Search results for: Photovoltaic System and Simulation Results.

Authors: Ali A. Sayadi, Thomas R. Neitzert, G. Charles Clifton

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Lightweight concrete is being used in the construction industry as a building material in its own right. Ultra-lightweight concrete can be applied as a filler and support material for the manufacturing of composite building materials. This paper is about the development of a stable and reproducible ultra-lightweight concrete with the inclusion of poly-lactic acid (PLA) beads and assessing the feasibility of PLA as a lightweight aggregate that will deliver advantages such as a more eco-friendly concrete and a non-petroleum polymer aggregate. In total, sixty-three samples were prepared and the effectiveness of mineral admixture, curing conditions, water-cement ratio, PLA ratio, EPS ratio and perlite ratio on compressive strength of perlite concrete are studied. The results show that PLA particles are sensitive to alkali environment of cement paste and considerably shrank and lost their strength. A higher compressive strength and a lower density was observed when expanded polystyrene (EPS) particles replaced PLA beads. In addition, a set of equations is proposed to estimate the water-cement ratio, cement content and compressive strength of perlite concrete.

Keywords: Perlite concrete, poly-lactic acid, expanded polystyrene, concrete.

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Authors: Sellappan Narayanagounder, Karuppusami Gurusami

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The traditional Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) uses Risk Priority Number (RPN) to evaluate the risk level of a component or process. The RPN index is determined by calculating the product of severity, occurrence and detection indexes. The most critically debated disadvantage of this approach is that various sets of these three indexes may produce an identical value of RPN. This research paper seeks to address the drawbacks in traditional FMEA and to propose a new approach to overcome these shortcomings. The Risk Priority Code (RPC) is used to prioritize failure modes, when two or more failure modes have the same RPN. A new method is proposed to prioritize failure modes, when there is a disagreement in ranking scale for severity, occurrence and detection. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is used to compare means of RPN values. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) statistical analysis package is used to analyze the data. The results presented are based on two case studies. It is found that the proposed new methodology/approach resolves the limitations of traditional FMEA approach.

Keywords: Failure mode and effects analysis, Risk priority code, Critical failure mode, Analysis of variance.

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Authors: Lina Paola Orozco-Marín, Yuliet Montoya, John Bustamante

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Ischemic events can culminate in acute myocardial infarction with irreversible cardiac lesions that cannot be restored due to the limited regenerative capacity of the heart. Tissue engineering proposes therapeutic alternatives by using biomaterials to resemble the native extracellular medium combined with healthy and functional cells. This research focused on developing a natural thermosensitive hydrogel, its physical-chemical characterization and in vitro biocompatibility determination. Hydrogels’ morphological characterization was carried out through scanning electron microscopy and its chemical characterization by employing Infrared Spectroscopy technic. In addition, the biocompatibility was determined using fetal human ventricular cardiomyocytes cell line RL-14 and the MTT cytotoxicity test according to the ISO 10993-5 standard. Four biocompatible and thermosensitive hydrogels were obtained with a three-dimensional internal structure and two gelation times. The results show the potential of the hydrogel to increase the cell survival rate to the cardiac cell therapies under investigation and lay the foundations to continue with its characterization and biological evaluation both in vitro and in vivo models.

Keywords: cardiac cell therapy, cardiac ischemia, natural polymers, thermosensitive hydrogel

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Authors: Yasaswi Palagummi, Sareh Rowlands

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Generalised Zero-Shot Learning, often known as GZSL, is an advanced variant of zero-shot learning in which the samples in the unseen category may be either seen or unseen. GZSL methods typically have a bias towards the seen classes because they learn a model to perform recognition for both the seen and unseen classes using data samples from the seen classes. This frequently leads to the misclassification of data from the unseen classes into the seen classes, making the task of GZSL more challenging. In this work, we propose an approach leveraging the Shifted Window based Self-Attention in the Swin Transformer (Swin-GZSL) to work in the inductive GZSL problem setting. We run experiments on three popular benchmark datasets: CUB, SUN, and AWA2, which are specifically used for ZSL and its other variants. The results show that our model based on Swin Transformer has achieved state-of-the-art harmonic mean for two datasets - AWA2 and SUN and near-state-of-the-art for the other dataset - CUB. More importantly, this technique has a linear computational complexity, which reduces training time significantly. We have also observed less bias than most of the existing GZSL models.

Keywords: Generalised Zero-shot Learning, Inductive Learning, Shifted-Window Attention, Swin Transformer, Vision Transformer.

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Authors: Müzeyyen Balçikanli, Erdoğan Özbay, Hakan Tacettin Türker, Okan Karahan, Cengiz Duran Atiş

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In this research, effect of curing time (TC), curing temperature (CT), sodium concentration (SC) and silicate modules (SM) on the compressive strength, chloride ion permeability, and water absorption capacity of alkali activated slag (AAS) concretes were investigated. For maximization of compressive strength while for minimization of chloride ion permeability and water absorption capacity of AAS concretes, best possible combination of CT, CTime, SC and SM were determined. An experimental program was conducted by using the central composite design method. Alkali solution-slag ratio was kept constant at 0.53 in all mixture. The effects of the independent parameters were characterized and analyzed by using statistically significant quadratic regression models on the measured properties (dependent parameters). The proposed regression models are valid for AAS concretes with the SC from 0.1% to 7.5%, SM from 0.4 to 3.2, CT from 20 °C to 94 °C and TC from 1.2 hours to 25 hours. The results of test and analysis indicate that the most effective parameter for the compressive strength, chloride ion permeability and water absorption capacity is the sodium concentration.

Keywords: Alkali activation, slag, rapid chloride permeability, water absorption capacity.

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Authors: Maohai Li, Bingrong Hong, Zesu Cai, Ronghua Luo

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This paper presents the novel Rao-Blackwellised particle filter (RBPF) for mobile robot simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) using monocular vision. The particle filter is combined with unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to extending the path posterior by sampling new poses that integrate the current observation which drastically reduces the uncertainty about the robot pose. The landmark position estimation and update is also implemented through UKF. Furthermore, the number of resampling steps is determined adaptively, which seriously reduces the particle depletion problem, and introducing the evolution strategies (ES) for avoiding particle impoverishment. The 3D natural point landmarks are structured with matching Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) feature pairs. The matching for multi-dimension SIFT features is implemented with a KD-Tree in the time cost of O(log2 N). Experiment results on real robot in our indoor environment show the advantages of our methods over previous approaches.

Keywords: Mobile robot, simultaneous localization and mapping, Rao-Blackwellised particle filter, evolution strategies, scale invariant feature transform.

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Authors: Mehdi Seifollahi, Ashkan Forootan, Sajjad Bahrami Reyhan

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Due to the complexity of olefinic plants, various environmental pollutants exist such as NO_x, CO₂, Tar Water, and most importantly Spent Caustic. In this paper, instead of investigating ways of treating this pollutant, we evaluated the production in relation to plant’s variable items. We primarily discussed the factors affecting the quality of the output spent caustic such as impurities in the feed of olefin plant, the amount of injected dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) in furnaces, variation in feed composition, differences among gas temperatures and the concentration of caustic solution at the bottom of the tower. The results of the laboratory proved that in the formation of Red Oil, 1,3butadiene and acetaldehyde followed free radical and aldol condensation mechanism respectively. By increasing the injection rate of DMDS, Mercaptide amount increases in the effluent. In addition, pyrolysis gasoline accumulation is directly related to caustic concentration in the tower. Increasing naphtenes in the liquid feed augments the amount of 1,3butadiene, as one of the sources of Red Oil formation. By increasing the oxygenated compound in the feed, the rate of acetaldehyde formation, as the main source of Red Oil formation, increases.

Keywords: Olefin, spent caustic, red oil, caustic wash tower.

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Authors: Mohamed M. El-Gendy, Ibrahim A. El-Arabi, Rafik W. Abdel-Missih, Omar A. Kandil

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In the present research, a finite element model is presented to study the geometrical and material nonlinear behavior of reinforced concrete plane frames considering soil-structure interaction. The nonlinear behaviors of concrete and reinforcing steel are considered both in compression and tension up to failure. The model takes account also for the number, diameter, and distribution of rebar along every cross section. Soil behavior is taken into consideration using four different models; namely: linear-, nonlinear Winkler's model, and linear-, nonlinear continuum model. A computer program (NARC) is specially developed in order to perform the analysis. The results achieved by the present model show good agreement with both theoretical and experimental published literature. The nonlinear behavior of a rectangular frame resting on soft soil up to failure using the proposed model is introduced for demonstration.

Keywords: Nonlinear analysis, Geometric nonlinearity, Material nonlinearity, Reinforced concrete, Finite element method, Soilstructure interaction, Winkler's soil model, Continuum soil model

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Authors: Jun Seok Kim, Cheong-Sool Park, Jun-Geol Baek, Sung-Shick Kim

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Control chart pattern recognition is one of the most important tools to identify the process state in statistical process control. The abnormal process state could be classified by the recognition of unnatural patterns that arise from assignable causes. In this study, a wavelet based neural network approach is proposed for the recognition of control chart patterns that have various characteristics. The procedure of proposed control chart pattern recognizer comprises three stages. First, multi-resolution wavelet analysis is used to generate time-shape and time-frequency coefficients that have detail information about the patterns. Second, distance based features are extracted by a bi-directional Kohonen network to make reduced and robust information. Third, a back-propagation network classifier is trained by these features. The accuracy of the proposed method is shown by the performance evaluation with numerical results.

Keywords: Control chart pattern recognition, Multi-resolution wavelet analysis, Bi-directional Kohonen network, Back-propagation network, Feature extraction.

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Authors: Mohammed M. Siddeq, Mohammed H. Rasheed, Omar M. Salih, Marcos A. Rodrigues

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This research proposes a data encoding and decoding method based on the Matrix Minimization algorithm. This algorithm is applied to high-frequency coefficients for compression/encoding. The algorithm starts by converting every three coefficients to a single value; this is accomplished based on three different keys. The decoding/decompression uses a search method called QSS (Quick Sequential Search) Decoding Algorithm presented in this research based on the sequential search to recover the exact coefficients. In the next step, the decoded data are saved in an auxiliary array. The basic idea behind the auxiliary array is to save all possible decoded coefficients; this is because another algorithm, such as conventional sequential search, could retrieve encoded/compressed data independently from the proposed algorithm. The experimental results showed that our proposed decoding algorithm retrieves original data faster than conventional sequential search algorithms.

Keywords: Matrix Minimization Algorithm, Decoding Sequential Search Algorithm, image compression, Discrete Cosine Transform, Discrete Wavelet Transform.

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Authors: T.V. Tran, S. Teramoto, M. Kimura, T. Boonyatee, Le Ba Vinh

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In this paper, two centrifugal model tests (case 1: raft foundation, case 2: 2x2 piled raft foundation) were conducted in order to evaluate the effect of ground subsidence on load sharing among piles and raft and settlement of raft and piled raft foundations. For each case, two conditions consisting of undrained (without groundwater pumping) and drained (with groundwater pumping) conditions were considered. Vertical loads were applied to the models after the foundations were completely consolidated by selfweight at 50g. The results show that load sharing by the piles in piled raft foundation (piled load share) for drained condition decreases faster than that for undrained condition. Settlement of both raft and piled raft foundations for drained condition increases more quickly than that for undrained condition. In addition, the settlement of raft foundation increases more largely than the settlement of piled raft foundation for drained condition.

Keywords: Ground subsidence, Piled raft, Load sharing, Centrifugal model test.

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Authors: Hussein Togun, Tuqa Abdulrazzaq, S. N. Kazi, A. Badarudin, M. K. A. Ariffin

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Heat transfer and laminar air flow over a double backward-facing step numerically studied in this paper. The simulations was performed by using ANSYS ICEM for meshing process and using ANSYS fluent 14 (CFD) for solving. The k-ɛ standard model adopted with Reynolds number varied between 98.5 to 512 and three step height at constant heat flux (q=2000 W/m2). The top of wall and bottom of upstream are insulated with bottom of downstream is heated. The results show increase in Nusselt number with increases of Reynolds number for all cases and the maximum of Nusselt number happens at the first step in compared to the second step. Due to increase of cross section area of downstream to generate sudden expansion then Nusselt number decrease but the profile of Nusselt number keep same trend for all cases where increase after the first and second steps. Recirculation region after the first and second steps are denoted by contour of streamline velocity. The higher augmentation of heat transfer rate observed for case 1 at Reynolds number of 512 and heat flux q=2000 W/m².

Keywords: Laminar flow, Double backward, Separation flow, Recirculation flow.

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Authors: E. A. Tkachenko, E. M. Rogova, V. V. Klimov

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One of the basic issues of development management is connected with performance measurement as a prerequisite for identifying the achievement of development objectives. The aim of our research is to develop an improved model of assessing a company’s development results. The model should take into account the cyclical nature of development and the high degree of uncertainty in dealing with numerous management tasks. Our hypotheses may be formulated as follows: Hypothesis 1. The cycle of a company’s development may be studied from the standpoint of a project cycle. To do that, methods and tools of project analysis are to be used. Hypothesis 2. The problem of the uncertainty when justifying managerial decisions within the framework of a company’s development cycle can be solved through the use of the mathematical apparatus of fuzzy logic. The reasoned justification of the validity of the hypotheses made is given in the suggested article. The fuzzy logic toolkit applies to the case of technology shift within an enterprise. It is proven that some restrictions in performance measurement that are incurred to conventional methods could be eliminated by implementation of the fuzzy logic apparatus in performance measurement models.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, fuzzy sets, performance measurement, project analysis.

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Authors: Jamie L. Stangel

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Increased popularity and visibility of college athletics has contributed to an environment in which institutions—most of which lack self-sufficient athletics department budgets—reallocate monies from the university general fund and seek additional funding sources to keep up with increasing levels of spending on athletics. Given the prevalence of debates on student debt levels, coach salaries, and athlete pay, empirical evidence on whether this spending yields expected return on investment is necessary. This study considered the relationship between the independent variable of winning percentage of the men’s basketball team at a mid-major university, moderated by National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament appearance, and number of applicants, number of enrollments, average SAT score of students, and donor giving to the university general and athletic funds. The results indicate that, other than a small correlation between athletic success and number of applicants, only when NCAA tournament appearance is used as a moderating variable, these purported benefits are not supported, suggesting the need for a reevaluation of athletic department spending and perceptions on tangible and intangible benefits for universities.

Keywords: Athletic success, enrollment, NCAA, private giving.

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Authors: Uma Batra, Seema Kapoor

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Commercial hydroxyapatite (HA) was reinforced by adding 2, 5, and 10 wt % of 28.5%CaO-28.5%P2O5-38%Na2 O- 5%CaF2 based glass and then sintered. Although HA shows good biocompatibility with the human body, its applications are limited to non load-bearing areas and coatings due to its poor mechanical properties. These mechanical properties can be improved substantially with addition of glass ceramics by sintering. In this study, the effects of sintering hydroxyapatite with above specified phosphate glass additions are quantified. Each composition was sintered over a range of temperatures. Scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction were used to characterize the microstructure and phases of the composites. The density, microhardness, and compressive strength were measured using Archimedes Principle, Vickers Microhardness Tester (at 0.98 N), and Instron Universal Testing Machine (cross speed of 0.5 mm/min) respectively. These results were used to indicate which composition provided suitable material for use in hard tissue replacement. Composites containing 10 wt % glass additions formed dense HA/TCP (tricalcium phosphate) composite materials possessing good compressive strength and hardness than HA. In-vitro bioactivity was assessed by evaluating changes in pH and Ca2+ ion concentration of SBF-simulated body fluid on immersion of these composites in it for two weeks.

Keywords: Bioglass, Composite, Hydroxyapatite, Sintering.

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Authors: Vu Thu Trang, Lam Xuan Thanh, Samira Sarter, Tomoko Shimamura, Hiroaki Takeuchi　

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Antimicrobial activities of aminoreductone (AR), a product formed in the initial stage of Maillard reaction, were screened against pathogenic bacteria. A significant growth inhibition of AR against all 7 isolates (Staphylococcus aureus ATCC® 25923™, Salmonella typhimurium ATCC® 14028™, Bacillus cereus ATCC® 13061™, Bacillus subtilis ATCC® 11774™, Escherichia coli ATCC® 25922™, Enterococcus faecalis ATCC® 29212™, Listeria innocua ATCC® 33090™) were observed by the standard disc diffusion methods. The inhibition zone for each isolate by AR (2.5 mg) ranged from 15±0mm to 28.3±0.4mm in diameter. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of AR ranging from 20mM to 26mM was proven in the 7 isolates tested. AR also showed the similar effect of growth inhibition in comparison with antibiotics frequently used for the treatment of infections bacteria, such as amikacin, ciprofloxacin, meropennem and levofloxacin. The results indicated that foods containing AR are valuable sources of bioactive compounds towards pathogenic bacteria.

Keywords: Pathogenic bacteria, aminoreductone, Maillard reaction, antimicrobial activity.

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Authors: Kazeem A. Adebiyi

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Despite many success stories of manufacturing safety, many organizations are still reluctant, perceiving it as cost increasing and time consuming. The clear contributor may be due to the use of lagging indicators rather than leading indicator measures. The study therefore proposes a combinatorial model for determining the best safety strategy. A combination theory and cost benefit analysis was employed to develop a monetary saving / loss function in terms value of preventions and cost of prevention strategy. Documentations, interviews and structured questionnaire were employed to collect information on Before-And-After safety programme records from a Tobacco company between periods of 1993-2001(for pre-safety) and 2002-2008 (safety period) for the model application. Three combinatorial alternatives A, B, C were obtained resulting into 4, 6 and 4 strategies respectively with PPE and Training being predominant. A total of 728 accidents were recorded for a 9 year period of pre-safety programme and 163 accidents were recorded for 7 years period of safety programme. Six preventions activities (alternative B) yielded the best results. However, all the years of operation experienced except year 2004. The study provides a leading resources for planning successful safety programme

Keywords: Combination, Manufacturing Safety, Monetary Savings, Prevention Strategies.

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Authors: A. Khosravi, S. Ghadirian, J. S. McCartney

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Evaluation of the seismic-induced settlement of an unsaturated soil layer depends on several variables, among which the small strain shear modulus, G_max, and soil’s state of stress have been demonstrated to be of particular significance. Recent interpretation of trends in G_max revealed considerable effects of the degree of saturation and hydraulic hysteresis on the shear stiffness of soils in unsaturated states. Accordingly, the soil layer is expected to experience different settlement behaviors depending on the soil saturation and seasonal weathering conditions. In this study, a semi-empirical formulation was adapted to extend an existing G_max model to infer hysteretic effects along different paths of the SWRC including scanning curves. The suitability of the proposed approach is validated against experimental results from a suction-controlled resonant column test and from data reported in literature. The model was observed to follow the experimental data along different paths of the SWRC, and showed a slight hysteresis in shear modulus along the scanning curves.

Keywords: Hydraulic hysteresis, Scanning path, Small strain shear modulus, Unsaturated soil.

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Authors: Huiman C. Alberto

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The research cites the various hazardous waste generated in the textile industry. The method used is descriptive and comparative, the process consisted of the search and evaluation of information, both nationally and internationally. The results indicate: (1) Waste is generated from the alpaca fiber industry in the various stages of camelid rearing, they stand out for their dangerousness: excreta, residual fiber and yarn scraps. (2) The main hazardous waste generated by the tannery industry are grease, hides, hair, plastic containers with traces of toxic substances, chips and pieces of leather with chrome. (3) Three companies' Solid Waste Management Plans were analyzed, randomly selected, and none of them detail waste treatment processes and warn of the lack of supervision by the authorities. It is concluded that the hazardous waste generated can affect human and environmental health. There is the possibility of taking advantage of certain hazardous waste such as manure and alpaca fiber, after treatment; while non-hazardous waste from the tannery such as yarn, panel weaving, cloth, scraps, and thread, can be used to produce new products, generating a production chain in favor of the entrepreneur himself.

Keywords: Alpaca fiber, excreta, Haute couture, hazardous waste tannery, hazardous waste treatment, textile waste,

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Authors: Suleiman Musa, Shuaibu Sidi Safiyanu

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This study examined the digital preservation in Nigeria university libraries. A comparison between the university of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria (ABU, Zaria). The study utilized primary source of data obtained from two selected institution librarians. Finding revealed varying results in terms of skills acquired by librarians before and after digitization of the two institutions. The study reports that journals publication, text book, CD-ROMS, conference papers and proceedings, theses, dissertations and seminar papers are among the information resources available for digitization. The study further documents that copyright issue, power failure, and unavailability of needed materials are among the challenges facing the digitization of library of the institution. On the basis of the finding, the study concluded that digitization of library enhances efficiency in organization and retrieval of information services. The study therefore recommended that software should be upgraded with backup, training of the librarians on digital process, installation of antivirus and enhancement of technical collaboration between the library and MIS.

Keywords: Digitalization, preservation, libraries, comparison.

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Authors: Aaminah Hassan

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Advertisements carry a great potential to influence our lives because they are crafted to meet particular ends. Stereotypical representation in advertisements is capable of forming unconscious attitudes among people towards any gender and their abilities. This study focuses on gender representation in Pakistani prime time advertisements. For this purpose, 13 advertisements were selected from three different categories of foods and beverages, cosmetics, cell phones and cellular networks from the prime time slots of one of the leading Pakistani entertainment channel, ‘Urdu 1’. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are carried out for range of variables like gender, age, roles, activities, setting, appearance and voice overs. The results revealed that gender representation in advertisements is stereotypical. Moreover, in few instances, the portrayal of women is not only culturally inappropriate but is demeaning to the image of women as well. Their bodily charm is used to promote products. Comparing different entertainment channels for their prime time advertisements and broadening the scope of this research will yield greater implications for the researchers who want to carry out the similar research. It is hoped that the current study would help in the promotion of media literacy among the viewers and media authorities in Pakistan.

Keywords: Advertisements, content analysis, gender, prime time.

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Authors: Nguyen Minh Tuan, Yen Chung-Ruey

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By hand pollination was conducted to evaluated different pollen sources and their affects on fruit set and quality of wax apple. The following parameters were recorded: fruit set, seed set, fruit characteristics. Results showed that fruit set percentage with seed were significantly high in ‘Long Red B’ when ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’ were used as pollen parents. Pollen of ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’ resulted in high fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit length, bigger flesh thickness, better total soluble solids as compared with other pollens. The observation of pollen-growth in vitro revealed that pollen germination at 15% sucrose concentration are required for optimum pollen germination with the high pollen germination were found in ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’. From the result, we concluded that ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’ were proved to be good pollinizers in ‘Long Red B’. Therefore, artificial cross-pollination using ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’ as pollinizers were strongly recommended for ‘Long Red B’ cultivar in wax apple orchard.

Keywords: Wax apple, pollination, pollen source, in vitro, fruit quality.

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Authors: Ahmed Mudhafar Hashim, Aseel Mahmood Abdullah

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The present work introduced a green composite consisting of corn natural fiber of constant concentration of 10% by weight incorporation with poly methyl methacrylate matrix biomaterial prepared by hand lay-up technique. Corn natural fibers were treated with two concentrations of sodium hydroxide solution (3% and 5%) with different immersed time (1.5 and 3 hours) at room temperature. The fracture toughness test of untreated and alkali treated corn fiber composites were performed. The effect of chemically treated on fracture properties of composites has been analyzed using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The experimental results showed that the alkali treatment improved the fracture properties in terms of plane strain fracture toughness KIC. It was found that the plane strain fracture toughness KIC increased by up to 62% compared to untreated fiber composites. On the other hand, increases in both concentrations of alkali solution and time of soaking to 5% NaOH and 3 hours, respectively reduced the values of KIC lower than the value of the unfilled material.

Keywords: green composites, fracture toughness, corn natural fiber, Bio-PMMA

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Authors: Nicola Gualandi, Luca Mantecchini, Davide Serrau

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Airport capacity has always been perceived in the traditional sense as the number of aircraft operations during a specified time corresponding to a tolerable level of average delay and it mostly depends on the airside characteristics, on the fleet mix variability and on the ATM. The adoption of the Directive 2002/30/EC in the EU countries drives the stakeholders to conceive airport capacity in a different way though. Airport capacity in this sense is fundamentally driven by environmental criteria, and since acoustical externalities represent the most important factors, those are the ones that could pose a serious threat to the growth of airports and to aviation market itself in the short-medium term. The importance of the regional airports in the deregulated market grew fast during the last decade since they represent spokes for network carriers and a preferential destination for low-fares carriers. Not only regional airports have witnessed a fast and unexpected growth in traffic but also a fast growth in the complaints for the nuisance by the people living near those airports. In this paper the results of a study conducted in cooperation with the airport of Bologna G. Marconi are presented in order to investigate airport acoustical capacity as a defacto constraint of airport growth.

Keywords: Airport acoustical capacity, airport noise, air traffic noise, sustainability of regional airports.

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Authors: A. Buasri, N. Chaiyut, V. Loryuenyong, E. Phakdeepataraphan, S. Watpathomsub, V. Kunakemakorn

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In this research, the optimum conditions for the synthesis of activated carbon from biodiesel wastes such as palm shells (PS) and Jatropha curcas fruit shells (JS) by chemical activation method using potassium hydroxide (KOH) as an activating agent under nitrogen atmosphere were investigated. The effects of soaking in hydrofluoric acid (HF), impregnation ratio, activation temperature and activation time on adsorption capacity of methylene blue (MB) and iodine (I2) solution were examined. The results showed that HF-treated activated carbons exhibited higher adsorption capacities by eliminating ash residues, which might fill up the pores. In addition, the adsorption capacities of methylene blue and iodine solution were also significantly influenced by the types of raw materials, the activation temperature and the activation time. The highest adsorption capacity of methylene blue 257.07mg/g and iodine 847.58mg/g were obtained from Jatropha curcas wastes.

Keywords: Activated Carbon, Palm Shells (PS), Jatropha Curcas Fruit Shells (JS), Agricultural Wastes, Biodiesel Wastes, Optimum Conditions.

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Authors: E. Ceyhan, A. Kahraman, M. Önder, M.K. Ateş, S. Karadaş, R. Topak, M.A. Avcı

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The experimental design was 4 x 5 factorial with three replications in fully controlled research greenhouse in Department of Soil Sciences and Plant Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Selcuk in the year of 2009. Determination of tolerant chickpea genotypes to drought was made in the research. Additionally, sophisticated effects of drought on plant growth and development, biochemical and physical properties or physical defense mechanisms were presented. According to the results, the primary genotypes were Ilgın YP (0.0063 g/gh) for leaf water capacity, 22235 70.44(%) for relative water content, 22159 (82.47%) for real water content, 22159 (5.03 mg/l) for chlorophyll a+b, Ilgın YP (125.89 nmol H2O2.dak-1/ mg protein-1) for peroxidase, Yunak YP (769.67 unit/ mg protein-1) for superoxide dismutase, Seydişehir YP (16.74 μg.TA-1) for proline, Gökçe (80.01 nmol H2O2.dak-1/ mg protein-1) for catalase. Consequently, all the genotypes increased their enzyme activity depending on the increasing of drought stress consider with the effects of drought stress on leaf enzyme activity. Chickpea genotypes are increasing enzyme activity against to drought stress.

Keywords: Chickpea, drought, enzyme, tolerance to drought

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Authors: Jongpil Choi, Eon-Soo Lee, Jae-Huk Jang, Young Ho Seo, Byeonghee Kim

Abstract:

This paper presents a synthetic jet air blower actuated by PZT for air blowing for air-breathing micro PEM fuel cell. The several factors to affect the performance of air-breathing PEM fuel cell such as air flow rate, opening ratio and cathode open type in the cathode side were studied. Especially, an air flow rate is critical condition to improve its performance. In this paper, we developed a synthetic jet air blower to supply a high stoichiometric air flow. The synthetic jet mechanism is a zero mass flux device that converts electrical energy into the momentum. The synthetic jet actuation is usually generated by a traditional PZT actuator, which consists of a small cylindrical cavity, in/outlet channel and PZT diaphragms. The flow rate of the fabricated synthetic jet air blower was 400cc/min at 550Hz and its power consumption was very low under 0.3W. The proposed air-breathing PEM fuel cell which installed synthetic jet air blower was higher performance and stability during continuous operation than the air-breathing fuel cell without auxiliary device to supply the air. The results showed that the maximum power density was 188mW/cm2 at 400mA/cm2. This maximum power density and durability were improved more than 40% and 20%, respectively.

Keywords: Air-breathing PEM fuel cell, Synthetic jet air blower, Opening ratio, Power consumption.

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Authors: Salah Gariani, Islam Shyha, Osama Elgadi, Khaled Jegandi

Abstract:

In this work, a cooling coherent round nozzle was developed and the impact of nozzle placement (i.e. nozzle angle and stand-off/impinging distance) on the machinability of Ti-6Al-4V was evaluated. Key process measures were cutting force, workpiece temperature, tool wear, burr formation and average surface roughness (Ra). Experimental results showed that nozzle position at a 15° angle in the feed direction and 45°/60° against feed direction assisted in minimising workpiece temperature. A stand-off distance of 55 and 75 mm is also necessary to control burr formation, workpiece temperature and Ra, but coherent nozzle orientation has no statistically significant impact on the mean values of cutting force and tool wear. It can be concluded that stand-off distance is more substantially significant than nozzle angles when step shoulder milling Ti-6Al- 4V using vegetable oil-based cutting fluid.

Keywords: Coherent round nozzle, step shoulder milling, Ti-6Al-4V, vegetable oil-based cutting fluid.

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Authors: Angela Unna Chukwu, Samuel Oluwafemi Oyamakin

Abstract:

We proposed a Hyperbolic Gompertz Growth Model (HGGM), which was developed by introducing a shape parameter (allometric). This was achieved by convoluting hyperbolic sine function on the intrinsic rate of growth in the classical gompertz growth equation. The resulting integral solution obtained deterministically was reprogrammed into a statistical model and used in modeling the height and diameter of Pines (Pinus caribaea). Its ability in model prediction was compared with the classical gompertz growth model, an approach which mimicked the natural variability of height/diameter increment with respect to age and therefore provides a more realistic height/diameter predictions using goodness of fit tests and model selection criteria. The Kolmogorov Smirnov test and Shapiro-Wilk test was also used to test the compliance of the error term to normality assumptions while the independence of the error term was confirmed using the runs test. The mean function of top height/Dbh over age using the two models under study predicted closely the observed values of top height/Dbh in the hyperbolic gompertz growth models better than the source model (classical gompertz growth model) while the results of R2, Adj. R2, MSE and AIC confirmed the predictive power of the Hyperbolic Gompertz growth models over its source model.

Keywords: Height, Dbh, forest, Pinus caribaea, hyperbolic, gompertz.

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Authors: Hamdon A. Abdelrhman

Abstract:

The purpose of the analysis is estimation of viability and profitability of kenaf plant farming in Kelantan State. The monetary information was gathered through interviewing kenaf growers as well group discussion. In addition, the production statistics were collected from Kenaf factory administrative group. The monetary data were analyzed using the Precision financial Calculator. For kenaf production per hectare three scenarios of productivity were adopted, they were 15, 12 and ten; the research results exposed that, when kenaf productivity was 15 ton and the agronomist received financial supports from kenaf administration, the margin profit reached up to 37% which is almost dual profitability that is expected without government support. The financial analysis explains that, the adopted scenarios of the productivity are feasible when Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was used as financial indicator. Nonetheless, the kenaf productivity of 15 ton is the superlative viable among the others and payback period is 5 years which equals to middle period time to return the invested amount back. The study concluded that for the farmer to increase the productivity of kenaf per hectare the well farming practices as well as continuously farmers financial support are highly needed.

Keywords: Margin profit, farming practices, financial analysis, kenaf cultivation.

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