Journals

Robust Steam Temperature Regulation for Distillation of Essential Oil Extraction Process using Hybrid Fuzzy-PD plus PID Controller

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 11 1164 - 1169 Pages

Abstract: This paper presents a hybrid fuzzy-PD plus PID (HFPP) controller and its application to steam distillation process for essential oil extraction system. Steam temperature is one of the most significant parameters that can influence the composition of essential oil yield. Due to parameter variations and changes in operation conditions during distillation, a robust steam temperature controller becomes nontrivial to avoid the degradation of essential oil quality. Initially, the PRBS input is triggered to the system and output of steam temperature is modeled using ARX model structure. The parameter estimation and tuning method is adopted by simulation using HFPP controller scheme. The effectiveness and robustness of proposed controller technique is validated by real time implementation to the system. The performance of HFPP using 25 and 49 fuzzy rules is compared. The experimental result demonstrates the proposed HFPP using 49 fuzzy rules achieves a better, consistent and robust controller compared to PID when considering the test on tracking the set point and the effects due to disturbance.

How to Modernise the European Competition Network (ECN)

Year: 2014 Volume: 8 Issue: 6 1625 - 1630 Pages

Authors:
Dorota Galeza

Abstract: This paper argues that networks, such as the ECN and the American network, are affected by certain small events which are inherent to path dependence and preclude the full evolution towards efficiency. It is advocated that the American network is superior to the ECN in many respects due to its greater flexibility and longer history. This stems in particular from the creation of the American network, which was based on a small number of cases. Such a structure encourages further changes and modifications which are not necessarily radical. The ECN, by contrast, was established by legislative action, which explains its rigid structure and resistance to change. This paper is an attempt to transpose the superiority of the American network on to the ECN. It looks at concepts such as judicial cooperation, harmonisation of procedure, peer review and regulatory impact assessments (RIAs), and dispute resolution procedures.

Adaptive Transient and CW RF Interference Mitigation in HF OTH Radar: Experimental Results

Year: 2008 Volume: 2 Issue: 5 726 - 731 Pages

Abstract: We introduce an adaptive technique for the joint mitigation of transients and continuous-wave radio-frequency co-channel interference (CW RFI) in high-frequency (HF) over-the-horizon radars (OTHRs). The performance of this technique is illustrated using data from an operational surface-wave radar (SECAR) and from recent experimental trials with sky-wave (SW) and sky-wave–line-of-sight (SKYLOS) HF OTHRs.

Keywords:

Analytical Study on a Longitudinal Joints of the Slab-Type Modular Bridges

Year: 2012 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 93 - 98 Pages

Abstract: In this study, a longitudinal joint connection was proposed for the short-span slab-type modular bridges with rapid construction. The slab-type modular bridge consists of a number of precast slab modules and has the joint connection between the modules in the longitudinal direction of the bridge. A finite element based parameter analysis was conducted to design the shape and the dimensions of the longitudinal joint connection. Numbers of shear keys within the joint, height and depth of the shear key, tooth angle, and the spacing were considered as the design parameters. Using the local cracking load at the corner of the shear key and the cross-sectional area of the joint, an efficiency factor was proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of the longitudinal joint connection. The dimensions of shear key were determined by comparing the cracking loads and the efficiency factors obtained from the finite element analysis.

A Scenario-Based Approach for the Air Traffic Flow Management Problem with Stochastic Capacities

Year: 2013 Volume: 7 Issue: 8 1626 - 1628 Pages

Authors:
Soumia Ichoua

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the strategic stochastic air traffic flow management problem which seeks to balance airspace capacity and demand under weather disruptions. The goal is to reduce the need for myopic tactical decisions that do not account for probabilistic knowledge about the NAS near-future states. We present and discuss a scenario-based modeling approach based on a time-space stochastic process to depict weather disruption occurrences in the NAS. A solution framework is also proposed along with a distributed implementation aimed at overcoming scalability problems. Issues related to this implementation are also discussed.

Evaluation of the Burden of Taxation Received by Households in Lithuania

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 6 592 - 597 Pages

Abstract: Many foreign and Lithuanian scientists, analyzing the evaluation of the tax system in respect of the burden of taxation, agree that the latter, in principle, depends on how many individuals and what units of the residents constitute a household. Therefore, the aim of scientific research is to substantiate or to deny the significance of a household, but not a resident, as a statistical unit, during the evaluation of tax system, to be precise, determination of the value of the burden of taxation. A performed scientific research revealed that evaluation of the tax system in respect of a household, but not a resident, as a statistical unit, allows not only to evaluate the efficiency of the tax system more objectively, but also to forecast practicably existing poverty line, burden of taxation, and to capacitate the initiation of efficient decisions in social and tax fields creating the environment of existence.

SOA-Based Mobile Application for Crime Control in Thailand

Year: 2011 Volume: 5 Issue: 12 1488 - 1492 Pages

Abstract: Crime is a major societal problem for most of the world's nations. Consequently, the police need to develop new methods to improve their efficiency in dealing with these ever increasing crime rates. Two of the common difficulties that the police face in crime control are crime investigation and the provision of crime information to the general public to help them protect themselves. Crime control in police operations involves the use of spatial data, crime data and the related crime data from different organizations (depending on the nature of the analysis to be made). These types of data are collected from several heterogeneous sources in different formats and from different platforms, resulting in a lack of standardization. Moreover, there is no standard framework for crime data collection, integration and dissemination through mobile devices. An investigation into the current situation in crime control was carried out to identify the needs to resolve these issues. This paper proposes and investigates the use of service oriented architecture (SOA) and the mobile spatial information service in crime control. SOA plays an important role in crime control as an appropriate way to support data exchange and model sharing from heterogeneous sources. Crime control also needs to facilitate mobile spatial information services in order to exchange, receive, share and release information based on location to mobile users anytime and anywhere.

Production of Glucose from the Hydrolysis of Cassava Residue using Bacteria Isolates from Thai Higher Termites

Year: 2012 Volume: 6 Issue: 4 247 - 250 Pages

Abstract: The possibility of using cassava residue containing 49.66% starch, 21.47% cellulose, 12.97% hemicellulose, and 21.86% lignin as a raw material to produce glucose using enzymatic hydrolysis was investigated. In the experiment, each reactor contained the cassava residue, bacteria cells, and production medium. The effects of particles size (40 mesh and 60 mesh) and strains of bacteria (A002 and M015) isolated from Thai higher termites, Microcerotermes sp., on the glucose concentration at 37°C were focused. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a refractive index detector was used to determine the quantity of glucose. The maximum glucose concentration obtained at 37°C using strain A002 and 60 mesh of the cassava residue was 1.51 g/L at 10 h.

The Effect of Vibration on the Absorption of CO2 with Chemical Reaction in Aqueous Solution of Calcium Hydroxide

Year: 2007 Volume: 1 Issue: 5 41 - 43 Pages

Abstract: An interesting method to produce calcium carbonate is based in a gas-liquid reaction between carbon dioxide and aqueous solutions of calcium hydroxide. The design parameters for gas-liquid phase are flow regime, individual mass transfer, gas-liquid specific interfacial area. Most studies on gas-liquid phase were devoted to the experimental determination of some of these parameters, and more specifically, of the mass transfer coefficient, kLa which depends fundamentally on the superficial gas velocity and on the physical properties of absorption phase. The principle investigation was directed to study the effect of the vibration on the mass transfer coefficient kLa in gas-liquid phase during absorption of CO2 in the in aqueous solution of calcium hydroxide. The vibration with a higher frequency increase the mass transfer coefficient kLa, but vibration with lower frequency didn-t improve it, the mass transfer coefficient kLa increase with increase the superficial gas velocity.

Formation of Round Channel for Microfluidic Applications

Year: 2014 Volume: 8 Issue: 7 1039 - 1043 Pages

Abstract: PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) polymer is a suitable material for biological and MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) designers, because of its biocompatibility, transparency and high resistance under plasma treatment. PDMS round channel is always been of great interest due to its ability to confine the liquid with membrane type micro valves. In this paper we are presenting a very simple way to form round shapemicrofluidic channel, which is based on reflow of positive photoresist AZ® 40 XT. With this method, it is possible to obtain channel of different height simply by varying the spin coating parameters of photoresist.

Kinetic and Optimization Studies on Ethanol Production from Corn Flour

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 5 - 9 Pages

Abstract: Studies on Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF) of corn flour, a major agricultural product as the substrate using starch digesting glucoamylase enzyme derived from Aspergillus niger and non starch digesting and sugar fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a batch fermentation. Experiments based on Central Composite Design (CCD) were conducted to study the effect of substrate concentration, pH, temperature, enzyme concentration on Ethanol Concentration and the above parameters were optimized using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The optimum values of substrate concentration, pH, temperature and enzyme concentration were found to be 160 g/l, 5.5, 30°C and 50 IU respectively. The effect of inoculums age on ethanol concentration was also investigated. The corn flour solution equivalent to 16% initial starch concentration gave the highest ethanol concentration of 63.04 g/l after 48 h of fermentation at optimum conditions of pH and temperature. Monod model and Logistic model were used for growth kinetics and Leudeking – Piret model was used for product formation kinetics.

Keywords:
Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation(SSF)
Corn Starch
Ethanol
Logisitic Model.

Modeling Hybrid Systems with MLD Approach and Analysis of the Model Size and Complexity

Year: 2007 Volume: 1 Issue: 11 3368 - 3374 Pages

Abstract: Recently, a great amount of interest has been shown in the field of modeling and controlling hybrid systems. One of the efficient and common methods in this area utilizes the mixed logicaldynamical (MLD) systems in the modeling. In this method, the system constraints are transformed into mixed-integer inequalities by defining some logic statements. In this paper, a system containing three tanks is modeled as a nonlinear switched system by using the MLD framework. Comparing the model size of the three-tank system with that of a two-tank system, it is deduced that the number of binary variables, the size of the system and its complexity tremendously increases with the number of tanks, which makes the control of the system more difficult. Therefore, methods should be found which result in fewer mixed-integer inequalities.

Tool Tracker: A Toolkit Ensembling Useful Online Networking Tools for Efficient Management and Operation of a Network

Year: 2008 Volume: 2 Issue: 6 1808 - 1813 Pages

Abstract: Tool Tracker is a client-server based application. It is essentially a catalogue of various network monitoring and management tools that are available online. There is a database maintained on the server side that contains the information about various tools. Several clients can access this information simultaneously and utilize this information. The various categories of tools considered are packet sniffers, port mappers, port scanners, encryption tools, and vulnerability scanners etc for the development of this application. This application provides a front end through which the user can invoke any tool from a central repository for the purpose of packet sniffing, port scanning, network analysis etc. Apart from the tool, its description and the help files associated with it would also be stored in the central repository. This facility will enable the user to view the documentation pertaining to the tool without having to download and install the tool. The application would update the central repository with the latest versions of the tools. The application would inform the user about the availability of a newer version of the tool currently being used and give the choice of installing the newer version to the user. Thus ToolTracker provides any network administrator that much needed abstraction and ease-ofuse with respect to the tools that he can use to efficiently monitor a network.

Role of Acoustic Pressure on the Dynamics of Moving Single-Bubble Sonoluminescence

Year: 2008 Volume: 2 Issue: 7 366 - 369 Pages

Abstract: Role of acoustic driving pressure on the translational-radial dynamics of a moving single bubble sonoluminescence (m-SBSL) has been numerically investigated. The results indicate that increase in the amplitude of the driving pressure leads to increase in the bubble peak temperature. The length and the shape of the trajectory of the bubble depends on the acoustic pressure and because of the spatially dependence of the radial dynamics of the moving bubble, its peak temperature varies during the acoustical pulses. The results are in good agreement with the experimental reports on m-SBSL.

Compression of Semistructured Documents

Year: 2008 Volume: 2 Issue: 8 2572 - 2577 Pages

Abstract: EGOTHOR is a search engine that indexes the Web and allows us to search the Web documents. Its hit list contains URL and title of the hits, and also some snippet which tries to shortly show a match. The snippet can be almost always assembled by an algorithm that has a full knowledge of the original document (mostly HTML page). It implies that the search engine is required to store the full text of the documents as a part of the index. Such a requirement leads us to pick up an appropriate compression algorithm which would reduce the space demand. One of the solutions could be to use common compression methods, for instance gzip or bzip2, but it might be preferable if we develop a new method which would take advantage of the document structure, or rather, the textual character of the documents. There already exist a special compression text algorithms and methods for a compression of XML documents. The aim of this paper is an integration of the two approaches to achieve an optimal level of the compression ratio

Relationship of Reaction Temperature on Phosphate Oligomers Reactivity to Properties of Soy-Polyurethane

Year: 2011 Volume: 5 Issue: 4 251 - 255 Pages

Authors:
Flora Elvistia Firdaus

Abstract: Polyurethane foam (PUF) were prepared by reacting polyols synthesized from soy-oil into mixture of 2,4- Toluene diisocyanate (TDI) with 4,4--Methylene Diamine Isocyanate (MDI) with ratio of 70:30. The polyols obtained via esterification reaction were categorize into different temperature of reaction and by used of varied concentration of phosphoric acid catalyst. The purpose of catalysts is to shifting selectivity to a desired and value added of product. The effect of stoichiometric balance (molar ratio of epoxide/ethylene glycol) to the concentration of the catalyst on the final properties was evaluated.

Using Tabu Search to Analyze the Mauritian Economic Sectors

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 12 1458 - 1462 Pages

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to express the input-output matrix as a linear ordering problem which is classified as an NP-hard problem. We then use a Tabu search algorithm to find the best permutation among sectors in the input-output matrix that will give an optimal solution. This optimal permutation can be useful in designing policies and strategies for economists and government in their goal of maximizing the gross domestic product.

Research on Pressed Pile Test and Finite Element Analysis of Large-diameter Steel Pipe Pile of Zhanjiang Port

Year: 2012 Volume: 6 Issue: 11 903 - 907 Pages

Abstract: In order to study pressed pile test and ultimate bearing capacity character of large-diameter steel pipe pile, based on two high-piled wharfs of Zhanjiang Port, pressed pile test and numerical simulation of three large-diameter steel pipe piles are analyzed in this paper. Anchored pile method is used to pressed pile test, and the curves of Q-s and ultimate bearing capacity are attained. Then the three piles are numerically simulated by ABAQUS, and results of numerical simulation and those of field test are comparatively analyzed. The results show that settlement value of numerical simulation is larger than that of field test in the process of loading, the difference value is widening with the increasing of load, and the ultimate difference value of settlement is 20% to 30%.

Methane and Other Hydrocarbon Gas Emissions Resulting from Flaring in Kuwait Oilfields

Year: 2008 Volume: 2 Issue: 8 165 - 173 Pages

Abstract: Air pollution is a major environmental health problem, affecting developed and developing countries around the world. Increasing amounts of potentially harmful gases and particulate matter are being emitted into the atmosphere on a global scale, resulting in damage to human health and the environment. Petroleum-related air pollutants can have a wide variety of adverse environmental impacts. In the crude oil production sectors, there is a strong need for a thorough knowledge of gaseous emissions resulting from the flaring of associated gas of known composition on daily basis through combustion activities under several operating conditions. This can help in the control of gaseous emission from flares and thus in the protection of their immediate and distant surrounding against environmental degradation. The impacts of methane and non-methane hydrocarbons emissions from flaring activities at oil production facilities at Kuwait Oilfields have been assessed through a screening study using records of flaring operations taken at the gas and oil production sites, and by analyzing available meteorological and air quality data measured at stations located near anthropogenic sources. In the present study the Industrial Source Complex (ISCST3) Dispersion Model is used to calculate the ground level concentrations of methane and nonmethane hydrocarbons emitted due to flaring in all over Kuwait Oilfields. The simulation of real hourly air quality in and around oil production facilities in the State of Kuwait for the year 2006, inserting the respective source emission data into the ISCST3 software indicates that the levels of non-methane hydrocarbons from the flaring activities exceed the allowable ambient air standard set by Kuwait EPA. So, there is a strong need to address this acute problem to minimize the impact of methane and non-methane hydrocarbons released from flaring activities over the urban area of Kuwait.

One-Dimensional Numerical Investigation of a Cylindrical Micro-Combustor Applying Electrohydrodynamics Effect

Year: 2012 Volume: 6 Issue: 7 1116 - 1123 Pages

Abstract: In this paper, a one-dimensional numerical approach is used to study the effect of applying electrohydrodynamics on the temperature and species mass fraction profiles along the microcombustor. Premixed mixture is H2-Air with a multi-step chemistry (9 species and 19 reactions). In the micro-scale combustion because of the increasing ratio of area-to-volume, thermal and radical quenching mechanisms are important. Also, there is a significant heat loss from the combustor walls. By inserting a number of electrodes into micro-combustor and applying high voltage to them corona discharge occurs. This leads in moving of induced ions toward natural molecules and colliding with them. So this phenomenon causes the movement of the molecules and reattaches the flow to the walls. It increases the velocity near the walls that reduces the wall boundary layer. Consequently, applying electrohydrodynamics mechanism can enhance the temperature profile in the microcombustor. Ultimately, it prevents the flame quenching in microcombustor.

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