Abstract: Sunflower stalks were analysed for chemical
compositions: pentosan 15.84%, holocellulose 70.69%,
alphacellulose 45.74%, glucose 27.10% and xylose 7.69% based on
dry weight of 100-g raw material. The most optimum condition for
steam explosion pretreatment was as follows. Sunflower stalks were
cut into small pieces and soaked in 0.02 M H2SO4 for overnight.
After that, they were steam exploded at 207 C and 21 kg/cm2 for 3
minutes to fractionate cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. The
resulting hydrolysate, containing hemicellulose, and cellulose pulp
contained xylose sugar at 2.53% and 7.00%, respectively.The pulp
was further subjected to enzymatic saccharification at 50 C, pH 4.8 citrate buffer) with pulp/buffer 6% (w/w)and Celluclast 1.5L/pulp
2.67% (w/w) to obtain single glucose with maximum yield 11.97%.
After fixed-bed fermentation under optimum condition using
conventional yeast mixtures to produce bioethanol, it indicated
maximum ethanol yield of 0.028 g/100 g sunflower stalk.
Abstract: The modified Claus process is commonly used in oil
refining and gas processing to recover sulfur and destroy
contaminants formed in upstream processing. A Claus furnace feed
containing a relatively low concentration of H2S may be incapable of
producing a stable flame. Also, incomplete combustion of
hydrocarbons in the feed can lead to deterioration of the catalyst in
the reactors due to soot or carbon deposition. Therefore, special
consideration is necessary to achieve the appropriate overall sulfur
recovery. In this paper, some configurations available to treat lean
acid gas streams are described and the most appropriate ones are
studied to overcome low H2S concentration problems. As a result,
overall sulfur recovery is investigated for feed preheating and hot gas
configurations.
Abstract: In this study, direct numerical simulation for the bubble condensation in the subcooled boiling flow was performed. The main goal was to develop the CFD modeling for the bubble condensation and to evaluate the accuracy of the VOF model with the developed CFD modeling. CFD modeling for the bubble condensation was developed by modeling the source terms in the governing equations of VOF model using UDF. In the modeling, the amount of condensation was determined using the interfacial heat transfer coefficient obtained from the bubble velocity, liquid temperature and bubble diameter every time step. To evaluate the VOF model using the CFD modeling for the bubble condensation, CFD simulation results were compared with SNU experimental results such as bubble volume and shape, interfacial area, bubble diameter and bubble velocity. Simulation results predicted well the behavior of the actual condensing bubble. Therefore, it can be concluded that the VOF model using the CFD modeling for the bubble condensation will be a useful computational fluid dynamics tool for analyzing the behavior of the condensing bubble in a wide range of the subcooled boiling flow.
Abstract: Due to the legacy of apartheid segregation South Africa remains a divided society where most voters live in politically homogenous social environments. This paper argues that political discussion within one’s social context plays a primary role in shaping political attitudes and vote choice. Using data from the Comparative National Elections Project 2004 and 2009 South African post-election surveys, the paper explores the extent of social context partisan homogeneity in South Africa and finds that voters are not overly embedded in homogenous social contexts. It then demonstrates the consequences of partisan homogeneity on voting behavior. Homogenous social contexts tend to encourage stronger partisan loyalties and fewer defections in vote choice while voters in more heterogeneous contexts show less consistency in their attitudes and behaviour. Finally, the analysis shows how momentous sociopolitical events at the time of a particular election can change the social context, with important consequences for electoral outcomes.
Abstract: Nowadays, one of the most important problems of the
metropolises and the world large cities is the habitant traffic difficulty
and lack of sufficient parking site for the vehicles. Esfahan city as the
third metropolis of Iran has encountered with the vehicles parkingplace
problems in the most parts of fourteen regions of the city. The
non principled and non systematic dispersal and lack of parking sites
in the city has created an unfavorable status for its traffic and has
caused the air and sound pollutions increase; in addition, it wastes the
most portions of the citizenship and travelers' charge and time in
urban pathways and disturbs their mental and psychical calmness,
thus leads to their intensive dissatisfaction. In this study, by the usage
of AHP model in GIS environment, the effective criteria in selecting
the public parking sites have been combined with each other, and the
results of the created layers overlapping represent the parking
utilitarian vastness and widths. The achieved results of this research
indicate the pretty appropriate public parking sites selection in region
number 3 of Esfahan; but inconsequential dispersal and lack of these
parking sites in this region have caused abundant transportation
problems in Esfahan city.
Abstract: This paper presents the optimal controller design of
the generator control unit in the aircraft power system. The adaptive
tabu search technique is applied to tune the controller parameters
until the best terminal output voltage of generator is achieved. The
output response from the system with the controllers designed by the
proposed technique is compared with those from the conventional
method. The transient simulations using the commercial software
package show that the controllers designed from the adaptive tabu
search algorithm can provide the better output performance compared
with the result from the classical method. The proposed design
technique is very flexible and useful for electrical aircraft engineers.
Abstract: Nowadays, manufacturers are facing great challenges
with regard to the production of green products due to the emerging issue of hazardous substance management (HSM). In particular,
environmental legislation pressures have yielded to increased risk,
manufacturing complexity and green components demands. The green principles were expanded to many departments within
organization, including supply chain. Green supply chain
management (GSCM) was emerging in the last few years. This idea
covers every stage in manufacturing from the first to the last stage of
life cycle. From product lifecycle concept, the cycle starts at the design of a product. QFD is a customer-driven product development
tool, considered as a structured management approach for efficiently
translating customer needs into design requirements and parts deployment, as well as manufacturing plans and controls in order to
achieve higher customer satisfaction. This paper develops an Eco-
QFD to provide a framework for designing Eco-mobile phone by integrating the life cycle analysis LCA into QFD throughout the entire product development process.
Abstract: A macroscopic constitutive equation is developed for a high-density cellulose insulation material with emphasis on the outof- plane stress relaxation behavior. A hypothesis is proposed where the total stress is additively composed by an out-of-plane visco-elastic isotropic contribution and an in-plane elastic orthotropic response. The theory is validated against out-of-plane stress relaxation, compressive experiments and in-plane tensile hysteresis, respectively. For large scale finite element simulations, the presented model provides a balance between simplicity and capturing the materials constitutive behaviour.
Abstract: Because of its global reach, reduction of time
restraints, and ability to reduce costs and increase sales, use of the
Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW), and related technologies
can be a competitive tool in the arsenal of small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs). Countries the world over are interested in the
successful adoption of the Internet by SMEs. Because a vast
majority of jobs come from that sector, greater financial success of
SMEs translates into greater job growth and, subsequently, higher
tax revenue to the government. This research investigated the level
of Internet usage for business solutions by small and medium
enterprises in Jordan. Through the survey of a random sample of
100 firms with less than 500 employees and from data obtained
from this survey that formed the basis for our study, we found that
a majority of respondents use the Internet in business activities ,
the adoption of the Internet as a business tool is limited to a
brochure where Web site which primarily provides one way. As
such, there wasn't interactive information about the company and
its products and services.
Abstract: In a competitive energy market, system reliability
should be maintained at all times. Power system operation being of
online in nature, the energy balance requirements must be satisfied to
ensure reliable operation the system. To achieve this, information
regarding the expected status of the system, the scheduled
transactions and the relevant inputs necessary to make either a
transaction contract or a transmission contract operational, have to be
made available in real time. The real time procedure proposed,
facilitates this. This paper proposes a quadratic curve learning
procedure, which enables a generator-s contribution to the retailer
demand, power loss of transaction in a line at the retail end and its
associated losses for an oncoming operating scenario to be predicted.
Matlab program was used to test in on a 24-bus IEE Reliability Test
System, and the results are found to be acceptable.
Abstract: Post-anthesis drought stress is the most important
problem affecting wheat production in dryland fields, specially in
Mediterranean regions. The main objective of this research was to
evaluate drought tolerance indices in dryland wheat genotypes under
post-anthesis drought stress. The research was including two different
experiments. In each experiment, twenty dryland bread wheat
genotypes were sown in a randomized complete blocks design
(RCBD) with three replications. One of experiments belonged to
rain-fed conditions (post-anthesis drought stress) and other
experiment was under non-stress conditions (with supplemental
irrigation). Different drought tolerance indices include Stress
Tolerance (Tol), Mean Productivity (MP), Geometric Mean
Productivity (GMP), Stress Susceptibility Index (SSI), Stress
Tolerance Index (STI), Harmonic Mean (HAM), Yield Index (YI)
and Yield Stability Index (YSI) were evaluate based on grain yield
under rain-fed (Ys) and supplemental irrigation (Yp) environments.
G10 and G12 were the most tolerant genotypes based on TOL and
SSI. But, based on MP, GMP, STI, HAM and YI indices, G1 and G2
were selected. STI, GMP and MP indices had high correlation with
grain yield under rain-fed and supplementary irrigation conditions
and were recognized as appropriate indices to identify genotypes with
high grain yield and low sensitivity to drought stress environments.
Abstract: The Tropical Data Hub (TDH) is a virtual research environment that provides researchers with an e-research infrastructure to congregate significant tropical data sets for data reuse, integration, searching, and correlation. However, researchers often require data and metadata synthesis across disciplines for crossdomain analyses and knowledge discovery. A triplestore offers a semantic layer to achieve a more intelligent method of search to support the synthesis requirements by automating latent linkages in the data and metadata. Presently, the benchmarks to aid the decision of which triplestore is best suited for use in an application environment like the TDH are limited to performance. This paper describes a new evaluation tool developed to analyze both features and performance. The tool comprises a weighted decision matrix to evaluate the interoperability, functionality, performance, and support availability of a range of integrated and native triplestores to rank them according to requirements of the TDH.
Abstract: We assert here that there might be some factors that
influence professional identity construction at the university/higher
education stage. In accord, we propose a conceptual framework of
intervening factors in professional identity construction at university
from a literature review and preliminary data from a qualitative pilot
study using focus groups. This model identifies several factors that
might influence university students- professional identity
construction and group them into categories. In turn, we describe
how these factors might contribute in strengthening or weakening
their professional identity. Finally, we discuss the implications of
strengthening students- PI for the university, individuals and
organizations and we provide a roadmap for future empirical work in
this area.
Abstract: Operating rooms are important assets for hospitals as
they generate the largest revenue and, at the same time, produce the
largest cost for hospitals. The model presented in this paper helps
make capacity planning decisions on the combination of open
operating rooms (ORs) and estimated overtime to satisfy the
allocated OR time to each specialty. The model combines both
decisions on determining the amount of OR time to open and to
allocate to different surgical specialties. The decisions made are
based on OR costs, overutilization and underutilization costs, and
contribution margins from allocating OR time. The results show the
importance of having a good estimate of specialty usage of OR time
to determine the amount of needed capacity and highlighted the
tradeoff that the OR manager faces between opening more ORs
versus extending the working time of the ORs already in use.
Abstract: Polymeric microreactors have emerged as a new
generation of carriers that hold tremendous promise in the areas of
cancer therapy, controlled delivery of drugs, for removal of
pollutants etc. Present work reports a simple and convenient
methodology for synthesis of polystyrene and poly caprolactone
microreactors. An aqueous suspension of carboxylated (1μm)
polystyrene latex particles was mixed with toluene solution followed
by freezing with liquid nitrogen. Freezed particles were incubated at
-20°C and characterized for formation of voids on the surface of
polymer microspheres by Field Emission Scanning Electron
Microscope. The hollow particles were then overnight incubated at
40ºC with unfunctionalized quantum dots (QDs) in 5:1 ratio. QDs
Encapsulated polystyrene microcapsules were characterized by
fluorescence microscopy.
Likewise Poly ε-caprolactone microreactors were prepared by
micro-volcanic rupture of freeze dried microspheres synthesized
using emulsification of polymer with aqueous Poly vinyl alcohol and
freezed with liquid nitrogen. Microreactors were examined with Field
Emission Scanning Electron Microscope for size and morphology.
Current study is an attempt to create hollow polymer particles which
can be employed for microencapsulation of nanoparticles and drug
molecules.
Abstract: A Finite Volume method based on Characteristic Fluxes for compressible fluids is developed. An explicit cell-centered resolution is adopted, where second and third order accuracy is provided by using two different MUSCL schemes with Minmod, Sweby or Superbee limiters for the hyperbolic part. Few different times integrator is used and be describe in this paper. Resolution is performed on a generic unstructured Cartesian grid, where solid boundaries are handled by a Cut-Cell method. Interfaces are explicitely advected in a non-diffusive way, ensuring local mass conservation. An improved cell cutting has been developed to handle boundaries of arbitrary geometrical complexity. Instead of using a polygon clipping algorithm, we use the Voxel traversal algorithm coupled with a local floodfill scanline to intersect 2D or 3D boundary surface meshes with the fixed Cartesian grid. Small cells stability problem near the boundaries is solved using a fully conservative merging method. Inflow and outflow conditions are also implemented in the model. The solver is validated on 2D academic test cases, such as the flow past a cylinder. The latter test cases are performed both in the frame of the body and in a fixed frame where the body is moving across the mesh. Adaptive Cartesian grid is provided by Paramesh without complex geometries for the moment.
Abstract: PPG is a potential tool in clinical applications. Among such, the relationship between respiration and PPG signal has attracted attention in past decades. In this research, a bivariate AR spectral estimation method was utilized for the coherence analysis between these two signals. Ten healthy subjects participated in this research with signals measured at different respiratory rates. The results demonstrate that high coherence exists between respiration and PPG signal, whereas the coherence disappears in breath-holding experiments. These results imply that PPG signal reveals the respiratory information. The utilized method may provide an attractive alternative approach for the related researches.
Abstract: The contribution is dealing with the influence of high speed parameters on the quality of machined surface. In general the principle of high speed cutting lies in achieving faster machine times with concurrent increase in accuracy and quality of the machined areas in largely irregular, mathematically hard to define shapes. High speed machining is a highly effective method of machining with the following goals: increasing of machining productivity, increasing of quality of the machined surface, improving of machining economy, improving of ecological aspects of machining. This article is based on an experiment performed by the Department of Machining and Assembly of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of VŠBTechnical University of Ostrava.
Abstract: Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid state welding
process invented and patented by The Welding Institute (TWI) in the
United Kingdom in 1991 for butt and lap welding of metals and plastics. This paper highlights the benefits of friction stir welding
process as an energy efficient and a green technology process in the
field of welding. Compared to the other conventional welding processes, its benefits, typical applications and its use in joining
similar and dissimilar materials are also presented.
Abstract: The purpose of this research study is to investigate the manner in which various loads affect the mechanical properties of the formed mild steel plates. The investigation focuses on examining the cross-sectional area of the metal plate at the centre of the formed mild steel plate. Six mild steel plates were deformed with different loads. The loads applied on the plates had a magnitude of 5 kg, 10 kg, 15 kg, 20 kg, 25 kg and 30 kg. The radius of the punching die was 120 mm and the loads were applied at room temperature. The investigations established that the applied load causes the Vickers microhardness at the cross-sectional area of the plate to increase due to strain hardening. Hence, the percentage increase of the hardness due to the load was found to be directly proportional to the increase in the load. Furthermore, the tensile test results for the parent material showed that the average Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS) for the three samples was 308 MPa while the average Yield Strength and Percentage Elongation were 227 MPa and 38 % respectively. Similarly, the UTS of the formed components increased after the deformation of the plate, as such it can be concluded that the forming loads alter the mechanical properties of the materials by improving and strengthening the material properties.