Abstract: The experimental design was 4 x 5 factorial with three
replications in fully controlled research greenhouse in Department of
Soil Sciences and Plant Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, University
of Selcuk in the year of 2009. Determination of tolerant chickpea
genotypes to drought was made in the research. Additionally,
sophisticated effects of drought on plant growth and development,
biochemical and physical properties or physical defense mechanisms
were presented. According to the results, the primary genotypes were
Ilgın YP (0.0063 g/gh) for leaf water capacity, 22235 70.44(%) for
relative water content, 22159 (82.47%) for real water content,
22159 (5.03 mg/l) for chlorophyll a+b, Ilgın YP (125.89 nmol
H2O2.dak-1/ mg protein-1) for peroxidase, Yunak YP (769.67
unit/ mg protein-1) for superoxide dismutase, Seydişehir YP
(16.74 μg.TA-1) for proline, Gökçe (80.01 nmol H2O2.dak-1/ mg
protein-1) for catalase. Consequently, all the genotypes
increased their enzyme activity depending on the increasing of
drought stress consider with the effects of drought stress on leaf
enzyme activity. Chickpea genotypes are increasing enzyme
activity against to drought stress.
Abstract: Recently ORC(Organic Rankine Cycle) has attracted
much attention due to its potential in reducing consumption of fossil
fuels and its favorable characteristics to exploit low-grade heat sources.
In this work thermodynamic performance of ORC with superheating of
vapor is comparatively assessed for various working fluids. Special
attention is paid to the effects of system parameters such as the evaporating
temperature and the turbine inlet temperature on the characteristics
of the system such as maximum possible work extraction from
the given source, volumetric flow rate per 1 kW of net work and
quality of the working fluid at turbine exit as well as thermal and
exergy efficiencies. Results show that for a given source the thermal
efficiency increases with decrease of the superheating but exergy
efficiency may have a maximum value with respect to the superheating
of the working fluid. Results also show that in selection of working
fluid it is required to consider various criteria of performance characteristics
as well as thermal efficiency.
Abstract: Aerospace vehicles are subjected to non-uniform
thermal loading that may cause thermal buckling. A study was
conducted on the thermal post-buckling of shape memory alloy
composite plates subjected to the non-uniform tent-like temperature
field. The shape memory alloy wires were embedded within the
laminated composite plates to add recovery stress to the plates. The
non-linear finite element model that considered the recovery stress of
the shape memory alloy and temperature dependent properties of the
shape memory alloy and composite matrix along with its source
codes were developed. It was found that the post-buckling paths of
the shape memory alloy composite plates subjected to various tentlike
temperature fields were stable within the studied temperature
range. The addition of shape memory alloy wires to the composite
plates was found to significantly improve the post-buckling behavior
of laminated composite plates under non-uniform temperature
distribution.
Abstract: A solar powered air heating system using one ended evacuated tubes is experimentally investigated. A solar air heater containing forty evacuated tubes is used for heating purpose. The collector surface area is about 4.44 m2. The length and outer diameters of the outer glass tube and absorber tube are 1500, 47 and 37 mm, respectively. In this experimental setup, we have a header (heat exchanger) of square shape (190 mm x 190 mm). The length of header is 1500 mm. The header consists of a hollow pipe in the center whose diameter is 60 mm through which the air is made to flow. The experimental setup contains approximately 108 liters of water. Water is working as heat collecting medium which collects the solar heat falling on the tubes. This heat is delivered to the air flowing through the header pipe. This heat flow is due to natural convection and conduction. The outlet air temperature depends upon several factors along with air flow rate and solar radiation intensity. The study has been done for both up-flow and down-flow of air in header in similar weather conditions, at different flow rates. In the present investigations the study has been made to find the effect of intensity of solar radiations and flow rate of air on the out let temperature of the air with time and which flow is more efficient. The obtained results show that the system is highly effective for the heating in this region. Moreover, it has been observed that system is highly efficient for the particular flow rate of air. It was also observed that downflow configuration is more effective than up-flow condition at all flow rates due to lesser losses in down-flow. The results show that temperature differences of upper head and lower head, both of water and surface of pipes on the respective ends is lower in down-flow.
Abstract: The effect of autofrettage process in strain hardened
thick-walled pressure vessels has been investigated theoretically by
finite element modeling. Equivalent von Mises stress is used as yield
criterion to evaluate the optimum autofrettage pressure and the
optimum radius of elastic-plastic junction. It has been observed that
the optimum autofrettage pressure increases along with the working
pressure. For two different working pressures, the effect of the ratio
of outer to inner radius (b/a=k) value on the optimum autofrettage
pressure is also noticed. The Optimum autofrettage pressure solely
depends on K value rather than on the inner or outer radius.
Furthermore, percentage reduction of von Mises stresses is compared
for different working pressures and different k values. Maximum von
Mises stress developed at different autofrettage pressure is equated
for elastic perfectly plastic and elastic-plastic material with different
slope of strain hardening segment. Cylinder material having higher
slope of strain hardening segment provides better benedictions in the
autofrettage process.
Abstract: Using strength Pulse Electrical Field (PEF) in food
industries is a non-thermal process that can deactivate
microorganisms and increase penetration in plant and animals tissues
without serious impact on food taste and quality. In this paper designing and fabricating of a PEF generator has been presented. Pulse generation methods have been surveyed and the best of them
selected. The equipment by controller set can generate square pulse with adjustable parameters such as amplitude 1-5kV, frequency 0.1-10Hz, pulse width 10-100s, and duty cycle 0-100%. Setting the number of pulses, and presenting the output voltage and current
waveforms on the oscilloscope screen are another advantages of this
equipment. Finally, some food samples were tested that yielded the satisfactory results. PEF applying had considerable effects on potato, banana and purple cabbage. It caused increase Brix factor from 0.05
to 0.15 in potato solution. It is also so effective in extraction color material from purple cabbage. In the last experiment effects of PEF
voltages on color extraction of saffron scum were surveyed (about 6% increasing yield).
Abstract: The morphological short-term evolution of Ponta do Tubarão Island (PTI) was investigated through high accurate surveys based on post-processed kinematic (PPK) relative positioning on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). PTI is part of a barrier island system on a high energy northeast Brazilian coastal environment and also an area of high environmental sensitivity. Surveys were carried out quarterly over a two years period from May 2010 to May 2012. This paper assesses statically the performance of digital elevation models (DEM) derived from different interpolation methods to represent morphologic features and to quantify volumetric changes and TIN models shown the best results to that purposes. The MDE allowed quantifying surfaces and volumes in detail as well as identifying the most vulnerable segments of the PTI to erosion and/or accumulation of sediments and relate the alterations to climate conditions. The coastal setting and geometry of PTI protects a significant mangrove ecosystem and some oil and gas facilities installed in the vicinities from damaging effects of strong oceanwaves and currents. Thus, the maintenance of PTI is extremely required but the prediction of its longevity is uncertain because results indicate an irregularity of sedimentary balance and a substantial decline in sediment supply to this coastal area.
Abstract: In this work, the effects of scale on thermal behavior of the slab in a walking-beam type reheating furnace is studied by considering scale formation and growth in a furnace environment. Also, mathematical heat transfer model to predict the thermal radiation in a complex shaped reheating furnace with slab and skid buttons is developed with combined nongray WSGGM and blocked-off solution procedure. The model can attack the heat flux distribution within the furnace and the temperature distribution in the slab throughout the reheating furnace process by considering the heat exchange between the slab and its surroundings, including the radiant heat transfer among the slabs, the skids, the hot combustion gases and the furnace wall as well as the gas convective heat transfer in the furnace. With the introduction of the mathematical formulations validation of the present numerical model is conducted by calculating two example problems of blocked-off and nongray gas radiative heat transfer. After discussing the formation and growth of the scale on the slab surface, slab heating characteristics with scale is investigated in terms of temperature rise with time.
Abstract: Service life of existing reinforced concrete (RC)
structures in coastal towns of Sabah has been affected very much.
Concrete crack, spalling of concrete cover and reinforcement rusting
of RC buildings are seen even within 5 years of construction in
Sabah. Hence, in this study a new mix design of concrete grout was
developed using locally available materials and investigated under
two curing conditions and workability, compressive strength,
Accelerated Mortar Bar Test (AMBT), water absorption, volume of
permeable voids (VPV), Sorptivity and 90-days salt ponding test
were conducted. The compressive strength of concrete grout at the
age 90 days was found to be 44.49 N/mm2 under water curing. It was
observed that the percentage of mortar bar length change was below
1% for developed concrete grout. The water absorption of the
concrete grout was in between the range of 0.88 % to 3.60 % under
two different curing up to the age 90 days. It was also observed that
the VPV of concrete was in the range of 0 % to 9.75 and 2.44% to
13.05% under water curing and site curing respectively. It was found
that the Sorptivity of the concrete grout under water curing at the age
of 28 days is 0.211mm/√min and at the age 90 day are 0.067
mm/√min. The chloride content decreased greatly, 90% after a depth
of 15 mm. It was noticed that the site cured samples showed higher
chloride contents near surface compared to water cured samples.
This investigation suggested that the developed mix design of
concrete grout using locally available construction materials can be
used for crack repairing of existing RC structures in Sabah.
Abstract: Sixteen selected deep-sea fish obtained from Southern
Java Ocean and Western Sumatra Ocean was analyzed to determine
its proximate, fatty acid and mineral composition. The moisture
content was ranged from 64.38 to 86.04 %, ash from 0.17 to 0.69 %,
the fat content was 1.54 – 13.30 % while the protein content varied
from 15.84 to 23.60%. Among the fatty acids, oleic acid and palmitic
acid was the dominant MUFA and SFA. Linoleic acid was the
highest PUFA found at the selected deep-sea fish. Phospor was the
highest macroelement concentration on selected deep-sea fish,
followed by K, Ca, Mg and Iod, Fe and Zn among microelement. The
trace concentration was found at Se microelement.
Abstract: One of the biggest problems of SMEs is their tendencies to financial distress because of insufficient finance background. In this study, an Early Warning System (EWS) model based on data mining for financial risk detection is presented. CHAID algorithm has been used for development of the EWS. Developed EWS can be served like a tailor made financial advisor in decision making process of the firms with its automated nature to the ones who have inadequate financial background. Besides, an application of the model implemented which covered 7,853 SMEs based on Turkish Central Bank (TCB) 2007 data. By using EWS model, 31 risk profiles, 15 risk indicators, 2 early warning signals, and 4 financial road maps has been determined for financial risk mitigation.
Abstract: Cryo-electron microscopy (CEM) in combination with
single particle analysis (SPA) is a widely used technique for
elucidating structural details of macromolecular assemblies at closeto-
atomic resolutions. However, development of automated software
for SPA processing is still vital since thousands to millions of
individual particle images need to be processed. Here, we present our
workflow for automated particle picking. Our approach integrates
peak shape analysis to the classical correlation and an iterative
approach to separate macromolecules and background by
classification. This particle selection workflow furthermore provides
a robust means for SPA with little user interaction. Processing
simulated and experimental data assesses performance of the
presented tools.
Abstract: A plausible architecture of an ancient genetic code is derived from an extended base triplet vector space over the Galois field of the extended base alphabet {D, G, A, U, C}, where the letter D represent one or more hypothetical bases with unspecific pairing. We hypothesized that the high degeneration of a primeval genetic code with five bases and the gradual origin and improvements of a primitive DNA repair system could make possible the transition from the ancient to the modern genetic code. Our results suggest that the Watson-Crick base pairing and the non-specific base pairing of the hypothetical ancestral base D used to define the sum and product operations are enough features to determine the coding constraints of the primeval and the modern genetic code, as well as the transition from the former to the later. Geometrical and algebraic properties of this vector space reveal that the present codon assignment of the standard genetic code could be induced from a primeval codon assignment. Besides, the Fourier spectrum of the extended DNA genome sequences derived from the multiple sequence alignment suggests that the called period-3 property of the present coding DNA sequences could also exist in the ancient coding DNA sequences.
Abstract: Efficient storage, transmission and use of video information are key requirements in many multimedia applications currently being addressed by MPEG-4. To fulfill these requirements, a new approach for representing video information which relies on an object-based representation, has been adopted. Therefore, objectbased watermarking schemes are needed for copyright protection. This paper proposes a novel blind object watermarking scheme for images and video using the in place lifting shape adaptive-discrete wavelet transform (SA-DWT). In order to make the watermark robust and transparent, the watermark is embedded in the average of wavelet blocks using the visual model based on the human visual system. Wavelet coefficients n least significant bits (LSBs) are adjusted in concert with the average. Simulation results shows that the proposed watermarking scheme is perceptually invisible and robust against many attacks such as lossy image/video compression (e.g. JPEG, JPEG2000 and MPEG-4), scaling, adding noise, filtering, etc.
Abstract: Confucius was a fifth-century BCE Chinese thinker whose influence upon East Asian intellectual and social history is immeasurable. Better known is in China as “Master Kong”. As a culturally symbolic figure, he has been alternately idealized, deified, dismissed, vilified, and rehabilitated over the millennia by both Asian and non-Asian thinkers and regimes. Given his extraordinary impact on Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought, it is ironic that so little can be known about Confucius. The tradition that bears his name – “Confucianizm” (Chinese: Rujia) – ultimately traces itself to the sayings and biographical fragments recorded in the text known as the Analects (Chinese: Lunyu). In the Analects, two types of persons are opposed to one another – not in terms of basic potential, but in terms of developed potential. These are the junzi (literally, “lord’s son” or “gentleman”) and the xiaoren (“small person”). The junzi is the person who always manifests the quality of ren in his
person and the displays the quality of lee in his actions. In this article examines the category of the ideal man and the spiritual and moral values of the philosophy of Confucius. According to Confucius high-morality Jun-zi is characterized by two things: a sense of humanity and duty. This article provides an analysis of the ethical category for the ideal man.
Abstract: Recently, permeable breakwaters have been suggested to overcome the disadvantages of fully protection breakwaters. These protection structures have minor impacts on the coastal environment and neighboring beaches where they provide a more economical protection from waves and currents. For regular waves, a numerical model is used (FLOW-3D, VOF) to investigate the hydraulic performance of a permeable breakwater. The model of permeable breakwater consists of a pair of identical vertical slotted walls with an impermeable upper and lower part, where the draft is a decimal multiple of the total depth. The middle part is permeable with a porosity of 50%. The second barrier is located at distant of 0.5 and 1.5 of the water depth from the first one. The numerical model is validated by comparisons with previous laboratory data and semi-analytical results of the same model. A good agreement between the numerical results and both laboratory data and semi-analytical results has been shown and the results indicate the applicability of the numerical model to reproduce most of the important features of the interaction. Through the numerical investigation, the friction factor of the model is carefully discussed.
Abstract: This paper presents a comparison between Spectrum-
Sliced Wavelength Division Multiplexing (SS-WDM) and Spectrum
Amplitude Coding Optical Code Division Multiple Access (SAC
Optical CDMA) systems for different light sources. The performance
of the system is shown in the simulated results of the bit error rate
(BER) and the eye diagram of both systems. The comparison results
indicate that the Multiple Access Interference (MAI) effects have a
significant impact on SS-WDM over SAC Optical CDMA systems.
Finally, in terms of spectral efficiency at constant BER of 10-12, SSWDM
offers higher spectral efficiency than optical CDMA since no
bandwidth expansion in needed.
Abstract: Starch/chitosan blend have been prepared via the
solution casting technique. Ionic conductivity for the system was
conducted over a wide range of frequency between 50 Hz-1 MHz and
at temperatures between 303 K and 373 K. Sample with 35 wt% of
NH4NO3 shows the highest conductivity of 3.89 ± 0.79 x 10-5 Scm-1
at room temperature. Conductivity-temperature relationship suggests
that samples are Arrhenian. Power law exponent was obtained
through dielectric loss variation and the trend suggests that the
conduction mechanism of the ions can be represented by the
correlated barrier hopping (CBH) model.
Abstract: Chatter vibration has been a troublesome problem
for a machine tool toward the high precision and high speed machining.
Essentially, the machining performance is determined by the dynamic
characteristics of the machine tool structure and dynamics of cutting
process, which can further be identified in terms of the stability lobe
diagram. Therefore, realization on the machine tool dynamic behavior
can help to enhance the cutting stability. To assess the dynamic
characteristics and machining stability of a vertical milling system
under the influence of a linear guide, this study developed a finite
element model integrated the modeling of linear components with the
implementation of contact stiffness at the rolling interface. Both the
finite element simulations and experimental measurements reveal that
the linear guide with different preload greatly affects the vibration
behavior and milling stability of the vertical column spindle head
system, which also clearly indicate that the predictions of the
machining stability agree well with the cutting tests. It is believed that
the proposed model can be successfully applied to evaluate the
dynamics performance of machine tool systems of various
configurations.
Abstract: The authors present an algorithm for order reduction of linear time invariant dynamic systems using the combined advantages of the eigen spectrum analysis and the error minimization by particle swarm optimization technique. Pole centroid and system stiffness of both original and reduced order systems remain same in this method to determine the poles, whereas zeros are synthesized by minimizing the integral square error in between the transient responses of original and reduced order models using particle swarm optimization technique, pertaining to a unit step input. It is shown that the algorithm has several advantages, e.g. the reduced order models retain the steady-state value and stability of the original system. The algorithm is illustrated with the help of two numerical examples and the results are compared with the other existing techniques.