Search results for: Process setting

Authors: F. Abdul Majeed, H. Karki, Y. Abdel Magid, M. Karkoub

Abstract:

This paper analyses the non linear properties exhibited by a drill string system under various un balanced mass conditions. The drill string is affected by continuous friction in the form of drill bit and well bore hole interactions. This paper proves the origin of limit cycling and increase of non linearity with increase in speed of the drilling in the presence of friction. The spectrum of the frequency response is also studied to detect the presence of vibration abnormalities arising during the drilling process.

Keywords: Drill strings, Nonlinear, Spectrum analysis, Unbalanced mass

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Authors: Minyoung Eom, Yoonsik Choe

Abstract:

In these days, multimedia data is transmitted and processed in compressed format. Due to the decoding procedure and filtering for edge detection, the feature extraction process of MPEG-7 Edge Histogram Descriptor is time-consuming as well as computationally expensive. To improve efficiency of compressed image retrieval, we propose a new edge histogram generation algorithm in DCT domain in this paper. Using the edge information provided by only two AC coefficients of DCT coefficients, we can get edge directions and strengths directly in DCT domain. The experimental results demonstrate that our system has good performance in terms of retrieval efficiency and effectiveness.

Keywords: DCT, Descriptor, EHD, MPEG7.

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Authors: Marzhan Baimurzayeva, Alibek Utyanov, Gulnar Shabdarbaeva, Damir Khussainov

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This article introduces the actual problem that is а study of proposed by the authors Hydrocele ointment in amino acids’ metabolism of cows’ blood in inflammation of traumatic origin. Hydrocele ointment has shown a positive effect on inflammatory process and amino acids’ metabolism of animals treated with the drug. Amino acid levels reached physiological parameters on the 10th day after treatment; in the control group this parameter was higher than normal.

Keywords: Amino acids, blood protein, Hydrocele ointment, inflammation, repair.

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Authors: Cheima Ben Soltane, Ittansa Yonas Kelbesa

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Speaker Identification (SI) is the task of establishing identity of an individual based on his/her voice characteristics. The SI task is typically achieved by two-stage signal processing: training and testing. The training process calculates speaker specific feature parameters from the speech and generates speaker models accordingly. In the testing phase, speech samples from unknown speakers are compared with the models and classified. Even though performance of speaker identification systems has improved due to recent advances in speech processing techniques, there is still need of improvement. In this paper, a Closed-Set Tex-Independent Speaker Identification System (CISI) based on a Multiple Classifier System (MCS) is proposed, using Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) as feature extraction and suitable combination of vector quantization (VQ) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) together with Expectation Maximization algorithm (EM) for speaker modeling. The use of Voice Activity Detector (VAD) with a hybrid approach based on Short Time Energy (STE) and Statistical Modeling of Background Noise in the pre-processing step of the feature extraction yields a better and more robust automatic speaker identification system. Also investigation of Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) clustering algorithm for initialization of GMM, for estimating the underlying parameters, in the EM step improved the convergence rate and systems performance. It also uses relative index as confidence measures in case of contradiction in identification process by GMM and VQ as well. Simulation results carried out on voxforge.org speech database using MATLAB highlight the efficacy of the proposed method compared to earlier work.

Keywords: Feature Extraction, Speaker Modeling, Feature Matching, Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC), Gaussian mixture model (GMM), Vector Quantization (VQ), Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG), Expectation Maximization (EM), pre-processing, Voice Activity Detection (VAD), Short Time Energy (STE), Background Noise Statistical Modeling, Closed-Set Tex-Independent Speaker Identification System (CISI).

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Authors: Y. El Kaissi, M. Allam, A. Koulou, M. Galai, M. Ebn Touhami

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The aim of our work is to develop an industrial bath of nickel alloy deposit on mild steel. The optimization of the operating parameters made it possible to obtain a stable Ni-P alloy deposition formulation. To understand the reaction mechanism of the deposition process, a kinetic study was performed by cyclic voltammetry and by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The coatings obtained have a very high corrosion resistance in a very aggressive acid medium which increases with the heat treatment.

Keywords: Ni–P coating, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, heat treatment, cyclic voltammetry, potentiodynamic polarization.

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Authors: M.St. Węglowski, D. Miara, S. Błacha, J. Dworak, J. Rykała, K. Kwieciński, J. Pikuła, G. Ziobro, A. Szafron, P. Zimierska-Nowak, M. Richert, P. Noga

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In the paper the results of welding of car’s air-conditioning elements are presented. These systems based on, mainly, the environmental unfriendly refrigerants. Thus, the producers of cars will have to stop using traditional refrigerant and to change it to carbon dioxide (R744). This refrigerant is environmental friendly. However, it should be noted that the air condition system working with R744 refrigerant operates at high temperature (up to 150 °C) and high pressure (up to 130 bar). These two parameters are much higher than for other refrigerants. Thus new materials, design as well as joining technologies are strongly needed for these systems. AISI 304 and 316L steels as well as aluminium alloys 5xxx are ranked among the prospective materials. As a joining process laser welding, plasma welding, electron beam welding as well as high rotary friction welding can be applied. In the study, the metallographic examination based on light microscopy as well as SEM was applied to estimate the quality of welded joints. The analysis of welding was supported by numerical modelling based on Sysweld software. The results indicated that using laser, plasma and electron beam welding, it is possible to obtain proper quality of welds in stainless steel. Moreover, high rotary friction welding allows to guarantee the metallic continuity in the aluminium welded area. The metallographic examination revealed that the grain growth in the heat affected zone (HAZ) in laser and electron beam welded joints were not observed. It is due to low heat input and short welding time. The grain growth and subgrains can be observed at room temperature when the solidification mode is austenitic. This caused low microstructural changes during solidification. The columnar grain structure was found in the weld metal. Meanwhile, the equiaxed grains were detected in the interface. The numerical modelling of laser welding process allowed to estimate the temperature profile in the welded joint as well as predicts the dimensions of welds. The agreement between FEM analysis and experimental data was achieved.  

Keywords: Car’s air–conditioning, microstructure, numerical modelling, welding.

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Authors: M. A. N. Rasanjalee Perera

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The world is facing several problems due to increasing elderly population. In Sri Lanka, along with the complexity of the modern society and structural and functional changes of the family, “caring for elders” seems as an emerging social problem. This situation may intensify as the county is moving into a middle income society. Seeking higher education and related career opportunities, and urban living in modern housing are new trends, through which several problems are generated. Among many issues related with elders, “lack of accessible and appropriate facilities in their houses as well as public buildings” can be identified as a major problem. This study argues that welfare facilities provided for the elderly people, particularly in the home environment, in the country are not adequate. Modern housing features such as bathrooms, pantries, lobbies, and leisure areas etc. are questionable as to whether they match with elders’ physical and mental needs. Consequently, elders have to face domestic accidents and many other difficulties within their living environments. Records of hospitals in the country also proved this fact. Therefore, this study tries to identify how far modern houses are suited with elders’ needs. The study further questioned whether “aging” is a considerable matter when people are buying, planning and renovating houses. A randomly selected sample of 50 houses were observed and 50 persons were interviewed around the Maharagama urban area in Colombo district to obtain primary data, while relevant secondary data and information were used to have a depth analysis. The study clearly found that none of the houses included to the sample are considering elders’ needs in planning, renovating, or arranging the home. Instead, most of the families were giving priority to the rich and elegant appearance and modern facilities of the houses. Particularly, to the bathrooms, pantry, large setting areas, balcony, parking slots for two vehicles, ad parapet walls with roller-gates are the main concerns. A significant factor found here is that even though, many children of the aged are in middle age and reaching their older years at present, they do not plan their future living within a safe and comfortable home, despite that they are hoping to spent the latter part of their lives in the their current homes. This fact highlights that not only the other responsible parts of the society, but also those who are reaching their older ages are ignoring the problems of the aged. At the same time, it was found that more than 80% of old parents do not like to stay at their children’s homes as the living environments in such modern homes are not familiar or convenient for them. Due to this context, the aged in Sri Lanka may have to be alone in their own homes due to current trend of society of migrating to urban living in modern houses. At the same time, current urban families who live in modern houses may have to face adding accessible facilities in their home environment, as current modern housing facilities may not be appropriate them for a better life in their latter part of life.

Keywords: Aging population, elderly care, home environment, housing facilities.

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Authors: Gökçen A. Çiftçioğlu, M. A. Neşet Kadırgan, Figen Kadırgan

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Solar energy, since it is available every day, is seen as one of the most valuable renewable energy resources. Thus, the energy of sun should be efficiently used in various applications. The most known applications that use solar energy are heating water and spaces. High efficiency solar collectors need appropriate selective surfaces to absorb the heat. Selective surfaces (Selektif-Sera) used in this study are applied to flat collectors, which are produced by a roll to roll cost effective coating of nano nickel layers, developed in Selektif Teknoloji Co. Inc. Efficiency of flat collectors using Selektif-Sera absorbers are calculated in collaboration with Institute for Solar Technik Rapperswil, Switzerland. The main cause of high energy consumption in industry is mostly caused from low temperature level processes. There is considerable effort in research to minimize the energy use by renewable energy sources such as solar energy. A feasibility study will be presented to obtain the potential of solar thermal energy utilization in the textile industry using these solar collectors. For the feasibility calculations presented in this study, textile dyeing and finishing factory located at Kahramanmaras is selected since the geographic location was an important factor. Kahramanmaras is located in the south east part of Turkey thus has a great potential to have solar illumination much longer. It was observed that, the collector area is limited by the available area in the factory, thus a hybrid heating generating system (lignite/solar thermal) was preferred in the calculations of this study to be more realistic. During the feasibility work, the calculations took into account the preheating process, where well waters heated from 15 °C to 30-40 °C by using the hot waters in heat exchangers. Then the preheated water was heated again by high efficiency solar collectors. Economic comparison between the lignite use and solar thermal collector use was provided to determine the optimal system that can be used efficiently. The optimum design of solar thermal systems was studied depending on the optimum collector area. It was found that the solar thermal system is more economic and efficient than the merely lignite use. Return on investment time is calculated as 5.15 years.

Keywords: Solar energy, heating, solar heating.

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Authors: Jin Zhi

Abstract:

This paper covered a series of key points in terms of 2D to 3D stereoscopic conversion. A successfully applied stereoscopic conversion approach in current visual effects industry was presented. The purpose of this paper is to cover a detailed workflow and concept, which has been successfully used in 3D stereoscopic conversion for feature films in visual effects industry, and therefore to clarify the process in stereoscopic conversion production and provide a clear idea for those entry-level artists to improve an overall understanding of 3D stereoscopic in digital compositing field as well as to the higher education factor of visual effects and hopefully inspire further collaboration and participants particularly between academia and industry.

Keywords: Clean plates, Mattes, Stereoscopic conversion, 3Dprojection, Z-depth.

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Authors: Yang Bao, Shi Wei Deng, Wang Qun Lin

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This paper introduces the concept and principle of data cleaning, analyzes the types and causes of dirty data, and proposes several key steps of typical cleaning process, puts forward a well scalability and versatility data cleaning framework, in view of data with attribute dependency relation, designs several of violation data discovery algorithms by formal formula, which can obtain inconsistent data to all target columns with condition attribute dependent no matter data is structured (SQL) or unstructured (NoSql), and gives 6 data cleaning methods based on these algorithms.

Keywords: Data cleaning, dependency rules, violation data discovery, data repair.

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Authors: J. Alizadeh K., R. S. Ashofteh, A. Asadi Lari

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Railway vehicle wheels are designed to operate in harsh environments and to withstand high hydrostatic contact pressures. This situation may result in critical circumstances, in particular wheel breakage. This paper presents a time history of a series of broken wheels during a time interval [2007-2008] belongs to locomotive fleet on Iranian Railways. Such fractures in locomotive wheels never reported before. Due to the importance of this issue, a research study has been launched to find the potential reasons of this problem. The authors introduce a FEM model to indicate how and where the wheels could have been affected during their operation. Then, the modeling results are presented and discussed in detail.

Keywords: Crack, fatigue, FE analysis, wheel.

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Authors: H. Lang, M. Bader, A. Buchroithner

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Holistic methods covering the development process as a whole – e.g. systems engineering – have established themselves in product design. However, technical product optimization, representing improvements in efficiency and/or minimization of loss, usually applies to single components of a system. A holistic approach is being defined based on a hierarchical point of view of systems engineering. This is subsequently presented using the example of an electromechanical flywheel energy storage system for automotive applications.

Keywords: Design, product development, product optimization, systems engineering, flywheel energy storage.

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Authors: J. Casteleiro- Pitrez

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The interest in Virtual Reality (VR) keeps increasing among the community of designers. To develop this type of immersive experience, the understanding of new processes and methodologies is as fundamental as its complex implementation which usually implies hiring a specialized team. In this paper, we introduce a case study, a platform that allows designers to easily create complex VR experiences, present its features, and its development process. We conclude that this platform provides a complete solution for the design and development of VR experiences, no-code needed.

Keywords: Designers, virtual reality, virtual reality design platform, virtual reality system, no-coding.

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Authors: A. Kaćunić, M. Ćosić, N. Kuzmanić

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Interaction between mixing and crystallization is often ignored despite the fact that it affects almost every aspect of the operation including nucleation, growth, and maintenance of the crystal slurry. This is especially pronounced in multiple impeller systems where flow complexity is increased. By choosing proper mixing parameters, what closely depends on the knowledge of the hydrodynamics in a mixing vessel, the process of batch cooling crystallization may considerably be improved. The values that render useful information when making this choice are mixing time and power consumption. The predominant motivation for this work was to investigate the extent to which radial dual impeller configuration influences mixing time, power consumption and consequently the values of metastable zone width and nucleation rate. In this research, crystallization of borax was conducted in a 15 dm3 baffled batch cooling crystallizer with an aspect ratio (H/T) of 1.3. Mixing was performed using two straight blade turbines (4-SBT) mounted on the same shaft that generated radial fluid flow. Experiments were conducted at different values of N/NJS ratio (impeller speed/ minimum impeller speed for complete suspension), D/T ratio (impeller diameter/crystallizer diameter), c/D ratio (lower impeller off-bottom clearance/impeller diameter), and s/D ratio (spacing between impellers/impeller diameter). Mother liquor was saturated at 30°C and was cooled at the rate of 6°C/h. Its concentration was monitored in line by Na-ion selective electrode. From the values of supersaturation that was monitored continuously over process time, it was possible to determine the metastable zone width and subsequently the nucleation rate using the Mersmann’s nucleation criterion. For all applied dual impeller configurations, the mixing time was determined by potentiometric method using a pulse technique, while the power consumption was determined using a torque meter produced by Himmelstein & Co. Results obtained in this investigation show that dual impeller configuration significantly influences the values of mixing time, power consumption as well as the metastable zone width and nucleation rate. A special attention should be addressed to the impeller spacing considering the flow interaction that could be more or less pronounced depending on the spacing value.

Keywords: Dual impeller crystallizer, mixing time, power consumption, metastable zone width, nucleation rate.

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Authors: Kamila Tišlerová

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This contribution aims to outline some topics around the process of introduction of compulsory electronic exchange of documents (so called e-Boxes) in public administration. The research was conducted in order to gauge the difference between the expectation of those using internal email and their experience in reality. Both qualitative and quantitative research is employed to lead also to an estimation of the willingness and readiness of government bodies, business units and citizens to adopt new technologies. At the same time the most potent barriers to successful e-communication through the e-Boxes are identified.

Keywords: E-Box, e-Government, electronic document exchange, digitalisation, public administration.

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Authors: Madhuri Khambete, Madhuri Joshi

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Quality evaluation of an image is an important task in image processing applications. In case of image compression, quality of decompressed image is also the criterion for evaluation of given coding scheme. In the process of compression -decompression various artifacts such as blocking artifacts, blur artifact, ringing or edge artifact are observed. However quantification of these artifacts is a difficult task. We propose here novel method to quantify blur and ringing artifact in an image.

Keywords: Blur, Compression, Objective Quality assessment, Ringing artifact.

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Authors: Abdullah A. H. Alzahrani, Majd Zohri Yafi, Fawaz K. Alarfaj

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Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a software modelling language that is widely used and accepted. One significant drawback, of which, is that the language lacks formality. This makes carrying out any type of rigorous analysis difficult process. Many researchers attempt to introduce their approaches to formalise UML diagrams. However, it is always hard to decide what language and/or approach to use. Therefore, in this paper, we highlight some of the advantages and disadvantages of number of those approaches. We also try to compare different counterpart approaches. In addition, we draw some guidelines to help in choosing the suitable approach. Special concern is given to the formalisation of the static aspects of UML shown is class diagrams.

Keywords: UML formalisation, Object Constraints Language (OCL), Description Logic (DL), Z language.

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Authors: Niklas Echterhoff, Benjamin Amshoff, Jürgen Gausemeier

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Creativity is often based on an unorthodox recombination of knowledge; in fact: 80% of all innovations use given knowledge and put it into a new combination. Cross-industry innovations follow this way of thinking and bring together problems and solution ideas from different industries. Therefore analogies and search strategies have to be developed. Taking this path, the questions where to search, what to search and how to search have to be answered. Afterwards, the gathered information can be used within a planned search process. Identified solution ideas have to be assessed and analyzed in detail for the success promising adaption planning.

Keywords: analogy building, cross-industry innovations, knowledge transfer, solution adaption.

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Authors: Nicolay Zarutskiy, Roman Bulkin

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The paper deals with the existing methods of force-torque sensor calibration with a number of components from one to six, analyzed their advantages and disadvantages, the necessity of introduction of a calibration method. Calibration method and its constructive realization are also described here. A calibration method allows performing automated force-torque sensor calibration both with selected components of the main vector of forces and moments and with complex loading. Thus, two main advantages of the proposed calibration method are achieved: the automation of the calibration process and universality.

Keywords: Automation, calibration, calibration device, calibration method, force-torque sensors.

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Authors: Elle Hilke Dominski

Abstract:

This paper explores the impact of intersectional bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) youth from a multi-layered experience perspective within bullying incidents at school. Present inclusionary measures at school may not be designed as a continuous process of finding better methods for responding to diversity, rather remain ‘fixed’ as singular solutions applied universally. This paper argues recognizing education through a lens of inclusion begins to realize most educational systems are poorly equipped to handle diversity.

Keywords: Education, inclusion and exclusion, bullying, intersectional bullying, LGBT, power paradigms.

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Authors: N. Popovich, P. Yan

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In this paper, the process of obtaining Q and R matrices for optimal pitch aircraft control system has been described. Since the innovation of optimal control method, the determination of Q and R matrices for such system has not been fully specified. The value of Q and R for optimal pitch aircraft control application, have been simulated and calculated. The suitable results for Q and R have been observed through the performance index (PI). If the PI is small “enough", we would say the Q & R values are suitable for that certain type of optimal control system. Moreover, for the same value of PI, we could have different Q and R sets. Due to the rule-free determination of Q and R matrices, a specific method is brought to find out the rough value of Q and R referring to rather small value of PI.

Keywords: Aircraft, control, digital, optimal, Q and R matrices

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Authors: Klara Krizova, Rudolf Hela

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The topic of the article focuses on the evaluation of selected technological factors and their influence on resulting elasticity modulus of concrete. A series of various factors enter into the manufacturing process which, more or less, influences the elasticity modulus. This paper presents the results of concrete in which the influence of water coefficient and the size of maximum fraction of the aggregate on the static elasticity modulus were monitored. Part of selected results of the long-term programme was discussed in which a wide scope of various variants of proposals for the composition of concretes was evaluated.

Keywords: Mix design, water-cement ratio, aggregate, modulus of elasticity.

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Authors: A. M. Hasna

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Today global warming, climate change and energy supply are of greater concern as it is widely realized that the planet earth does not provide an infinite capacity for absorbing human industrialization in the 21st century. The aim of this paper is to analyze upstream and downstream electricity production in selected case studies: a coal power plant, a pump system and a microwave oven covering and consumption to explore the position of energy efficiency in engineering sustainability. Collectively, the analysis presents energy efficiency as a major pathway towards sustainability that requires an inclusive and a holistic supply chain response in the engineering design process.

Keywords: Sustainability, technology, efficiency, engineering, energy.

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Authors: Marian Woźniak, Alicja Sobkowiak

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The world is entering a new path of development which is becoming the driving force of globalization. It is seen as an irreversible process of the present reality and has a significant impact on the transformation of economic, social and cultural rights. This also applies to changes in the rural environment which while emphasizing the global development should also maintain its identity and locality, and a rural community should do more to recognize the globalization of an opportunity than a threat to the Polish countryside. The paper discusses theoretical problems of rural development and the importance of diversification in rural areas and preserving the countryside life and there werepresente the opinions of residents of the Polish countryside on the impact of globalization on the development.

Keywords: globalization, rural areas

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Authors: E. Balkauskaitė, A. Bučinskas, R. Ivanauskas, M. Kriipsalu, G. Denafas

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Leaching of heavy metals (chromium, zinc, copper) from the fine fraction of the Torma landfill (Estonia) was investigated. The leaching kinetics studies have determined the dependence of some metal’s concentration on the leaching time. Metals were leached with Aqua Regia, distilled water and EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid); process was most intensive 2 hours after the start of the experiment, except for copper with EDTA (0.5 h) and lead with EDTA (4 h). During leaching, steady concentrations of Fe, Mn, Cd and Pb were fully stabilized after 8 h; however concentrations of Cu and Ni were not stabilized after 10 h.

Keywords: Landfills, fine fraction, leached metals, leaching kinetics.

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Authors: Avelino Mondlane, Karin Hansson, Oliver Popov, Xavier Muianga

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This paper discusses the role and importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and social Networking (SN) in the process of decision making for Flood Risk and Knowledge Management Strategies. We use Mozambique Red Cross (CVM) as the case study and further more we address scenarios for flood risk management strategies, using earlier warning and social networking and we argue that a sustainable desirable stage of life can be achieved by developing scenario strategic planning based on backcasting.

Keywords: ICT, KM, scenario planning, backcasting and flood risk management.

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Authors: C. Y. Chen, C. C. Chen, J. S. Lin

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The microstructure characterization of tempered nanocrystalline bainitic steel is investigated in the present study. It is found that two types of plastic relaxation, dislocation debris and nanotwin, occurs in the displacive transformation due to relatively low transformation temperature and high carbon content. Because most carbon atoms trap in the dislocation, high dislocation density can be sustained during the tempering process. More carbides only can be found in the high tempered temperature due to intense recovery progression.

Keywords: Nanostructure Bainitic Steel, Tempered, TEM, Nano-Twin, Dislocation Debris, Accommodation.

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Authors: Shyue-Ran Li, Kuohsiang Chen

Abstract:

The study explored varied types of human smiles and extracted most of the key factors affecting the smiles. These key factors then were converted into a set of control points which could serve to satisfy the needs for creation of facial expression for 3D animators and be further applied to the face simulation for robots in the future. First, hundreds of human smile pictures were collected and analyzed to identify the key factors for face expression. Then, the factors were converted into a set of control points and sizing parameters calculated proportionally. Finally, two different faces were constructed for validating the parameters via the process of simulating smiles of the same type as the original one.

Keywords: 3D animation, facial expression, numerical, robot, smile parameter.

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Authors: S. S. Sharma, P. R. Prabhu, K. Jagannath, Achutha Kini U., Gowri Shankar M. C.

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In present global scenario, aluminum alloys are coining the attention of many innovators as competing structural materials for automotive and space applications. Comparing to other challenging alloys, especially, 7xxx series aluminum alloys have been studied seriously because of benefits such as moderate strength; better deforming characteristics and affordable cost. It is expected that substitution of aluminum alloys for steels will result in great improvements in energy economy, durability and recyclability. However, it is necessary to improve the strength and the formability levels at low temperatures in aluminum alloys for still better applications. Aluminum–Zinc–Magnesium with or without other wetting agent denoted as 7XXX series alloys are medium strength heat treatable alloys. In addition to Zn, Mg as major alloying additions, Cu, Mn and Si are the other solute elements which contribute for the improvement in mechanical properties by suitable heat treatment process. Subjecting to suitable treatments like age hardening or cold deformation assisted heat treatments; known as low temperature thermomechanical treatments (LTMT) the challenging properties might be incorporated. T6 is the age hardening or precipitation hardening process with artificial aging cycle whereas T8 comprises of LTMT treatment aged artificially with X% cold deformation. When the cold deformation is provided after solution treatment, there is increase in hardness related properties such as wear resistance, yield and ultimate strength, toughness with the expense of ductility. During precipitation hardening both hardness and strength of the samples are increasing. The hardness value may further improve when room temperature deformation is positively supported with age hardening known as thermomechanical treatment. It is intended to perform heat treatment and evaluate hardness, tensile strength, wear resistance and distribution pattern of reinforcement in the matrix. 2 to 2.5 and 3 to 3.5 times increase in hardness is reported in age hardening and LTMT treatments respectively as compared to as-cast composite. There was better distribution of reinforcements in the matrix, nearly two fold increase in strength levels and up to 5 times increase in wear resistance are also observed in the present study.

Keywords: Reinforcement, precipitation, thermomechanical, dislocation, strain hardening.

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Authors: F. O Anugom

Abstract:

The general functions of the university amongst other things include teaching, research and community service. Universities are recognized as the apex of learning, accumulating and imparting knowledge and skills of all kinds to students to enable them to be productive, earn their living and to make optimum contributions to national development. This is equivalent to the production of human capital in the form of high level manpower needed to administer the educational society, be useful to the society and manage the economy. Quality has become a matter of major importance for university education in Nigeria. Accreditation is the systematic review of educational programs to ensure that acceptable standards of education, scholarship and infrastructure are being maintained. Accreditation ensures that institution maintain quality. The process is designed to determine whether or not an institution has met or exceeded the published standards for accreditation, and whether it is achieving its mission and stated purposes. Ensuring quality assurance in accreditation process falls in the hands of university management which justified the need for this study. This study examined accreditation and quality assurance: the management imperative. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The design was a correlation survey with a population of 2,893 university administrators out of which 578 Heads of department and Dean of faculties were sampled. The instrument for data collection was titled Programme Accreditation Exercise scale with high levels of reliability. The research questions were answered with Pearson ‘r’ statistics. T-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses. It was found among others that the quality of accredited programme depends on the level of funding of universities in Nigeria. It was also indicated that quality of programme accreditation and physical facilities of universities in Nigeria have high relationship. But it was also revealed that programme accreditation is positively related to staffing in Nigerian universities. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommend that academic administrators should be included in the team of those who ensure quality programs in the universities. Private sector partnership should be encouraged to fund programs to ensure quality of programme in the universities. Independent agencies should be engaged to monitor the activities of accreditation teams to avoid bias.

Keywords: Accreditation, quality assurance, NUC, physical facilities, staffing.

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