Abstract: The study of the fouling deposition of pink guava
juice (PGJ) is relatively new research compared to milk fouling
deposit. In this work, a new experimental set-up was developed to
imitate the fouling formation in heat exchanger, namely a continuous
flow experimental set-up heat exchanger. The new experimental setup
was operated under industrial pasteurization temperature of PGJ,
which was at 93°C. While the flow rate and pasteurization period
were based on the experimental capacity, which were 0.5 and 1
liter/min for the flow rate and the pasteurization period was set for 1
hour. Characterization of the fouling deposit was determined by
using various methods. Microstructure of the deposits was carried
out using ESEM. Proximate analyses were performed to determine
the composition of moisture, fat, protein, fiber, ash and carbohydrate
content. A study on the hardness and stickiness of the fouling deposit
was done using a texture analyzer. The presence of seedstone in pink
guava juice was also analyzed using a particle analyzer. The findings
shown that seedstone from pink guava juice ranging from 168 to
200μm and carbohydrate was found to be a major composition
(47.7% of fouling deposit consists of carbohydrate). Comparison
between the hardness and stickiness of the deposits at two different
flow rates showed that fouling deposits were harder and denser at
higher flow rate. Findings from this work provide basis knowledge
for further study on fouling and cleaning of PGJ.
Abstract: The energy consumption and delay in read/write
operation of conventional SRAM is investigated analytically as well
as by simulation. Explicit analytical expressions for the energy
consumption and delay in read and write operation as a function of
device parameters and supply voltage are derived. The expressions are
useful in predicting the effect of parameter changes on the energy
consumption and speed as well as in optimizing the design of
conventional SRAM. HSPICE simulation in standard 0.25μm CMOS
technology confirms precision of analytical expressions derived from
this paper.
Abstract: This research investigates the suitability of fuel oil in
improving gypseous soil. A detailed laboratory tests were carried-out
on two soils (soil I with 51.6% gypsum content, and soil II with
26.55%), where the two soils were obtained from Al-Therthar site
(Al-Anbar Province-Iraq).
This study examines the improvement of soil properties using the
gypsum material which is locally available with low cost to minimize
the effect of moisture on these soils by using the fuel oil. This study
was conducted on two models of the soil gypsum, from the Tharthar
area. The first model was sandy soil with Gypsum content of (51.6%)
and the second is clayey soil and the content of Gypsum is (26.55%).
The program included tests measuring the permeability and
compressibility of the soil and their collapse properties. The shear
strength of the soil and the amounts of weight loss of fuel oil due to
drying had been found. These tests have been conducted on the
treated and untreated soils to observe the effect of soil treatment on
the engineering properties when mixed with varying degrees of fuel
oil with the equivalent of the water content.
The results showed that fuel oil is a good material to modify the
basic properties of the gypseous soil of collapsibility and
permeability, which are the main problems of this soil and retained
the soil by an appropriate amount of the cohesion suitable for
carrying the loads from the structure.
Abstract: Virtual Assembly (VA) is one of the key technologies
in advanced manufacturing field. It is a promising application of
virtual reality in design and manufacturing field. It has drawn much
interest from industries and research institutes in the last two decades.
This paper describes a process for integrating an interactive Virtual
Reality-based assembly simulation of a digital mockup with the
CAD/CAM infrastructure. The necessary hardware and software
preconditions for the process are explained so that it can easily be
adopted by non VR experts. The article outlines how assembly
simulation can improve the CAD/CAM procedures and structures;
how CAD model preparations have to be carried out and which
virtual environment requirements have to be fulfilled. The issue of
data transfer is also explained in the paper. The other challenges and
requirements like anti-aliasing and collision detection have also been
explained. Finally, a VA simulation has been carried out for a ball
valve assembly and a car door assembly with the help of Vizard
virtual reality toolkit in a semi-immersive environment and their
performance analysis has been done on different workstations to
evaluate the importance of graphical processing unit (GPU) in the
field of VA.
Abstract: Cooperative organizations in Malaysia are going
through a phase of rapid growth. They are seen by the government as
another crucial vehicle to drive and boost up the country-s
economical development and growth. Hence, the issue of cooperative
governance is of great importance. Unlike literatures on corporate
governance for public listed companies-, literatures on governance
for social enterprises, in particular the cooperative organizations are
still at the early stage in Malaysia and very scant in number. This
paper will look into current practices as well as issues and challenges
related to cooperative governance. The need for a better solution
towards forming best practices of cooperative governance framework
appears imperative in deterring cases of mismanagement and fraud.
Abstract: In this paper, the wear of high speed steel hobs during
hobbing has been studied. The wear mechanisms are strongly
influenced by the choice of cutting speed. At moderate and high
cutting speeds three major wear mechanisms were identified:
abrasion, mild adhesive and severe adhesive. The microstructure and
wear behavior of two high speed steel grades (M2 and ASP30) has
been compared. In contrast, a variation in chemical composition or
microstructure of HSS tool material generally did not change the
dominant wear mechanism. However, the tool material properties
determine the resistance against the operating wear mechanism and
consequently the tool life. The metallographic analysis and wear
measurement at the tip of hob teeth included scanning electron
microscopy and stereoscope microscopy. Roughness profilometery is
used for measuring the gear surface roughness.
Abstract: The techniques for estimating the adhesive and cohesive strength in high velocity oxy fuel (HVOF) thermal spray coatings have been discussed and compared. The development trend and the last investigation have been studied. We will focus on benefits and limitations of these methods in different process and materials.
Abstract: Uncertainties of a serial production line affect on the
production throughput. The uncertainties cannot be prevented in a
real production line. However the uncertain conditions can be
controlled by a robust prediction model. Thus, a hybrid model
including autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and
multiple polynomial regression, is proposed to model the nonlinear
relationship of production uncertainties with throughput. The
uncertainties under consideration of this study are demand, breaktime,
scrap, and lead-time. The nonlinear relationship of production
uncertainties with throughput are examined in the form of quadratic
and cubic regression models, where the adjusted R-squared for
quadratic and cubic regressions was 98.3% and 98.2%. We optimized
the multiple quadratic regression (MQR) by considering the time
series trend of the uncertainties using ARIMA model. Finally the
hybrid model of ARIMA and MQR is formulated by better adjusted
R-squared, which is 98.9%.
Abstract: Saddlepoint approximations is one of the tools to obtain
an expressions for densities and distribution functions. We approximate
the densities of the observed gaps between the hypopnea events
using the Huzurbazar saddlepoint approximation. We demonstrate the
density of a maximum likelihood estimator in exponential families.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel CMOS four-transistor
SRAM cell for very high density and low power embedded SRAM
applications as well as for stand-alone SRAM applications. This cell
retains its data with leakage current and positive feedback without
refresh cycle. The new cell size is 20% smaller than a conventional
six-transistor cell using same design rules. Also proposed cell uses
two word-lines and one pair bit-line. Read operation perform from
one side of cell, and write operation perform from another side of
cell, and swing voltage reduced on word-lines thus dynamic power
during read/write operation reduced. The fabrication process is fully
compatible with high-performance CMOS logic technologies,
because there is no need to integrate a poly-Si resistor or a TFT load.
HSPICE simulation in standard 0.25μm CMOS technology confirms
all results obtained from this paper.
Abstract: The mechanical and tribological properties in WC-Co
coatings are strongly affected by hardness and elasticity
specifications. The results revealed the effect of spraying distance on
microhardness and elasticity modulus of coatings. The metallurgical
studies have been made on coated samples using optical microscopy,
scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
Abstract: Throughput is an important measure of performance of production system. Analyzing and modeling of production throughput is complex in today-s dynamic production systems due to uncertainties of production system. The main reasons are that uncertainties are materialized when the production line faces changes in setup time, machinery break down, lead time of manufacturing, and scraps. Besides, demand changes are fluctuating from time to time for each product type. These uncertainties affect the production performance. This paper proposes Bayesian inference for throughput modeling under five production uncertainties. Bayesian model utilized prior distributions related to previous information about the uncertainties where likelihood distributions are associated to the observed data. Gibbs sampling algorithm as the robust procedure of Monte Carlo Markov chain was employed for sampling unknown parameters and estimating the posterior mean of uncertainties. The Bayesian model was validated with respect to convergence and efficiency of its outputs. The results presented that the proposed Bayesian models were capable to predict the production throughput with accuracy of 98.3%.
Abstract: The greenhouse effect and limitations on carbon
dioxide emissions concern engine maker and the future of the
internal combustion engines should go toward substantially and
improved thermal efficiency engine. Homogeneous charge
compression ignition (HCCI) is an alternative high-efficiency
technology for combustion engines to reduce exhaust emissions and
fuel consumption. However, there are still tough challenges in the
successful operation of HCCI engines, such as controlling the
combustion phasing, extending the operating range, and high
unburned hydrocarbon and CO emissions. HCCI and the exploitation
of ethanol as an alternative fuel is one way to explore new frontiers
of internal combustion engines with an eye towards maintaining its
sustainability. This study was done to extend database knowledge
about HCCI with ethanol a fuel.
Abstract: Since the 1980s, banks and financial service institutions have been running in an endless race of innovation to cope with the advancing technology, the fierce competition, and the more sophisticated and demanding customers. In order to guide their innovation efforts, several researches were conducted to identify the success and failure factors of new financial services. These mainly included organizational factors, marketplace factors and new service development process factors. They almost all emphasized the importance of customer and market orientation as a response to the highly perceptual and intangible characteristics of financial services. However, they deemphasized the critical characteristics of high involvement of risk and close correlation with the economic conditions, a factor that heavily contributed to the Global financial Crisis of 2008. This paper reviews the success and failure factors of new financial services. It then adds new perspectives emerging from the analysis of the role of innovation in the global financial crisis.
Abstract: This paper aims to (1) analyze the profiles of
transgressors (detected evaders); (2) examine reason(s) that triggered a
tax audit, causes of tax evasion, audit timeframe and tax penalty
charged; and (3) to assess if tax auditors followed the guidelines as
stated in the 'Tax Audit Framework' when conducting tax audits. In
2011, the Inland Revenue Board Malaysia (IRBM) had audited and
finalized 557 company cases. With official permission, data of all the
557 cases were obtained from the IRBM. Of these, a total of 421 cases
with complete information were analyzed. About 58.1% was small and
medium corporations and from the construction industry (32.8%). The
selection for tax audit was based on risk analysis (66.8%), information
from third party (11.1%), and firm with low profitability or fluctuating
profit pattern (7.8%). The three persistent causes of tax evasion by
firms were over claimed expenses (46.8%), fraudulent reporting of
income (38.5%) and overstating purchases (10.5%). These findings
are consistent with past literature. Results showed that tax auditors
took six to 18 months to close audit cases. More than half of tax
evaders were fined 45% on additional tax raised during audit for the
first offence. The study found tax auditors did follow the guidelines in
the 'Tax Audit Framework' in audit selection, settlement and penalty
imposition.
Abstract: In any distributed systems, process scheduling plays a
vital role in determining the efficiency of the system. Process scheduling algorithms are used to ensure that the components of the
system would be able to maximize its utilization and able to complete all the processes assigned in a specified period of time.
This paper focuses on the development of comparative simulator for distributed process scheduling algorithms. The objectives of the works that have been carried out include the development of the
comparative simulator, as well as to implement a comparative study
between three distributed process scheduling algorithms; senderinitiated,
receiver-initiated and hybrid sender-receiver-initiated
algorithms. The comparative study was done based on the Average Waiting Time (AWT) and Average Turnaround Time (ATT) of the
processes involved. The simulation results show that the performance of the algorithms depends on the number of nodes in the system.
Abstract: Xanthan gum is one of the major commercial
biopolymers. Due to its excellent rheological properties xanthan gum
is used in many applications, mainly in food industry. Commercial
production of xanthan gum uses glucose as the carbon substrate;
consequently the price of xanthan production is high. One of the
ways to decrease xanthan price, is using cheaper substrate like
agricultural wastes. Iran is one of the biggest date producer countries.
However approximately 50% of date production is wasted annually.
The goal of this study is to produce xanthan gum from waste date
using Xanthomonas campestris PTCC1473 by submerged
fermentation. In this study the effect of three variables including
phosphor and nitrogen amount and agitation rate in three levels using
response surface methodology (RSM) has been studied. Results
achieved from statistical analysis Design Expert 7.0.0 software
showed that xanthan increased with increasing level of phosphor.
Low level of nitrogen leaded to higher xanthan production. Xanthan
amount, increasing agitation had positive influence. The statistical
model identified the optimum conditions nitrogen amount=3.15g/l,
phosphor amount=5.03 g/l and agitation=394.8 rpm for xanthan. To
model validation, experiments in optimum conditions for xanthan
gum were carried out. The mean of result for xanthan was 6.72±0.26.
The result was closed to the predicted value by using RSM.
Abstract: Energy consumption is an important design issue for
Mobile Subscriber Station (MSS) in the standard IEEE 802.16e.
Because mobility of MSS implies that energy saving becomes an
issue so that lifetime of MSS can be extended before re-charging.
Also, the mechanism in efficiently managing the limited energy is
becoming very significant since a MSS is generally energized by
battery. For these, sleep mode operation is recently specified in the
MAC (Medium Access Control) protocol. In order to reduce the
energy consumption, we focus on the sleep-mode and wake-mode of
the MAC layer, which are included in the IEEE 802.16 standards [1-
2].
Abstract: Petri Net (PN) has proven to be effective graphical, mathematical, simulation, and control tool for Discrete Event Systems (DES). But, with the growth in the complexity of modern industrial, and communication systems, PN found themselves inadequate to address the problems of uncertainty, and imprecision in data. This gave rise to amalgamation of Fuzzy logic with Petri nets and a new tool emerged with the name of Fuzzy Petri Nets (FPN). Although there had been a lot of research done on FPN and a number of their applications have been anticipated, but their basic types and structure are still ambiguous. Therefore, in this research, an effort is made to categorize FPN according to their structure and algorithms Further, literature review of the applications of FPN in the light of their classifications has been done.
Abstract: Conventional industrial monitoring systems are
tedious, inefficient and the at times integrity of the data is
unreliable. The objective of this system is to monitor industrial
processes specifically the fluid level which will measure the
instantaneous fluid level parameter and respond by text
messaging the exact value of the parameter to the user when
being enquired by a privileged access user. The development of
the embedded program code and the circuit for fluid level
measuring are discussed as well. Suggestions for future
implementations and efficient remote monitoring works are
included.