Search results for: adoption of Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Authors: T. R. Bandara, H. Jaelani, G. J. Griffin

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The conversion of lignocellulosic waste materials, such as sugar cane bagasse, to biofuels such as ethanol has attracted significant interest as a potential element for transforming transport fuel supplies to totally renewable sources. However, the refractory nature of the cellulosic structure of lignocellulosic materials has impeded progress on developing an economic process, whereby the cellulose component may be effectively broken down to glucose monosaccharides and then purified to allow downstream fermentation. Ionic liquid (IL) treatment of lignocellulosic biomass has been shown to disrupt the crystalline structure of cellulose thus potentially enabling the cellulose to be more readily hydrolysed to monosaccharides. Furthermore, conventional hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials yields byproducts that are inhibitors for efficient fermentation of the monosaccharides. However, selective extraction of monosaccharides from an aqueous/IL phase into an organic phase utilizing a combination of boronic acids and quaternary amines has shown promise as a purification process. Hydrolysis of sugar cane bagasse immersed in an aqueous solution with IL (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate) was conducted at different pH and temperature below 100 ºC. It was found that the use of a high concentration of hydrochloric acid to acidify the solution inhibited the hydrolysis of bagasse. At high pH (i.e. basic conditions), using sodium hydroxide, catalyst yields were reduced for total reducing sugars (TRS) due to the rapid degradation of the sugars formed. For purification trials, a supported liquid membrane (SLM) apparatus was constructed, whereby a synthetic solution containing xylose and glucose in an aqueous IL phase was transported across a membrane impregnated with phenyl boronic acid/Aliquat 336 to an aqueous phase. The transport rate of xylose was generally higher than that of glucose indicating that a SLM scheme may not only be useful for purifying sugars from undesirable toxic compounds, but also for fractionating sugars to improve fermentation efficiency.

Keywords: Biomass, bagasse, hydrolysis, monosaccharide, supported liquid membrane, purification.

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Authors: S. Techaoei, K. Jarmkom, P. Eakwaropas, W. Khobjai

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The objective of this research was focused on investigating in vitro antimicrobial activity of Phellinus linteus fruiting body extracts on Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Phellinus linteus fruiting body was extracted with ethanol and ethyl acetate and was vaporized. The disc diffusion assay was used to assess antimicrobial activity against tested bacterial strains. Primary screening of chemical profile of crude extract was determined by using thin layer chromatography. The positive control and the negative control were used as erythromycin and dimethyl sulfoxide, respectively. Initial screening of Phellinus linteus crude extract with the disc diffusion assay demonstrated that only ethanol had greater antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The MIC assay showed that the lower MIC was observed with 0.5 mg/ml of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and 0.25 mg/ml. of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. TLC chemical profile of extract was represented at R_f ≈ 0.71-0.76.

Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, Phellinus linteus, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, antimicrobial activity, Escherichia coli.

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Authors: Y. H. Mugahed Amran, Raizal S. M. Rashid, Farzad Hejazi, Nor Azizi Safiee, A. A. Abang Ali

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Experimental and analytical studies were carried out to investigate the structural behavior of precast foamed concrete sandwich panels (PFCSP) of total number (6) as one-way action slab tested under lateral load. The details of the test setup and procedures were illustrated. The results obtained from the experimental tests were discussed which include the observation of cracking patterns and influence of aspect ratio (L/b). Analytical study of finite element analysis was implemented and degree of composite action of the test panels was also examined in both experimental and analytical studies. Result shows that crack patterns appeared in only one-direction, similar to reports on solid slabs, particularly when both concrete wythes act in a composite manner. Foamed concrete was briefly reviewed and experimental results were compared with the finite element analyses data which gives a reasonable degree of accuracy. Therefore, based on the results obtained, PFCSP slab can be used as an alternative to conventional flooring system.

Keywords: Aspect ratio (L/b), finite element analyses (FEA), foamed concrete (FC), precast foamed concrete sandwich panel (PFCSP), ultimate flexural strength capacity.

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Authors: Wenwen Liu, Robert Burton, Simon McKeown

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Climate change is seriously threatening human security and development, leading to global warming and economic, political, and social chaos. Many artists have created visual responses that challenge perceptions on climate change, actively guiding people to think about the climate issues and potential crises after urban industrialization and explore positive solutions. This project is an interdisciplinary and intertextual study where art practice is informed by culture, philosophy, psychology, ecology, and science. By correlating theory and artistic practice, it studies how art practice creates a visual way of understanding climate issues and uses art as a way of exploring speculative futures. In the context of practical-based research, arts-based practice as research and creative practice as interdisciplinary research are applied alternately to seek the original solution and new knowledge. Through creative art practice, this project has established visual ways of looking at climate change and has developed it into a model to generate more possibilities, an alternative social imagination. It not only encourages people to think and find a sustainable speculative future conducive to all species but also proves that people have the ability to realize positive futures.

Keywords: Climate change, creative practice as interdisciplinary research, arts-based practice as research, creative art practice, speculative future.

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Authors: Gupta Amit, Kumar Ramesh, Tewari P. C.

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Globalization is putting enormous pressure on the business organizations specially manufacturing one to rethink the supply chain in innovative manners. Inventory consumes major portion of total sale revenue. Effective and efficient inventory management plays a vital role for the successful functioning of any organization. Selection of inventory policy is one of the important purchasing activities. This paper focuses on selection and ranking of alternative inventory policies. A deterministic quantitative model based on Distance Based Approach (DBA) method has been developed for evaluation and ranking of inventory policies. We have employed this concept first time for this type of the selection problem. Four inventory policies economic order quantity (EOQ), just in time (JIT), vendor managed inventory (VMI) and monthly policy are considered. Improper selection could affect a company’s competitiveness in terms of the productivity of its facilities and quality of its products. The ranking of inventory policies is a multi-criteria problem. There is a need to first identify the selection criteria and then processes the information with reference to relative importance of attributes for comparison. Criteria values for each inventory policy can be obtained either analytically or by using a simulation technique or they are linguistic subjective judgments defined by fuzzy sets, like, for example, the values of criteria. A methodology is developed and applied to rank the inventory policies.

Keywords: Inventory Policy, Ranking, DBA, Selection criteria.

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Authors: Shams Ul Khaliq, Khan Shahzada, Bashir Alam, Fawad Bilal, Mushtaq Zeb, Faizan Akbar

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Marble industry contributes its fair share in environmental deterioration, producing voluminous amounts of mud and other excess residues obtained from marble and granite processing, polluting soil, water and air. Reusing these products in other products will not just prevent our environment from polluting but also help with economy. In this research, an attempt has been made to study the expediency of waste Marble Powder (MP) in concrete production. Various laboratory tests were performed to investigate permeability, physical and mechanical properties, such as slump, compressive strength, split tensile test, etc. Concrete test samples were fabricated with varying MP content (replacing 5-30% cement), furnished from two different sources. 5% replacement of marble dust caused 6% and 12% decrease in compressive and tensile strength respectively. These parameters gradually decreased with increasing MP content up to 30%. Most optimum results were obtained with 10% replacement. Improvement in consistency and permeability were noticed. The permeability was improved with increasing MP proportion up to 10% without substantial decrease in compressive strength. Obtained results revealed that MP as an alternative to cement in concrete production is a viable option considering its economic and environment friendly implications.

Keywords: Waste marble dust, concrete strength, environment, concrete, permeability.

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Authors: Ehsan B. Haghighi, Pavel Makhnatch, Jörgen Rogstam

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The ice rink floor is the largest heat exchanger in an ice rink. The important part of the floor consists of concrete, and the thermophysical properties of this concrete have strong influence on the energy usage of the ice rink. The thermal conductivity of concrete can be increased by using iron ore as ballast. In this study, the Transient Plane Source (TPS) method showed an increase up to 58.2% of thermal conductivity comparing the improved concrete to standard concrete. Moreover, two alternative ice rink floor designs are suggested to incorporate the improved concrete. A 2D simulation was developed to investigate the temperature distribution in the conventional and the suggested designs. The results show that the suggested designs reduce the temperature difference between the ice surface and the brine by 1-4˚C, when comparing with convectional designs at equal heat flux. This primarily leads to an increased coefficient of performance (COP) in the primary refrigeration cycle and secondly to a decrease in the secondary refrigerant pumping power. The suggested designs have great potential to reduce the energy usage of ice rinks. Depending on the load scenario in the ice rink, the saving potential lies in the range of 3-10% of the refrigeration system energy usage. This calculation is based on steady state conditions and the potential with improved dynamic behavior is expected to increase the potential saving.

Keywords: Concrete, iron ore, ice rink, energy saving.

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Authors: Mithilesh Singh, Rakhi Chaturvedi

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Neem is a highly heterozygous and commercially important perennial plant. Conventionally, it is propagated by seeds which loose viability within two weeks. Strictly cross pollinating nature of the plant causes serious barrier to the genetic improvement by conventional methods. Alternative methods of tree improvement such as somatic hybridization, mutagenesis and genetic transformation require an efficient in vitro plant regeneration system. In this regard, somatic embryogenesis particularly secondary somatic embryogenesis may offer an effective system for large scale plant propagation without affecting the clonal fidelity of the regenerants. It can be used for synthetic seed production, which further bolsters conservation of this tree species which is otherwise very difficult The present report describes the culture conditions necessary to induce and maintain repetitive somatic embryogenesis, for the first time, in neem. Out of various treatments tested, the somatic embryos were induced directly from immature zygotic embryos of neem on MS + TDZ (0.1 μM) + ABA (4 μM), in more than 76 % cultures. Direct secondary somatic embryogenesis occurred from primary somatic embryos on MS + IAA (5 μM) + GA3 (5 μM) in 12.5 % cultures. Embryogenic competence of the explant as well as of the primary embryos was maintained for a long period by repeated subcultures at frequent intervals. A maximum of 10 % of these somatic embryos were converted into plantlets.

Keywords: Azadirachta indica A. Juss., Cytokinin, Somatic embryogenesis, zygotic embryo culture.

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Authors: Cuneyt Yucelbas, Seral Ozsen, Sule Yucelbas, Gulay Tezel

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Due to the fact that there exist only a small number of complex systems in artificial immune system (AIS) that work out nonlinear problems, nonlinear AIS approaches, among the well-known solution techniques, need to be developed. Gaussian function is usually used as similarity estimation in classification problems and pattern recognition. In this study, diagnosis of breast cancer, the second type of the most widespread cancer in women, was performed with different distance calculation functions that euclidean, gaussian and gaussian-euclidean hybrid function in the clonal selection model of classical AIS on Wisconsin Breast Cancer Dataset (WBCD), which was taken from the University of California, Irvine Machine-Learning Repository. We used 3-fold cross validation method to train and test the dataset. According to the results, the maximum test classification accuracy was reported as 97.35% by using of gaussian-euclidean hybrid function for fold-3. Also, mean of test classification accuracies for all of functions were obtained as 94.78%, 94.45% and 95.31% with use of euclidean, gaussian and gaussian-euclidean, respectively. With these results, gaussian-euclidean hybrid function seems to be a potential distance calculation method, and it may be considered as an alternative distance calculation method for hard nonlinear classification problems.

Keywords: Artificial Immune System, Breast Cancer Diagnosis, Euclidean Function, Gaussian Function.

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Authors: S. Grace Sahaya Sheba, R. Omegala Priakumari

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Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is a condensation polymer of ethylene oxide and water. It is soluble in water and in many organic solvents. PEG is used to make emulsifying agents, detergents, soaps, plasticizers, ointments etc. Ethanol (C₂H₅OH) also known as ethyl alcohol is a well-known organic compound and has wide applications in chemical industry as it is used as a solvent for paint, varnish, in preserving biological specimens, used as a fuel mixed with petrol etc. Though their chemical and physical properties are already studied, still because of their uses in day to day life the authors thought it is better to study some more of their physical properties like ultrasonic velocity and hence adiabatic compressibility, free length, etc. A detailed study of such properties and some excess parameters like excess adiabatic compressibility, excess free volume and few more in the liquid mixtures of these two compounds with PEG as a solute and Ethanol as a solvent at various mole fractions may throw some light on deeper understanding of molecular interaction between the solute and the solvent supported by NMR, IR etc. Hence the present research work is on ultrasonics/allied studies on these two liquid mixtures. Ultrasonic velocity (U), density (ρ) and viscosity (η) at room temperature and at different mole fraction from 0 to 0.055 of ethanol in PEG have been experimentally carried out by the authors. Acoustical parameters such as adiabatic compressibility (β), free volume (V_f), acoustic impedance (Z), internal pressure (π_i), intermolecular free length (L_f) and relaxation time (τ) were calculated from the experimental data. We have calculated excess parameters like excess adiabatic compressibility (β^E), excess internal pressure (π_i^E) free length (L_f^E) and excess acoustic impedance (Z^E) etc for these two chosen liquid mixtures. The excess compressibility is positive and maximum around a mole fraction 0.007 and excess internal pressure is negative and maximum at the same mole fraction and longer free length. The results are analyzed and it may be concluded that the molecular interactions between the solute and the solvent is not strong and it may be weak. Appropriate graphs are drawn.

Keywords: Adiabatic Compressibility, Binary mixture, Induce dipole, Polarizability, Ultrasonic.

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Authors: Nikolaos Georgantzis, Efi Vasileiou

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We present results from experimental price-setting oligopolies in which green firms undertake different levels of energy-saving investments motivated by public subsidies and demand-side advantages. We find that consumers reveal higher willingness to pay for greener sellers’ products. This observation in conjunction to the fact that greener sellers set higher prices is compatible with the use and interpretation of energy-saving behaviour as a differentiation strategy. However, sellers do not exploit the resulting advantage through sufficiently high price-cost margins, because they seem trapped into “run to stay still” competition. Regarding the use of public subsidies to energy-saving sellers we uncover an undesirable crowding-out effect of consumers’ intrinsic tendency to support green manufacturers. Namely, consumers may be less willing to support a green seller whose energy-saving strategy entails a direct financial benefit. Finally, we disentangle two alternative motivations for consumer’s attractions to pro-social firms; first, the self-interested recognition of the firm’s contribution to the public and private welfare and, second, the need to compensate a firm for the cost entailed in each pro-social action. Our results show the prevalence of the former over the latter.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, energy savings, public good, experiments, vertical differentiation, altruism.

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Authors: P. Konvalina, I. Capouchová, Z. Stehno

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The organic farmers use wider range of crop varieties than the conventional farming. Bread wheat is the most favorite and the most common food crop. The organic bread wheat is usually of worse technological quality. Therefore, it is supposed to be an attractive alternative to the hulled wheat species (einkorn, emmer wheat and spelt). Twenty-five hulled bread wheat varieties and control bread wheat ones were grown on the certified organic parcel in České Budějovice (the Czech Republic) between 2009 and 2012. Their baking quality was measured and evaluated with standard methods, and in accordance with ICC. The results have shown that the grain of hulled wheat varieties contain a lot of proteins in grains (up to 18 percent); even the organic hulled bread wheat varieties are characterized by such good baking quality. Einkorn and emmer wheat are of worse technological quality of proteins (low values of gluten index and Zeleny test), which is a disadvantage of these two wheat species. On the other hand, spelt wheat is of better technological quality and is similar to the control bread wheat varieties. Mixtures consisting of bread wheat, among others, are considered good alternatives; they may contribute to wider range of use of the hulled wheat species. It is one of the possibilities which may increase the proportion of proteins in bread wheat grains; the nutrition-rich hulled wheat grains may be also used in such way at the same time.

Keywords: Baking quality, organic farming, einkorn, emmer wheat, spelt.

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Authors: Victor Maldonado

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Recent concerns of the growing impact of aviation on climate change has prompted the emergence of a field referred to as Sustainable or “Green” Aviation dedicated to mitigating the harmful impact of aviation related CO2 emissions and noise pollution on the environment. In the current paper, a unique “green” business jet aircraft called the TransAtlantic was designed (using analytical formulation common in conceptual design) in order to show the feasibility for transatlantic passenger air travel with an aircraft weighing less than 10,000 pounds takeoff weight. Such an advance in fuel efficiency will require development and integration of advanced and emerging aerospace technologies. The TransAtlantic design is intended to serve as a research platform for the development of technologies such as active flow control. Recent advances in the field of active flow control and how this technology can be integrated on a sub-scale flight demonstrator are discussed in this paper. Flow control is a technique to modify the behavior of coherent structures in wall-bounded flows (over aerodynamic surfaces such as wings and turbine nozzles) resulting in improved aerodynamic cruise and flight control efficiency. One of the key challenges to application in manned aircraft is development of a robust high-momentum actuator that can penetrate the boundary layer flowing over aerodynamic surfaces. These deficiencies may be overcome in the current development and testing of a novel electromagnetic synthetic jet actuator which replaces piezoelectric materials as the driving diaphragm. One of the overarching goals of the TranAtlantic research platform include fostering national and international collaboration to demonstrate (in numerical and experimental models) reduced CO2/ noise pollution via development and integration of technologies and methodologies in design optimization, fluid dynamics, structures/ composites, propulsion, and controls.

Keywords: Aircraft Design, Sustainable “Green” Aviation, Active Flow Control, Aerodynamics.

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Authors: E. Bruno, F. Lacarbonara, M. C. Placentino, D. Gramegna

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Environmental decision making, particularly about hazardous waste management, is inherently exposed to a high potential conflict, principally because of the trade-off between sociopolitical, environmental, health and economic factors. The need to plan complex contexts has led to an increasing request for decision analytic techniques as support for the decision process. In this work, alternative systems of asbestos-containing waste management (ACW) in Puglia (Southern Italy) were explored by a multi-criteria decision analysis. In particular, through Analytic Hierarchy Process five alternatives management have been compared and ranked according to their performance and efficiency, taking into account environmental, health and socio-economic aspects. A separated valuation has been performed for different temporal scale. For short period results showed a narrow deviation between the disposal alternatives “mono-material landfill in public quarry" and “dedicate cells in existing landfill", with the best performance of the first one. While for long period “treatment plant to eliminate hazard from asbestos-containing waste" was prevalent, although high energy demand required to achieve the change of crystalline structure. A comparison with results from a participative approach in valuation process might be considered as future development of method application to ACW management.

Keywords: Multi-criteria decision analysis, Hazardous wastemanagement, Asbestos.

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Authors: Bhaskar Basu

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Universities and higher education institutes are finding it increasingly difficult to engage students fruitfully through traditional pedagogic tools. Web 2.0 technologies comprising social networking sites (SNSs) offer a platform for students to collaborate and share information, thereby enhancing their learning experience. Despite the potential and reach of SNSs, its use has been limited in academic settings promoting higher education. The purpose of this paper is to assess the perception of social networking sites among business school students in India and analyze its role in enhancing quality of student experiences in a business school leading to the proposal of an agenda for future research. In this study, more than 300 students of a reputed business school were involved in a survey of their preferences of different social networking sites and their perceptions and attitudes towards these sites. A questionnaire with three major sections was designed, validated and distributed among  a sample of students, the research method being descriptive in nature. Crucial questions were addressed to the students concerning time commitment, reasons for usage, nature of interaction on these sites, and the propensity to share information leading to direct and indirect modes of learning. It was further supplemented with focus group discussion to analyze the findings. The paper notes the resistance in the adoption of new technology by a section of business school faculty, who are staunch supporters of the classical “face-to-face” instruction. In conclusion, social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn provide new avenues for students to express themselves and to interact with one another. Universities could take advantage of the new ways  in which students are communicating with one another. Although interactive educational options such as Moodle exist, social networking sites are rarely used for academic purposes. Using this medium opens new ways of academically-oriented interactions where faculty could discover more about students' interests, and students, in turn, might express and develop more intellectual facets of their lives. hitherto unknown intellectual facets.  This study also throws up the enormous potential of mobile phones as a tool for “blended learning” in business schools going forward.

Keywords: Business school, India, learning, social media, social networking, university.

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Authors: Mauricio Terceros, Jann-Eike Saathoff, Martin Achmus

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In non-cohesive soil, onshore wind turbines are often found on shallow foundations with a circular or octagonal shape. For the current generation of wind turbines, shallow foundations with very large breadths are required. The foundation support costs thus represent a considerable portion of the total construction costs. Therefore, an economic optimization of the type of foundation is highly desirable. A conceivable alternative foundation type would be a pier foundation, which combines the load transfer over the foundation area at the pier base with the transfer of horizontal loads over the shaft surface of the pier. The present study aims to evaluate the load-bearing behavior of a pier foundation based on comprehensive parametric studies. Thereby, three-dimensional numerical simulations of both pier and shallow foundations are developed. The evaluation of the results focuses on the rotational stiffnesses of the proposed soil-foundation systems. In the design, the initial rotational stiffness is decisive for consideration of natural frequencies, whereas the rotational secant stiffness for a maximum load is decisive for serviceability considerations. A systematic analysis of the results at different load levels shows that the application of the typical pier foundation is presumably limited to relatively small onshore wind turbines.

Keywords: Onshore wind foundation, pier foundation, rotational stiffness of soil-foundation system, shallow foundation.

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Authors: Dyah Iswantini, Trivadila, Novik Nurhidayat, Waras Nurcholis

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The antioxidant compounds are needed for the food, beverages, and pharmaceuticals industry. For this purpose, an appropriate method is required to measure the antioxidant properties in various types of samples. Spectrophotometric method usually used has some weaknesses, including the high price, long sample preparation time, and less sensitivity. Among the alternative methods developed to overcome these weaknesses is antioxidant biosensor based on superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme. Therefore, this study was carried out to measure the SOD activity originating from Deinococcus radiodurans and to determine its kinetics properties. Carbon paste electrode modified with ferrocene and immobilized SOD exhibited anode and cathode current peak at potential of +400 and +300mv respectively, in both pure SOD and SOD of D. radiodurans. This indicated that the current generated was from superoxide catalytic dismutation reaction by SOD. Optimum conditions for SOD activity was at pH 9 and temperature of 27.50C for D. radiodurans SOD, and pH 11 and temperature of 200C for pure SOD. Dismutation reaction kinetics of superoxide catalyzed by SOD followed the Lineweaver-Burk kinetics with D. radiodurans SOD KMapp value was smaller than pure SOD. The result showed that D. radiodurans SOD had higher enzyme-substrate affinity and specificity than pure SOD. It concluded that D. radiodurans SOD had a great potential as biological recognition component for antioxidant biosensor.

Keywords: Antioxidant biosensor, Deinococcus radiodurans, enzyme kinetic, superoxide dismutase (SOD).

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Authors: Ryoko Yoshida, Jyunpei Yoshida, Hua Fang Yu, Yasushi Sasaki, Tetsuya Nagasaka

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Phosphorous is an important element for agriculture and industry and is a non-renewable resource. Especially, yellow phosphorus is an essential material in advanced industrial technology, but phosphorus resources were not produced in Japan at all, and all depend on imports. It has been suggested, however, that the remaining accessible reserves of phosphate ore will be depleted within 50 years. Therefore, alternative resources for phosphate ore must be found. In this research, we have developed a process that enables the production of high-purity yellow phosphorus from domestic unused phosphorus resources such as steelmaking slags. The process consists of two parts: (1) the production of crude phosphoric acid from wastes such as steelmaking slag; (2) producing high-purity yellow phosphorus by low-temperature carbothermic reduction of phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄). The details of the carbothermic reduction of phosphoric acid are presented in this paper. Yellow phosphorus is commercially produced by carbothermic reduction of phosphate ore in an electric arc furnace at more than 1673K. In the newly developed system, gaseous P₄O₁₀ evaporated from H₃PO₄ is successfully reduced to yellow phosphorus by using carbon packed bed at less than 1273K. To meet the depletion of phosphate ore, the proposed process in this study to produce yellow phosphorus by carbothermic reduction of H₃PO₄ that are extracted from dephosphorization slags will be one of the effective and economical solutions.

Keywords: Carbothermic reduction, dephosphorization slags, phosphoric acid, yellow phosphorus.

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Authors: T. Mokhele, O. Mutanga, F. Ahmed

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South Africa is one of the few countries that have stopped using the same Enumeration Areas (EAs) for census enumeration and dissemination. The advantage of this change is that confidentiality issue could be addressed for census dissemination as the design of geographic unit for collection is mainly to ensure that this unit is covered by one enumerator. The objective of this paper was to evaluate the performance of automated zone design output areas against non-zone design developed geographies using the 2001 census data, and 2011 census to some extent, as the main input. The comparison of the Automated Zone-design Tool (AZTool) census output areas with the Small Area Layers (SALs) and SubPlaces based on confidentiality limit, population distribution, and degree of homogeneity, as well as shape compactness, was undertaken. Further, SPSS was employed for validation of the AZTool output results. The results showed that AZTool developed output areas out-perform the existing official SAL and SubPlaces with regard to minimum population threshold, population distribution and to some extent to homogeneity. Therefore, it was concluded that AZTool program provides a new alternative to the creation of optimised census output areas for dissemination of population census data in South Africa.

Keywords: AZTool, enumeration areas, small areal layers, South Africa.

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Authors: Sanae Attioui, Said Najah

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The Earth's surface is constantly changing through forces of nature and human activities. Reliable, accurate, and timely change detection is critical to environmental monitoring, resource management, and planning activities. Recently, interest in deep learning algorithms, especially convolutional neural networks, has increased in the field of image change detection due to their powerful ability to extract multi-level image features automatically. However, these networks are prone to drawbacks that limit their applications, which reside in their inability to capture spatial relationships between image instances, as this necessitates a large amount of training data. As an alternative, Capsule Network has been proposed to overcome these shortcomings. Although its effectiveness in remote sensing image analysis has been experimentally verified, its application in change detection tasks remains very sparse. Motivated by its greater robustness towards improved hierarchical object representation, this study aims to apply a capsule network for PolSAR image Change Detection. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed change detection method can yield a significantly higher detection rate compared to methods based on convolutional neural networks.

Keywords: Change detection, capsule network, deep network, Convolutional Neural Networks, polarimetric synthetic aperture radar images, PolSAR images.

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Authors: Nadya Hajar, Zainal, S., Atikah, O., Tengku Elida, T. Z. M.

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Ethanol has been known for a long time, being perhaps the oldest product obtained through traditional biotechnology fermentation. Agriculture waste as substrate in fermentation is vastly discussed as alternative to replace edible food and utilization of organic material. Pineapple peel, highly potential source as substrate is a by-product of the pineapple processing industry. Bio-ethanol from pineapple (Ananas comosus) peel extract was carried out by controlling fermentation without any treatment. Saccharomyces ellipsoides was used as inoculum in this fermentation process as it is naturally found at the pineapple skin. In this study, the capability of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) for optimization of ethanol production from pineapple peel extract using Saccharomyces ellipsoideus in batch fermentation process was investigated. Effect of five test variables in a defined range of inoculum concentration 6- 14% (v/v), pH (4.0-6.0), sugar concentration (14-22°Brix), temperature (24-32°C) and time of incubation (30-54 hrs) on the ethanol production were evaluated. Data obtained from experiment were analyzed with RSM of MINITAB Software (Version 15) whereby optimum ethanol concentration of 8.637% (v/v) was determined. The optimum condition of 14% (v/v) inoculum concentration, pH 6, 22°Brix, 26°C and 30hours of incubation. The significant regression equation or model at the 5% level with correlation value of 99.96% was also obtained.

Keywords: Bio-ethanol, pineapple peel extract, Response Surface Methodology (RSM), Saccharomyces ellipsoideus.

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Authors: Rudy Djamaluddin, Yasser Bachtiar, Rita Irmawati, Abd. Madjid Akkas, Rusdi Usman Latief

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The aesthetic qualities and the versatility of reinforced concrete have made it a popular choice for many architects and structural engineers. Therefore, the exploration of natural materials such as gravels and sands as well as lime-stone for cement production is increasing to produce a concrete material. The exploration must affect to the environment. Therefore, the using of the concrete materials should be as efficient as possible. According to its natural behavior of the concrete material, it is strong in compression and weak in tension. Therefore the contribution of the tensile stresses of the concrete to the flexural capacity of the beams is neglected. However, removing of concrete on tension zone affects to the decreasing of flexural capacity. Introduce the strut action of truss structures may an alternative to solve the decreasing of flexural capacity. A series of specimens were prepared to clarify the effect of the truss structures in the concrete beams without concrete on the tension zone. Results indicated that the truss system is necessary for the external reinforced concrete beams. The truss system of concrete beam without concrete on tension zone (BR) could develop almost same capacity to the normal beam (BN). It can be observed also that specimens BR has lower number of cracks than specimen BN. This may be caused by the fact that there was no bonding effect on the tensile reinforcement on specimen BR to distribute the cracks.

Keywords: External Reinforcement, Truss, Concrete Beams.

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Authors: Ameleh Aghajanloo, Moharam Dolatshahi Pirouz, Masoud Montazeri Namin

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In this paper, a two-dimensional (2D) numerical model for the tidal currents simulation in Persian Gulf is presented. The model is based on the depth averaged equations of shallow water which consider hydrostatic pressure distribution. The continuity equation and two momentum equations including the effects of bed friction, the Coriolis effects and wind stress have been solved. To integrate the 2D equations, the Alternative Direction Implicit (ADI) technique has been used. The base of equations discritization was finite volume method applied on rectangular mesh. To evaluate the model validation, a dam break case study including analytical solution is selected and the comparison is done. After that, the capability of the model in simulation of tidal current in a real field is represented by modeling the current behavior in Persian Gulf. The tidal fluctuations in Hormuz Strait have caused the tidal currents in the area of study. Therefore, the water surface oscillations data at Hengam Island on Hormoz Strait are used as the model input data. The check point of the model is measured water surface elevations at Assaluye port. The comparison between the results and the acceptable agreement of them showed the model ability for modeling marine hydrodynamic.

Keywords: Persian Gulf, Tidal Currents, Shallow Water Equations, Finite Volumes

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Authors: Ghassan H. Halasa

Abstract:

Elementary particles are created in pairs of equal and opposite momentums at a reference frame at the speed of light. The speed of light reference frame is viewed as a point in space as observed by observer at rest. This point in space is the bang location of the big bang theory. The bang in the big bang theory is not more than sustained flow of pairs of positive and negative elementary particles. Electrons and negative charged elementary particles are ejected from this point in space at velocities faster than light, while protons and positively charged particles obtain velocities lower than light. Subsonic masses are found to have real and positive charge, while supersonic masses are found to be negative and imaginary indicating that the two masses are of different entities. The electron-s super-sonic speed, as viewed by rest observer was calculated and found to be less than the speed of light and is little higher than the electron speed in Bohr-s orbit. The newly formed hydrogen gas temperature was found to be in agreement with temperatures found on newly formed stars. Universe expansion was found to be in agreement. Partial mass and charge elementary particles and particles with momentum only were explained in the context of this theoretical approach.

Keywords: Evolution of Matter, Multidimensional spaces, relativity, Big Bang Theory

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Authors: A. M. Wahab, E. Rustighi

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Elastomeric dielectric material has recently become a new alternative for actuator technology. The characteristics of dielectric elastomers placed between two electrodes to withstand large strain when electrodes are charged has attracted the attention of many researcher to study this material for actuator technology. Thus, in the past few years Danfoss Ventures A/S has established their own dielectric electro-active polymer (DEAP), which was called PolyPower. The main objective of this work was to investigate the dynamic characteristics for vibration control of a PolyPower actuator folded in ‘pull’ configuration. A range of experiments was carried out on the folded actuator including passive (without electrical load) and active (with electrical load) testing. For both categories static and dynamic testing have been done to determine the behavior of folded DEAP actuator. Voltage-Strain experiments show that the DEAP folded actuator is a non-linear system. It is also shown that the voltage supplied has no effect on the natural frequency. Finally, varying AC voltage with different amplitude and frequency shows the parameters that influence the performance of DEAP folded actuator. As a result, the actuator performance dominated by the frequency dependence of the elastic response and was less influenced by dielectric properties.

Keywords: Dielectric Electro-active Polymer, Pull Actuator, Static, Dynamic, Electromechanical.

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Authors: Rezki Akkal, Mohamed Khodja, Slimane Azzi

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Acidification is a technique used in oil reservoirs to improve annual production, reduce the skin and increase the pressure of an oil well while eliminating the formation damage that occurs during the drilling process, completion and, amongst others, to create new channels allowing the easy circulation of oil around a producing well. This is achieved by injecting an acidizing fluid at a relatively low pressure to prevent fracturing formation. The treatment fluid used depends on the type and nature of the reservoir rock traversed as well as its petrophysical properties. In order to understand the interaction mechanisms between the treatment fluids used for the reservoir rock acidizing, several candidate wells for stimulation were selected in the large Hassi Messaoud deposit in southern Algeria. The stimulation of these wells is completed using different fluids composed mainly of HCl acid with other additives such as corrosion inhibitors, clay stabilizers and iron controllers. These treatment fluids are injected over two phases, namely with clean tube (7.5% HCl) and matrix aidizing with HCl (15%). The stimulation results obtained are variable according to the type of rock traversed and its mineralogical composition. These results show that there has been an increase in production flow and head pressure respectively from 1.99 m3 / h to 3.56 m3 / h and from 13 Kgf / cm2 to 20 kgf / cm2 in the sands formation having good petrophysical properties of (porosity = 16%) and low amount of clay (Vsh = 6%).

Keywords: Acidizing, Hassi-Messaoud reservoir, tube clean, matrix stimulation.

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Authors: Kamaldeep Kaur, Arvinder Kaur, Ruchika Malhotra

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The aim of this paper is to rank the impact of Object Oriented(OO) metrics in fault prediction modeling using Artificial Neural Networks(ANNs). Past studies on empirical validation of object oriented metrics as fault predictors using ANNs have focused on the predictive quality of neural networks versus standard statistical techniques. In this empirical study we turn our attention to the capability of ANNs in ranking the impact of these explanatory metrics on fault proneness. In ANNs data analysis approach, there is no clear method of ranking the impact of individual metrics. Five ANN based techniques are studied which rank object oriented metrics in predicting fault proneness of classes. These techniques are i) overall connection weights method ii) Garson-s method iii) The partial derivatives methods iv) The Input Perturb method v) the classical stepwise methods. We develop and evaluate different prediction models based on the ranking of the metrics by the individual techniques. The models based on overall connection weights and partial derivatives methods have been found to be most accurate.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks (ANNS), Backpropagation, Fault Prediction Modeling.

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Authors: R. Litt, A. Brown

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Aims: We aimed to assess the efficiency of ‘Attend Anywhere’ orthodontic clinics within a district general hospital during COVID- 19. Our secondary aim was to pilot a questionnaire to assess patient satisfaction with virtual orthodontic appointments. Design: The study design is a service evaluation including pilot questionnaire. Methods: The average number of patients seen per virtual clinic and the number of patients failing to attend was compared to face-to-face clinics. The capability of virtual appointments to be successful in preventing the need for a face-to-face appointment was assessed. Patients were invited to complete a telephone pilot questionnaire focusing on patient satisfaction and accessibility. Results: There was a small increase in the number of patients failing to attend virtual appointments, with a third of the patients who did not attend failing to receive the appointment link. 81.9% of virtual clinic appointments were successful and prevented the need for a face-to-face appointment. Overall patients were very satisfied with their virtual orthodontic appointment and the majority required no assistance to access the service. Conclusions: The use of ‘Attend Anywhere’ clinics in orthodontics offers patients and clinicians an effective and efficient alternative to face-to-face appointments that patients on average find easy to use and completely satisfactory.

Keywords: Clinics, COVID-19, orthodontics, patient satisfaction, virtual.

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Authors: Sze Wai Veera Fung, Peter W. Ferretto

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Similar to most ethnic groups in China, men of the Dong minority hold the primary position in policymaking, moral authority, social values, and the control of the property. As the spatial embodiment of the patriarchal ideals, the house plays a significant role in producing and reproducing the distinctive gender status within the Dong society. Nevertheless, Dong women do not see their home as a cage of confinement, nor do they see themselves as a victim of oppression. For these women with reference to their productive identity, a house is a dwelling place with manifold meanings, including a proof of identity, an economic instrument, and a public resource operating on the community level. This paper examines the role of the house as a central site for identity construction and maintenance for the southern dialect Dong minority women in Hunan, China. Drawing on recent interviews with the Dong women, this study argues that women as productive individuals have a strong influence on the form of their house and the immediate environment, regardless of the male-dominated social construct of the Dong society. The aim of this study is not to produce a definitive relationship between women, house, and identity. Rather, it seeks to offer an alternative lens into the complexity and diversity of gender dynamics operating in and beyond the boundary of the house in the context of contemporary rural China.

Keywords: Conception of home, Dong minority, house, rural China, woman’s identity.

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Authors: Anupam Bhatia

Abstract:

Upon reviewing the literature and the pragmatic work done in the field of E- textiles, it is observed that the applications of wearable technologies have found a steady growth in the field of military, medical, industrial, sports; whereas fashion is at a loss to know how to treat this technology and bring it to market. The purpose of this paper is to understand the practical issues of integration of electronics in garments; cutting patterns for mass production, maintaining the basic properties of textiles and daily maintenance of garments that hinder the wide adoption of interactive fabric technology within Fashion and leisure wear. To understand the practical hindrances an experimental and laboratory approach is taken. “Techno Meets Fashion” has been an interactive fashion project where sensor technologies have been embedded with textiles that result in set of ensembles that are light emitting garments, sound sensing garments, proximity garments, shape memory garments etc. Smart textiles, especially in the form of textile interfaces, are drastically underused in fashion and other lifestyle product design. Clothing and some other textile products must be washable, which subjects to the interactive elements to water and chemical immersion, physical stress, and extreme temperature. The current state of the art tends to be too fragile for this treatment. The process for mass producing traditional textiles becomes difficult in interactive textiles. As cutting patterns from larger rolls of cloth and sewing them together to make garments breaks and reforms electronic connections in an uncontrolled manner. Because of this, interactive fabric elements are integrated by hand into textiles produced by standard methods. The Arduino has surely made embedding electronics into textiles much easier than before; even then electronics are not integral to the daily wear garments. Soft and flexible interfaces of MEMS (micro sensors and Micro actuators) can be an option to make this possible by blending electronics within E-textiles in a way that’s seamless and still retains functions of the circuits as well as the garment. Smart clothes, which offer simultaneously a challenging design and utility value, can be only mass produced if the demands of the body are taken care of i.e. protection, anthropometry, ergonomics of human movement, thermo- physiological regulation.

Keywords: Ambient Intelligence, Proximity Sensors, Shape Memory Materials, Sound sensing garments, Wearable Technology.

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