Abstract: In 2002 an amendment to SOLAS opened for
lightweight material constructions in vessels if the same fire safety as
in steel constructions could be obtained. FISPAT (FIreSPread
Analysis Tool) is a computer application that simulates fire spread
and fault injection in cruise vessels and identifies fire sensitive areas.
It was developed to analyze cruise vessel designs and provides a
method to evaluate network layout and safety of cruise vessels. It
allows fast, reliable and deterministic exhaustive simulations and
presents the result in a graphical vessel model. By performing the
analysis iteratively while altering the cruise vessel design it can be
used along with fire chamber experiments to show that the
lightweight design can be as safe as a steel construction and that
SOLAS regulations are fulfilled.
Abstract: This paper proposes an effective algorithm approach to hybrid control systems combining fuzzy logic and conventional control techniques of controlling the speed of induction motor assumed to operate in high-performance drives environment. The introducing of fuzzy logic in the control systems helps to achieve good dynamical response, disturbance rejection and low sensibility to parameter variations and external influences. Some fundamentals of the fuzzy logic control are preliminary illustrated. The developed control algorithm is robust, efficient and simple. It also assures precise trajectory tracking with the prescribed dynamics. Experimental results have shown excellent tracking performance of the proposed control system, and have convincingly demonstrated the validity and the usefulness of the hybrid fuzzy controller in high-performance drives with parameter and load uncertainties. Satisfactory performance was observed for most reference tracks.
Abstract: A framework to estimate the state of dynamically
varying environment where data are generated from heterogeneous
sources possessing partial knowledge about the environment is presented.
This is entirely derived within Dempster-Shafer and Evidence
Filtering frameworks. The belief about the current state is expressed
as belief and plausibility functions. An addition to Single Input
Single Output Evidence Filter, Multiple Input Single Output Evidence
Filtering approach is introduced. Variety of applications such as
situational estimation of an emergency environment can be developed
within the framework successfully. Fire propagation scenario is used
to justify the proposed framework, simulation results are presented.
Abstract: Recent advances in wireless sensor networks have led
to many routing methods designed for energy-efficiency in wireless
sensor networks. Despite that many routing methods have been
proposed in USN, a single routing method cannot be energy-efficient
if the environment of the ubiquitous sensor network varies. We present
the controlling network access to various hosts and the services they
offer, rather than on securing them one by one with a network security
model. When ubiquitous sensor networks are deployed in hostile
environments, an adversary may compromise some sensor nodes and
use them to inject false sensing reports. False reports can lead to not
only false alarms but also the depletion of limited energy resource in
battery powered networks. The interleaved hop-by-hop authentication
scheme detects such false reports through interleaved authentication.
This paper presents a LMDD (Low energy method for data delivery)
algorithm that provides energy-efficiency by dynamically changing
protocols installed at the sensor nodes. The algorithm changes
protocols based on the output of the fuzzy logic which is the fitness
level of the protocols for the environment.
Abstract: The present paper was concerned primarily with the
analysis, simulation of the air flow and thermal patterns in a lecture
room. The paper is devoted to numerically investigate the influence
of location and number of ventilation and air conditioning supply and
extracts openings on air flow properties in a lecture room. The work
focuses on air flow patterns, thermal behaviour in lecture room where
large number of students. The effectiveness of an air flow system is
commonly assessed by the successful removal of sensible and latent
loads from occupants with additional of attaining air pollutant at a
prescribed level to attain the human thermal comfort conditions and
to improve the indoor air quality; this is the main target during the
present paper. The study is carried out using computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) simulation techniques as embedded in the
commercially available CFD code (FLUENT 6.2). The CFD
modelling techniques solved the continuity, momentum and energy
conservation equations in addition to standard k – ε model equations
for turbulence closure.
Throughout the investigations, numerical validation is carried out by
way of comparisons of numerical and experimental results. Good
agreement is found among both predictions.
Abstract: Prickly pear juice has received renewed attention with regard to the effects of processing and preservation on its sensory qualities (colour, taste, flavour, aroma, astringency, visual browning and overall acceptability). Juice was prepared by homogenizing fruit and treating the pulp with pectinase (Aspergillus niger). Juice treatments applied were sugar addition, acidification, heat-treatment, refrigeration, and freezing and thawing. Prickly pear pulp and juice had unique properties (low pH 3.88, soluble solids 3.68 oBrix and high titratable acidity 0.47). Sensory profiling and descriptive analyses revealed that non-treated juice had a bitter taste with high astringency whereas treated prickly pear was significantly sweeter. All treated juices had a good sensory acceptance with values approximating or exceeding 7. Regression analysis of the consumer sensory attributes for non-treated prickly pear juice indicated an overwhelming rejection, while treated prickly pear juice received overall acceptability. Thus, educed favourable sensory responses and may have positive implications for consumer acceptability.
Abstract: Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is one of the most
important catalytic reactions that convert the synthetic gas to light
and heavy hydrocarbons. One of the main issues is selecting the type
of reactor. The slurry bubble reactor is suitable choice for Fischer-
Tropsch synthesis because of its good qualification to transfer heat
and mass, high durability of catalyst, low cost maintenance and
repair. The more common catalysts for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis are
Iron-based and Cobalt-based catalysts, the advantage of these
catalysts on each other depends on which type of hydrocarbons we
desire to produce. In this study, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is modeled
with Iron and Cobalt catalysts in a slurry bubble reactor considering
mass and momentum balance and the hydrodynamic relations effect
on the reactor behavior. Profiles of reactant conversion and reactant
concentration in gas and liquid phases were determined as the
functions of residence time in the reactor. The effects of temperature,
pressure, liquid velocity, reactor diameter, catalyst diameter, gasliquid
and liquid-solid mass transfer coefficients and kinetic
coefficients on the reactant conversion have been studied. With 5%
increase of liquid velocity (with Iron catalyst), H2 conversions
increase about 6% and CO conversion increase about 4%, With 8%
increase of liquid velocity (with Cobalt catalyst), H2 conversions
increase about 26% and CO conversion increase about 4%. With
20% increase of gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient (with Iron
catalyst), H2 conversions increase about 12% and CO conversion
increase about 10% and with Cobalt catalyst H2 conversions increase
about 10% and CO conversion increase about 6%. Results show that
the process is sensitive to gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient and
optimum condition operation occurs in maximum possible liquid
velocity. This velocity must be more than minimum fluidization
velocity and less than terminal velocity in such a way that avoid
catalysts particles from leaving the fluidized bed.
Abstract: In this paper, an accurate theoretical analysis for the achievable average channel capacity (in the Shannon sense) per user of a hybrid cellular direct-sequence/fast frequency hopping code-division multiple-access (DS/FFH-CDMA) system operating in a Rayleigh fading environment is presented. The analysis covers the downlink operation and leads to the derivation of an exact mathematical expression between the normalized average channel capacity available to each system-s user, under simultaneous optimal power and rate adaptation and the system-s parameters, as the number of hops per bit, the processing gain applied, the number of users per cell and the received signal-tonoise power ratio over the signal bandwidth. Finally, numerical results are presented to illustrate the proposed mathematical analysis.
Abstract: A hybrid Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) solar system integrates photovoltaic and solar thermal technologies into one single solar energy device, with dual generation of electricity and heat energy. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the potential for introduction of the PV/T technology into Northern China. For this purpose, outdoor experiments were conducted on a prototype of a PV/T water-heating system. The annual thermal and electrical performances were investigated under the climatic conditions of Beijing. An economic analysis of the system was then carried out, followed by a sensitivity study. The analysis revealed that the hybrid system is not economically attractive with the current market and energy prices. However, considering the continuous commitment of the Chinese government towards policy development in the renewable energy sector, and technological improvements like the increasing cost-effectiveness of PV cells, PV/Thermal technology may become economically viable in the near future.
Abstract: Transcription factors are a group of proteins that
helps for interpreting the genetic information in DNA.
Protein-protein interactions play a major role in the execution
of key biological functions of a cell. These interactions are
represented in the form of a graph with nodes and edges.
Studies have showed that some nodes have high degree of
connectivity and such nodes, known as hub nodes, are the
inevitable parts of the network. In the present paper a method
is proposed to identify hub transcription factor proteins using
sequence information. On a complete data set of transcription
factor proteins available from the APID database, the
proposed method showed an accuracy of 77%, sensitivity of
79% and specificity of 76%.
Abstract: The sustainability of a place depends on a series of factors which contribute to the quality of life, sense of place and recognition of identity. An activity like walking, which in itself is obviously ''sustainable'', can become non sustainable if the context in which it is carried out does not meet the conditions for an adequate quality of life. This work is aimed at proposing the analytical method of Place Maker to identify the elements that do not feature in traditional mapping and which constitute the contemporary identity of the places, and the relative complex map to represent those elements and support sustainable urban identity design. The method's potential for areas with a predominantly pedestrian vocation is illustrated by means of the case study of the Ramblas in Barcelona.
Abstract: This paper demonstrates the results when either
Shiftrows stage or Mixcolumns stage and when both the stages are
omitted in the well known block cipher Advanced Encryption
Standard(AES) and its modified version AES with Key Dependent
S-box(AES-KDS), using avalanche criterion and other tests namely
encryption quality, correlation coefficient, histogram analysis and
key sensitivity tests.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to improve our
understanding of vulnerability and environmental change; it's causes
basically show the intensity, its distribution and human-environment
effect on the ecosystem in the Apodi Valley Region, This paper is
identify, assess and classify vulnerability and environmental change
in the Apodi valley region using a combined approach of landscape
pattern and ecosystem sensitivity. Models were developed using the
following five thematic layers: Geology, geomorphology, soil,
vegetation and land use/cover, by means of a Geographical
Information Systems (GIS)-based on hydro-geophysical parameters.
In spite of the data problems and shortcomings, using ESRI-s ArcGIS
9.3 program, the vulnerability score, to classify, weight and combine
a number of 15 separate land cover classes to create a single indicator
provides a reliable measure of differences (6 classes) among regions
and communities that are exposed to similar ranges of hazards.
Indeed, the ongoing and active development of vulnerability
concepts and methods have already produced some tools to help
overcome common issues, such as acting in a context of high
uncertainties, taking into account the dynamics and spatial scale of
asocial-ecological system, or gathering viewpoints from different
sciences to combine human and impact-based approaches. Based on
this assessment, this paper proposes concrete perspectives and
possibilities to benefit from existing commonalities in the
construction and application of assessment tools.
Abstract: Indoor air distribution has great impact on people-s thermal sensation. Therefore, how to remove the indoor excess heat becomes an important issue to create a thermally comfortable indoor environment. To expel the extra indoor heat effectively, this paper used a dynamic CFD approach to study the effect of an air-supply guide vane swinging periodically on the indoor air distribution within a model room. The numerical results revealed that the indoor heat transfer performance caused by the swing guide vane had close relation with the number of vortices developing under the inlet cold jet. At larger swing amplitude, two smaller vortices continued to shed outward under the cold jet and remove the indoor heat load more effectively. As a result, it can be found that the average Nusselt number on the floor increased with the increase of the swing amplitude of the guide vane.
Abstract: In Algeria, liberalization reforms undertaken since the 1990s have resulted in negative effects on the development and management of irrigation schemes, as well as on the conditions of farmers. Reforms have been undertaken to improve the performance of irrigation schemes, such as the national plan of agricultural development (PNDA) in 2000 and the water pricing policy of 2005. However, after implementation of these policies, questions have arisen with regard to irrigation performance and its suitability for agricultural development. Hence, the aim of this paper is to provide insight into the profitability of irrigation during the transition period under current irrigation agricultural policies in Algeria. By using the method of farm crop budget analysis in the East Mitidja irrigation scheme, the returns from using surface water resources based on farm typology were found to vary among crops and farmers- groups within the scheme. Irrigation under the current situation is profitable for all farmers, including both those who benefit from subsidies and those who do not. However, the returns to water were found to be very sensitive to crop price fluctuations, particularly for non-subsidized groups and less so for those whose farming is based on orchards. Moreover, the socio-economic environment of the farmers contributed to less significant impacts of the PNDA policy. In fact, the limiting factor is not only the water, but also the lack of land ownership title. Market access constraints led to less agricultural investment and therefore to low intensification and low water productivity. It is financially feasible to recover the annual O&M costs in the irrigation scheme. By comparing the irrigation water price, returns to water, and O&M costs of water delivery, it is clear that irrigation can be profitable in the future. However, water productivity must be improved by enhancing farmers- income through farming investment, improving assets access, and the allocation of activities and crops which bring high returns to water; this could allow the farmers to pay more for water and allow cost recovery for water systems.
Abstract: Recently, wireless sensor networks have been paid
more interest, are widely used in a lot of commercial and military
applications, and may be deployed in critical scenarios (e.g. when a
malfunctioning network results in danger to human life or great
financial loss). Such networks must be protected against human
intrusion by using the secret keys to encrypt the exchange messages
between communicating nodes. Both the symmetric and asymmetric
methods have their own drawbacks for use in key management. Thus,
we avoid the weakness of these two cryptosystems and make use of
their advantages to establish a secure environment by developing the
new method for encryption depending on the idea of code
conversion. The code conversion-s equations are used as the key for
designing the proposed system based on the basics of logic gate-s
principals. Using our security architecture, we show how to reduce
significant attacks on wireless sensor networks.
Abstract: Cyber physical system (CPS) for target tracking, military surveillance, human health monitoring, and vehicle detection all require maximizing the utility and saving the energy. Sensor selection is one of the most important parts of CPS. Sensor selection problem (SSP) is concentrating to balance the tradeoff between the number of sensors which we used and the utility which we will get. In this paper, we propose a performance constrained slide windows (PCSW) based algorithm for SSP in CPS. we present results of extensive simulations that we have carried out to test and validate the PCSW algorithms when we track a target, Experiment shows that the PCSW based algorithm improved the performance including selecting time and communication times for selecting.
Abstract: Experimental data from an atmospheric air/water terrain slugging case has been made available by the Shell Amsterdam research center, and has been subject to numerical simulation and comparison with a one-dimensional two-phase slug tracking simulator under development at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The code is based on tracking of liquid slugs in pipelines by use of a Lagrangian grid formulation implemented in Cµ by use of object oriented techniques. An existing hybrid spatial discretization scheme is tested, in which the stratified regions are modelled by the two-fluid model. The slug regions are treated incompressible, thus requiring a single momentum balance over the whole slug. Upon comparison with the experimental data, the period of the simulated severe slugging cycle is observed to be sensitive to slug generation in the horizontal parts of the system. Two different slug initiation methods have been tested with the slug tracking code, and grid dependency has been investigated.
Abstract: Decision fusion is one of hot research topics in
classification area, which aims to achieve the best possible
performance for the task at hand. In this paper, we
investigate the usefulness of this concept to improve change
detection accuracy in remote sensing. Thereby, outputs of
two fuzzy change detectors based respectively on
simultaneous and comparative analysis of multitemporal
data are fused by using fuzzy integral operators. This
method fuses the objective evidences produced by the
change detectors with respect to fuzzy measures that express
the difference of performance between them. The proposed
fusion framework is evaluated in comparison with some
ordinary fuzzy aggregation operators. Experiments carried
out on two SPOT images showed that the fuzzy integral was
the best performing. It improves the change detection
accuracy while attempting to equalize the accuracy rate in
both change and no change classes.
Abstract: High precision in motion is required to manipulate the
micro objects in precision industries for micro assembly, cell
manipulation etc. Precision manipulation is achieved based on the
appropriate mechanism design of micro devices such as
microgrippers. Design of a compliant based mechanism is the better
option to achieve a highly precised and controlled motion. This
research article highlights the method of designing a compliant based
three fingered microgripper suitable for holding asymmetric objects.
Topological optimization technique, a systematic method is
implemented in this research work to arrive a topologically optimized
design of the mechanism needed to perform the required micro
motion of the gripper. Optimization technique has a drawback of
generating senseless regions such as node to node connectivity and
staircase effect at the boundaries. Hence, it is required to have post
processing of the design to make it manufacturable. To reduce the
effect of post processing stage and to preserve the edges of the image,
a cubic spline interpolation technique is introduced in the MATLAB
program. Structural performance of the topologically developed
mechanism design is tested using finite element method (FEM)
software. Further the microgripper structure is examined to find its
fatigue life and vibration characteristics.