Abstract: A study concerning the photocatalytic decolourization
of Congo red (CR) dye, over artificial UV irradiation is presented.
Photocatalysts based on a commercial titanium dioxide (TiO2)
modified with transition metals (Ni, Cu and Zn) were used. The
dopage method used was wet impregnation. A TiO2 sample without
salt was subjected to the same hydrothermal treatment to be used as
reference. Congo red solutions to several pH conditions (natural and
basic) were used to evaluate photocatalytic performance of each
doped catalysts. Photodecolourization percentage was measured
spectrofotrometically after 3 h of treatment to 499 nm as response
variable. Kinetics investigations of photodegradation indicated that
reactions obey to Langmuir-Hinshelwood model and pseudo–first
order law. The rate constant studies of photocatalytic decolourization
reactions for Zn–TiO2 and Cu–TiO2 photocatalysts indicated that in
all cases the rate constant of the reaction was higher than that of TiO2
undoped. These results show that nature of the metal modifying the
TiO2 influence on the efficiency of the photocatalyst evaluated in
process. Ni does not present an additional effect compared with TiO2,
while Zn enhances the photoactivity due to its electronic properties.
Abstract: Object-oriented simulation is considered one of the most sophisticated techniques that has been widely used in planning, designing, executing and maintaining construction projects. This technique enables the modeler to focus on objects which is extremely important for thorough understanding of a system. Thus, identifying an object is an essential point of building a successful simulation model. In a maintenance process an object is a maintenance work order (MWO). This study demonstrates a maintenance simulation model for the building maintenance division of Saudi Consolidated Electric Company (SCECO) in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. The model focused on both types of maintenance processes namely: (1) preventive maintenance (PM) and (2) corrective maintenance (CM). It is apparent from the findings that object-oriented simulation is a good diagnostic and experimental tool. This is because problems, limitations, bottlenecks and so forth are easily identified. These features are very difficult to obtain when using other tools.
Abstract: Each new semiconductor technology node
brings smaller transistors and wires. Although this makes
transistors faster, wires get slower. In nano-scale regime, the
standard copper (Cu) interconnect will become a major hurdle
for FPGA interconnect due to their high resistivity and
electromigration. This paper presents the comprehensive
evaluation of mixed CNT bundle interconnects and
investigates their prospects as energy efficient and high speed
interconnect for future FPGA routing architecture. All
HSPICE simulations are carried out at operating frequency of
1GHz and it is found that mixed CNT bundle implemented in
FPGAs as interconnect can potentially provide a substantial
delay and energy reduction over traditional interconnects at
32nm process technology.
Abstract: In this study, cometabolic biodegradation of
chloroform was experimented with mixed cultures in the presence of
various organic solvents like methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, acetone,
acetonitrile and toluene as these are predominant discharges in
pharmaceutical industries. Toluene and acetone showed higher
specific chloroform degradation rate when compared to other
compounds. Cometabolic degradation of chloroform was further
confirmed by observation of free chloride ions in the medium. An
extended Haldane model, incorporating the inhibition due to
chloroform and the competitive inhibition between primary
substrates, was developed to predict the biodegradation of primary
substrates, cometabolic degradation of chloroform and the biomass
growth. The proposed model is based on the use of biokinetic
parameters obtained from single substrate degradation studies. The
model was able to satisfactorily predict the experimental results of
ternary and quaternary mixtures. The proposed model can be used for
predicting the performance of bioreactors treating discharges from
pharmaceutical industries.
Abstract: In cryptography, confusion and diffusion are very
important to get confidentiality and privacy of message in block
ciphers and stream ciphers. There are two types of network to provide
confusion and diffusion properties of message in block ciphers. They
are Substitution- Permutation network (S-P network), and Feistel
network. NLFS (Non-Linear feedback stream cipher) is a fast and
secure stream cipher for software application. NLFS have two modes
basic mode that is synchronous mode and self synchronous mode.
Real random numbers are non-deterministic. R-box (random box)
based on the dynamic properties and it performs the stochastic
transformation of data that can be used effectively meet the
challenges of information is protected from international destructive
impacts. In this paper, a new implementation of stochastic
transformation will be proposed.
Abstract: The challenge in the case of image authentication is that in many cases images need to be subjected to non malicious operations like compression, so the authentication techniques need to be compression tolerant. In this paper we propose an image authentication system that is tolerant to JPEG lossy compression operations. A scheme for JPEG grey scale images is proposed based on a data embedding method that is based on a secret key and a secret mapping vector in the frequency domain. An encrypted feature vector extracted from the image DCT coefficients, is embedded redundantly, and invisibly in the marked image. On the receiver side, the feature vector from the received image is derived again and compared against the extracted watermark to verify the image authenticity. The proposed scheme is robust against JPEG compression up to a maximum compression of approximately 80%,, but sensitive to malicious attacks such as cutting and pasting.
Abstract: The enzyme alkaline protease production was determined under
solid state fermentation using the soil bacteria Serratia marcescens
sp7. The maximum production was obtained from wheat bran
medium than ground nut shell and chemically defined medium. The
physiological fermentation factors such as pH of the medium (pH 8),
Temperature (40oC) and incubation time (48 hrs) played a vital role
in alkaline protease production in all the above. 100Mm NaCl has
given better resolution during elution of the enzymes. The enzyme
production was found to be associated with growth of the bacterial
culture.
Abstract: For the past couple of decades Weak signal detection
is of crucial importance in various engineering and scientific
applications. It finds its application in areas like Wireless
communication, Radars, Aerospace engineering, Control systems and
many of those. Usually weak signal detection requires phase sensitive
detector and demodulation module to detect and analyze the signal.
This article gives you a preamble to intrusion detection system which
can effectively detect a weak signal from a multiplexed signal. By
carefully inspecting and analyzing the respective signal, this
system can successfully indicate any peripheral intrusion. Intrusion
detection system (IDS) is a comprehensive and easy approach
towards detecting and analyzing any signal that is weakened and
garbled due to low signal to noise ratio (SNR). This approach
finds significant importance in applications like peripheral security
systems.
Abstract: Due to the fact that in the new century customers tend
to express globally increasing demands, networks of interconnected
businesses have been established in societies and the management of
such networks seems to be a major key through gaining competitive
advantages. Supply chain management encompasses such managerial
activities. Within a supply chain, a critical role is played by quality.
QFD is a widely-utilized tool which serves the purpose of not only
bringing quality to the ultimate provision of products or service
packages required by the end customer or the retailer, but it can also
initiate us into a satisfactory relationship with our initial customer;
that is the wholesaler. However, the wholesalers- cooperation is
considerably based on the capabilities that are heavily dependent on
their locations and existing circumstances. Therefore, it is undeniable
that for all companies each wholesaler possesses a specific
importance ratio which can heavily influence the figures calculated in
the House of Quality in QFD. Moreover, due to the competitiveness
of the marketplace today, it-s been widely recognized that
consumers- expression of demands has been highly volatile in
periods of production. Apparently, such instability and proneness to
change has been very tangibly noticed and taking it into account
during the analysis of HOQ is widely influential and doubtlessly
required. For a more reliable outcome in such matters, this article
demonstrates the application viability of Analytic Network Process
for considering the wholesalers- reputation and simultaneously
introduces a mortality coefficient for the reliability and stability of
the consumers- expressed demands in course of time. Following to
this, the paper provides further elaboration on the relevant
contributory factors and approaches through the calculation of such
coefficients. In the end, the article concludes that an empirical
application is needed to achieve broader validity.
Abstract: With continuous rise of oil price, how to develop alternative energy source has become a hot topic around the world. This study discussed the dynamic characteristics of an island power system operating under random wind speed lower than nominal wind
speeds of wind turbines. The system primarily consists of three diesel engine power generation systems, three constant-speed variable-pitch wind turbines, a small hydraulic induction generation system, and lumped static loads. Detailed models based on Matlab/Simulink were developed to cater for the dynamic behavior of the system. The results suggested this island power system can operate stably in this operational mode. This study can serve as an important reference for planning, operation, and further expansion of island power systems.
Abstract: Due to the dynamic nature of the Cloud, continuous monitoring of QoS requirements is necessary to manage the Cloud computing environment. The process of QoS monitoring and SLA violation detection consists of: collecting low and high level information pertinent to the service, analyzing the collected information, and taking corrective actions when SLA violations are detected. In this paper, we detail the architecture and the implementation of the first step of this process. More specifically, we propose an event-based approach to obtain run time information of services developed as BPEL processes. By catching particular events (i.e., the low level information), our approach recognizes the run-time execution path of a monitored service and uses the BPEL execution patterns to compute QoS of the composite service (i.e., the high level information).
Abstract: The main goal of data mining is to extract accurate, comprehensible and interesting knowledge from databases that may be considered as large search spaces. In this paper, a new, efficient type of Genetic Algorithm (GA) called uniform two-level GA is proposed as a search strategy to discover truly interesting, high-level prediction rules, a difficult problem and relatively little researched, rather than discovering classification knowledge as usual in the literatures. The proposed method uses the advantage of uniform population method and addresses the task of generalized rule induction that can be regarded as a generalization of the task of classification. Although the task of generalized rule induction requires a lot of computations, which is usually not satisfied with the normal algorithms, it was demonstrated that this method increased the performance of GAs and rapidly found interesting rules.
Abstract: The Canadian aerospace industry faces many
challenges. One of them is the difficulty in estimating costs. In
particular, the design effort required in a project impacts resource
requirements and lead-time, and consequently the final cost. This
paper presents the findings of a case study conducted for recognized
global leader in the design and manufacturing of aircraft engines. The
study models parametric cost estimation relationships to estimate the
design effort of integrated blade-rotor low-pressure compressor fans.
Several effort drivers are selected to model the relationship.
Comparative analyses of three types of models are conducted. The
model with the best accuracy and significance in design estimation is
retained.
Abstract: Impaired fertility may be the result of indirect
consumption of anti-fertility agents through food. Monosodium
glutamate (MSG) has been widely used as food additive, flavour
enhancer and included in vaccines. This study focuses in determining
the gonadotoxic and cytotoxic effect of MSG on selected sperm
parameters such as sperm viability, sperm membrane integrity and
testes cytoarchitecture of male mice via histological examination to
determine its effect on spermatogenesis. Twenty-four Mus musculus
were randomly divided into 4 groups and given intraperitoneal
injections (IP) daily for 14 days of different MSG concentrations at
250, 500 and 1000mg/kg MSG to body weight to induce obesity.
Saline was given to control group. Mice were sacrificed and analysis
revealed abnormalities in values for sperm parameters and damages
to testes cytoarchitecture of male mice. The results recorded
decreased viability (p0.05) with degenerative structures in seminiferous tubule of
testes. The results indicated various implications of MSG on male
mice reproductive system which has consequences in fertility
potential.
Abstract: Computer technology and the Internet have made a
breakthrough in the existence of data communication. This has
opened a whole new way of implementing steganography to ensure
secure data transfer. Steganography is the fine art of hiding the
information. Hiding the message in the carrier file enables the
deniability of the existence of any message at all. This paper designs
a stego machine to develop a steganographic application to hide data
containing text in a computer video file and to retrieve the hidden
information. This can be designed by embedding text file in a video
file in such away that the video does not loose its functionality using
Least Significant Bit (LSB) modification method. This method
applies imperceptible modifications. This proposed method strives
for high security to an eavesdropper-s inability to detect hidden
information.
Abstract: For micro-gyroscopes, the angular rate detection components have to oscillate forwards and backwards alternatively. An innovative design of micro-electromagnetic drive module is proposed to make a Π-type disc reciprocally and efficiently rotate within a certain of angular interval. Twelve Electromagnetic poles enclosing the thin disc are designed to provide the magnetic drive power. Isotropic etching technique is employed to fabricate the high-aspect-ratio trench, so that the contact angle of wire against trench can be increased and the potential defect of cavities and pores within the wire can be prevented. On the other hand, a Π-type thin disc is designed to conduct the pitch motion as an angular excitation, in addition to spinning, is exerted on the gyroscope. The efficacy of the micro-magnetic drive module is verified by the commercial software, Ansoft Maxewll. In comparison with the conventional planar windings in micro-scale systems, the magnetic drive force is increased by 150%.
Abstract: Rice husk is a lignocellulosic source that can be
converted to ethanol. Three hundreds grams of rice husk was mixed
with 1 L of 0.18 N sulfuric acid solutions then was heated in an
autoclave. The reaction was expected to be at constant temperature
(isothermal), but before that temperature was achieved, reaction has
occurred. The first liquid sample was taken at temperature of 140 0C
and repeated every 5 minute interval. So the data obtained are in the
regions of non-isothermal and isothermal. It was observed that the
degradation has significant effects on the ethanol production. The
kinetic constants can be expressed by Arrhenius equation with the
frequency factors for hydrolysis and sugar degradation of 1.58 x 105
min-1 and 2.29 x 108 L/mole-min, respectively, while the activation
energies are 64,350 J/mole and 76,571 J/mole. The highest ethanol
concentration from fermentation is 1.13% v/v, attained at 220 0C.
Abstract: The paper describes the carbonate microfacies identified in the Sinjar Formation (Late Paleocene–Early Eocene) cropping out in Qara Dagh Mountain, near Sulekan Village approximately 20km south–west of Sulaimani (Iraq). One section (62m thick) has been measured in the field and closely sampled to undertake detailed microfaciesal and micropalaeontological studies to determine the formation-s age and environment of deposition. A samples were collected illustrating all the lithological changes along the section. The limestone in the studied area is hard and extremely rich in large foraminifers (soritids, rotaliids, nummulites, miliolids) and green algae (dasycladales). The investigation of the thin sections allowed us to identify the carbonate microfacies (18 types and subtypes) and the micropaleontological association (foraminifers and green algae), to determine the age of formation and to reconstruct the paleoenvironment of deposition (fore-reef, reef, back-reef). Based on the field observations and the studied thin sections, we determined three Units of a carbonate platform (I, II and III) from the base to the top of the section: Unit I with coralgal associations, Unit II is dominated by larger foraminifers and haracterized by the absence of coralgal associations, while Unit III is dominated by small foraminifers (mostly miliolids), peloids and green algae. It is partially dolomitized.
Abstract: The area of Project Risk Management (PRM) has
been extensively researched, and the utilization of various tools and
techniques for managing risk in several industries has been
sufficiently reported. Formal and systematic PRM practices have
been made available for the construction industry. Based on such
body of knowledge, this paper tries to find out the global picture of
PRM practices and approaches with the help of a survey to look into
the usage of PRM techniques and diffusion of software tools, their
level of maturity, and their usefulness in the construction sector.
Results show that, despite existing techniques and tools, their usage is
limited: software tools are used only by a minority of respondents
and their cost is one of the largest hurdles in adoption. Finally, the
paper provides some important guidelines for future research
regarding quantitative risk analysis techniques and suggestions for
PRM software tools development and improvement.
Abstract: The paper contains an investigation of zeros Of Bargmann analytic representation. A brief introduction to Harmonic oscillator formalism is given. The Bargmann analytic representation has been studied. The zeros of Bargmann analytic function are considered. The Q or Husimi functions are introduced. The The Bargmann functions and the Husimi functions have the same zeros. The Bargmann functions f(z) have exactly q zeros. The evolution time of the zeros μn are discussed. Various examples have been given.