Abstract: The compression-absorption heat pump (C-A HP), one
of the promising heat recovery equipments that make process hot
water using low temperature heat of wastewater, was evaluated by
computer simulation. A simulation program was developed based on
the continuity and the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Both
the absorber and desorber were modeled using UA-LMTD method. In
order to prevent an unfeasible temperature profile and to reduce
calculation errors from the curved temperature profile of a mixture,
heat loads were divided into lots of segments. A single-stage
compressor was considered. A compressor cooling load was also
taken into account. An isentropic efficiency was computed from the
map data. Simulation conditions were given based on the system
consisting of ordinarily designed components. The simulation results
show that most of the total entropy generation occurs during the
compression and cooling process, thus suggesting the possibility that
system performance can be enhanced if a rectifier is introduced.
Abstract: This article presents the developments of efficient
algorithms for tablet copies comparison. Image recognition has
specialized use in digital systems such as medical imaging,
computer vision, defense, communication etc. Comparison between
two images that look indistinguishable is a formidable task. Two
images taken from different sources might look identical but due to
different digitizing properties they are not. Whereas small variation
in image information such as cropping, rotation, and slight
photometric alteration are unsuitable for based matching
techniques. In this paper we introduce different matching
algorithms designed to facilitate, for art centers, identifying real
painting images from fake ones. Different vision algorithms for
local image features are implemented using MATLAB. In this
framework a Table Comparison Computer Tool “TCCT" is
designed to facilitate our research. The TCCT is a Graphical Unit
Interface (GUI) tool used to identify images by its shapes and
objects. Parameter of vision system is fully accessible to user
through this graphical unit interface. And then for matching, it
applies different description technique that can identify exact
figures of objects.
Abstract: Potato is one of the main components of warm meals in Latvia. Consumption of fried potatoes in Latvia is the highest comparing to Nordic and other Baltic countries. Therefore acrylamide (AA) intake coming from fried potatoes in population might be high as well. The aim of the research was to determine AA content in traditionally cooked potatoes bred and cultivated in Latvia. Five common Latvian potato varieties were selected: Lenora, Brasla, Imanta, Zile and Madara. A two-year research was conducted during two periods: just after harvesting and after six months of storage. The following cooking methods were used: shallow frying (150 ± 5 °C); deep-fat frying (180 ± 5 °C) and roasting (210 ± 5 °C). Time and temperature was recorded during frying. AA was extracted from potatoes by solid phase extraction and AA content was determined by LC-MS/MS. AA content significantly differs (p
Abstract: In this paper we propose a Multiple Description Image Coding(MDIC) scheme to generate two compressed and balanced rates descriptions in the wavelet domain (Daubechies biorthogonal (9, 7) wavelet) using pairwise correlating transform optimal and application method for Generalized Multiple Description Coding (GMDC) to image coding in the wavelet domain. The GMDC produces statistically correlated streams such that lost streams can be estimated from the received data. Our performance test shown that the proposed method gives more improvement and good quality of the reconstructed image when the wavelet coefficients are normalized by Gaussian Scale Mixture (GSM) model then the Gaussian one ,.
Abstract: Medical Tourism is a new development in Taiwan
recently. The willingness and barriers of potential tourists from
China to participate medical tourism are studied. A questionnaire
survey is conducted and the SPSS software is used to analyze data.
The results show that under one fifth of respondents express full
medical tourism participation willingness. Among travel barriers
toward medical tourism, “insufficient information of medical tourism
trip", “not enough time", “no companion", “worrying about
unsatisfied itinerary." are perceived the most important barriers.
Abstract: The increasing demand for sufficient and clean
energy forces industrial and service companies to align their strategies towards efficient consumption. This trend refers also to the
residential building sector. There, large amounts of energy consumption are caused by house and facility heating. Many of the
operated hot water heating systems lack hydraulic balanced working
conditions for heat distribution and –transmission and lead to
inefficient heating. Through hydraulic balancing of heating systems,
significant energy savings for primary and secondary energy can be
achieved. This paper addresses the use of KNX-technology (Smart
Buildings) in residential buildings to ensure a dynamic adaption of
hydraulic system's performance, in order to increase the heating
system's efficiency. In this paper, the procedure of heating system
segmentation into hydraulically independent units (meshes) is
presented. Within these meshes, the heating valve are addressed and
controlled by a central facility server. Feasibility criteria towards
such drivers will be named. The dynamic hydraulic balance is
achieved by positioning these valves according to heating loads, that
are generated from the temperature settings in the corresponding
rooms. The energetic advantages of single room heating control
procedures, based on the application FacilityManager, is presented.
Abstract: Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) has been
proposed to provide reliable transport of real-time communications.
Due to its attractive features, such as multi-streaming and multihoming,
the SCTP is often expected to be an alternative protocol
for TCP and UDP. In the original SCTP standard, the secondary path
is mainly regarded as a redundancy. Recently, most of researches
have focused on extending the SCTP to enable a host to send its
packets to a destination over multiple paths simultaneously. In order
to transfer packets concurrently over the multiple paths, the SCTP
should be well designed to avoid unnecessary fast retransmission
and the mis-estimation of congestion window size through the paths.
Therefore, we propose an Enhanced Cooperative ACK SCTP (ECASCTP)
to improve the path recovery efficiency of multi-homed host
which is under concurrent multiple transfer mode. We evaluated the
performance of our proposed scheme using ns-2 simulation in terms
of cwnd variation, path recovery time, and goodput. Our scheme
provides better performance in lossy and path asymmetric networks.
Abstract: The present microfluidic study is emphasizing the flow behavior within a Y shape micro-bifurcation in two similar flow configurations. We report here a numerical and experimental investigation on the velocity profiles evolution and secondary flows, manifested at different Reynolds numbers (Re) and for two different boundary conditions. The experiments are performed using special designed setup based on optical microscopic devices. With this setup, direct visualizations and quantitative measurements of the path-lines are obtained. A Micro-PIV measurement system is used to obtain velocity profiles distributions in a spatial evolution in the main flows domains. The experimental data is compared with numerical simulations performed with commercial computational code FLUENT in a 3D geometry with the same dimensions as the experimental one. The numerical flow patterns are found to be in good agreement with the experimental manifestations.
Abstract: Leptospirosis occurs worldwide (except the
poles of the earth), urban and rural areas, developed and
developing countries, especially in Thailand. It can be
transmitted to the human by rats through direct and indirect
ways. Human can be infected by either touching the infected rats
or contacting with water, soil containing urine from the infected
rats through skin, eyes and nose. The data of the people who
are infected with this disease indicates that most of the
patients are adults. The transmission of this disease is studied
through mathematical model. The population is separated into human
and rat. The human is divided into two classes, namely juvenile
and adult. The model equation is constructed for each class. The
standard dynamical modeling method is then used for
analyzing the behaviours of solutions. In addition, the
conditions of the parameters for the disease free and endemic
states are obtained. Numerical solutions are shown to support the
theoretical predictions. The results of this study guide the way to
decrease the disease outbreak.
Abstract: The photochemical and photo-Fenton oxidation of 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol was performed in a batch reactor, at room temperature, using UV radiation, H2O2 as oxidant, and Fenton-s reagent. The effect of the oxidative agent-s initial concentration was investigated as well as the effect of the initial concentration of Fe(II) by following the target compound degradation, the total organic carbon removal and the chloride ion production. Also, from the kinetic analysis conducted and proposed reaction scheme it was deduced that the addition of Fe(II) significantly increases the production and the further oxidation of the chlorinated intermediates.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of
perceived social support and stress on the coping capability and level
of depression of foreign and local students in Malaysia. Using
convenience sampling, 200 students from three universities in
Selangor, Malaysia participated in the study. The results of this study
revealed that there was a significant relationship between perceived
social support and coping capability. It is also found that there is a
negative relationship between coping capability and depression.
Further, stress and depression are positively related whereas stress
and coping capability are negatively related. Lastly, there is no
significant difference for the stress level and coping capability
amongst local and foreign students.
Abstract: A new dual-fluid concept was studied that could eventually find application for cold-gas propulsion for small space satellites or other constant flow applications. In basic form, the concept uses two different refrigerant working fluids, each having a different saturation vapor pressure. The higher vapor pressure refrigerant remains in the saturation phase and is used to pressurize the lower saturation vapor pressure fluid (the propellant) which remains in the compressed liquid phase. A demonstration thruster concept based on this principle was designed and built to study its operating characteristics. An automotive-type electronic fuel injector was used to meter and deliver the propellant. Ejected propellant mass and momentum were measured for several combinations of refrigerants and hydrocarbon fluids. The thruster has the advantage of delivering relatively large total impulse at low tank pressure within a small volume.
Abstract: The human head representations usually are based on
the morphological – structural components of a real model. Over the
time became more and more necessary to achieve full virtual models
that comply very rigorous with the specifications of the human
anatomy. Still, making and using a model perfectly fitted with the
real anatomy is a difficult task, because it requires large hardware
resources and significant times for processing. That is why it is
necessary to choose the best compromise solution, which keeps the
right balance between the details perfection and the resources
consumption, in order to obtain facial animations with real-time
rendering. We will present here the way in which we achieved such a
3D system that we intend to use as a base point in order to create
facial animations with real-time rendering, used in medicine to find
and to identify different types of pathologies.
Abstract: In the present investigation, H13 tool steel has been
deposited on copper alloy substrate using both CO2 and diode laser.
A detailed parametric analysis has been carried out in order to find
out optimum processing zone for coating defect free H13 tool steel
on copper alloy substrate. Followed by parametric optimization, the
microstructure and microhardness of the deposited clads have been
evaluated. SEM micrographs revealed dendritic microstructure in
both clads. However, the microhardness of CO2 laser deposited clad
was much higher compared to diode laser deposited clad.
Abstract: This paper aims to initiate an analytical account of the
issues of compliance with economy condition for incentive pay
system application in an enterprise. Economy is considered one of the
conditions for effective incentive pay system application another
condition being the achievement of desired efficiency level of the
incentive pay system application. Bonus pay system is discussed as
an example.
Abstract: Perceptions of quality from both designers and users
perspective have now stretched beyond the traditional usability,
incorporating abstract and subjective concepts. This has led to a shift
in human computer interaction research communities- focus; a shift
that focuses on achieving user experience (UX) by not only fulfilling
conventional usability needs but also those that go beyond them. The
term UX, although widely spread and given significant importance,
lacks consensus in its unified definition. In this paper, we survey
various UX definitions and modeling frameworks and examine them
as the foundation for proposing a UX evolution lifecycle framework
for understanding UX in detail. In the proposed framework we identify
the building blocks of UX and discuss how UX evolves in various
phases. The framework can be used as a tool to understand experience
requirements and evaluate them, resulting in better UX design and
hence improved user satisfaction.
Abstract: Covering-based rough sets is an extension of rough
sets and it is based on a covering instead of a partition of the
universe. Therefore it is more powerful in describing some practical
problems than rough sets. However, by extending the rough sets,
covering-based rough sets can increase the roughness of each model
in recognizing objects. How to obtain better approximations from
the models of a covering-based rough sets is an important issue.
In this paper, two concepts, determinate elements and indeterminate
elements in a universe, are proposed and given precise definitions
respectively. This research makes a reasonable refinement of the
covering-element from a new viewpoint. And the refinement may
generate better approximations of covering-based rough sets models.
To prove the theory above, it is applied to eight major coveringbased
rough sets models which are adapted from other literature.
The result is, in all these models, the lower approximation increases
effectively. Correspondingly, in all models, the upper approximation
decreases with exceptions of two models in some special situations.
Therefore, the roughness of recognizing objects is reduced. This
research provides a new approach to the study and application of
covering-based rough sets.
Abstract: In this work, are discussed two formulations of the boundary element method - BEM to perform linear bending analysis of plates reinforced by beams. Both formulations are based on the Kirchhoff's hypothesis and they are obtained from the reciprocity theorem applied to zoned plates, where each sub-region defines a beam or a slab. In the first model the problem values are defined along the interfaces and the external boundary. Then, in order to reduce the number of degrees of freedom kinematics hypothesis are assumed along the beam cross section, leading to a second formulation where the collocation points are defined along the beam skeleton, instead of being placed on interfaces. On these formulations no approximation of the generalized forces along the interface is required. Moreover, compatibility and equilibrium conditions along the interface are automatically imposed by the integral equation. Thus, these formulations require less approximation and the total number of the degree s of freedom is reduced. In the numerical examples are discussed the differences between these two BEM formulations, comparing as well the results to a well-known finite element code.
Abstract: In the proposed method for Web page-ranking, a
novel theoretic model is introduced and tested by examples of order
relationships among IP addresses. Ranking is induced using a
convexity feature, which is learned according to these examples
using a self-organizing procedure. We consider the problem of selforganizing
learning from IP data to be represented by a semi-random
convex polygon procedure, in which the vertices correspond to IP
addresses. Based on recent developments in our regularization
theory for convex polygons and corresponding Euclidean distance
based methods for classification, we develop an algorithmic
framework for learning ranking functions based on a Computational
Geometric Theory. We show that our algorithm is generic, and
present experimental results explaining the potential of our approach.
In addition, we explain the generality of our approach by showing its
possible use as a visualization tool for data obtained from diverse
domains, such as Public Administration and Education.
Abstract: With the intention of screening for heavy metal
tolerance, a number of bacteria were isolated and characterized from
a pristine soil. Two Gram positive isolates were identified as
Paenibacillus sp. and Bacillus thuringeinsis. Tolerance of Cd2+, Cu2+
and Zn2+ by these bacteria was studied and found that both bacteria
were highly sensitive to Cu2+ compared to other two metals. Both
bacteria showed the same pattern of metal tolerance in the order Zn+
> Cd2+ > Cu2+. When the metal tolerance in both bacteria was
compared, Paenibacillus sp. showed the highest sensitivity to Cu2+
where as B. thuringiensis showed highest sensitivity to Cd2+ and Zn2+
.These findings revealed the potential of Paenibacillus sp. in
developing a biosensor to detect Cu2+ in environmental samples.