Abstract: Since large part of electricity is generated by using
fossil based resources, energy is an important agenda for countries. In
this context, renewable energy sources are alternative to conventional
sources due to the depletion of fossil resources, increasing awareness
of climate change and global warming concerns. Solar, wind and
hydropower energy are the main renewable energy sources. Among
of them, since installed capacity of wind power has increased
approximately eight times between 2008 - November of 2014, wind
energy is a promising source for Turkey. Furthermore, signing of
Kyoto Protocol can be accepted as a milestone for Turkey's energy
policy. Turkish Government has announced Vision 2023 (energy
targets by 2023) in 2010-2014 Strategic Plan prepared by Ministry of
Energy and Natural Resources (MENR). Energy targets in this plan
can be summarized as follows: Share of renewable energy sources in
electricity generation is 30% of total electricity generation by 2023.
Installed capacity of wind energy will be 20 GW by 2023. Other
renewable energy sources such as solar, hydropower and geothermal
are encouraged with new incentive mechanisms. Dependence on
foreign energy is reduced for sustainability and energy security. On
the other hand, since Turkey is surrounded by three coastal areas,
wind energy potential is convenient for wind power application. As
of November of 2014, total installed capacity of wind power plants is
3.51 GW and a lot of wind power plants are under construction with
capacity 1.16 GW. Turkish government also encourages the locally
manufactured equipments. In this context, one of the projects funded
by private sector, universities and TUBİTAK names as MILRES is
an important project aimed to promote the use wind energy in
electricity generation. Within this project, wind turbine with 500 kW
power has been produced and will be installed at the beginning of the
2015. After that, by using the experience obtained from the first
phase of the project, a wind turbine with 2.5 MW power will be
manufactured in an industrial scale.
Abstract: Currently, thorium fuel has been especially noticed
because of its proliferation resistance than long half-life alpha emitter
minor actinides, breeding capability in fast and thermal neutron flux
and mono-isotopic naturally abundant. In recent years, efficiency of
minor actinide burning up in PWRs has been investigated. Hence, a
minor actinide-contained thorium based fuel matrix can confront both
proliferation resistance and nuclear waste depletion aims. In the
present work, minor actinide depletion rate in a CANDU-type nuclear
core modeled using MCNP code has been investigated. The obtained
effects of minor actinide load as mixture of thorium fuel matrix on
the core neutronics has been studied with comparing presence and
non-presence of minor actinide component in the fuel matrix.
Depletion rate of minor actinides in the MA-contained fuel has been
calculated using different power loads. According to the obtained
computational data, minor actinide loading in the modeled core
results in more negative reactivity coefficients. The MA-contained
fuel achieves less radial peaking factor in the modeled core. The
obtained computational results showed 140 kg of 464 kg initial load
of minor actinide has been depleted in during a 6-year burn up in 10
MW power.
Abstract: This paper presents a new structure of microstrip band
pass filter (BPF) based on coupled stepped impedance resonators.
Each filter consists of two coupled stepped impedance resonators
connected to microstrip feed lines. The coupled junction is utilized to
connect the two BPFs to the antenna. This two band pass filters are
designed and simulated to operate for the digital communication
system (DCS) and Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands at
1.8 GHz and 2.45 GHz respectively. The proposed circuit presents
good performances with an insertion loss lower than 2.3 dB and
isolation between the two channels greater than 21 dB. The prototype
of the optimized diplexer have been investigated numerically by
using ADS Agilent and verified with CST microwave software.
Abstract: In this study, attempt has been made to investigate the
relationship specifically the causal relation between fund unit prices
of Islamic equity unit trust fund which measure by fund NAV and the
selected macro-economic variables of Malaysian economy by using
VECM causality test and Granger causality test. Monthly data has
been used from Jan, 2006 to Dec, 2012 for all the variables. The
findings of the study showed that industrial production index,
political election and financial crisis are the only variables having
unidirectional causal relationship with fund unit price. However the
global oil price is having bidirectional causality with fund NAV.
Thus, it is concluded that the equity unit trust fund industry in
Malaysia is an inefficient market with respect to the industrial
production index, global oil prices, political election and financial
crisis. However the market is approaching towards informational
efficiency at least with respect to four macroeconomic variables,
treasury bill rate, money supply, foreign exchange rate, and
corruption index.
Abstract: This study examines the credibility of the signaling as
explanation for IPO initial underpricing. Findings reveal the initial
underpricing and the long-term underperformance of IPOs in Taiwan.
However, we only find weak support for signaling as explanation of
IPO underpricing.
Abstract: In this study which has been conducted in Akçasu
Forest Range District of Devrek Forest Directorate; 3 methods (weed
control with labourer power, cover removal with Hitachi F20
Excavator, and weed control with agricultural equipment mounted on
a Ferguson 240S agriculture tractor) were utilized in weed control
efforts in regeneration of degraded oriental beech forests have been
compared. In this respect, 3 methods have been compared by
determining certain work hours and standard durations of unit areas
(1 hectare). For this purpose, evaluating the tasks made with human
and machine force from the aspects of duration, productivity and
costs, it has been aimed to determine the most productive method in
accordance with the actual ecological conditions of research field.
Within the scope of the study, the time studies have been conducted
for 3 methods used in weed control efforts. While carrying out those
studies, the performed implementations have been evaluated by
dividing them into business stages. Also, the actual data have been
used while calculating the cost accounts. In those calculations, the
latest formulas and equations which are also used in developed
countries have been utilized. The variance of analysis (ANOVA) was
used in order to determine whether there is any statistically
significant difference among obtained results, and the Duncan test
was used for grouping if there is significant difference. According to
the measurements and findings carried out within the scope of this
study, it has been found during living cover removal efforts in
regeneration efforts in demolished oriental beech forests that the
removal of weed layer in 1 hectare of field has taken 920 hours with
labourer force, 15.1 hours with excavator and 60 hours with an
equipment mounted on a tractor. On the other hand, it has been
determined that the cost of removal of living cover in unit area (1
hectare) was 3220.00 TL for labourer power, 1250 TL for excavator
and 1825 TL for equipment mounted on a tractor.
According to the obtained results, it has been found that the
utilization of excavator in weed control effort in regeneration of
degraded oriental beech regions under actual ecological conditions of
research field has been found to be more productive from both of
aspects of duration and costs. These determinations carried out
should be repeated in weed control efforts in degraded forest fields
with different ecological conditions, it is compulsory for finding the
most efficient weed control method. These findings will light the way
of technical staff of forestry directorate in determination of the most
effective and economic weed control method. Thus, the more actual
data will be used while preparing the weed control budgets, and there
will be significant contributions to national economy. Also the results of this and similar studies are very important for developing the policies for our forestry in short and long term.
Abstract: Liposome plays an important role in medical and
pharmaceutical science as e.g. nano scale drug carriers. Liposomes
are vesicles of varying size consisting of a spherical lipid bilayer and
an aqueous inner compartment. Magnet-driven liposome used for the
targeted delivery of drugs to organs and tissues. These liposome
preparations contain encapsulated drug components and finely
dispersed magnetic particles.
Liposomes are vesicles of varying size consisting of a spherical
lipid bilayer and an aqueous inner compartment that are generated in
vitro. These are useful in terms of biocompatibility, biodegradability,
and low toxicity, and can control biodistribution by changing the size,
lipid composition, and physical characteristics. Furthermore,
liposomes can entrap both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs and are
able to continuously release the entrapped substrate, thus being useful
drug carriers. Magnetic liposomes (MLs) are phospholipid vesicles
that encapsulate magneticor paramagnetic nanoparticles. They are
applied as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
The biological synthesis of nanoparticles using plant extracts plays
an important role in the field of nanotechnology. Green-synthesized
magnetite nanoparticles-protein hybrid has been produced by treating
Iron (III) / Iron (II) chloride with the leaf extract of Datura inoxia.
The phytochemicals present in the leaf extracts act as a reducing as
well stabilizing agents preventing agglomeration, which include
flavonoids, phenolic compounds, cardiac glycosides, proteins and
sugars.
The magnetite nanoparticles-protein hybrid has been trapped
inside the aqueous core of the liposome prepared by reversed phase
evaporation (REV) method using oleic and linoleic acid which has
been shown to be driven under magnetic field confirming the
formation magnetic liposome (ML). Chemical characterization of
stealth magnetic liposome has been performed by breaking the
liposome and release of magnetic nanoparticles. The presence iron
has been confirmed by colour complex formation with KSCN and
UV-Vis study using spectrophotometer Cary 60, Agilent.
This magnet driven liposome using nanoparticles-protein hybrid
can be a smart vesicles for the targeted drug delivery.
Abstract: Over the last few decades, oilfield service rolling
equipment has significantly increased in weight, primarily because of
emissions regulations, which require larger/heavier engines, larger
cooling systems, and emissions after-treatment systems, in some
cases, etc. Larger engines cause more vibration and shock loads,
leading to failure of electronics and control systems.
If the vibrating frequency of the engine matches the system
frequency, high resonance is observed on structural parts and mounts.
One such existing automated control equipment system comprising
wire rope mounts used for mounting computers was designed
approximately 12 years ago. This includes the use of an industrialgrade
computer to control the system operation. The original
computer had a smaller, lighter enclosure. After a few years, a newer
computer version was introduced, which was 10 lbm heavier. Some
failures of internal computer parts have been documented for cases in
which the old mounts were used. Because of the added weight, there
is a possibility of having the two brackets impact each other under
off-road conditions, which causes a high shock input to the computer
parts. This added failure mode requires validating the existing mount
design to suit the new heavy-weight computer.
This paper discusses the modal finite element method (FEM)
analysis and experimental modal analysis conducted to study the
effects of vibration on the wire rope mounts and the computer. The
existing mount was modelled in ANSYS software, and resultant
mode shapes and frequencies were obtained. The experimental modal
analysis was conducted, and actual frequency responses were
observed and recorded.
Results clearly revealed that at resonance frequency, the brackets
were colliding and potentially causing damage to computer parts. To
solve this issue, spring mounts of different stiffness were modeled in
ANSYS software, and the resonant frequency was determined.
Increasing the stiffness of the system increased the resonant
frequency zone away from the frequency window at which the engine
showed heavy vibrations or resonance. After multiple iterations in
ANSYS software, the stiffness of the spring mount was finalized,
which was again experimentally validated.
Abstract: Background: Taiwan now is an aging society. Research
on the elderly should not be confined to caring for seniors, but should
also be focused on ways to improve health and the quality of life.
Senior citizens who participate in volunteer services could become
less lonely, have new growth opportunities, and regain a sense of
accomplishment. Thus, the question of how to get the elderly to
participate in volunteer service is worth exploring. Objective: Apply
the Transtheoretical Model to understand stages of change in regular
volunteer service and voluntary service behaviour among the seniors.
Methods: 1525 adults over the age of 65 from the Renai district of
Keelung City were interviewed. The research tool was a
self-constructed questionnaire, and individual interviews were
conducted to collect data. Then the data was processed and analyzed
using the IBM SPSS Statistics 20 (Windows version) statistical
software program. Results: In the past six months, research subjects
averaged 9.92 days of volunteer services. A majority of these elderly
individuals had no intention to change their regular volunteer services.
We discovered that during the maintenance stage, the self-efficacy for
volunteer services was higher than during all other stages, but
self-perceived barriers were less during the preparation stage and
action stage. Self-perceived benefits were found to have an important
predictive power for those with regular volunteer service behaviors in
the previous stage, and self-efficacy was found to have an important
predictive power for those with regular volunteer service behaviors in
later stages. Conclusions/Implications for Practice: The research
results support the conclusion that community nursing staff should
group elders based on their regular volunteer services change stages
and design appropriate behavioral change strategies.
Abstract: Science and technology has a major impact on many
societal domains such as communication, medicine, food,
transportation, etc. However, this dominance of modern technology
can have a negative unintended impact on indigenous systems, and in
particular on indigenous foods. This problem serves as a motivation
to this study whose aim is to examine the perceptions of learners on
the usefulness of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs) for learning about indigenous foods. This aim will be
subdivided into two types of research objectives. The design and
identification of theories and models will be achieved using literature
content analysis. The objective on the empirical testing of such
theories and models will be achieved through the survey of
Hospitality studies learners from different schools in the iLembe and
Umgungundlovu Districts of the South African Kwazulu-Natal
province. SPSS is used to quantitatively analyze the data collected by
the questionnaire of this survey using descriptive statistics and
Pearson correlations after the assessment of the validity and the
reliability of the data. The main hypothesis behind this study is that
there is a connection between the demographics of learners, their
perceptions on the usefulness of ICTs for learning about indigenous
foods, and the following personality and eLearning related theories
constructs: Computer self-efficacy, Trust in ICT systems, and
Conscientiousness; as suggested by existing studies on learning
theories. This hypothesis was fully confirmed by the survey
conducted by this study except for the demographic factors where
gender and age were not found to be determinant factors of learners’
perceptions on the usefulness of ICTs for learning about indigenous
foods.
Abstract: Geopolymer concretes are new class of construction
materials that have emerged as an alternative to Ordinary Portland
cement concrete. Considerable researches have been carried out on
material development of geopolymer concrete; however, a few studies
have been reported on the structural use of them. This paper presents
the bond behaviors of reinforcement embedded in fly ash based
geopolymer concrete. The development lengths of reinforcement for
various compressive strengths of concrete, 20, 30 and 40 MPa, and
reinforcement diameters, 10, 16 and 25 mm, are investigated. Total 27
specimens were manufactured and pull-out test according to EN 10080
was applied to measure bond strength and slips between concrete and
reinforcements. The average bond strengths decreased from 23.06MPa
to 17.26 MPa, as the diameters of reinforcements increased from
10mm to 25mm. The compressive strength levels of geopolymer
concrete showed no significant influence on bond strengths in this
study. Also, the bond-slip relations between geopolymer concrete and
reinforcement are derived using non-linear regression analysis for
various experimental conditions.
Abstract: TiO2 thin films have been prepared by the sol-gel dipcoating
technique in order to elaborate antireflective thin films for
monocrystalline silicon (mono-Si). The titanium isopropoxyde was
chosen as a precursor with hydrochloric acid as a catalyser for
preparing a stable solution. The optical properties have been tailored
with varying the solution concentration, the withdrawn speed, and the
heat-treatment. We showed that using a TiO2 single layer with 64.5
nm in thickness, heat-treated at 450°C or 300°C reduces the mono-Si
reflection at a level lower than 3% over the broadband spectral
domains [669-834] nm and [786-1006] nm respectively. Those latter
performances are similar to the ones obtained with double layers of
low and high refractive index glasses respectively.
Abstract: In this paper a new design of a broadband microwave
power limiter is presented and validated into simulation by using
ADS software (Advanced Design System) from Agilent technologies.
The final circuit is built on microstrip lines by using identical Zero
Bias Schottky diodes. The power limiter is designed by Associating 3
stages Schottky diodes. The obtained simulation results permit to
validate this circuit with a threshold input power level of 0 dBm until
a maximum input power of 30 dBm.
Abstract: Taking the design tolerance into account, this paper
presents a novel efficient approach to generate iso-scallop tool path for
five-axis strip machining with a barrel cutter. The cutter location is
first determined on the scallop surface instead of the design surface,
and then the cutter is adjusted to locate the optimal tool position based
on the differential rotation of the tool axis and satisfies the design
tolerance simultaneously. The machining strip width and error are
calculated with the aid of the grazing curve of the cutter. Based on the
proposed tool positioning algorithm, the tool paths are generated by
keeping the scallop height formed by adjacent tool paths constant. An
example is conducted to confirm the validity of the proposed method.
Abstract: The IEEE 802.22 working group aims to drive the
Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) bands for data
communication to the rural area without interfering the TV broadcast.
In this paper, we arrive at a closed-form expression for average
detection probability of Fusion center (FC) with multiple antenna
over the κ − μ fading channel model. We consider a centralized
cooperative multiple antenna network for reporting. The DVB-T
samples forwarded by the secondary user (SU) were combined using
Maximum ratio combiner at FC, an energy detection is performed
to make the decision. The fading effects of the channel degrades
the detection probability of the FC, a generalized independent and
identically distributed (IID) κ − μ and an additive white Gaussian
noise (AWGN) channel is considered for reporting and sensing
respectively. The proposed system performance is verified through
simulation results.
Abstract: E-learning has become an efficient and widespread
means of education at all levels of human activities. Statistics is no
exception. Unfortunately the main focus in statistics teaching is
usually paid to the substitution in formulas. Suitable websites can
simplify and automate calculations and provide more attention and
time to the basic principles of statistics, mathematization of real-life
situations and following interpretation of results. We now introduce
our own web-site for hypothesis testing. Its didactic aspects, the
technical possibilities of the individual tools, the experience of use
and the advantages or disadvantages are discussed in this paper. This
web-site is not a substitute for common statistical software but should
significantly improve the teaching of statistics at universities.
Abstract: Securing the confidential data transferred via wireless
network remains a challenging problem. It is paramount to ensure
that data are accessible only by the legitimate users rather than by the
attackers. One of the most serious threats to organization is jamming,
which disrupts the communication between any two pairs of nodes.
Therefore, designing an attack-defending scheme without any packet
loss in data transmission is an important challenge. In this paper,
Dependence based Malicious Route Defending DMRD Scheme has
been proposed in multi path routing environment to prevent jamming
attack. The key idea is to defend the malicious route to ensure
perspicuous transmission. This scheme develops a two layered
architecture and it operates in two different steps. In the first step,
possible routes are captured and their agent dependence values are
marked using triple agents. In the second step, the dependence values
are compared by performing comparator filtering to detect malicious
route as well as to identify a reliable route for secured data
transmission. By simulation studies, it is observed that the proposed
scheme significantly identifies malicious route by attaining lower
delay time and route discovery time; it also achieves higher
throughput.
Abstract: In this research, waterglass based aerogel powder was
prepared by sol–gel process and ambient pressure drying. Inspired by
limited dust releasing, aerogel powder was introduced to the PET
electrospinning solution in an attempt to create required bulk and
surface structure for the nanofibers to improve their hydrophobic and
insulation properties. The samples evaluation was carried out by
measuring density, porosity, contact angle, heat transfer, FTIR, BET,
and SEM. According to the results, porous silica aerogel powder was
fabricated with mean pore diameter of 24 nm and contact angle of
145.9º. The results indicated the usefulness of the aerogel powder
confined into nanofibers to control surface roughness for
manipulating superhydrophobic nanowebs with water contact angle
of 147º. It can be due to a multi-scale surface roughness which was
created by nanowebs structure itself and nanofibers surface
irregularity in presence of the aerogels while a layer of fluorocarbon
created low surface energy. The wettability of a solid substrate is an
important property that is controlled by both the chemical
composition and geometry of the surface. Also, a decreasing trend in
the heat transfer was observed from 22% for the nanofibers without
any aerogel powder to 8% for the nanofibers with 4% aerogel
powder. The development of thermal insulating materials has become
increasingly more important than ever in view of the fossil energy
depletion and global warming that call for more demanding energysaving
practices.
Abstract: The focal aspire of e-Government (eGovt) is to offer
citizen-centered service delivery. Accordingly, the citizenry
consumes services from multiple government agencies through
national portal. Thus, eGovt is an enterprise with the primary
business motive of transparent, efficient and effective public services
to its citizenry and its logical structure is the eGovernment Enterprise
Architecture (eGEA). Since eGovt is IT oriented multifaceted
service-centric system, EA doesn’t do much on an automated
enterprise other than the business artifacts. Service-Oriented
Architecture (SOA) manifestation led some governments to pertain
this in their eGovts, but it limits the source of business artifacts. The
concurrent use of EA and SOA in eGovt executes interoperability and
integration and leads to Service-Oriented e-Government Enterprise
(SOeGE). Consequently, agile eGovt system becomes a reality. As an
IT perspective eGovt comprises of centralized public service artifacts
with the existing application logics belong to various departments at
central, state and local level. The eGovt is renovating to SOeGE by
apply the Service-Orientation (SO) principles in the entire system.
This paper explores IT perspective of SOeGE in India which
encompasses the public service models and illustrated with a case
study the Passport service of India.
Abstract: Real time image and video processing is a demand in
many computer vision applications, e.g. video surveillance, traffic
management and medical imaging. The processing of those video
applications requires high computational power. Thus, the optimal
solution is the collaboration of CPU and hardware accelerators. In
this paper, a Canny edge detection hardware accelerator is proposed.
Edge detection is one of the basic building blocks of video and image
processing applications. It is a common block in the pre-processing
phase of image and video processing pipeline. Our presented
approach targets offloading the Canny edge detection algorithm from
processing system (PS) to programmable logic (PL) taking the
advantage of High Level Synthesis (HLS) tool flow to accelerate the
implementation on Zynq platform. The resulting implementation
enables up to a 100x performance improvement through hardware
acceleration. The CPU utilization drops down and the frame rate
jumps to 60 fps of 1080p full HD input video stream.