Search results for: breath monitoring using pressure sensors

Authors: Ghulam Rasool, Ilka Philippow

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Modernizing legacy applications is the key issue facing IT managers today because there's enormous pressure on organizations to change the way they run their business to meet the new requirements. The importance of software maintenance and reengineering is forever increasing. Understanding the architecture of existing legacy applications is the most critical issue for maintenance and reengineering. The artifacts recovery can be facilitated with different recovery approaches, methods and tools. The existing methods provide static and dynamic set of techniques for extracting architectural information, but are not suitable for all users in different domains. This paper presents a simple and lightweight pattern extraction technique to extract different artifacts from legacy systems using regular expression pattern specifications with multiple language support. We used our custom-built tool DRT to recover artifacts from existing system at different levels of abstractions. In order to evaluate our approach a case study is conducted.

Keywords: Artifacts recovery, Pattern matching, Reverseengineering, Program understanding, Regular expressions, Sourcecode analysis.

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Authors: Sewon Kim, Chang Yeop Lee, Minjun Kwon

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This study is aiming at establishing the relationship between the optical signal of flame and an equivalent ratio of flame. In this experiment, flame optical signal in a furnace is measured using photodiode. The combustion system is composed of metal fiber burner and vertical furnace, and flame chemiluminescence is measured at various experimental conditions. In this study, the flame chemiluminescence of laminar premixed flame is measured using commercially available photodiode. It is experimentally investigated the relationship between equivalent ratio and photodiode signal. In addition, the strategy of combustion control method is proposed using the optical signal and fuel pressure. The results showed that certain relationship between optical data of photodiode and equivalence ratio exists, and this leads to the successful application of this system for instantaneous measurement of equivalence ration of the combustion system.

Keywords: Flame chemiluminescence, photo diode, equivalence ratio, combustion control.

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Authors: Mohammad Mirjalili, Hamid Akbarpour

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In this work, a bleached well cotton sample was dyed with reactive yellow105 dye and subsequently, the dyed sample was exposed to the plasma condition containing Nitrogen gas at 1 and 5 minutes of plasma exposure time, respectively. The effect of plasma on surface morphology fabric was studied by Scanning Electronic Microscope (SEM). CIELab, K/S, and %R of samples (treated and untreated samples) were measured by a reflective spectrophotometer, and consequently, the experiments show that the sample dyed with Reactive yellow 105 after being washed, with the increase in the operation time of plasma, its dye fastness decreases. In addition, the increase in plasma operation time at constant pressure would increase the destructing effect on the surface morphology of samples dyed with reactive yellow105.

Keywords: Cotton fabric, cold nitrogen plasma, reflective spectrophotometer, electronic scanning microscope (SEM), reactive yellow105 dye.

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Authors: Irakli V. Gugushvili, Nickolay M. Evstigneev

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Numerical integration of initial boundary problem for advection equation in 3 ℜ is considered. The method used is  conditionally stable semi-Lagrangian advection scheme with high order interpolation on unstructured mesh. In order to increase time step integration the BFECC method with limiter TVD correction is used. The method is adopted on parallel graphic processor unit environment using NVIDIA CUDA and applied in Navier-Stokes solver. It is shown that the calculation on NVIDIA GeForce 8800  GPU is 184 times faster than on one processor AMDX2 4800+ CPU. The method is extended to the incompressible fluid dynamics solver. Flow over a Cylinder for 3D case is compared to the experimental data.

Keywords: Advection equations, CUDA technology, Flow overthe 3D Cylinder, Incompressible Pressure Projection Solver, Parallel computation.

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Authors: J. Alamelu Mangai, Satej Wagle, V. Santhosh Kumar

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The exponential increase in the volume of medical image database has imposed new challenges to clinical routine in maintaining patient history, diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. With the advent of data mining and machine learning techniques it is possible to automate and/or assist physicians in clinical diagnosis. In this research a medical image classification framework using data mining techniques is proposed. It involves feature extraction, feature selection, feature discretization and classification. In the classification phase, the performance of the traditional kNN k nearest neighbor classifier is improved using a feature weighting scheme and a distance weighted voting instead of simple majority voting. Feature weights are calculated using the interestingness measures used in association rule mining. Experiments on the retinal fundus images show that the proposed framework improves the classification accuracy of traditional kNN from 78.57 % to 92.85 %.

Keywords: Medical Image Mining, Data Mining, Feature Weighting, Association Rule Mining, k nearest neighbor classifier.

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Authors: Reem I. Altamimi, Geoff D. Skinner

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Extended periods engaged in sedentary behavior increases the risk of becoming overweight and/or obese which is linked to other health problems. Adding technology to the term ‘active living’ permits its inclusion in promoting and facilitating habitual physical activity. Technology can either act as a barrier to, or facilitate this lifestyle, depending on the chosen technology. Physical Activity Monitoring Technologies (PAMTs) are a popular example of such technologies. Different contemporary PAMTs have been evaluated based on customer reviews; however, there is a lack of published experimental research into the efficacy of PAMTs. This research aims to investigate the reliability of four PAMTs: two wristbands (Fitbit Flex and Jawbone UP), a waist-clip (Fitbit One), and a mobile application (iPhone Health Application) for recording a specific distance walked on a treadmill (1.5km) at constant speed. Physical activity tracking technologies are varied in their recordings, even while performing the same activity. This research demonstrates that Jawbone UP band recorded the most accurate distance compared to Fitbit One, Fitbit Flex, and iPhone Health Application.

Keywords: Fitbit, Jawbone UP, mobile tracking applications, physical activity tracking technologies.

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Authors: Yousif Naif Almutai, Yajue Wu

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In larger cities worldwide, mass transportation systems, including underground systems, have grown to account for the majority of travel in those settings. Underground networks are vulnerable to fires, however, endangering travellers’ safety, with various examples of fire outbreaks in this setting. This study aims to increase knowledge of the impacts of extreme climatic conditions on fires, including the role of the high ambient temperatures experienced in Middle Eastern countries and specifically in Saudi Arabia. This is an element that is not always included when assessments of fire safety are made (considering visibility, temperatures, and flows of smoke). This paper focuses on a tunnel within Riyadh’s underground system as a case study and includes simulations based on computational fluid dynamics using ANSYS Fluent, which investigates the impact of various ventilation systems while identifying smoke density, speed, pressure and temperatures within this tunnel.

Keywords: Fire, subway tunnel, CFD, ventilation, smoke concentration, harsh weather.

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Authors: Masoud Afrand, Saeid Farahat, Mehdi Alamkar

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In this research, effect of combustion reaction mechanism on direct initiation of detonation has been studied numerically. For this purpose, reaction mechanism has been simulated by using a three-step chemical kinetics model. The reaction scheme consists sequentially of a chain-initiation and chainbranching step, followed by a temperature -independent chaintermination. In a previous research, the effect of chain-branching on the direct initiation of detonation is studied. In this research effect of chain-initiation on direct initiation of detonation is investigated. For the investigation, first a characteristic time (τ) for each step of mechanism, which includes effect of different kinetics parameters, is defined. Then the effect of characteristic time of chain-initiation (τI) on critical initiation energy is studied. It is seen that increasing τI, causes critical initiation energy to be increased. Drawing detonation's shock pressure diagrams for different cases, shows that in small value of τI , kinetics has more important effect on the behavior of the wave.

Keywords: Detonation initiation, Initiation energy, Reaction rate, Characteristic time.

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Authors: H. Zainuddin, M. S. Yahaya, J. M. Lazi, M. F. M. Basar, Z. Ibrahim

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This paper describes the design and development of pico-hydro generation system using consuming water distributed to houses. Water flow in the domestic pipes has kinetic energy that potential to generate electricity for energy storage purposes in addition to the routine activities such as laundry, cook and bathe. The inherent water pressure and flow inside the pipe from utility-s main tank that used for those usual activities is also used to rotate small scale hydro turbine to drive a generator for electrical power generation. Hence, this project is conducted to develop a small scale hydro generation system using consuming water distributed to houses as an alternative electrical energy source for residential use.

Keywords: Alternative Energy, Energy storage, Permanent Magnet DC Generator, Pico-Hydro Generation System.

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Authors: Pedro Gómez-del-Hoyo, Jose-Luis Bárcena-Humanes, Nerea del-Rey-Maestre, María-Pilar Jarabo-Amores, David Mata-Moya

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A study of achievable coverages using passive radar systems in terrestrial traffic monitoring applications is presented. The study includes the estimation of the bistatic radar cross section of different commercial vehicle models that provide challenging low values which make detection really difficult. A semi-urban scenario is selected to evaluate the impact of excess propagation losses generated by an irregular relief. A bistatic passive radar exploiting UHF frequencies radiated by digital video broadcasting transmitters is assumed. A general method of coverage estimation using electromagnetic simulators in combination with estimated car average bistatic radar cross section is applied. In order to reduce the computational cost, hybrid solution is implemented, assuming free space for the target-receiver path but estimating the excess propagation losses for the transmitter-target one.

Keywords: Bistatic radar cross section, passive radar, propagation losses, radar coverage.

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Authors: Amira Shakila Razali, Faridah Lisa Supian, Muhammad Mat Salleh, Suraini Abu Bakar

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Water contamination by toxic compound is one of the serious environmental problems today. These toxic compounds mostly originated from industrial effluents, agriculture, natural sources and human waste. These studies focus on modification of multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) with nanoparticle of calixarene and explore the possibility of using this modification for the remediation of cadmium in water. The nanocomposites were prepared by dissolving calixarene in chloroform solution as solvent, followed by additional multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) then sonication process for 3 hour and fabricated the nanocomposites on substrate by spin coating method. Finally, the nanocomposites were tested on cadmium ion (10 mg/ml). The morphology of nanocomposites was investigated by FESEM showing the formation of calixarene on the outer walls of carbon nanotube and cadmium ion also clearly seen from the micrograph. This formation was supported by using energy dispersive x-ray (EDX). The presence of cadmium ions in the films, leads to some changes in the surface potential and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).The nanocomposites MWCNTs-calixarene have potential for development of sensor for pollutant monitoring and nanoelectronics devices applications.

Keywords: Calixarene, Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes, Cadmium, Surface Potential.

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Authors: E. Izsó, M. Bartalné-Berceli, Sz. Gergely, A. Salgó

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The aim of this investigation is to elaborate nearinfrared methods for testing and recognition of chemical components and quality in “Pannon wheat” allied (i.e. true to variety or variety identified) milling fractions as well as to develop spectroscopic methods following the milling processes and evaluate the stability of the milling technology by different types of milling products and according to sampling times, respectively. These wheat categories produced under industrial conditions where samples were collected versus sampling time and maximum or minimum yields. The changes of the main chemical components (such as starch, protein, lipid) and physical properties of fractions (particle size) were analysed by dispersive spectrophotometers using visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) regions of the electromagnetic radiation. Close correlation were obtained between the data of spectroscopic measurement techniques processed by various chemometric methods (e.g. principal component analysis [PCA], cluster analysis [CA]) and operation condition of milling technology. It is obvious that NIR methods are able to detect the deviation of the yield parameters and differences of the sampling times by a wide variety of fractions, respectively. NIR technology can be used in the sensitive monitoring of milling technology.

Keywords: Allied wheat fractions, CA, milling process, nearinfrared spectroscopy, PCA.

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Authors: Caje F. Pinto, Jivan S. Parab, Gourish M. Naik

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This paper is about the development of non-invasive heart rate and oxygen saturation in human blood using Altera NIOS II soft-core processor system. In today's world, monitoring oxygen saturation and heart rate is very important in hospitals to keep track of low oxygen levels in blood. We have designed an Embedded System On Peripheral Chip (SOPC) reconfigurable system by interfacing two LED’s of different wavelengths (660 nm/940 nm) with a single photo-detector to measure the absorptions of hemoglobin species at different wavelengths. The implementation of the interface with Finger Probe and Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) was carried out using NIOS II soft-core system running on Altera NANO DE0 board having target as Cyclone IVE. This designed system is used to monitor oxygen saturation in blood and heart rate for different test subjects. The designed NIOS II processor based non-invasive heart rate and oxygen saturation was verified with another Operon Pulse oximeter for 50 measurements on 10 different subjects. It was found that the readings taken were very close to the Operon Pulse oximeter.

Keywords: Heart rate, NIOS II, Oxygen Saturation, photoplethysmography, soft-core, SOPC.

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Authors: Ibrahim Beldjilali, Adel Ghenaiet

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The contra-rotating axial machine is a promising solution for several applications, where high pressure and efficiencies are needed. Also, they allow reducing the speed of rotation, the radial spacing and a better flexibility of use. However, this requires a better understanding of their operation, including the influence of second rotor on the overall aerodynamic performances. This work consisted of both experimental and numerical studies to characterize this counter-rotating fan, especially the analysis of the effects of the blades stagger angle and the inter-distance between the rotors. The experimental study served to validate the computational fluid dynamics model (CFD) used in the simulations. The numerical study permitted to cover a wider range of parameter and deeper investigation on flow structures details, including the effects of blade stagger angle and inter-distance, associated with the interaction between the rotors. As a result, there is a clear improvement in aerodynamic performance compared with a conventional machine.

Keywords: Aerodynamic performance, axial fan, counter rotating rotors, CFD, experimental study.

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Authors: Maryam Alimardani, Kazuo Hiraki

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This study presents a framework for development of a new generation of therapy robots that can interact with users by monitoring their physiological and mental states. Here, we focused on one of the controversial methods of therapy, hypnotherapy. Hypnosis has shown to be useful in treatment of many clinical conditions. But, even for healthy people, it can be used as an effective technique for relaxation or enhancement of memory and concentration. Our aim is to develop a robot that collects information about user’s mental and physical states using electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyography (EMG) signals and performs costeffective hypnosis at the comfort of user’s house. The presented framework consists of three main steps: (1) Find the EEG-correlates of mind state before, during, and after hypnosis and establish a cognitive model for state changes, (2) Develop a system that can track the changes in EEG and EMG activities in real time and determines if the user is ready for suggestion, and (3) Implement our system in a humanoid robot that will talk and conduct hypnosis on users based on their mental states. This paper presents a pilot study in regard to the first stage, detection of EEG and EMG features during hypnosis.

Keywords: Hypnosis, EEG, robotherapy, brain-computer interface.

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Authors: K. Shiba, T. Kaburagi, Y. Kurihara

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With global aging, people who require care, such as people with dementia (PwD), are increasing within many developed countries. And PwDs may wander and unconsciously set foot outdoors, it may lead serious accidents, such as, traffic accidents. Here, round-the-clock monitoring by caregivers is necessary, which can be a burden for the caregivers. Therefore, an automatic wandering detection system is required when an elderly person wanders outdoors, in which case the detection system transmits a ‘moving’ followed by an ‘absence’ state. In this paper, we focus on the transition from the ‘resting’ to the ‘absence’ state, via the ‘moving’ state as one of the wandering transitions. To capture the transition of the three states, our method based on the hidden Markov model (HMM) is built. Using our method, the restraint where the ‘resting’ state and ‘absence’ state cannot be transmitted to each other is applied. To validate our method, we conducted the experiment with 10 subjects. Our results show that the method can classify three states with 0.92 accuracy.

Keywords: Wander, microwave Doppler sensor, respiratory frequency band, the state transition, hidden Markov model.

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Authors: Mohd Iskandar Illyas Tan, Raziah Noor Razali, Zuhra Junaida Husny

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The purpose of this study is i) to investigate the driving factors and barriers of the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Halal logistic and ii) to develop an ICT adoption framework for Halal logistic service provider. The Halal LSPs selected for the study currently used ICT service platforms, such as accounting and management system for Halal logistic business. The study categorizes the factors influencing the adoption decision and process by LSPs into four groups: technology related factors, organizational and environmental factors, Halal assurance related factors, and government related factors. The major contribution in this study is the discovery that technology related factors (ICT compatibility with Halal requirement) and Halal assurance related factors are the most crucial factors among the Halal LSPs applying ICT for Halal control in transportation-s operation. Among the government related factors, ICT requirement for monitoring Halal included in Halal Logistic Standard on Transportation (MS2400:2010) are the most influencing factors in the adoption of ICT with the support of the government. In addition, the government related factors are very important in the reducing the main barriers and the creation of the atmosphere of ICT adoption in Halal LSP sector.

Keywords: Information and communication technology (ICT), Halal logistic, Halal transportation, Technology adoption

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Authors: A. M. El Ansary, A. A. El Damatty, A. O. Nassef

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The aim of the current study is to develop a numerical tool that is capable of achieving an optimum shape and design of hyperbolic cooling towers based on coupling a non-linear finite element model developed in-house and a genetic algorithm optimization technique. The objective function is set to be the minimum weight of the tower. The geometric modeling of the tower is represented by means of B-spline curves. The finite element method is applied to model the elastic buckling behaviour of a tower subjected to wind pressure and dead load. The study is divided into two main parts. The first part investigates the optimum shape of the tower corresponding to minimum weight assuming constant thickness. The study is extended in the second part by introducing the shell thickness as one of the design variables in order to achieve an optimum shape and design. Design, functionality and practicality constraints are applied.

Keywords: B-splines, Cooling towers, Finite element, Genetic algorithm, Optimization

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Authors: Naveen Beri, S. Maheshwari, C. Sharma, Anil Kumar

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In this paper an attempt has been made to correlate the usefulness of electrodes made through powder metallurgy (PM) in comparison with conventional copper electrode during electric discharge machining. Experimental results are presented on electric discharge machining of AISI D2 steel in kerosene with copper tungsten (30% Cu and 70% W) tool electrode made through powder metallurgy (PM) technique and Cu electrode. An L18 (21 37) orthogonal array of Taguchi methodology was used to identify the effect of process input factors (viz. current, duty cycle and flushing pressure) on the output factors {viz. material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (SR)}. It was found that CuW electrode (made through PM) gives high surface finish where as the Cu electrode is better for higher material removal rate.

Keywords: Electrical discharge machining (EDM), Powder Metallurgy (PM), Taguchi method, Material Removal Rate (MRR), Surface Roughness (SR).

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Authors: M. Vahabi, M. H. Akbari

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In order to investigate a PROX microreactor performance, two-dimensional modeling of the reacting flow between two parallel plates is performed through a finite volume method using an improved SIMPLE algorithm. A three-step surface kinetics including hydrogen oxidation, carbon monoxide oxidation and water-gas shift reaction is applied for a Pt-Fe/γ-Al2O3 catalyst and operating temperatures of about 100ºC. Flow pattern, pressure field, temperature distribution, and mole fractions of species are found in the whole domain for all cases. Also, the required reactive length for removing carbon monoxide from about 2% to less than 10 ppm is found. Furthermore, effects of hydraulic diameter, wall temperature, and inlet mole fraction of air and water are investigated by considering carbon monoxide selectivity and conversion. It is found that air and water addition may improve the performance of the microreactor in carbon monoxide removal in such operating conditions; this is in agreement with the pervious published results.

Keywords: CFD, Fuel Processing, PROX, Reacting Flow, SIMPLE algorithm.

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Authors: Wei Zha, Jingzeng Zhang, Chen Zhao, Ran Cai, Xueyuan Nie

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Cathodic plasma electrolysis (CPE) is used to create surface textures on cast iron samples for improving the tribological properties. Micro craters with confined size distribution were successfully formed by CPE process. These craters can generate extra hydrodynamic pressure that separates two sliding surfaces, increase the oil film thickness and accelerate the transition from boundary to mixed lubrication. It was found that the optimal crater size was 1.7 μm, at which the maximum lubrication efficiency was achieved. The Taguchi method was used to optimize the process parameters (voltage and roughness) for CPE surface texturing. The orthogonal array and the signal-to-noise ratio were employed to study the effect of each process parameter on the coefficient of friction. The results showed that with higher voltage and lower roughness, the lower friction coefficient can be obtained, and thus the lubrication can be more efficiently used for friction reduction.

Keywords: Cathodic plasma electrolysis, friction, lubrication, plasma surface texturing.

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Authors: Myungraee Cha, Jun Seok Kim, Seung Hwan Park, Jun-Geol Baek

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In manufacturing industries, development of measurement leads to increase the number of monitoring variables and eventually the importance of multivariate control comes to the fore. Statistical process control (SPC) is one of the most widely used as multivariate control chart. Nevertheless, SPC is restricted to apply in processes because its assumption of data as following specific distribution. Unfortunately, process data are composed by the mixture of several processes and it is hard to estimate as one certain distribution. To alternative conventional SPC, therefore, nonparametric control chart come into the picture because of the strength of nonparametric control chart, the absence of parameter estimation. SVDD based control chart is one of the nonparametric control charts having the advantage of flexible control boundary. However,basic concept of SVDD has been an oversight to the important of data characteristic, density distribution. Therefore, we proposed DW-SVDD (Density Weighted SVDD) to cover up the weakness of conventional SVDD. DW-SVDD makes a new attempt to consider dense of data as introducing the notion of density Weight. We extend as control chart using new proposed SVDD and a simulation study of various distributional data is conducted to demonstrate the improvement of performance.

Keywords: Density estimation, Multivariate control chart, Oneclass classification, Support vector data description (SVDD)

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Authors: Zaza Tabagari, Zaza Sanikidze, George Giorgobiani

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Abovepresented work deals with the new scope of application of information and communication technologies for the improvement of the election process in the biased environment. We are introducing a new concept of construction of the information-communication system for the election participant. It consists of four main components: Software, Physical Infrastructure, Structured Information and the Trained Stuff. The Structured Information is the bases of the whole system and is the collection of all possible events (irregularities among them) at the polling stations, which are structured in special templates, forms and integrated in mobile devices.The software represents a package of analytic modules, which operates with the dynamic database. The application of modern communication technologies facilities the immediate exchange of information and of relevant documents between the polling stations and the Server of the participant. No less important is the training of the staff for the proper functioning of the system. The e-training system with various modules should be applied in this respect. The presented methodology is primarily focused on the election processes in the countries of emerging democracies.It can be regarded as the tool for the monitoring of elections process by the political organization(s) and as one of the instruments to foster the spread of democracy in these countries.

Keywords: ICT, elections, structured information, dynamic databases, e-training.

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Authors: P. Deepak Kumar, Aishwarya Alok, P. R. Maiti

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Liquid storage tanks have become widespread during the recent decades due to their extensive usage. Analysis of liquid containing tanks is known to be complex due to hydrodynamic force exerted on tank which makes the analysis a complex one. The objective of this research is to carry out analysis of liquid domain along with structural interaction for various geometries of circular tanks considering seismic effects. An attempt has been made to determine hydrodynamic pressure distribution on the tank wall considering impulsive and convective components of liquid mass. To get a better picture, a comparative study of Draft IS 1893 Part 2, ACI 350.3 and Eurocode 8 for Circular Shaped Tank has been performed. Further, the differences in the magnitude of shear and moment at base as obtained from static (IS 3370 IV) and dynamic (Draft IS 1892 Part 2) analysis of ground supported circular tank highlight the need for us to mature from the old code to a newer code, which is more accurate and reliable.

Keywords: Liquid filled containers, Circular Tanks, IS 1893 (Part 2), Seismic analysis, Sloshing.

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Authors: Negar Banan, Mohd Talib Latif, Liew Juneng

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Air quality studies were carried out in the towns of Putrajaya, Petaling Jaya and Nilai in the Malaysian Peninsular. In this study, the variations of Ozone (O3) concentrations over a four year period (2008-2011) were investigated using data obtained from the Malaysian Department of the Environment (DOE). This study aims to identify and describe the daily and monthly variations of O3 concentrations at the monitoring sites mentioned. The SPPS program (Statistical Package for the Social Science) was used to analyze this data in order to obtain the variations of O3 and also to clarify the relationship between the stations. The findings of the study revealed that the highest concentration of O3 occurred during the midday and afternoon (between 13:00-15:00 hrs). The comparison between stations also showed that highest O3 concentrations were recorded in Putrajaya. The comparisons of average and maximum concentrations of O3 for the three stations showed that the strongest significant correlation was recorded in the Petaling Jaya station with the value R2= 0.667. Results from this study indicate that in the urban areas of Peninsular Malaysia, the concentration of O3 depends on the concentration of NOx. Furthermore, HYSPLIT back trajectories (-72h) indicated that air-mass transport patterns can also influence the O3 concentration in the areas studied.

Keywords: Ozone, Precursors, Urban, HYSPLIT trajectory analysis.

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Authors: Suwicha Chankapoe, Nattawat Winya, Narupon Pittayaprasertkul

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In order to determine the performance and key design parameters of rocket, the erosion of nozzle throat during solid rocket motor burning have to be calculated. This study aims to predict the nozzle throat erosion in solid rocket motors according to the thrust profile of motor in operating conditions and develop a model for optimum performance of rocket. We investigate the throat radius change in the static test programs. The standard method and thrust coefficient  are used for adjusting into the ideal performance for conical nozzles. Pressure and thrust data acquired from the tests are analyzed to determine the instantaneous nozzle throat diameter variation throughout the test duration. The result shows good agreement of calculated correlation comparing with measured erosion rate data showing agreement within 1.6 mm/s. Nozzle thrust coefficient loss is found approximately 24% form nozzle throat erosion during burning.

Keywords: Erosion, nozzle throat, thrust coefficient.

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Authors: Usman D. Hamza, Noor S. Nasri, Mohammed Jibril, Husna Mohd Zain

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Activated carbons (M4P0, M4P2, and M5P2) used in this research were produced from palm shell and polyetherether ketone (PEEK) via carbonization, impregnation and microwave activation. The adsorption/desorption process was carried out using static volumetric adsorption. Regeneration is important in the overall economy of the process and waste minimization. This work focuses on the thermal regeneration of the CO2 exhausted microwave activated carbons. The regeneration strategy adopted was thermal with nitrogen purge desorption with N2 feed flow rate of 20 ml/min for 1 h at atmospheric pressure followed by drying at 150oC.Seven successive adsorption/regeneration processes were carried out on the material. It was found that after seven adsorption regeneration cycles; the regeneration efficiency (RE) for CO2 activated carbon from palm shell only (M4P0) was more than 90% while that of hybrid palm shell-PEEK (M4P2, M5P2) was above 95%. The cyclic adsorption and regeneration shows the stability of the adsorbent materials.

Keywords: Activated carbon, Palm shell-PEEK, Regeneration, thermal.

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Authors: Kavi K. Khedo, R. K. Subramanian

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Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are currently receiving significant attention due to their unlimited potential. These networks are used for various applications, such as habitat monitoring, automation, agriculture, and security. The efficient nodeenergy utilization is one of important performance factors in wireless sensor networks because sensor nodes operate with limited battery power. In this paper, we proposed the MiSense hierarchical cluster based routing algorithm (MiCRA) to extend the lifetime of sensor networks and to maintain a balanced energy consumption of nodes. MiCRA is an extension of the HEED algorithm with two levels of cluster heads. The performance of the proposed protocol has been examined and evaluated through a simulation study. The simulation results clearly show that MiCRA has a better performance in terms of lifetime than HEED. Indeed, MiCRA our proposed protocol can effectively extend the network lifetime without other critical overheads and performance degradation. It has been noted that there is about 35% of energy saving for MiCRA during the clustering process and 65% energy savings during the routing process compared to the HEED algorithm.

Keywords: Clustering algorithm, energy consumption, hierarchical model, sensor networks.

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Authors: Ebunoluwa G. Gabriel, Victoria A. Jideani, Daniel I. O. Ikhu-Omoregbe

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The current desire in food and industrial emulsification is the use of natural emulsifiers. Bambara groundnut flour (BGNF) and its starch (BGNS) will serve both emulsifying and nutritional purposes if found suitable. This current study was aimed at investigating the emulsifying properties of BGNF/BGNS. BGNS was extracted from the BGNF. Emulsions were prepared using a wide range of flour-oil-water and starch-oil-water composition as generated through the application of Response Surface (D-optimal) design. Prepared emulsions were investigated for stability to creaming/sedimentation (using the kinetic information from turbiscan) and flocculation/coalescence (by monitoring the droplet diameter growth using optical microscope) over 5 days. The most stable emulsions (one BGNF-stabilized and the other BGNS-stabilized) were determined. The optimal emulsifier/oil composition was 9g/39g for BGNF and 5g/30g for BGNS. The two emulsions had only 30% and 50% growth in oil droplet diameter respectively by day 5, compared to over 3000% in the unstable ones. The BGNF-stabilized emulsions were more stable than the BGNS-stabilized ones. Emulsions were successfully stabilized with BGNF and BGNS.

Keywords: Bambara groundnut, coalescence, creaming, emulsification, emulsion, emulsion stability.

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Authors: Yong F. Li, Yi X. Liu, Xiang M. Wang, Feng H. Wang

Abstract:

Wood as a natural renewable material is vulnerable to degradation by microorganisms and susceptible to change in dimension by water. In order to effectively improve the durability of wood, an active reagent, maleic anhydride (Man) was selected for wood modification. Man was first dissolved into a solvent, and then penetrated into wood porous structure under a vacuum/pressure condition. After a final catalyst-thermal treatment, wood modification was finished. The test results indicate that acetone is a good solvent for transporting Man into wood matrix. SEM observation proved that wood samples treated by Man kept a good cellular structure, indicating a well penetration of Man into wood cell walls. FTIR analysis suggested that Man reacted with hydroxyl groups on wood cell walls by its ring-ether group, resulting in reduction of amount of hydroxyl groups and resultant good dimensional stability as well as fine decay resistance. Consequently, Man modifying wood to improve its durability is an effective method.

Keywords: Wood, porous structure, durability improvement, maleic anhydride

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