Search results for: Cost optimization
1699 Optimization of Tilt Angle for Solar Collectors: A Case Study for Bursa, Turkey
Authors: N. Arslanoglu
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This paper deals with the optimum tilt angle for the solar collector in order to collect the maximum solar radiation. The optimum angle for tilted surfaces varying from 0◦ to 90◦ in steps of 1◦ was computed. In present study, a theoretical model is used to predict the global solar radiation on a tilted surface and to obtain the optimum tilt angle for a solar collector in Bursa, Turkey. Global solar energy radiation on the solar collector surface with an optimum tilt angle is calculated for specific periods. It is determined that the optimum slope angle varies between 0◦ (June) and 59◦ (December) throughout the year. In winter (December, January, and February) the tilt should be 55◦, in spring (March, April, and May) 19.6◦, in summer (June, July, and August) 5.6◦, and in autumn (September, October, and November) 44.3◦. The yearly average of this value was obtained to be 31.1◦ and this would be the optimum fixed slope throughout the year.
Keywords: Optimum tilt angle, global solar radiation, tilted surface.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16221698 Ablation, Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Fiber/Phenolic Matrix Composites
Authors: N. Winya, S. Chankapoe, C. Kiriratnikom
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In this study, an ablation, mechanical and thermal properties of a rocket motor insulation from phenolic/ fiber matrix composites forming a laminate with different fiber between fiberglass and locally available synthetic fibers. The phenolic/ fiber matrix composites was mechanics and thermal properties by means of tensile strength, ablation, TGA and DSC. The design of thermal insulation involves several factors.Determined the mechanical properties according to MIL-I-24768: Density >1.3 g/cm3, Tensile strength >103 MPa and Ablation <0.14 mm/s to optimization formulation of phenolic binder, fiber glass reinforcement and other ingredients were conducted after that the insulation prototype was formed and cured. It was found that the density of phenolic/fiberglass composites and phenolic/ synthetic fiber composite was 1.66 and 1.41 g/cm3 respectively. The ablative of phenolic/fiberglass composites and phenolic/ synthetic fiber composite was 0.13 and 0.06 mm/s respectively.
Keywords: Phenolic Resin, Ablation, Rocket Motor, Insulation
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 43891697 Optimal Placement and Sizing of SVC for Load Margin Improvement Using BF Algorithm
Authors: Santi Behera, M. Tripathy, J. K. Satapathy
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Power systems are operating under stressed condition due to continuous increase in demand of load. This can lead to voltage instability problem when face additional load increase or contingency. In order to avoid voltage instability suitable size of reactive power compensation at optimal location in the system is required which improves the load margin. This work aims at obtaining optimal size as well as location of compensation in the 39- bus New England system with the help of Bacteria Foraging and Genetic algorithms. To reduce the computational time the work identifies weak candidate buses in the system, and then picks only two of them to take part in the optimization. The objective function is based on a recently proposed voltage stability index which takes into account the weighted average sensitivity index is a simpler and faster approach than the conventional CPF algorithm. BFOA has been found to give better results compared to GA.
Keywords: BFOA, GA, SSVSL, WASI.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21911696 Minimizing Fish-feed Loss due to Sea Currents: An Economic Methodology
Authors: V. Vassiliou, M. Charalambides, M. Menicou
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Fish-feed is a major cost component of operating expenses for any aquaculture farm. Due to soaring prices of fish-feed ingredients, the need for better feeding schedule management has become imperative. On such factor that influences the utilization rate of fish-feed are sea currents. Up to now, practical monitoring of fishfeed loss due to sea currents is not exercised. This paper gives a description of an economic methodology that aims at quantifying the amount of fish-feed lost due to sea currents and draws on data from a Mediterranean aquaculture farm to formulate the associated model.
Keywords: Aquaculture, economic model, fish-feed loss, sea currents.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18251695 Agile Index: Automotive Supply Chain
Authors: Susana G. Azevedo, Helena Carvalho, V. Cruz –Machado
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The supply chains (SCs) have to appeal to new management paradigms to improve their ability to respond rapidly and cost effectively to unpredictable changes in markets and increasing levels of environmental turbulence, both in terms of volume and variety. In this highly demanded context, the Agile paradigm provides the capabilities to SC quickly adapt to changes in the market requirements. The purpose of this paper is to suggest an Agile Index to assess the agility of the automotive companies and corresponding SCs. The proposed integrated assessment model incorporates Agile practices weighted according to their importance to the automotive SC competitiveness and obtained from the Delphi technique.
Keywords: Agile, Supply chain management, Index, Delphitechnique.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17401694 The Challenges for Engineers to Change the Construction Method in Brazil
Authors: Yuri B. Cesarino, Vinícius R. Domingues, Darym J. F. Campos
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Developing countries have some restrains towards the adoption of new technologies and construction methods. Some nations, such as Brazil, still use conventional construction methodologies, knowing its lesser cost-effectiveness. This research has been conducted to demonstrate how industrialized construction methods should be implemented in Brazil, especially in times of need. Using the common sense among different authors with different perspectives, it is clear that the second method is more suitable for construction development because of its great advantages. However, it is unlikely for this process to be adopted in the country as a result of several social-economic restraints. Nonetheless, Brazilian engineers have a major challenge ahead of them, and it will take more than creativity to solve such an issue.
Keywords: Brazilian engineers, construction methods, industrialized construction, infrastructure.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14651693 Development of a Comprehensive Electricity Generation Simulation Model Using a Mixed Integer Programming Approach
Authors: Erik Delarue, David Bekaert, Ronnie Belmans, William D'haeseleer
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This paper presents the development of an electricity simulation model taking into account electrical network constraints, applied on the Belgian power system. The base of the model is optimizing an extensive Unit Commitment (UC) problem through the use of Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Electrical constraints are incorporated through the implementation of a DC load flow. The model encloses the Belgian power system in a 220 – 380 kV high voltage network (i.e., 93 power plants and 106 nodes). The model features the use of pumping storage facilities as well as the inclusion of spinning reserves in a single optimization process. Solution times of the model stay below reasonable values.
Keywords: Electricity generation modeling, Unit Commitment(UC), Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP), DC load flow.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20441692 Bioleaching of Spent Catalyst using Moderate Thermophiles with Different Pulp Densities and Varying Size Fractions without Fe Supplemented Growth Medium
Authors: Haragobinda Srichandan, Chandra Sekhar Gahan, Dong-Jin Kim, Seoung-Won Lee
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Bioleaching of spent catalyst using moderate thermophilic chemolithotrophic acidophiles in growth medium without Fe source was investigated with two different pulp densities and three different size fractions. All the experiments were conducted on shake flasks at a temperature of 65 °C. The leaching yield of Ni and Al was found to be promising with very high leaching yield of 92-96% followed by Al as 41-76%, which means both Ni and Al leaching were favored by the moderate thermophilic bioleaching compared to the mesophilic bioleaching. The acid consumption was comparatively higher for the 10% pulp density experiments. Comparatively minimal difference in the leaching yield with different size fractions and different pulp densities show no requirement of grinding and using low pulp density less than 10%. This process would rather be economical as well as eco-friendly process for future optimization of the recovery of metal values from spent catalyst.
Keywords: Bioleaching, spent catalyst, leaching yield, thermophile.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23311691 An Improved Ant Colony Algorithm for Genome Rearrangements
Authors: Essam Al Daoud
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Genome rearrangement is an important area in computational biology and bioinformatics. The basic problem in genome rearrangements is to compute the edit distance, i.e., the minimum number of operations needed to transform one genome into another. Unfortunately, unsigned genome rearrangement problem is NP-hard. In this study an improved ant colony optimization algorithm to approximate the edit distance is proposed. The main idea is to convert the unsigned permutation to signed permutation and evaluate the ants by using Kaplan algorithm. Two new operations are added to the standard ant colony algorithm: Replacing the worst ants by re-sampling the ants from a new probability distribution and applying the crossover operations on the best ants. The proposed algorithm is tested and compared with the improved breakpoint reversal sort algorithm by using three datasets. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm achieves better accuracy ratio than the previous methods.
Keywords: Ant colony algorithm, Edit distance, Genome breakpoint, Genome rearrangement, Reversal sort.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19061690 Towards a Simulation Model to Ensure the Availability of Machines in Maintenance Activities
Authors: Maryam Gallab, Hafida Bouloiz, Youness Chater, Mohamed Tkiouat
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The aim of this paper is to present a model based on multi-agent systems in order to manage the maintenance activities and to ensure the reliability and availability of machines just with the required resources (operators, tools). The interest of the simulation is to solve the complexity of the system and to find results without cost or wasting time. An implementation of the model is carried out on the AnyLogic platform to display the defined performance indicators.Keywords: Maintenance, complexity, simulation, multi-agent systems, AnyLogic platform.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15081689 Cellolytic Activity of Bacteria of the Bacillus Genus Isolated from the Soil of Zailiskiy Alatau Slopes
Authors: I. Savitskaya, A. Kistaubayeva, A. Zhubanova, I. Blavachinskaiya, D. Ibrayeva, M. Abdulzhanova, A. Otarbay, A.Isabekova
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This study was conducted for the investigation of number of cellulolytic bacteria and their ability in decomposition. Seven samples surface soil were collected on cellulose Zailiskii Alatau slopes. Cellulolitic activity of new strains of Bacillus, isolated from soil is determined. Isolated cellulose degrading bacteria were screened for determination of the highest cellulose activity by quantitative assay using Congo red, gravimetric assay and colorimetric DNS method trough of the determination of the parameters of sugar reduction. Strains are assigned to: B.subtilis, B.licheniformis, B. cereus and, В. megaterium. Bacillus strains consisting of several different types of cellulases have broad substrate specificity of cellulase complexes formed by them. Cellulolitic bacteria were recorded to have highest cellulase activity and selected for optimization of cellulase enzyme production.Keywords: Cellulose-degrading bacteria, cellulase complex, foothills soil, screening.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13051688 An Optimized Virtual Scheme for Reducing Collisions in MAC Layer
Authors: M. Sivakumar, S. Saravanan
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The main function of Medium Access Control (MAC) is to share the channel efficiently between all nodes. In the real-time scenario, there will be certain amount of wastage in bandwidth due to back-off periods. More bandwidth will be wasted in idle state if the back-off period is very high and collision may occur if the back-off period is small. So, an optimization is needed for this problem. The main objective of the work is to reduce delay due to back-off period thereby reducing collision and increasing throughput. Here a method, called the virtual back-off algorithm (VBA) is used to optimize the back-off period and thereby it increases throughput and reduces collisions. The main idea is to optimize the number of transmission for every node. A counter is introduced at each node to implement this idea. Here counter value represents the sequence number. VBA is classified into two types VBA with counter sharing (VBA-CS) and VBA with no counter sharing (VBA-NCS). These two classifications of VBA are compared for various parameters. Simulation is done in NS-2 environment. The results obtained are found to be promising.
Keywords: VBA, sequence number, counter, back-off period.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13861687 Improving the Reusability and Interoperability of E-Learning Material
Authors: D. Del Corso, A. Tartaglia, E. Tresso, M. Cambiolo, L. Forno, G. Morrone
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A key requirement for e-learning materials is reusability and interoperability, that is the possibility to use at least part of the contents in different courses, and to deliver them trough different platforms. These features make possible to limit the cost of new packages, but require the development of material according to proper specifications. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) is a set of guidelines suitable for this purpose. A specific adaptation project has been started to make possible to reuse existing materials. The paper describes the main characteristics of SCORM specification, and the procedure used to modify the existing material.Keywords: SCORM, e-learning, standard, educational effectiveness, assessment, methodology, open access.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13141686 Design Optimization Methodology of CMOS Active Mixers for Multi-Standard Receivers
Authors: S. Douss, F. Touati, M. Loulou
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A design flow of multi-standard down-conversion CMOS mixers for three modern standards: Global System Mobile, Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephone and Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems is presented. Three active mixer-s structures are studied. The first is based on the Gilbert cell which gives a tolerable noise figure and linearity with a low conversion gain. The second and third structures use the current bleeding and charge injection techniques in order to increase the conversion gain. An improvement of about 2 dB of the conversion gain is achieved without a considerable degradation of the other characteristics. The models used for noise figure, conversion gain and IIP3 used are studied. This study describes the nature of trade-offs inherent in such structures and gives insights that help in identifying which structure is better for given conditions.Keywords: Active mixer, Radio-frequency transceiver, Multistandardfront end, Gilbert cell, current bleeding, charge injection.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24901685 The Contribution of Edgeworth, Bootstrap and Monte Carlo Methods in Financial Data
Authors: Edlira Donefski, Tina Donefski, Lorenc Ekonomi
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Edgeworth Approximation, Bootstrap and Monte Carlo Simulations have a considerable impact on the achieving certain results related to different problems taken into study. In our paper, we have treated a financial case related to the effect that have the components of a Cash-Flow of one of the most successful businesses in the world, as the financial activity, operational activity and investing activity to the cash and cash equivalents at the end of the three-months period. To have a better view of this case we have created a Vector Autoregression model, and after that we have generated the impulse responses in the terms of Asymptotic Analysis (Edgeworth Approximation), Monte Carlo Simulations and Residual Bootstrap based on the standard errors of every series created. The generated results consisted of the common tendencies for the three methods applied, that consequently verified the advantage of the three methods in the optimization of the model that contains many variants.
Keywords: Autoregression, Bootstrap, Edgeworth Expansion, Monte Carlo Method.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5961684 Multiband CPW-Fed Slot Antenna with L-slot Bowtie Tuning Stub
Authors: Prapoch Jirasakulporn
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This paper presents a multiband CPW-fed slot antenna with L-slot bowtie tuning stub. The proposed antenna has been designed for PCS 1900, UMTS, WLAN 802.11 a/b/g and bluetooth applications, with a cost-effective FR4 substrate. The proposed antenna still radiate as omni-directional in azimuth plane and sufficient bandwidth for all above mentions. The proposed antenna works as dual-wideband, bandwidth at low frequency band and high frequency are about 45.49 % and 22.39 % respectively. The experimental results of the constructed prototype are presented and also compared with simulation results using a commercial software tool.Keywords: multiband antenna, slot antenna, CPW-fed, L-slotbowtie stub
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21721683 Agent-Based Simulation for Supply Chain Transport Corridors
Authors: Kamalendu Pal
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Supply chains are the backbone of trade and commerce. Their logistics use different transport corridors on regular basis for operational purpose. The international supply chain transport corridors include different infrastructure elements (e.g. weighbridge, package handling equipments, border clearance authorities, and so on). This paper presents the use of multi-agent systems (MAS) to model and simulate some aspects of transportation corridors, and in particular the area of weighbridge resource optimization for operational profit. An underlying multi-agent model provides a means of modeling the relationships among stakeholders in order to enable coordination in a transport corridor environment. Simulations of the costs of container unloading, reloading, and waiting time for queuing up tracks have been carried out using data sets. Results of the simulation provide the potential guidance in making decisions about optimal service resource allocation in a trade corridor.Keywords: Multi-agent systems, simulation, supply chain, transport corridor, weighbridge.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21611682 A Meta-Heuristic Algorithm for Set Covering Problem Based on Gravity
Authors: S. Raja Balachandar, K. Kannan
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A new Meta heuristic approach called "Randomized gravitational emulation search algorithm (RGES)" for solving large size set covering problems has been designed. This algorithm is found upon introducing randomization concept along with the two of the four primary parameters -velocity- and -gravity- in physics. A new heuristic operator is introduced in the domain of RGES to maintain feasibility specifically for the set covering problem to yield best solutions. The performance of this algorithm has been evaluated on a large set of benchmark problems from OR-library. Computational results showed that the randomized gravitational emulation search algorithm - based heuristic is capable of producing high quality solutions. The performance of this heuristic when compared with other existing heuristic algorithms is found to be excellent in terms of solution quality.
Keywords: Set covering problem, velocity, gravitational force, Newton's law, meta heuristic, combinatorial optimization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22351681 Hardware Centric Machine Vision for High Precision Center of Gravity Calculation
Authors: Xin Cheng, Benny Thörnberg, Abdul Waheed Malik, Najeem Lawal
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We present a hardware oriented method for real-time measurements of object-s position in video. The targeted application area is light spots used as references for robotic navigation. Different algorithms for dynamic thresholding are explored in combination with component labeling and Center Of Gravity (COG) for highest possible precision versus Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). This method was developed with a low hardware cost in focus having only one convolution operation required for preprocessing of data.Keywords: Dynamic thresholding, segmentation, position measurement, sub-pixel precision, center of gravity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23531680 Preliminary Evaluation of Decommissioning Wastes for the First Commercial Nuclear Power Reactor in South Korea
Authors: Kyomin Lee, Joohee Kim, Sangho Kang
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The commercial nuclear power reactor in South Korea, Kori Unit 1, which was a 587 MWe pressurized water reactor that started operation since 1978, was permanently shut down in June 2017 without an additional operating license extension. The Kori 1 Unit is scheduled to become the nuclear power unit to enter the decommissioning phase. In this study, the preliminary evaluation of the decommissioning wastes for the Kori Unit 1 was performed based on the following series of process: firstly, the plant inventory is investigated based on various documents (i.e., equipment/ component list, construction records, general arrangement drawings). Secondly, the radiological conditions of systems, structures and components (SSCs) are established to estimate the amount of radioactive waste by waste classification. Third, the waste management strategies for Kori Unit 1 including waste packaging are established. Forth, selection of the proper decontamination and dismantling (D&D) technologies is made considering the various factors. Finally, the amount of decommissioning waste by classification for Kori 1 is estimated using the DeCAT program, which was developed by KEPCO-E&C for a decommissioning cost estimation. The preliminary evaluation results have shown that the expected amounts of decommissioning wastes were less than about 2% and 8% of the total wastes generated (i.e., sum of clean wastes and radwastes) before/after waste processing, respectively, and it was found that the majority of contaminated material was carbon or alloy steel and stainless steel. In addition, within the range of availability of information, the results of the evaluation were compared with the results from the various decommissioning experiences data or international/national decommissioning study. The comparison results have shown that the radioactive waste amount from Kori Unit 1 decommissioning were much less than those from the plants decommissioned in U.S. and were comparable to those from the plants in Europe. This result comes from the difference of disposal cost and clearance criteria (i.e., free release level) between U.S. and non-U.S. The preliminary evaluation performed using the methodology established in this study will be useful as a important information in establishing the decommissioning planning for the decommissioning schedule and waste management strategy establishment including the transportation, packaging, handling, and disposal of radioactive wastes.
Keywords: Characterization, classification, decommissioning, decontamination and dismantling, Kori 1, radioactive waste.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14821679 Optimization of Heat Treatment Due to Austenising Temperature, Time and Quenching Solution in Hadfield Steels
Authors: Sh. Hosseini, M. B. Limooei, M. Hossein Zade, E. Askarnia, Z. Asadi
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Manganese steel (Hadfield) is one of the important alloys in industry due to its special properties. High work hardening ability with appropriate toughness and ductility are the properties that caused this alloy to be used in wear resistance parts and in high strength condition. Heat treatment is the main process through which the desired mechanical properties and microstructures are obtained in Hadfield steel. In this study various heat treatment cycles, differing in austenising temperature, time and quenching solution are applied. For this purpose, the same samples of manganese steel was heat treated in 9 different cycles, and then the mechanical properties and microstructures were investigated. Based on the results of the study, the optimum heat treatment cycle was obtained.
Keywords: Manganese steel (Hadfield), heat treatment, austenising temperature, austenising time, quenching solution, mechanical properties.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 44941678 Development of a New Method for T-joint Specimens Testing under Shear Loading
Authors: R. Doubrava, R. Růžek
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Nonstandard tests are necessary for analyses and verification of new developed structural and technological solutions with application of composite materials. One of the most critical primary structural parts of a typical aerospace structure is T-joint. This structural element is loaded mainly in shear, bending, peel and tension. The paper is focused on the shear loading simulations. The aim of the work is to obtain a representative uniform distribution of shear loads along T-joint during the mechanical testing. A new design of T-joint test procedure, numerical simulation and optimization of representative boundary conditions are presented. The different conditions and inaccuracies both in simulations and experiments are discussed. The influence of different parameters on stress and strain distributions is demonstrated on T-joint made of CFRP (carbon fibre reinforced plastic). A special test rig designed by VZLU (Aerospace Research and Test Establishment) for T-shear test procedure is presented.
Keywords: T-joint, shear, composite, mechanical testing, Finite Element analysis, methodology.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26611677 Antibiotic Prescribing in the Acute Care in Iraq
Authors: Ola A. Nassr, Ali M. Abd Alridha, Rua A. Naser, Rasha S. Abbas
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Background: Excessive and inappropriate use of antimicrobial agents among hospitalized patients remains an important patient safety and public health issue worldwide. Not only does this behavior incur unnecessary cost but it is also associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study is to obtain an insight into the prescribing patterns of antibiotics in surgical and medical wards, to help identify a scope for improvement in service delivery. Method: A simple point prevalence survey included a convenience sample of 200 patients admitted to medical and surgical wards in a government teaching hospital in Baghdad between October 2017 and April 2018. Data were collected by a trained pharmacy intern using a standardized form. Patient’s demographics and details of the prescribed antibiotics, including dose, frequency of dosing and route of administration, were reported. Patients were included if they had been admitted at least 24 hours before the survey. Patients under 18 years of age, having a diagnosis of cancer or shock, or being admitted to the intensive care unit, were excluded. Data were checked and entered by the authors into Excel and were subjected to frequency analysis, which was carried out on anonymized data to protect patient confidentiality. Results: Overall, 88.5% of patients (n=177) received 293 antibiotics during their hospital admission, with a small variation between wards (80%-97%). The average number of antibiotics prescribed per patient was 1.65, ranging from 1.3 for medical patients to 1.95 for surgical patients. Parenteral third-generation cephalosporins were the most commonly prescribed at a rate of 54.3% (n=159) followed by nitroimidazole 29.4% (n=86), quinolones 7.5% (n=22) and macrolides 4.4% (n=13), while carbapenems and aminoglycosides were the least prescribed together accounting for only 4.4% (n=13). The intravenous route was the most common route of administration, used for 96.6% of patients (n=171). Indications were reported in only 63.8% of cases. Culture to identify pathogenic organisms was employed in only 0.5% of cases. Conclusion: Broad-spectrum antibiotics are prescribed at an alarming rate. This practice may provoke antibiotic resistance and adversely affect the patient outcome. Implementation of an antibiotic stewardship program is warranted to enhance the efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness of antimicrobial agents.
Keywords: Acute care, antibiotic misuse, Iraq, prescribing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9841676 Dynamic Slope Scaling Procedure for Stochastic Integer Programming Problem
Authors: Takayuki Shiina
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Mathematical programming has been applied to various problems. For many actual problems, the assumption that the parameters involved are deterministic known data is often unjustified. In such cases, these data contain uncertainty and are thus represented as random variables, since they represent information about the future. Decision-making under uncertainty involves potential risk. Stochastic programming is a commonly used method for optimization under uncertainty. A stochastic programming problem with recourse is referred to as a two-stage stochastic problem. In this study, we consider a stochastic programming problem with simple integer recourse in which the value of the recourse variable is restricted to a multiple of a nonnegative integer. The algorithm of a dynamic slope scaling procedure for solving this problem is developed by using a property of the expected recourse function. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is quite efficient. The stochastic programming model defined in this paper is quite useful for a variety of design and operational problems.Keywords: stochastic programming problem with recourse, simple integer recourse, dynamic slope scaling procedure
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16171675 Development of Monitoring Blood Bank Center Based PIC Microcontroller Using CAN Communication
Authors: Kaiwan S. Ismael, Ergun Ercelebi, Majeed Nader
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This paper describes the design and implementation of a hardware setup for online monitoring of 24 refrigerators inside blood bank center using the microcontroller and CAN bus for communications between each node. Due to the security of locations in the blood bank hall and difficulty of monitoring of each refrigerator separately, this work proposes a solution to monitor all the blood bank refrigerators in one location. CAN-bus system is used because it has many applications and advantages, especially for this system due to easy in use, low cost, providing a reduction in wiring, fast to repair and easily expanding the project without a problem.
Keywords: Control Area Network (CAN), monitoring blood bank center, PIC microcontroller, MPLAB IDE.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 24841674 Optimizing Boiler Combustion System in a Petrochemical Plant Using Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System and Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Yul Y. Nazaruddin, Anas Y. Widiaribowo, Satriyo Nugroho
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Boiler is one of the critical unit in a petrochemical plant. Steam produced by the boiler is used for various processes in the plant such as urea and ammonia plant. An alternative method to optimize the boiler combustion system is presented in this paper. Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) approach is applied to model the boiler using real-time operational data collected from a boiler unit of the petrochemical plant. Nonlinear equation obtained is then used to optimize the air to fuel ratio using Genetic Algorithm, resulting an optimal ratio of 15.85. This optimal ratio is then maintained constant by ratio controller designed using inverse dynamics based on ANFIS. As a result, constant value of oxygen content in the flue gas is obtained which indicates more efficient combustion process.
Keywords: ANFIS, boiler, combustion process, genetic algorithm, optimization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9891673 Big Bang – Big Crunch Learning Method for Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
Authors: Engin Yesil, Leon Urbas
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Modeling of complex dynamic systems, which are very complicated to establish mathematical models, requires new and modern methodologies that will exploit the existing expert knowledge, human experience and historical data. Fuzzy cognitive maps are very suitable, simple, and powerful tools for simulation and analysis of these kinds of dynamic systems. However, human experts are subjective and can handle only relatively simple fuzzy cognitive maps; therefore, there is a need of developing new approaches for an automated generation of fuzzy cognitive maps using historical data. In this study, a new learning algorithm, which is called Big Bang-Big Crunch, is proposed for the first time in literature for an automated generation of fuzzy cognitive maps from data. Two real-world examples; namely a process control system and radiation therapy process, and one synthetic model are used to emphasize the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed methodology.Keywords: Big Bang-Big Crunch optimization, Dynamic Systems, Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18411672 New Data Reuse Adaptive Filters with Noise Constraint
Authors: Young-Seok Choi
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We present a new framework of the data-reusing (DR) adaptive algorithms by incorporating a constraint on noise, referred to as a noise constraint. The motivation behind this work is that the use of the statistical knowledge of the channel noise can contribute toward improving the convergence performance of an adaptive filter in identifying a noisy linear finite impulse response (FIR) channel. By incorporating the noise constraint into the cost function of the DR adaptive algorithms, the noise constrained DR (NC-DR) adaptive algorithms are derived. Experimental results clearly indicate their superior performance over the conventional DR ones.Keywords: Adaptive filter, data-reusing, least-mean square (LMS), affine projection (AP), noise constraint.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16271671 Strongly Adequate Software Architecture
Authors: Pradip Peter Dey
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Components of a software system may be related in a wide variety of ways. These relationships need to be represented in software architecture in order develop quality software. In practice, software architecture is immensely challenging, strikingly multifaceted, extravagantly domain based, perpetually changing, rarely cost-effective, and deceptively ambiguous. This paper analyses relations among the major components of software systems and argues for using several broad categories for software architecture for assessment purposes: strongly adequate, weakly adequate and functionally adequate software architectures among other categories. These categories are intended for formative assessments of architectural designs.Keywords: Components, Model Driven Architecture, Graphical User Interfaces.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20531670 An Approach on the Design of a Solar Cell Characterization Device
Authors: Christoph Mayer, Dominik Holzmann
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This paper presents the development of a compact, portable and easy to handle solar cell characterization device. The presented device reduces the effort and cost of single solar cell characterization to a minimum. It enables realistic characterization of cells under sunlight within minutes. In the field of photovoltaic research the common way to characterize a single solar cell or a module is, to measure the current voltage curve. With this characteristic the performance and the degradation rate can be defined which are important for the consumer or developer. The paper consists of the system design description, a summary of the measurement results and an outline for further developments.Keywords: Solar cell, photovoltaics, PV, characterization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 933