Abstract: Coagulation of water involves the use of coagulating
agents to bring the suspended matter in the raw water together for
settling and the filtration stage. Present study is aimed to examine the
effects of aluminum sulfate as coagulant in conjunction with Moringa
Oleifera Coagulant Protein as coagulant aid on turbidity, hardness,
and bacteria in turbid water. A conventional jar test apparatus was
employed for the tests. The best removal was observed at a pH of 7
to 7.5 for all turbidities. Turbidity removal efficiency was resulted
between % 80 to % 99 by Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein as
coagulant aid. Dosage of coagulant and coagulant aid decreased with
increasing turbidity. In addition, Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein
significantly has reduced the required dosage of primary coagulant.
Residual Al+3 in treated water were less than 0.2 mg/l and meets the
environmental protection agency guidelines. The results showed that
turbidity reduction of % 85.9- % 98 paralleled by a primary
Escherichia coli reduction of 1-3 log units (99.2 – 99.97%) was
obtained within the first 1 to 2 h of treatment. In conclusions,
Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein as coagulant aid can be used for
drinking water treatment without the risk of organic or nutrient
release. We demonstrated that optimal design method is an efficient
approach for optimization of coagulation-flocculation process and
appropriate for raw water treatment.
Abstract: The importance of nurturing, accumulating, and efficiently deploying knowledge resources through formal structures and organisational mechanisms is well understood. Recent trends in knowledge management (KM) highlight that the effective creation and transfer of knowledge can also rely upon extra-organisational channels, such as, informal networks. The perception exists that the role of informal networks in knowledge creation and performance has been underestimated in the organisational context. Literature indicates that many managers fail to comprehend and successfully exploit the potential role of informal networks to create value for their organisations. This paper investigates: 1) whether managers share work-specific knowledge with informal contacts within and outside organisational boundaries; and 2) what do they think is the importance of this knowledge collaboration in their learning and work outcomes.
Abstract: Located within the tropical belt region, there are
certain rules which should implemented in creating a passive
sustainable housing design in Malaysia. Traditional Malay house
possess a strong character with certain special spaces to create a
sustainable house which suit to the tropical climate in Malaysia. One
of the special space known as verandah or serambi gantung, create
various advantages in solving various issues. However, this special
space is not extremely being applied currently which produce major
issues in term of social and environmental aspects. Hence, this
phenomena create a negative impact to the occupant while Malaysia
already has a best housing design previously. Therefore, this paper
aims to explore both of the main issues mentioned above and reveal
the advantages of implementing verandah into passive sustainable
housing design in Malaysia. A systematic literature review is the
main methodology in this research to identify the various advantages
about verandah.. The study reveals that verandah is the best solution
in term of social and environmental issues and should be
implemented in current housing design in Malaysia.
Abstract: Fully customized hardware based technology provides high performance and low power consumption by specializing the tasks in hardware but lacks design flexibility since any kind of changes require re-design and re-fabrication. Software based solutions operate with software instructions due to which a great flexibility is achieved from the easy development and maintenance of the software code. But this execution of instructions introduces a high overhead in performance and area consumption. In past few decades the reconfigurable computing domain has been introduced which overcomes the traditional trades-off between flexibility and performance and is able to achieve high performance while maintaining a good flexibility. The dramatic gains in terms of chip performance and design flexibility achieved through the reconfigurable computing systems are greatly dependent on the design of their computational units being integrated with reconfigurable logic resources. The computational unit of any reconfigurable system plays vital role in defining its strength. In this research paper an RFU based computational unit design has been presented using the tightly coupled, multi-threaded reconfigurable cores. The proposed design has been simulated for VLIW based architectures and a high gain in performance has been observed as compared to the conventional computing systems.
Abstract: Semantic Web services will enable the semiautomatic
and automatic annotation, advertisement, discovery,
selection, composition, and execution of inter-organization business
logic, making the Internet become a common global platform where
organizations and individuals communicate with each other to carry
out various commercial activities and to provide value-added
services. There is a growing consensus that Web services alone will
not be sufficient to develop valuable solutions due the degree of
heterogeneity, autonomy, and distribution of the Web. This paper
deals with two of the hottest R&D and technology areas currently
associated with the Web – Web services and the Semantic Web. It
presents the synergies that can be created between Web Services and
Semantic Web technologies to provide a new generation of eservices.
Abstract: A comparison between the performance of Latin and
Arabic handwritten digits recognition problems is presented. The
performance of ten different classifiers is tested on two similar
Arabic and Latin handwritten digits databases. The analysis shows
that Arabic handwritten digits recognition problem is easier than that
of Latin digits. This is because the interclass difference in case of
Latin digits is smaller than in Arabic digits and variances in writing
Latin digits are larger. Consequently, weaker yet fast classifiers are
expected to play more prominent role in Arabic handwritten digits
recognition.
Abstract: The traditional method for essential oil extraction from agarwood (Aquilaria Crassna) is to soak it in water and follow with hydrodistillation. The effect of various agarwood pretreatments: ethanol, acid, alkaline, enzymes, and ultrasound, and the effect of subcritical water extraction(SWE) was studied to compare with the traditional method. The major compositions of agarwood oil from hydrodistillation were aroma compounds as follow: aristol-9-en-8- one (21.53%), selina-3, 7(11)-diene (12.96%), τ-himachalene (9.28%), β-guaiene (5.79%), hexadecanoic acid (4.90%) and guaia- 3,9-diene (4.21%). Whereas agarwood oil from pretreatments with ethanol and ultrasound, and SWE got fatty acid compounds. Extraction of agarwood oil using these pretreatments could improve the agarwood oil yields up to 2 times that of the traditional method. The components of the pretreated sample with diluted acid (H2SO4) at pH 4 gave quite similar results as the traditional method. Therefore, the enhancement of essential oil from agarwood depends on requirement of type of extracted oil that involved extraction methods.
Abstract: Image data holds a large amount of different context
information. However, as of today, these resources remain largely
untouched. It is thus the aim of this paper to present a basic technical
framework which allows for a quick and easy exploitation of context
information from image data especially by non-expert users.
Furthermore, the proposed framework is discussed in detail
concerning important social and ethical issues which demand special
requirements in system design. Finally, a first sensor prototype is
presented which meets the identified requirements. Additionally,
necessary implications for the software and hardware design of the
system are discussed, rendering a sensor system which could be
regarded as a good, acceptable and justifiable technical and thereby
enabling the extraction of context information from image data.
Abstract: Coal fly ash (CFA) generated by coal-based thermal
power plants is mainly composed of quartz, mullite, and unburned
carbon. In this study, the effect of unburned carbon on CFA toward
its adsorption capacity was investigated. CFA with various carbon
content was obtained by refluxing it with sulfuric acid having various
concentration at various temperature and reflux time, by heating at
400-800°C, and by sieving into 100-mesh in particle size. To
evaluate the effect of unburned carbon on CFA toward its adsorption
capacity, adsorption of methyl violet solution with treated CFA was
carried out. The research shows that unburned carbon leads to
adsorption capacity decrease. The highest adsorption capacity of
treated CFA was found 5.73 x 10-4mol.g-1.
Abstract: In many industries, control charts is one of the most
frequently used tools for quality management. Hotelling-s T2 is used
widely in multivariate control chart. However, it has little defect when
detecting small or medium process shifts. The use of supplementary
sensitizing rules can improve the performance of detection. This study
applied sensitizing rules for Hotelling-s T2 control chart to improve the
performance of detection. Support vector machines (SVM) classifier
to identify the characteristic or group of characteristics that are
responsible for the signal and to classify the magnitude of the mean
shifts. The experimental results demonstrate that the support vector
machines (SVM) classifier can effectively identify the characteristic
or group of characteristics that caused the process mean shifts and the
magnitude of the shifts.
Abstract: Process-oriented software development is a new
software development paradigm in which software design is modeled
by a business process which is in turn translated into a process
execution language for execution. The building blocks of this
paradigm are software units that are composed together to work
according to the flow of the business process. This new paradigm
still exhibits the characteristic of the applications built with the
traditional software component technology. This paper discusses an
approach to apply a traditional technique for software component
fabrication to the design of process-oriented software units, called
process components. These process components result from
decomposing a business process of a particular application domain
into subprocesses, and these process components can be reused to
design the business processes of other application domains. The
decomposition considers five managerial goals, namely cost
effectiveness, ease of assembly, customization, reusability, and
maintainability. The paper presents how to design or decompose
process components from a business process model and measure
some technical features of the design that would affect the
managerial goals. A comparison between the measurement values
from different designs can tell which process component design is
more appropriate for the managerial goals that have been set. The
proposed approach can be applied in Web Services environment
which accommodates process-oriented software development.
Abstract: High Speed PM Generators driven by micro-turbines
are widely used in Smart Grid System. So, this paper proposes
comparative study among six classical, optimized and genetic
analytical design cases for 400 kW output power at tip speed 200
m/s. These six design trials of High Speed Permanent Magnet
Synchronous Generators (HSPMSGs) are: Classical Sizing;
Unconstrained optimization for total losses and its minimization;
Constrained optimized total mass with bounded constraints are
introduced in the problem formulation. Then a genetic algorithm is
formulated for obtaining maximum efficiency and minimizing
machine size. In the second genetic problem formulation, we attempt
to obtain minimum mass, the machine sizing that is constrained by
the non-linear constraint function of machine losses. Finally, an
optimum torque per ampere genetic sizing is predicted. All results are
simulated with MATLAB, Optimization Toolbox and its Genetic
Algorithm. Finally, six analytical design examples comparisons are
introduced with study of machines waveforms, THD and rotor losses.
Abstract: This paper presents preliminary results of a
technology assessment analysis for the use of high pressure treatment
(HPT) on Halloumi cheese. In particular, it presents the importance
of this traditional Cyprus cheese to the island-s economy, explains its
production process, and gives a brief introduction to HPT and its
application on cheese. More importantly, it offers preliminary results
of HPT of Halloumi samples and a preliminary economic feasibility
study on the financial implications of the introduction of such
technology.
Abstract: One of the main environmental problems which affect extensive areas in the world is soil salinity. Traditional data collection methods are neither enough for considering this important environmental problem nor accurate for soil studies. Remote sensing data could overcome most of these problems. Although satellite images are commonly used for these studies, however there are still needs to find the best calibration between the data and real situations in each specified area. Neyshaboor area, North East of Iran was selected as a field study of this research. Landsat satellite images for this area were used in order to prepare suitable learning samples for processing and classifying the images. 300 locations were selected randomly in the area to collect soil samples and finally 273 locations were reselected for further laboratory works and image processing analysis. Electrical conductivity of all samples was measured. Six reflective bands of ETM+ satellite images taken from the study area in 2002 were used for soil salinity classification. The classification was carried out using common algorithms based on the best composition bands. The results showed that the reflective bands 7, 3, 4 and 1 are the best band composition for preparing the color composite images. We also found out, that hybrid classification is a suitable method for identifying and delineation of different salinity classes in the area.
Abstract: The analytical solution of functionally graded
piezoelectric hollow cylinder which is under radial electric potential
and non-axisymmetric thermo-mechanical loads, are presented in this
paper. Using complex Fourier series and estimation of power law for
variations of material characterizations through the thickness, the
electro thermo mechanical behavior of the FGPM cylinder is
obtained. The stress and displacement distributions and the effect of
electric potential field on the cylinder behavior are also presented and
some applicable results are offered at the end of the paper.
Abstract: Microwave energy is a superior alternative to several other thermal treatments. Extraction techniques are widely employed for the isolation of bioactive compounds and vegetable oils from oil seeds. Among the different and new available techniques, microwave pretreatment of seeds is a simple and desirable method for production of high quality vegetable oils. Microwave pretreatment for oil extraction has many advantages as follow: improving oil extraction yield and quality, direct extraction capability, lower energy consumption, faster processing time and reduced solvent levels compared with conventional methods. It allows also for better retention and availability of desirable nutraceuticals, such as phytosterols and tocopherols, canolol and phenolic compounds in the extracted oil such as rapeseed oil. This can be a new step to produce nutritional vegetable oils with improved shelf life because of high antioxidant content.
Abstract: Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a recent class of statistical classification and regression techniques playing an increasing role in applications to detection problems in various engineering problems, notably in statistical signal processing, pattern recognition, image analysis, and communication systems. In this paper, SVM is applied to an infrared (IR) binary communication system with different types of channel models including Ricean multipath fading and partially developed scattering channel with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) at the receiver. The structure and performance of SVM in terms of the bit error rate (BER) metric is derived and simulated for these channel stochastic models and the computational complexity of the implementation, in terms of average computational time per bit, is also presented. The performance of SVM is then compared to classical binary signal maximum likelihood detection using a matched filter driven by On-Off keying (OOK) modulation. We found that the performance of SVM is superior to that of the traditional optimal detection schemes used in statistical communication, especially for very low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranges. For large SNR, the performance of the SVM is similar to that of the classical detectors. The implication of these results is that SVM can prove very beneficial to IR communication systems that notoriously suffer from low SNR at the cost of increased computational complexity.
Abstract: A double module hollow fiber supported liquid
membrane (HFSLM) was applied to selectively separate lead and
mercury ions from dilute synthetic produced water. The experiments
were investigated on several variables: types of extractants
(D2EHPA, Cyanex 471, Aliquat 336, and TOA), concentration of the
selected extractant and operating time. The results clearly showed
that the double module HFSLM could selectively separate Pb(II) and
Hg(II) in feed solution at a very low concentration to less than the
regulatory discharge limit of 0.2 and 0.005 mg/L issued by the
Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Natural Resource
Environment, Thailand. The highest extractions of lead and mercury
ions from synthetic produced water were 96% and 100% using 0.03
M D2EHPA and 0.06 M Aliquat 336 as the extractant for the first
and second modules.
Abstract: In the context of sensor networks, where every few
dB saving counts, the novel node cooperation schemes are reviewed
where MIMO techniques play a leading role. These methods could be
treated as joint approach for designing physical layer of their
communication scenarios. Then we analyzed the BER performance
of transmission diversity schemes under a general fading channel
model and proposed a power allocation strategy to the transmitting
sensor nodes. This approach is then compared to an equal-power
assignment method and its performance enhancement is verified by
the simulation. Another key point of the contribution lies in the
combination of optimal power allocation and sensor nodes-
cooperation in a transmission diversity regime (MISO). Numerical
results are given through figures to demonstrate the optimality and
efficiency of proposed combined approach.
Abstract: The paper introduces and discusses definitions and concepts from the supplier relationship management area. This review has the goal to provide readers with the basic conditions to understand the market mechanisms and the technological developments of the SRM market. Further on, the work gives a picture of the actual business environment in which the SRM vendors are in, and the main trends in the field, based on the main SRM functionalities i.e. e-Procurement, e-Sourcing and Supplier Enablement, which indicates users and software providers the future technological developments and practises that will take place in this area in the next couple of years.