Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate whether there
is the promotion of product ecodesign measures as a result of
adopting ISO 14001 certification in manufacturing companies in the
Republic of Slovenia. Companies gave the most of their product
development attention to waste and energy reduction during
manufacturing process and reduction of material consumption per
unit of product. Regarding the importance of different ecodesign
criteria reduction of material consumption per unit of product was
reported as the most important criterion. Less attention is paid to endof-
life issues considering recycling or packaging. Most
manufacturing enterprises considered ISO 14001 standard as a very
useful tool or at least a useful tool helping them to accelerate and
establish product ecodesign activities. Two most frequently
considered ecodesign drivers are increased competitive advantage
and legal requirements and two most important barriers are high
development costs and insufficient market demand.
Abstract: This paper proposes the study of a robust control of
the doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) used in a wind energy
production. The proposed control is based on the linear active
disturbance rejection control (ADRC) and it is applied to the control
currents rotor of the DFIG, the DC bus voltage and active and
reactive power exchanged between the DFIG and the network. The
system under study and the proposed control are simulated using
MATLAB/SIMULINK.
Abstract: Study is on the vibration of thin cylindrical shells made of a functionally gradient material (FGM) composed of stainless steel and nickel is presented. The effects of the FGM configuration are studied by studying the frequencies of FG cylindrical shells. In this case FG cylindrical shell has Nickel on its inner surface and stainless steel on its outer surface. The study is carried out based on third order shear deformation shell theory. The objective is to study the natural frequencies, the influence of constituent volume fractions and the effects of configurations of the constituent materials on the frequencies. The properties are graded in the thickness direction according to the volume fraction power-law distribution. Results are presented on the frequency characteristics, the influence of the constituent various volume fractions on the frequencies.
Abstract: Most of the nonlinear equation solvers do not converge always or they use the derivatives of the function to approximate the
root of such equations. Here, we give a derivative-free algorithm that guarantees the convergence. The proposed two-step method, which
is to some extent like the secant method, is accompanied with some
numerical examples. The illustrative instances manifest that the rate of convergence in proposed algorithm is more than the quadratically
iterative schemes.
Abstract: Moulded parts contribute to more than 70% of
components in products. However, common defects particularly in
plastic injection moulding exist such as: warpage, shrinkage, sink
marks, and weld lines. In this paper Taguchi experimental design
methods are applied to reduce the warpage defect of thin plate
Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) and are demonstrated in two
levels; namely, orthogonal arrays of Taguchi and the Analysis of
Variance (ANOVA). Eight trials have been run in which the optimal
parameters that can minimize the warpage defect in factorial
experiment are obtained. The results obtained from ANOVA
approach analysis with respect to those derived from MINITAB
illustrate the most significant factors which may cause warpage in
injection moulding process. Moreover, ANOVA approach in
comparison with other approaches like S/N ratio is more accurate and
with the interaction of factors it is possible to achieve higher and the
better outcomes.
Abstract: Cluster analysis is the name given to a diverse collection of techniques that can be used to classify objects (e.g. individuals, quadrats, species etc). While Kohonen's Self-Organizing Feature Map (SOFM) or Self-Organizing Map (SOM) networks have been successfully applied as a classification tool to various problem domains, including speech recognition, image data compression, image or character recognition, robot control and medical diagnosis, its potential as a robust substitute for clustering analysis remains relatively unresearched. SOM networks combine competitive learning with dimensionality reduction by smoothing the clusters with respect to an a priori grid and provide a powerful tool for data visualization. In this paper, SOM is used for creating a toroidal mapping of two-dimensional lattice to perform cluster analysis on results of a chemical analysis of wines produced in the same region in Italy but derived from three different cultivators, referred to as the “wine recognition data" located in the University of California-Irvine database. The results are encouraging and it is believed that SOM would make an appealing and powerful decision-support system tool for clustering tasks and for data visualization.
Abstract: Multicast Network Technology has pervaded our
lives-a few examples of the Networking Techniques and also for the
improvement of various routing devices we use. As we know the
Multicast Data is a technology offers many applications to the user
such as high speed voice, high speed data services, which is presently
dominated by the Normal networking and the cable system and
digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies. Advantages of Multi cast
Broadcast such as over other routing techniques. Usually QoS
(Quality of Service) Guarantees are required in most of Multicast
applications. The bandwidth-delay constrained optimization and we
use a multi objective model and routing approach based on genetic
algorithm that optimizes multiple QoS parameters simultaneously.
The proposed approach is non-dominated routes and the performance
with high efficiency of GA. Its betterment and high optimization has
been verified. We have also introduced and correlate the result of
multicast GA with the Broadband wireless to minimize the delay in
the path.
Abstract: Electrophoretic motion of a liquid droplet within an
uncharged cylindrical pore is investigated theoretically in this study. It
is found that the boundary effect in terms of the reduction of droplet
mobility (droplet velocity per unit strength of the applied electric field)
is very significant when the double layer surrounding the droplet is
thick, and diminishes as it gets very thin. Moreover, the viscosity ratio
of the ambient fluid to the internal one, σ, is a crucial factor in
determining its electrophoretic behavior. The boundary effect is less
significant as the viscosity ratio gets high. Up to 70% mobility
reduction is observed when this ratio is low (σ = 0.01), whereas only
40% reduction when it is high (σ = 100). The results of this study can
be utilized in various fields of biotechnology, such as a biosensor or a
lab-on-a-chip device.
Abstract: The conventional production of biodiesel from crude
palm oil which contains large amounts of free fatty acids in the
presence of a homogeneous base catalyst confronts the problems of
soap formation and very low yield of biodiesel. To overcome these
problems, free fatty acids must be esterified to their esters in the
presence of an acid catalyst prior to alkaline-catalyzed
transesterification. Sulfated metal oxides are a promising group of
catalysts due to their very high acidity. In this research, aluminadoped
sulfated tin oxide (SO4
2-/Al2O3-SnO2) catalysts were prepared
and used for esterification of free fatty acids in crude palm oil in a
batch reactor. The SO4
2-/Al2O3-SnO2 catalysts were prepared from
different Al precursors. The results showed that different Al
precursors gave different activities of the SO4
2-/Al2O3-SnO2 catalysts.
The esterification of free fatty acids in crude palm oil with methanol
in the presence of SO4
2-/Al2O3-SnO2 catalysts followed first-order
kinetics.
Abstract: This article is dedicated to the question of regionalism
and regionalization in contemporary international relations, with a
specific focus on Central Asia. The article addresses the question of
whether or not Central Asia can be referred to as a true geopolitical
region. In addressing this question, the authors examine particular
factors that are essential for the formation of a region, including those
tied to the economy, energy, culture, and labor migration.
Abstract: The k-nearest neighbors (knn) is a simple but effective method of classification. In this paper we present an extended version of this technique for chemical compounds used in High Throughput Screening, where the distances of the nearest neighbors can be taken into account. Our algorithm uses kernel weight functions as guidance for the process of defining activity in screening data. Proposed kernel weight function aims to combine properties of graphical structure and molecule descriptors of screening compounds. We apply the modified knn method on several experimental data from biological screens. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Abstract: A two-dimensional moving mesh algorithm is developed to simulate the general motion of two rotating bodies with relative translational motion. The grid includes a background grid and two sets of grids around the moving bodies. With this grid arrangement rotational and translational motions of two bodies are handled separately, with no complications. Inter-grid boundaries are determined based on their distances from two bodies. In this method, the overset concept is applied to hybrid grid, and flow variables are interpolated using a simple stencil. To evaluate this moving mesh algorithm unsteady Euler flow is solved for different cases using dual-time method of Jameson. Numerical results show excellent agreement with experimental data and other numerical results. To demonstrate the capability of present algorithm for accurate solution of flow fields around moving bodies, some benchmark problems have been defined in this paper.
Abstract: A new voltage-mode triple-input single-output multifunction filter using only two current conveyors is presented. The proposed filter which possesses three inputs and single-output can generate all biquadratic filtering functions at the output terminal by selecting different input signal combinations. The validity of the proposed filter is verified through PSPICE simulations.
Abstract: The present study aims at determining the effect of ageing on the impact toughness and microstructure of 2024 Al-Cu - Mg alloy. Following the 2 h solutionizing treatment at 450°C and water quench, the specimens were aged at 200°C for various periods (1 to 18 h). The precipitation stages during ageing were monitored by hardness measurements. For each specimen group, Charpy impact and hardness tests were carried out. During ageing the impact toughness of the alloy first increased, and then, following a maxima decreased due to the precipitation of intermediate phases, finally it reached its minimum at the peak hardness. Correlations between hardness and impact toughness were investigated.
Abstract: The purpose of the present study is the investigation
of the relationship between knowledge management and enabling
managers based on achieving proper function. This research is
descriptive and investigative. The sample includes all male and
female high school managers of first and second regions of Urmia
including 98 school and accordingly 98 managers. The instrument
applied was a questionnaire. To sum up, there is a statistically
significant relationship between knowledge management and
empowering managers. In the end, several suggestions are provided.
Abstract: Web applications have become complex and crucial for many firms, especially when combined with areas such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and BPR (Business Process Reengineering). The scientific community has focused attention to Web application design, development, analysis, testing, by studying and proposing methodologies and tools. Static and dynamic techniques may be used to analyze existing Web applications. The use of traditional static source code analysis may be very difficult, for the presence of dynamically generated code, and for the multi-language nature of the Web. Dynamic analysis may be useful, but it has an intrinsic limitation, the low number of program executions used to extract information. Our reverse engineering analysis, used into our WAAT (Web Applications Analysis and Testing) project, applies mutational techniques in order to exploit server side execution engines to accomplish part of the dynamic analysis. This paper studies the effects of mutation source code analysis applied to Web software to build application models. Mutation-based generated models may contain more information then necessary, so we need a pruning mechanism.
Abstract: This paper presents a critical study about the
application of Neural Networks to ion-exchange process. Ionexchange
is a complex non-linear process involving many factors
influencing the ions uptake mechanisms from the pregnant solution.
The following step includes the elution. Published data presents
empirical isotherm equations with definite shortcomings resulting in
unreliable predictions. Although Neural Network simulation
technique encounters a number of disadvantages including its “black
box", and a limited ability to explicitly identify possible causal
relationships, it has the advantage to implicitly handle complex
nonlinear relationships between dependent and independent
variables. In the present paper, the Neural Network model based on
the back-propagation algorithm Levenberg-Marquardt was developed
using a three layer approach with a tangent sigmoid transfer function
(tansig) at hidden layer with 11 neurons and linear transfer function
(purelin) at out layer. The above mentioned approach has been used
to test the effectiveness in simulating ion exchange processes. The
modeling results showed that there is an excellent agreement between
the experimental data and the predicted values of copper ions
removed from aqueous solutions.
Abstract: With deep development of software reuse, componentrelated
technologies have been widely applied in the development of
large-scale complex applications. Component identification (CI) is
one of the primary research problems in software reuse, by analyzing
domain business models to get a set of business components with high
reuse value and good reuse performance to support effective reuse.
Based on the concept and classification of CI, its technical stack is
briefly discussed from four views, i.e., form of input business models,
identification goals, identification strategies, and identification
process. Then various CI methods presented in literatures are
classified into four types, i.e., domain analysis based methods,
cohesion-coupling based clustering methods, CRUD matrix based
methods, and other methods, with the comparisons between these
methods for their advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, some
insufficiencies of study on CI are discussed, and the causes are
explained subsequently. Finally, it is concluded with some
significantly promising tendency about research on this problem.
Abstract: In this paper, a class of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with variable delays are studied on almost periodic time scales, some sufficient conditions are established for the existence and global exponential stability of the almost periodic solution. These results have important leading significance in designs and applications of RNNs. Finally, two examples and numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the results.
Abstract: Cell formation is the first step in the design of cellular
manufacturing systems. In this study, a general purpose
computational scheme employing a hybrid tabu search algorithm as
the core is proposed to solve the cell formation problem and its
variants. In the proposed scheme, great flexibilities are left to the
users. The core solution searching algorithm embedded in the scheme
can be easily changed to any other meta-heuristic algorithms, such as
the simulated annealing, genetic algorithm, etc., based on the
characteristics of the problems to be solved or the preferences the
users might have. In addition, several counters are designed to control
the timing of conducting intensified solution searching and diversified
solution searching strategies interactively.