Thermophoretic Deposition of Nanoparticles Due Toa Permeable Rotating Disk: Effects of Partial Slip, Magnetic Field, Thermal Radiation, Thermal-Diffusion, and Diffusion-Thermo

The present contribution deals with the thermophoretic deposition of nanoparticles over a rapidly rotating permeable disk in the presence of partial slip, magnetic field, thermal radiation, thermal-diffusion, and diffusion-thermo effects. The governing nonlinear partial differential equations such as continuity, momentum, energy and concentration are transformed into nonlinear ordinary differential equations using similarity analysis, and the solutions are obtained through the very efficient computer algebra software MATLAB. Graphical results for non-dimensional concentration and temperature profiles including thermophoretic deposition velocity and Stanton number (thermophoretic deposition flux) in tabular forms are presented for a range of values of the parameters characterizing the flow field. It is observed that slip mechanism, thermal-diffusion, diffusion-thermo, magnetic field and radiation significantly control the thermophoretic particles deposition rate. The obtained results may be useful to many industrial and engineering applications.

Some Studies on Temperature Distribution Modeling of Laser Butt Welding of AISI 304 Stainless Steel Sheets

In this research work, investigations are carried out on Continuous Wave (CW) Nd:YAG laser welding system after preliminary experimentation to understand the influencing parameters associated with laser welding of AISI 304. The experimental procedure involves a series of laser welding trials on AISI 304 stainless steel sheets with various combinations of process parameters like beam power, beam incident angle and beam incident angle. An industrial 2 kW CW Nd:YAG laser system, available at Welding Research Institute (WRI), BHEL Tiruchirappalli, is used for conducting the welding trials for this research. After proper tuning of laser beam, laser welding experiments are conducted on AISI 304 grade sheets to evaluate the influence of various input parameters on weld bead geometry i.e. bead width (BW) and depth of penetration (DOP). From the laser welding results, it is noticed that the beam power and welding speed are the two influencing parameters on depth and width of the bead. Three dimensional finite element simulation of high density heat source have been performed for laser welding technique using finite element code ANSYS for predicting the temperature profile of laser beam heat source on AISI 304 stainless steel sheets. The temperature dependent material properties for AISI 304 stainless steel are taken into account in the simulation, which has a great influence in computing the temperature profiles. The latent heat of fusion is considered by the thermal enthalpy of material for calculation of phase transition problem. A Gaussian distribution of heat flux using a moving heat source with a conical shape is used for analyzing the temperature profiles. Experimental and simulated values for weld bead profiles are analyzed for stainless steel material for different beam power, welding speed and beam incident angle. The results obtained from the simulation are compared with those from the experimental data and it is observed that the results of numerical analysis (FEM) are in good agreement with experimental results, with an overall percentage of error estimated to be within ±6%.

Thermoelastic Damping of Inextensional Hemispherical Shell

In this work, thermoelastic damping effect on the hemi- spherical shells is investigated. The material is selected silicon, and heat conduction equation for thermal flow is solved to obtain the temperature profile in which bending approximation with inextensional assumption of the model. Using the temperature profile, eigen-value analysis is performed to get the natural frequencies of hemispherical shells. Effects of mode numbers, radii and radial thicknesses of the model on the natural frequencies are analyzed in detail. Furthermore, the quality factor (Q-factor) is defined, and discussed for the ring and hemispherical shell.

Numerical Simulations of Flood and Inundation in Jobaru River Basin Using Laser Profiler Data

Laser Profiler (LP) data from aerial laser surveys have been increasingly used as topographical inputs to numerical simulations of flooding and inundation in river basins. LP data has great potential for reproducing topography, but its effective usage has not yet been fully established. In this study, flooding and inundation are simulated numerically using LP data for the Jobaru River basin of Japan’s Saga Plain. The analysis shows that the topography is reproduced satisfactorily in the computational domain with urban and agricultural areas requiring different grid sizes. A 2-D numerical simulation shows that flood flow behavior changes as grid size is varied.

A PSO-based SSSC Controller for Improvement of Transient Stability Performance

The application of a Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) controller to improve the transient stability performance of a power system is thoroughly investigated in this paper. The design problem of SSSC controller is formulated as an optimization problem and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) Technique is employed to search for optimal controller parameters. By minimizing the time-domain based objective function, in which the deviation in the oscillatory rotor angle of the generator is involved; transient stability performance of the system is improved. The proposed controller is tested on a weakly connected power system subjected to different severe disturbances. The non-linear simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller and its ability to provide efficient damping of low frequency oscillations. It is also observed that the proposed SSSC controller improves greatly the voltage profile of the system under severe disturbances.

An Overview of Some High Order and Multi-Level Finite Difference Schemes in Computational Aeroacoustics

In this paper, we have combined some spatial derivatives with the optimised time derivative proposed by Tam and Webb in order to approximate the linear advection equation which is given by = 0. Ôêé Ôêé + Ôêé Ôêé x f t u These spatial derivatives are as follows: a standard 7-point 6 th -order central difference scheme (ST7), a standard 9-point 8 th -order central difference scheme (ST9) and optimised schemes designed by Tam and Webb, Lockard et al., Zingg et al., Zhuang and Chen, Bogey and Bailly. Thus, these seven different spatial derivatives have been coupled with the optimised time derivative to obtain seven different finite-difference schemes to approximate the linear advection equation. We have analysed the variation of the modified wavenumber and group velocity, both with respect to the exact wavenumber for each spatial derivative. The problems considered are the 1-D propagation of a Boxcar function, propagation of an initial disturbance consisting of a sine and Gaussian function and the propagation of a Gaussian profile. It is known that the choice of the cfl number affects the quality of results in terms of dissipation and dispersion characteristics. Based on the numerical experiments solved and numerical methods used to approximate the linear advection equation, it is observed in this work, that the quality of results is dependent on the choice of the cfl number, even for optimised numerical methods. The errors from the numerical results have been quantified into dispersion and dissipation using a technique devised by Takacs. Also, the quantity, Exponential Error for Low Dispersion and Low Dissipation, eeldld has been computed from the numerical results. Moreover, based on this work, it has been found that when the quantity, eeldld can be used as a measure of the total error. In particular, the total error is a minimum when the eeldld is a minimum.

Experimental Studies on Multiphase Flow in Porous Media and Pore Wettability

Multiphase flow transport in porous medium is very common and significant in science and engineering applications. For example, in CO2 Storage and Enhanced Oil Recovery processes, CO2 has to be delivered to the pore spaces in reservoirs and aquifers. CO2 storage and enhance oil recovery are actually displacement processes, in which oil or water is displaced by CO2. This displacement is controlled by pore size, chemical and physical properties of pore surfaces and fluids, and also pore wettability. In this study, a technique was developed to measure the pressure profile for driving gas/liquid to displace water in pores. Through this pressure profile, the impact of pore size on the multiphase flow transport and displacement can be analyzed. The other rig developed can be used to measure the static and dynamic pore wettability and investigate the effects of pore size, surface tension, viscosity and chemical structure of liquids on pore wettability.

Biological Characterization of the New Invasive Brine Shrimp Artemia franciscana in Tunisia: Sabkhet Halk El-Menzel

Endemic Artemia franciscana populations can be found throughout the American continent and also as an introduced specie in several country all over the world, such as in the Mediterranean region where Artemia franciscana was identified as an invasive specie replacing native Artemia parthenogenetica and Artemia salina. In the present study, the characterization of the new invasive Artemia franciscana reported from Sabkhet Halk El-Menzel (Tunisia) was done based on the cysts biometry, nauplii instar-I length, Adult sexual dimorphism and fatty acid profile. The mean value of the diameter of non-decapsulated and decapsulated cysts, chorion thickness and naupliar length is 235.8, 226.3, 4.75 and 426.8 μm, respectively. Sexual dimorphism for adults specimen showed that maximal distance between compound eyes, diameter for compound eyes, length of first antenna and the abdomen length compared to the total body length ratio, are the most important variables for males and females discrimination with a total contribution of 62.39 %. The analysis of fatty acid methyl esters profile of decapsulated cysts resulted in low levels of linolenic acid (LLA, C18:3n-3) and high levels of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, C20:5n-3) with 3.11 and 11.10 %, respectively. Low quantity of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3) was also observed with 0.17 mg.g-1 dry weight.

Authenticity Issues of Social Media: Credibility, Quality and Reality

Social media has led to paradigm shifts in ways people work and do business, interact and socialize, learn and obtain knowledge. So much so that social media has established itself as an important spatial extension of this nation-s historicity and challenges. Regardless of the enabling reputation and recommendation features through social networks embedded in the social media system, the overflow of broadcasted and publicized media contents turns the table around from engendering trust to doubting the trust system. When the trust is at doubt, the effects include deactivation of accounts and creation of multiple profiles, which lead to the overflow of 'ghost' contents (i.e. “the abundance of abandoned ships"). In most literature, the study of trust can be related to culture; hence the difference between Western-s “openness" and Eastern-s “blue-chip" concepts in networking and relationships. From a survey on issues and challenges among Malaysian social media users, 'authenticity' emerges as one of the main factors that causes and is caused by other factors. The other issue that has surfaced is credibility either in terms of message/content and source. Another is the quality of the knowledge that is shared. This paper explores the terrains of this critical space which in recent years has been dominated increasingly by, arguably, social networks embedded in the social media system, the overflow of broadcasted and publicized media content.

The Effects of Methionine and Acetate Concentrations on Mycophenolic Acid Production by Penicillium bervicompactum MUCL 19011 in Submerged Culture

Mycophenolic acid “MPA" is a secondary metabolite of Penicillium bervicompactum with antibiotic and immunosuppressive properties. In this study, fermentation process was established for production of mycophenolic acid by Penicillium bervicompactum MUCL 19011 in shake flask. The maximum MPA production, product yield and productivity were 1.379 g/L, 18.6 mg/g glucose and 4.9 mg/L.h respectively. Glucose consumption, biomass and MPA production profiles were investigated during fermentation time. It was found that MPA production starts approximately after 180 hours and reaches to a maximum at 280 h. In the next step, the effects of methionine and acetate concentrations on MPA production were evaluated. Maximum MPA production, product yield and productivity (1.763 g/L, 23.8 mg/g glucose and 6.30 mg/L. h respectively) were obtained with using 2.5 g/L methionine in culture medium. Further addition of methionine had not more positive effect on MPA production. Finally, results showed that the addition of acetate to the culture medium had not any observable effect on MPA production.

Development of Effective Cooling Schemes of Gas Turbine Blades Based on Computer Simulation

In contrast to existing of calculation of temperature field of a profile part a blade with convective cooling which are not taking into account multi connective in a broad sense of this term, we develop mathematical models and highly effective combination (BIEM AND FDM) numerical methods from the point of view of a realization on the PC. The theoretical substantiation of these methods is proved by the appropriate theorems.

A study of Cancer-related MicroRNAs through Expression Data and Literature Search

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of non-coding RNAs that hybridize to mRNAs and induce either translation repression or mRNA cleavage. Recently, it has been reported that miRNAs could possibly play an important role in human diseases. By integrating miRNA target genes, cancer genes, miRNA and mRNA expression profiles information, a database is developed to link miRNAs to cancer target genes. The database provides experimentally verified human miRNA target genes information, including oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. In addition, fragile sites information for miRNAs, and the strength of the correlation of miRNA and its target mRNA expression level for nine tissue types are computed, which serve as an indicator for suggesting miRNAs could play a role in human cancer. The database is freely accessible at http://ppi.bioinfo.asia.edu.tw/mirna_target/index.html.

Integration of Fixed and Variable Speed Wind Generator Dynamics with Multimachine AC Systems

The impact of fixed speed squirrel cage type as well as variable speed doubly fed induction generators (DFIG) on dynamic performance of a multimachine power system has been investigated. Detailed models of the various components have been presented and the integration of asynchronous and synchronous generators has been carried out through a rotor angle based transform. Simulation studies carried out considering the conventional dynamic model of squirrel cage asynchronous generators show that integration, as such, could degrade to the AC system performance transiently. This article proposes a frequency or power controller which can effectively control the transients and restore normal operation of fixed speed induction generator quickly. Comparison of simulation results between classical cage and doubly-fed induction generators indicate that the doubly fed induction machine is more adaptable to multimachine AC system. Frequency controller installed in the DFIG system can also improve its transient profile.

Lower Order Harmonics Minimisation in CHB Inverter Using GA and Decomposition by WT

Nowadays Multilevel inverters are widely using in various applications. Modulation strategy at fundamental switching frequency like, SHEPWM is prominent technique to eliminate lower order of harmonics with less switching losses and better harmonic profile. The equations which are formed by SHE are highly nonlinear transcendental in nature, there may exist single, multiple or even no solutions for a particular MI. However, some loads such as electrical drives, it is required to operate in whole range of MI. In order to solve SHE equations for whole range of MI, intelligent techniques are well suited to solve equations so as to produce lest %THDV. Hence, this paper uses Continuous genetic algorithm for minimising harmonics. This paper also presents wavelet based analysis of harmonics. The developed algorithm is simulated and %THD from FFT analysis and Wavelet analysis are compared. MATLAB programming environment and SIMULINK models are used whenever necessary.

Control of Thermal Flow in Machine Tools Using Shape Memory Alloys

In this paper the authors propose and verify an approach to control heat flow in machine tool components. Thermal deformations are a main aspect that affects the accuracy of machining. Due to goals of energy efficiency, thermal basic loads should be reduced. This leads to inhomogeneous and time variant temperature profiles. To counteract these negative consequences, material with high melting enthalpy is used as a method for thermal stabilization. The increased thermal capacity slows down the transient thermal behavior. To account for the delayed thermal equilibrium, a control mechanism for thermal flow is introduced. By varying a gap in a heat flow path the thermal resistance of an assembly can be controlled. This mechanism is evaluated in two experimental setups. First to validate the ability to control the thermal resistance and second to prove the possibility of a self-sufficient option based on the selfsensing abilities of thermal shape memory alloys.

Effect of Various Nozzle Profiles on Performance of a Two Phase Flow Jet Pump

This paper reports on the results of experimental investigations on the performance of a jet pump operated under selected primary flows to optimize the related parameters. For this purpose a two-phase flow jet pump was used employing various profiles of nozzles as the primary device which was designed, fabricated and used along with the combination of mixing tube and diffuser. The profiles employed were circular, conical, and elliptical. The diameter of the nozzle used was 4 mm. The area ratio of the jet pump was 0.16. The test facility created for this purpose was an open loop continuous circulation system. Performance of the jet pump was obtained as iso-efficiency curves on characteristic curves drawn for various water flow rates. To perform the suction capability, evacuation test was conducted at best efficiency point for all the profiles.

Harmonics Elimination in Multilevel Inverter Using Linear Fuzzy Regression

Multilevel inverters supplied from equal and constant dc sources almost don-t exist in practical applications. The variation of the dc sources affects the values of the switching angles required for each specific harmonic profile, as well as increases the difficulty of the harmonic elimination-s equations. This paper presents an extremely fast optimal solution of harmonic elimination of multilevel inverters with non-equal dc sources using Tanaka's fuzzy linear regression formulation. A set of mathematical equations describing the general output waveform of the multilevel inverter with nonequal dc sources is formulated. Fuzzy linear regression is then employed to compute the optimal solution set of switching angles.

Profile Controlled Gold Nanostructures Fabricated by Nanosphere Lithography for Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is the coherent oscillation of conductive electrons confined in noble metallic nanoparticles excited by electromagnetic radiation, and nanosphere lithography (NSL) is one of the cost-effective methods to fabricate metal nanostructures for LSPR. NSL can be categorized into two major groups: dispersed NSL and closely pack NSL. In recent years, gold nanocrescents and gold nanoholes with vertical sidewalls fabricated by dispersed NSL, and silver nanotriangles and gold nanocaps on silica nanospheres fabricated by closely pack NSL, have been reported for LSPR biosensing. This paper introduces several novel gold nanostructures fabricated by NSL in LSPR applications, including 3D nanostructures obtained by evaporating gold obliquely on dispersed nanospheres, nanoholes with slant sidewalls, and patchy nanoparticles on closely packed nanospheres, all of which render satisfactory sensitivity for LSPR sensing. Since the LSPR spectrum is very sensitive to the shape of the metal nanostructures, formulas are derived and software is developed for calculating the profiles of the obtainable metal nanostructures by NSL, for different nanosphere masks with different fabrication conditions. The simulated profiles coincide well with the profiles of the fabricated gold nanostructures observed under scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM), which proves that the software is a useful tool for the process design of different LSPR nanostructures.

Experimental and Computational Analysis of Hygrothermal Performance of an Interior Thermal Insulation System

Combined experimental and computational analysis of hygrothermal performance of an interior thermal insulation system applied on a brick wall is presented in the paper. In the experimental part, the functionality of the insulation system is tested at simulated difference climate conditions using a semi-scale device. The measured temperature and relative humidity profiles are used for the calibration of computer code HEMOT that is finally applied for a long-term hygrothermal analysis of the investigated structure.

User Satisfaction Issues in ERP Projects

Over the past few years, companies in developing countries have implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Regardless of the various benefits of the ERP system, its adoption and implementation have not been without problems. Many companies have assigned considerable organizational resources to their ERP projects, but have encountered unexpected challenges. Neglecting a number of important factors in ERP projects might lead to failure instead of success. User satisfaction is among those factors that has a major influence on ERP implementation success. So, this paper intends to investigate the key factors that create ERP users- satisfaction and to discover whether ERP users- satisfaction varies among different users- profiles. The study was conducted using a survey questionnaire which was distributed to ERP users in Iranian organizations. A total of 384 responses were collected and analyzed. The findings indicated that younger ERP users tend to be more satisfied with ERP systems. Furthermore, ERP users with more experiences in IT and also more educated users have more satisfaction with ERP softwares. However, the study found no satisfaction differences between men and women users.