Abstract: Study fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of
microchannel in a primary Cross-corrugated(CC) surface recuperators
with corrugations and without corrugations, using CFD method. The
pitch-over-height ratios P/H of Cross-corrugated (CC) surface is from
1.5 to 4.0, included angles β=75º. The study was performed using CFD
software FLUENT to create unit model and simulate fluid
temperature, velocity, heat transfer coefficient and other parameters.
The results from these simulations were compared to experimental
data. It is concluded that, when the Reynolds number is constant, if
increase P/H, j/f will decrease, also the decreasing trend will become
weak. Under the condition of P/H=2.2, if increase the inlet velocity j/f
will decrease; in addition, the heat transfer performance in surface
with corrugation will increase 10% compared to that without
corrugation. The study results can provide the basis to optimize the
design, select the type of heat transfer surface, the scale structure, and
heat-transfer surface arrangement for recuperators.
Abstract: This study examines regional convergence in per capita personal income in the US and Canada. We find that the disparity in real per capita income levels across US states (Canadian provinces) has declined, but income levels are not identical. Income levels become more aligned once costs of living are accounted for in relative per capita income series. US states (Canadian provinces) converge at an annual rate of between 1.3% and 2.04% (between 2.15% and 2.37%). A pattern of σ and β-convergence in per capita personal income across regions evident over the entire sample period, is reversed over 1979-1989 (1976-1990) period. The reversal may be due to sectoral or region-specific shocks that have highly persistent effects. The latter explanation might be true for half of the US and most of Canada.
Abstract: This paper presents modern vibration signalprocessing
techniques for vehicle gearbox fault diagnosis, via the
wavelet analysis and the Squared Envelope (SE) technique. The
wavelet analysis is regarded as a powerful tool for the detection of
sudden changes in non-stationary signals. The Squared Envelope
(SE) technique has been extensively used for rolling bearing
diagnostics. In the present work a scheme of using the Squared
Envelope technique for early detection of gear tooth pit. The pitting
defect is manufactured on the tooth side of a fifth speed gear on the
intermediate shaft of a vehicle gearbox. The objective is to
supplement the current techniques of gearbox fault diagnosis based
on using the raw vibration and ordered signals. The test stand is
equipped with three dynamometers; the input dynamometer serves as
the internal combustion engine, the output dynamometers introduce
the load on the flanges of output joint shafts. The gearbox used for
experimental measurements is the type most commonly used in
modern small to mid-sized passenger cars with transversely mounted
powertrain and front wheel drive; a five-speed gearbox with final
drive gear and front wheel differential. The results show that the
approaches methods are effective for detecting and diagnosing
localized gear faults in early stage under different operation
conditions, and are more sensitive and robust than current gear
diagnostic techniques.
Abstract: Rice bran has been abandoned as agricultural waste for million tonnes per year in Thailand, therefore they have been proposed to be utilized as a rich carbon source in the production of bioethanol. Many toxic compounds are possibly released during the pretreatment of rice bran prior the fermentation process. This study aims to analyze on the availability of toxic compounds and the amount of glucose obtained from 2 different pretreatments using sulfuric acid and mixed cellulase enzymes (without and with delignification/ activated charcoal). The concentration of furfural, 5- hydroxymethyl furfural (5-HMF), levulinic acid, vanillin, syringaldehyde and4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (4-HB) and the percent acetic acid were found to be 0.0517 ± 0.049 mg/L, 0.032 ± 0.06 mg/L, 21074 ± 1685.62 mg/L, 126.265 ± 6.005 mg/L, 2.89 ± 0.30 mg/L, 0.37 ± 0.031mg/L and 0.72% under the pretreatment process without delignification/ activated charcoal treatment and 384.47 ± 99.02 g/L, 0.068 mg/L, 142107.62 ± 8664.6 mg/L, 0.19 mg/L, 5.43 ± 3.29 mg/L, 4.80 ± 0.76 mg/L and 0.254% under the pretreatment process with delignification/ activated charcoal treatment respectively. The presence of high concentration of acetic acid was found to impede the growth of Zymomonas mobilis strain TISTR 551 despite the present of high concentration of levulinic acid. Z. mobilis strain TISTR 551 was found to produce 8.96 ± 4.06 g/L of ethanol under 4 days fementation period in biofilm stage in which represented 40% theoretical yield.
Abstract: A biocompatible ferrofluid have been prepared by coprecipitation
of FeCl2.4H2O and FeCl3.6H2O under ultrasonic
irradiation and with NaOH as alkaline agent. Cystein was also used
as capping agent in the solution. Magnetic properties of the produced
ferrofluid were then determined by VSM test and magnetite
nanoparticles were characterized by XRD and TEM techniques. The
effect of surfactant to Fe ion weight ratio was also studied during this
project by using two different amount of Dextran. Results showed the
presence of a biocompatible superparamagnetic ferrofluid including
magnetite nanoparticles with particle size ranging under 20 nm. The
increase in the surfactant content results in the narrowing of the size
distribution and reduction of the particle size and more solution
stability.
Abstract: One of the important factors of cracks on the asphalt
pavements is bitumen aging that associated with the loss of volatile
components and oxidation of asphalt binder. This paper is about
effect of Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) polymer on asphalt aging
In order to decrease asphalt aging effects. For this purpose samples of
base bitumen and SBS modified bitumen aged according to the
rolling thin film oven test (RTFOT) and pressure aging vessel (PAV),
respectively. Properties of each sample were evaluated using Fourier
Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, n-heptane precipitation,
viscosity test, softening point test and penetration test. FT-IR
Analysis, showed lower oxidation of SBS modified bitumen than
base bitumen, after aging.
Abstract: Reasonably priced and well-constructed housing must
be an integral and element supporting a healthy society. The absence
of housing everyone in society can afford negatively affects the
people's health, education, ability to get jobs, develop their
community. Without access to decent housing, economic
development, integration of immigrants and inclusiveness, the society
is negatively impacted. Canada has a sterling record in creating
housing compared to many other nations around the globe. Canadian
housing gets support from a mature and responsive mortgage network
and a top-quality construction industry as well as safe and excellent
quality building materials that are readily available. Yet 1.7 million
Canadian households occupy substandard abodes. During the past
hundred years, Canada's government has made a wide variety of
attempts to provide decent residential facilities every Canadian can
afford. Despite these laudable efforts, today Canada is left with
housing that is inadequate for many Canadians. People who own their
housing are given all kinds of privileges and perks, while people with
relatively low incomes who rent their apartments or houses are
discriminated against.
To help solve these problems, zoning that is based on an
"inclusionary" philosophy is tool developed to help provide people
the affordable residences that they need. No, thirty years after its
introduction, this type of zoning has been shown effective in helping
build and provide Canadians with a houses or apartments they can
afford to pay for. Using this form of zoning can have different results
+depending on where and how it is used. After examining Canadian
affordable housing and four American cases where this type of
zoning was enforced in the USA, this makes various
recommendations for expanding Canadians' access to housing they
can afford.
Abstract: This paper examines and compares several of the most common real time methods. These methods are CORE, YSM, MASCOT, JSD, DARTS, RTSAD, ADARTS, CODARTS, HOOD, HRT-HOOD, ROOM, UML, UML-RT. The methods are compared using attributes like i) usability, ii) compositionality and iii) proper RT notations available. Finally some comparison results are given and discussed.
Abstract: In-vitro mouse co-culture of E14 embryonic stem cells
(ESCs) and OP9 stromal cells can recapitulate the earliest stages of
haematopoietic development, not accessible in human embryos,
supporting both haemogenic precursors and their primitive
haematopoietic progeny. 1α, 25-Dihydroxy-vitamin D3 (VD3) has
been demonstrated to be a powerful differentiation inducer for a wide
variety of neoplastic cells, and could enhance early differentiation of
ESCs into blood cells in E14/OP9 co-culture. This study aims to
ascertain whether VD3 is key in promoting differentiation and
suppressing proliferation, by separately investigating the effects of
VD3 on the proliferation phase of the E14 cell line and on stromal
OP9 cells.The results showed that VD3 inhibited the proliferation of
the cells in a dose-dependent manner, quantitatively by decreased cell
number, and qualitatively by alkaline-phosphatase staining that
revealed significant differences between VD3-treated and untreated
cells, characterised by decreased enzyme expression (colourless
cells). Propidium-iodide cell-cycle analyses showed no significant
percentage change in VD3-treated E14 and OP9 cells within their G
and S-phases, compared to the untreated controls, despite the
increased percentage of G-phase compared to the S-phase in a dosedependent
manner. These results with E14 and OP9 cells indicate that
adequate VD3 concentration enhances cellular differentiation and
inhibits proliferation. The results also suggest that if E14 and OP9
cells were co-cultured andVD3-treated, there would be furtherenhanced
differentiation of ESCs into blood cells.
Abstract: Video Mosaicing is the stitching of selected frames of
a video by estimating the camera motion between the frames and
thereby registering successive frames of the video to arrive at the
mosaic. Different techniques have been proposed in the literature for
video mosaicing. Despite of the large number of papers dealing with
techniques to generate mosaic, only a few authors have investigated
conditions under which these techniques generate good estimate of
motion parameters. In this paper, these techniques are studied under
different videos, and the reasons for failures are found. We propose
algorithms with incorporation of outlier removal algorithms for better
estimation of motion parameters.
Abstract: TiO2 supported nano-ZnO catalyst was prepared by
deposition-precipitation and tested for the trans-esterification
reaction of soybean oil to biodiesel. The TiO2 support stabilized the
nano-ZnO in a dispersed form with limited crystallite size compared
to the unsupported ZnO. The final ZnO dispersion and crystallite size
and the material transfer resistance in the catalyst significantly
influenced the supported nano-ZnO catalyst performance.
Abstract: Tourism is a phenomenon respected by the human communities since a long time ago. It has been evoloving continually based on a variety of social and economic needs and with respect to increasingly development of communication and considerable increase of tourist-s number and resulted exchange income has attained much out come such as employment for the communities. or the purpose of tourism development in this zone suitable times and locations need to be specified in the zone for the tourist-s attendance. One of the most important needs of the tourists is the knowledge of climate conditions and suitable times for sightseeing. In this survey, the climate trend condition has been identified for attending the tourists in Isfahan province using the modified tourism climate index (TCI) as well as SPSS, GIS, excel, surfer softwares. This index evoluates systematically the climate conditions for tourism affairs and activities using the monthly maximum mean parameters of daily temperature, daily mean temperature, minimum relative humidity, daily mean relative humidity, precipitation (mm), total sunny hours, wind speed and dust. The results obtaind using kendal-s correlation test show that the months January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December are significant and have an increasing trend that indicates the best condition for attending the tourists. S, P, T mean , T max and dust are estimated from 1976-2005 and do kendal-s correlation test again to see which parameter has been effective. Based on the test, we also observed on the effective parameters that the rate of dust in February, March, April, May, June, July, August, October and November is decreasing and precipitation in September and January is increasing and also the radiation rate in May and August is increasing that indicate a better condition of convenience. Maximum temperature in June is also decreasing. Isfahan province has two spring and fall peaks and the best places for tourism are in the north and western areas.
Abstract: Transferring information developed by other peoples is an ordinary event that happens during daily conversations, for example when employees sea each other in the organization, or when they are having lunch together, or attending a meeting, they use to talk about their experience, and discuss about their current projects, and talk about their successes over some specific problems. Despite the potential value of leveraging organizational memory and expertise by using OMS and ER, still small organizations haven-t been able to capitalize on its promised value. Each organization has its internal knowledge management system, in some of organizations the system face the lack of expert people to save their experience in the repository and in another hand on some other organizations there are lots of expert people but the organization doesn-t have the maximum use of their knowledge.
Abstract: It has been always observed that the effectiveness of
MIS as a support tool for management decisions degenerate after
time of implementation, despite the substantial investments being
made. This is true for organizations at the initial stages of MIS
implementations, manual or computerized. A survey of a sample of
middle to top managers in business and government institutions was
made. A large ratio indicates that the MIS has lost its impact on the
day-to-day operations, and even the response lag time expands
sometimes indefinitely. The data indicates an infant mortality
phenomenon of the bathtub model. Reasons may be monotonous
nature of MIS delivery, irrelevance, irreverence, timeliness, and lack
of adequate detail. All those reasons collaborate to create a degree of
degeneracy. We investigate and model as a bathtub model the
phenomenon of MIS degeneracy that inflicts the MIS systems and
renders it ineffective. A degeneracy index is developed to identify
the status of the MIS system and possible remedies to prevent the
onset of total collapse of the system to the point of being useless.
Abstract: For the first time since 1940 and presentation of
theodorson-s theory, distribution of thrust, torque and efficiency
along the blade of a counter rotating propeller axial fan was studied
with a novel method in this research. A constant chord, constant
pitch symmetric fan was investigated with Reynolds Stress
Turbulence method in this project and H.E.S. method was utilized to
obtain distribution profiles from C.F.D. tests outcome. C.F.D. test
results were validated by estimation from Playlic-s analytical method.
Final results proved ability of H.E.S. method to obtain distribution
profiles from C.F.D test results and demonstrated interesting facts
about effects of solidity and differences between distributions in front
and rear section.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a method of alter duration in
frequency domain that control prosody in real time after pitch
alteration. If there has a method to alteration duration freely among
prosody information, that may used in several fields such as speech
impediment person's pronunciation proof reading or language study.
The pitch alteration method used control prosody altered by PSOLA
synthesis method which is in time domain processing method.
However, the duration of pitch alteration speech is changed by the
frequency domain. In this paper, we altered the duration with the
method of duration alteration by Fast Fourier Transformation in
frequency domain. Consequently, the intelligibility of the pitch and
duration are controlled has a slight decrease than the case when only
pitch is changed, but the proposed algorithm obtained the higher MOS
score about naturalness.
Abstract: Operational risk has become one of the most discussed topics in the financial industry in the recent years. The reasons for this attention can be attributed to higher investments in information systems and technology, the increasing wave of mergers and acquisitions and emergence of new financial instruments. In addition, the New Basel Capital Accord (known as Basel II) demands a capital requirement for operational risk and further motivates financial institutions to more precisely measure and manage this type of risk. The aim of this paper is to shed light on main characteristics of operational risk management and common applied methods: scenario analysis, key risk indicators, risk control self assessment and loss distribution approach.
Abstract: The Zung self-depression scale and Beck Anxiety Inventory were used to study the depression and anxiety levels of Armenian Crohn's disease patients, as well as to reveal the relation between emotional status and placebo effect of these patients. Despite of registered high levels of depression and anxiety, the high placebo rate during investigations was described. The importance of use of psychotherapies for optimal outcomes during treatments of Crohn's disease is obvious.
Abstract: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a
new trend of business governance. Few research studies on CSR
published in Taiwanese academia, especially for medical settings, we
were interested in probing the relationship of CSR and financial
performance in medical settings in Taiwan. The results illustrate that:
(1) a time delay effect exists with a lag between CSR effort and its
performance in the hospital foundation, (2) input into the internal
domains of CSR will be helpful to improve employee productivity in
the hospital foundation, and (3) input into the external domains of CSR
will be helpful in improving financial performance in the hospital
foundation. This study overviews CSR in the medical industry in
Taiwan and the relationship of CSR and financial performance.
Discussions of possible implications from the study results are applied
to consult the CSR concept that will be transferred into a business
strategy for the organization manager.
Abstract: Many studies have been conducted for derivation of
attenuation relationships worldwide, however few relationships have
been developed to use for the seismic region of Iranian plateau and
only few of these studies have been conducted for derivation of
attenuation relationships for parameters such as uniform duration.
Uniform duration is the total time during which the acceleration is
larger than a given threshold value (default is 5% of PGA). In this
study, the database was same as that used previously by Ghodrati
Amiri et al. (2007) with same correction methods for earthquake
records in Iran. However in this study, records from earthquakes with
MS< 4.0 were excluded from this database, each record has
individually filtered afterward, and therefore the dataset has been
expanded. These new set of attenuation relationships for Iran are
derived based on tectonic conditions with soil classification into rock
and soil. Earthquake parameters were chosen to be
hypocentral distance and magnitude in order to make it easier to use
the relationships for seismic hazard analysis. Tehran is the capital
city of Iran wit ha large number of important structures. In this study,
a probabilistic approach has been utilized for seismic hazard
assessment of this city. The resulting uniform duration against return
period diagrams are suggested to be used in any projects in the area.