Abstract: Tailor-welded Blanks (TWBs) are tailor made for
different complex component designs by welding multiple metal
sheets with different thicknesses, shapes, coatings or strengths prior
to forming. In this study the Hemispherical Die Stretching (HDS) test
(out-of-plane stretching) of TWBs were simulated via
ABAQUS/Explicit to obtain the Forming Limit Diagrams (FLDs) of
Stainless steel (AISI 304) laser welded blanks with different
thicknesses. Two criteria were used to detect the start of necking to
determine the FLD for TWBs and parent sheet metals. These two
criteria are the second derivatives of the major and thickness strains
that are given from the strain history of simulation. In the other word,
in these criteria necking starts when the second derivative of
thickness or major strain reaches its maximum. With having the time
of onset necking, one can measure the major and minor strains at the
critical area and determine the forming limit curve.
Abstract: The operating control parameters of injection
flushing type of electrical discharge machining process on stainless
steel 304 workpiece with copper tools are being optimized
according to its individual machining characteristic i.e. material
removal rate (MRR). Lower MRR during EDM machining process
may decrease its- machining productivity. Hence, the quality
characteristic for MRR is set to higher-the-better to achieve the
optimum machining productivity. Taguchi method has been used
for the construction, layout and analysis of the experiment for each
of the machining characteristic for the MRR. The use of Taguchi
method in the experiment saves a lot of time and cost of preparing
and machining the experiment samples. Therefore, an L18
Orthogonal array which was the fundamental component in the
statistical design of experiments has been used to plan the
experiments and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is used to
determine the optimum machining parameters for this machining
characteristic. The control parameters selected for this
optimization experiments are polarity, pulse on duration, discharge
current, discharge voltage, machining depth, machining diameter
and dielectric liquid pressure. The result had shown that the higher
the discharge voltage, the higher will be the MRR.
Abstract: One of the most important issues in multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is to determine the weights of criteria so that all alternatives can be compared based on the collective performance of criteria. In this paper, one of popular methods in data envelopment analysis (DEA) known as common weights (CWs) is used to determine the weights in MCDA. Two frontiers named ideal and anti-ideal frontiers, instead of ideal and anti-ideal alternatives, are defined based on two new proposed CWs models. Ideal and antiideal frontiers are more flexible than that of alternatives. According to the optimal solutions of these two models, the distances of an alternative from the ideal and anti-ideal frontiers are derived. Then, a relative distance is introduced to measure the value of each alternative. The suggested models are linear and despite weight restrictions are feasible. An example is presented for explaining the method and for comparing to the existing literature.
Abstract: Over the course of the past century, the global
automotive industry-s stance towards safety has evolved from one of
contempt to one nearing reverence. A suspension system that
provides safe handling and cornering capabilities can, with the help
of an efficient braking system, improve safety to a large extent. The
aim of this research is to propose a new automotive brake rotor
design and to compare it with automotive vented disk rotor. Static
structural and transient thermal analysis have been carried out on the
vented disk rotor and proposed rotor designs to evaluate and compare
their performance. Finite element analysis was employed for both
static structural and transient thermal analysis. Structural analysis
was carried out to study the stress and deformation pattern of the
rotors under extreme loads. Time varying temperature load was
applied on the rotors and the temperature distribution was analysed
considering cooling parameters (convection and radiation). This
dissertation illustrates the use of Finite Element Methods to examine
models, concluding with a comparative study of the proposed rotor
design and the conventional vented disk rotor for structural stability
and thermal efficiency.
Abstract: It is well known that enhancing interfacial adhesion
between inorganic filler and matrix resin in a composite lead to
favorable properties such as excellent mechanical properties, high
thermal resistance, prominent electric insulation, low expansion
coefficient, and so on. But it should be avoided that much excess of
coupling agent is reacted due to a negative impact of their final
composite-s properties. There is no report to achieve classification of
the bonding state excepting investigation of coating layer thickness.
Therefore, the analysis of the bonding state of the coupling agent
reacted with the filler surface such as BN particles with less functional
group and silica particles having much functional group was
performed by thermal gravimetric analysis and pyrolysis GC/MS. The
reacted number of functional groups on the silane-coupling agent was
classified as a result of the analysis. Thus, we succeeded in classifying
the reacted number of the functional groups as a result of this study.
Abstract: The study attempted to identify the dominant
intelligences of athletes by comparing the developmental differences
of multiple intelligences between athletes and non-athletes. The
weekly specialized training hours and years of specialized training
was examined to see how it can predict the dominant intelligence with
the age factor controlled. There were 355 participants in the research
(202 athletes and 153 non-athletes). Collected data were analyzed with
one-way MANOVA and multiple hierarchical regression. The results
suggested the dominant intelligences of athletes were Interpersonal
Intelligence, Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence, and Intrapersonal
Intelligence. The weekly specialized training hours and years of
specialized training could effectively predict the Interpersonal
Intelligence, Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence, and Intrapersonal
Intelligence of athletes. The author suggested the future studies could
focus on the theory construction of weekly specialized training and
years of specialized training. Also, the studies on using “Bridge
strategy" by the athletes to guide disadvantage intelligences with
dominant intelligences are highly valued.
Abstract: The emergence of the Internet has brewed the
revolution of information storage and retrieval. As most of the
data in the web is unstructured, and contains a mix of text,
video, audio etc, there is a need to mine information to cater to
the specific needs of the users without loss of important
hidden information. Thus developing user friendly and
automated tools for providing relevant information quickly
becomes a major challenge in web mining research. Most of
the existing web mining algorithms have concentrated on
finding frequent patterns while neglecting the less frequent
ones that are likely to contain outlying data such as noise,
irrelevant and redundant data. This paper mainly focuses on
Signed approach and full word matching on the organized
domain dictionary for mining web content outliers. This
Signed approach gives the relevant web documents as well as
outlying web documents. As the dictionary is organized based
on the number of characters in a word, searching and retrieval
of documents takes less time and less space.
Abstract: This paper examines ethical and social issues which
have proved important when initiating and creating educational spaces within a virtual environment. It focuses on one project, identifying the key decisions made, the barriers to new practice
encountered and the impact these had on the project. It demonstrates
the importance of the 'backstage' ethical and social issues involved in
the creation of a virtual education community and offers conclusions,
and questions, which will inform future research and practice in this
area. These ethical issues are considered using Knobel-s framework
of front-end, in-process and back-end concerns, and include
establishing social practices for the islands, allocating access rights,
considering personal safety and supporting researchers appropriately
within this context.
Abstract: Wireless sensor network has recently emerged as enablers
of several areas. Real applications of WSN are being explored
and some of them are yet to come. While the potential of sensor
networks has been only beginning to be realized, several challenges
still remain. One of them is the experimental evaluation of WSN.
Therefore, deploying and operating a testbed to study the real
behavior of WSN become more and more important. The main
contribution of this work is to analysis the RF link budget behavior
of wireless sensor networks in underground mine gallery.
Abstract: Biclustering is a very useful data mining technique for
identifying patterns where different genes are co-related based on a
subset of conditions in gene expression analysis. Association rules
mining is an efficient approach to achieve biclustering as in
BIMODULE algorithm but it is sensitive to the value given to its
input parameters and the discretization procedure used in the
preprocessing step, also when noise is present, classical association
rules miners discover multiple small fragments of the true bicluster,
but miss the true bicluster itself. This paper formally presents a
generalized noise tolerant bicluster model, termed as μBicluster. An
iterative algorithm termed as BIDENS based on the proposed model
is introduced that can discover a set of k possibly overlapping
biclusters simultaneously. Our model uses a more flexible method to
partition the dimensions to preserve meaningful and significant
biclusters. The proposed algorithm allows discovering biclusters that
hard to be discovered by BIMODULE. Experimental study on yeast,
human gene expression data and several artificial datasets shows that
our algorithm offers substantial improvements over several
previously proposed biclustering algorithms.
Abstract: Research has suggested that implicit learning tasks
may rely on episodic processing to generate above chance
performance on the standard classification tasks. The current
research examines the invariant features task (McGeorge and Burton,
1990) and argues that such episodic processing is indeed important.
The results of the experiment suggest that both rejection and
similarity strategies are used by participants in this task to
simultaneously reject unfamiliar items and to accept (falsely) familiar
items. Primarily these decisions are based on the presence of low or
high frequency goal based features of the stimuli presented in the
incidental learning phase. It is proposed that a goal based analysis of
the incidental learning task provides a simple step in understanding
which features of the episodic processing are most important for
explaining the match between incidental, implicit learning and test
performance.
Abstract: The research study was based on an evaluation of the
ability of glued test samples to pass the criterion of sufficient
bondline adhesion under the exposure conditions defined in EN 302-
1. Additionally, an infrared spectroscopic analysis of the evaluated
adhesives (phenol-resorcinol-formaldehyde PRF and melamine-ureaformaldehyde
MUF) with different mix ratios was carried out to
evaluate the possible effects of a faulty technological process.
Abstract: This paper focuses attention on specific aspects of
entrepreneurial decisions relating to investment, both in the total
fixed investments and plant & machinery (separately). Demand and
financial factors, internal and external, are considered in the
investment analysis. Finally the influence of determinants of fixed
investment and investment plans are examined in Electric Power
industry in India.
Abstract: Bringing change to the housing industry requires
multiple efforts from various angles especially to overcome any
resistances in the form of technology, human aspects, financial and
resources. The transition from conventional to sustainable approach
consumes time as it requires changes from different facets in the
industry ranging from individual, organisational to industry level. In
Malaysia, there are various efforts to bring green into the industry but
the progress is low-moderate. Will the current efforts bear larger
fruits in the near future? This study examines the perceptions of the
developers in Malaysia on the future of the green housing sector for
the next 5 years. The introduction of GBI rating system, improvement
of awareness and knowledge among the stakeholders, support from
the government and local industry and the effect of competitive
advantage would support brighter future. Meanwhile, the status quo
in rules and regulation, lack of public interest and demand,
organization disinterest, local authority enforcement and project cost
escalation would hinder a faster progress.
Abstract: The effect of chemical treatment in CdCl2 on the
compositional changes and defect structures of potentially useful ZnS
solar cell thin films prepared by vacuum deposition method was
studied using the complementary Rutherford backscattering (RBS)
and Thermoluminesence (TL) techniques. A series of electron and
hole traps are found in the various as deposited samples studied.
After treatment, perturbation on the intensity is noted; mobile defect
states and charge conversion and/or transfer between defect states are
found.
Abstract: The development of information and communication
technology, the increased use of the internet, as well as the effects of
the recession within the last years, have lead to the increased use of
cloud computing based solutions, also called on-demand solutions.
These solutions offer a large number of benefits to organizations as
well as challenges and risks, mainly determined by data visualization
in different geographic locations on the internet. As far as the specific
risks of cloud environment are concerned, data security is still
considered a peak barrier in adopting cloud computing. The present
study offers an approach upon ensuring the security of cloud data,
oriented towards the whole data life cycle. The final part of the study
focuses on the assessment of data security in the cloud, this
representing the bases in determining the potential losses and the
premise for subsequent improvements and continuous learning.
Abstract: A study was conducted in greenhouse environment to
determine the response of five tissue-cultured date palm cultivars, Al-
Ahamad, Nabusaif, Barhee, Khalas, and Kasab to irrigation water
salinity of 1.6, 5, 10, or 20 dS/ m. The salinity level of 1.6dS/m, was
used as a control. The effects of high salinity on plant survival were
manifested at 360 days after planting (DAP) onwards. Three
cultivars, Khalas, Kasab and Barhee were able to tolerate 10 dS/m
salinity level at 24 months after the start of study. Khalas tolerated
the highest salinity level of 20 dS/ m and 'Nabusaif' was found to be the
least tolerant cv. The average heights of palms and the number of
fronds were decreased with increasing salinity levels as time
progressed.
Abstract: This study investigates the performance of radial basis function networks (RBFN) in forecasting the monthly CO2 emissions of an electric power utility. We also propose a method for input variable selection. This method is based on identifying the general relationships between groups of input candidates and the output. The effect that each input has on the forecasting error is examined by removing all inputs except the variable to be investigated from its group, calculating the networks parameter and performing the forecast. Finally, the new forecasting error is compared with the reference model. Eight input variables were identified as the most relevant, which is significantly less than our reference model with 30 input variables. The simulation results demonstrate that the model with the 8 inputs selected using the method introduced in this study performs as accurate as the reference model, while also being the most parsimonious.
Abstract: Dynamics of laser radiation – metal target interaction
in water at 1064 nm by applying Mach-Zehnder interference
technique was studied. The mechanism of generating the well
developed regime of evaporation of a metal surface and a spherical
shock wave in water is proposed. Critical intensities of the NIR for
the well developed evaporation of silver and gold targets were
determined. Dynamics of shock waves was investigated for earlier
(dozens) and later (hundreds) nanoseconds of time. Transparent
expanding plasma-vapor-compressed water object was visualized and
measured. The thickness of compressed layer of water and pressures
behind the front of a shock wave for later time delays were obtained
from the optical treatment of interferograms.
Abstract: University websites are considered as one of the brand primary touch points for multiple stakeholders, but most of them did not have great designs to create favorable impressions. Some of the elements that web designers should carefully consider are the appearance, the content, the functionality, usability and search engine optimization. However, priority should be placed on website simplicity and negative space. In terms of content, previous research suggests that universities should include reputation, learning environment, graduate career prospects, image destination, cultural integration, and virtual tour on their websites. The study examines how top 200 world ranking science and technology-based universities present their brands online and whether the websites capture the content dimensions. Content analysis of the websites revealed that the top ranking universities captured these dimensions at varying degree. Besides, the UK-based university had better priority on website simplicity and negative space compared to the Malaysian-based university.