Design and Economical Performance of Gray Water Treatment Plant in Rural Region

In India, the quarrel between the budding human populace and the planet-s unchanging supply of freshwater and falling water tables has strained attention the reuse of gray water as an alternative water resource in rural development. This paper present the finest design of laboratory scale gray water treatment plant, which is a combination of natural and physical operations such as primary settling with cascaded water flow, aeration, agitation and filtration, hence called as hybrid treatment process. The economical performance of the plant for treatment of bathrooms, basins and laundries gray water showed in terms of deduction competency of water pollutants such as COD (83%), TDS (70%), TSS (83%), total hardness (50%), oil and grease (97%), anions (46%) and cations (49%). Hence, this technology could be a good alternative to treat gray water in residential rural area.

Optimal Design for SARMA(P,Q)L Process of EWMA Control Chart

The main goal of this paper is to study Statistical Process Control (SPC) with Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) control chart when observations are serially-correlated. The characteristic of control chart is Average Run Length (ARL) which is the average number of samples taken before an action signal is given. Ideally, an acceptable ARL of in-control process should be enough large, so-called (ARL0). Otherwise it should be small when the process is out-of-control, so-called Average of Delay Time (ARL1) or a mean of true alarm. We find explicit formulas of ARL for EWMA control chart for Seasonal Autoregressive and Moving Average processes (SARMA) with Exponential white noise. The results of ARL obtained from explicit formula and Integral equation are in good agreement. In particular, this formulas for evaluating (ARL0) and (ARL1) be able to get a set of optimal parameters which depend on smoothing parameter (λ) and width of control limit (H) for designing EWMA chart with minimum of (ARL1).

Average Current Estimation Technique for Reliability Analysis of Multiple Semiconductor Interconnects

Average current analysis checking the impact of current flow is very important to guarantee the reliability of semiconductor systems. As semiconductor process technologies improve, the coupling capacitance often become bigger than self capacitances. In this paper, we propose an analytic technique for analyzing average current on interconnects in multi-conductor structures. The proposed technique has shown to yield the acceptable errors compared to HSPICE results while providing computational efficiency.

Proposal of a Means for Reducing the Torque Variation on a Vertical-Axis Water Turbine by Increasing the Blade Number

This paper presents a means for reducing the torque variation during the revolution of a vertical-axis water turbine (VAWaterT) by increasing the blade number. For this purpose, twodimensional CFD analyses have been performed on a straight-bladed Darrieus-type rotor. After describing the computational model and the relative validation procedure, a complete campaign of simulations, based on full RANS unsteady calculations, is proposed for a three, four and five-bladed rotor architectures, characterized by a NACA 0025 airfoil. For each proposed rotor configuration, flow field characteristics are investigated at several values of tip speed ratio, allowing a quantification of the influence of blade number on flow geometric features and dynamic quantities, such as rotor torque and power. Finally, torque and power curves are compared for the three analyzed architectures, achieving a quantification of the effect of blade number on overall rotor performance.

IIR Filter design with Craziness based Particle Swarm Optimization Technique

This paper demonstrates the application of craziness based particle swarm optimization (CRPSO) technique for designing the 8th order low pass Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter. CRPSO, the much improved version of PSO, is a population based global heuristic search algorithm which finds near optimal solution in terms of a set of filter coefficients. Effectiveness of this algorithm is justified with a comparative study of some well established algorithms, namely, real coded genetic algorithm (RGA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). Simulation results affirm that the proposed algorithm CRPSO, outperforms over its counterparts not only in terms of quality output i.e. sharpness at cut-off, pass band ripple, stop band ripple, and stop band attenuation but also in convergence speed with assured stability.

Comparison between Solar Simulation and Infrared Technique for Thermal Balance Test

The precision of heat flux simulation influences the temperature field and test aberration for TB test and also reflects the test level for spacecraft development. This paper describes TB tests for a small satellite using solar simulator, electric heaters, calrod heaters to evaluate the difference of the three methods. Under the same boundary condition, calrod heaters cases were about 6oC higher than solar simulator cases and electric heaters cases for non-external-heat-flux cases (extreme low temperature cases). While calrod heaters cases and electric heaters cases were 5~7oC and 2~3oC lower than solar simulator cases respectively for high temperature cases. The results show that the solar simulator is better than calrod heaters for its better collimation, non-homogeneity and stability.

Comparison of Neural Network and Logistic Regression Methods to Predict Xerostomia after Radiotherapy

To evaluate the ability to predict xerostomia after radiotherapy, we constructed and compared neural network and logistic regression models. In this study, 61 patients who completed a questionnaire about their quality of life (QoL) before and after a full course of radiation therapy were included. Based on this questionnaire, some statistical data about the condition of the patients’ salivary glands were obtained, and these subjects were included as the inputs of the neural network and logistic regression models in order to predict the probability of xerostomia. Seven variables were then selected from the statistical data according to Cramer’s V and point-biserial correlation values and were trained by each model to obtain the respective outputs which were 0.88 and 0.89 for AUC, 9.20 and 7.65 for SSE, and 13.7% and 19.0% for MAPE, respectively. These parameters demonstrate that both neural network and logistic regression methods are effective for predicting conditions of parotid glands.

The Effects of the Impact of Instructional Immediacy on Cognition and Learning in Online Classes

Current research has explored the impact of instructional immediacy, defined as those behaviors that help build close relationships or feelings of closeness, both on cognition and motivation in the traditional classroom and online classroom; however, online courses continue to suffer from higher dropout rates. Based on Albert Bandura-s Social Cognitive Theory, four primary relationships or interactions in an online course will be explored in light of how they can provide immediacy thereby reducing student attrition and improving cognitive learning. The four relationships are teacher-student, student-student, and student-content, and studentcomputer. Results of a study conducted with inservice teachers completing a 14-week online professional development technology course will be examined to demonstrate immediacy strategies that improve cognitive learning and reduce student attrition. Results of the study reveal that students can be motivated through various interactions and instructional immediacy behaviors which lead to higher completion rates, improved self-efficacy, and cognitive learning.

Motivated Support Vector Regression using Structural Prior Knowledge

It-s known that incorporating prior knowledge into support vector regression (SVR) can help to improve the approximation performance. Most of researches are concerned with the incorporation of knowledge in the form of numerical relationships. Little work, however, has been done to incorporate the prior knowledge on the structural relationships among the variables (referred as to Structural Prior Knowledge, SPK). This paper explores the incorporation of SPK in SVR by constructing appropriate admissible support vector kernel (SV kernel) based on the properties of reproducing kernel (R.K). Three-levels specifications of SPK are studied with the corresponding sub-levels of prior knowledge that can be considered for the method. These include Hierarchical SPK (HSPK), Interactional SPK (ISPK) consisting of independence, global and local interaction, Functional SPK (FSPK) composed of exterior-FSPK and interior-FSPK. A convenient tool for describing the SPK, namely Description Matrix of SPK is introduced. Subsequently, a new SVR, namely Motivated Support Vector Regression (MSVR) whose structure is motivated in part by SPK, is proposed. Synthetic examples show that it is possible to incorporate a wide variety of SPK and helpful to improve the approximation performance in complex cases. The benefits of MSVR are finally shown on a real-life military application, Air-toground battle simulation, which shows great potential for MSVR to the complex military applications.

Determination and Preconcentration of Iron (II) in Aqueous Solution with Amberlite XAD-4 Functionalized with 1-amino-2-naphthole by Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

A new chelating resin is prepared by coupling Amberlite XAD-4 with 1-amino-2-naphthole through an azo spacer. The resulting sorbent has been characterized by FT-IR, elemental analysis and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and studied for preconcentrating of Fe (II) using flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) for metal monitoring. The optimum pH value for sorption of the iron ions was 6.5. The resin was subjected to evaluation through batch binding of mentioned metal ion. Quantitative desorption occurs instantaneously with 0.5 M HNO3. The sorption capacity was found 4.1 mmol.g-1 of resin for Fe (II) in the aqueous solution. The chelating resin can be reused for 10 cycles of sorption-desorption without any significant change in sorption capacity. A recovery of 97% was obtained the metal ions with 0.5 M HNO3 as eluting agent. The method was applied for metal ions determination from industrial waste water sample.

Performance Evaluation of an Online Text-Based Strategy Game

Text-based game is supposed to be a low resource consumption application that delivers good performances when compared to graphical-intensive type of games. But, nowadays, some of the online text-based games are not offering performances that are acceptable to the users. Therefore, an online text-based game called Star_Quest has been developed in order to analyze its behavior under different performance measurements. Performance metrics such as throughput, scalability, response time and page loading time are captured to yield the performance of the game. The techniques in performing the load testing are also disclosed to exhibit the viability of our work. The comparative assessment between the results obtained and the accepted level of performances are conducted as to determine the performance level of the game. The study reveals that the developed game managed to meet all the performance objectives set forth.

Using Ontology Search in the Design of Class Diagram from Business Process Model

Business process model describes process flow of a business and can be seen as the requirement for developing a software application. This paper discusses a BPM2CD guideline which complements the Model Driven Architecture concept by suggesting how to create a platform-independent software model in the form of a UML class diagram from a business process model. An important step is the identification of UML classes from the business process model. A technique for object-oriented analysis called domain analysis is borrowed and key concepts in the business process model will be discovered and proposed as candidate classes for the class diagram. The paper enhances this step by using ontology search to help identify important classes for the business domain. As ontology is a source of knowledge for a particular domain which itself can link to ontologies of related domains, the search can give a refined set of candidate classes for the resulting class diagram.

Optimal Allocation Between Subprime Structured Mortgage Products and Treasuries

This conference paper discusses a risk allocation problem for subprime investing banks involving investment in subprime structured mortgage products (SMPs) and Treasuries. In order to solve this problem, we develop a L'evy process-based model of jump diffusion-type for investment choice in subprime SMPs and Treasuries. This model incorporates subprime SMP losses for which credit default insurance in the form of credit default swaps (CDSs) can be purchased. In essence, we solve a mean swap-at-risk (SaR) optimization problem for investment which determines optimal allocation between SMPs and Treasuries subject to credit risk protection via CDSs. In this regard, SaR is indicative of how much protection investors must purchase from swap protection sellers in order to cover possible losses from SMP default. Here, SaR is defined in terms of value-at-risk (VaR). Finally, we provide an analysis of the aforementioned optimization problem and its connections with the subprime mortgage crisis (SMC).

FT-IR Study of Stabilized PAN Fibers for Fabrication of Carbon Fibers

In this investigation, types of commercial and special polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers contain sodium 2-methyl-2- acrylamidopropane sulfonate (SAMPS) and itaconic acid (IA) comonomers were studied by fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The study of FT-IR spectra of PAN fibers samples with different comonomers shows that during stabilization of PAN fibers, the peaks related to C≡N bonds and CH2 are reduced sharply. These reductions are related to cyclization of nitrile groups and stabilization procedure. This reduction in PAN fibers contain IA comonomer is very intense in comparison with PAN fibers contain SAMPS comonomer. This fact indicates the cycling and stabilization for sample contain IA comonomer have been conducted more completely. Therefore the carbon fibers produced from this material have higher tensile strength due to suitable stabilization.

A New Technique for Progressive ECG Transmission using Discrete Radon Transform

The aim of this paper is to present a new method which can be used for progressive transmission of electrocardiogram (ECG). The idea consists in transforming any ECG signal to an image, containing one beat in each row. In the first step, the beats are synchronized in order to reduce the high frequencies due to inter-beat transitions. The obtained image is then transformed using a discrete version of Radon Transform (DRT). Hence, transmitting the ECG, leads to transmit the most significant energy of the transformed image in Radon domain. For decoding purpose, the receptor needs to use the inverse Radon Transform as well as the two synchronization frames. The presented protocol can be adapted for lossy to lossless compression systems. In lossy mode we show that the compression ratio can be multiplied by an average factor of 2 for an acceptable quality of reconstructed signal. These results have been obtained on real signals from MIT database.

Thermodynamic Analysis of Activated Carbon- CO2 based Adsorption Cooling Cycles

Heat powered solid sorption is a feasible alternative to electrical vapor compression refrigeration systems. In this paper, activated carbon (powder type Maxsorb and fiber type ACF-A10)- CO2 based adsorption cooling cycles are studied using the pressuretemperature- concentration (P-T-W) diagram. The specific cooling effect (SCE) and the coefficient of performance (COP) of these two cooling systems are simulated for the driving heat source temperatures ranging from 30 ºC to 90 ºC in terms of different cooling load temperatures with a cooling source temperature of 25 ºC. It is found from the present analysis that Maxsorb-CO2 couple shows higher cooling capacity and COP. The maximum COPs of Maxsorb-CO2 and ACF(A10)-CO2 based cooling systems are found to be 0.15 and 0.083, respectively. The main innovative feature of this cooling cycle is the ability to utilize low temperature waste heat or solar energy using CO2 as the refrigerant, which is one of the best alternative for applications where flammability and toxicity are not allowed.

A Method for Quality Inspection of Motors by Detecting Abnormal Sound

Recently, a quality of motors is inspected by human ears. In this paper, I propose two systems using a method of speech recognition for automation of the inspection. The first system is based on a method of linear processing which uses K-means and Nearest Neighbor method, and the second is based on a method of non-linear processing which uses neural networks. I used motor sounds in these systems, and I successfully recognize 86.67% of motor sounds in the linear processing system and 97.78% in the non-linear processing system.

Causal Factors Affecting on Trustworthiness and Success of the National Press Council of Thailand in Regulating Professional Ethics in Views of Newspaper Journalists

The objectives of this research were 1) to study the opinions of newspaper journalists about their trustworthiness in the National Press Council of Thailand (NPCT) and the NPCT-s success in regulating the professional ethics; and 2) to study the differences among mean vectors of the variables of trustworthiness in the NPCT and opinions on the NPCT-s success in regulating professional ethics among samples working at different work positions and from different affiliation of newspaper organizations. The results showed that 1) Interaction effects between the variables of work positions and affiliation were not statistically significant at the confidence level of 0.05. 2) There was a statistically significant difference (p

A Study for Carbonation Degree on Concrete using a Phenolphthalein Indicator and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

A concrete structure is designed and constructed for its purpose of use, and is expected to maintain its function for the target durable years from when it was planned. Nevertheless, as time elapses the structure gradually deteriorates and then eventually degrades to the point where the structure cannot exert the function for which it was planned. The performance of concrete that is able to maintain the level of the performance required over the designed period of use as it has less deterioration caused by the elapse of time under the designed condition is referred to as Durability. There are a number of causes of durability degradation, but especially chloride damage, carbonation, freeze-thaw, etc are the main causes. In this study, carbonation, one of the main causes of deterioration of the durability of a concrete structure, was investigated via a microstructure analysis technique. The method for the measurement of carbonation was studied using the existing indicator method, and the method of measuring the progress of carbonation in a quantitative manner was simultaneously studied using a FT-IR (Fourier-Transform Infrared) Spectrometer along with the microstructure analysis technique.

The Context-s Influence on the Evolution of Cioran: The Options of an Engaged Philosopher

The article emphasizes the ideological commitment of the philosopher Emil Cioran. It presents firstly Cioran's works on the theme announced by the title, then the European context that determined the political option of Cioran and a brief analysis of his relationship with History during his French period. The anti- Semitism of Cioran was favored by his attachment to a few philosophers, but also by the European extremist and anti-Semitic context. The article seeks to demonstrate that the philosopher Cioran, known more for his pessimism and nihilism, maintained in time an obsessive relationship with History. His political philosophy is as important as his subjective philosophy, better known than the former.