Abstract: A method based on the power series solution is proposed to solve the natural frequency of flapping vibration for the rotating inclined Euler beam with constant angular velocity. The vibration of the rotating beam is measured from the position of the corresponding steady state axial deformation. In this paper the governing equations for linear vibration of a rotating Euler beam are derived by the d'Alembert principle, the virtual work principle and the consistent linearization of the fully geometrically nonlinear beam theory in a rotating coordinate system. The governing equation for flapping vibration of the rotating inclined Euler beam is linear ordinary differential equation with variable coefficients and is solved by a power series with four independent coefficients. Substituting the power series solution into the corresponding boundary conditions at two end nodes of the rotating beam, a set of homogeneous equations can be obtained. The natural frequencies may be determined by solving the homogeneous equations using the bisection method. Numerical examples are studied to investigate the effect of inclination angle on the natural frequency of flapping vibration for rotating inclined Euler beams with different angular velocity and slenderness ratio.
Abstract: A Matlab based software for logistic regression is developed to enhance the process of teaching quantitative topics and assist researchers with analyzing wide area of applications where categorical data is involved. The software offers an option of performing stepwise logistic regression to select the most significant predictors. The software includes a feature to detect influential observations in data, and investigates the effect of dropping or misclassifying an observation on a predictor variable. The input data may consist either as a set of individual responses (yes/no) with the predictor variables or as grouped records summarizing various categories for each unique set of predictor variables' values. Graphical displays are used to output various statistical results and to assess the goodness of fit of the logistic regression model. The software recognizes possible convergence constraints when present in data, and the user is notified accordingly.
Abstract: Among various HLM techniques, the Multivariate Hierarchical Linear Model (MHLM) is desirable to use, particularly when multivariate criterion variables are collected and the covariance structure has information valuable for data analysis. In order to reflect prior information or to obtain stable results when the sample size and the number of groups are not sufficiently large, the Bayes method has often been employed in hierarchical data analysis. In these cases, although the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is a rather powerful tool for parameter estimation, Procedures regarding MCMC have not been formulated for MHLM. For this reason, this research presents concrete procedures for parameter estimation through the use of the Gibbs samplers. Lastly, several future topics for the use of MCMC approach for HLM is discussed.
Abstract: This paper studies the application of a variety of
sawdust materials in the production of lightweight insulating bricks.
First, the mineralogical and chemical composition of clays was determined. Next, ceramic bricks were fabricated with different
quantities of materials (3–6 and 9 wt. % for sawdust, 65 wt. % for grey clay, 24–27 and 30 wt. % for yellow clay and 2 wt% of tuff).
These bricks were fired at 800 and 950 °C. The effect of adding this sawdust on the technological behaviour of the brick was assessed by
drying and firing shrinkage, water absorption, porosity, bulk density
and compressive strength. The results have shown that the optimum
sintering temperature is 950 °C. Below this temperature, at 950 °C,
increased open porosity was observed, which decreased the compressive strength of the bricks. Based on the results obtained, the
optimum amounts of waste were 9 wt. % sawdust of eucalyptus, 24 wt. % shaping moisture and 1.6 particle size diameter. These percentages produced bricks whose mechanical properties were
suitable for use as secondary raw materials in ceramic brick
production.
Abstract: This paper describes the project and development of a
very low-cost and small electronic prototype, especially designed for
monitoring and controlling existing home automation alarm systems
(intruder, smoke, gas, flood, etc.), via TCP/IP, with a typical web
browser. Its use will allow home owners to be immediately alerted
and aware when an alarm event occurs, and being also able to
interact with their home automation alarm system, disarming, arming
and watching event alerts, with a personal wireless Wi-Fi PDA or
smartphone logged on to a dedicated predefined web page, and using
also a PC or Laptop.
Abstract: Technology transfer of renewable energy technologies is very often unsuccessful in the developing world. Aside from challenges that have social, economic, financial, institutional and environmental dimensions, technology transfer has generally been misunderstood, and largely seen as mere delivery of high tech equipment from developed to developing countries or within the developing world from R&D institutions to society. Technology transfer entails much more, including, but not limited to: entire systems and their component parts, know-how, goods and services, equipment, and organisational and managerial procedures. Means to facilitate the successful transfer of energy technologies, including the sharing of lessons are subsequently extremely important for developing countries as they grapple with increasing energy needs to sustain adequate economic growth and development. Improving the success of technology transfer is an ongoing process as more projects are implemented, new problems are encountered and new lessons are learnt. Renewable energy is also critical to improve the quality of lives of the majority of people in developing countries. In rural areas energy is primarily traditional biomass. The consumption activities typically occur in an inefficient manner, thus working against the notion of sustainable development. This paper explores the implementation of technology transfer in the developing world (sub-Saharan Africa). The focus is necessarily on RETs since most rural energy initiatives are RETs-based. Additionally, it aims to highlight some lessons drawn from the cited RE projects and identifies notable differences where energy technology transfer was judged to be successful. This is done through a literature review based on a selection of documented case studies which are judged against the definition provided for technology transfer. This paper also puts forth research recommendations that might contribute to improved technology transfer in the developing world. Key findings of this paper include: Technology transfer cannot be complete without satisfying pre-conditions such as: affordability, maintenance (and associated plans), knowledge and skills transfer, appropriate know how, ownership and commitment, ability to adapt technology, sound business principles such as financial viability and sustainability, project management, relevance and many others. It is also shown that lessons are learnt in both successful and unsuccessful projects.
Abstract: Deep cold rolling (DCR) is a cold working process, which easily produces a smooth and work-hardened surface by plastic deformation of surface irregularities. In the present study, the influence of main deep cold rolling process parameters on the surface roughness and the hardness of AISI 4140 steel were studied by using fractional factorial design of experiments. The assessment of the surface integrity aspects on work material was done, in terms of identifying the predominant factor amongst the selected parameters, their order of significance and setting the levels of the factors for minimizing surface roughness and/or maximizing surface hardness. It was found that the ball diameter, rolling force, initial surface roughness and number of tool passes are the most pronounced parameters, which have great effects on the work piece-s surface during the deep cold rolling process. A simple, inexpensive and newly developed DCR tool, with interchangeable collet for using different ball diameters, was used throughout the experimental work presented in this paper.
Abstract: The main aim of this study was to examine whether
people understand indicative conditionals on the basis of syntactic
factors or on the basis of subjective conditional probability. The
second aim was to investigate whether the conditional probability of
q given p depends on the antecedent and consequent sizes or derives
from inductive processes leading to establish a link of plausible cooccurrence
between events semantically or experientially associated.
These competing hypotheses have been tested through a 3 x 2 x 2 x 2
mixed design involving the manipulation of four variables: type of
instructions (“Consider the following statement to be true", “Read the
following statement" and condition with no conditional statement);
antecedent size (high/low); consequent size (high/low); statement
probability (high/low). The first variable was between-subjects, the
others were within-subjects. The inferences investigated were Modus
Ponens and Modus Tollens. Ninety undergraduates of the Second
University of Naples, without any prior knowledge of logic or
conditional reasoning, participated in this study.
Results suggest that people understand conditionals in a syntactic
way rather than in a probabilistic way, even though the perception of
the conditional probability of q given p is at least partially involved in
the conditionals- comprehension. They also showed that, in presence
of a conditional syllogism, inferences are not affected by the
antecedent or consequent sizes. From a theoretical point of view these
findings suggest that it would be inappropriate to abandon the idea
that conditionals are naturally understood in a syntactic way for the
idea that they are understood in a probabilistic way.
Abstract: In this paper, the torsion capacity of ultimate point on rectangular beams with spiral reinforcements in the torsion direction and its anti-direction are investigated. Therefore, models of above-mentioned beams have been numerically analyzed under various loads using ANSYS software. It was observed that, spirallyreinforced prismatic beam and beam with spiral links, show lower torsion capacity than beam with normal links also in anti-direction. The result is that the concrete regulations are violated in this case.
Abstract: This study applied the Gaussian trajectory
transfer-coefficient model (GTx) to simulate the particulate matter
concentrations and the source apportionments at Nanzih Air Quality
Monitoring Station in southern Taiwan from November 2007 to
February 2008. The correlation coefficient between the observed and
the calculated daily PM10 concentrations is 0.5 and the absolute bias of
the PM10 concentrations is 24%. The simulated PM10 concentrations
matched well with the observed data. Although the emission rate of
PM10 was dominated by area sources (58%), the results of source
apportionments indicated that the primary sources for PM10 at Nanzih
Station were point sources (42%), area sources (20%) and then upwind
boundary concentration (14%). The obvious difference of PM10 source
apportionment between episode and non-episode days was upwind
boundary concentrations which contributed to 20% and 11% PM10
sources, respectively. The gas-particle conversion of secondary
aerosol and long range transport played crucial roles on the PM10
contribution to a receptor.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to analyze a viscous flow in
the axisymmetric nozzle taken into account the mesh size both in the
free stream and into the boundary layer. The resolution of the Navier-
Stokes equations is realized by using the finite volume method to
determine the supersonic flow parameters at the exit of convergingdiverging
nozzle. The numerical technique uses the Flux Vector
Splitting method of Van Leer. Here, adequate time stepping
parameter, along with CFL coefficient and mesh size level is selected
to ensure numerical convergence. The effect of the boundary layer
thickness is significant at the exit of the nozzle. The best solution is
obtained with using a very fine grid, especially near the wall, where
we have a strong variation of velocity, temperature and shear stress.
This study enabled us to confirm that the determination of boundary
layer thickness can be obtained only if the size of the mesh is lower
than a certain value limits given by our calculations.
Abstract: Nowadays, the pace of business change is such that,
increasingly, new functionality has to be realized and reliably
installed in a matter of days, or even hours. Consequently, more and
more business processes are prone to a continuous change. The
objective of the research in progress is to use the MAP model, in a
conceptual modeling method for flexible and adaptive business
process. This method can be used to capture the flexibility
dimensions of a business process; it takes inspiration from
modularity concept in the object oriented paradigm to establish a
hierarchical construction of the BP modeling. Its intent is to provide
a flexible modeling that allows companies to quickly adapt their
business processes.
Abstract: The objective of this paper, is to apply support vector machine (SVM) approach for the classification of cancerous and normal regions of prostate images. Three kinds of textural features are extracted and used for the analysis: parameters of the Gauss- Markov random field (GMRF), correlation function and relative entropy. Prostate images are acquired by the system consisting of a microscope, video camera and a digitizing board. Cross-validated classification over a database of 46 images is implemented to evaluate the performance. In SVM classification, sensitivity and specificity of 96.2% and 97.0% are achieved for the 32x32 pixel block sized data, respectively, with an overall accuracy of 96.6%. Classification performance is compared with artificial neural network and k-nearest neighbor classifiers. Experimental results demonstrate that the SVM approach gives the best performance.
Abstract: The evolution of current modeling specifications gives rise to the problem of generating automated test cases from a variety of application tools. Past endeavours on behavioural testing of UML statecharts have not systematically leveraged the potential of existing graph theory for testing of objects. Therefore there exists a need for a simple, tool-independent, and effective method for automatic test generation. An architecture, codenamed ACUTE-J (Automated stateChart Unit Testing Engine for Java), for automating the unit test generation process is presented. A sequential approach for converting UML statechart diagrams to JUnit test classes is described, with the application of existing graph theory. Research byproducts such as a universal XML Schema and API for statechart-driven testing are also proposed. The result from a Java implementation of ACUTE-J is discussed in brief. The Chinese Postman algorithm is utilised as an illustration for a run-through of the ACUTE-J architecture.
Abstract: In order to study of hydropriming and halopriming on
germination and early growth stage of wheat (Triticum aestivum) an
experiment was carried out in laboratory of the Department of
Agronomy and Plant breeding, Shahrood University of Technology.
Seed treatments consisted of T1: control (untreated seeds), T2:
soaking in distilled water for 18 h (hydropriming). T3: soaking in -
1.2 MPa solution of CaSO4 for 36 h (halopriming). Germination and
early seedling growth were studied using distilled water (control) and
under osmotic potentials of -0.4, -0.8 and -1.2 MPa for NaCl and
polyethylene glycol (PEG 6000), respectively. Results showed that
Hydroprimed seeds achieved maximum germination seedling dry
weight, especially during the higher osmotic potentials. Minimum
germination was recorded at untreated seeds (control) followed by
osmopriming. Under high osmotic potentials, hydroprimed seeds had
higher GI (germination index) as compared to haloprimed or
untreated seeds. Interaction effect of seed treatment and osmotic
potential significantly affected the seedling vigour index (SVI).
Abstract: In this paper, we study FPGA implementation of a
novel supra-optimal receiver diversity combining technique,
generalized maximal ratio combining (GMRC), for wireless
transmission over fading channels in SIMO systems. Prior
published results using ML-detected GMRC diversity signal
driven by BPSK showed superior bit error rate performance to
the widely used MRC combining scheme in an imperfect
channel estimation (ICE) environment. Under perfect channel
estimation conditions, the performance of GMRC and MRC
were identical. The main drawback of the GMRC study was
that it was theoretical, thus successful FPGA implementation
of it using pipeline techniques is needed as a wireless
communication test-bed for practical real-life situations.
Simulation results showed that the hardware implementation
was efficient both in terms of speed and area. Since diversity
combining is especially effective in small femto- and picocells,
internet-associated wireless peripheral systems are to
benefit most from GMRC. As a result, many spinoff
applications can be made to the hardware of IP-based 4th
generation networks.
Abstract: The most common type of controller being used in
the industry is PI(D) controller which has been used since 1945 and
is still being widely used due to its efficiency and simplicity. In
most cases, the PI(D) controller was tuned without taking into
consideration of the effect of actuator saturation. In real processes,
the most common actuator which is valve will act as constraint and
restrict the controller output. Since the controller is not designed to
encounter saturation, the process may windup and consequently
resulted in large oscillation or may become unstable. Usually, an
antiwindup compensator is added to the feedback control loop to
reduce the deterioration effect of integral windup. This research
aims to specifically control processes with constraints. The
proposed method was applied to two different types of food
processes, which are blending and spray drying. Simulations were
done using MATLAB and the performances of the proposed
method were compared with other conventional methods. The
proposed technique was able to control the processes and avoid
saturation such that no anti windup compensator is needed.
Abstract: Restructured electricity markets may provide
opportunities for producers to exercise market power maintaining
prices in excess of competitive levels. In this paper an oligopolistic
market is presented that all Generation Companies (GenCos) bid in a
Cournot model. Genetic algorithm (GA) is applied to obtain
generation scheduling of each GenCo as well as hourly market
clearing prices (MCP). In order to consider network constraints a
multiperiod framework is presented to simulate market clearing
mechanism in which the behaviors of market participants are
modelled through piecewise block curves. A mixed integer linear
programming (MILP) is employed to solve the problem. Impacts of
market clearing process on participants- characteristic and final
market prices are presented. Consequently, a novel multi-objective
model is addressed for security constrained optimal bidding strategy
of GenCos. The capability of price-maker GenCos to alter MCP is
evaluated through introducing an effective-supply curve. In addition,
the impact of exercising market power on the variation of market
characteristics as well as GenCos scheduling is studied.
Abstract: In the micro and nano-technology industry, the
«clean-rooms» dedicated to manufacturing chip, are equipped with
the most sophisticated equipment-tools. There use a large number of
resources in according to strict specifications for an optimum
working and result. The distribution of «utilities» to the production is
assured by teams who use a supervision tool.
The studies show the interest to control the various parameters of
production or/and distribution, in real time, through a reliable and
effective supervision tool. This document looks at a large part of the
functions that the supervisor must assure, with complementary
functionalities to help the diagnosis and simulation that prove very
useful in our case where the supervised installations are complexed
and in constant evolution.
Abstract: This paper numerically investigates the effects of input
speed on the overall dynamic characteristics of a multi-body system
with differently located revolute clearance joints without friction. A
typical planar slider-crank mechanism is used as a demonstration case
in which the effects of the input speed on the dynamic performance
of the mechanism with a revolute clearance joint between the crank
and connecting rod, and between the connecting rod and slider are
separately investigated with comprehensive observations numerically
presented. It is observed that, changing the driving speed of a multibody
system makes the behavior of the system to change from
either periodic to chaotic, or chaotic to periodic depending on which
joint has clearance. The location of the clearance revolute joint and
the operating speed of a multi-body system play a crucial role in
predicting accurately the dynamic responses of the system. Therefore
the dynamic behavior of one clearance revolute joint cannot be used
as a general case for a mechanical system.