Abstract: The objective of the present study was to evaluate the
potential of hollow microneedles for enhancing the transdermal
delivery of Bovine Serum Albumin (MW~66,000 Da)-Fluorescein
Isothiocyanate (BSA-FITC) conjugate, a hydrophilic large molecular
compound. Moreover, the effect of different formulations was
evaluated. The series of binary mixtures composed of propylene
glycol (PG) and pH 7.4 phosphate buffer solution (PBS) was
prepared and used as a medium for BSA-FITC. The results showed
that there was no permeation of BSA-FITC solution across the
neonatal porcine skin without using hollow microneedles, whereas
the cumulative amount of BSA-FITC released at 8 h through the
neonatal porcine skin was about 60-70% when using hollow
microneedles. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that the higher
volume of PG in binary mixtures injected, the lower cumulative
amount of BSA-FITC released and release rate of BSA-FITC from
skin. These release profiles of BSA-FITC in binary mixtures were
expressed by Fick-s law of diffusion. These results suggest the
utilization of hollow microneedle to enhance transdermal delivery of
protein and provide useful information for designing an effective
hollow microneedle system.
Abstract: Reliability is one of the most important quality attributes of software. Based on the approach of Reussner and the approach of Cheung, we proposed the reliability prediction model of component-based software architectures. Also, the value of the model is shown through the experimental evaluation on a web server system.
Abstract: Soil washing process with a surfactant solution is a potential technology for the rapid removal of hydrophobic organic compound (HOC) from soil. However, large amount of washed water would be produced during operation and this should be treated effectively by proper methods. The soil washed water for complex contaminated site with HOC and heavy metals might contain high amount of pollutants such as HOC and heavy metals as well as used surfactant. The heavy metals in the soil washed water have toxic effects on microbial activities thus these should be removed from the washed water before proceeding to a biological waste-water treatment system. Moreover, the used surfactant solutions are necessary to be recovered for reducing the soil washing operation cost. In order to simultaneously remove the heavy metals and HOC from soil-washed water, activated carbon (AC) was used in the present study. In an anionic-nonionic surfactant mixed solution, the Cd(II) and phenanthrene (PHE) were effectively removed by adsorption on activated carbon. The removal efficiency for Cd(II) was increased from 0.027 mmol-Cd/g-AC to 0.142 mmol-Cd/g-AC as the mole ratio of SDS increased in the presence of PHE. The adsorptive capacity of PHE was also increased according to the SDS mole ratio due to the decrement of molar solubilization ratios (MSR) for PHE in an anionic-nonionic surfactant mixture. The simultaneous adsorption of HOC and cationic heavy metals using activated carbon could be a useful method for surfactant recovery and the reduction of heavy metal toxicity in a surfactant-enhanced soil washing process.
Abstract: The research study evaluated the performance of
irrigation system by using special scientific tools like Remote
Sensing and GIS technology, so that proper measurements could be
taken for the sustainable agriculture and water management.
Different performance evaluation parameters had been calculated for
the purposed data was gathered from field investigation and different
government and private organizations. According to the calculations,
organic matter ranges from 0.19% (low value) to 0.76% (high value).
In flat irrigation system for wheat yield ranges from 3347.16 to
5260.39 kg/ha, while the total water applied to wheat crop ranges
from 252.94 to 279.19 mm and WUE ranges from 13.07 to 18.37
kg/ha/mm. For rice yield ranges from 3347.47 to 5433.07 kg/ha with
total water supplied to rice crop ranges from 764.71 to 978.15 mm
and WUE ranges from 3.49 to 5.71 kg/ha/mm. Similarly, in raised
bed system wheat yield ranges from 4569.13 to 6008.60 kg/ha, total
water supplied ranges from 158.87 to 185.09 mm and WUE ranges
from 27.20 to 33.54 kg/ha/mm while in rice crop, yield ranges from
5285.04 to 6716.69 kg/ha, total water supplied ranges from 600.72 to
755.06 mm and WUE ranges from 6.41 to 10.05 kg/ha/mm. Almost
51.3% water saving is observed in bed irrigation system as compared
to flat system. Less water supplied to beds is more affective as its
WUE value is higher than flat system where more water is supplied
in both the seasons. Similarly, RWS values show that maximum
water deficit while minimum area is getting adequate water supply.
Greater yield is recorded in bed system as plant per square meter is
more in bed system in comparison of flat system Thus, the integration
of GIS tools to regularly compute performance indices could provide
irrigation managers with the means for managing efficiently the
irrigation system.
Abstract: This paper explores gender related barriers to interagency collaboration in statutory children safeguard partnerships against a theoretical framework that considers individuals, professions and organisations interacting as part of a complex adaptive system. We argue that gender-framed obstacles to effective communication between culturally discrepant agencies can ultimately impact on the effectiveness of policy delivery,. We focused our research on three partnership structures in Sefton Metropolitan Borough in order to observe how interactions occur, whether the agencies involved perceive their occupational environment as being gender affected and whether they believe this can hinder effective collaboration with other biased organisations. Our principal empirical findings indicate that there is a general awareness amongst professionals of the role that gender plays in each of the agencies reviewed, that gender may well constitute a barrier to effective communication, but there is a sense in which there is little scope for change in the short term. We aim to signal here, however, the need to change against the risk of service failure.
Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of building a unified
structure to describe a peer-to-peer system. Our approach uses the
well-known notations in the P2P area, and provides a global
architecture that puts a separation between the platform specific
characteristics and the logical ones. In order to enable the navigation
of the peer across platforms, a roaming layer is added. The latter
provides a capability to define a unique identification of peer and
assures the mapping between this identification and those used in
each platform. The mapping task is assured by special wrapper. In
addition, ontology is proposed to give a clear presentation of the
structure of the P2P system without interesting in the content and the
resource managed by the peer. The ontology is created according to
the web semantic paradigm and using OWL language; so, the
structure of the system is considered as a web resource.
Abstract: Least Significant Bit (LSB) technique is the earliest
developed technique in watermarking and it is also the most simple,
direct and common technique. It essentially involves embedding the
watermark by replacing the least significant bit of the image data with
a bit of the watermark data. The disadvantage of LSB is that it is not
robust against attacks. In this study intermediate significant bit (ISB)
has been used in order to improve the robustness of the watermarking
system. The aim of this model is to replace the watermarked image
pixels by new pixels that can protect the watermark data against
attacks and at the same time keeping the new pixels very close to the
original pixels in order to protect the quality of watermarked image.
The technique is based on testing the value of the watermark pixel
according to the range of each bit-plane.
Abstract: This paper considers the problem of Null-Steering beamforming using Neural Network (NN) approach for antenna array system. Two cases are presented. First, unlike the other authors, the estimated Direction Of Arrivals (DOAs) are used for antenna array weights NN-based determination and the imprecise DOAs estimations are taken into account. Second, the blind null-steering beamforming is presented. In this case the antenna array outputs are presented at the input of the NN without DOAs estimation. The results of computer simulations will show much better relative mean error performances of the first NN approach compared to the NNbased blind beamforming.
Abstract: This paper investigates the effectiveness of the use of
seismic isolation devices on the overall 3D seismic response of
curved highway viaducts with an emphasis on expansion joints.
Furthermore, an evaluation of the effectiveness of the use of cable
restrainers is presented. For this purpose, the bridge seismic
performance has been evaluated on four different radii of curvature,
considering two cases: restrained and unrestrained curved viaducts.
Depending on the radius of curvature, three-dimensional non-linear
dynamic analysis shows the vulnerability of curved viaducts to
pounding and deck unseating damage. In this study, the efficiency of
using LRB supports combined with cable restrainers on curved
viaducts is demonstrated, not only by reducing in all cases the
possible damage, but also by providing a similar behavior in the
viaducts despite of curvature radius.
Abstract: In recent years the large scale use of the power electronic equipment has led to an increase of harmonics in the power system. The harmonics results into a poor power quality and have great adverse economical impact on the utilities and customers. Current harmonics are one of the most common power quality problems and are usually resolved by using shunt active filter (SHAF). The main objective of this work is to develop PI and Fuzzy logic controllers (FLC) to analyze the performance of Shunt Active Filter for mitigating current harmonics under balanced and unbalanced sinusoidal source voltage conditions for normal load and increased load. When the supply voltages are ideal (balanced), both PI and FLC are converging to the same compensation characteristics. However, the supply voltages are non-ideal (unbalanced), FLC offers outstanding results. Simulation results validate the superiority of FLC with triangular membership function over the PI controller.
Abstract: This paper proposes a novel solution for optimizing
the size and communication overhead of a distributed multiagent
system without compromising the performance. The proposed approach
addresses the challenges of scalability especially when the
multiagent system is large. A modified spectral clustering technique
is used to partition a large network into logically related clusters.
Agents are assigned to monitor dedicated clusters rather than monitor
each device or node. The proposed scalable multiagent system is
implemented using JADE (Java Agent Development Environment)
for a large power system. The performance of the proposed topologyindependent
decentralized multiagent system and the scalable multiagent
system is compared by comprehensively simulating different
fault scenarios. The time taken for reconfiguration, the overall computational
complexity, and the communication overhead incurred are
computed. The results of these simulations show that the proposed
scalable multiagent system uses fewer agents efficiently, makes faster
decisions to reconfigure when a fault occurs, and incurs significantly
less communication overhead.
Abstract: The present work demonstrates the design and simulation of a fuzzy control of an air conditioning system at different pressures. The first order Sugeno fuzzy inference system is utilized to model the system and create the controller. In addition, an estimation of the heat transfer rate and water mass flow rate injection into or withdraw from the air conditioning system is determined by the fuzzy IF-THEN rules. The approach starts by generating the input/output data. Then, the subtractive clustering algorithm along with least square estimation (LSE) generates the fuzzy rules that describe the relationship between input/output data. The fuzzy rules are tuned by Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The results show that when the pressure increases the amount of water flow rate and heat transfer rate decrease within the lower ranges of inlet dry bulb temperatures. On the other hand, and as pressure increases the amount of water flow rate and heat transfer rate increases within the higher ranges of inlet dry bulb temperatures. The inflection in the pressure effect trend occurs at lower temperatures as the inlet air humidity increases.
Abstract: The main mission of Ezilla is to provide a friendly
interface to access the virtual machine and quickly deploy the high
performance computing environment. Ezilla has been developed by
Pervasive Computing Team at National Center for High-performance
Computing (NCHC). Ezilla integrates the Cloud middleware,
virtualization technology, and Web-based Operating System (WebOS)
to form a virtual computer in distributed computing environment. In
order to upgrade the dataset and speedup, we proposed the sensor
observation system to deal with a huge amount of data in the
Cassandra database. The sensor observation system is based on the
Ezilla to store sensor raw data into distributed database. We adopt the
Ezilla Cloud service to create virtual machines and login into virtual
machine to deploy the sensor observation system. Integrating the
sensor observation system with Ezilla is to quickly deploy experiment
environment and access a huge amount of data with distributed
database that support the replication mechanism to protect the data
security.
Abstract: In this paper, the modelling and design of artificial neural network architecture for load forecasting purposes is investigated. The primary pre-requisite for power system planning is to arrive at realistic estimates of future demand of power, which is known as Load Forecasting. Short Term Load Forecasting (STLF) helps in determining the economic, reliable and secure operating strategies for power system. The dependence of load on several factors makes the load forecasting a very challenging job. An over estimation of the load may cause premature investment and unnecessary blocking of the capital where as under estimation of load may result in shortage of equipment and circuits. It is always better to plan the system for the load slightly higher than expected one so that no exigency may arise. In this paper, a load-forecasting model is proposed using a multilayer neural network with an appropriately modified back propagation learning algorithm. Once the neural network model is designed and trained, it can forecast the load of the power system 24 hours ahead on daily basis and can also forecast the cumulative load on daily basis. The real load data that is used for the Artificial Neural Network training was taken from LDC, Gujarat Electricity Board, Jambuva, Gujarat, India. The results show that the load forecasting of the ANN model follows the actual load pattern more accurately throughout the forecasted period.
Abstract: The article deals with development, design and
implementation of a mathematical model of the human respiratory
system. The model is designed in order to simulate distribution of
important intrapulmonary parameters along the bronchial tree such as
pressure amplitude, tidal volume and effect of regional mechanical
lung properties upon the efficiency of various ventilatory techniques.
Therefore exact agreement of the model structure with the lung
anatomical structure is required. The model is based on the lung
morphology and electro-acoustic analogy is used to design the
model.
Abstract: The control of commutation of switched reluctance
(SR) motor has nominally depended on a physical position detector.
The physical rotor position sensor limits robustness and increases
size and inertia of the SR drive system. The paper describes a method
to overcome these limitations by using magnetization characteristics
of the motor to indicate rotor and stator teeth overlap status. The
method is using active current probing pulses of same magnitude that
is used to simulate flux linkage in the winding being probed. A
microprocessor is used for processing magnetization data to deduce
rotor-stator teeth overlap status and hence rotor position. However,
the back-of-core saturation and mutual coupling introduces overlap
detection errors, hence that of commutation control. This paper
presents the concept of the detection scheme and the effects of backof
core saturation.
Abstract: We try to give a solution of version control for
documents in web service, that-s why we propose a new approach
used specially for the XML documents. The new approach is applied
in a centralized repository, this repository coexist with other
repositories in a decentralized system. To achieve the activities of
this approach in a standard model we use the ECA active rules. We
also show how the Event-Condition-Action rules (ECA rules) have
been incorporated as a mechanism for the version control of
documents. The need to integrate ECA rules is that it provides a clear
declarative semantics and induces an immediate operational
realization in the system without the need for human intervention.
Abstract: In this paper, real-coded genetic algorithm (RCGA) optimization technique has been applied for large-scale linear dynamic multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) system. The method is based on error minimization technique where the integral square error between the transient responses of original and reduced order models has been minimized by RCGA. The reduction procedure is simple computer oriented and the approach is comparable in quality with the other well-known reduction techniques. Also, the proposed method guarantees stability of the reduced model if the original high-order MIMO system is stable. The proposed approach of MIMO system order reduction is illustrated with the help of an example and the results are compared with the recently published other well-known reduction techniques to show its superiority.
Abstract: In this work Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques like Fuzzy logic, Genetic Algorithms and Particle Swarm Optimization have been used to improve the performance of the Automatic Generation Control (AGC) system. Instead of applying Genetic Algorithms and Particle swarm optimization independently for optimizing the parameters of the conventional AGC with PI controller, an intelligent tuned Fuzzy logic controller (acting as the secondary controller in the AGC system) has been designed. The controller gives an improved dynamic performance for both hydrothermal and thermal-thermal power systems under a variety of operating conditions.
Abstract: In this study, we used a two-stage process and
potassium hydroxide (KOH) to transform waste biomass (rice straw)
into activated carbon and then evaluated the adsorption capacity of the
waste for removing carbofuran from an aqueous solution. Activated
carbon was fast and effective for the removal of carbofuran because of
its high surface area. The native and carbofuran-loaded adsorbents
were characterized by elemental analysis. Different adsorption
parameters, such as the initial carbofuran concentration, contact time,
temperature and pH for carbofuran adsorption, were studied using a
batch system. This study demonstrates that rice straw can be very
effective in the adsorption of carbofuran from bodies of water.