Abstract: Thermochemcial characteristics of powder fabricated
using oxidation treatment of spent PWR fuel and SIMFUEL were
evaluated for recycling of spent fuel such as DUPIC process.
Especially, the influence of spent fuel burn-ups on the powder
fabrication characteristics was experimentally evaluated, ranging from
27,300 to 65,000 MWd/tU. Densities of powder manufactured from an
oxidation, OREOX and the milling processes at the same process
conditions were compared as a function of the fuel burn-ups
respectively. Also, based on chemical analysis results, homogeneity of
fissile elements in oxidized powder was confirmed.
Abstract: Users of computer systems may often require the
private transfer of messages/communications between parties across
a network. Information warfare and the protection and dominance of
information in the military context is a prime example of an
application area in which the confidentiality of data needs to be
maintained. The safe transportation of critical data is therefore often
a vital requirement for many private communications. However,
unwanted interception/sniffing of communications is also a
possibility. An elementary stealthy transfer scheme is therefore
proposed by the authors. This scheme makes use of encoding,
splitting of a message and the use of a hashing algorithm to verify the
correctness of the reconstructed message. For this proof-of-concept
purpose, the authors have experimented with the random sending of
encoded parts of a message and the construction thereof to
demonstrate how data can stealthily be transferred across a network
so as to prevent the obvious retrieval of data.
Abstract: This paper discusses coordinated reactive power -
voltage (Q-V) control in a multi machine steam power plant. The
drawbacks of manual Q-V control are briefly listed, and the design
requirements for coordinated Q-V controller are specified.
Theoretical background and mathematical model of the new
controller are presented next followed by validation of developed
Matlab/Simulink model through comparison with recorded
responses in real steam power plant and description of practical
realisation of the controller. Finally, the performance of
commissioned controller is illustrated on several examples of
coordinated Q-V control in real steam power plant and compared
with manual control.
Abstract: This paper presents the determination of the proper
quality costs parameters which provide the optimum return. The
system dynamics simulation was applied. The simulation model was
constructed by the real data from a case of the electronic devices
manufacturer in Thailand. The Steepest Descent algorithm was
employed to optimise. The experimental results show that the
company should spend on prevention and appraisal activities for 850
and 10 Baht/day respectively. It provides minimum cumulative total
quality cost, which is 258,000 Baht in twelve months. The effect of
the step size in the stage of improving the variables to the optimum
was also investigated. It can be stated that the smaller step size
provided a better result with more experimental runs. However, the
different yield in this case is not significant in practice. Therefore, the
greater step size is recommended because the region of optima could
be reached more easily and rapidly.
Abstract: In this study an extensive experimental research is
carried out to develop a better understanding of the effects of Piano Key (PK) weir geometry on weir flow threshold submergence.
Experiments were conducted in a 12 m long, 0.4 m wide and 0.7 m deep rectangular glass wall flume. The main objectives were to
investigate the effect of the PK weir geometries including the weir
length, weir height, inlet-outlet key widths, upstream and
downstream apex overhangs, and slopped floors on threshold submergence and study the hydraulic flow characteristics. From the
experimental results, a practical formula is proposed to evaluate the flow threshold submergence over PK weirs.
Abstract: It is necessary to incorporate technological advances
achieved in the field of engineering into dentistry in order to enhance
the process of diagnosis, treatment planning and enable the doctors to
render better treatment to their patients. To achieve this ultimate goal
long distance collaborations are often necessary. This paper discusses
the various collaborative tools and their applications to solve a few
burning problems confronted by the dentists. Customization is often
the solution to most of the problems. But rapid designing,
development and cost effective manufacturing is a difficult task to
achieve. This problem can be solved using the technique of digital
manufacturing. Cases from 6 major branches of dentistry have been
discussed and possible solutions with the help of state of art
technology using rapid digital manufacturing have been proposed in
the present paper. The paper also entails the usage of existing tools in
collaborative and digital manufacturing area.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of
setting up a learning community within an elementary school in
Ontario, Canada. The description is provided through reflection and
examination of field notes taken during the yearlong training and
implementation process. Specifically the impact of teachers- capacity
on the creation of a learning community was of interest. This paper is
intended to inform and add to the debate around the tensions that
exist in implementing a bottom-up professional development model
like the learning community in a top-down organizational structure.
My reflections of the process illustrate that implementation of the
learning community professional development model may be
difficult and yet transformative in the professional lives of the
teachers, students, and administration involved in the change process.
I conclude by suggesting the need for a new model of professional
development that requires a transformative shift in power dynamics
and a shift in the view of what constitutes effective professional
learning.
Abstract: Diabetes is one of the high prevalence diseases
worldwide with increased number of complications, with retinopathy
as one of the most common one. This paper describes how data
mining and case-based reasoning were integrated to predict
retinopathy prevalence among diabetes patients in Malaysia. The
knowledge base required was built after literature reviews and
interviews with medical experts. A total of 140 diabetes patients- data
were used to train the prediction system. A voting mechanism selects
the best prediction results from the two techniques used. It has been
successfully proven that both data mining and case-based reasoning
can be used for retinopathy prediction with an improved accuracy of
85%.
Abstract: During the past decade, pond aeration systems have
been developed which will sustain large quantities of fish and
invertebrate biomass. Dissolved Oxygen (DO) is considered to be
among the most important water quality parameters in fish culture.
Fishponds in aquaculture farms are usually located in remote areas
where grid lines are at far distance. Aeration of ponds is required to
prevent mortality and to intensify production, especially when
feeding is practical, and in warm regions. To increase pond
production it is necessary to control dissolved oxygen. Artificial
intelligence (AI) techniques are becoming useful as alternate
approaches to conventional techniques or as components of
integrated systems. They have been used to solve complicated
practical problems in various areas and are becoming more and more
popular nowadays. This paper presents a new design of diffused
aeration system using fuel cell as a power source. Also fuzzy logic
control Technique (FLC) is used for controlling the speed of air flow
rate from the blower to air piping connected to the pond by adjusting
blower speed. MATLAB SIMULINK results show high performance
of fuzzy logic control (FLC).
Abstract: This work deals with the initial applications and formulation of an anisotropic plastic-damage constitutive model proposed for non-linear analysis of reinforced concrete structures submitted to a loading with change of the sign. The original constitutive model is based on the fundamental hypothesis of energy equivalence between real and continuous medium following the concepts of the Continuum Damage Mechanics. The concrete is assumed as an initial elastic isotropic medium presenting anisotropy, permanent strains and bimodularity (distinct elastic responses whether traction or compression stress states prevail) induced by damage evolution. In order to take into account the bimodularity, two damage tensors governing the rigidity in tension or compression regimes are introduced. Then, some conditions are introduced in the original version of the model in order to simulate the damage unilateral effect. The three-dimensional version of the proposed model is analyzed in order to validate its formulation when compared to micromechanical theory. The one-dimensional version of the model is applied in the analyses of a reinforced concrete beam submitted to a loading with change of the sign. Despite the parametric identification problems, the initial applications show the good performance of the model.
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic procedure for modelling and simulation of a power system installed with a power system stabilizer (PSS) and a flexible ac transmission system (FACTS)-based controller. For the design purpose, the model of example power system which is a single-machine infinite-bus power system installed with the proposed controllers is developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK. In the developed model synchronous generator is represented by model 1.1. which includes both the generator main field winding and the damper winding in q-axis so as to evaluate the impact of PSS and FACTS-based controller on power system stability. The model can be can be used for teaching the power system stability phenomena, and also for research works especially to develop generator controllers using advanced technologies. Further, to avoid adverse interactions, PSS and FACTS-based controller are simultaneously designed employing genetic algorithm (GA). The non-linear simulation results are presented for the example power system under various disturbance conditions to validate the effectiveness of the proposed modelling and simultaneous design approach.
Abstract: This article is investigating Boria which is a kind of common performance in Malaysia. Boria has been known as Boria and Borea and both are correct, but Boria is more common. Boria is a folk performance unique to Penang. This theatre style reached Penang in the mid-19th century and is believed to be derived from the Shia Islamic Passion play performed during the Muslim month of Muharram to commemorate the martyrs of Kerbela. These days in Malaysia (especially Penang) Boria mentions to a choral street performance performed annually by a number of groups composed mostly of Sunni Malaysian. Boria are performed for entertainment and often include an annual singing competition. The size, membership, themes and movements of each Boria troupe may vary from year to year. Similarly, the themes and contents of the Boria performed by the different troupes also changes each year and can have a comical, political or satirical notion. It is common to most groups during the first ten days of Muharram Boria generally is done.
Abstract: For the characterization of the weld defect region in the radiographic image, looking for features which are invariant regarding the geometrical transformations (rotation, translation and scaling) proves to be necessary because the same defect can be seen from several angles according to the orientation and the distance from the welded framework to the radiation source. Thus, panoply of geometrical attributes satisfying the above conditions is proposed and which result from the calculation of the geometrical parameters (surface, perimeter, etc.) on the one hand and the calculation of the different order moments, on the other hand. Because the large range in values of the raw features and taking into account other considerations imposed by some classifiers, the scaling of these values to lie between 0 and 1 is indispensable. The principal component analysis technique is used in order to reduce the number of the attribute variables in the aim to give better performance to the further defect classification.
Abstract: Dual motor drives fed by single inverter is
purposely designed to reduced size and cost with respect to
single motor drives fed by single inverter. Previous researches
on dual motor drives only focus on the modulation and the
averaging techniques. Only a few of them, study the
performance of the drives based on different speed controller
other than Proportional and Integrator (PI) controller. This
paper presents a detailed comparative study on fuzzy rule-base
in Fuzzy Logic speed Controller (FLC) for Dual Permanent
Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) drives. Two fuzzy speed
controllers which are standard and simplified fuzzy speed
controllers are designed and the results are compared and
evaluated. The standard fuzzy controller consists of 49 rules
while the proposed controller consists of 9 rules determined by
selecting the most dominant rules only. Both designs are
compared for wide range of speed and the robustness of both
controllers over load disturbance changes is tested to
demonstrate the effectiveness of the simplified/reduced rulebase.
Abstract: In the present work, we have developed a symmetric electrochemical capacitor based on the nanostructured iron oxide (Fe3O4)-activated carbon (AC) nanocomposite materials. The physical properties of the nanocomposites were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The electrochemical performances of the composite electrode in 1.0 M Na2SO3 and 1.0 M Na2SO4 aqueous solutions were evaluated using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The composite electrode with 4 wt% of iron oxide nanomaterials exhibits the highest capacitance of 86 F/g. The experimental results clearly indicate that the incorporation of iron oxide nanomaterials at low concentration to the composite can improve the capacitive performance, mainly attributed to the contribution of the pseudocapacitance charge storage mechanism and the enhancement on the effective surface area of the electrode. Nevertheless, there is an optimum threshold on the amount of iron oxide that needs to be incorporated into the composite system. When this optimum threshold is exceeded, the capacitive performance of the electrode starts to deteriorate, as a result of the undesired particle aggregation, which is clearly indicated in the SEM analysis. The electrochemical performance of the composite electrode is found to be superior when Na2SO3 is used as the electrolyte, if compared to the Na2SO4 solution. It is believed that Fe3O4 nanoparticles can provide favourable surface adsorption sites for sulphite (SO3 2-) anions which act as catalysts for subsequent redox and intercalation reactions.
Abstract: The architecture of Safavid Dynasty can be considered the epitome of Iranian architectural beauty. Safavid dynasty (1501- 1722 AC) along with Ottoman in Turkey and Mughal Empire in India were the three great Islamic nations of their time (1500 AC) often known as the last Islamic countries with international authority up to the 20th Century. This era approximately coincide with Renaissance in Europe. In this era, large European countries begin amassing power thanks to significant scientific, cultural and religious revolutions of that time and colonizing nations such as England, Spain and Portugal began to influence international trends with in an increasing while other non-industrial nations diminished. The main objective of this paper is to give a typological overview of the development of decoration and ornament in the architecture of Safafid Dynasty in Iran. It is expected that it can start a wider discussion to enrich this nation-s heritage and contribute to the development of Islamic ornament in general.
Abstract: The paper presents a new system for the automat
control of the aircrafts- flight in lateral plane using the cinematic
model and the dynamic inversion. Starting from the equations of the
aircrafts- lateral movement, the authors use two axes systems and
obtained a control law that cancels the lateral deviation of the flying
objects from the runway line. This system makes the aircrafts-
direction angle to follow the direction angle of the runway line.
Simulations in Matlab/Simulink have been done for different
aircraft-s initial points and direction angles. The inconvenience of
this system is the long duration of the “transient regime". That is why
this system can be used independently, but the results are not very
good; thus, it can be a part (subsystem) of other systems. The main
system that cancels the lateral deviation from the runway line is
based on dynamic inversion and uses, as subsystem, the control
system for the lateral movement using the cinematic model. Using
complex Matlab/Simulink models, the authors obtained the time
evolution of the direction angle and the time evolution of the aircraft
lateral deviation with respect to the runway line, for different values
of the initial direction angle and for different wind types. The system
has a very good behavior for all initial direction angles and wind
types.
Abstract: UML is a collection of notations for capturing a software system specification. These notations have a specific syntax defined by the Object Management Group (OMG), but many of their constructs only present informal semantics. They are primarily graphical, with textual annotation. The inadequacies of standard UML as a vehicle for complete specification and implementation of real-time embedded systems has led to a variety of competing and complementary proposals. The Real-time UML profile (UML-RT), developed and standardized by OMG, defines a unified framework to express the time, scheduling and performance aspects of a system. We present in this paper a framework approach aimed at deriving a complete specification of a real-time system. Therefore, we combine two methods, a semiformal one, UML-RT, which allows the visual modeling of a realtime system and a formal one, CSP+T, which is a design language including the specification of real-time requirements. As to show the applicability of the approach, a correct design of a real-time system with hard real time constraints by applying a set of mapping rules is obtained.
Abstract: The amount of the information being churned out by the field of biology has jumped manifold and now requires the extensive use of computer techniques for the management of this information. The predominance of biological information such as protein sequence similarity in the biological information sea is key information for detecting protein evolutionary relationship. Protein sequence similarity typically implies homology, which in turn may imply structural and functional similarities. In this work, we propose, a learning method for detecting remote protein homology. The proposed method uses a transformation that converts protein sequence into fixed-dimensional representative feature vectors. Each feature vector records the sensitivity of a protein sequence to a set of amino acids substrings generated from the protein sequences of interest. These features are then used in conjunction with support vector machines for the detection of the protein remote homology. The proposed method is tested and evaluated on two different benchmark protein datasets and it-s able to deliver improvements over most of the existing homology detection methods.