Abstract: The propulsion of a bacterial flagellum in a viscous fluid has attracted many interests in the field of biological hydrodynamics, but remains yet fully understood and thus still a challenging problem. In this study, therefore, we have numerically investigated the flow around a steadily rotating micro-sized spring to further understand such bacterial flagellum propulsion. Note that a bacterium gains thrust (propulsive force) by rotating the flagellum connected to the body through a bio motor to move forward. For the investigation, we convert the spring model from the micro scale to the macro scale using a similitude law (scale law) and perform simulations on the converted macro-scale model using a commercial software package, CFX v13 (ANSYS). To scrutinize the propulsion characteristics of the flagellum through the simulations, we make parameter studies by changing some flow parameters, such as the pitch, helical radius and rotational speed of the spring and the Reynolds number (or fluid viscosity), expected to affect the thrust force experienced by the rotating spring. Results show that the propulsion characteristics depend strongly on the parameters mentioned above. It is observed that the forward thrust increases in a linear fashion with either of the rotational speed or the fluid viscosity. In addition, the thrust is directly proportional to square of the helical radius and but the thrust force is increased and then decreased based on the peak value to the pitch. Finally, we also present the appropriate flow and pressure fields visualized to support the observations.
Abstract: This paper deals with the traditional Malay healing ritualistic ceremony known as Main Puteri. This non-invasive intervention uses the vehicle of performance to administer the healing process. It employs the performance elements of Makyung, that is, music, movements/dance and dramatic dialogue to heal psychosomatic maladies. There are two perspectives to this therapeutic healing process, one traditional and the other scientific. From the traditional perspective, the psychosomatic illness is attributed to the infestations/possessions by malevolent spirits. To heal such patients, these spirits must be exorcised through placating them by making offerings. From the scientific perspective, the music (sonic orders), movements (kinetic energy) and smell (olfactory) connect with the brain waves to release the chemicals that would activate the internal healing energy. Currently, in Main Puteri, the therapeutic healing ritual is no longer relevant as modern clinical medicine has proven to be more effective. Thus, Main Puteri is an anachronism in today’s technologically advanced Malaysia.
Abstract: This paper is intended to develop an artificial neural network (ANN) based model of material removal rate (MRR) in the turning of ferrous and nonferrous material in a Indian small-scale industry. MRR of the formulated model was proved with the testing data and artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed for the analysis and prediction of the relationship between inputs and output parameters during the turning of ferrous and nonferrous materials. The input parameters of this model are operator, work-piece, cutting process, cutting tool, machine and the environment.
The ANN model consists of a three layered feedforward back propagation neural network. The network is trained with pairs of independent/dependent datasets generated when machining ferrous and nonferrous material. A very good performance of the neural network, in terms of contract with experimental data, was achieved. The model may be used for the testing and forecast of the complex relationship between dependent and the independent parameters in turning operations.
Abstract: Over the past few decades, power system industry in many developing and developed countries has gone through a restructuring process of the industry where they are moving towards deregulated power industry. This situation will lead to competition among the generation and distribution companies to provide quality and efficient production of electric energy, which will reduce the price of electricity. Therefore it is important to obtain an accurate value of the available transfer capability (ATC) and transmission reliability margin (TRM) in order to ensure the effective power transfer between areas during the occurrence of uncertainties in the system. In this paper, the TRM and ATC is determined by taking into consideration the uncertainties of the system operating condition and system cascading collapse by applying the bootstrap technique. A case study of the IEEE RTS-79 is employed to verify the robustness of the technique proposed in the determination of TRM and ATC.
Abstract: Methods for measuring or estimating ground shape by a laser range finder and a vision sensor (Exteroceptive sensors) have critical weaknesses in terms that these methods need a prior database built to distinguish acquired data as unique surface conditions for driving. Also, ground information by Exteroceptive sensors does not reflect the deflection of ground surface caused by the movement of UGVs. Therefore, this paper proposes a method of recognizing exact and precise ground shape using an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) as a proprioceptive sensor. In this paper, firstly this method recognizes the attitude of a robot in real-time using IMU and compensates attitude data of a robot with angle errors through analysis of vehicle dynamics. This method is verified by outdoor driving experiments of a real mobile robot.
Abstract: A duplicated image region may be subjected to a number of attacks such as noise addition, compression, reflection, rotation, and scaling with the intention of either merely mating it to its targeted neighborhood or preventing its detection. In this paper, we present an effective and robust method of detecting duplicated regions inclusive of those affected by the various attacks. In order to reduce the dimension of the image, the proposed algorithm firstly performs discrete wavelet transform, DWT, of a suspicious image. However, unlike most existing copy move image forgery (CMIF) detection algorithms operating in the DWT domain which extract only the low frequency subband of the DWT of the suspicious image thereby leaving valuable information in the other three subbands, the proposed algorithm simultaneously extracts features from all the four subbands. The extracted features are not only more accurate representation of image regions but also robust to additive noise, JPEG compression, and affine transformation. Furthermore, principal component analysis-eigenvalue decomposition, PCA-EVD, is applied to reduce the dimension of the features. The extracted features are then sorted using the more computationally efficient Radix Sort algorithm. Finally, same affine transformation selection, SATS, a duplication verification method, is applied to detect duplicated regions. The proposed algorithm is not only fast but also more robust to attacks compared to the related CMIF detection algorithms. The experimental results show high detection rates.
Abstract: Crude oil is a major source of global energy. The major problem is its widespread use and demand resulted is in increasing environmental pollution. One associated pollution problem is ‘oil spills’. Oil spills can be remediated with the use of chemical dispersants, microbial biodegradation and microbial metabolites such as biosurfactants. Four different minimal salt media for biosurfactant production by Bacillus isolated from oil contaminated sites from Oman were screened. These minimal salt media were supplemented with either glucose or sucrose as a carbon source. Among the isolates, W16 and B30 produced the most active biosurfactants. Isolate W16 produced better biosurfactant than the rest, and reduced surface tension (ST) and interfacial tension (IFT) to 25.26mN/m and 2.29mN/m respectively within 48h which are characteristics for removal of oil in contaminated sites. Biosurfactant was produced in bulk and extracted using acid precipitation method. Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) of acid precipitate biosurfactant revealed two concentrated bands. Further studies of W16 biosurfactant in bioremediation of oil spills are recommended.
Abstract: Due to the widespread of mobile sensing, there is a strong need to handle trails of moving objects, and trajectories. This paper proposes three visual analytics approaches for higher order information of trajectory datasets based on the higher order Voronoi diagram data structure. Proposed approaches reveal geometrical, topological, and directional information. Experimental resultsdemonstrate the applicability and usefulness of proposed three approaches.
Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the generalized Stokes’ problems for an incompressible couple stress fluid. Analytical solution of the governing equations is obtained in Laplace transform domain for each problem. A standard numerical inversion technique
is used to invert the Laplace transform of the velocity in each case. The effect of various material parameters on velocity is discussed and the results are presented through graphs. It is observed that, the results are in tune with the observation of V.K.Stokes in connection with the variation of velocity in the flow between two parallel plates when the top one is moving with constant velocity and the bottom one is at rest.
Abstract: Since fuel must be injected with appropriate pressure and time for accurate performance of diesel engines, then proper function of engine is influenced by accurate function of injector pump. At first total pump was designed by SolidWorks 2012 software. Then the total relationship of rotor, roller, internal cam ring, pole shoe and plunger in injector pump in MF285 tractor and their performance was shown. During suction state rollers connect with dents in internal cam ring and in pressure course pole shoes have drawer move in rotor and perform tappet action between rollers and plungers. The maximum stress was obtained by using analysis of finite element method. The maximum stress in contact surface of roller and internal cam ring and on roller surface. The maximum amount of this stress is 288.12 MPa. According to conducted analyses, the minimum value for safety factor is related to roller surface and it equals to 2.0477.
Abstract: The reduction or removal of noise in a color image is an essential part of image processing, whether the final information is used for human perception or for an automatic inspection and analysis. This paper describes the modeling system based on the rough neural network model to adaptive cellular automata for various image processing tasks and noise remover. In this paper, we consider the problem of object processing in colored image using rough neural networks to help deriving the rules which will be used in cellular automata for noise image. The proposed method is compared with some classical and recent methods. The results demonstrate that the new model is capable of being trained to perform many different tasks, and that the quality of these results is comparable or better than established specialized algorithms.
Abstract: Artificial neural networks (ANN) are used in distinct researching fields and professions, and are prepared by cooperation of scientists in different fields such as computer engineering, electronic, structure, biology and so many different branches of science. Many models are built correlating the parameters and the outputs in electrical discharge machining (EDM) concern for different types of materials. Up till now model for Ti-5Al-2.5Sn alloy in the case of electrical discharge machining performance characteristics has not been developed. Therefore, in the present work, it is attempted to generate a model of material removal rate (MRR) for Ti-5Al-2.5Sn material by means of Artificial Neural Network. The experimentation is performed according to the design of experiment (DOE) of response surface methodology (RSM). To generate the DOE four parameters such as peak current, pulse on time, pulse off time and servo voltage and one output as MRR are considered. Ti-5Al-2.5Sn alloy is machined with positive polarity of copper electrode. Finally the developed model is tested with confirmation test. The confirmation test yields an error as within the agreeable limit. To investigate the effect of the parameters on performance sensitivity analysis is also carried out which reveals that the peak current having more effect on EDM performance.
Abstract: The present study analyses the potential of acid treated chitosan for simultaneous co-adsorptive removal of phenol and cyanide from a binary waste water solution. The effects of parameters like pH, temperature, initial concentration, adsorbent dose, and adsorbent size were studied. At an optimum pH of 8, temperature of 30⁰C, initial phenol and cyanide concentration of 200 mg/L and 20 mg/L respectively, adsorbent dose of 30 g/L and size between 0.4-0.6 mm the maximum percentage removal of phenol and cyanide was found to be 60.97% and 90.86% respectively. Amongst the adsorption isotherms applied extended Freundlich best depicted the adsorption of both phenol and cyanide based on lowest MPSD value. The kinetics depicted that chemisorption was the adsorption mechanism and intraparticle diffusion is not the only rate controlling step of the reaction. Thermodynamic studies revealed that phenol adsorption was exothermic and spontaneous whereas that of cyanide was an endothermic process.
Abstract: Electric machines are driven nowadays by static system popularly known as soft starter. This paper describes a thyristor based static frequency converter (SFC) to run a large synchronous machine installed at a short circuit test laboratory. Normally a synchronous machine requires prime mover or some other driving mechanism to run. This machine doesn’t need a prime mover as it operates in dual mode. In the beginning SFC starts this machine as a motor to achieve the full speed. Thereafter whenever required it can be converted to generator mode. This paper begins with the various starting methodology of synchronous machine. Detailed of SFC with different operational modes have been analyzed. Shaft voltage is a very common phenomenon for the machines with static drives. Various causes of shaft voltages in perspective with this machine are the main attraction of this paper.
Abstract: The aim of the study is to improve removal of trace organic contaminants dissolved in activated sludge by the process of filtration with membrane bioreactor combined with modified activated carbon, for a maximum removal of organic compounds characterized by low molecular weight. Special treatment was conducted in laboratory on activated carbon. Tow reaction parameters: the pH of aqueous middle and the type of granular activated carbon were very important to improve the removal and to motivate the electrostatic Interactions of organic compounds with modified activated carbon in addition to physical adsorption, ligand exchange or complexation on the surface activated carbon. The results indicate that modified activated carbon has a strong impact in removal 21 of organic contaminants and in percentage of 100% of the process.
Abstract: The behavior of model piles embedded in a very high expansive soil was investigated, a specially manufactured saturation-drying tank was used to apply three cycles of wetting and drying to the expansive soil surrounding the model straight shaft and under reamed piles, the relative movement of the piles with respect to the soil surface was recorded with time, also the exerted uplift pressure of the piles due to soil swelling was recorded. The behavior of unloaded straight shaft and under reamed piles was investigated. Two design charts were presented for straight shaft and under reamed piles one for the required pile depth for zero upward movement due to soil swelling, while the other for the required pile depth to exert zero uplift pressure when the soil swells. Under reamed piles showed a decrease in upward movement of 20% to 30%, and an uplift pressure decrease of 10% to 30%.
Abstract: A new cost effective, eye controlled method was introduced to guide and control a wheel chair for disable people, based on Electrooculography (EOG). The guidance and control is effected by eye ball movements within the socket. The system consists of a standard electric wheelchair with an on-board microcontroller system attached. EOG is a new technology to sense the eye signals for eye movements and these signals are captured using electrodes, signal processed such as amplification, noise filtering, and then given to microcontroller which drives the motors attached with wheel chair for propulsion. This technique could be very useful in applications such as mobility for handicapped and paralyzed persons.
Abstract: Enhancing the quality of two dimensional signals is one of the most important factors in the fields of video surveillance and computer vision. Usually in real-life video surveillance, false detection occurs due to the presence of random noise, illumination
and shadow artifacts. The detection methods based on background subtraction faces several problems in accurately detecting objects in realistic environments: In this paper, we propose a noise removal algorithm using neighborhood comparison method with thresholding. The illumination variations correction is done in the detected foreground objects by using an amalgamation of techniques like homomorphic decomposition, curvelet transformation and gamma adjustment operator. Shadow is removed using chromaticity estimator with local relation estimator. Results are compared with the existing methods and prove as high robustness in the video surveillance.
Abstract: This study aims to investigate the emergence of the thought of Islamic literature in the development of modern Malay literature in Malaysia. It examines the views, approaches and theories discussed and argued by literary scholars. Further, this study investigates the influence of the thought of Islamic literature on the development of modern Malay literature in Malaysia by examining the emergence of prominent scholars and bodies that organized competitions for writing Islamic literary works. Findings reveal that in the 70’s, the movement began to be accepted by the literary society. Government bodies played an important role in creating and disseminating the Islamic literary works.
Abstract: Around the world, there are frequent incidents of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and snowstorms, as well as manmade disasters such as fires, arsons, and acts of terror. These diverse and unpredictable adversities have resulted in a number of fatalities and injuries. If disaster occurrence can be assessed quickly and information such as the exact location of the disaster and evacuation routes can be provided, victims can promptly move to safe locations, minimizing losses. This paper proposes a behavior analysis method based on a nine degrees-of-freedom (9-DOF) sensor that is effective for the emergency rescue evacuation support system (ERESS), which is being researched with an objective of providing evacuation support during disasters. Based on experiments performed using the acceleration sensor and the gyroscope sensor in the 9-DOF sensor, data are analyzed for human behavior regarding stationary position, walking, running, and during emergency situation to suggest guidelines for system judgment. Using the results of the experiments performed to determine disaster occurrence, it was confirmed that the proposed method quickly determines whether a disaster has occurred.