Abstract: Certifications such as the Passive House Standard aim to reduce the final space heating energy demand of residential buildings. Space conditioning, notably heating, is responsible for nearly 70% of final residential energy consumption in Europe. There is therefore significant scope for the reduction of energy consumption through improvements to the energy efficiency of residential buildings. However, these certifications totally overlook the energy embodied in the building materials used to achieve this greater operational energy efficiency. The large amount of insulation and the triple-glazed high efficiency windows require a significant amount of energy to manufacture. While some previous studies have assessed the life cycle energy demand of passive houses, including their embodied energy, these rely on incomplete assessment techniques which greatly underestimate embodied energy and can lead to misleading conclusions. This paper analyses the embodied and operational energy demands of a case study passive house using a comprehensive hybrid analysis technique to quantify embodied energy. Results show that the embodied energy is much more significant than previously thought. Also, compared to a standard house with the same geometry, structure, finishes and number of people, a passive house can use more energy over 80 years, mainly due to the additional materials required. Current building energy efficiency certifications should widen their system boundaries to include embodied energy in order to reduce the life cycle energy demand of residential buildings.
Abstract: The paper proposes a new concept in developing
collaborative design system. The concept framework involves
applying simulation of supply chain management to collaborative
design called – 'SCM–Based Design Tool'. The system is developed
particularly to support design activities and to integrate all facilities
together. The system is aimed to increase design productivity and
creativity. Therefore, designers and customers can collaborate by the
system since conceptual design. JAG: Jewelry Art Generator based
on artificial intelligence techniques is integrated into the system.
Moreover, the proposed system can support users as decision tool
and data propagation. The system covers since raw material supply
until product delivery. Data management and sharing information are
visually supported to designers and customers via user interface. The
system is developed on Web–assisted product development
environment. The prototype system is presented for Thai jewelry
industry as a system prototype demonstration, but applicable for
other industry.
Abstract: This paper proposes the application of a hierarchical fuzzy system (HFS) based on multi-input power system stabilizer (MPSS) and also Static Var Compensator (SVC) in multi-machine environment.The number of rules grows exponentially with the number of variables in a conventional fuzzy logic system. The proposed HFS method is developed to solve this problem. To reduce the number of rules the HFS consists of a number of low-dimensional fuzzy systems in a hierarchical structure. In fact, by using HFS the total number of involved rules increases only linearly with the number of input variables. In the MPSS, to have better efficiency an auxiliary signal of reactive power deviation (ΔQ) is added with ΔP+ Δω input type Power system stabilizer (PSS). Phasor model of SVC is described and used in this paper. The performances of MPSS, Conventional power system stabilizer (CPSS), hierarchical Fuzzy Multi-input Power System Stabilizer (HFMPSS) and the proposed method in damping inter-area mode of oscillation are examined in response to disturbances. By using digital simulations the comparative study is illustrated. It can be seen that the proposed PSS is performing satisfactorily within the whole range of disturbances.
Abstract: RF performance of SOI CMOS device has attracted
significant amount of interest recently. In order to improve RF
parameters, Strained Si/Relaxed Si0.8Ge0.2 investigated as a
replacement for Si technology .Enhancement of carrier mobility
associated with strain engineering makes Strained Si a promising
candidate for improving RF performance of CMOS technology.
From the simulation, the cut-off frequency is estimated to be 224
GHZ, whereas in SOI at similar bias is about 188 GHZ. Therefore,
Strained Si exhibits 19% improvement in cut-off frequency over
similar Si counterpart. In this paper, Ion/Ioff ratio is studied as one of
the key parameters in logic and digital application. Strained Si/SiGe
demonstrates better Ion/Ioff characteristic than SOI, in similar channel
length of 100 nm.Another important key analog figures of merit such
as Early Voltage (VEA) ,transconductance vs drain current (gm /Ids)
are studied. They introduce the efficiency of the devices to convert
dc power into ac frequency.
Abstract: Single-pole switching scheme is widely used in the
Extra High Voltage system. However, the substantial negativesequence
current injected to the turbine-generators imposes the
electromagnetic (E/M) torque of double system- frequency
components during the dead time (between single-pole clearing and
line reclosing). This would induce supersynchronous resonance
(SPSR) torque amplifications on low pressure turbine generator
blades and even lead to fatigue damage. This paper proposes the
design of a mechanical filter (MF) with natural frequency close to
double-system frequency. From the simulation results, it is found that
such a filter not only successfully damps the resonant effect, but also
has the characteristics of feasibility and compact.
Abstract: The modern telecommunication industry demands
higher capacity networks with high data rate. Orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising technique for high data
rate wireless communications at reasonable complexity in wireless
channels. OFDM has been adopted for many types of wireless
systems like wireless local area networks such as IEEE 802.11a, and
digital audio/video broadcasting (DAB/DVB). The proposed research
focuses on a concatenated coding scheme that improve the
performance of OFDM based wireless communications. It uses a
Redundant Residue Number System (RRNS) code as the outer code
and a convolutional code as the inner code. Here, a direct conversion
of analog signal to residue domain is done to reduce the conversion
complexity using sigma-delta based parallel analog-to-residue
converter. The bit error rate (BER) performances of the proposed
system under different channel conditions are investigated. These
include the effect of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN),
multipath delay spread, peak power clipping and frame start
synchronization error. The simulation results show that the proposed
RRNS-Convolutional concatenated coding (RCCC) scheme provides
significant improvement in the system performance by exploiting the
inherent properties of RRNS.
Abstract: With the implied volatility as an important factor in
financial decision-making, in particular in option pricing valuation,
and also the given fact that the pricing biases of Leland option pricing
models and the implied volatility structure for the options are related,
this study considers examining the implied adjusted volatility smile
patterns and term structures in the S&P/ASX 200 index options using
the different Leland option pricing models. The examination of the
implied adjusted volatility smiles and term structures in the
Australian index options market covers the global financial crisis in
the mid-2007. The implied adjusted volatility was found to escalate
approximately triple the rate prior the crisis.
Abstract: The operation performance of a valveless micro-pump
is strongly dependent on the shape of connected nozzle/diffuser and
Reynolds number. The aims of present work are to compare the
performance curves of micropump with the original straight
nozzle/diffuser and contoured nozzle/diffuser under different back
pressure conditions. The tested valveless micropumps are assembled
of five pieces of patterned PMMA plates with hot-embracing
technique. The structures of central chamber, the inlet/outlet
reservoirs and the connected nozzle/diffuser are fabricated with laser
cutting machine. The micropump is actuated with circular-type PZT
film embraced on the bottom of central chamber. The deformation of
PZT membrane with various input voltages is measured with a
displacement laser probe. A simple testing facility is also constructed
to evaluate the performance curves for comparison.
In order to observe the evaluation of low Reynolds number
multiple vortex flow patterns within the micropump during suction
and pumping modes, the unsteady, incompressible laminar
three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are
solved. The working fluid is DI water with constant thermo-physical
properties. The oscillating behavior of PZT film is modeled with the
moving boundary wall in way of UDF program. With the dynamic
mesh method, the instants pressure and velocity fields are obtained
and discussed.Results indicated that the volume flow rate is not
monotony increased with the oscillating frequency of PZT film,
regardless of the shapes of nozzle/diffuser. The present micropump
can generate the maximum volume flow rate of 13.53 ml/min when
the operation frequency is 64Hz and the input voltage is 140 volts.
The micropump with contoured nozzle/diffuser can provide 7ml/min
flow rate even when the back pressure is up to 400 mm-H2O. CFD
results revealed that the flow central chamber was occupied with
multiple pairs of counter-rotating vortices during suction and
pumping modes. The net volume flow rate over a complete
oscillating periodic of PZT
Abstract: Ethanol is generally used as a therapeutic reagent against Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC or hepatoma) worldwide, as it can induce Hepatocellular carcinoma cell apoptosis at low concentration through a multifactorial process regulated by several unknown proteins. This paper provides a simple and available proteomic strategy for exploring differentially expressed proteins in the apoptotic pathway. The appropriate concentrations of ethanol required to induce HepG2 cell apoptosis were first assessed by MTT assay, Gisma and fluorescence staining. Next, the central proteins involved in the apoptosis pathway processs were determined using 2D-PAGE, SDS-PAGE, and bio-software analysis. Finally the downregulation of two proteins, AFP and survivin, were determined by immunocytochemistry and reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) technology. The simple, useful method demonstrated here provides a new approach to proteomic analysis in key bio-regulating process including proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, immunity and metastasis.
Abstract: This paper reports work done to improve the modeling of complex processes when only small experimental data sets are available. Neural networks are used to capture the nonlinear underlying phenomena contained in the data set and to partly eliminate the burden of having to specify completely the structure of the model. Two different types of neural networks were used for the application of pulping problem. A three layer feed forward neural networks, using the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (PCG) methods were used in this investigation. Preconditioning is a method to improve convergence by lowering the condition number and increasing the eigenvalues clustering. The idea is to solve the modified odified problem M-1 Ax= M-1b where M is a positive-definite preconditioner that is closely related to A. We mainly focused on Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient- based training methods which originated from optimization theory, namely Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient with Fletcher-Reeves Update (PCGF), Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient with Polak-Ribiere Update (PCGP) and Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient with Powell-Beale Restarts (PCGB). The behavior of the PCG methods in the simulations proved to be robust against phenomenon such as oscillations due to large step size.
Abstract: We have measured the pressure drop and convective
heat transfer coefficient of water – based AL(25nm),AL2O3(30nm)
and CuO(50nm) Nanofluids flowing through a uniform heated
circular tube in the fully developed laminar flow regime. The
experimental results show that the data for Nanofluids friction factor
show a good agreement with analytical prediction from the Darcy's
equation for single-phase flow. After reducing the experimental
results to the form of Reynolds, Rayleigh and Nusselt numbers. The
results show the local Nusselt number and temperature have
distribution with the non-dimensional axial distance from the tube
entry. Study decided that thenNanofluid as Newtonian fluids through
the design of the linear relationship between shear stress and the rate
of stress has been the study of three chains of the Nanofluid with
different concentrations and where the AL, AL2O3 and CuO – water
ranging from (0.25 - 2.5 vol %). In addition to measuring the four
properties of the Nanofluid in practice so as to ensure the validity of
equations of properties developed by the researchers in this area and
these properties is viscosity, specific heat, and density and found that
the difference does not exceed 3.5% for the experimental equations
between them and the practical. The study also demonstrated that the
amount of the increase in heat transfer coefficient for three types of
Nano fluid is AL, AL2O3, and CuO – Water and these ratios are
respectively (45%, 32%, 25%) with insulation and without insulation
(36%, 23%, 19%), and the statement of any of the cases the best
increase in heat transfer has been proven that using insulation is
better than not using it. I have been using three types of Nano
particles and one metallic Nanoparticle and two oxide Nanoparticle
and a statement, whichever gives the best increase in heat transfer.
Abstract: 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) catalyzes the conversion of HMG-CoA to mevalonate using NADPH and the enzyme is involved in rate-controlling step of mevalonate. Inhibition of HMGR is considered as effective way to lower cholesterol levels so it is drug target to treat hypercholesterolemia, major risk factor of cardiovascular disease. To discover novel HMGR inhibitor, we performed structure-based pharmacophore modeling combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Four HMGR inhibitors were used for MD simulation and representative structure of each simulation were selected by clustering analysis. Four structure-based pharmacophore models were generated using the representative structure. The generated models were validated used in virtual screening to find novel scaffolds for inhibiting HMGR. The screened compounds were filtered by applying drug-like properties and used in molecular docking. Finally, four hit compounds were obtained and these complexes were refined using energy minimization. These compounds might be potential leads to design novel HMGR inhibitor.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose novel algorithmic models
based on information fusion and feature transformation in crossmodal
subspace for different types of residue features extracted from
several intra-frame and inter-frame pixel sub-blocks in video
sequences for detecting digital video tampering or forgery. An
evaluation of proposed residue features – the noise residue features
and the quantization features, their transformation in cross-modal
subspace, and their multimodal fusion, for emulated copy-move
tamper scenario shows a significant improvement in tamper detection
accuracy as compared to single mode features without transformation
in cross-modal subspace.
Abstract: This paper explores the effectiveness of machine
learning techniques in detecting firms that issue fraudulent financial
statements (FFS) and deals with the identification of factors
associated to FFS. To this end, a number of experiments have been
conducted using representative learning algorithms, which were
trained using a data set of 164 fraud and non-fraud Greek firms in the
recent period 2001-2002. The decision of which particular method to
choose is a complicated problem. A good alternative to choosing
only one method is to create a hybrid forecasting system
incorporating a number of possible solution methods as components
(an ensemble of classifiers). For this purpose, we have implemented
a hybrid decision support system that combines the representative
algorithms using a stacking variant methodology and achieves better
performance than any examined simple and ensemble method. To
sum up, this study indicates that the investigation of financial
information can be used in the identification of FFS and underline the
importance of financial ratios.
Abstract: In single trial analysis, when using Principal
Component Analysis (PCA) to extract Visual Evoked Potential
(VEP) signals, the selection of principal components (PCs) is an
important issue. We propose a new method here that selects only
the appropriate PCs. We denote the method as selective eigen-rate
(SER). In the method, the VEP is reconstructed based on the rate
of the eigen-values of the PCs. When this technique is applied on
emulated VEP signals added with background
electroencephalogram (EEG), with a focus on extracting the
evoked P3 parameter, it is found to be feasible. The improvement
in signal to noise ratio (SNR) is superior to two other existing
methods of PC selection: Kaiser (KSR) and Residual Power (RP).
Though another PC selection method, Spectral Power Ratio (SPR)
gives a comparable SNR with high noise factors (i.e. EEGs), SER
give more impressive results in such cases. Next, we applied SER
method to real VEP signals to analyse the P3 responses for
matched and non-matched stimuli. The P3 parameters extracted
through our proposed SER method showed higher P3 response for
matched stimulus, which confirms to the existing neuroscience
knowledge. Single trial PCA using KSR and RP methods failed to
indicate any difference for the stimuli.
Abstract: The P-Bigram method is a string comparison methods
base on an internal two characters-based similarity measure. The edit
distance between two strings is the minimal number of elementary
editing operations required to transform one string into the other. The
elementary editing operations include deletion, insertion, substitution
two characters. In this paper, we address the P-Bigram method to
sole the similarity problem in DNA sequence. This method provided
an efficient algorithm that locates all minimum operation in a string.
We have been implemented algorithm and found that our program
calculated that smaller distance than one string. We develop PBigram
edit distance and show that edit distance or the similarity and
implementation using dynamic programming. The performance of
the proposed approach is evaluated using number edit and percentage
similarity measures.
Abstract: Chronic conditions carry with them strong emotions
and often lead to charged relationships between patients and their
health providers and, by extension, patients and health researchers.
Persons are both autonomous and relational and a purely cognitive
model of autonomy neglects the social and relational basis of chronic
illness. Ensuring genuine informed consent in research requires a
thorough understanding of how participants perceive a study and
their reasons for participation. Surveys may not capture the
complexities of reasoning that underlies study participation.
Contradictory reasons for participation, for instance an initial claim
of altruism as rationale and a subsequent claim of personal benefit
(therapeutic misconception), affect the quality of informed consent.
Individuals apply principles through the filter of personal values and
lived experience. Authentic autonomy, and hence authentic consent
to research, occurs within the context of patients- unique life
narratives and illness experiences.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a family of algorithms based
on 3rd and 4th order cumulants for blind single-input single-output
(SISO) Non-Minimum Phase (NMP) Finite Impulse Response (FIR)
channel estimation driven by non-Gaussian signal. The input signal
represents the signal used in 10GBASE-T (or IEEE 802.3an-2006)
as a Tomlinson-Harashima Precoded (THP) version of random
Pulse-Amplitude Modulation with 16 discrete levels (PAM-16). The
proposed algorithms are tested using three non-minimum phase
channel for different Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNR) and for different
data input length. Numerical simulation results are presented to
illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithms.
Abstract: In any distributed systems, process scheduling plays a
vital role in determining the efficiency of the system. Process scheduling algorithms are used to ensure that the components of the
system would be able to maximize its utilization and able to complete all the processes assigned in a specified period of time.
This paper focuses on the development of comparative simulator for distributed process scheduling algorithms. The objectives of the works that have been carried out include the development of the
comparative simulator, as well as to implement a comparative study
between three distributed process scheduling algorithms; senderinitiated,
receiver-initiated and hybrid sender-receiver-initiated
algorithms. The comparative study was done based on the Average Waiting Time (AWT) and Average Turnaround Time (ATT) of the
processes involved. The simulation results show that the performance of the algorithms depends on the number of nodes in the system.
Abstract: In Korea, the technology of a load fo nuclear power plant has been being developed.
automatic controller which is able to control temperature and axial power distribution was developed. identification algorithm and a model predictive contact former transforms the nuclear reactor status into
numerically. And the latter uses them and ge
manipulated values such as two kinds of control ro
this automatic controller, the performance of a coperation was evaluated. As a result, the automatic generated model parameters of a nuclear react to nuclear reactor average temperature and axial power the desired targets during a daily load follow.