Abstract: Modeling of hydrogen fueled engine (H2ICE) injection system is a very important tool that can be used for explaining or predicting the effect of advanced injection strategies on combustion and emissions. In this paper, a common rail injection system (CRIS) is proposed for 4-strokes 4-cylinders hydrogen fueled engine with port injection feeding system (PIH2ICE). For this system, a numerical one-dimensional gas dynamic model is developed considering single injection event for each injector per a cycle. One-dimensional flow equations in conservation form are used to simulate wave propagation phenomenon throughout the CR (accumulator). Using this model, the effect of common rail on the injection system characteristics is clarified. These characteristics include: rail pressure, sound velocity, rail mass flow rate, injected mass flow rate and pressure drop across injectors. The interaction effects of operational conditions (engine speed and rail pressure) and geometrical features (injector hole diameter) are illustrated; and the required compromised solutions are highlighted. The CRIS is shown to be a promising enhancement for PIH2ICE.
Abstract: One of the major problems facing education in Nigeria is the provision of quality Science and Technology education. Inadequate teaching facilities, non-usage of innovative teaching strategies, ineffective classroom management, lack of students’ motivation and poor integration of ICT has resulted in the increase in percentage of students who failed Basic Science and Technology in Junior Secondary Certification Examination for National Examination Council in Nigeria. To address these challenges, the Federal Government came up with a road map on education. This was with a view of enhancing quality education through integration of modern technology into teaching and learning, enhancing quality assurance through proper monitoring and introduction of innovative methods of teaching. This led the researcher to investigate how MOODLE LMS could be used to enhance students’ learning outcomes in BST. A sample of 120 students was purposively selected from four secondary schools in Ogbomoso. The experimental group was taught using MOODLE LMS, while the control group was taught using the conventional method. Data obtained were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and t-test. The result showed that MOODLE LMS was an effective learning platform in teaching BST in junior secondary schools (t=4.953, P
Abstract: This paper investigates the use of atmospheric pressure plasma for improving the surface hydrophobicity of polyurethane synthetic leather with tetramethylsilane (TMS). The atmospheric pressure plasma treatment with TMS is a single-step process to enhance the hydrophobicity of polyurethane synthetic leather. The hydrophobicity of the treated surface was examined by contact angle measurement. The physical and chemical surface changes were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The purpose of this paper is to provide learning materials for understanding how to use atmospheric pressure plasma in the textile finishing process to transform a hydrophilic surface to hydrophobic.
Abstract: Cotton fibre is a commonly-used natural fibre because of its good fibre strength, high moisture absorption behaviour and minimal static problems. However, one of the main drawbacks of cotton fibre is wrinkling after washing, which is recently overcome by wrinkle-resistant treatment. 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) could improve the wrinkle-resistant properties of cotton fibre. Although the BTCA process is an effective method for wrinkle resistant application of cotton fabrics, reduced fabric strength was observed after treatment. Therefore, this paper would explore the use of atmospheric pressure plasma treatment under different discharge powers as a pretreatment process to enhance the application of BTCA process on cotton fabric without generating adverse effect. The aim of this study is to provide learning information to the users to know how the atmospheric pressure plasma treatment can be incorporated in textile finishing process with positive impact.
Abstract: Taking into consideration the real time situation specifically the higher academic institutions, small, medium to large companies, public to private sectors and the remaining sectors, do experience the inventory or asset shrinkages due to theft, loss or even inventory tracking errors. This happening is due to a zero or poor security systems and measures being taken and implemented in their organizations. Henceforth, implementing the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology into any manual or existing web-based system or web application can simply deter and will eventually solve certain major issues to serve better data retrieval and data access. Having said, this manual or existing system can be enhanced into a mobile-based system or application. In addition to that, the availability of internet connections can aid better services of the system. Such involvement of various technologies resulting various privileges to individuals or organizations in terms of accessibility, availability, mobility, efficiency, effectiveness, real-time information and also security. This paper will look deeper into the integration of mobile devices with RFID technologies with the purpose of asset tracking and control. Next, it is to be followed by the development and utilization of MongoDB as the main database to store data and its association with RFID technology. Finally, the development of a web based system which can be viewed in a mobile based formation with the aid of Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), MongoDB, Hyper-Text Markup Language 5 (HTML5), Android, JavaScript and AJAX programming language.
Abstract: Pressure on freshwater systems comes from removing too much water to grow crops; contamination from economic activities, land use practices, and human waste. The paper will be focusing on how water management can influence the design, implementation, and impacts of the ecological principles of biomimicry as sustainable methods in recycling wastewater. At Texas State, United States of America, in particular the lower area of the Trinity River refuge, there is a true example of the diversity to be found in that area, whether when exploring the lands or the waterways. However, as the Trinity River supplies water to the state’s residents, the lower part of the river at Liberty County presents several problem of wastewater discharge in the river. Therefore, conservation efforts are particularly important in the Trinity River basin. Clearly, alternative ways must be considered in order to conserve water to meet future demands. As a result, there should be another system provided rather than the conventional water treatment. Mimicking ecosystem's technologies out of context is not enough, but if we incorporate plants into building architecture, in addition to their beauty, they can filter waste, absorb excess water, and purify air. By providing an architectural proposal center, a living system can be explored through several methods that influence natural resources on the micro-scale in order to impact sustainability on the macro-scale. The center consists of an ecological program of Plant and Water Biomimicry study which becomes a living organism that purifies the river water in a natural way through architecture. Consequently, a rich beautiful nature could be used as an educational destination, observation and adventure, as well as providing unpolluted fresh water to the major cities of Texas. As a result, these facts raise a couple of questions: Why is conservation so rarely practiced by those who must extract a living from the land? Are we sufficiently enlightened to realize that we must now challenge that dogma? Do architects respond to the environment and reflect on it in the correct way through their public projects? The method adopted in this paper consists of general research into careful study of the system of the living machine, in how to integrate it at architectural level, and finally, the consolidation of the all the conclusions formed into design proposal. To summarise, this paper attempts to provide a sustainable alternative perspective in bridging physical and mental interaction with biodiversity to enhance nature by using architecture.
Abstract: For organizational development, employee well-being is critical and has been influenced deeply by character strengths. Therefore, investigating the relationship between character strengths and employee well-being and its inner mechanism is crucial. In this study, we explored the features of Chinese employees' character strengths, studied the relationship between character strengths and employees' subjective well-being, work well-being and psychological well-being respectively, and examined the mediating effect of work-family relationship (both enrichment and conflict). An online survey was conducted. The results showed that: (1) The top five character strengths of Chinese employees were gratitude, citizenship, kindness, appreciation of beauty and excellence, justice, while the bottom five ones were creativity, authenticity, bravery, spirituality, open-mindedness. (2) Subjective well-being was significantly correlated to courage, humanity, transcendence and justice. Work well-being was significantly correlated to wisdom, courage, humanity, justice and transcendence. Psychological well-being was significantly correlated to all the above five character strengths and temperance. (3) Wisdom and humanity influenced Chinese employees’ subjective well-being through work-family enrichment. Justice enhanced psychological well-being via work-family enrichment; meanwhile, it also played a positive role in subjective well-being, work well-being, and psychological well-being by decreasing the family-work conflict. At the end of this paper, some theoretical and practical contributions to organizational management were further discussed.
Abstract: In global competition nowadays, the world economy heavily depends upon high technology and capital intensive industries that are mainly owned by well-established economic and developed countries, such as United States of America, United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea. Indonesia as a developing country is building its economic activities towards industrial country as well, although a slightly different approach was implemented. For example, similar to the concept of one village one product (OVOP) implemented in Japan, Indonesia also adopted this concept by promoting local traditional products to improve incomes of village people and to enhance local economic activities. Analysis on how OVOP program increase local people’s income and influence customer satisfaction were the objective of this paper. Behavioral intention to purchase and re-purchase, customer satisfaction and promotion are key factors for local products to play significant roles in improving local income and economy of the region. The concepts of OVOP and key factors that influence economic activities of local people and the region will be described and explained in the paper. Results of research, in a case study based on 300 respondents, customers of a local restaurant at Tangerang City, Banten Province of Indonesia, indicated that local product, service quality and behavioral intention individually have significant influence to customer satisfaction; whereas simultaneous tests to the variables indicated positive and significant influence to the behavioral intention through customer satisfaction as the intervening variable.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to explore the need of small and medium-sized businesses in tourism and hospitality industry to adopt technology and enhance their degree of digitalization, along with the main benefits enjoyed by technology and the main challenges that hinder its adoption. Within a hermeneutic phenomenological perspective, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three hotel owners and the focus was to identify the main reasons of adoption of technology, enablers and barriers. The findings were grouped with the goal of identifying typology of business practices in using and adopting technology.
Abstract: This paper presents an enhanced efficiency simultaneous dual band energy harvesting system for wireless body area network. A bulk biasing is used to enhance the efficiency of the adapted rectifier design to reduce Vth of MOSFET. The presented circuit harvests the radio frequency (RF) energy from two frequency bands: 1 GHz and 2.4 GHz. It is designed with TSMC 65-nm CMOS technology and high quality factor dual matching network to boost the input voltage. Full circuit analysis and modeling is demonstrated. The simulation results demonstrate a harvester with an efficiency of 23% at 1 GHz and 46% at 2.4 GHz at an input power as low as -30 dBm.
Abstract: This paper expounds on the direct-driven PMSG wind power system control strategy, and analyses the stability conditions of the system. The direct-driven PMSG wind power system may generate the intense mechanical vibration, when wind speed changes dramatically. This paper proposes a new type of torque control strategy, which increases the system damping effectively, mitigates mechanical vibration of the system, and enhances the stability conditions of the system. The simulation results verify the reliability of the new torque control strategy.
Abstract: Insulation performance of a gas insulated system is severely affected by particle contaminants. These metallic particles adversely affect the characteristics of insulating system. These particles can produce surface charges due to partial discharge activities. These particles which are free to move enhance the local electric fields. This paper deals with the influence of conducting particle placed in a co-axial duct on the discharge characteristics of gas mixtures. Co-axial duct placed in a high pressure chamber is used for the purpose. A gas pressure of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 MPa have been considered with a 10:90 SF6 and N2 gas mixtures. The 2D and 3D histograms of clean duct and duct with copper particle are discussed in this paper.
Abstract: In this study, precipitated calcium carbonate lime waste (LW) from sugar beet process was recycled as the raw material for the preparation of composite materials. Epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) was used as a co-matrix in 50 wt% with DGEBA type epoxy resin (ER). XRD was used for characterization of composites. Effects of ESO and LW filler amounts on mechanical properties of neat ER were investigated. Modification of ER with ESO remarkably enhanced plasticity of ER.
Abstract: Cities play a vital role in the social fabric of countries and in national and regional economic growth worldwide; however, the environmental effects of such growth need to be assessed and managed better. The critical and most immediate problems faced by cities of developing countries are the health impacts of urban pollution that derive from inadequate water, sanitation, drainage and solid waste services, poor urban and industrial waste management, and air pollution. As globalization continues, earth's natural processes transform local problems into international issues. The aim of this study is to provide a broad overview of the pollution from urban wastes and emissions in Turkey which is a developing country. It is aimed to underline the significance of reorganizing the institutional tools in a worldwide perspective in order to generate coherent solutions to urban problems, and to enhance urban quality.
Abstract: The use of social media has become more defined. It has been widely used for the purpose of business. More marketers are now using social media as tools to enhance their businesses. Whereas on the other hand, there are more and more people spending their time through mobile apps to be engaged in the social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and others. Social media has even become common in Public Relations (PR). It has become number one platform for creating and sharing content. In view to this, social media has changed the rules in PR where it brings new challenges and opportunities to the profession. Although corporate websites, chat-rooms, email customer response facilities and electronic news release distribution are now viewed as standard aspects of PR practice, many PR practitioners are still struggling with the impact of new media though the implementation of social media is potentially reducing the cost of communication. It is to the point that PR practitioners are not fully embracing new media, they are ill-equipped to do so and they have a fear of the technology. Somehow that social media has become a new style of communication that is characterized by conversation and community. It has become a platform that allows individuals to interact with one another and build relationship among each other. Therefore, in the use of business world, consumers are able to interact with those companies that have joined any social media. Based on their experiences with social networking site interactions, they are also exposed to personal interaction while communicating. This paper is to study the impact of social media to PR. This paper discovers the potential changes of PR practices in a developing country like Malaysia. Eventually the study reflects on how PR practitioners are actually using social media in the country. This paper is based on two theories in its development of this research foundation. Media Ecology Theory is to support the impact and changes to PR. Social Penetration Theory is to reflect on how the use of social media is among PRs. This research is using survey with PR practitioners in its data collection. The results have shown that PR professionals value social media more than they actually use it and the way of organizations communicate had been changed due to the transformation of social media.
Abstract: Many optimization techniques available in the literature have been developed in order to solve the problem of voltage stability enhancement in power systems. However, there are a number of drawbacks in the use of previous techniques aimed at determining the optimal location and size of reactive compensators in a network. In this paper, an Improved Cuckoo Search algorithm is applied as an appropriate optimization algorithm to determine the optimum location and size of a Static Var Compensator (SVC) in a transmission network. The main objectives are voltage stability improvement and total cost minimization. The results of the presented technique are then compared with other available optimization techniques.
Abstract: A variety of techniques and methods are available to evaluate cognitive performance in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) applications. However, traditional cognitive performance evaluation techniques typically incorporate either the conscious or systematic aspect, failing to take into consideration the subconscious or intuitive aspect. This leads to incomplete measures and produces ineffective designs. In order to fill the gaps in past research, this study developed a theoretical framework to facilitate the integration of situation awareness (SA) and intuitive pattern recognition (IPR) to enhance the cognitive performance representation in USAR applications. This framework provides guidance to integrate both SA and IPR in order to evaluate the cognitive performance of the USAR responders. The application of this framework will help improve the system design.
Abstract: Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) has played a vital role to enhance the efficiency of solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation under varying atmospheric temperature and solar irradiation. However, it is hard to track the maximum power point using conventional linear controllers due to the natural inheritance of nonlinear I-V and P-V characteristics of solar PV systems. Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) is suitable for nonlinear system control applications and eliminating oscillations, circuit complexities present in the conventional perturb and observation and incremental conductance methods respectively. Hence, in this paper, FLC is proposed for tracking exact MPPT of solar PV power generation system under varying solar irradiation conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed FLC-based MPPT controller is validated through simulation and analysis using MATLAB/Simulink.
Abstract: Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) networks are a promising candidate for future broadband access networks. These networks combine the optical network as the back end where different passive optical network (PON) technologies are realized and the wireless network as the front end where different wireless technologies are adopted, e.g. LTE, WiMAX, Wi-Fi, and Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). The convergence of both optical and wireless technologies requires designing architectures with robust efficient and effective bandwidth allocation schemes. Different bandwidth allocation algorithms have been proposed in FiWi networks aiming to enhance the different segments of FiWi networks including wireless and optical subnetworks. In this survey, we focus on the differentiating between the different bandwidth allocation algorithms according to their enhancement segment of FiWi networks. We classify these techniques into wireless, optical and Hybrid bandwidth allocation techniques.
Abstract: This study was intended to provide a more efficient and convenient way for mobile users to enhance their knowledge about ASEAN countries. The researchers evaluated the utility of the developed crossword puzzle application and assessed the general usability of its user interface for its intended purpose and audience of users. The descriptive qualitative research method for the research design and the Mobile-D methodology was employed for the development of the software application output. With a generally favorable reception from its users, the researchers concluded that the iSEA Mobile Based Learning Application can be considered ready for general deployment and use. It was also concluded that additional studies can also be done to make a more complete assessment of the knowledge gained by its users before and after using the application.