Abstract: Heat transfer from flat tube is studied numerically. Reynolds number is defined base on equivalent circular tube which is varied in range of 100 to 300. In these range of Reynolds number flow is considered to be laminar, unsteady, and incompressible. Equations are solved by using finite volume method. Results show that increasing l/D from 1 to 2 has insignificant effect on heat transfer and Nusselt number of flat tube is slightly lower than circular tube. However, thermal-hydraulic performance of flat tube is up to 2.7 times greater than circular tube.
Abstract: Analysis of EEG brainwave provides information on mental or emotional states. One of the particular states that can have various applications in human machine interface (HMI) is concentration. 8-channel EEG signals were measured and analyzed. The concentration index was compared during resting and concentrating periods. Among eight channels, locations the frontal lobe (Fp1 and Fp2) showed a clear increase of the concentration index during concentration regardless of subjects. The rest six channels produced conflicting observations depending on subjects. At this time, it is not clear whether individual difference or how to concentrate made these results for the rest six channels. Nevertheless, it is expected that Fp1 and Fp2 are promising locations for extracting control signal for HMI applications.
Abstract: Vertical slotted walls can be used as permeable
breakwaters to provide economical and environmental protection
from undesirable waves and currents inside the port. The permeable
breakwaters are partially protection and have been suggested to
overcome the environmental disadvantages of fully protection
breakwaters. For regular waves a semi-analytical model is based on
an eigenfunction expansion method and utilizes a boundary condition
at the surface of each wall are developed to detect the energy
dissipation through the slots. Extensive laboratory tests are carried
out to validate the semi-analytic models. The structure of the physical
model contains two walls and it consists of impermeable upper and
lower part, where the draft is based a decimal multiple of the total
depth. The middle part is permeable with a porosity of 50%. The
second barrier is located at a distant of 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 times of the
water depth from the first one. A comparison of the theoretical results
with previous studies and experimental measurements of the present
study show a good agreement and that, the semi-analytical model is
able to adequately reproduce most the important features of the
experiment.
Abstract: Sustainable tall buildings that provide comfortable,
healthy and efficient indoor environments are clearly desirable as the
densification of living and working space for the world’s increasing
population proceeds. For environmental concerns, these buildings
must also be energy efficient. One component of these tasks is the
provision of indoor air quality and thermal comfort, which can be
enhanced with natural ventilation by the supply of fresh air. Working
spaces can only be naturally ventilated with connections to the
outdoors utilizing operable windows, double facades, ventilation
stacks, balconies, patios, terraces and skygardens. Large amounts of
fresh air can be provided to the indoor spaces without mechanical
air-conditioning systems, which are widely employed in
contemporary tall buildings.
This paper tends to present the concept of natural ventilation for
sustainable tall office buildings in order to achieve healthy and
comfortable working spaces, as well as energy efficient
environments. Initially the historical evolution of ventilation
strategies for tall buildings is presented, beginning with natural
ventilation and continuing with the introduction of mechanical airconditioning
systems. Then the emergence of natural ventilation due
to the health and environmental concerns in tall buildings is handled,
and the strategies for implementing this strategy are revealed. In the
next section, a number of case studies that utilize this strategy are
investigated. Finally, how tall office buildings can benefit from this
strategy is discussed.
Abstract: Sustainability, being the urgent issue of our time, is
closely related with the innovations in technology. Nanotechnology
(NT), although not a new science, can be regarded relatively a new
science for buildings with brand new materials and applications. This
paper tends to give a research review of current and near future
applications of nanotechnology (NT) for achieving high-performance
and healthy buildings for a sustainable future. In the introduction, the
driving forces for the sustainability of construction industry are
explained. Then, the term NT is defined, and significance of
innovations in NT for a sustainable construction industry is revealed.
After presenting the application areas of NT and nanomaterials for
buildings with a number of cases, challenges in the adoption of this
technology are put forward, and finally the impacts of nanoparticles
and nanomaterials on human health and environment are discussed.
Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) is a rapidly emerging computer
interface that attempts to immerse the user completely within an
experimental recreation; thereby, greatly enhancing the overall
impact and providing a much more intuitive link between the
computer and the human participants. The main objective of this
study is to design tractor trailer capable of meeting the customers’
requirements and suitable for rough conditions to be used in
combination with a farm tractor in India. The final concept is capable
of providing arrangements for attaching the trailer to the tractor easily
by pickup hitch, stronger and lighter supporting frame, option of
spare tyre etc. Furthermore, the resulting product design can be sent
via the Internet to customers for comments or marketing purposes.
The virtual prototyping (VP) system therefore facilitates advanced
product design and helps reduce product development time and cost
significantly.
Abstract: Advances in the field of image processing envision a
new era of evaluation techniques and application of procedures in
various different fields. One such field being considered is the
biomedical field for prognosis as well as diagnosis of diseases. This
plethora of methods though provides a wide range of options to select
from, it also proves confusion in selecting the apt process and also in
finding which one is more suitable. Our objective is to use a series of
techniques on bone scans, so as to detect the occurrence of
rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as accurately as possible. Amongst other
techniques existing in the field our proposed system tends to be more
effective as it depends on new methodologies that have been proved
to be better and more consistent than others. Computer aided
diagnosis will provide more accurate and infallible rate of
consistency that will help to improve the efficiency of the system.
The image first undergoes histogram smoothing and specification,
morphing operation, boundary detection by edge following algorithm
and finally image subtraction to determine the presence of
rheumatoid arthritis in a more efficient and effective way. Using preprocessing
noises are removed from images and using segmentation,
region of interest is found and Histogram smoothing is applied for a
specific portion of the images. Gray level co-occurrence matrix
(GLCM) features like Mean, Median, Energy, Correlation, Bone
Mineral Density (BMD) and etc. After finding all the features it
stores in the database. This dataset is trained with inflamed and noninflamed
values and with the help of neural network all the new
images are checked properly for their status and Rough set is
implemented for further reduction.
Abstract: The high efficiency power management IC (PMIC) with switching device is presented in this paper. PMIC is controlled with PFM control method in order to have high power efficiency at high current level. Dynamic Threshold voltage CMOS (DT-CMOS) with low on-resistance is designed to decrease conduction loss. The threshold voltage of DT-CMOS drops as the gate voltage increase, resulting in a much higher current handling capability than standard MOSFET. PFM control circuits consist of a generator, AND gate and comparator. The generator is made to have 1.2MHz oscillation voltage. The DC-DC converter based on PFM control circuit and low on-resistance switching device is presented in this paper.
Abstract: In this study, too, an attempt was made to reveal the
place and effects of information technologies on the lives and
education of gifted children based on the views of gifted. To this end,
the effects of information technologies on gifted are general skills,
technology use, academic and social skills, and cooperative and
personal skills were investigated. These skills were explored
depending on whether or not gifted had their own computers, had
internet connection at home, or how often they use the internet,
average time period they spent at the computer, how often they
played computer games and their use of social media.
The study was conducted using the screening model with a
quantitative approach. The sample of the study consisted of 129
gifted attending 5-12th classes in 12 provinces in different regions of
Turkey. 64 of the participants were female while 65 were male. The
research data were collected using the using computer of gifted and
information technologies (UCIT) questionnaire which was developed
by the researchers and given its final form after receiving expert
view.
As a result of the study, it was found that UCIT use improved
foreign language speaking skills of gifted, enabled them to get to
know and understand different cultures, and made use of computer
and information technologies while they study. At the end of the
study these result were obtained: Gifted have positive idea using
computer and communication technology. There are differences
whether using the internet about the ideas UCIT. But there are not
differences whether having computer, inhabited city, grade level,
having internet at home, daily and weekly internet usage durations,
playing the computer and internet game, having Facebook and
Twitter account about the UCIT.
UCIT contribute to the development of gifted vocabulary, allows
knowing and understand different cultures, developing foreign
language speaking skills, gifted do not give up computer when they
do their homework, improve their reading, listening, understanding
and writing skills in a foreign language.
Gifted children want to have transition to the use of tablets in
education. They think UCIT facilitates doing their homework,
contributes learning more information in a shorter time. They'd like
to use computer-assisted instruction programs at courses. They think
they will be more successful in the future if their computer skills are
good. But gifted students prefer teacher instead of teaching with
computers and they said that learning can be run from home without
going to school.
Abstract: Compost can influence soil fertility and plant health. At the same time compost can play an important role in the nitrogen cycle and it can influence leaching of mineral nitrogen from soil to underground water.
This paper deals with the influence of compost addition and mineral nitrogen fertilizer on leaching of mineral nitrogen, nitrogen availability in microbial biomass and plant biomass production in the lysimetric experiment. Twenty one lysimeters were filed with topsoil and subsoil collected in the area of protection zone of underground source of drinking water - Březová nad Svitavou. The highest leaching of mineral nitrogen was detected in the variant fertilized only mineral nitrogen fertilizer (624.58 mg m-2), the lowest leaching was recorded in the variant with high addition of compost (315.51 mg m-2). On the other hand, losses of mineral nitrogen are not in connection with the losses of available form of nitrogen in microbial biomass. Because lost of mineral nitrogen was detected in variant with the least change in the availability of N in microbial biomass.
The leaching of mineral nitrogen, yields as well as the results concerning nitrogen availability from the first year of long term experiment suggest that compost can positive influence the leaching of nitrogen into underground water.
Abstract: For Common R or R-L load to apply arbitrary voltage,
the bridge traditional inverters don’t have any difficulties by PWM
method. However for driving some piezoelectric actuator, arbitrary
voltage not a pulse but a steady voltage should be applied.
Piezoelectric load is considered as R-C load and its voltage does not
decrease even though the applied voltage decreases. Therefore it needs
some special inverter with circuit that can discharge the capacitive
energy. Especially for unidirectional arbitrary voltage driving like as
sine wave, it becomes more difficult problem. In this paper, a charge
and discharge circuit for unidirectional arbitrary voltage driving for
piezoelectric actuator is proposed. The circuit has charging and
discharging switches for increasing and decreasing output voltage.
With the proposed simple circuit, the load voltage can have any
unidirectional level with tens of bandwidth because the load voltage
can be adjusted by switching the charging and discharging switch
appropriately. The appropriateness is proved from the simulation of
the proposed circuit.
Abstract: In a human tracking system, expanding a monitoring
range of one system is complicating the management of devices and
increasing its cost. Therefore, we propose a method to realize a
wide-range human tracking by connecting small systems. In this paper,
we examined an agent deploy method and information contents across
the heterogeneous human tracking systems. By implementing the
proposed method, we can construct a human tracking system across
heterogeneous systems, and the system can track a target continuously
between systems.
Abstract: Today, the means of following the developments in
the area of science and technology is to keep up with the pace of the
advancements in this area. As is in every profession, apart from their
personal efforts, the training of teachers in the period after they start
their careers is only possible through in-service training. The aim of
the present study is to determine the views of Information
Technologies (IT) teachers regarding the in-service training courses
organized by the Ministry of National Education. In this study, in
which quantitative research methods and techniques were employed,
the views of 196 IT teachers were collected by using the “Views on
In-service Training” questionnaire developed by the authors of the
paper. Independent groups t-test was used to determine whether the
views of IT teachers regarding in-service training differed depending
on gender, age and professional seniority. One-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA) was used to investigate whether the views of IT
teachers regarding in-service training differed depending on the
number of in-service training courses they joined and the type of inservice
training course they wanted to take. According to the findings
obtained in the study, the views of IT teachers on in-service training
did not show a significant difference depending on gender and age,
whereas those views differed depending on professional seniority, the
number of in-service training courses they joined and the type of inservice
training course they wanted to take.
Abstract: The study explored the role of metacognition in foreign language anxiety on a sample of 411 Taiwanese students of English as a Foreign Language. The reading strategy inventory was employed to evaluate the tertiary learners’ level of metacognitive awareness and a semi-structured background questionnaire was also used to examine the learners’ perceptions of their English proficiency and satisfaction of their current English learning. In addition, gender and academic level differences in employment of reading strategies were investigated. The results showed the frequency of reading strategy use increase slightly along with academic years and males and females actually employ different reading strategies. The EFL tertiary learners in the present study utilized cognitive strategies more frequently than metacognitive strategies or support strategies. Male students use metacognitive strategy more often while female students use cognitive and support strategy more frequently.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the antimicrobial effect of Helichrysum arenarium L. essential oil in "in-vitro" condition on the growth of seven microbial species including Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Saccharomyces cereviciae, Candida albicans, Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus using micro-dilution method. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal or fungicidal concentration (MBC, MFC) were determined for the essential oil at ten concentrations. Finally, the sensitivity of tested microbes to essential oil of H. arenarium was investigated. Results showed that Bacillus subtilis (MIC=781.25 and MBC=6250 µg/ml) was more resistance than two other bacterial species. Among the tested yeasts, Saccharomyces cereviciae (MIC=97.65 and MFC=781.25 µg/ml) was more sensitive than Candida albicans while among the fungal species, growth of Aspergillus parasiticus inhibited at lower concentration of oil than the Aspergillus flavus. The extracted essential oil exhibited the same MIC value in the liquid medium against all fungal strains (48.82 µg/ml), while different activity against A. flavus and A. parasiticus was observed in this medium with MFC values of 6250 and 390.625µg/ml, respectively. The results of the present study indicated that Helichrysum arenarium L essential oil had significant (P
Abstract: The objectives were to study language learning strategies (LLSs) employed by Chinese students, and the frequency of LLSs they used, and examine the relationship between the use of LLSs and gender. The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) by Oxford was administered to thirty-six Chinese students at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University in Thailand. The data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square tests. Three useful findings were found on the use of LLSs reported by Chinese students. First, Chinese students used overall LLSs at a high level. Second, among the six strategy groups, Chinese students employed compensation strategy most frequently and memory strategy least frequently. Third, the research results also revealed that gender had significant effect on Chinese Student’s use of overall LLSs.
Abstract: This paper conducts a comparison study using KES-FB and PhabrOmeter to measure 58 selected warp knitted fabric hand properties. Fabric samples were selected and measured by both KES-FB and PhabrOmeter. Results show differences between these two measurement methods. Smoothness and stiffness values obtained by KES-FB were found significant correlated (p value = 0.003 and 0.022) to the PhabrOmeter results while softness values between two measurement methods did not show significant correlation (p value = 0.828). Disagreements among these two measurement methods imply limitations on different mechanism principles when facing warp knitted fabrics. Subjective measurement methods and further studies are suggested in order to ascertain deeper investigation on the mechanisms of fabric hand perceptions.
Abstract: Microwave dielectric ceramic materials of
(Mg1-xNix)2(Ti0.95Sn0.05)O4 for x = 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.07 and 0.09 were
prepared and sintered at 1250–1400 ºC. The microstructure and
microwave dielectric properties of the ceramic materials were
examined and measured. The observations shows that the content of
Ni2+ ions has little effect on the crystal structure, dielectric constant,
temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (τf) and sintering
temperatures of the ceramics. However, the quality values (Q×f) are
greatly improved due to the addition of Ni2+ ions. The present study
showed that the ceramic material prepared for x = 0.05 and sintered at
1325ºC had the best Q×f value of 392,000 GHz, about 23%
improvement compared with that of Mg2(Ti0.95Sn0.05)O4.
Abstract: High resolution seismic reflection has recently been carried out on Zaria batholith, with the aim of characterizing the granitic Zaria batholiths in terms of its lithology. The geology of the area has revealed that the older granite outcrops in the vicinity of Zaria are exposures of a syntectonics to late-tectonic granite batholiths which intruded a crystalline gneissic basement during the Pan-African Orogeny. During the data acquisition the geophone were placed at interval of 1 m, variable offset of 1 and 10 m was used. The common midpoint (CMP) method with 12 fold coverage was employed for the survey. Analysis of the generated 3D surface of the p wave velocities from different profiles for densities and bulk modulus revealed that the rock material is more consolidated in South East part of the batholith and less consolidated in the North Western part. This was in conformity with earlier identified geology of the area, with the South Eastern part majorly of granitic outcrop, while the North Western part is characterized with the exposure of gneisses and thick overburden cover. The difference in lithology was also confirmed by the difference in seismic sections and Arial satellite photograph. Hence two major lithologies were identified, the granitic and gneisses complex which are characterized by gradational boundaries.
Abstract: The effects of varying air temperature (full, ¾ full, ½ full aircon adjustment, no aircon) in polishing component of Single-Pass Mill on the quality of Philippine inbred rice variety, was investigated. Parameters measured were milling recovery (MR), headrice recovery (HR), and percentage with bran streaks. Cooling method (with aircon) increased MR, HR, and percentage with bran streaks of milled rice. Highest MR and HR (67.62%; 47.33%) were obtained from ¾ full adjustment whereas no aircon were lowest (66.27%; 39.76%). Temperature in polishing component at ¾ full adjustment was 33oC whereas no aircon was 45oC. There was increase of 1.35% in MR and 7.57% in HR. Additional cost of milling per kg due to aircon cooling was P0.04 at 300 tons/yr volume, with 0.15 yr payback period. Net income was estimated at ₱98,100.00. Percentage of kernels with bran streaks increased from 5%–14%, indicating more nutrients of milled rice.