Abstract: The combination of the properties of graphene oxide
(OG) and PVDF homopolymer makes their combined composite
materials as multifunctional systems with great potential. Knowledge
of the molecular structure is essential for better use. In this work, the
degradation of PVDF polymer exposed to gamma irradiation in
oxygen atmosphere in high dose rate has been studied and compared
to degradation of PVDF/OG composites. The samples were irradiated
with a Co-60 source at constant dose rate, with doses ranging from
100 kGy to 1,000 kGy. In FTIR data shown that the formation of
oxidation products was at the both samples with formation of
carbonyl and hydroxyl groups amongst the most prevalent products
in the pure PVDF samples. In the other hand, the composites samples
exhibit less presence of degradation products with predominant
formation of carbonyl groups, these results also seen in the UV-Vis
analysis. The results show that the samples of composites may have
greater resistance to the irradiation process, since they have less
degradation products than pure PVDF samples seen by spectroscopic
techniques.
Abstract: Reinforced earth structures are generally subjected to cyclic loading generated from earthquakes. This paper presents a summary of the results and analyses of a testing program carried out in a large-scale multi-function geosynthetic testing apparatus that accommodates soil samples up to 1.0 m3. This apparatus performs different shear and pullout tests under both static and cyclic loading. The testing program was carried out to investigate the controlling factors affecting soil/geogrid interaction under cyclic loading. The extensibility of the geogrids, the applied normal stresses, the characteristics of the cyclic loading (frequency, and amplitude), and initial static load within the geogrid sheet were considered in the testing program. Based on the findings of the testing program, the effect of these parameters on the pullout resistance of geogrids, as well as the displacement mobility under cyclic loading were evaluated. Conclusions and recommendations for the design of reinforced earth walls under cyclic loading are presented.
Abstract: Cloud computing is a business model which provides
an easier management of computing resources. Cloud users can
request virtual machine and install additional softwares and configure
them if needed. However, user can also request virtual appliance
which provides a better solution to deploy application in much faster
time, as it is ready-built image of operating system with necessary
softwares installed and configured. Large numbers of virtual
appliances are available in different image format. User can
download available appliances from public marketplace and start
using it. However, information published about the virtual appliance
differs from each providers leading to the difficulty in choosing
required virtual appliance as it is composed of specific OS with
standard software version. However, even if user choses the
appliance from respective providers, user doesn’t have any flexibility
to choose their own set of softwares with required OS and
application. In this paper, we propose a referenced architecture for
dynamically customizing virtual appliance and provision them in an
easier manner. We also add our experience in integrating our
proposed architecture with public marketplace and Mi-Cloud, a cloud
management software.
Abstract: The irradiation of polymeric materials has received
much attention because it can produce diverse changes in chemical
structure and physical properties. Thus, studying the chemical and
structural changes of polymers is important in practice to achieve
optimal conditions for the modification of polymers. The effect of
gamma irradiation on the crystalline structure of poly(vinylidene
fluoride) (PVDF) has been investigated using differential scanning
calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction techniques (XRD). Gamma
irradiation was carried out in atmosphere air with doses between 100
kGy at 3,000 kGy with a Co-60 source. In the melting thermogram of
the samples irradiated can be seen a bimodal melting endotherm is
detected with two melting temperature. The lower melting
temperature is attributed to melting of crystals originally present and
the higher melting peak due to melting of crystals reorganized upon
heat treatment. These results are consistent with those obtained by
XRD technique showing increasing crystallinity with increasing
irradiation dose, although the melting latent heat is decreasing.
Abstract: Centrifugal-casting machine is used in manufacturing
special machine components like multi-layer journal bearing used in
all internal combustion engine, steam, gas turbine and air craft turboengine
where isotropic properties and high precisions are desired.
Moreover, this machine can be used in manufacturing thin wall hightech
machine components like cylinder liners and piston rings of IC
engine and other machine parts like sleeves, and bushes. Heavy-duty
machine component like railway wheel can also be prepared by
centrifugal casting. A lot of technological developments are required
in casting process for production of good casted machine body and
machine parts. Usually defects like blowholes, surface roughness,
chilled surface etc. are found in sand casted machine parts. But these
can be removed by centrifugal casting machine using rotating
metallic die. Moreover, die rotation, its temperature control, and good
pouring practice can contribute to the quality of casting because of
the fact that the soundness of a casting in large part depends upon
how the metal enters into the mold or dies and solidifies. Poor
pouring practice leads to variety of casting defects such as
temperature loss, low quality casting, excessive turbulence, over
pouring etc. Besides these, handling of molten metal is very
unsecured and dangerous for the workers. In order to get rid of all
these problems, the need of an automatic pouring device arises. In
this research work, a robot assisted pouring device and a centrifugal
casting machine are designed, developed constructed and tested
experimentally which are found to work satisfactorily. The robot
assisted pouring device is further modified and developed for using it
in actual metal casting process. Lot of settings and tests are required
to control the system and ultimately it can be used in automation of
centrifugal casting machine to produce high-tech machine parts with
desired precision.
Abstract: Seeking and sharing knowledge on online forums
have made them popular in recent years. Although online forums are
valuable sources of information, due to variety of sources of
messages, retrieving reliable threads with high quality content is an
issue. Majority of the existing information retrieval systems ignore
the quality of retrieved documents, particularly, in the field of thread
retrieval. In this research, we present an approach that employs
various quality features in order to investigate the quality of retrieved
threads. Different aspects of content quality, including completeness,
comprehensiveness, and politeness, are assessed using these features,
which lead to finding not only textual, but also conceptual relevant
threads for a user query within a forum. To analyse the influence of
the features, we used an adopted version of voting model thread
search as a retrieval system. We equipped it with each feature solely
and also various combinations of features in turn during multiple
runs. The results show that incorporating the quality features
enhances the effectiveness of the utilised retrieval system
significantly.
Abstract: 21st century has transformed the labor market
landscape in a way of posing new and different demands on
university graduates as well as university lecturers, which means that
the knowledge and academic skills students acquire in the course of
their studies should be applicable and transferable from the higher
education context to their future professional careers. Given the
context of the Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) classroom, the
teachers’ objective is not only to teach the language itself, but also to
prepare students to use that language as a medium to develop generic
skills and competences. These include media and information
literacy, critical and creative thinking, problem-solving and analytical
skills, effective written and oral communication, as well as
collaborative work and social skills, all of which are necessary to
make university graduates more competitive in everyday professional
environments. On the other hand, due to limitations of time and large
numbers of students in classes, the frequently topic-centered syllabus
of LSP courses places considerable focus on acquiring the subject
matter and specialist vocabulary instead of sufficient development of
skills and competences required by students’ prospective employers.
This paper intends to explore some of those issues as viewed both by
LSP lecturers and by business professionals in their respective
surveys. The surveys were conducted among more than 50 LSP
lecturers at higher education institutions in Croatia, more than 40 HR
professionals and more than 60 university graduates with degrees in
economics and/or business working in management positions in
mainly large and medium-sized companies in Croatia. Various elements of LSP course content have been taken into
consideration in this research, including reading and listening
comprehension of specialist texts, acquisition of specialist vocabulary
and grammatical structures, as well as presentation and negotiation
skills. The ability to hold meetings, conduct business correspondence,
write reports, academic texts, case studies and take part in debates
were also taken into consideration, as well as informal business
communication, business etiquette and core courses delivered in a
foreign language. The results of the surveys conducted among LSP
lecturers will be analyzed with reference to what extent those
elements are included in their courses and how consistently and
thoroughly they are evaluated according to their course requirements.
Their opinions will be compared to the results of the surveys
conducted among professionals from a range of industries in Croatia
so as to examine how useful and important they perceive the same
elements of the LSP course content in their working environments.
Such comparative analysis will thus show to what extent the syllabi
of LSP courses meet the demands of the employment market when it
comes to the students’ language skills and competences, as well as
transferable skills. Finally, the findings will also be compared to the
observations based on practical teaching experience and the relevant
sources that have been used in this research. In conclusion, the ideas and observations in this paper are merely
open-ended questions that do not have conclusive answers, but might
prompt LSP lecturers to re-evaluate the content and objectives of
their course syllabi.
Abstract: The cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria both located in the Gauteng province are separated by a distance of 58 km. The traffic queues on the Ben Schoeman freeway which connects these two cities can stretch for almost 1.5 km. Vehicle traffic congestion impacts negatively on the business and the commuter’s quality of life. The goal of this paper is to identify variables that influence the flow of traffic and to design a vehicle traffic prediction model, which will predict the traffic flow pattern in advance. The model will unable motorist to be able to make appropriate travel decisions ahead of time. The data used was collected by Mikro’s Traffic Monitoring (MTM). Multi-Layer perceptron (MLP) was used individually to construct the model and the MLP was also combined with Bagging ensemble method to training the data. The cross—validation method was used for evaluating the models. The results obtained from the techniques were compared using predictive and prediction costs. The cost was computed using combination of the loss matrix and the confusion matrix. The predicted models designed shows that the status of the traffic flow on the freeway can be predicted using the following parameters travel time, average speed, traffic volume and day of month. The implications of this work is that commuters will be able to spend less time travelling on the route and spend time with their families. The logistics industry will save more than twice what they are currently spending.
Abstract: The application of recycle waste tires into civil
engineering practices, namely asphalt paving mixtures and cementbased
materials has been gaining ground across the world. This
review summarizes and compares the recent achievements in the area
of plain rubberized concrete (PRC), in details. Different treatment
methods have been discussed to improve the performance of
rubberized Portland cement concrete. The review also includes the
effects of size and amount of tire rubbers on mechanical and
durability properties of PRC. The microstructure behaviour of the
rubberized concrete was detailed.
Abstract: Microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ91D
Mg alloys for nonflammable use, containing Ca and Y, were
investigated in this study. Solid solution treatment of AZ91D Mg alloy
with Ca and Y was successfully conducted at 420oC and
supersaturated microstructure with almost all beta phases resolved into
matrix was obtained. After solid solution treatment, the alloy was
annealed at temperatures of 180 and 200oC for time intervals from 1
min to 48 hrs and hardness of each condition was measured by
micro-Vickers method. Peak aging conditions were deduced from the
results as at the temperature of 200oC for 10 hrs. Hot rolling was also
carried out at 400oC by the reduction ratio of 0.6 through 5 passes
followed by recrystallization treatment. Tensile and compressive
properties were measured at room temperature on the specimens of
each process, i.e. as-cast, solution treatment, hot rolling, and
recrystallization.
Abstract: Aerobic dance has becoming a popular mode of
exercise especially among women due to its fun nature. With a catchy
music background and joyful dance steps, aerobic dancers would be
able to have fun while sweating out. Depending on its level of
aggressiveness, aerobic may also improve and maintain
cardiorespiratory fitness other than being a great tool for weight loss.
This study intends to prove that aerobic dance activity can bring the
same, if not better impacts on health than other types of
cardiovascular exercise such as jogging and cycling. The objective of
this study was to evaluate and identify the effect of six weeks aerobic
dance on cardiovascular fitness and weight loss among women. This
study, which was held in Seremban Fit Challenge, used a quasiexperimental
design. The subjects selected include a total of 14
women (n = 14) with age (32.4 years old ± 9.1), weight (65.93 kg ±
11.24) and height (165.36 ± 3.46) who joined the Seremban Fit
Challenge Season 13. The subjects were asked to join an aerobic
dance class with a duration of one hour for six weeks in a row. As for
the outcome, cardiovascular fitness was measured with a 1-mile run
test while any changes on weight were measured using the weighing
scale. The result showed that there was a significant difference
between pre and post-test for cardiovascular fitness when p = 0.02
Abstract: Energy consumption data, in particular those involving
public buildings, are impacted by many factors: the building structure,
climate/environmental parameters, construction, system operating
condition, and user behavior patterns. Traditional methods for data
analysis are insufficient. This paper delves into the data mining
technology to determine its application in the analysis of building
energy consumption data including energy consumption prediction,
fault diagnosis, and optimal operation. Recent literature are reviewed
and summarized, the problems faced by data mining technology in the
area of energy consumption data analysis are enumerated, and research
points for future studies are given.
Abstract: Some of the main causes for degradation of polymeric materials are thermal aging, hydrolysis, oxidation or chemical degradation by acids, alkalis or water. The first part of this paper provides a brief summary of advances in technology, methods and specification of composite materials for relining as a rehabilitation technique for sewage systems. The second part summarizes an investigation on frequently used composite materials for relining in Sweden, the rubber filled epoxy composite and reinforced polyester composite when they were immersed in deionized water or in dry conditions, and elevated temperatures up to 80°C in the laboratory. The tests were conducted by visual inspection, microscopy, Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) as well as mechanical testing, three point bending and tensile testing.
Abstract: Pedagogical approaches in Asia nowadays are
imported from the West. In Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC),
however, there is a dichotomy between the perceived benefits of
Western pedagogies and the real classroom practices in Chinese
societies. The success of Hong Kong students in large-scale
international assessments has proved that both the strengths of both
Western pedagogies and CHC educational approaches should be
integrated for the sake of the students. University students aim to equip themselves with employability
skills upon graduation. Formative assessments allow students to
receive detailed, positive, and timely feedback and they can identify
their strengths and weaknesses before they start working. However,
there remains a question of whether university year 1 students who
come from an examination-driven secondary education background
are ready to respond to more formative assessments. The findings show that year 1 students are less concerned about
competition in the university and more open to new teaching
approaches that will allow them to improve as professionals in their
major study areas.
Abstract: In the present study, a numerical approach to describe the pyrolysis of a single solid particle of wood is used to study the influence of various conditions such as particle size, heat transfer coefficient, reactor temperature and heating rate. The influence of these parameters in the change of the duration of the pyrolysis cycle was studied. Mathematical modeling was employed to simulate the heat, mass transfer, and kinetic processes inside the reactor. The evolutions of the mass loss as well as the evolution of temperature inside the thick piece are investigated numerically. The elaborated model was also employed to study the effect of the reactor temperature and the rate of heating on the change of the temperature and the local loss of the mass inside the piece of wood. The obtained results are in good agreement with the experimental data available in the literature.
Abstract: A 15-storey RC building, studied in this paper, is
representative of modern building type constructed in Madina City in
Saudi Arabia before 10 years ago. These buildings are almost
consisting of reinforced concrete skeleton i.e. columns, beams and
flat slab as well as shear walls in the stairs and elevator areas
arranged in the way to have a resistance system for lateral loads
(wind – earthquake loads). In this study, the dynamic properties of
the 15-storey RC building were identified using ambient motions
recorded at several, spatially-distributed locations within each
building. Three dimensional pushover analysis (Nonlinear static
analysis) was carried out using SAP2000 software incorporating
inelastic material properties for concrete, infill and steel. The effect
of modeling the building with and without infill walls, on the
performance point as well as capacity and demand spectra due to EQ
design spectrum function in Madina area has been investigated. ATC-
40 capacity and demand spectra are utilized to get the modification
factor (R) for the studied building. The purpose of this analysis is to
evaluate the expected performance of structural systems by
estimating, strength and deformation demands in design, and
comparing these demands to available capacities at the performance
levels of interest. The results are summarized and discussed.
Abstract: With the increasing number of people reviewing
products online in recent years, opinion sharing websites has become
the most important source of customers’ opinions. Unfortunately,
spammers generate and post fake reviews in order to promote or
demote brands and mislead potential customers. These are notably
destructive not only for potential customers, but also for business
holders and manufacturers. However, research in this area is not
adequate, and many critical problems related to spam detection have
not been solved to date. To provide green researchers in the domain
with a great aid, in this paper, we have attempted to create a highquality
framework to make a clear vision on review spam-detection
methods. In addition, this report contains a comprehensive collection
of detection metrics used in proposed spam-detection approaches.
These metrics are extremely applicable for developing novel
detection methods.
Abstract: In language learning, second language learners as well
as Native speakers commit errors in their attempt to achieve
competence in the target language. The realm of collocation has to do
with meaning relation between lexical items. In all human language,
there is a kind of ‘natural order’ in which words are arranged or relate
to one another in sentences so much so that when a word occurs in a
given context, the related or naturally co-occurring word will
automatically come to the mind. It becomes an error, therefore, if
students inappropriately pair or arrange such ‘naturally’ co–occurring
lexical items in a text. It has been observed that most of the second
language learners in this research group commit collocation errors. A
study of this kind is very significant as it gives insight into the kinds
of errors committed by learners. This will help the language teacher
to be able to identify the sources and causes of such errors as well as
correct them thereby guiding, helping and leading the learners
towards achieving some level of competence in the language. The
aim of the study is to understand the nature of these errors as
stumbling blocks to effective essay writing. The objective of the
study is to identify the errors, analyze their structural compositions so
as to determine whether there are similarities between students in this
regard and to find out whether there are patterns to these kinds of
errors which will enable the researcher to understand their sources
and causes. As a descriptive research, the researcher samples some
nine hundred essays collected from three hundred undergraduate
learners of English as a second language in the Federal College of
Education, Kano, North- West Nigeria, i.e. three essays per each
student. The essays which were given on three different lecture times
were of similar thematic preoccupations (i.e. same topics) and length
(i.e. same number of words). The essays were written during the
lecture hour at three different lecture occasions. The errors were
identified in a systematic manner whereby errors so identified were
recorded only once even if they occur severally in students’ essays.
The data was collated using percentages in which the identified
numbers of occurrences were converted accordingly in percentages.
The findings from the study indicate that there are similarities as well
as regular and repeated errors which provided a pattern. Based on the
pattern identified, the conclusion is that students’ collocation errors
are attributable to poor teaching and learning which resulted in wrong
generalization of rules.
Abstract: The most crucial aspect that is closely related to vocabulary and the one that needs to be emphasized and investigated more than it has been up until now, is the ability to combine words that co-occur frequently in the language. Pedagogically, collocation is one of the error-provoking aspects in foreign language learning. This is indicative of the dire need to provide L2 learners with tools to help them improve their collocational knowledge. This paper pinpoints the role that collocations play in the English language. Furthermore, it presents pedagogical implications for ESL/EFL learners.
Abstract: In order to study the Mutual effect of genotype ×
environment for the percent of oil index in sunflower items, an
experiment was accomplished form complete random block designs
in four iteration and was four diverse researching station comprising
Esfahan, Birjand, Sari, and Karaj. Complex variance analysis showed
that there is an important diversity between the items under
investigation. The results relevant the coefficient variation of items
Azargol and Vidoc has respectively allocated the minimum
coefficient of variations. According to the results extrapolated from
Shokla stability variance, the Items Brocar, Allison and Fabiola, are
among the stable genotypes for oil percent respectively. In the biplot
GGE, the location under investigations divided in two superenvironments,
first one comprised of locations naming Esfahan,
Karaj, and Birjand, and second one were such a location as Sari. By
this point of view, in the first super-environment, the Item Fabiola
and in the second Almanzor item was among the best items and
crops.