Search results for: Consumption behavior

Authors: Bothinah Altaf, Gary Montague, Elaine B. Martin

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This study involves the modeling and monitoring of an ammonia synthesis fixed-bed reactor using partial least squares (PLS) and its variants. The process exhibits complex dynamic behavior due to the presence of heat recycling and feed quench. One limitation of static PLS model in this situation is that it does not take account of the process dynamics and hence dynamic PLS was used. Although it showed, superior performance to static PLS in terms of prediction, the monitoring scheme was inappropriate hence adaptive PLS was considered. A limitation of adaptive PLS is that non-conforming observations also contribute to the model, therefore, a new adaptive approach was developed, robust adaptive dynamic PLS. This approach updates a dynamic PLS model and is robust to non-representative data. The developed methodology showed a clear improvement over existing approaches in terms of the modeling of the reactor and the detection of faults.

Keywords: Ammonia synthesis fixed-bed reactor, dynamic partial least squares modeling, recursive partial least squares, robust modeling.

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Authors: K. Matušínská, H. Starzyczná, M. Stoklasa

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The paper deals with behaviour of the segment 50+ in the financial market in the Czech Republic. This segment could be said as the strong market power and it can be a crucial business potential for financial business units. The main defined objective of this paper is analysis of the customers´ behaviour of the segment 50- 60 years in the financial market in the Czech Republic and proposal making of the suitable marketing approach to satisfy their demands in the area of product, price, distribution and marketing communication policy. This paper is based on data from one part of primary marketing research. Paper determinates the basic problem areas as well as definition of financial services marketing, defining the primary research problem, hypothesis and primary research methodology. Finally suitable marketing approach to selected sub segment at age of 50-60 years is proposed according to marketing research findings.

Keywords: Population aging in the Czech Republic, Segment 50-60 years, Financial services marketing, Marketing research, Marketing approach.

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Authors: Byung-Wan Jo, Kwang-Won Yoon, Ji-Sun Choi

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Load managing method on road became necessary since overloaded vehicles occur damage on road facilities and existing systems for preventing this damage still show many problems.Accordingly, efficient managing system for preventing overloaded vehicles could be organized by using the road itself as a scale by applying genetic algorithm to analyze the load and the drive information of vehicles.Therefore, this paper organized Ubiquitous sensor network system for development of intelligent overload vehicle regulation system, also in this study, to use the behavior of road, the transformation was measured by installing underground box type indoor model and indoor experiment was held using genetic algorithm. And we examined wireless possibility of overloaded vehicle regulation system through experiment of the transmission and reception distance.If this system will apply to road and bridge, might be effective for economy and convenience through establishment of U-IT system..

Keywords: Overload Vehicle. Genetic Algorithm, EmbeddedSystem, Wim Sensor, overload vehicle regulation

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Authors: J. M. Counsell, Y. Khalid, M. J. Stewart

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Achieving nearly zero carbon heating continues to be identified by UK government analysis as an important feature of any lowest cost pathway to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Heat currently accounts for 48% of UK energy consumption and approximately one third of UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Heat Networks are being promoted by UK investment policies as one means of supporting hybrid heat pump based solutions. To this effect the RISE (Renewable Integrated and Sustainable Electric) heating system project is investigating how an all-electric heating sourceshybrid configuration could play a key role in long-term decarbonisation of heat.  For the purposes of this study, hybrid systems are defined as systems combining the technologies of an electric driven air source heat pump, electric powered thermal storage, a thermal vessel and micro-heat network as an integrated system.  This hybrid strategy allows for the system to store up energy during periods of low electricity demand from the national grid, turning it into a dynamic supply of low cost heat which is utilized only when required. Currently a prototype of such a system is being tested in a modern house integrated with advanced controls and sensors. This paper presents the virtual performance analysis of the system and its design for a micro heat network with multiple dwelling units. The results show that the RISE system is controllable and can reduce carbon emissions whilst being competitive in running costs with a conventional gas boiler heating system.

Keywords: Gas boilers, heat pumps, hybrid heating and thermal storage, renewable integrated& sustainable electric.

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Authors: Ashraf S. Hakim, Randa M. Alarousy

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The consumption of food contaminated with molds (microscopic filamentous fungi) and their toxic metabolites results in the development of food-borne mycotoxicosis. The spores of molds are ubiquitously spread in the environment and can be detected everywhere. Ochratoxin A is a toxic and potentially carcinogenic fungal toxin found in a variety of food commodities. In this study, the mycological quality of various ready-to-eat local and imported pork meat and meat byproducts sold in Egyptian markets were assessed and the presence of various molds was determined in pork used as a raw material, edible organs as liver and kidney as well as in fermented raw meat by-products. The study assessed the mycological quality of pork raw meat and their by-products sold in commercial shops in Cairo, Egypt. Mycological analysis was conducted on (n=110) samples which included pig’s livers and kidneys from Egyptian Bassatin slaughter house; local and imported processed pork meat by-products from Egyptian pork markets. The isolates were identified using traditional mycological and biochemical tests. All kidney and liver samples were positive to molds growth while all byproducts were negative. Ochratoxin A levels were quantitatively analyzed using the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and the highest results were present in kidney 7.51 part per billion (ppb) followed by minced meat 6.19 ppb generally the local samples showed higher levels than the imported ones. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on mycotoxins detection and quantification from pork by-products in Egypt.

Keywords: Egypt, imported pork by-products, local, mycotoxins.

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Authors: M. Nikbakht, N. Choupani

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In this study the behavior of interlaminar fracture of carbon-epoxy thermoplastic laminated composite is investigated numerically and experimentally. Tests are performed with Arcan specimens. Testing with Arcan specimen gives the opportunity of utilizing just one kind of specimen for extracting fracture properties for mode I, mode II and different mixed mode ratios of materials with exerting load via different loading angles. Variation of loading angles in range of 0-90° made possible to achieve different mixed mode ratios. Correction factors for various conditions are obtained from ABAQUS 2D finite element models which demonstrate the finite shape of Arcan specimens used in this study. Finally, applying the correction factors to critical loads obtained experimentally, critical interlaminar fracture toughness of this type of carbon- epoxy composite has been attained.

Keywords: Fracture Mechanics, Mixed Mode, Arcan Specimen, Finite Element.

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Authors: Mohammad Ali Jabraeil Jamali, Ahmad Khademzadeh

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The success of an electronic system in a System-on- Chip is highly dependent on the efficiency of its interconnection network, which is constructed from routers and channels (the routers move data across the channels between nodes). Since neither classical bus based nor point to point architectures can provide scalable solutions and satisfy the tight power and performance requirements of future applications, the Network-on-Chip (NoC) approach has recently been proposed as a promising solution. Indeed, in contrast to the traditional solutions, the NoC approach can provide large bandwidth with moderate area overhead. The selected topology of the components interconnects plays prime rule in the performance of NoC architecture as well as routing and switching techniques that can be used. In this paper, we present two generic NoC architectures that can be customized to the specific communication needs of an application in order to reduce the area with minimal degradation of the latency of the system. An experimental study is performed to compare these structures with basic NoC topologies represented by 2D mesh, Butterfly-Fat Tree (BFT) and SPIN. It is shown that Cluster mesh (CMesh) and MinRoot schemes achieves significant improvements in network latency and energy consumption with only negligible area overhead and complexity over existing architectures. In fact, in the case of basic NoC topologies, CMesh and MinRoot schemes provides substantial savings in area as well, because they requires fewer routers. The simulation results show that CMesh and MinRoot networks outperforms MESH, BFT and SPIN in main performance metrics.

Keywords: MinRoot, CMesh, NoC, Topology, Performance Evaluation

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Authors: Mahmood Reza Shakarami, Reza Sedaghati

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Recently, distributed generation technologies have received much attention for the potential energy savings and reliability assurances that might be achieved as a result of their widespread adoption. The distribution feeder reconfiguration (DFR) is one of the most important control schemes in the distribution networks, which can be affected by DGs. This paper presents a new approach to DFR at the distribution networks considering wind turbines. The main objective of the DFR is to minimize the deviation of the bus voltage. Since the DFR is a nonlinear optimization problem, we apply the Adaptive Modified Firefly Optimization (AMFO) approach to solve it. As a result of the conflicting behavior of the single- objective function, a fuzzy based clustering technique is employed to reach the set of optimal solutions called Pareto solutions. The approach is tested on the IEEE 32-bus standard test system.

Keywords: Adaptive Modified Firefly Optimization (AMFO), Pareto solutions, feeder reconfiguration, wind turbines, bus voltage.

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Authors: J. Gazzola, I. M. Dal Fabbro, J. Soriano, M. V. G. Silva, S. Rodrigues

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Application of wood in rural construction is diffused all around the world since remote times. However, its inclusion in structural design deserves strong support from broad knowledge of material properties. The pertinent literature reveals the application of optical methods in determining the complete field displacement on bodies exhibiting regular as well as irregular surfaces. The use of moiré techniques in experimental mechanics consists in analyzing the patterns generated on the body surface before and after deformation. The objective of this research work is to study the qualitative deformation behavior of wooden testing specimens under specific loading situations. The experiment setup follows the literature description of shadow moiré methods. Results indicate strong anisotropy influence of the generated displacement field. Important qualitative as well as quantitative stress and strain distribution were obtained wooden members which are applicable to rural constructions.

Keywords: Moiré methods, wooden structural material, rural constructions.

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Authors: T. H. Rodrigues, Maria J. Reis Lima, R. P. F. Guiné, E. Teixeira de Lemos

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Portuguese diet has been gradually diverging from the basic principles of healthy eating, leading to an unbalanced dietary pattern which, associated with increasing sedentary lifestyle, has a negative impact on public health. The main objective of this work was to characterize the dietary habits of university students in Viseu, Portugal. The study consisted of a sample of 80 university students, aged between 18 and 28 years. Anthropometric data (weight (kg) and height (m)) were collected and Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated. The dietary habits were assessed through a three-day food record and the software Medpoint was used to convert food into energy and nutrients. The results showed that students present a normal body mass index. Female university students made a higher number of daily meals than male students, and these last skipped breakfast more frequently. The values of average daily intake of energy, macronutrients and calcium were higher in males. The food pattern was characterized by a predominant consumption of meat, cereal, fats and sugar. Dietary intake of dairy products, fruits, vegetables and legumes does not meet the recommendations, revealing inadequate food habits such as hypoglycemic, hyperprotein and hyperlipidemic diet. Our findings suggest that preventive interventions should be focus in promoting healthy eating habits and physical activity in adulthood.

Keywords: Food habits, BMI, fortified foods, nutritional deficiencies, university students.

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Authors: A. S. Mousa, R. I. Rajab, A. A. Pinto

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An envy behavioral game theoretical model with two types of homogeneous players is considered in this paper. The strategy space of each type of players is a discrete set with only two alternatives. The preferences of each type of players is given by a discrete utility function. All envy strategies that form Nash equilibria and the corresponding envy Nash domains for each type of players have been characterized. We use geometry to construct two dimensional envy tilings where the horizontal axis reflects the preference for players of type one, while the vertical axis reflects the preference for the players of type two. The influence of the envy behavior parameters on the Cartesian position of the equilibria has been studied, and in each envy tiling we determine the envy Nash equilibria. We observe that there are 1024 combinatorial classes of envy tilings generated from envy chromosomes: 256 of them are being structurally stable while 768 are with bifurcation. Finally, some conditions for the disparate envy Nash equilibria are stated.

Keywords: Game theory, Nash Equilibrium, envy Nash Equilibrium, geometric tilings, bifurcation thresholds.

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Authors: R. Mousli, A. Tazerouti

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This work deals with the synthesis and the determination of some surface properties of a new anionic surfactant belonging to sulfonamide derivatives. The interest in this new surfactant is that its behavior in aqueous solution is interesting both from a fundamental and a practice point of view. Indeed, it is well known that this kind of surfactant leads to the formation of bilayer structures, and the microstructures obtained have applications in various fields, ranging from cosmetics to detergents, to biological systems such as cell membranes and bioreactors. The surfactant synthesized from pure n-alkane by photosulfochlorination and derivatized using N-ethanol amine is a mixture of position isomers. These compounds have been analyzed by Gas Chromatography coupled to Mass Spectrometry by Electron Impact mode (GC -MS/IE), and IR. The surface tension measurements were carried out, leading to the determination of the critical micelle concentration (CMC), surface excess and the area occupied per molecule at the interface. The foaming power has also been determined by Bartsch method, and the results have been compared to those of commercial surfactants. The stability of the foam formed has also been evaluated. These compounds show good foaming power characterized in most cases by dry foam.

Keywords: Non ionic surfactants, GC-MS, surface properties, CMC, foam power.

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Authors: Isa Ahmadi, Ramin Khamedi

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In this paper, the elasto-plastic and cyclic torsion of a shaft is studied using a finite element method. The Prager kinematic hardening theory of plasticity with the Ramberg and Osgood stress-strain equation is used to evaluate the cyclic loading behavior of the shaft under the torsional loading. The material of shaft is assumed to follow the non-linear strain hardening property based on the Prager model. The finite element method with C¹ continuity is developed and used for solution of the governing equations of the problem. The successive substitution iterative method is used to calculate the distribution of stresses and plastic strains in the shaft due to cyclic loads. The shear stress, effective stress, residual stress and elastic and plastic shear strain distribution are presented in the numerical results.

Keywords: Cyclic Loading, Finite Element Analysis, Prager Kinematic Hardening Model, Torsion of shaft.

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Authors: Debabrata Mazumder

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Constructed and natural wetlands are being used extensively to treat different types of wastewater including the domestic one. Considerable removal efficiency has been achieved for a variety of pollutants like BOD, nitrogen and phosphorous in the wetlands. Wetland treatment appears to be the best choice for treatment or pre-treatment of wastewater because of the low maintenance cost and simplicity of operation. Wetlands are the natural exporters of organic carbon on account of decomposition of organic matter. The emergent plants like reeds, bulrushes and cattails are commonly used in constructed wetland for the treatment process providing surface for bacterial growth, filtration of solids, nutrient uptake and oxygenation to promote nitrification as well as denitrification. The present paper explored different scopes of organic matter (BOD), nitrogen and phosphorous removal from wastewater through wetlands. Emphasis is given to look into the soil chemistry for tracing the behavior of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in the wetland. Due consideration is also made to see the viability for upgrading the BOD, nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiency through different classical modifications of wetland.

Keywords: BOD removal, modification, nitrogen removal, phosphorous removal, wetland.

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Authors: Masato Nishi, Tetsushi Kaburagi, Masashi Kurose, Tei Hirashima, Tetsusei Kurasiki

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The process of thermoforming a carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP) has increased its presence in the automotive industry for its wide applicability to the mass production car. A non-isothermal forming for CFRTP can shorten its cycle time to less than 1 minute. In this paper, the textile reinforcement FE model which the authors proposed in a previous work is extended to the CFRTP model for non-isothermal forming simulation. The effect of thermoplastic is given by adding shell elements which consider thermal effect to the textile reinforcement model. By applying Reuss model to the stress calculation of thermoplastic, the proposed model can accurately predict in-plane shear behavior, which is the key deformation mode during forming, in the range of the process temperature. Using the proposed model, thermoforming simulation was conducted and the results are in good agreement with the experimental results.

Keywords: Carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP), Finite element analysis (FEA), Pre-impregnated textile composite, Non-isothermal forming.

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Authors: Mahdi Sadeghian, Mahmoud Hassanlourad, Alireza Ardakani, Reza Dinarvand

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In this research, the behavior of monopiles, under lateral loads, was investigated with vertical and oblique piles by Finite Element Method. In engineering practice when soil-pile interaction comes to the picture some simplifications are applied to reduce the design time. As a simplified replacement of soil and pile interaction analysis, pile could be replaced by a column. The height of the column would be equal to the free length of the pile plus a portion of the embedded length of it. One of the important factors studied in this study was that columns with an equivalent length (free length plus a part of buried depth) could be used instead of soil and pile modeling. The results of the analysis show that the more internal friction angle of the soil increases, the more the bearing capacity of the soil is achieved. This additional length is 6 to 11 times of the pile diameter in dense soil although in loose sandy soil this range might increase.

Keywords: Lateral bearing capacity, pile group, oblique pile, soil-structure interaction, depth of fixity.

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Authors: Divya Rajavathsavai, Akhilesh Khapre, Basudeb Munshi

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The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study of stirred tank with the air-water interface are carried out in the presence of different types of the impeller and with or without baffles. A multiple reference frame (MRF) approach with the volume of fluid (VOF) method is used to capture the air-water interface. The RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) equations with k-ε turbulence model are solved to predict the flow behavior of water and air phase which are treated as a different phases. The predicted results have shown that the VOF method is able to capture the interface in the unbaffled tank. While, the VOF method is showing an unfeasible results in the baffled tank with high rotational impeller speed. For continuous stirred tank, the air-water interface is disturbed by the inflow and the level of water is also increased with time.

Keywords: Computational Fluid Dynamics, stirred tank, airwater interface, multiple reference frame, volume of fluid, Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations.

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Authors: I. Szer, J. Szer, M. Pieńko, A. Robak, P. Jamińska-Gadomska

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Work at height, such as construction works on scaffoldings, is associated with a considerable risk. Scaffolding workers are usually exposed to changing weather conditions what can additionally increase the risk of dangerous situations. Therefore, it is very important to foresee the risk of adverse conditions to which the worker may be exposed. The data from meteorological stations may be used to asses this risk. However, the dependency between weather conditions on a scaffolding and in the vicinity of meteorological station, should be determined. The paper presents an analysis of two selected environmental parameters which have influence on the behavior of workers – air temperature and wind speed. Measurements of these parameters were made between April and November of 2016 on ten scaffoldings located in different parts of Poland. They were compared with the results taken from the meteorological stations located closest to the studied scaffolding. The results gathered from the construction sites and meteorological stations were not the same, but statistical analyses have shown that they were correlated.

Keywords: Scaffoldings, health and safety at work, temperature, wind speed.

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Authors: J. Vaseghi, S.Navaei, B. Navayinia, F. Roshantabari

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In This paper, the behavior of eccentric braced frame (EBF) is studied with replacing friction damper (FD) in confluence of these braces, in 5 and 10-storey steel frames. For FD system, the main step is to determine the slip load. For this reason, the performance indexes include roof displacement, base shear, dissipated energy and relative performance should be investigated. In nonlinear dynamic analysis, the response of structure to three earthquake records has been obtained and the values of roof displacement, base shear and column axial force for FD and EBF frames have been compared. The results demonstrate that use of the FD in frames, in comparison with the EBF, substantially reduces the roof displacement, column axial force and base shear. The obtained results show suitable performance of FD in higher storey structure in comparison with the EBF.

Keywords: Friction Damper (FD), Slip Load, Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis, Performance Index.

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Authors: Marco Actis Grande, Somlak Wannarumon

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This paper proposes the numerical simulation of the investment casting of gold jewelry. It aims to study the behavior of fluid flow during mould filling and solidification and to optimize the process parameters, which lead to predict and control casting defects such as gas porosity and shrinkage porosity. A finite difference method, computer simulation software FLOW-3D was used to simulate the jewelry casting process. The simplified model was designed for both numerical simulation and real casting production. A set of sensor acquisitions were allocated on the different positions of the wax tree of the model to detect filling times, while a set of thermocouples were allocated to detect the temperature during casting and cooling. Those detected data were applied to validate the results of the numerical simulation to the results of the real casting. The resulting comparisons signify that the numerical simulation can be used as an effective tool in investment-casting-process optimization and casting-defect prediction.

Keywords: Computer fluid dynamic, Investment casting, Jewelry, Mould filling, Simulation.

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Authors: Houda Bdiri Gabbouj, Néjib Hassen, Kamel Besbes

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This paper presents a low-voltage low-power differential linear transconductor with near rail-to-rail input swing. Based on the current-mirror OTA topology, the proposed transconductor combines the Flipped Voltage Follower (FVF) technique to linearize the transconductor behavior that leads to class- AB linear operation and the virtual transistor technique to lower the effective threshold voltages of the transistors which offers an advantage in terms of low supply requirement. Design of the OTA has been discussed. It operates at supply voltages of about ±0.8V. Simulation results for 0.18μm TSMC CMOS technology show a good input range of 1Vpp with a high DC gain of 81.53dB and a total harmonic distortion of -40dB at 1MHz for an input of 1Vpp. The main aim of this paper is to present and compare new OTA design with high transconductance, which has a potential to be used in low voltage applications.

Keywords: Amplifier class AB, current mirror, flipped voltage follower, low voltage.

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Authors: M. M. Bashandy, A. R. Ahmed, M. El-Gaffary, Sahar S. Abd El-Rahman

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This study evaluated the acute toxicity and tissue distribution of intravenously administered gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in male rabbits. Rabbits were exposed to single dose of AuNPs (300 μg/ kg). Toxic effects were assessed via general behavior, hematological parameters, serum biochemical parameters, and histopathological examination of various rabbits’ organs. Inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used to determine gold concentrations in tissue samples collected at predetermined time intervals. After one week, AuNPs exerted no obvious acute toxicity in rabbits. However, inflammatory reactions were observed in liver, lungs and kidneys accompanied with mild absolute neutrophilia and significant monocytosis. The highest gold levels were found in the spleen and liver followed by lungs, and kidneys. These results indicated that AuNPs could be distributed extensively to various tissues in the body, but primarily in the spleen and liver.

Keywords: Gold nanoparticles, toxicity, pathology, hematology, liver function, kidney function.

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Authors: J. Nisar, S. Halim

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The additional relationships i.e., start-to-start, finish-to-finish, and start-to-finish, between activity in Precedence Diagram Method (PDM) provides a more flexible schedule than traditional Critical Path Method (CPM). But, changing the duration of critical activities in the PDM network will have an anomalous effect on the critical path and the project completion date. In this study, we classified the critical activities in two groups i.e., 1. activity on single critical path and 2. activity on multi-critical paths, and six classes i.e., normal, reverse, neutral, perverse, decrease-reverse and increase-normal, based on their effects on project duration in PDM. Furthermore, we determined the maximum float of time by which the duration each type of critical activities can be changed without effecting the project duration. This study would help the project manager to clearly understand the behavior of each critical activity on critical path, and he/she would be able to change the project duration by shortening or lengthening activities based on project budget and project deadline.

Keywords: Construction project management, critical path method, project scheduling, precedence diagram method.

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Authors: A. Karimipour, M. Afrand, M. Akbari, M.R. Safaei

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Mixed convection in two-dimensional shallow rectangular enclosure is considered. The top hot wall moves with constant velocity while the cold bottom wall has no motion. Simulations are performed for Richardson number ranging from Ri = 0.001 to 100 and for Reynolds number keeping fixed at Re = 408.21. Under these conditions cavity encompasses three regimes: dominating forced, mixed and free convection flow. The Prandtl number is set to 6 and the effects of cavity inclination on the flow and heat transfer are studied for different Richardson number. With increasing the inclination angle, interesting behavior of the flow and thermal fields are observed. The streamlines and isotherm plots and the variation of the Nusselt numbers on the hot wall are presented. The average Nusselt number is found to increase with cavity inclination for Ri ³ 1 . Also it is shown that the average Nusselt number changes mildly with the cavity inclination in the dominant forced convection regime but it increases considerably in the regime with dominant natural convection.

Keywords: Mixed convection, inclined driven cavity, Richardson number.

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Authors: Ambalika Ekka

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In today’s world, the growing demand for urban built forms has resulted in the production and consumption of building materials i.e. embodied energy in building construction, leading to pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, new buildings will offer a unique opportunity to implement more energy efficient building without compromising on building performance of the building. Embodied energy of building materials forms major contribution to embodied energy in buildings. The paper results in an approach towards designing an energy efficient apartment building through embodied energy assessment. This paper discusses the trend of residential development in Rourkela, which includes three case studies of the contemporary houses, followed by architectural elements, number of storeys, predominant material use and plot sizes using primary data. It results in identification of predominant material used and other characteristics in urban area. Further, the embodied energy coefficients of various dominant building materials and alternative materials manufactured in Indian Industry is taken in consideration from secondary source i.e. literature study. The paper analyses the embodied energy by estimating materials and operational energy of proposed building followed by altering the specifications of the materials based on the building components i.e. walls, flooring, windows, insulation and roof through res build India software and comparison of different options is assessed with consideration of sustainable parameters. This paper results that autoclaved aerated concrete block only reaches the energy performance Index benchmark i.e. 69.35 kWh/m² yr i.e. by saving 4% of operational energy and as embodied energy has no particular index, out of all materials it has the highest EE 23206202.43  MJ.

Keywords: Energy efficient, embodied energy, energy performance index, building materials.

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Authors: A. Goel, S.C. Gupta, S.K.Wasan

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Testable software has two inherent properties – observability and controllability. Observability facilitates observation of internal behavior of software to required degree of detail. Controllability allows creation of difficult-to-achieve states prior to execution of various tests. In this paper, we describe COTT, a Controllability and Observability Testing Tool, to create testable object-oriented software. COTT provides a framework that helps the user to instrument object-oriented software to build the required controllability and observability. During testing, the tool facilitates creation of difficult-to-achieve states required for testing of difficultto- test conditions and observation of internal details of execution at unit, integration and system levels. The execution observations are logged in a test log file, which are used for post analysis and to generate test coverage reports.

Keywords: Controllability, Observability, Test Coverage and Testing Tool.

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Authors: Kerim Emre Öksüz, Mehmet Çevik, A. Enbiya Bozdağ, Ali Özer, Mehmet Simsir

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Metal matrix composites (MMCs) have gained a considerable interest in the last three decades. Conventional powder metallurgy production route often involves the addition of reinforcing phases into the metal matrix directly, which leads to poor wetting behavior between ceramic phase and metal matrix and the segregation of reinforcements. The commonly used elements for ceramic phase formation in iron based MMCs are Ti, Nb, Mo, W, V and C, B. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the effect of sintering temperature and V-B addition on densification, phase development, microstructure, and hardness of Fe–V-B composites (Fe-(5-10) wt. %B – 25 wt. %V alloys) prepared by powder metallurgy process. Metal powder mixes were pressed uniaxial and sintered at different temperatures (ranging from 1300 to 1400ºC) for 1h. The microstructure of the (V, B) Fe composites was studied with the help of high magnification optical microscope and XRD. Experimental results show that (V, B) Fe composites can be produced by conventional powder metallurgy route.

Keywords: Hardness, Metal matrix composite (MMC), Microstructure, Powder Metallurgy.

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Authors: Wei Zhang

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With the rapid development of deep learning, neural network and deep learning algorithms play a significant role in various practical applications. Due to the high accuracy and good performance, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) especially have become a research hot spot in the past few years. However, the size of the networks becomes increasingly large scale due to the demands of the practical applications, which poses a significant challenge to construct a high-performance implementation of deep learning neural networks. Meanwhile, many of these application scenarios also have strict requirements on the performance and low-power consumption of hardware devices. Therefore, it is particularly critical to choose a moderate computing platform for hardware acceleration of CNNs. This article aimed to survey the recent advance in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based acceleration of CNNs. Various designs and implementations of the accelerator based on FPGA under different devices and network models are overviewed, and the versions of Graphic Processing Units (GPUs), Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) are compared to present our own critical analysis and comments. Finally, we give a discussion on different perspectives of these acceleration and optimization methods on FPGA platforms to further explore the opportunities and challenges for future research. More helpfully, we give a prospect for future development of the FPGA-based accelerator.

Keywords: Deep learning, field programmable gate array, FPGA, hardware acceleration, convolutional neural networks, CNN.

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Authors: Mohammadreza Nezamirad, Sepideh Amirahmadian, Nasim Sabetpour, Azadeh Yazdi, Amirmasoud Hamedi

Abstract:

Cavitation inside a diesel injector nozzle is investigated numerically in this study. The Reynolds Stress Navier Stokes set of equations (RANS) are utilized to investigate flow behavior inside the nozzle numerically. Moreover, K-ε turbulent model is found to be a better approach comparing to K-ω turbulent model. The Winklhofer rectangular shape nozzle is also simulated in order to verify the current numerical scheme, and with the mass flow rate approach, the current solution is verified. Afterward, a six-hole real size nozzle was simulated and it was found that among the different fuels used in this study with the same condition, diesel fuel provides the largest length of cavitation. Also, it was found that at the same boundary condition, rapeseed methyl ester (RME) fuel leads to the highest value of discharge coefficient and mass flow rate.

Keywords: cavitation, diesel fuel, CFD, real size nozzle, discharge coefficient

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Authors: Jürgen Geiser, Robert Röhle

Abstract:

In this paper we present modeling and simulation for physical vapor deposition for metallic bipolar plates. In the models we discuss the application of different models to simulate the transport of chemical reactions of the gas species in the gas chamber. The so called sputter process is an extremely sensitive process to deposit thin layers to metallic plates. We have taken into account lower order models to obtain first results with respect to the gas fluxes and the kinetics in the chamber. The model equations can be treated analytically in some circumstances and complicated multi-dimensional models are solved numerically with a software-package (UG unstructed grids, see [1]). Because of multi-scaling and multi-physical behavior of the models, we discuss adapted schemes to solve more accurate in the different domains and scales. The results are discussed with physical experiments to give a valid model for the assumed growth of thin layers.

Keywords: Convection-diffusion equations, multi-scale problem, physical vapor deposition, reaction equations, splitting methods.

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