Abstract: This paper presents the effect of electric field
distribution which is an electric field intensity analysis. Consideration
of the dielectric heating of grains and insects, the rice and rice
weevils are utilized for dielectric heating analysis. Furthermore, this
analysis compares the effect of electric field distribution in rice and
rice weevil. In this simulation, two copper plates are used to generate
the electric field for dielectric heating system and put the rice
materials between the copper plates. The simulation is classified in
two cases, which are case I one rice weevil is placed in the rice and
case II two rice weevils are placed at different position in the rice.
Moreover, the probes are located in various different positions on
plate. The power feeding on this plate is optimized by using CST EM
studio program of 1000 watt electrical power at 39 MHz resonance
frequency. The results of two cases are indicated that the most
electric field distribution and intensity are occurred on the rice and
rice weevils at the near point of the probes. Moreover, the heat is
directed to the rice weevils more than the rice. When the temperature
of rice and rice weevils are calculated and compared, the rice weevils
has the temperature more than rice is about 41.62 Celsius degrees.
These results can be applied for the dielectric heating applications to
eliminate insect.
Abstract: The objectives of the research are to study the existing agricultural patterns, and to evaluate the sustainability of agricultural on economic, social and environmental aspects. The samplings were the representatives of the agriculturist group from Ban Paew district, Samut Sakorn province by purposive sampling method of 30 households. The tools being used were interview forms together with the Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and the Participation Rural Appraisal (PRA). The information collected was analyzed with the principle of Content Analysis andusing Descriptive Statistics. After that all the information gotten was analyze the sustainability on the household level and village level. The research result can be concluded as follows: The agricultural Patterns: For most of the cultivation main crop was fruit trees planted and the supplement crop was around the patch or added other plants in the trenches. There were trenches for the cultivating water. The product distribution was by selling (97.5%) and the selling to middle man was the highest number (62.5%). Evaluating the sustainability of the agricultural by the indicators which were appropriate to the area: For the agricultural sustainability on the household level it was found that only one household had sustainable, others household had conditioned sustainable. For on the village level it was found that the sustainability on the issue of agricultural knowledge training had the lowest level (Sustainability index = 31.67%). Secondary was the acknowledging about soil information (Sustainability index = 35.0), and the household labors on agriculture, net return over cash cost (Sustainability index = 55.0%) respectively. Performance percentage is 48.81 %. It was brought to the conclusion that this area did not have the agricultural sustainability.
Abstract: This paper proposes a GLMM with spatial and
temporal effects for malaria data in Thailand. A Bayesian method is
used for parameter estimation via Gibbs sampling MCMC. A
conditional autoregressive (CAR) model is assumed to present the
spatial effects. The temporal correlation is presented through the
covariance matrix of the random effects. The malaria quarterly data
have been extracted from the Bureau of Epidemiology, Ministry of
Public Health of Thailand. The factors considered are rainfall and
temperature. The result shows that rainfall and temperature are
positively related to the malaria morbidity rate. The posterior means
of the estimated morbidity rates are used to construct the malaria
maps. The top 5 highest morbidity rates (per 100,000 population) are
in Trat (Q3, 111.70), Chiang Mai (Q3, 104.70), Narathiwat (Q4,
97.69), Chiang Mai (Q2, 88.51), and Chanthaburi (Q3, 86.82).
According to the DIC criterion, the proposed model has a better
performance than the GLMM with spatial effects but without
temporal terms.
Abstract: Power, responsibility sharing, and democratic decision-making are the central ethos to co-management. It is assumed that involving local community in the decision-making process can create a sense of ownership and responsibility of that community and motivate the community towards collective action. But this paper demonstrated that the process to involve local community is not simple and straightforward as it is influenced by structural aspects, power relations among the actors, and social embedded institutions. These factors shape the process in that way who will participate, how they will participate and how the local community maneuvers their agency in the decision-making process. To grasp the complexities that materialize in the process of participation and to understand the inclusionary and exclusionary nature of participation, this paper examines the subjective understanding of different stakeholders concerning participation and furthermore observes the enabling or constraining factors that affect the community to exercise their agency.
Abstract: This paper presents a comparative study between two
neural network models namely General Regression Neural Network
(GRNN) and Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) are used
to estimate radial overcut produced during Electrical Discharge
Machining (EDM). Four input parameters have been employed:
discharge current (Ip), pulse on time (Ton), Duty fraction (Tau) and
discharge voltage (V). Recently, artificial intelligence techniques, as
it is emerged as an effective tool that could be used to replace
time consuming procedures in various scientific or engineering
applications, explicitly in prediction and estimation of the complex
and nonlinear process. The both networks are trained, and the
prediction results are tested with the unseen validation set of the
experiment and analysed. It is found that the performance of both the
networks are found to be in good agreement with average percentage
error less than 11% and the correlation coefficient obtained for the
validation data set for GRNN and BPNN is more than 91%. However,
it is much faster to train GRNN network than a BPNN and GRNN is
often more accurate than BPNN. GRNN requires more memory space
to store the model, GRNN features fast learning that does not require
an iterative procedure, and highly parallel structure. GRNN networks
are slower than multilayer perceptron networks at classifying new
cases.
Abstract: A vehicle driving with an Adaptive Cruise Control
System (ACC) is usually controlled decentrally, based on the
information of radar systems and in some publications based on
C2X-Communication (CACC) to guarantee stable platoons. In this
paper we present a Model Predictive Control (MPC) design of a
centralized, server-based ACC-System, whereby the vehicular platoon
is modeled and controlled as a whole. It is then proven that the
proposed MPC design guarantees asymptotic stability and hence
string stability of the platoon. The Networked MPC design is
chosen to be able to integrate system constraints optimally as well
as to reduce the effects of communication delay and packet loss.
The performance of the proposed controller is then simulated and
analyzed in an LTE communication scenario using the LTE/EPC
Network Simulator LENA, which is based on the ns-3 network
simulator.
Abstract: Modelling and simulation provide effective way to
acquire engineering experience. An active approach to modelling and
simulation proposed in the paper involves, beside the compulsory
part directed by the traditional step-by-step instructions, the new
optional part basing on the human’s habits to design thus stimulating
the efforts towards success in active learning. Computer exercises as
a part of engineering curriculum incorporate a set of effective
activities. In addition to the knowledge acquired in theoretical
training, the described educational arrangement helps to develop
problem solutions, computation skills, and experimentation
performance along with enhancement of practical experience and
qualification.
Abstract: Gypsum is being applied to ameliorate subsoil acidity and to overcome the problem of very slow lime movement from surface lime applications. Reduced Crude Conversion Spent Lime (RCCSL) containing anhydrite was evaluated for use as a liming material with specific consideration given to the movement of sulfate into the acid subsoil. Agricultural lime and RCCSL were applied at 0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 times the lime requirement of 6.72 Mg ha-1 to an acid Trappist silt loam (TypicHapuldult). Corn [Zea mays (L.)]was grown following lime material application and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]was grown in the second year.Soil pH increased rapidly with the addition of the RCCSL material. Over time there was no difference in soil pH between the materials but there was with increasing rate. None of the observed changes in plant nutrient concentration had an impact on yield. Grain yield was higher for the RCCSL amended treatments in the first year but not in the second. There was a significant increase in soybean grain yield from the full lime requirement treatments over no lime.
Abstract: This research studies the electroplating of zinc coating
in the zinc chloride bath mixed with supercritical CO2. The sodium
fluoride (NaF) was used as the bath additive to change the structure
and property of the coating, and therefore the roughness and corrosion
resistance of the zinc coating was investigated. The surface
characterization was performed using optical microscope (OM), X-ray
diffractometer (XRD), and α-step profilometer. Moreover, the
potentiodynamic polarization measurement in 3% NaCl solution was
employed in the corrosion resistance evaluation. Because of the
emulsification of the electrolyte mixed in Sc-CO2, the electroplated
zinc produced the coating with smoother surface, smaller grain, better
throwing power and higher corrosion resistance. The main role played
by the NaF was to reduce the coating’s roughness and grain size. In
other words, the CO2 mixed with the electrolyte under the supercritical
condition performed the similar function as brighter and leveler in zinc
electroplating to enhance the throwing power and corrosion resistance
of the coating.
Abstract: Regular exercise promotes reduction in blood pressure, reduction in body weight and it also helps to increase in insulin sensitivity. Participation in physical activity should always be linked to medical screening which can reveal serious medical problems. One of them is high blood pressure. Hypertension is risk factor for one billion people worldwide and the highest prevalence is found in Africa. Another component of hypertension is that people who suffer from hypertension have no symptoms. It is estimated that reduction of 3mm Hg in Systolic Blood Pressure decreases cardiac morbidity at least 5%. The most of the guidelines suggest aerobic exercise in a prevention of cardiovascular diseases. On the other hand, it is important to emphasize the impact of resistance training. Even, it was found higher effect for reduction on the level of systolic blood pressure than aerobic exercise.
Abstract: Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) is a special case of Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) used to establish communications and exchange information among nearby vehicles and between vehicles and nearby fixed infrastructure. VANET is seen as a promising technology used to provide safety, efficiency, assistance and comfort to the road users. Routing is an important issue in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network to find and maintain communication between vehicles due to the highly dynamic topology, frequently disconnected network and mobility constraints.
This paper evaluates the performance of two most popular proactive routing protocols OLSR and DSDV in real city traffic scenario on the basis of three metrics namely Packet delivery ratio, throughput and average end to end delay by varying vehicles density and transmission range.
Abstract: Biopharmaceuticals manufacturing is one of the major economic activities worldwide. Ninety-three percent of the workforce in a biomanufacturing environment concentrates in production-related areas. As a result, strategic collaborations between industry and academia are crucial to ensure the availability of knowledgeable workforce needed in an economic region to become competitive in biomanufacturing. In the past decade, our institution has been a key strategic partner with multinational biotechnology companies in supplying science and engineering graduates in the field of industrial biotechnology. Initiatives addressing all levels of the educational pipeline, from K-12 to college to continued education for company employees have been established along a ten-year span. The Amgen BioTalents Program was designed to provide undergraduate science and engineering students with training in biomanufacturing. The areas targeted by this educational program enhance their academic development, since these topics are not part of their traditional science and engineering curricula. The educational curriculum involved the process of producing a biomolecule from the genetic engineering of cells to the production of an especially targeted polypeptide, protein expression and purification, to quality control, and validation. This paper will report and describe the implementation details and outcomes of the first sessions of the program.
Abstract: The optimization of biological systems, which is a branch of metabolic engineering, has generated a lot of industrial and academic interest for a long time. In the last decade, metabolic engineering approaches based on mathematical optimizations have been used extensively for the analysis and manipulation of metabolic networks. In practical optimization of metabolic reaction networks, designers have to manage the nature of uncertainty resulting from qualitative characters of metabolic reactions, e.g., the possibility of enzyme effects. A deterministic approach does not give an adequate representation for metabolic reaction networks with uncertain characters. Fuzzy optimization formulations can be applied to cope with this problem. A fuzzy multi-objective optimization problem can be introduced for finding the optimal engineering interventions on metabolic network systems considering the resilience phenomenon and cell viability constraints. The accuracy of optimization results depends heavily on the development of essential kinetic models of metabolic networks. Kinetic models can quantitatively capture the experimentally observed regulation data of metabolic systems and are often used to find the optimal manipulation of external inputs. To address the issues of optimizing the regulatory structure of metabolic networks, it is necessary to consider qualitative effects, e.g., the resilience phenomena and cell viability constraints. Combining the qualitative and quantitative descriptions for metabolic networks makes it possible to design a viable strain and accurately predict the maximum possible flux rates of desired products. Considering the resilience phenomena in metabolic networks can improve the predictions of gene intervention and maximum synthesis rates in metabolic engineering. Two case studies will present in the conference to illustrate the phenomena.
Abstract: To avoid battery assisted tags with limited lifetime batteries, it is proposed here to replace them by energy harvesting
systems, able to feed from local environment. This would allow total
independence to RFID systems, very interesting for applications
where tag removal from its location is not possible. Example is here
described for luggage safety in airports, and is easily extendable to similar situation in terms of operation constraints. The idea is to fix
RFID tag with energy harvesting system not only to identify luggage
but also to supply an embedded microcontroller with a sensor
delivering luggage weight making it impossible to add or to remove
anything from the luggage during transit phases. The aim is to
optimize the harvested energy for such RFID applications, and to
study in which limits these applications are theoretically possible.
Proposed energy harvester is based on two energy sources:
piezoelectricity and electromagnetic waves, so that when the luggage
is moving on ground transportation to airline counters, the piezo
module supplies the tag and its microcontroller, while the RF module
operates during luggage transit thanks to readers located along the
way. Tag location on the luggage is analyzed to get best vibrations, as
well as harvester better choice for optimizing the energy supply
depending on applications and the amount of energy harvested during
a period of time. Effects of system parameters (RFID UHF
frequencies, limit distance between the tag and the antenna necessary
to harvest energy, produced voltage and voltage threshold) are
discussed and working conditions for such system are delimited.
Abstract: In Fiji, notable among the recent spate of educational reforms has been the Ministry of Education’s (MoEs) requirement that all schools undertake a process of school strategic planning. This preliminary study explores perceptions of a sample of Fijian teachers on the way this exercise has been conducted in their schools. The analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data indicates that school leaders’ lack of knowledge and skills in school strategic planning is a major limitation. As an unsurprising consequence, the process(es) schools adopted did not conform to what the literature suggests as best planning practices. School leaders need more training to ensure they are better prepared to carry out this strategic planning effectively, especially in widening the opportunities for all who have a stake in education to contribute to the process. Implications of the findings are likely to be pertinent to other developing contexts within and beyond the Pacific region for the training of school leaders to ensure they are better equipped to orchestrate and benefit from educational reforms thrust upon them.
Abstract: The work delineates the threats of maladjustment of the capacity of rain canals, designed and built in the early 20th century, in connection to heavy rainfall, especially in summer. This is the cause of the so called 'urban floods.' It directly relates to fierce raise of paving in the cities. Resolving this problem requires a change in philosophy of draining the rainfall by wider use of retention, infiltration and usage of rainwater.
In systemic approach to managing the safety of urban drainage systems the risk, which is directly connected to safety failures, has been accepted as a measure. The risk level defines the probability of occurrence of losses greater than the ones forecast for a given time frame. The procedure of risk modelling, enabling its numeric analysis by using appropriate weights, is a significant issue in this paper.
Abstract: The author examines modern problems of Russian sport legislation and whether it need to be changed in order to allow all sportsmen to participate, train and have another sportsmen’s rights as Russian law mandates. The article provides an overview of Russian sport legislation problems, provides examples of foreign countries. In addition, the author suggests solutions for existing legal problems.
Abstract: This research paper, based on demographic variables, is aimed to study the behaviour of bookkeeping for household accounts of residents living in urban communities in Dusit District, Bangkok and to investigate factors that affected the behavior of bookkeeping. By use of non proportional stratified sampling technique of probability sampling, the research had a total of 247 samples. The systematic sampling technique was also utilized by selecting one household out of every 3 households. The demographic findings reported female respondents as the majority with an average age between 26-35 years old, having married status and having children. The respondents earn a living by selling, with an average income per month of between 5,001-15,000 Baht. Most of the families rent a house and each family have approximately 3-4 members. Furthermore, most of the household respondents used to be trained to do bookkeeping for household accounts. In addition, the factors in affecting the residents’ behaviour of doing household account bookkeeping included a dislike of numbers, inaccuracy of recording, availability of accounting counselors in the communities, people’s participation in trainings arranged by outside organizations.
Abstract: Endophytic microorganisms are presented in plants of different families growing in the foothills and piedmont plains of Trans-Ili Alatau. It was found that the maximum number of endophytic micromycetes is typical to the Fabaceae family. The number of microscopic fungi in the roots reached (145.9±5.9)×103 CFU/g of plant tissue; yeasts - (79.8±3.5)×102 CFU/g of plant tissue. Basically, endophytic microscopic fungi are typical for underground parts of plants. In contrast, yeasts more infected aboveground parts of plants. Small amount of micromycetes is typical to inflorescence and fruits. Antagonistic activity of selected micromycetes against Fusarium graminearum, Cladosporium sp., Phytophtora infestans and Botrytis cinerea phytopathogens was detected. Strains with a broad, narrow and limited range of action were identified. For further investigations Rh2 and T7 strains were selected, they are characterized by a broad spectrum of fungicidal activity and they formed the large inhibition zones against phytopathogens. Active antagonists are attributed to the Rhodotorula mucilaginosa and Beauveria bassiana species.
Abstract: The stress-strain relationship of concrete under flexure is one of the essential parameters in assessing ultimate flexural strength capacity of RC beams. Currently, the concrete stress-strain curve in flexure is obtained by incorporating a constant scale-down factor of 0.85 in the uniaxial stress-strain curve. However, it was revealed that strain gradient would improve the maximum concrete stress under flexure and concrete stress-strain curve is strain gradient dependent. Based on the strain-gradient-dependent concrete stress-strain curve, the investigation of the combined effects of strain gradient and concrete strength on flexural strength of RC beams was extended to high strength concrete up to 100 MPa by theoretical analysis. As an extension and application of the authors’ previous study, a new flexural strength design method incorporating the combined effects of strain gradient and concrete strength is developed. A set of equivalent rectangular concrete stress block parameters is proposed and applied to produce a series of design charts showing that the flexural strength of RC beams are improved with strain gradient effect considered.