Abstract: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed
during the pyrolysis of scrap tyres to produce tyre pyrolytic oil
(TPO). Due to carcinogenic, mutagenic, and toxic properties PAHs
are priority pollutants. Hence it is essential to remove PAHs from
TPO before utilising TPO as a petroleum fuel alternative (to run the
engine). Agricultural wastes have promising future to be utilized as
biosorbent due to their cost effectiveness, abundant availability, high
biosorption capacity and renewability. Various low cost adsorbents
were prepared from natural sources. Uptake of PAHs present in tyre
pyrolytic oil was investigated using various low-cost adsorbents of
natural origin including sawdust (shisham), coconut fiber, neem bark,
chitin, activated charcoal. Adsorption experiments of different PAHs
viz. naphthalene, acenaphthalene, biphenyl and anthracene have been
carried out at ambient temperature (25°C) and at pH 7. It was
observed that for any given PAH, the adsorption capacity increases
with the lignin content. Freundlich constant Kf and 1/n have been
evaluated and it was found that the adsorption isotherms of PAHs
were in agreement with a Freundlich model, while the uptake
capacity of PAHs followed the order: activated charcoal> saw dust
(shisham) > coconut fiber > chitin. The partition coefficients in
acetone-water, and the adsorption constants at equilibrium, could be
linearly correlated with octanol–water partition coefficients. It is
observed that natural adsorbents are good alternative for PAHs
removal. Sawdust of Dalbergia sissoo, a by-product of sawmills was
found to be a promising adsorbent for the removal of PAHs present in
TPO. It is observed that adsorbents studied were comparable to those
of some conventional adsorbents.
Abstract: Blueberries are widely valued for their high content in
phenolic compounds with antioxidant activity, and hence beneficial
for the human health. In this way, a study was done to determine the
phenolic composition (total phenols, anthocyanins and tannins) and
antioxidant activity of blueberries from three cultivars (Duke,
Bluecrop, and Ozarkblue) grown in two different Portuguese farms.
Initially two successive extractions were done with methanol
followed by two extractions with aqueous acetone solutions. These
extracts obtained were then used to evaluate the amount of phenolic
compounds and the antioxidant activity. The total phenols were
observed to vary from 4.9 to 8.2 mg GAE/g fresh weight, with
anthocyanin’s contents in the range 1.5-2.8 mg EMv3G/g and tannins
contents in the range 1.5- 3.8 mg/g. The results for antioxidant
activity ranged from 9.3 to 23.2 molTE/g and from 24.7 to 53.4molTE/g, when measured, respectively, by DPPH and ABTS
methods. In conclusion it was observed that, in general, the cultivar
had a visible effect on the phenols present, and furthermore, the
geographical origin showed relevance either in the phenols contents
or the antioxidant activity.
Abstract: In this paper, groundwater seepage into Amirkabir
tunnel has been estimated using analytical and numerical methods for
14 different sections of the tunnel. Site Groundwater Rating (SGR)
method also has been performed for qualitative and quantitative
classification of the tunnel sections. The obtained results of above
mentioned methods were compared together. The study shows
reasonable accordance with results of the all methods unless for two
sections of tunnel. In these two sections there are some significant
discrepancies between numerical and analytical results mainly
originated from model geometry and high overburden. SGR and the
analytical and numerical calculations, confirm high concentration of
seepage inflow in fault zones. Maximum seepage flow into tunnel has
been estimated 0.425 lit/sec/m using analytical method and 0.628
lit/sec/m using numerical method occured in crashed zone. Based on
SGR method, six sections of 14 sections in Amirkabir tunnel axis are
found to be in "No Risk" class that is supported by the analytical and
numerical seepage value of less than 0.04 lit/sec/m.
Abstract: The objectives of study are the following: To study
the way of life in terms of one hundred years co-existence of the
Muslim and local community in this area 2) To analyze factors affect
to this community with happy co-existence. The study requires
quantitative research to study a history together with the study of
humanity. The result of this study showed that the area of Petchburi
7 community is an ancient area which has owned by the Muslim for
almost 100 years. There is a sanctuary as & center of unity. Later
Bangkok becomes developed and provides more infrastructures like
motorway and other transportation: however, the owners of lands in
this community still keep their lands and build many buildings to run
business. With this purpose, there are many non-Muslim people come
to live here with co-existence. Not only are they convenient to work
but also easy to transport by sky train. There are factors that make
them live harmonious as following: 1) All Muslims in this area are
strict to follow their rules and allocate their community for business.
2) All people, who come and live here, are middle-aged and working
men and women. They, rent rooms closed to their work. 3) There are
Muslim food and desserts, especially Roti, the popular fried flour,
and local Chachak, tea originated from the south of Thailand. All
these food and desserts are famous for working men and women to
home and join after work 4) All Muslim in this area are independent
to lead their own lives although a society changes rapidly.
Abstract: Fluid viscous damping systems are well suited for
many air vehicles subjected to shock and vibration. These damping
system work with the principle of viscous fluid throttling through the
orifice to create huge pressure difference between compression and
rebound chamber and obtain the required damping force. One
application of such systems is its use in aircraft door system to
counteract the door’s velocity and safely stop it. In exigency
situations like crash or emergency landing where the door doesn’t
open easily, possibly due to unusually tilting of fuselage or some
obstacles or intrusion of debris obstruction to move the parts of the
door, such system can be combined with other systems to provide
needed force to forcefully open the door and also securely stop it
simultaneously within the required time i.e. less than 8 seconds. In
the present study, a hydraulic system called snubber along with other
systems like actuator, gas bottle assembly which together known as
emergency power assist system (EPAS) is designed, built and
experimentally studied to check the magnitude of angular velocity,
damping force and time required to effectively open the door.
Whenever needed, the gas pressure from the bottle is released to
actuate the actuator and at the same time pull the snubber’s piston to
operate the emergency opening of the door. Such EPAS installed in
the suspension arm of the aircraft door is studied explicitly changing
parameters like orifice size, oil level, oil viscosity and bypass valve
gap and its spring of the snubber at varying temperature to generate
the optimum design case. Comparative analysis of the EPAS at
several cases is done and conclusions are made. It is found that
during emergency condition, the system opening time and angular
velocity, when snubber with 0.3mm piston and shaft orifice and
bypass valve gap of 0.5 mm with its original spring is used, shows
significant improvement over the old ones.
Abstract: ESPRIT-TLS method appears a good choice for high
resolution fault detection in induction machines. It has a very high
effectiveness in the frequency and amplitude identification.
Contrariwise, it presents a high computation complexity which
affects its implementation in real time fault diagnosis. To avoid this
problem, a Fast-ESPRIT algorithm that combined the IIR band-pass
filtering technique, the decimation technique and the original
ESPRIT-TLS method was employed to enhance extracting accurately
frequencies and their magnitudes from the wind stator current with
less computation cost. The proposed algorithm has been applied to
verify the wind turbine machine need in the implementation of an online,
fast, and proactive condition monitoring. This type of remote
and periodic maintenance provides an acceptable machine lifetime,
minimize its downtimes and maximize its productivity. The
developed technique has evaluated by computer simulations under
many fault scenarios. Study results prove the performance of Fast-
ESPRIT offering rapid and high resolution harmonics recognizing
with minimum computation time and less memory cost.
Abstract: The Blue Nile Basin is the most important tributary of
the Nile River. Egypt and Sudan are almost dependent on water
originated from the Blue Nile. This multi-dependency creates
conflicts among the three countries Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia
making the management of these conflicts as an international issue.
Good assessment of the water resources of the Blue Nile is an
important to help in managing such conflicts. Hydrological models
are good tool for such assessment. This paper presents a critical
review of the nature and variability of the climate and hydrology of
the Blue Nile Basin as a first step of using hydrological modeling to
assess the water resources of the Blue Nile. Many several attempts
are done to develop basin-scale hydrological modeling on the Blue
Nile. Lumped and semi distributed models used averages of
meteorological inputs and watershed characteristics in hydrological
simulation, to analyze runoff for flood control and water resource
management. Distributed models include the temporal and spatial
variability of catchment conditions and meteorological inputs to
allow better representation of the hydrological process. The main
challenge of all used models was to assess the water resources of the
basin is the shortage of the data needed for models calibration and
validation. It is recommended to use distributed model for their
higher accuracy to cope with the great variability and complexity of
the Blue Nile basin and to collect sufficient data to have more
sophisticated and accurate hydrological modeling.
Abstract: The research on “The Way of Life of the Civil Servant
Community under the Bureau of the Royal Household” aims to study
1) the way of life of the people who live in the civil servant
community in Tha Wasukri, and 2) the model of community
administration of civil servants under the Bureau of the Royal
Household. This research is conducted qualitatively and
quantitatively by collecting data from interviews, focus group
discussion, participant and non-participant observation along with the
data from questionnaire based on age groups which include elder
group, working age group and youth group.
The result of the research shows that the origin of this community
is related to the history during the Rama V’s reign. It has been a
harbor for the king to boat in any royal ceremonies; this custom is
still maintained until today. The status or position of person who
serves the king in terms of working is often inherited from the bureau
of the Royal Household based on his/her consanguinity and, hence,
further receives the rights to live in the Tha Wasukri area. Therefore,
this community has some special characteristics demonstrating the
way of living influenced by the regulation of the Bureau of the Royal
Household such as respecting elders and interdependence in which
there is internal social organization with the practice of bureaucracy
in going in and out the community. The person who has rights to live
here must be friendly to everybody so that this community will be a
safe place for lives and property. The administration based on the
model of Bangkok for local administration was used as an external
structure only, but the way of living still follows the practice of the
Bureau of the Royal Household.
Abstract: This paper introduces an original method of
parametric optimization of the structure for multimodal decisionlevel
fusion scheme which combines the results of the partial solution
of the classification task obtained from assembly of the mono-modal
classifiers. As a result, a multimodal fusion classifier which has the
minimum value of the total error rate has been obtained.
Abstract: Various personality profile tests are used to identify
personality strengths and limits in individuals, helping both
individuals and managers to optimize work and team effort in
organizations. One such test, the Hartman’s personality profile,
emphasizes four driving "core motives" influenced or affected by
both strengths and limitations classified into four colors: Red -
motivated by power; Blue - discipline and loyalty; White - peace; and
Yellow – fun loving. Two shortcomings of Hartman’s personality test
are noted; 1) only one selection for every item / situation allowed and
2) selection of an item / option even if not applicable. A test taker
may be as much nurturing as he is opinionated but since
“opinionated” seems less attractive the individual would likely select
nurturing, causing a misidentification in personality strengths and
limits. Since few individuals have a “strong” personality, it is
difficult to assess their true personality strengths and limits allowing
only one choice or requiring unwanted choices, undermining the
potential of the test. We modified Hartman’s personality profile
allowing test takers to make either multiple choices for any item /
situation or leave them blank if applicable. Sixty-eight participants
(38 males and 30 females), 17 - 49 years old, from countries in Asia,
Europe, N. America, CIS, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania were
included. 58 participants (85.3%) reported the modified test, allowing
multiple / no choices better identified their personality strengths and
limits, while 10 participants (14.7%) expressed the original (one
choice version) was sufficient. The overall results show that our
modified test enhanced the identification and balance of core
personalities’ strengths and limits, aiding test takers, managers and
organizations to better assess individual characteristics, particularly
useful in making task-related, teamwork, and management decisions.
Abstract: The main aim of this research was to investigate a
prototype bamboo shading device. There were two objectives to this
study: first, to investigate the effects of non-chemical treatments on
bamboo shading devices damaged by powder-post beetles and fungi,
and second to develop a prototype bamboo shading device. This
study of the effects of non-chemical treatments on bamboo shading
devices damage by powder-post beetles in the laboratory showed
that, among seven treatments tested, wood vinegar treatment can
protect powder-post beetles better than the original method by up to
92.91%. It was also found that wood vinegar treatment shows the
best performance in fungi protection and works better than the
original method by up to 40%. A second experiment was carried out
by constructing four bamboo shading devices and installing them on
a building for 28 days. All aspects of shading device were
investigated in terms of their beauty, durability, and ease of
construction and assembly. The final prototype was developed from
the lessons learned from the test results. In conclusion, this study
showed the effectiveness of some natural preservatives against insect
and fungi damage, and it also illustrated the characteristics of a
prototype bamboo shading device that can be constructed by rural
workers within one week.
Abstract: Every machine plays roles of client and server
simultaneously in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. Though a P2P
network has many advantages over traditional client-server models
regarding efficiency and fault-tolerance, it also faces additional
security threats. Users/IT administrators should be aware of risks
from malicious code propagation, downloaded content legality, and
P2P software’s vulnerabilities. Security and preventative measures
are a must to protect networks from potential sensitive information
leakage and security breaches. Bit Torrent is a popular and scalable
P2P file distribution mechanism which successfully distributes large
files quickly and efficiently without problems for origin server. Bit
Torrent achieved excellent upload utilization according to
measurement studies, but it also raised many questions as regards
utilization in settings, than those measuring, fairness, and Bit
Torrent’s mechanisms choice. This work proposed a block selection
technique using Fuzzy ACO with optimal rules selected using ACO.
Abstract: The air transport impact on environment is more than
ever a limitative obstacle to the aeronautical industry continuous
growth. Over the last decades, considerable effort has been carried
out in order to obtain quieter aircraft solutions, whether by changing
the original design or investigating more silent maneuvers. The
noise propagated by rotating surfaces is one of the most important
sources of annoyance, being present in most aerial vehicles. Bearing
this is mind, CEIIA developed a new computational chain for
noise prediction with in-house software tools to obtain solutions in
relatively short time without using excessive computer resources. This
work is based on the new acoustic tool, which aims to predict the
rotor noise generated during steady and maneuvering flight, making
use of the flexibility of the C language and the advantages of GPU
programming in terms of velocity. The acoustic tool is based in the
Formulation 1A of Farassat, capable of predicting two important
types of noise: the loading and thickness noise. The present work
describes the most important features of the acoustic tool, presenting
its most relevant results and framework analyses for helicopters and
UAV quadrotors.
Abstract: This paper presents an efficient fusion algorithm for
iris images to generate stable feature for recognition in unconstrained
environment. Recently, iris recognition systems are focused on real
scenarios in our daily life without the subject’s cooperation. Under
large variation in the environment, the objective of this paper is to
combine information from multiple images of the same iris. The
result of image fusion is a new image which is more stable for further
iris recognition than each original noise iris image. A wavelet-based
approach for multi-resolution image fusion is applied in the fusion
process. The detection of the iris image is based on Adaboost
algorithm and then local binary pattern (LBP) histogram is then
applied to texture classification with the weighting scheme.
Experiment showed that the generated features from the proposed
fusion algorithm can improve the performance for verification system
through iris recognition.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to identify the optimal
level of partial replacement of Portland cement by the ashes
originating from burning straw and bagasse from sugar cane (ASB).
Order to this end, were made five series of flat plates and cylindrical
bodies: control and others with the partial replacement in 20, 30, 40
and 50% of ASB in relation to the mass of the Ordinary Portland
cement, and conducted a mechanical testing of simple axial
compression (cylindrical bodies) and the four-point bending (flat
plates) and determined water absorption (WA), bulk density (BD)
and apparent void volume (AVV) on both types of specimens. Based
on the data obtained, it may be noted that the control treatment
containing only Portland cement, obtained the best results. However,
the cylindrical bodies with 20% ashes showed better results
compared to the other treatments. And in the formulations plates, the
treatment which showed the best results was 30% cement
replacement by ashes.
Abstract: Verification and Validation of Simulated Process
Model is the most important phase of the simulator life cycle.
Evaluation of simulated process models based on Verification and
Validation techniques checks the closeness of each component model
(in a simulated network) with the real system/process with respect to
dynamic behaviour under steady state and transient conditions. The
process of Verification and Validation helps in qualifying the process
simulator for the intended purpose whether it is for providing
comprehensive training or design verification. In general, model
verification is carried out by comparison of simulated component
characteristics with the original requirement to ensure that each step
in the model development process completely incorporates all the
design requirements. Validation testing is performed by comparing
the simulated process parameters to the actual plant process
parameters either in standalone mode or integrated mode.
A Full Scope Replica Operator Training Simulator for PFBR -
Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor has been developed at IGCAR,
Kalpakkam, INDIA named KALBR-SIM (Kalpakkam Breeder
Reactor Simulator) where in the main participants are
engineers/experts belonging to Modeling Team, Process Design and
Instrumentation & Control design team. This paper discusses about
the Verification and Validation process in general, the evaluation
procedure adopted for PFBR operator training Simulator, the
methodology followed for verifying the models, the reference
documents and standards used etc. It details out the importance of
internal validation by design experts, subsequent validation by
external agency consisting of experts from various fields, model
improvement by tuning based on expert’s comments, final
qualification of the simulator for the intended purpose and the
difficulties faced while co-coordinating various activities.
Abstract: Water contamination by toxic compound is one of the serious environmental problems today. These toxic compounds mostly originated from industrial effluents, agriculture, natural sources and human waste. These studies focus on modification of multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) with nanoparticle of calixarene and explore the possibility of using this modification for the remediation of cadmium in water. The nanocomposites were prepared by dissolving calixarene in chloroform solution as solvent, followed by additional multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) then sonication process for 3 hour and fabricated the nanocomposites on substrate by spin coating method. Finally, the nanocomposites were tested on cadmium ion (10 mg/ml). The morphology of nanocomposites was investigated by FESEM showing the formation of calixarene on the outer walls of carbon nanotube and cadmium ion also clearly seen from the micrograph. This formation was supported by using energy dispersive x-ray (EDX). The presence of cadmium ions in the films, leads to some changes in the surface potential and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).The nanocomposites MWCNTs-calixarene have potential for development of sensor for pollutant monitoring and nanoelectronics devices applications.
Abstract: Image or document encryption is needed through egovernment
data base. Really in this paper we introduce two matrices
images, one is the public, and the second is the secret (original). The
analyses of each matrix is achieved using the transformation of
singular values decomposition. So each matrix is transformed or
analyzed to three matrices say row orthogonal basis, column
orthogonal basis, and spectral diagonal basis. Product of the two row
basis is calculated. Similarly the product of the two column basis is
achieved. Finally we transform or save the files of public, row
product and column product. In decryption stage, the original image
is deduced by mutual method of the three public files.
Abstract: The number of Ground Motion Prediction Equations
(GMPEs) used for predicting peak ground acceleration (PGA) and
the number of earthquake recordings that have been used for fitting
these equations has increased in the past decades. The current PF-L
database contains 3550 recordings. Since the GMPEs frequently
model the peak ground acceleration the goal of the present study was
to refit a selection of 44 of the existing equation models for PGA in
light of the latest data. The algorithm Levenberg-Marquardt was used
for fitting the coefficients of the equations and the results are
evaluated both quantitatively by presenting the root mean squared
error (RMSE) and qualitatively by drawing graphs of the five best
fitted equations. The RMSE was found to be as low as 0.08 for the
best equation models. The newly estimated coefficients vary from the
values published in the original works.
Abstract: In this paper a real-time obstacle avoidance approach
for both autonomous and non-autonomous dynamical systems (DS) is
presented. In this approach the original dynamics of the controller
which allow us to determine safety margin can be modulated.
Different common types of DS increase the robot’s reactiveness in
the face of uncertainty in the localization of the obstacle especially
when robot moves very fast in changeable complex environments.
The method is validated by simulation and influence of different
autonomous and non-autonomous DS such as important
characteristics of limit cycles and unstable DS. Furthermore, the
position of different obstacles in complex environment is explained.
Finally, the verification of avoidance trajectories is described through
different parameters such as safety factor.