Scholarly

Enhancing the Quality of Learning by Using an Innovative Approach for Teaching Energy in Secondary Schools

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 9 1986 - 1990 Pages

Abstract: This paper presents the results of the authors in designing, experimenting, assessing and transferring an innovative approach to energy education in secondary schools, aimed to enhance the quality of learning in terms of didactic curricula and pedagogic methods. The training is online delivered to youngsters via e-Books and portals specially designed for this purpose or by learning by doing via interactive games. An online educational methodology is available teachers.

The Building Thermal Performance and Carbon Sequestration Evaluation for Psophocarpus tetrogonobulus on Biofaçade Wall in the Tropical Environment

Year: 2011 Volume: 5 Issue: 4 230 - 238 Pages

Abstract: Plants are commonly known for its positive correlation in reducing temperature. Since it can benefit buildings by modifying the microclimate, it-s also believed capable of reducing the internal temperature. Various experiments have been done in Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang to investigate the comparison in thermal benefits between two rooms, one being a typical control room (exposed wall) and the other a biofacade room (plant shaded wall). The investigations were conducted during non-rainy season for approximately a month. Climbing plant Psophocarpus tetrogonobulus from legume species was selected as insulation for the biofacade wall. Conclusions were made on whether the biofacade can be used to tackle the energy efficiency, based on the parameters taken into consideration.

One-DOF Precision Position Control using the Combined Piezo-VCM Actuator

Year: 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 8 203 - 208 Pages

Abstract: This paper presents the control performance of a high-precision positioning device using the hybrid actuator composed of a piezoelectric (PZT) actuator and a voice-coil motor (VCM). The combined piezo-VCM actuator features two main characteristics: a large operation range due to long stroke of the VCM, and high precision and heavy load positioning ability due to PZT impact force. A one-degree-of-freedom (DOF) experimental setup was configured to examine the fundamental characteristics, and the control performance was effectively demonstrated by using a switching controller. In rough positioning state, an integral variable structure controller (IVSC) was used for the VCM to conduct long range of operation; in precision positioning state, an impact force controller (IFC) for the PZT actuator coupled with presliding states of the sliding table was used to obtain high-precision position control and achieve both forward and backward actuations. The experimental results showed that the sliding table having a mass of 881g and with a preload of 10 N was successfully positioned within the positioning accuracy of 10 nm in both forward and backward position controls.

A Hybrid Approach Using Particle Swarm Optimization and Simulated Annealing for N-queen Problem

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 7 886 - 890 Pages

Abstract: This paper presents a hybrid approach for solving nqueen problem by combination of PSO and SA. PSO is a population based heuristic method that sometimes traps in local maximum. To solve this problem we can use SA. Although SA suffer from many iterations and long time convergence for solving some problems, By good adjusting initial parameters such as temperature and the length of temperature stages SA guarantees convergence. In this article we use discrete PSO (due to nature of n-queen problem) to achieve a good local maximum. Then we use SA to escape from local maximum. The experimental results show that our hybrid method in comparison of SA method converges to result faster, especially for high dimensions n-queen problems.

Keywords:
PSO
SA
N-queen
CSP

Combined Hashing/Watermarking Method for Image Authentication

Year: 2007 Volume: 1 Issue: 6 1647 - 1653 Pages

Abstract: In this paper we present a combined hashing/watermarking method for image authentication. A robust image hash, invariant to legitimate modifications, but fragile to illegitimate modifications is generated from the local image characteristics. To increase security of the system the watermark is generated using the image hash as a key. Quantized Index Modulation of DCT coefficients is used for watermark embedding. Watermark detection is performed without use of the original image. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented method in terms of robustness and fragility.

Toward a New Simple Analytical Formulation of Navier-Stokes Equations

Year: 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 3 284 - 288 Pages

Abstract: Incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are reviewed in this work. Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations are solved analytically. The Mathematical derivation shows that the solutions for the zero and constant pressure gradients are similar. Descriptions of the proposed formulation and validation against two laminar experiments and three different turbulent flow cases are reported in this paper. Even though, the analytical solution is derived for nonreacting flows, it could reproduce trends for cases including combustion.

Potential Role of Halophytic Macrophytes in Saline Effluent Treatment

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 4 194 - 198 Pages

Abstract: The growth of the aquaculture industry has been associated with negative environmental impacts through the discharge of raw effluents into the adjacent receiving water bodies. Macrophytes from natural saline lakes, which have adaptability to the high salinity, can be suitable for saline effluent treatment. Eight emergent species from natural saline area were planted in an experimental gravel bed hydroponic mesocosm (GBH) which was treated with effluent water from an intensive fish farm using geothermal water. In order to examine the applicability of the halophytes in treatment processes, we tested the relative efficacy of total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), potassium (K), sodium (Na), magnesium (Mg) and calcium (Ca) removal for the saline wastewater treatment. Four of the eight species, which were Phragmites australis, Typha angustifolia, Glyceria maxima, Scirpus lacustris spp. tabernaemontani could survive and contribute the experimental treatment.

The Design of Self-evolving Artificial Immune System II for Permutation Flow-shop Problem

Year: 2012 Volume: 6 Issue: 5 892 - 896 Pages

Abstract: Artificial Immune System is adopted as a Heuristic Algorithm to solve the combinatorial problems for decades. Nevertheless, many of these applications took advantage of the benefit for applications but seldom proposed approaches for enhancing the efficiency. In this paper, we continue the previous research to develop a Self-evolving Artificial Immune System II via coordinating the T and B cell in Immune System and built a block-based artificial chromosome for speeding up the computation time and better performance for different complexities of problems. Through the design of Plasma cell and clonal selection which are relative the function of the Immune Response. The Immune Response will help the AIS have the global and local searching ability and preventing trapped in local optima. From the experimental result, the significant performance validates the SEAIS II is effective when solving the permutation flows-hop problems.

Keywords:
Artificial Immune System
Clonal Selection
Immune Response
Permutation Flow-shop Scheduling Problems

Deactivation of Cu - Cr/γ-alumina Catalysts for Combustion of Exhaust Gases

Year: 2011 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 42 - 48 Pages

Abstract: The paper relates to a catalyst, comprising copperchromium spinel, coated on carrier γ-Al2O3. The effect of preparation conditions on the active component composition and activity behavior of the catalysts is discussed. It was found that the activity of carbon monoxide, DME, formaldehyde and methanol oxidation reaches a maximum at an active component content of 20 – 30 wt. %. Temperature calcination at 500oC seems to be optimal for the γ– alumina supported CuO-Cr2O3 catalysts for CO, DME, formaldehyde and methanol oxidation. A three months industrial experiment was carried out to elucidate the changes in the catalyst composition during industrial exploitation of the catalyst and the main reasons for catalyst deactivation. It was concluded that the CuO–Cr2O3/γ–alumina supported catalysts have enhanced activity toward CO, DME, formaldehyde and methanol oxidation and that these catalysts are suitable for industrial application. The main reason for catalyst deactivation seems to be the deposition of iron and molybdenum, coming from the main reactor, on the active component surface.

In vivo Antidiabetic and Antioxidant Potential of Pseudovaria macrophylla Extract

Year: 2014 Volume: 8 Issue: 9 563 - 566 Pages

Abstract: This study has investigated the antidiabetic and antioxidant potential of Pseudovaria macrophylla bark extract on streptozotocin–nicotinamide induced type 2 diabetic rats. LCMSQTOF and NMR experiments were done to determine the chemical composition in the methanolic bark extract. For in vivo experiments, the STZ (60 mg/kg/b.w, 15 min after 120 mg/kg/1 nicotinamide, i.p.) induced diabetic rats were treated with methanolic extract of Pseuduvaria macrophylla (200 and 400 mg/kg·bw) and glibenclamide (2.5 mg/kg) as positive control respectively. Biochemical parameters were assayed in the blood samples of all groups of rats. The pro-inflammatory cytokines, antioxidant status and plasma transforming growth factor βeta-1 (TGF-β1) were evaluated. The histological study of the pancreas was examined and its expression level of insulin was observed by immunohistochemistry. In addition, the expression of glucose transporters (GLUT 1, 2 and 4) were assessed in pancreas tissue by western blot analysis. The outcomes of the study displayed that the bark methanol extract of Pseuduvaria macrophylla has potentially normalized the elevated blood glucose levels and improved serum insulin and C-peptide levels with significant increase in the antioxidant enzyme, reduced glutathione (GSH) and decrease in the level of lipid peroxidation (LPO). Additionally, the extract has markedly decreased the levels of serum pro-inflammatory cytokines and transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGF-β1). Histopathology analysis demonstrated that Pseuduvaria macrophylla has the potential to protect the pancreas of diabetic rats against peroxidation damage by downregulating oxidative stress and elevated hyperglycaemia. Furthermore, the expression of insulin protein, GLUT-1, GLUT-2 and GLUT-4 in pancreatic cells was enhanced. The findings of this study support the anti-diabetic claims of Pseudovaria macrophylla bark.

ANN based Multi Classifier System for Prediction of High Energy Shower Primary Energy and Core Location

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 3 522 - 531 Pages

Abstract: Cosmic showers, during the transit through space, produce sub - products as a result of interactions with the intergalactic or interstellar medium which after entering earth generate secondary particles called Extensive Air Shower (EAS). Detection and analysis of High Energy Particle Showers involve a plethora of theoretical and experimental works with a host of constraints resulting in inaccuracies in measurements. Therefore, there exist a necessity to develop a readily available system based on soft-computational approaches which can be used for EAS analysis. This is due to the fact that soft computational tools such as Artificial Neural Network (ANN)s can be trained as classifiers to adapt and learn the surrounding variations. But single classifiers fail to reach optimality of decision making in many situations for which Multiple Classifier System (MCS) are preferred to enhance the ability of the system to make decisions adjusting to finer variations. This work describes the formation of an MCS using Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP), Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) and Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) with data inputs from correlation mapping Self Organizing Map (SOM) blocks and the output optimized by another SOM. The results show that the setup can be adopted for real time practical applications for prediction of primary energy and location of EAS from density values captured using detectors in a circular grid.

Keywords:
EAS
Shower
Core
ANN
Location.

Experimental Investigation of the Maximum Axial Force in the Folding Process of Aluminum Square Columns

Year: 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 371 - 375 Pages

Abstract: In this paper, a semi empirical formula is presented based on the experimental results to predict the first pick (maximum force) value in the instantaneous folding force- axial distance diagram of a square column. To achieve this purpose, the maximum value of the folding force was assumed to be a function of the average folding force. Using the experimental results, the maximum value of the force necessary to initiate the first fold in a square column was obtained with respect to the geometrical quantities and material properties. Finally, the results obtained from the semi empirical relation in this paper, were compared to the experimental results which showed a good correlation.

Local Curvelet Based Classification Using Linear Discriminant Analysis for Face Recognition

Year: 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 4 1015 - 1020 Pages

Abstract: In this paper, an efficient local appearance feature extraction method based the multi-resolution Curvelet transform is proposed in order to further enhance the performance of the well known Linear Discriminant Analysis(LDA) method when applied to face recognition. Each face is described by a subset of band filtered images containing block-based Curvelet coefficients. These coefficients characterize the face texture and a set of simple statistical measures allows us to form compact and meaningful feature vectors. The proposed method is compared with some related feature extraction methods such as Principal component analysis (PCA), as well as Linear Discriminant Analysis LDA, and independent component Analysis (ICA). Two different muti-resolution transforms, Wavelet (DWT) and Contourlet, were also compared against the Block Based Curvelet-LDA algorithm. Experimental results on ORL, YALE and FERET face databases convince us that the proposed method provides a better representation of the class information and obtains much higher recognition accuracies.

The Game of Synchronized Triomineering and Synchronized Tridomineering

Year: 2008 Volume: 2 Issue: 7 2400 - 2405 Pages

Abstract: In synchronized games players make their moves simultaneously rather than alternately. Synchronized Triomineering and Synchronized Tridomineering are respectively the synchronized versions of Triomineering and Tridomineering, two variants of a classic two-player combinatorial game called Domineering. Experimental results for small m × n boards (with m + n ≤ 12 for Synchronized Triomineering and m + n ≤ 10 for Synchronized Tridomineering) and some theoretical results for general k×n boards (with k = 3, 4, 5 for Synchronized Triomineering and k = 3 for Synchronized Tridomineering) are presented. Future research is indicated.

Real-time Laser Monitoring based on Pipe Detective Operation

Year: 2008 Volume: 2 Issue: 6 782 - 787 Pages

Abstract: The pipe inspection operation is the difficult detective performance. Almost applications are mainly relies on a manual recognition of defective areas that have carried out detection by an engineer. Therefore, an automation process task becomes a necessary in order to avoid the cost incurred in such a manual process. An automated monitoring method to obtain a complete picture of the sewer condition is proposed in this work. The focus of the research is the automated identification and classification of discontinuities in the internal surface of the pipe. The methodology consists of several processing stages including image segmentation into the potential defect regions and geometrical characteristic features. Automatic recognition and classification of pipe defects are carried out by means of using an artificial neural network technique (ANN) based on Radial Basic Function (RBF). Experiments in a realistic environment have been conducted and results are presented.

Adaptive Hierarchical Key Structure Generation for Key Management in Wireless Sensor Networks using A*

Year: 2008 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 238 - 242 Pages

Abstract: Wireless Sensor networks have a wide spectrum of civil and military applications that call for secure communication such as the terrorist tracking, target surveillance in hostile environments. For the secure communication in these application areas, we propose a method for generating a hierarchical key structure for the efficient group key management. In this paper, we apply A* algorithm in generating a hierarchical key structure by considering the history data of the ratio of addition and eviction of sensor nodes in a location where sensor nodes are deployed. Thus generated key tree structure provides an efficient way of managing the group key in terms of energy consumption when addition and eviction event occurs. A* algorithm tries to minimize the number of messages needed for group key management by the history data. The experimentation with the tree shows efficiency of the proposed method.

Thermal Analysis of the Current Path from Circuit Breakers Using Finite Element Method

Year: 2012 Volume: 6 Issue: 12 1445 - 1453 Pages

Authors:
Adrian T. Plesca

Abstract: This paper describes a three-dimensional thermal model of the current path included in the low voltage power circuit breakers. The model can be used to analyse the thermal behaviour of the current path during both steady-state and transient conditions. The current path lengthwise temperature distribution and timecurrent characteristic of the terminal connections of the power circuit breaker have been obtained. The influence of the electric current and voltage drop on main electric contact of the circuit breaker has been investigated. To validate the three-dimensional thermal model, some experimental tests have been done. There is a good correlation between experimental and simulation results.

Efficiency of Compact Organic Rankine Cycle System with Rotary-Vane-Type Expander for Low-Temperature Waste Heat Recovery

Year: 2010 Volume: 4 Issue: 1 11 - 16 Pages

Abstract: This paper describes the experimental efficiency of a compact organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system with a compact rotary-vane-type expander. The compact ORC system can be used for power generation from low-temperature heat sources such as waste heat from various small-scale heat engines, fuel cells, electric devices, and solar thermal energy. The purpose of this study is to develop an ORC system with a low power output of less than 1 kW with a hot temperature source ranging from 60°C to 100°C and a cold temperature source ranging from 10°C to 30°C. The power output of the system is rather less due to limited heat efficiency. Therefore, the system should have an economically optimal efficiency. In order to realize such a system, an efficient and low-cost expander is indispensable. An experimental ORC system was developed using the rotary-vane-type expander which is one of possible candidates of the expander. The experimental results revealed the expander performance for various rotation speeds, expander efficiencies, and thermal efficiencies. Approximately 30 W of expander power output with 48% expander efficiency and 4% thermal efficiency with a temperature difference between the hot and cold sources of 80°C was achieved.

The Empirical Survey on the Effect of Using Media in Explosive Forming of Tubular Shells

Year: 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 12 644 - 649 Pages

Abstract: The special and unique advantages of explosive forming, has developed its use in different industries. Considering the important influence of improving the current explosive forming techniques on increasing the efficiency and control over the explosive forming procedure, the effects of air and water as the energy-conveying medium, and also their differences will be illustrated in this paper. Hence, a large number of explosive forming tests have been conducted on two sizes of thin walled cylindrical shells by using air and water as the working medium. Comparative diagrams of the maximum radial deflection of work-pieces of the same size, as a function of the scaled distance, show that for the points with the same values of scaled distance, the maximum radial deformation caused by the under water explosive loading is 4 to 5 times more than the deflection of the shells under explosive forming, while using air. Results of this experimental research have also been compared with other studies which show that using water as the energy conveying media increases the efficiency up to 4.8 times. The effect of the media on failure modes of the shells, and the necking mechanism of the walls of the specimens, while being explosively loaded, are also discussed in this issue. Measuring the tested specimens shows that, the increase in the internal volume has been accompanied by necking of the walls, which finally results in the radial rupture of the structure.

Passive Cooling of Building by using Solar Chimney

Year: 2012 Volume: 6 Issue: 9 726 - 730 Pages

Abstract: Natural ventilation is an important means to improve indoor thermal comfort and reduce the energy consumption. A solar chimney system is an enhancing natural draft device, which uses solar radiation to heat the air inside the chimney, thereby converting the thermal energy into kinetic energy. The present study considered some parameters such as chimney width and solar intensity, which were believed to have a significant effect on space ventilation. Fluent CFD software was used to predict buoyant air flow and flow rates in the cavities. The results were compared with available published experimental and theoretical data from the literature. There was an acceptable trend match between the present results and the published data for the room air change per hour, ACH. Further, it was noticed that the solar intensity has a more significant effect on ACH.

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