Abstract: Multiphase Induction Machine (IM) is normally
controlled using rotor field oriented vector control. Under phase(s)
loss, the machine currents can be optimally controlled to satisfy
certain optimization criteria. In this paper we discuss the performance
of double manifold sliding mode observer (DM-SMO) in Sensorless
control of multiphase induction machine under unsymmetrical
condition (one phase loss). This observer is developed using the IM
model in the stationary reference frame. DM-SMO is constructed by
adding extra feedback term to conventional single mode sliding mode
observer (SM-SMO) which proposed in many literature. This leads to
a fully convergent observer that also yields an accurate estimate of
the speed and stator currents. It will be shown by the simulation
results that the estimated speed and currents by the method are very
well and error between real and estimated quantities is negligible.
Also parameter sensitivity analysis shows that this method is rather
robust against parameter variation.
Abstract: Salinity is one of the major factors limiting crop
production in an arid environment. Despite its global importance
soybean production suffer the problems of salinity stress causing
damages at plant development. So it is implacable to either search for
salinity enhancement of soybean plants. Therefore, in the current
study we try to clarify the mechanism that might be involved in the
ameliorating effects of osmo-protectants such as proline and glycine
betaine as well as, compost application on soybean plants grown
under salinity stress. The experiment was conducted under
greenhouse conditions at the Graduate School of Biosphere Science
Laboratory of Hiroshima University, Japan in 2011. The experiment
was designed as a spilt-split plot based on randomized complete
block design with four replications. The treatments could be
summarized as follows; (i) salinity concentrations (0 and 15 mM), (ii)
compost treatments (0 and 24 t ha-1) and (iii) the exogenous, proline
and glycine betaine concentrations (0 mM and 25 mM) for each.
Results indicated that salinity stress induced reduction in growth and
physiological aspects (dry weight per plant, chlorophyll content, N
and K+ content) of soybean plant compared with those of the
unstressed plants. On the other hand, salinity stress led to increases in
the electrolyte leakage ratio, Na and proline contents. Special
attention was paid to, the tolerance against salt stress was observed,
the improvement of salt tolerance resulted from proline, glycine
betaine and compost were accompanied with improved K+, and
proline accumulation. While, significantly decreased electrolyte
leakage ratio and Na+ content. These results clearly demonstrate that
harmful effect of salinity could reduce on growth aspects of soybean.
Consequently, exogenous osmoprotectants combine with compost
will effectively solve seasonal salinity stress problem and are a good
strategy to increase salinity resistance of soybean in the drylands.
Abstract: As a basic physiology need, threat to sufficient food
production is threat to human survival. Food security has been an
issue that has gained global concern. This paper looks at the food
security in Nigeria by assessing the availability of food and
accessibility of the available food. The paper employed multiple
linear regression technique and graphic trends of growth rates of
relevant variables to show the situation of food security in Nigeria.
Results of the tests revealed that population growth rate was higher
than the growth rate of food availability in Nigeria for the earlier
period of the study. Commercial bank credit to agricultural sector,
foreign exchange utilization for food and the Agricultural Credit
Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) contributed significantly to food
availability in Nigeria. Food prices grew at a faster rate than the
average income level, making it difficult to access sufficient food. It
implies that prior to the year 2012; there was insufficient food to feed
the Nigerian populace. However, continued credit to the food and
agricultural sector will ensure sustained and sufficient production of
food in Nigeria. Microfinance banks should make sufficient credit
available to smallholder farmer. Government should further control
and subsidize the rising price of food to make it more accessible by
the people.
Abstract: Malaysia’s green building development is gaining
momentum and green buildings have become a key focus area,
especially within the commercial sector with the encouragement of
government legislation and policy. Due to the emerging awareness
among the market players’ views of the benefits associated with the
ownership of green buildings in Malaysia, there is a need for valuers
to incorporate consideration of sustainability into their assessments of
property market value to ensure the green buildings continue to
increase in the market. This paper analyses the valuers’ current
perception on the valuation practices with regard to the green issues
in Malaysia. The study was based on a survey of registered real estate
valuers and the experts whose work related to valuation in the Klang
Valley area to rate their view regarding the perception on valuation of
green building. The findings present evidence that even though
Malaysian valuers have limited knowledge of green buildings, they
recognise the importance of incorporating the green features in the
valuation process. The inclusion of incorporating the green features
in valuations in practice was hindered by the inadequacy of sufficient
transaction data in the market. Furthermore, valuers experienced
difficulty in identifying what are the various input parameters of
green building and how to adjust it in order to reflect the benefit of
sustainability features correctly in the valuation process. This paper
focuses on the present challenges confronted by Malaysian valuers
with regards to incorporating the green features in their valuation.
Abstract: The current study aims to highlight the loading
characteristics impact on the time evolution (focusing particularly on
long term effects) of the deformation of realized reinforced concrete
beams. Namely the tension stiffening code provisions (i.e. within
Eurocode 2) are reviewed with a clear intention to reassess their
operational value and predicting capacity. In what follows the
experimental programme adopted along with some preliminary
findings and numerical modeling attempts are presented. For a range of long slender reinforced concrete simply supported
beams (4200 mm) constant static sustained and repeated cyclic
loadings were applied mapping the time evolution of deformation.
All experiments were carried out at the Heavy Structures Lab of the
University of Leeds. During tests the mid-span deflection, creep
coefficient and shrinkage strains were monitored for duration of 90
days. The obtained results are set against the values predicted by
Eurocode 2 and the tools within an FE commercial package (i.e.
Midas FEA) to yield that existing knowledge and practise is at times
over-conservative.
Abstract: Damaturu is the capital of Yobe State in northeastern
Nigeria where civic amenities and facilities are not adequate even
after 24 years of its existence. The volatile security and political
situations are most significant causes for the same. The basic facility
for the citizens in terms of drinking water and electricity are not
available. For the drinking water, they have to rely on personal
boreholes or the filtered borehole waters available in packaged
sachets in market. The present study is concerned with environmental
impact of indiscriminate disposal of drinking synthetic polythene
water sachets in Damaturu. The sachet water is popularly called as
“pure water”, but its purity is questionable. Increased production and
consumption of sachet water has led to indiscriminate dumping and
disposal of empty sachets leading to serious environmental threat.
The evidence of this is seen for sachets littering the streets and the
drainages blocked by ‘blocks’ of water sachet waste. Sachet water
gained much popularity in Nigeria because the product is convenient
for use, affordable and economically viable. The present study aims
to find out the solution to this environmental problem. The fieldbased
study has found some significant factors that cause
environmental and socio economic effect due to this. Some
recommendations have been made based on research findings
regarding sustainable waste management, recycling and re-use of the
non-biodegradable products in society.
Abstract: This paper addresses minimizing the makespan of the
distributed permutation flow shop scheduling problem. In this
problem, there are several parallel identical factories or flowshops
each with series of similar machines. Each job should be allocated to
one of the factories and all of the operations of the jobs should be
performed in the allocated factory. This problem has recently gained
attention and due to NP-Hard nature of the problem, metaheuristic
algorithms have been proposed to tackle it. Majority of the proposed
algorithms require large computational time which is the main
drawback. In this study, a general variable neighborhood search
algorithm (GVNS) is proposed where several time-saving schemes
have been incorporated into it. Also, the GVNS uses the sophisticated
method to change the shaking procedure or perturbation depending
on the progress of the incumbent solution to prevent stagnation of the
search. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared to
the state-of-the-art algorithms based on standard benchmark
instances.
Abstract: The current tools for real time management of sewer
systems are based on two software tools: the software of weather
forecast and the software of hydraulic simulation. The use of the first
ones is an important cause of imprecision and uncertainty, the use of
the second requires temporal important steps of decision because of
their need in times of calculation. This way of proceeding fact that
the obtained results are generally different from those waited. The major idea of this project is to change the basic paradigm by
approaching the problem by the "automatic" face rather than by that
"hydrology". The objective is to make possible the realization of a
large number of simulations at very short times (a few seconds)
allowing to take place weather forecasts by using directly the real
time meditative pluviometric data. The aim is to reach a system
where the decision-making is realized from reliable data and where
the correction of the error is permanent. A first model of control laws was realized and tested with different
return-period rainfalls. The gains obtained in rejecting volume vary
from 19 to 100 %. The development of a new algorithm was then
used to optimize calculation time and thus to overcome the
subsequent combinatorial problem in our first approach. Finally, this
new algorithm was tested with 16- year-rainfall series. The obtained
gains are 40 % of total volume rejected to the natural environment
and of 65 % in the number of discharges.
Abstract: Regions with extreme climate conditions such as
Astana city require energy saving measures to increase energy
performance of buildings which are responsible for more than 40% of
total energy consumption. Identification of optimal building
geometry is one of key factors to be considered. Architectural form of
a building has impact on space heating and cooling energy use,
however the interrelationship between the geometry and resultant
energy use is not always readily apparent. This paper presents a
comparative case study of two prototypical buildings with compact
building shape to assess its impact on energy performance.
Abstract: The aims of study were investigation on chemical
composition essential oil and the effect of extract of Coronilla varia
on antimicrobial and cytotoxicity activity. The essential oils of
Coronilla varia is obtained by hydrodistillation and analyzed by
(GC/MS) for determining their chemical composition and
identification of their components. Antibacterial activity of plant
extract was determined by disc diffusion method and anticancer
activity measured by MTT assay. The major components in essential
oil were Caryophyllene Oxide (60.19%), Alphacadinol (4.13%) and
Homoadantaneca Robexylic Acid (3.31%). The extracts from
Coronilla varia had interesting activity against Proteus mirabilis in
the concentration of 700 μg/disc and did not show any activity
against Staphylococus aureus, Bacillus subtillis, Klebsiella
pneumonia and Entrobacter cloacae. The positive control,
Ampicillin, Chloramphenicol and Cenphalothin had shown zone of
inhibition resistant all bacteria. The ethanol extract of Corohilla varia
inhibited on MCF7 cell lines. IC50 0.6(mg/ml) was the optimum
concentration of extract from Coronilla varia inhibition of cell line
growth. The MCF7 cancer cell line and Proteus mirabilis were more
sensitive to Coronilla varia ethanol extract.
Abstract: Water resource systems modeling has constantly been
a challenge through history for human beings. As the innovative
methodological development is evolving alongside computer sciences
on one hand, researches are likely to confront more complex and
larger water resources systems due to new challenges regarding
increased water demands, climate change and human interventions,
socio-economic concerns, and environment protection and
sustainability. In this research, an automatic calibration scheme has
been applied on the Gilan’s large-scale water resource model using
mathematical programming. The water resource model’s calibration
is developed in order to attune unknown water return flows from
demand sites in the complex Sefidroud irrigation network and other
related areas. The calibration procedure is validated by comparing
several gauged river outflows from the system in the past with model
results. The calibration results are pleasantly reasonable presenting a
rational insight of the system. Subsequently, the unknown optimized
parameters were used in a basin-scale linear optimization model with
the ability to evaluate the system’s performance against a reduced
inflow scenario in future. Results showed an acceptable match
between predicted and observed outflows from the system at selected
hydrometric stations. Moreover, an efficient operating policy was
determined for Sefidroud dam leading to a minimum water shortage
in the reduced inflow scenario.
Abstract: This study investigated the impact of inflectional and derivational morphemic analysis awareness on ESL secondary school students’ vocabulary learning strategy. The quasi-experimental study was conducted with 106 low proficiency secondary school students in two experimental groups (inflectional and derivational) and one control group. The students’ vocabulary acquisition was assessed through two measures: Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary- Morphemic Test in the pretest and posttest before and after an intervention programme. Results of ANCOVA revealed that both the experimental groups achieved a significant score in Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary-Morphemic Test. However, the inflectional group obtained a fairly higher score than the derivational group. Thus, the results indicated that ESL low proficiency secondary school students performed better on inflectional morphemic awareness as compared to derivatives. The results also showed that the awareness of inflectional morphology contributed more on the vocabulary acquisition. Importantly, learning inflectional morphology can help ESL low proficiency secondary school students to develop both morphemic awareness and vocabulary gain. Theoretically, these findings show that not all morphemes are equally useful to students for their language development. Practically, these findings indicate that morphological instruction should at least be included in remediation and instructional efforts with struggling learners across all grade levels, allowing them to focus on meaning within the word before they attempt the text in large for better comprehension. Also, by methodologically, by conducting individualized intervention and assessment this study provided fresh empirical evidence to support the existing literature on morphemic analysis awareness and vocabulary learning strategy. Thus, a major pedagogical implication of the study is that morphemic analysis awareness strategy is a definite boon for ESL secondary school students in learning English vocabulary.
Abstract: Leishmaniasis is the collective name for a number of
diseases caused by protozoan flagellates of the genus Leishmania,
which is transmitted by Phlebotomine sandfly, the disease has diverse
clinical manifestations and found in many areas of the world,
particularly in Africa, Latin America, South and Central Asia, the
Mediterranean basin and the Middle East. This study was done to
assess primary health care physicians’ knowledge (PHP) and attitude
about leishmaniasis and to assess awareness of local inhabitants
about the disease and its vector in four areas in west Alexandria,
Egypt. It is a cross sectional survey that was conducted in four PHC
units in west Alexandria. All physicians currently working in these
units during the study period were invited to participate in the study;
only 20 PHP completed the questionnaire. 60 local inhabitants were
selected randomly from the four areas of the study, 15 from each
area; Data was collected through two different specially designed
questionnaires. Results showed that 11 (55%) percent of the
physicians had satisfactory knowledge; they answered more than 9
(60%) questions out of a total 14 questions about leishmaniasis and
sandfly. On the other hand when attitude of the primary health care
physicians about leishmaniasis was measured, results showed that 17
(85%) had good attitude and 3 (15%) had poor attitude. The second
questionnaire showed that the awareness of local inhabitants about
leishmaniasis and sandfly as a vector of the disease is poor and needs
to be corrected. (90%) of the interviewed inhabitants had not heard
about leishmaniasis, Only 3 (5%) of them said they know sandfly and
its role in transmission of leishmaniasis. Thus we conclude that
knowledge and attitudes of physicians are acceptable. However, there
is, room for improvement and could be done through formal training
courses and distribution of guidelines. In addition to raising the
awareness of primary health care physicians about the importance of
early detection and notification of cases of leishmaniasis, health
education for raising awareness of the public regarding the vector and
the disease is necessary because related studies have demonstrated
that for inhabitants to take enough protective measures against the
vector, they should perceive that it is responsible for causing a
disease.
Abstract: Natural dyes are gaining interest due their expected
low risk to human health and to the environment. In this study, the
wash fastness of a natural coloring matter from the liquid waste
produced in the steam treatment of eucalyptus wood in textile fabrics
was investigated. Specifically, eucalyptus wood extract was used to
dye cotton, nylon and wool in an exhaust dyeing process without the
addition of the traditional mordanting agents and then submitted to
wash fastness analysis. The resulting dyed fabrics were evaluated for
color fastness. It was found that wash fastness of dyed fabrics was
very good to cotton and excellent to nylon and wool.
Abstract: The aim of the current work was to employ the finite
element method to model a slab, with a small hole across its width,
undergoing plastic plane strain deformation. The computational
model had, however, to be validated by comparing its results with
those obtained experimentally. Since they were in good agreement,
the finite element method can therefore be considered a reliable tool
that can help gain better understanding of the mechanism of ductile
failure in structural members having stress raisers. The finite element
software used was ANSYS, and the PLANE183 element was utilized.
It is a higher order 2-D, 8-node or 6-node element with quadratic
displacement behavior. A bilinear stress-strain relationship was used
to define the material properties, with constants similar to those of the
material used in the experimental study. The model was run for
several tensile loads in order to observe the progression of the plastic
deformation region, and the stress concentration factor was
determined in each case. The experimental study involved employing the visioplasticity
technique, where a circular mesh (each circle was 0.5 mm in
diameter, with 0.05 mm line thickness) was initially printed on the
side of an aluminum slab having a small hole across its width.
Tensile loading was then applied to produce a small increment of
plastic deformation. Circles in the plastic region became ellipses,
where the directions of the principal strains and stresses coincided
with the major and minor axes of the ellipses. Next, we were able to
determine the directions of the maximum and minimum shear
stresses at the center of each ellipse, and the slip-line field was then
constructed. We were then able to determine the stress at any point in
the plastic deformation zone, and hence the stress concentration
factor. The experimental results were found to be in good agreement
with the analytical ones.
Abstract: Consumers are demanding novel beverages that are
healthier, convenient and have appealing consumer acceptance. The
objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of adding grape
polyphenols and the influence of presenting health claims on the
sensory acceptability of wines. Fresh red sorrel calyces were
fermented into wines. The total soluble solids of the pectinase-treated
sorrel puree were from 4°Brix to 23.8°Brix. Polyphenol in the form
of grape pomace extract was added to sorrel wines (w/v) in specified
levels to give 0. 25. 50 and 75 ppm. A focus group comprising of 12
panelists was use to select the level of polyphenol to be added to
sorrel wines for sensory preference The sensory attributed of the
wines which were evaluated were colour, clarity, aroma, flavor,
mouth-feel, sweetness, astringency and overall preference. The sorrel
wine which was most preferred from focus group evaluation was
presented for hedonic rating. In the first stage of hedonic testing, the
sorrel wine was served chilled at 7°C for 24 h prior to sensory
evaluation. Each panelist was provided with a questionnaire and was
asked to rate the wines on colour, aroma, flavor, mouth-feel,
sweetness, astringency and overall acceptability using a 9-point
hedonic scale. In the second stage of hedonic testing, the panelist
were instructed to read a health abstract on the health benefits of
polyphenolic compounds and again to rate sorrel wine with added 25
ppm polyphenol. Paired t-test was used for the analysis of the
influence of presenting health information on polyphenols on hedonic
scoring of sorrel wines. Focus groups found that the addition of
polyphenol addition had no significant effect on sensory color and
aroma but affected clarity and flavor. A 25 ppm wine was liked
moderately in overall acceptability. The presentation of information
on the health benefit of polyphenols in sorrel wines to panelists had
no significant influence on the sensory acceptance of wine. More
than half of panelists would drink this wine now and then. This wine
had color L 19.86±0.68, chroma 2.10±0.12, hue° 16.90 ±3.10 and
alcohol content of 13.0%. The sorrel wine was liked moderately in
overall acceptability with the added polyphenols.
Abstract: This paper develops and investigates a framework for
the assessment of customer involvement in the service design process
of result oriented product-service systems in order to improve the
service offering in a business-to-business (B2B) context. The
framework comprises five main criteria and fifteen sub-criteria that
contribute to customer involvement in a hierarchy using a maturity
grid to highlight the strengths and weaknesses for each criterion. To
develop the customer involvement framework, an extensive literature
review related to service design, result oriented product-service
system (PSS) and customer involvement in service design was
carried out. Key factors that significantly influence customer
involvement from industry and literature were identified to develop
the framework. A major contribution of the developed framework
includes a hierarchy of appropriate criteria for assessing customer
involvement in the service design process within results oriented
PSS; the definition of four maturity levels which are suitable to
describe the whole spectrum of customer involvement in the service
design process; and finally, The paper concludes by enabling service
providers to: take proactive decisions; screen and evaluate new
services; improve perceived service quality; and provide barriers
against imitation.
Abstract: Sewer deposits have been identified as a major cause
of dysfunctions in combined sewer systems regarding sewer
management, which induces different negative consequents resulting
in poor hydraulic conveyance, environmental damages as well as
worker’s health. In order to overcome the problematics of
sedimentation, flushing has been considered as the most operative
and cost-effective way to minimize the sediments impacts and
prevent such challenges. Flushing, by prompting turbulent wave
effects, can modify the bed form depending on the hydraulic
properties and geometrical characteristics of the conduit. So far, the
dynamics of the bed-load during high-flow events in combined sewer
systems as a complex environment is not well understood, mostly due
to lack of measuring devices capable to work in the “hostile” in
combined sewer system correctly. In this regards, a one-episode
flushing issue from an opening gate valve with weir function was
carried out in a trunk sewer in Paris to understand its cleansing
efficiency on the sediments (thickness: 0-30 cm). During more than
1h of flushing within 5 m distance in downstream of this flushing
device, a maximum flowrate and a maximum level of water have
been recorded at 5 m in downstream of the gate as 4.1 m3/s and 2.1
m respectively. This paper is aimed to evaluate the efficiency of this
type of gate for around 1.1 km (from the point -50 m to +1050 m in
downstream from the gate) by (i) determining bed grain-size
distribution and sediments evolution through the sewer channel, as
well as their organic matter content, and (ii) identifying sections that
exhibit more changes in their texture after the flush. For the first one,
two series of sampling were taken from the sewer length and then
analyzed in laboratory, one before flushing and second after, at same
points among the sewer channel. Hence, a non-intrusive sampling
instrument has undertaken to extract the sediments smaller than the
fine gravels. The comparison between sediments texture after the
flush operation and the initial state, revealed the most modified zones
by the flush effect, regarding the sewer invert slope and hydraulic
parameters in the zone up to 400 m from the gate. At this distance,
despite the increase of sediment grain-size rages, D50 (median grainsize)
varies between 0.6 mm and 1.1 mm compared to 0.8 mm and 10
mm before and after flushing, respectively. Overall, regarding the
sewer channel invert slope, results indicate that grains smaller than
sands (< 2 mm) are more transported to downstream along about 400
m from the gate: in average 69% before against 38% after the flush
with more dispersion of grain-sizes distributions. Furthermore, high
effect of the channel bed irregularities on the bed material evolution
has been observed after the flush.
Abstract: Determination of genetic variation is useful for plant
breeding and hence production of more efficient plant species under
different conditions, like drought stress. In this study a sample of 28
recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of wheat developed from the cross of
Norstar and Zagross varieties, together with their parents, were
evaluated for two years (2010-2012) under normal and water stress
conditions using split plot design with three replications. Main plots
included two irrigation treatments of 70 and 140 mm evaporation
from Class A pan and sub-plots consisted of 30 genotypes. The effect
of genotypes and interaction of genotypes with years and water
regimes were significant for all characters. Significant genotypic
effect implies the existence of genetic variation among the lines
under study. Heritability estimates were high for 1000 grain weight
(0.87). Biomass and grain yield showed the lowest heritability values
(0.42 and 0.50, respectively). Highest genotypic and phenotypic
coefficients of variation (GCV and PCV) belonged to harvest index.
Moderate genetic advance for most of the traits suggested the
feasibility of selection among the RILs under investigation. Some
RILs were higher yielding than either parent at both environments.
Abstract: In this paper, a new SMC (Sliding Mode Control)
method with MP (Model Predictive Control) integral action for the
slip suppression of EV (Electric Vehicle) under braking is proposed.
The proposed method introduce the integral term with standard SMC
gain , where the integral gain is optimized for each control period by
the MPC algorithms. The aim of this method is to improve the safety
and the stability of EVs under braking by controlling the wheel slip
ratio. There also include numerical simulation results to demonstrate
the effectiveness of the method.