes, precursor, supercritical CO2.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11801048 Dissolution Leaching Kinetics of Ulexite in Disodium Hydrogen Phosphate Solutions
Authors: Betül Özgenç Kaya, Soner Kuslu, Sabri Çolak, Turan Çalban
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Ulexite (Na2O.2CaO.5B2O3.16H2O) is boron mineral that is found in large quantities in the Turkey and world. In this study, the dissolution of this mineral in the disodium hydrogen phosphate solutions has been studied. Temperature, concentration, stirring speed, solid liquid ratio and particle size were selected as parameters. The experimental results were successfully correlated by linear regression using Statistica program. Dissolution curves were evaluated shrinking core models for solid-fluid systems. It was observed that increase in the reaction temperature and decrease in the solid/liquid ratio causes an increase the dissolution rate of ulexite. The activation energy was found to be 63.4 kJ/mol. The leaching of ulexite was controlled by chemical reaction.
Keywords: Disodium hydrogen phosphate, Leaching kinetics, Ulexite.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21351047 Addressing Scalability Issues of Named Entity Recognition Using Multi-Class Support Vector Machines
Authors: Mona Soliman Habib
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This paper explores the scalability issues associated with solving the Named Entity Recognition (NER) problem using Support Vector Machines (SVM) and high-dimensional features. The performance results of a set of experiments conducted using binary and multi-class SVM with increasing training data sizes are examined. The NER domain chosen for these experiments is the biomedical publications domain, especially selected due to its importance and inherent challenges. A simple machine learning approach is used that eliminates prior language knowledge such as part-of-speech or noun phrase tagging thereby allowing for its applicability across languages. No domain-specific knowledge is included. The accuracy measures achieved are comparable to those obtained using more complex approaches, which constitutes a motivation to investigate ways to improve the scalability of multiclass SVM in order to make the solution more practical and useable. Improving training time of multi-class SVM would make support vector machines a more viable and practical machine learning solution for real-world problems with large datasets. An initial prototype results in great improvement of the training time at the expense of memory requirements.Keywords: Named entity recognition, support vector machines, language independence, bioinformatics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16821046 Experimental Study of Flow Effects of Solid Particles’ Size in Porous Media
Authors: S. Akridiss, E. El Tabach, K. Chetehouna, N. Gascoin, M. S. Kadiri
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Transpiration cooling combined to regenerative cooling is a technique that could be used to cool the porous walls of the future ramjet combustion chambers; it consists of using fuel that will flow through the pores of the porous material consisting of the chamber walls, as coolant. However, at high temperature, the fuel is pyrolysed and generates solid coke particles inside the porous materials. This phenomenon can lead to a significant decrease of the material permeability and can affect the efficiency of the cooling system. In order to better understand this phenomenon, an experimental laboratory study was undertaken to determine the transport and deposition of particles in a sintered porous material subjected to steady state flow. The test bench composed of a high-pressure autoclave is used to study the transport of different particle size (35
Keywords: Experimental study, permeability, porous material, suspended particles.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8221045 Design and Bandwidth Allocation of Embedded ATM Networks using Genetic Algorithm
Authors: H. El-Madbouly
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In this paper, genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed for the design of an optimization algorithm to achieve the bandwidth allocation of ATM network. In Broadband ISDN, the ATM is a highbandwidth; fast packet switching and multiplexing technique. Using ATM it can be flexibly reconfigure the network and reassign the bandwidth to meet the requirements of all types of services. By dynamically routing the traffic and adjusting the bandwidth assignment, the average packet delay of the whole network can be reduced to a minimum. M/M/1 model can be used to analyze the performance.Keywords: Bandwidth allocation, Genetic algorithm, ATMNetwork, packet delay.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13651044 Leaching Behaviour of a Low-grade South African Nickel Laterite
Authors: Catherine K. Thubakgale, Richard K.K. Mbaya, Kaby Kabongo
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The morphology, mineralogical and chemical composition of a low-grade nickel ore from Mpumalanga, South Africa, were studied by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF), respectively. The ore was subjected to atmospheric agitation leaching using sulphuric acid to investigate the effects of acid concentration, leaching temperature, leaching time and particle size on extraction of nickel and cobalt. Analyses results indicated the ore to be a saprolitic nickel laterite belonging to the serpentine group of minerals. Sulphuric acid was found to be able to extract nickel from the ore. Increased acid concentration and temperature only produced low amounts of nickel but improved cobalt extraction. As high as 77.44% Ni was achieved when leaching a -106+75μm fraction with 4.0M acid concentration at 25oC. The kinetics of nickel leaching from the saprolitic ore were studied and the activation energy was determined to be 18.16kJ/mol. This indicated that nickel leaching reaction was diffusion controlled.Keywords: Laterite, sulphuric acid, atmospheric leaching, nickel.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 32961043 Study of Anti-Symmetric Flexural Mode Propagation along Wedge Tip with a Crack
Authors: Manikanta Prasad Banda, Che Hua Yang
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Anti-symmetric wave propagation along the particle motion of the wedge waves is known as anti-symmetric flexural (ASF) modes which travel along the wedge tips of the mid-plane apex with a small truncation. This paper investigates the characteristics of the ASF modes propagation with the wedge tip crack. The simulation and experimental results obtained by a three-dimensional (3-D) finite element model explained the contact acoustic non-linear (CAN) behavior in explicit dynamics in ABAQUS and the ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) method is used for defect detection. The effect of various parameters on its high and low-level conversion modes are known for complex reflections and transmissions involved with direct reflections and transmissions. The results are used to predict the location of crack through complex transmission and reflection coefficients.
Keywords: ASF mode, crack detection, finite elements method, laser ultrasound technique, wedge waves.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5051042 Improvement of Chemical Demulsifier Performance Using Silica Nanoparticles
Authors: G. E. Gandomkar, E. Bekhradinassab, S. Sabbaghi, M. M. Zerafat
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The reduction of water content in crude oil emulsions reduces pipeline corrosion potential and increases the productivity. Chemical emulsification of crude oil emulsions is one of the methods available to reduce the water content. Presence of demulsifier causes the film layer between the crude oil emulsion and water droplets to become unstable leading to the acceleration of water coalescence. This research has been performed to study the improvement performance of a chemical demulsifier by silica nanoparticles. The silica nano-particles have been synthesized by sol-gel technique and precipitation using poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) and poly ethylene glycol (PEG) as surfactants and then nano-particles are added to the demulsifier. The silica nanoparticles were characterized by Particle Size Analyzer (PSA) and SEM. Upon the addition of nanoparticles, bottle tests have been carried out to separate and measure the water content. The results show that silica nano-particles increase the demulsifier efficiency by about 40%.Keywords: Demulsifier, dehydration, silicon dioxide, nanoparticle.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17861041 Study of Influencing Factors on the Flowability of Jute Nonwoven Reinforced Sheet Molding Compound
Authors: Miriam I. Lautenschläger, Max H. Scheiwe, Kay A. Weidenmann, Frank Henning, Peter Elsner
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Due to increasing environmental awareness jute fibers are more often used in fiber reinforced composites. In the Sheet Molding Compound (SMC) process, the mold cavity is filled via material flow allowing more complex component design. But, the difficulty of using jute fibers in this process is the decreased capacity of fiber movement in the mold. A comparative flow study with jute nonwoven reinforced SMC was conducted examining the influence of the fiber volume content, the grammage of the jute nonwoven textile and a mechanical modification of the nonwoven textile on the flowability. The nonwoven textile reinforcement was selected to support homogeneous fiber distribution. Trials were performed using two SMC paste formulations differing only in filler type. Platy-shaped kaolin with a mean particle size of 0.8 μm and ashlar calcium carbonate with a mean particle size of 2.7 μm were selected as fillers. Ensuring comparability of the two SMC paste formulations the filler content was determined to reach equal initial viscosity for both systems. The calcium carbonate filled paste was set as reference. The flow study was conducted using a jute nonwoven textile with 300 g/m² as reference. The manufactured SMC sheets were stacked and centrally placed in a square mold. The mold coverage was varied between 25 and 90% keeping the weight of the stack for comparison constant. Comparing the influence of the two fillers kaolin yielded better results regarding a homogeneous fiber distribution. A mold coverage of about 68% was already sufficient to homogeneously fill the mold cavity whereas for calcium carbonate filled system about 79% mold coverage was necessary. The flow study revealed a strong influence of the fiber volume content on the flowability. A fiber volume content of 12 vol.-% and 25 vol.-% were compared for both SMC formulations. The lower fiber volume content strongly supported fiber transport whereas 25 vol.-% showed insignificant influence. The results indicate a limiting fiber volume content for the flowability. The influence of the nonwoven textile grammage was determined using nonwoven jute material with 500 g/m² and a fiber volume content of 20 vol.-%. The 500 g/m² reinforcement material showed inferior results with regard to fiber movement. A mold coverage of about 90 % was required to prevent the destruction of the nonwoven structure. Below this mold coverage the 500 g/m² nonwoven material was ripped and torn apart. Low mold coverages led to damage of the textile reinforcement. Due to the ripped nonwoven structure the textile was modified with cuts in order to facilitate fiber movement in the mold. Parallel cuts of about 20 mm length and 20 mm distance to each other were applied to the textile and stacked with varying orientations prior to molding. Stacks with unidirectional orientated cuts over stacks with cuts in various directions e.g. (0°, 45°, 90°, -45°) were investigated. The mechanical modification supported tearing of the textile without achieving benefit for the flowability.Keywords: Filler, flowability, jute fiber, nonwoven, sheet molding compound.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15571040 Utilization of Glycerol Derived from Jatropha-s Biodiesel Production as a Cement Grinding Aid
Authors: O. Farobie, S S. Achmadi, L K. Darusman
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Biodiesel production results in glycerol production as the main by-product in biodiesel industry.One of the utilizations of glycerol obtained from biodiesel production is as a cement grinding aid (CGA). Results showed that crude glycerol content was 40.19% whereas pure glycerol content was 82.15%. BSS value of the cement with CGA supplementation was higher than that of nonsupplemented cement (blank) indicating that CGA-supplemented cement had higher fineness than the non-supplemented one. It was also found that pure glycerol 95% and TEA 5% at 80ºC was the optimum CGA used to result in finest cement with BSS value of 4.836 cm2/g. Residue test showed that the smallest percent residue value (0.11%) was obtained in cement with supplementation of pure glycerol 95% and TEA 5%. Results of residue test confirmed those of BSS test showing that cement with supplementation of pure glycerol 95% and TEA 5% had the finest particle size.Keywords: biodiesel, cement grinding aid, glycerol, Jatropha curcas
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34631039 Dissolution Leaching Kinetics of Ulexite in Sodium Dihydrogen Phosphate Solutions
Authors: Emine Teke, Soner Kuşlu, Sabri Çolak, Turan Çalban
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The aim of the present study was to investigate the dissolution kinetics of ulexite in sodium dihydrogen phosphate in a mechanical agitation system and also to declare an alternative reactant to produce the boric acid. Reaction temperature, concentration of sodium dihydrogen phosphate, stirring speed, solid-liquid ratio, and ulexite particle size were selected as parameters. The experimental results were successfully correlated by using linear regression and a statistical program. Dissolution curves were evaluated in order to test the shrinking core models for solid-fluid systems. It was observed that increase in the reaction temperature and decrease in the solid/liquid ratio causes an increase in the dissolution rate of ulexite. The activation energy was found to be 36.4 kJ/mol. The leaching of ulexite was controlled by diffusion through the ash (or product) layer.Keywords: Sodium dihydrogen phosphate, leaching kinetics, ulexite.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15781038 Analysis of Social Network Using Clever Ant Colony Metaphor
Authors: Mohammad Al-Fayoumi, Soumya Banerjee, Jr., P. K. Mahanti
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A social network is a set of people or organization or other social entities connected by some form of relationships. Analysis of social network broadly elaborates visual and mathematical representation of that relationship. Web can also be considered as a social network. This paper presents an innovative approach to analyze a social network using a variant of existing ant colony optimization algorithm called as Clever Ant Colony Metaphor. Experiments are performed and interesting findings and observations have been inferred based on the proposed model.
Keywords: Social Network, Ant Colony, Maximum Clique, Sub graph, Clever Ant colony.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19711037 Synthesis and Characterization of PEG-Silane Functionalized Iron Oxide Nanoparticle as MRI T2 Contrast Agent
Authors: Mu-Jen Young, Cheng-Yen Wu, Wen-Yuan Hsieh
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Iron oxide nanoparticle was synthesized by reactive-precipitation method followed by high speed centrifuge and phase transfer in order to stabilized nanoparticles in the solvent. Particle size of SPIO was 8.2 nm by SEM, and the hydraulic radius was 17.5 nm by dynamic light scattering method. Coercivity and saturated magnetism were determined by VSM (vibrating sample magnetometer), coercivity of nanoparticle was lower than 10 Hc, and the saturated magnetism was higher than 65 emu/g. Stabilized SPIO was then transferred to aqueous phase by reacted with excess amount of poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) silane. After filtration and dialysis, the SPIO T2 contrast agent was ready to use. The hydraulic radius of final product was about 70~100 nm, the relaxation rates R2 (1/T2) measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was larger than 200(sec-1).
Keywords: Contrast Agent, Iron Oxide Nanoparticle, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Nanoparticle Stabilization
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 31991036 Preparation of Metallic Copper Nanoparticles by Reduction of Copper Ions in Aqueous Solution and Their Metal-Metal Bonding Properties
Authors: Y. Kobayashi, T. Shirochi, Y. Yasuda, T. Morita
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This paper describes a method for preparing metallic Cu nanoparticles in aqueous solution, and a metal-metal bonding technique using the Cu particles.Preparation of the Cu particle colloid solution was performed in water at room temperature in air using a copper source (0.01 M Cu(NO3)2), a reducing reagent (0.2 - 1.0 M hydrazine), and stabilizers (0.5×10-3 M citric acid and 5.0×10-3 M cetyltrimethylammonium bromide). The metallic Cu nanoparticles with sizes of ca. 60nm were prepared at all the hydrazine concentrations examined. A stage and a plate of metallic Cu were successfully bonded under annealing at 400oC and pressurizing at 1.2 MPa for 5min in H2 gas with help of the metallic Cu particles. A shear strength required for separating the bonded Cu substrates reached the maximum value at a hydrazine concentration of 0.8M, and it decreased beyond the concentration. Consequently, the largest shear strength of 22.9 MPa was achieved at the 0.8 M hydrazine concentration.
Keywords: Aqueous solution, Bonding, Colloid, Copper, Nanoparticle.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 56461035 Robot Cell Planning
Authors: Allan Tubaileh, Ibrahim Hammad, Loay Al Kafafi
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A new approach to determine the machine layout in flexible manufacturing cell, and to find the feasible robot configuration of the robot to achieve minimum cycle time is presented in this paper. The location of the input/output location and the optimal robot configuration is obtained for all sequences of work tasks of the robot within a specified period of time. A more realistic approach has been presented to model the problem using the robot joint space. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem and solved using Sequential Quadratic Programming algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20311034 Financing - Scheduling Optimization for Construction Projects by using Genetic Algorithms
Authors: Hesham Abdel-Khalek, Sherif M. Hafez, Abdel-Hamid M. el-Lakany, Yasser Abuel-Magd
Abstract:
Investment in a constructed facility represents a cost in the short term that returns benefits only over the long term use of the facility. Thus, the costs occur earlier than the benefits, and the owners of facilities must obtain the capital resources to finance the costs of construction. A project cannot proceed without an adequate financing, and the cost of providing an adequate financing can be quite large. For these reasons, the attention to the project finance is an important aspect of project management. Finance is also a concern to the other organizations involved in a project such as the general contractor and material suppliers. Unless an owner immediately and completely covers the costs incurred by each participant, these organizations face financing problems of their own. At a more general level, the project finance is the only one aspect of the general problem of corporate finance. If numerous projects are considered and financed together, then the net cash flow requirements constitute the corporate financing problem for capital investment. Whether project finance is performed at the project or at the corporate level does not alter the basic financing problem .In this paper, we will first consider facility financing from the owner's perspective, with due consideration for its interaction with other organizations involved in a project. Later, we discuss the problems of construction financing which are crucial to the profitability and solvency of construction contractors. The objective of this paper is to present the steps utilized to determine the best combination of minimum project financing. The proposed model considers financing; schedule and maximum net area .The proposed model is called Project Financing and Schedule Integration using Genetic Algorithms "PFSIGA". This model intended to determine more steps (maximum net area) for any project with a subproject. An illustrative example will demonstrate the feature of this technique. The model verification and testing are put into consideration.Keywords: Project Management, Large-scale ConstructionProjects, Cash flow, Interest, Investment, Loan, Optimization, Scheduling, Financing and Genetic Algorithms.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22081033 Physical Properties of Nine Nigerian Staple Food Flours Related to Bulk Handling and Processing
Authors: Ogunsina Babatunde, Aregbesola Omotayo, Adebayo Adewale, Odunlami Johnson
Abstract:
The physical properties of nine Nigerian staple food flours related to bulk handling and processing were investigated following standard procedures. The results showed that the moisture content, bulk density, angle of repose, water absorption capacity, swelling index, dispersability, pH and wettability of the flours ranged from 9.95 to 11.98%, 0.44 to 0.66 g/cm3, 31.43 to 39.65o, 198.3 to 291.7 g of water/100 g of sample, 5.53 to 7.63, 60.3 to 73.8%, 4.43 to 6.70, and 11 to 150 s. The particle size analysis of the flour samples indicated significant differences (p<0.05). The least gelation concentration of the flour samples ranged from 6 to 14%. The colour of the flours fell between light and saturated, with the exception of cassava, millet and maize flours which appear dark and dull. The properties of food flours depend largely on the inherent property of the food material and may influence their functional behaviour as food materials.
Keywords: Properties, staple food flours, Nigeria, cereals, tuber, root crops, fruits.
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