Search results for: regional imbalances in electricity production and consumption

Authors: Asep Bayu Dani Nandiyanto, Asep Suhendi, Yutaka Kisakibaru, Takashi Ogi, Kikuo Okuyama

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An ordered porous antimony-doped tin oxide (ATO) film was successfully prepared using a simple coating process with colloidal templates. The facile production was effective when a combination of 16-nm ATO (as a model of an inorganic nanoparticle) and polystyrene (PS) spheres (as a model of the template) weresimply coated to produce a composite ATO/PS film. Heat treatment was then used to remove the PS and produce the porous film. The porous film with a spherical pore shape and a highly ordered porous structure could be obtained. A potential way for the control of pore size could be also achieved by changing initial template size. The theoretical explanation and mechanism of porous formation were also added, which would be important for the scaling-up prediction and estimation.

Keywords: Porous structure film; ATO particle; Ultra-low refractive index; vertical drop method; Low-density material;

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Authors: Gülşah Kanbur, Veysel Ayhan

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Feed oil samples which are used as mixed feed raw material were taken from six different feed factories in March, May and July. All factories make production in Konya, Turkey and all of the samples were crude soybean oils. Physical and chemical analyses, free radical scavenger effect, and total phenol content were determined on these oil samples. Moisture (M) content was found between 0.10-22.23%, saponification number (SF) was determined 143.13 to 167.93 KOH/kg, free fatty acidity (FFA) was varied 0.73 to 35.00%, peroxide value (PV) was found between 1.53 and 28.43 meq/kg, unsaponifiable matter (USM) was determined from 0.40 to 17.10%, viscosity (V) was found between 34.30 and 625.67 mPas, sediment (S) amount was determined between 0.60-18.16%, free radical scavenger effect (FRSE) was varied 20.7 to 43.04% inhibition of the extract and total phenol (TPC) content was found between 1.20 and 2.69mg/L extract. Different results were found between months and factories.

Keywords: Crude soybean oil, Feed oils, mixed feed.

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Authors: Aroonsri Priprem, Sucharat Limsitthichaikoon, Suttasinee Thappasarapong

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Anthocyanins are natural pigments with effective UV protection but their topical use could be limited due to their physicochemical characteristics. An attempt to overcome such limitations by complexation of 2 major anthocyanin-rich sources, C. ternatea and Z. mays, has potentiated its use as topical antiinflammatory. Cell studies indicate no cytotoxicity of the anthocyanin complex (AC) up to 1 mg/ml tested in HaCaT and human fore head fibroblasts by MTT. Croton oil-induced ear edema in Wistar rats suggests an effective dose of 5 mg/cm2 of AC as a topical anti-inflammatory in comparison to 0.5 mg/cm2 of fluocinolone acetonide. Niosomal encapsulation of the AC significantly prolonged the anti-inflammatory activity particularly at 8 h after topical application (p = 0.0001). The AC was not cytotoxic and its anti-inflammatory and activity was dose-dependent and prolonged by niosomal encapsulation. It has also shown to promote collagen type 1 production in cell culture. Thus, AC could be a potential candidate for topical anti-inflammatory agent from natural resources.

Keywords: Anthocyanin complex, ear edema, inflammation, niosomes, skin.

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Authors: Josip Vasilj, Petar Sarajcev, Damir Jakus

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One of the major difficulties introduced with wind power penetration is the inherent uncertainty in production originating from uncertain wind conditions. This uncertainty impacts many different aspects of power system operation, especially the balancing power requirements. For this reason, in power system development planing, it is necessary to evaluate the potential uncertainty in future wind power generation. For this purpose, simulation models are required, reproducing the performance of wind power forecasts. This paper presents a wind power forecast error simulation models which are based on the stochastic process simulation. Proposed models capture the most important statistical parameters recognized in wind power forecast error time series. Furthermore, two distinct models are presented based on data availability. First model uses wind speed measurements on potential or existing wind power plant locations, while the seconds model uses statistical distribution of wind speeds.

Keywords: Wind power, Uncertainty, Stochastic process, Monte Carlo simulation.

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Authors: Sirikarn Satimanont, Apanee Luengnaruemitchai, Sujitra Wongkasemjit

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Lignocellulosic materials are new targeted source to produce second generation biofuels like biobutanol. However, this process is significantly resisted by the native structure of biomass. Therefore, pretreatment process is always essential to remove hemicelluloses and lignin prior to the enzymatic hydrolysis. The goals of pretreatment are removing hemicelluloses and lignin, increasing biomass porosity, and increasing the enzyme accessibility. The main goal of this research is to study the important variables such as pretreatment temperature and time, which can give the highest total sugar yield in pretreatment step by using dilute phosphoric acid. After pretreatment, the highest total sugar yield of 13.61 g/L was obtained under an optimal condition at 140°C for 10 min of pretreatment time by using 1.75% (w/w) H3PO4 and at 15:1 liquid to solid ratio. The total sugar yield of two-stage process (pretreatment+enzymatic hydrolysis) of 27.38 g/L was obtained.

Keywords: Butanol production, Corn cobs, Phosphoric acid, Pretreatment

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Authors: Nebojsa B. Raicevic, Slavoljub R. Aleksic, Sasa S. Ilic

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A power cable is widely used for power supply in power distributing networks and power transmission lines. Due to limitations in the production, delivery and setting up power cables, they are produced and delivered in several separate lengths. Cable itself, consists of two cable terminations and arbitrary number of cable joints, depending on the cable route length. Electrical stress control is needed to prevent a dielectric breakdown at the end of the insulation shield in both the air and cable insulation. Reliability of cable joint depends on its materials, design, installation and operating environment. The paper describes design and performance results for new modeled cable joints. Design concepts, based on numerical calculations, must be correct. An Equivalent Electrodes Method/Boundary Elements Method-hybrid approach that allows electromagnetic field calculations in multilayer dielectric media, including inhomogeneous regions, is presented.

Keywords: Cable joints, deflector's cones, equivalent electrodemethod, electric field distribution

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Authors: K. Rajasekaran, Kannan Balasubramanian

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A sensory network consists of multiple detection locations called sensor nodes, each of which is tiny, featherweight and portable. A single path routing protocols in wireless sensor network can lead to holes in the network, since only the nodes present in the single path is used for the data transmission. Apart from the advantages like reduced computation, complexity and resource utilization, there are some drawbacks like throughput, increased traffic load and delay in data delivery. Therefore, multipath routing protocols are preferred for WSN. Distributing the traffic among multiple paths increases the network lifetime. We propose a scheme, for the data to be transmitted through a dominant path to save energy. In order to obtain a high delivery ratio, a basic route reconstruction protocol is utilized to reconstruct the path whenever a failure is detected. A basic reconstruction routing (BRR) algorithm is proposed, in which a node can leap over path failure by using the already existing routing information from its neighbourhood while the composed data is transmitted from the source to the sink. In order to save the energy and attain high data delivery ratio, data is transmitted along a multiple path, which is achieved by BRR algorithm whenever a failure is detected. Further, the analysis of how the proposed protocol overcomes the drawback of the existing protocols is presented. The performance of our protocol is compared to AOMDV and energy efficient node-disjoint multipath routing protocol (EENDMRP). The system is implemented using NS-2.34. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol has high delivery ratio with low energy consumption.

Keywords: Multipath routing, WSN, energy efficient routing, alternate route, assured data delivery.

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Authors: Elmi Abu Bakar, Tetsuo Miyake, Zhong Zhang, Takashi Imamura

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Knowing the geometrical object pose of products in manufacturing line before robot manipulation is required and less time consuming for overall shape measurement. In order to perform it, the information of shape representation and matching of objects is become required. Objects are compared with its descriptor that conceptually subtracted from each other to form scalar metric. When the metric value is smaller, the object is considered closed to each other. Rotating the object from static pose in some direction introduce the change of value in scalar metric value of boundary information after feature extraction of related object. In this paper, a proposal method for indexing technique for retrieval of 3D geometrical models based on similarity between boundaries shapes in order to measure 3D CAD object pose using object shape feature matching for Computer Aided Testing (CAT) system in production line is proposed. In experimental results shows the effectiveness of proposed method.

Keywords: CAD, rendering, feature extraction, feature classification.

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Authors: J. P. Makwana, A. K. Joshi, Rajesh N. Patel, Darshil Patel

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Recently, fluidized bed gasification becomes an attractive technology for power generation due to its higher efficiency. The main objective pursued in this work is to investigate the producer gas production potential from sized biomass (sawdust and pigeon pea) by applying the air gasification technique. The size of the biomass selected for the study was in the range of 0.40-0.84 mm. An experimental study was conducted using a fluidized bed gasifier with 210 mm diameter and 1600 mm height. During the experiments, the fuel properties and the effects of operating parameters such as gasification temperatures 700 to 900 °C, equivalence ratio 0.16 to 0.46 were studied. It was concluded that substantial amounts of producer gas (up to 1110 kcal/m3) could be produced utilizing biomass such as sawdust and pigeon pea by applying this fluidization technique. For both samples, the rise of temperature till 900 °C and equivalence ratio of 0.4 favored further gasification reactions and resulted into producer gas with calorific value 1110 kcal/m3.

Keywords: Sized biomass, fluidized bed gasifier, equivalence ratio, temperature profile, gas composition.

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Authors: Wendong Tao

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Stormwater wetlands have been mainly designed in an empirical approach for water quality improvement, with little quantitative understanding of the internal microbial processes. This study investigated into heterotrophic bacterial production rate, heterotrophic bacterial mineralization percentage, and algal biomass in hypertrophic and eutrophic surface flow stormwater wetlands. Compared to a nearby wood leachate treatment wetland, the stormwater wetlands had much higher chlorophyll-a concentrations. The eutrophic stormwater wetland had improved water quality, whereas the hypertrophic stormwater wetland had degraded water quality. Heterotrophic bacterial activities in water were limited in the stormwater wetlands due to competition of algal growth for nutrients. The relative contribution of biofilms to the overall heterotrophic activities was higher in the stormwater wetlands than that in the wood leachate treatment wetland.

Keywords: chlorophyll-a, constructed wetland, heterotrophicproduction, mineralization, stormwater

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Authors: Pavel Dostrašil, Petr Jirásko

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The paper deals with the kinematics and automated calculation of intermittent mechanisms with radial cams. Currently, electronic cams are increasingly applied in the drives of working link mechanisms. Despite a huge advantage of electronic cams in their reprogrammability or instantaneous change of displacement diagrams, conventional cam mechanisms have an irreplaceable role in production and handling machines. With high frequency of working cycle periods, the dynamic load of the proper servomotor rotor increases and efficiency of electronic cams strongly decreases. Though conventional intermittent mechanisms with radial cams are representatives of fixed automation, they have distinct advantages in their high speed (high dynamics), positional accuracy and relatively easy manufacture. We try to remove the disadvantage of firm displacement diagram by reducing costs for simple design and automated calculation that leads reliably to high-quality and inexpensive manufacture.

Keywords: Cam mechanism, displacement diagram, intermittentmechanism, radial parallel cam

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Authors: Jean-Alain Grunchec, Jules Hernández-Sánchez, Sara Knott

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Some meta-schedulers query the information system of individual supercomputers in order to submit jobs to the least busy supercomputer on a computational Grid. However, this information can become outdated by the time a job starts due to changes in scheduling priorities. The MSR scheme is based on Multiple Simultaneous Requests and can take advantage of opportunities resulting from these priorities changes. This paper presents the SWARM meta-scheduler, which can speed up the execution of large sets of tasks by minimizing the job queuing time through the submission of multiple requests. Performance tests have shown that this new meta-scheduler is faster than an implementation of the MSR scheme and the gLite meta-scheduler. SWARM has been used through the GridQTL project beta-testing portal during the past year. Statistics are provided for this usage and demonstrate its capacity to achieve reliably a substantial reduction of the execution time in production conditions.

Keywords: Grid computing, multiple simultaneous requests, fault tolerance, GridQTL.

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Authors: Chantana Insra

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The research “Buddha Images in Mudras Representing Days of a Week: Tactile Texture Design for the Blind” aims to provide original tactile format to institutions for the blind, as supplementary textbooks, to accumulate Buddhist knowledge, so that it could be extracurricular learning. The research studied on 33 students with both total and partial blindness, the latter with the ability to read Braille’s signs, of elementary 4 – 6, who are pursuing their studies on the second semester of the academic year 2013 at Bangkok School for the Blind. The researcher opted samples specifically, studied data acquired from both documents and fieldworks. Those methods must be related to the blind, tactile format production, and Buddha images in mudras representing days of a week. Afterwards, the formats will be analyzed and designed so that there would be 8 format pictures of Buddha images in mudras representing days of the week. Experts will next evaluate the media and try out.

Keywords: Blind, tactile texture, Thai Buddha images in Mudras representing days of the week.

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Authors: B. R. S. Babu, E. Prasad, P. V. Laveen, A. M. Vinodkumar

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Searching the “Island of stability” is a topic of extreme interest in theoretical as well as experimental modern physics today. This “island of stability” is spanned by superheavy elements (SHE's) that are produced in the laboratory. SHE's are believed to exist primarily due to the “magic” stabilizing effects of nuclear shell structure. SHE synthesis is extremely difficult due to their very low production cross section, often of the order of pico barns or less. Stabilizing effects of shell closures at proton number Z=82 and neutron number N=126 are predicted theoretically. Though stabilizing effects of Z=82 have been experimentally verified, no concluding observations have been made with N=126, so far. We measured and analyzed the total evaporation residue (ER) cross sections for a number of systems with neutron number around 126 to explore possible shell closure effects in ER cross sections, in this work.

Keywords: Superheavy element, fusion evaporation, evaporation reside, compound nucleus.

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Authors: F. Halek, A. Kavousi, M. Banifatemi

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There is growing interest in biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester or FAME) because of the similarity in its properties when compared to those of diesel fuels. Diesel engines operated on biodiesel have lower emissions of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, particulate matter, and air toxics than when operated on petroleum-based diesel fuel. Production of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) from rapeseed (nonedible oil) fatty acid distillate having high free fatty acids (FFA) was investigated in this work. Conditions for esterification process of rapeseed oil were 1.8 % H2SO4 as catalyst, MeOH/oil of molar ratio 2 : 0.1 and reaction temperature 65 °C, for a period of 3h. The yield of methyl ester was > 90 % in 1 h. The amount of FFA was reduced from 93 wt % to less than 2 wt % at the end of the esterification process. The FAME was pureed by neutralization with 1 M sodium hydroxide in water solution at a reaction temperature of 62 °C. The final FAME product met with the biodiesel quality standard, and ASTM D 6751.

Keywords: Alternative Fuels, Biodiesel, Fatty Acid, MethylEster, Seed Oil, Transesterification.

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Authors: A.Gandomkar, K. Fouladi

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Water is the key of national development. Wherever a spring has been dried out or a river has changed its course, the area-s people have migrated and have been scattered and the area-s civilization has lost its brilliance. Today, air pollution, global warming and ozone layer damage are as the problems of countries, but certainly in the next decade the shortage and pollution of waters will be important issues of the world. The polluted waters are more dangerous in when they are used in agriculture. Because they infect plants and these plants are used in human and livestock consumption in food chain. With the increasing population growth and after that, the increase need to facilities and raw materials, human beings has started to do haste actions and wanted or unwanted destroyed his life basin. They try to overuse and capture his environment extremely, instead of having futurism approach in sustainable use of nature. This process includes Zayanderood recession, and caused its pollution after the transition from industrial and urban areas. Zayandehrood River in Isfahan is a vital artery of a living ecosystem. Now is the location of disposal waste water of many cities, villages and existing industries. The central area of the province is an important industrial place, and its environmental situation has reached a critical stage. Not only a large number of pollution-generating industries are active in the city limits, but outside of the city and adjacent districts Zayandehrood River, heavy industries like steel, Mobarakeh Steel and other tens great units pollute wild life. This article tries to study contaminant sources of Zayanderood and their severity, and determine and discuss the share of each of these resources by major industrial centers located in areas. At the end, we represent suitable strategy.

Keywords: Environmental, industrial pollution, Zayandehrood Basin

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Authors: P. M. Ikonić, T. A. Tasić, L. S. Petrović, S. B. Škaljac, M. R. Jokanović, V. M. Tomović, B. V. Šojić, N. R. Džinić, A. M. Torbica, B. B. Ikonić

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The aim of the study was to determine how different ripening processes (traditional vs. industrial) influenced the proteolysis in traditional Serbian dry-fermented sausage Petrovská klobása. The obtained results indicated more intensive pH decline (0.7 units after 9 days) in industrially ripened products (I), what had a positive impact on drying process and proteolytic changes in these samples. Thus, moisture content in I sausages was lower at each sampling time, amounting 24.7% at the end of production period (90 days). Likewise, the process of proteolysis was more pronounced in I samples, resulting in higher contents of non-protein nitrogen (NPN) and free amino acids nitrogen (FAAN), as well as in faster and more intensive degradation of myosin (≈220 kDa), actin (≈45 kDa) and other polypeptides during processing. Consequently, the appearance and accumulation of several protein fragments were registered.

Keywords: Dry-fermented sausage, Petrovská klobása, proteolysis, ripening process.

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Authors: Kuncoro Harto Widodo, Yandra Rahadian Perdana, Iwan Puja Riyadi

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Effectiveness and efficiency of food distribution is necessary to maintain food security in a region. Food supply varies among regions depending on their production capacity; therefore, it is necessary to regulate food distribution. Sea transportation could play a great role in the food distribution system. To play this role and to support transportation needs in the Eastern Indonesia, sea transportation shall be supported by fleet which is adequate and reliable, both in terms of load and worthiness. This research uses Linear Programming (LP) method to analyze food distribution pattern in order to determine the optimal distribution system. In this research, transshipment points have been selected for regions in one province. Comparison between result of modeling and existing shipping route reveals that from 369 existing routes, 54 routes are used for transporting rice, corn, green bean, peanut, soybean, sweet potato, and cassava.

Keywords: Distribution, Sea Transportation, Eastern Indonesia (KTI), Linear Programming (LP).

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Authors: Chien-Wan Hun, Shao-Fu Chang, Jheng-En Yang, Chien-Chon Chen, Wern-Dare Jheng

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This research provides a systematic way to study and better understand double nano-tubular structure of alunina (Al2O3) and titania (TiO2). The TiO2 NT was prepared by immersing Al2O3 template in 0.02 M titanium fluoride (TiF4) solution (pH=3) at 25 °C for 120 min, followed by annealing at 450 °C for 1 h to obtain anatase TiO2 NT in the Al2O3 template. Large-scale development of film for nanotube-based CO2 capture and conversion can potentially result in more efficient energy harvesting. In addition, the production process will be relatively environmentally friendly. The knowledge generated by this research will significantly advance research in the area of Al2O3, TiO2, CaO, and Ca2O3 nano-structure film fabrication and applications for CO2 capture and conversion. This green energy source will potentially reduce reliance on carbon-based energy resources and increase interest in science and engineering careers.

Keywords: Alumina, titania, nano-tubular, film, CO2.

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Authors: T. M. Mousa-Balabel

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This study was carried out to investigate lamb mortalities relating to ewes' breed and some managemental factors on 250 pregnant ewes (190-Rahmani, 30-Ossimi and 30-Romanov) at Mehallet Mousa, Animal Production Research Station, Kafr El- Sheikh Province, Egypt. These animals divided into five groups according to the managemental factors used. The results revealed that the lamb mortality was higher in Ossimi breed and lower in Romanov one. In addition, the highest lamb mortality occurred among lambs for unsupplemented ewes, for those had body condition score two and for lambs which born outdoor. Moreover, the lamb survivability was increased by the parity of ewes. From this study it can be concluded that the lamb mortality depends on ewes' body condition score, parity, lambing system (indoor or outdoor), nutrition during pregnancy period and selected breed. In addition, the most important period for lamb survival is the first week of age.

Keywords: lamb mortality, sheep breeds, sheep management, sheep parity.

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Authors: Wijittra Srisorn

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This research studied about green logistics and the expected benefit that organization gotten when adapted to green logistics also the organization concerned about the important activity in green logistics to apply in implementation from study was found that the benefit of green logistics that organization was gotten by logistics management which was the increased efficiency process of management the product from producer to customer all of reduce production cost, increased value added save energy and prevented environment together From study was found that the organization had green logistics to apply in logistics activities in supply chain since downstream till upstream to prevent environment as follow 1). Purchasing process, trade facilitation enhance such as linking of information technology during business to business (B2B business). 2). Productions process improved by business logistics improvement 3). Warehouse management process such as recycled packaging, moving goods in to warehouse, transportation goods and inside receiving and delivery products plan.

Keywords: Green Logistics, Trade Facilitation, Business Logistics Improvement, Double handling.

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Authors: Weijun Bao, Huiquan Li

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Using steelmaking slag as a raw material, aragonite superstructure product had been synthesized via an indirect CO2 mineral sequestration rout. It mainly involved two separate steps, in which the element of calcium is first selectively leached from steelmaking slag by a novel leaching media consisting of organic solvent Tributyl phosphate (TBP), acetic acid, and ultra-purity water, followed by enhanced carbonation in a separate step for aragonite superstructure production as well as efficiency recovery of leaching media. Based on the different leaching medium employed in the steelmaking slag leaching process, two typical products were collected from the enhanced carbonation step. The products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. It reveals that the needle-like aragonite crystals self-organized into aragonite superstructure particles including aragonite microspheres as well as dumbbell-like spherical particles, can be obtained from the steelmaking slag with the purity over 99%.

Keywords: Aragonite superstructure, Steelmaking slag, Indirect CO2 mineral sequestration, Selective leaching, Enhanced carbonation.

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Authors: C. D. Papanikolaou, V. A. Giouvanis, E. A. Karatasiou, D. S. Dimakas, M. A. Sakellariou-Makrantonaki

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Irrigation is one of the most important cultivation practices for each crop, especially in areas where rainfall is enough to cover the crop water needs. In such areas, the farmers must irrigate in order to achieve high economical results. The precise irrigation scheduling contributes to irrigation water saving and thus a valuable natural resource is protected. Under this point of view, in the experimental field of the Laboratory of Agricultural Hydraulics of the University of Thessaly, a research was conducted during the growing season of 2012 in order to evaluate the growth, seed and oil production of sunflower as well as the water saving, by applying different methods of irrigation scheduling. Three treatments in four replications were organized. These were: a) surface drip irrigation where the irrigation scheduling based on the Penman-Monteith (PM) method (control); b) surface drip irrigation where the irrigation scheduling based on a soil moisture sensor (SMS); and c) surface drip irrigation, where the irrigation scheduling based on a soil potential sensor (WM).

Keywords: Irrigation scheduling, soil moisture sensors, sustainable agriculture, water saving.

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Authors: E. I. Akpan, S. O. Adeosun, G. I. Lawal, S. A. Balogun, X. D. Chen

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The characterisation of agro-wastes fibres for composite applications from Nigeria using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) has been done. Fibres extracted from groundnut shell, coconut husk, rice husk, palm fruit bunch and palm fruit stalk are processed using two novel cellulose fibre production methods developed by the authors. Cellulose apparent crystallinity calculated using the deconvolution of the diffractometer trace shows that the amorphous portion of cellulose was permeable to hydrolysis yielding high crystallinity after treatment. All diffratograms show typical cellulose structure with well-defined 110, 200 and 040 peaks. Palm fruit fibres had the highest 200 crystalline cellulose peaks compared to others and it is an indication of rich cellulose content. Surface examination of the resulting fibres using SEM indicates the presence of regular cellulose network structure with some agglomerated laminated layer of thin leaves of cellulose microfibrils. The surfaces were relatively smooth indicating the removal of hemicellulose, lignin and pectin.

Keywords: X-ray diffraction, SEM, cellulose, deconvolution, crystallinity.

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Authors: Ammar Ayad Issa Al-Rifaie, Zuhreya Muazu, Maysam Ali Abdulwahid, Dermot Gleeson

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The aim of this audit was to examine the efficiency of alcohol history documentation and screening for hazardous drinkers at the Medical Admission Unit (MAU) of Northern General Hospital (NGH), Sheffield, to identify any potential for enhancing clinical practice. Data were collected from medical clerking sheets, ICE system and directly from 82 patients by three junior medical doctors using both CAGE questionnaire and AUDIT-C tool for newly admitted patients to MAU in NGH, in the period between January and March 2015. Alcohol consumption was documented in around two-third of the patient sample and this was documented fairly accurately by health care professionals. Some used subjective words such as 'social drinking' in the alcohol units’ section of the history. CAGE questionnaire was applied to only four patients and none of the patients had documented advice, education or referral to an alcohol liaison team. AUDIT-C tool had identified 30.4%, while CAGE 10.9%, of patients admitted to the NGH MAU as hazardous drinkers. The amount of alcohol the patient consumes positively correlated with the score of AUDIT-C (Pearson correlation 0.83). Re-audit is planned to be carried out after integrating AUDIT-C tool as labels in the notes and presenting a brief teaching session to junior doctors. Alcohol misuse screening is not adequately undertaken and no appropriate action is being offered to hazardous drinkers. CAGE questionnaire is poorly applied to patients and when satisfactory and adequately used has low sensitivity to detect hazardous drinkers in comparison with AUDIT-C tool. Re-audit of alcohol screening practice after introducing AUDIT-C tool in clerking sheets (as labels) is required to compare the findings and conclude the audit cycle.

Keywords: Alcohol screening, AUDIT-C, CAGE, Hazardous drinking.

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Authors: N. Tadrisi Parsa, A. R. Vali, R. Ghasemi

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Diabetes is a growing health problem in worldwide. Especially, the patients with Type 1 diabetes need strict glycemic control because they have deficiency of insulin production. This paper attempts to control blood glucose based on body mathematical body model. The Bergman minimal mathematical model is used to develop the nonlinear controller. A novel back-stepping based sliding mode control (B-SMC) strategy is proposed as a solution that guarantees practical tracking of a desired glucose concentration. In order to show the performance of the proposed design, it is compared with conventional linear and fuzzy controllers which have been done in previous researches. The numerical simulation result shows the advantages of sliding mode back stepping controller design to linear and fuzzy controllers.

Keywords: Back stepping, Bergman Model, Nonlinear control, Sliding mode control.

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Authors: Rosnani Hasham, Hyun Kyung Choi, Chang Seo Park

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Ficus deltoidea from the Moraceae family is a popular medicinal herb in Malaysia. It possesses strong antioxidant and antiinflammatory properties. In the present study, the anti-inflammatory effects of F. deltoidea extract on UVB-irradiated HaCaT Keratinocytes were investigated. HaCaT Keratinocytes were UVBirradiated (12.5 mJ/cm3) and were treated with 0.05, 0.08 or 0.1% of F. deltoidea extract. Cell viability following UVB irradiation was significantly higher in the groups treated with the F. deltoidea extract at doses of 0.05, 0.08 or 0.1% than in control group with UVB irradiation only. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1α (IL-1α), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and cyclooxygenase (COX-2) play primary roles in the inflammation process upon UV irradiation and are known to be stimulated by UVB irradiation. Treatment with the F. deltoidea extract dramatically inhibited the UV-induced TNF-α, IL-1α, IL-6, and COX-2 expression. These results suggest that the F. deltoidea extract inhibits the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and may be an effective protective agent for the treatment of skin diseases.

Keywords: Ficus deltoidea, anti-inflammatory activity, cytokines, COX-2.

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Authors: Sirilak Namwong , Wonnop Visessanguan, Soottawat Benjakul, Somboon Tanasupawat

Abstract:

The halophilic proteinase showed a maximal activity at 50°C and pH 9~10, in 20% NaCl and was highly stabilized by NaCl. It was able to hydrolyse natural actomyosin (NAM), collagen and anchovy protein. For NAM hydrolysis, the myosin heavy chain was completely digested by halophilic proteinase as evidenced by the lowest band intensity remaining, but partially hydrolysed actin. The SR5-3 proteinase was also capable hydrolyzing two major components of collagen, β- and α-compounds, effectively. The degree of hydrolysis (DH) of the halophilic proteinase and commercial proteinases (Novozyme, Neutrase, chymotrypsin and Flavourzyme) on the anchovy protein, were compared, and it was found that the proteinase showed a greater degree of hydrolysis towards anchovy protein than that from commercial proteinases. DH of halophilic proteinase was sharply enhanced according to the increase in the concentration of enzyme from 0.035 U to 0.105 U. The results warranting that the acceleration of the production of fish sauce with higher quality, may be achieved by adding of the halophilic proteinase from this bacterium.

Keywords: Halophilic proteinase, Halobacillus sp. SR5-3, anchovy (Spolephorus spp.) proteins, fish sauce

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Authors: P. Valsalal, S. Thangalakshmi

Abstract:

There is a widespread changeover in the electrical power industry universally from old-style monopolistic outline towards a horizontally distributed competitive structure to come across the demand of rising consumption. When the transmission lines of derestricted system are incapable to oblige the entire service needs, the lines are overloaded or congested. The governor between customer and power producer is nominated as Independent System Operator (ISO) to lessen the congestion without obstructing transmission line restrictions. Among the existing approaches for congestion management, the frequently used approaches are reorganizing the generation and load curbing. There is a boundary for reorganizing the generators, and further loads may not be supplemented with the prevailing resources unless more private power producers are added in the system by considerably raising the cost. Hence, congestion is relaxed by appropriate Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices which boost the existing transfer capacity of transmission lines. The FACTs device, namely, Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) is preferred, and the correct placement of UPFC is more vital and should be positioned in the highly congested line. Hence, the weak line is identified by using power flow performance index with the new objective function with proposed hybrid Fish – Bee algorithm. Further, the location of UPFC at appropriate line reduces the branch loading and minimizes the voltage deviation. The power transfer capacity of lines is determined with and without UPFC in the identified congested line of IEEE 30 bus structure and the simulated results are compared with prevailing algorithms. It is observed that the transfer capacity of existing line is increased with the presented algorithm and thus alleviating the congestion.

Keywords: Available line transfer capability, congestion management, FACTS device, hybrid fish-bee algorithm, ISO, UPFC.

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Authors: Aiyeloja A.A, Ogunjinmi A.A

Abstract:

The recurring decimal of rural and urban poverty in Nigeria, resulting from lack of sustainable livelihood activities by the people due to non-diversification of the economy, necessitated this study. One hundred snail farmers were randomly selected in Akure North and Akure South Local Government areas of Ondo State, Southwest Nigeria where snail farming is widely practised. Data collection was through questionnaires administration and onsite observation of farms. Data obtained were subjected to descriptive statistics, Student-s t-test and regression analysis. Cost benefit ratio (CBR) and rate of return on investment (RORI) were calculated in order to determine the poverty alleviation potentials of snail farming in the study areas. Although snail farming was profitable and viable, it was below poverty line. With time and more knowledge in its farming activities, and with more people taking to snail production, its poverty alleviation and reduction potentials will increase.

Keywords: Alleviation, farming, Nigeria, potential, poverty, snail.

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