Abstract: Widespread use of asbestos over the last century has left a terrible legacy of lung disease. Doctors knew of the health risks long ago, but almost nothing was done to protect workers and the public. Some aspects of nanotechnology may have risks similar to asbestos.
Abstract: In pressure vessels contain hydrogen, the role of
hydrogen will be important because of hydrogen cracking problem. It
is difficult to predict what is happened in metallurgical field spite of a
lot of studies have been searched. The main role in controlling the
mass diffusion as driving force is related to stress. In this study, finite
element analysis is implemented to estimate material-s behavior
associated with hydrogen embrittlement. For this purpose, one model
of a pressure vessel is introduced that it has definite boundary and
initial conditions. In fact, finite element is employed to solve the
sequentially coupled mass diffusion with stress near a crack front in a
pressure vessel. Modeling simulation intergrarnular fracture of AISI
4135 steel due to hydrogen is investigated. So, distribution of
hydrogen and stress are obtained and they indicate that their
maximum amounts occur near the crack front. This phenomenon is
happened exactly the region between elastic and plastic field.
Therefore, hydrogen is highly mobile and can diffuse through crystal
lattice so that this zone is potential to trap high volume of hydrogen.
Consequently, crack growth and fast fracture will be happened.
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic approach for
designing Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) based
supplementary damping controllers for damping low frequency
oscillations in a single-machine infinite-bus power system. The
design problem of the proposed controller is formulated as an
optimization problem and RCGA is employed to search for optimal
controller parameters. By minimizing the time-domain based
objective function, in which the deviation in the oscillatory rotor
speed of the generator is involved; stability performance of the
system is improved. Simulation results are presented and compared
with a conventional method of tuning the damping controller
parameters to show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed
design approach.
Abstract: Understanding driving behavior is a complicated
researching topic. To describe accurate speed, flow and density of a
multiclass users traffic flow, an adequate model is needed. In this
study, we propose the concept of standard passenger car equivalent
(SPCE) instead of passenger car equivalent (PCE) to estimate the
influence of heavy vehicles and slow cars. Traffic cellular automata
model is employed to calibrate and validate the results. According to
the simulated results, the SPCE transformations present good
accuracy.
Abstract: Clustering is one of an interesting data mining topics
that can be applied in many fields. Recently, the problem of cluster
analysis is formulated as a problem of nonsmooth, nonconvex optimization,
and an algorithm for solving the cluster analysis problem
based on nonsmooth optimization techniques is developed. This
optimization problem has a number of characteristics that make it
challenging: it has many local minimum, the optimization variables
can be either continuous or categorical, and there are no exact
analytical derivatives. In this study we show how to apply a particular
class of optimization methods known as pattern search methods
to address these challenges. These methods do not explicitly use
derivatives, an important feature that has not been addressed in
previous studies. Results of numerical experiments are presented
which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Abstract: The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in schools and higher education is proliferating. Due to its interactive and animated features, it is regarded as a promising technology to increase students- spatial ability. Spatial ability is assumed to have a prominent role in science and engineering domains. However, research concerning individual differences such as spatial ability in the context of VR is still at its infancy. Moreover, empirical studies that focus on the features of VR to improve spatial ability are to date rare. Thus, this paper explores the possible educational values of VR in relation to spatial ability to call for more research concerning spatial ability in the context of VR based on studies in computerbased learning. It is believed that the incorporation of state-of-the-art VR technology for educational purposes should be justified by the enhanced benefits for the target learners.
Abstract: One of the major problems in genomic field is to perform sequence comparison on DNA and protein sequences. Executing sequence comparison on the DNA and protein data is a computationally intensive task. Sequence comparison is the basic step for all algorithms in protein sequences similarity. Parallel computing is an attractive solution to provide the computational power needed to speedup the lengthy process of the sequence comparison. Our main research is to enhance the protein sequence algorithm using dynamic programming method. In our approach, we parallelize the dynamic programming algorithm using multithreaded program to perform the sequence comparison and also developed a distributed protein database among many PCs using Remote Method Interface (RMI). As a result, we showed how different sizes of protein sequences data and computation of scoring matrix of these protein sequence on different number of processors affected the processing time and speed, as oppose to sequential processing.
Abstract: III-nitride quaternary InxAlyGa1-x-yN alloys have experienced considerable interest as potential materials for optoelectronic applications. Despite these interesting applications and the extensive efforts to understand their fundamental properties, research on its fundamental surface property, i.e., surface phonon polariton (SPP) has not yet been reported. In fact, the SPP properties have been shown to provide application for some photonic devices. Hence, there is an absolute need for thorough studies on the SPP properties of this material. In this work, theoretical study on the SPP modes in InAlGaN quaternary alloys are reported. Attention is focus on the wurtzite (α-) structure InxAlyGa1-x-yN semi-crystal with different In composition, x ranging from 0 to 0.10 and constant Al composition, y = 0.06. The SPP modes are obtained through the theoretical simulation by means of anisotropy model. The characteristics of SP dispersion curves are discussed. Accessible results in terms of the experimental point of view are also given. Finally, the results revealed that the SPP mode of α-InxAlyGa1-x-yN semiconductors exhibits two-mode behavior.
Abstract: The last decade has seen an early majority of people
The last decade, the role of the of the information communication
technologies has increased in improving the social and business life
of people. Today, it is recognized that game could contribute to
enhance virtual rehabilitation by better engaging patients. Our
research study aims to develop a game based system enhancing
cognitive and physical capabilities of elderly people. To this end, the
project aims to develop a low cost hand held system based on
existing game such as Wii, PSP, or Xbox. This paper discusses the
concepts and requirements for developing such game for elderly
people. Based on the requirement elicitation, we intend to develop a
prototype related to sport and dance activities.
Abstract: In this research relationship between to be smooth the
interest and output of accepted companies stock at negotiable paper
exchange of Tehran is studied. Static community capacity included
363 companies member of negotiable paper exchange of Tehran that
54 companies were, by considering research limitation, selected from
2004 to 2009. Needed data for model test in librarian method was
chosen from RAH AVARDE NOVIN informative banks, TADBIR
and collecting needed data was selected from Tehran negotiable
paper exchange archive. Given results show that in spite of belief
among people based on companies have more smooth interest have
more output, but resulted outcomes of test-done reveals that there is
no relation between smooth interest and stock output.
Abstract: Unstructured peer-to-peer networks are popular due to
its robustness and scalability. Query schemes that are being used in
unstructured peer-to-peer such as the flooding and interest-based
shortcuts suffer various problems such as using large communication
overhead long delay response. The use of routing indices has been a
popular approach for peer-to-peer query routing. It helps the query
routing processes to learn the routing based on the feedbacks
collected. In an unstructured network where there is no global
information available, efficient and low cost routing approach is
needed for routing efficiency.
In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism for query-feedback
oriented routing indices to achieve routing efficiency in unstructured
network at a minimal cost. The approach also applied information
retrieval technique to make sure the content of the query is
understandable and will make the routing process not just based to
the query hits but also related to the query content. Experiments have
shown that the proposed mechanism performs more efficient than
flood-based routing.
Abstract: This comparison of valuation techniques for bone age
assessment is a work carried out by the Telemedicine Research Group
of the Military University - TIGUM, as a preliminary to the Design
and development a treatment system of hand and wrist radiological
images for children aged 0-6 years to bone age assessment . In this
paper the techniques mentioned for decades have been the most
widely used and the statistically significant.
Althought, initially with the current project, it wants to work with
children who have limit age, this comparison and evaluation
techniques work will help in the future to expand the study subject in
the system to bone age assessment, implementing more techniques,
tools and deeper analysis to accomplish this purpose.
Abstract: Gurus of the Classical Management School (like
Taylor, Fayol and Ford) had an opinion that work must be delegated
to the individual and the individual has to be instructed, his work
assessed and paid based on individual performance. The theories of
the Human Relations School have changed this mentality regarding
the concept of groups. They came to the conclusion that the influence
of groups greatly affects the behaviour and performance of its
members.
Group theories today are characterized by problem-solving teams
and self-managing groups authorized to make decisions and execute;
professional communities also play an important role during the
operation of knowledge management systems.
In this theoretical research we try to find answers to a question:
what kind of characteristics (professional competencies, personal
features, etc.) a successful team needs to manage a change to operate
a knowledge management system step by step.
Abstract: The bridge vibration due to traffic loading has been a
subject of extensive research during the last decades. A number of
these studies are concerned with the effects of the unevenness of
roadways on the dynamic responses of highway bridges. The road
unevenness is often described as a random process that constitutes
of different wavelengths. Thus, the study focuses on examining
the effects of the random description of roadways on the dynamic
response and its variance. A new setting of variance based sensitivity
analysis is proposed and used to identify and quantify the
contributions of the roadway-s wavelengths to the variance of the
dynamic response. Furthermore, the effect of the vehicle-s speed on
the dynamic response is studied.
Abstract: In this study, we introduced a communication system
where human body was used as medium through which data were
transferred. Multiple biosignal sensing units were attached to a subject
and wireless personal area network was formed. Data of the sensing
units were shared among them. We used wideband pulse
communication that was simple, low-power consuming and high data
rated. Each unit functioned as independent communication device or
node. A method of channel search and communication among the
modes was developed. A protocol of carrier sense multiple
access/collision detect was implemented in order to avoid data
collision or interferences. Biosignal sensing units should be located at
different locations due to the nature of biosignal origin. Our research
provided a flexibility of collecting data without using electrical wires.
More non-constrained measurement was accomplished which was
more suitable for u-Health monitoring.
Abstract: Current practice of indigenous Mapping production based on GIS, are mostly produced by professional GIS personnel. Given such persons maintain control over data collection and authoring, it is possible to conceive errors due to misrepresentation or cognitive misunderstanding, causing map production inconsistencies. In order to avoid such issues, this research into tribal GIS interface focuses not on customizing interfaces for individual tribes, but rather generalizing the interface and features based on indigenous tribal user needs. The methods employed differs from the traditional expert top-down approach, and instead gaining deeper understanding into indigenous Mappings and user needs, prior to applying mapping techniques and feature development.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to investigate on the internalflow
patterns in a plate heat exchanger channel, which affect the
rate of sedimentation fouling on the heat transfer surface of the
plate heat exchanger. The research methodologies were the
computer simulation using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
and the experimental works. COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS™
Version 3.3 was used to simulate the velocity flow fields to verify
the low and high flow regions. The results from the CFD technique
were then compared with the images obtained from the
experiments in which the fouling test rig was set up with a singlechannel
plate heat exchanger to monitor the fouling of calcium
carbonate. Two parameters were varied i.e., the crossing angle of
the two plate: 55/55, 10/10, and 55/10 degree, and the fluid flow
rate at the inlet: 0.0566, 0.1132 and 0.1698 m/s. The type of plate
“GX-12" (the surface area 0.12 m2, the depth 2.9 mm, the width of
fluid flow 215 mm and the thickness of stainless plate of 0.5 mm)
was used in this study. The results indicated that the velocity
distribution for the case of 55/55 degree seems to be very well
organized when compared with the others. Also, an increase in the
inlet velocity resulted in the reduction of fouling rate on the surface
of plate heat exchangers.
Abstract: One of the important steps in a safety and risk management system is the economical evaluation of occupational accident and diseases costs in order to decrease accidents from reoccurring in the workplace. This study proposed a plausible method for calculating occupational accident costs and illnesses in work place. This method design for cost estimation takes into account both the personnel, organizational level as well as the community level especially intended for an Iranian work place. The research indicates that a using systematic method for calculating costs which also provides risk evaluation can help managers to plan correctly the investment in health and safety measures. Using this method is that not only is it comprehensive, easy and practical and could be applied in practice by a manager within a short period of time but it also shows the importance of accident costs as well as calculates the real cost of an accident and illnesses.
Abstract: In this paper, we research the standard 13-point difference schemes for solving the biharmonic equation. Heuristic method is applied to judging the stability of multi-level difference schemes of the biharmonic equation. It is showed that the standard 13-point difference schemes are stable.
Abstract: Thailand is one of the world-s leaders of rice
producers and exporters. Farmers have to increase the rice cultivation
frequency for serving the national increasing of export-s demand. It
leads to an elimination of rice residues by open burning which is the
quickest and costless management method. The open burning of rice
residue is one of the major causes of air pollutants and greenhouse
gas (GHG) emission. Under ASEAN agreement on trans-boundary
haze, Thailand set the master plan to mitigate air pollutant emission
from open burning of agricultural residues. In this master plan,
residues incorporation is promoted as alternative management
method to open burning. However, the assessment of both options in
term of GHG emission in order to investigate their contribution to
long-term global warming is still scarce or inexistent. In this study, a
method on rice residues assessment was first developed in order to
estimate and compare GHG emissions from rice cultivation under
rice residues open burning and the case with incorporation of the
same amount of rice residues, using 2006 IPCC guidelines for
emission estimation and Life Cycle Analysis technique. The
emission from rice cultivation in different preparing area practice
was also discussed.