Abstract: Sustainable development is the nominal goal of most countries at present. In general, fossil fuels are the development mainstay of most world countries. Regrettably, the fossil fuel consumption rate is very high, and the world is facing the problem of conventional fuels depletion soon. In addition, there are many problems of environmental pollution resulting from the emission of harmful gases and vapors during fuel burning. Thus, clean, renewable energy became the main concern of most countries for filling the gap between available energy resources and their growing needs. There are many renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and wave energy. Energy can be obtained from the motion of sea waves almost all the time. However, power generation from solar or wind energy is highly restricted to sunny periods or the availability of suitable wind speeds. Moreover, energy produced from sea wave motion is one of the cheapest types of clean energy. In addition, renewable energy usage of sea waves guarantees safe environmental conditions. Cheap electricity can be generated from wave energy using different systems such as oscillating bodies' system, pendulum gate system, ocean wave dragon system and oscillating water column device. In this paper, a multi-criteria model has been developed using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to support the decision of selecting the most effective system for generating power from sea waves. This paper provides a widespread overview of the different design alternatives for sea wave energy converter systems. The considered design alternatives have been evaluated using the developed AHP model. The multi-criteria assessment reveals that the off-shore Oscillating Water Column (OWC) system is the most appropriate system for generating power from sea waves. The OWC system consists of a suitable hollow chamber at the shore which is completely closed except at its base which has an open area for gathering moving sea waves. Sea wave's motion pushes the air up and down passing through a suitable well turbine for generating power. Improving the power generation capability of the OWC system is one of the main objectives of this research. After investigating the effect of some design modifications, it has been concluded that selecting the appropriate settings of some effective design parameters such as the number of layers of Wells turbine fans and the intermediate distance between the fans can result in significant improvements. Moreover, simple dynamic analysis of the Wells turbine is introduced. Furthermore, this paper strives for comparing the theoretical and experimental results of the built experimental prototype.
Abstract: Requirement for pole-changing motors emerged at the very early times of asynchronous motor design. Different solutions have been elaborated and some of them are generally used. An alternative is the so called 3 Y/3 Y pole-changing winding. This paper deals with high power application of this solution. A complete and comprehensive study is introduced, including features and design guidelines. The method presented in this paper is especially suitable for pole numbers being close to each other. The study also reveals that the method is more advantageous then the existing solutions for high power motors with 1:3 pole ratio. Using this motor, a new and complete drive supply system has been proposed as most appropriate arrangement of high power main naval propulsion drive. Further, the method makes possible to extend the pole ratio to 1:6, 1:9, 1:12, etc. At the end, the proposal is further extended to the here so far missing 1:4, 1:5, 1:7 etc. pole ratios. A complete proposal for the theoretically infinite range has been given in this way.
Abstract: A shaped single feed microstrip antenna is realized for C-Band and X-Band applications. The frequency range of C-band and X-band varies from 4 to 8 Gigahertz and 8 to 12 Gigahertz. The antenna operates under three frequency bands, one under C band and two under X-band applications. Defect on the ground called DGS (Defected Ground Structure) is made to enhance the distinctiveness of the antenna parameters. The design consists of DGS provided to improve the antenna performance. The substrate material used is of the Flame Retardant grade-4 (FR4) epoxy having high mechanical and electrical strength. The design and analysis was done using the FEM (Finite Element Method) based Ansoft HFSS (High Frequency Structural Simulator) Version 12. For the resonant frequencies of 5.21, 9.17 and 10.45, a value of reflection coefficient obtained is of -39.0, -16.0 and -30.7 dB respectively. Other constraints of antenna such as bandwidth, gain, directivity and Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) are also conferred.
Abstract: The synergistic effect of properties of metals and fibers reinforced laminates has diverted attention of the world towards use of robust composite materials known as fiber-metal laminates in many high performance applications. In this study, modification of an adhesively bonded joint as a single lap joint of carbon fibers based CARALL FML has done to increase interlaminar shear strength of the joint. The effect of different configurations of joint designs such as spews, stepped and modification in adhesive by addition of nano-fillers was studied. Both experimental and simulation results showed that modified joint design have superior properties as maximum force experienced stepped joint was 1.5 times more than the simple lap joint. Addition of carbon nano-tubes as nano-fillers in the adhesive joint increased the maximum force due to crack deflection mechanism.
Abstract: Today, the developing features of technological tools with limited energy resources have made it necessary to use energy efficiently. Energy management techniques have emerged for this purpose. As with every field, energy management is vital for robots that are being used in many areas from industry to daily life and that are thought to take up more spaces in the future. Particularly, effective power management in autonomous and multi robots, which are getting more complicated and increasing day by day, will improve the performance and success. In this study, robot management algorithms, usage of renewable and hybrid energy sources, robot motion patterns, robot designs, sharing strategies of workloads in multiple robots, road and mission planning algorithms are discussed for efficient use of energy resources by mobile robots. These techniques have been evaluated in terms of efficient use of existing energy resources and energy management in robots.
Abstract: A low profile, dual polarized, slot coupled patch antenna is designed and developed in this paper. The antenna has a measured bandwidth of 17.2% for return loss > 15 dB and pair ports isolation >23 dB. The gain of the antenna is over 10 dBi and the half power beam widths (HPBW) of the antenna are 80±3o in the horizontal plane and 39±2o in the vertical plane. The cross polarization discrimination (XPD) is less than 20 dB in HPBW. Within the operating band, the performances of good impedance match, high ports isolation, low cross polarization, and stable radiation patterns are achieved.
Abstract: One of the main concerns of miners is to increase the quality level of their products because the mining metals price depends on their quality level; however, increasing the quality level of these products has different costs at different levels of the supply chain. These costs usually increase after extractor level. This paper studies the coordination issue of a decentralized three-level supply chain with one supplier (extractor), one mineral processor and one manufacturer in which the increasing product quality level cost at the processor level is higher than the supplier and at the level of the manufacturer is more than the processor. We identify the optimal product quality level for each supply chain member by designing a revenue sharing contract. Finally, numerical examples show that the designed contract not only increases the final product quality level but also provides a win-win condition for all supply chain members and increases the whole supply chain profit.
Abstract: In Multiuser MIMO communication systems, interuser interference has a strong impact on the transmitted signals. Precoding technique schemes are employed for multiuser broadcast channels to suppress an interuser interference. Different Linear and nonlinear precoding schemes are there. For the massive system dimension, it is difficult to design an appropriate precoding algorithm with low computational complexity and good error rate performance at the same time over fading channels. This paper describes the error rate performance of precoding schemes over fading channels with the assumption of perfect channel state information at the transmitter. To estimate the bit error rate performance, different propagation environments namely, Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami fading channels have been offered. This paper presents the error rate performance comparison of these fading channels based on precoding methods like Channel Inversion and Dirty paper coding for multiuser broadcasting system. MATLAB simulation has been used. It is observed that multiuser system achieves better error rate performance by Dirty paper coding over Rayleigh fading channel.
Abstract: Art education is often ignored in syllabus of developing countries like India and in educational planning for development but now days Indian Art with a global recognition is becoming an integral part of the education at all levels. The term art, widely used in all parts of the modern world, carried varied significance in India as its meaning was continuously being extended, covering the many varieties of creative expression such as painting, sculpture, commercial art, design, poetry, music, dance, and architecture. Over the last 100 years Indian artists of all forms have evolved a wide variety of expressive styles. With the recommendations and initiatives by Government of India, Art Education has subsequently gained pace at the school level as a mandatory subject for all making a path way for students with a creative bend of mind. This paper investigates curriculum in various schools of the country at secondary and senior secondary levels along with some eminent institutions running the program. Findings depicted the role of art education and justified its importance primarily with commercial art being perceived to be essential for students learning skills for economic gain in their career ahead. With so many art colleges spread across India, emerging artists and designers are being trained and are creating art of infinite variety and style and have opened up many career avenues. Commercial Art being a plethora of artistic expressions has confidently come of age wherein a creative perception is mixed with an introspective imagination to bring out multi faceted career options with a significant future enveloped in art. Visual arts in education thus is an expanding field of result assured research.
Abstract: One of the significant issues facing web users is the amount of noise in web data which hinders the process of finding useful information in relation to their dynamic interests. Current research works consider noise as any data that does not form part of the main web page and propose noise web data reduction tools which mainly focus on eliminating noise in relation to the content and layout of web data. This paper argues that not all data that form part of the main web page is of a user interest and not all noise data is actually noise to a given user. Therefore, learning of noise web data allocated to the user requests ensures not only reduction of noisiness level in a web user profile, but also a decrease in the loss of useful information hence improves the quality of a web user profile. Noise Web Data Learning (NWDL) tool/algorithm capable of learning noise web data in web user profile is proposed. The proposed work considers elimination of noise data in relation to dynamic user interest. In order to validate the performance of the proposed work, an experimental design setup is presented. The results obtained are compared with the current algorithms applied in noise web data reduction process. The experimental results show that the proposed work considers the dynamic change of user interest prior to elimination of noise data. The proposed work contributes towards improving the quality of a web user profile by reducing the amount of useful information eliminated as noise.
Abstract: There is no reinforcement example for the renovation of the vertical and horizontal extension to existing building structures which is a shear wall type in apartment units in Korea. Among these existing structures, the structures which are shear wall type are rare overseas, while Korea has many shear wall apartment units. Recently, in Korea, a few researchers are trying to confirm the possibility of the vertical extension in existing building with shear walls. This study evaluates the possibility of the renovation by applying performance-based seismic design to existing buildings with shear walls in the analysis phase of the structure. In addition, force-based seismic design, used by general structural engineers in Korea, is carried out to compare the amount of reinforcement of walls, which is a main component of wall structure. As a result, we suggest that performance-based design obtains more economical advantages than force-based seismic design.
Abstract: The picture and pattern of Islamic education in the Prophet's period in Mecca and Medina is the history of the past that we need to bring back. The Basic Education Institute called Kuttab. Kuttab or Maktab comes from the word kataba which means to write. The popular Kuttab in the Prophet’s period aims to resolve the illiteracy in the Arab community. In Indonesia, this Institution has 25 branches; one of them is located in Semarang (i.e. Kuttab Al-Fatih). Kuttab Al-Fatih as a non-formal institution of Islamic education is reserved for children aged 5-12 years. The independently designed curriculum is a distinctive feature that distinguishes between Kuttab Al-Fatih curriculum and the formal institutional curriculum in Indonesia. The curriculum includes the faith and the Qur’an. Kuttab Al-Fatih has been licensed as a Community Activity Learning Center under the direct supervision and guidance of the National Education Department. Here, we focus to describe the implementation of curriculum Kuttab Al-Fatih Semarang (i.e. faith and al-Qur’an). After that, we determine the relevance between the implementation of the Kuttab Al-Fatih education system with the formal education system in Indonesia. This research uses literature review and field research qualitative methods. We obtained the data from the head of Kuttab Al-Fatih Semarang, vice curriculum, faith coordinator, al-Qur’an coordinator, as well as the guardians of learners and the learners. The result of this research is the relevance of education system in Kuttab Al-Fatih Semarang about education system in Indonesia. Kuttab Al-Fatih Semarang emphasizes character building through a curriculum designed in such a way and combines thematic learning models in modules.
Abstract: The matrix cooling channel was used for gas turbine blade cooling passage. The matrix cooling structure is useful for the structure stability however the cooling performance of internal cooling channel was not enough for cooling. Therefore, we designed the rib configurations in the matrix cooling channel to enhance the cooling performance. The numerical simulation was conducted to analyze cooling performance of rib configured matrix cooling channel. Three different rib configurations were used which are vertical rib, angled rib and c-type rib. Three configurations were adopted in two positions of matrix cooling channel which is one fourth and three fourth of channel. The result shows that downstream rib has much higher cooling performance than upstream rib. Furthermore, the angled rib in the channel has much higher cooling performance than vertical rib. This is because; the angled rib improves the swirl effect of matrix cooling channel more effectively. The friction factor was increased with the installation of rib. However, the thermal performance was increased with the installation of rib in the matrix cooling channel.
Abstract: Circuit switched networks widely used until the end of the 20th century have been transformed into packages switched networks. Time Division Multiplexing over Internet Protocol (TDMoIP) is a system that enables Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) traffic to be carried over packet switched networks (PSN). In TDMoIP systems, devices that send TDM data to the PSN and receive it from the network must operate with the same clock frequency. In this study, it was aimed to implement clock synchronization process in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chips using time information attached to the packages received from PSN. The designed hardware is verified using the datasets obtained for the different carrier types and comparing the results with the software model. Field tests are also performed by using the real time TDMoIP system.
Abstract: The quality of laser welded-brazed (LWB) joints were strongly dependent on the main process parameters, therefore the effect of laser power (3.2–4 kW), welding speed (60–80 mm/s) and wire feed rate (70–90 mm/s) on mechanical strength and surface roughness were investigated in this study. The comprehensive optimization process by means of response surface methodology (RSM) and desirability function was used for multi-criteria optimization. The experiments were planned based on Box– Behnken design implementing linear and quadratic polynomial equations for predicting the desired output properties. Finally, validation experiments were conducted on an optimized process condition which exhibited good agreement between the predicted and experimental results. AlSi3Mn1 was selected as the filler material for joining aluminum alloy 6022 and hot-dip galvanized steel in coach peel configuration. The high scanning speed could control the thickness of IMC as thin as 5 µm. The thermal simulations of joining process were conducted by the Finite Element Method (FEM), and results were validated through experimental data. The Fe/Al interfacial thermal history evidenced that the duration of critical temperature range (700–900 °C) in this high scanning speed process was less than 1 s. This short interaction time leads to the formation of reaction-control IMC layer instead of diffusion-control mechanisms.
Abstract: This study investigates the reinforcement function of geosynthetics on the shear strength and strain profile of sand. Conducting a series of simple shear tests, the shearing behavior of the samples under static and cyclic loads was evaluated. Three different types of geosynthetics including geotextile and geonets were used as the reinforcement materials. An image processing analysis based on the optical flow method was performed to measure the lateral displacements and estimate the shear strains. It is shown that besides improving the shear strength, the geosynthetic reinforcement leads a remarkable reduction on the shear strains. The improved layer reduces the required thickness of the soil layer to resist against shear stresses. Consequently, the geosynthetic reinforcement can be considered as a proper approach for the sustainable designs, especially in the projects with huge amount of geotechnical applications like subgrade of the pavements, roadways, and railways.
Abstract: Introduction of games has expanded the application area of computer-aided learning tools to wide variety of age groups of learners. Serious games engage the learners into a real-world -type of simulation and potentially enrich the learning experience. Institutional background of a Bachelor’s level engineering program in Information and Communication Technology is introduced, with detailed focus on one of its majors, Health Technology. As part of a Customer Oriented Software Application thematic semester, one particular course of “eHealth Business and Solutions” is described and reflected in a gamified framework. Learning a consistent view into vast literature of business management, strategies, marketing and finance in a very limited time enforces selection of topics relevant to the industry. Health Technology is a novel and growing industry with a growing sector in consumer wearable devices and homecare applications. The business sector is attracting new entrepreneurs and impatient investor funds. From engineering education point of view the sector is driven by miniaturizing electronics, sensors and wireless applications. However, the market is highly consumer-driven and usability, safety and data integrity requirements are extremely high. When the same technology is used in analysis or treatment of patients, very strict regulatory measures are enforced. The paper introduces a course structure using gamification as a tool to learn the most essential in a new market: customer value proposition design, followed by a market entry game. Students analyze the existing market size and pricing structure of eHealth web-service market and enter the market as a steering group of their company, competing against the legacy players and with each other. The market is growing but has its rules of demand and supply balance. New products can be developed with an R&D-investment, and targeted to market with unique quality- and price-combinations. Product cost structure can be improved by investing to enhanced production capacity. Investments can be funded optionally by foreign capital. Students make management decisions and face the dynamics of the market competition in form of income statement and balance sheet after each decision cycle. The focus of the learning outcome is to understand customer value creation to be the source of cash flow. The benefit of gamification is to enrich the learning experience on structure and meaning of financial statements. The paper describes the gamification approach and discusses outcomes after two course implementations. Along the case description of learning challenges, some unexpected misconceptions are noted. Improvements of the game or the semi-gamified teaching pedagogy are discussed. The case description serves as an additional support to new game coordinator, as well as helps to improve the method. Overall, the gamified approach has helped to engage engineering student to business studies in an energizing way.
Abstract: The not so pleasing state of the nation's quality of education has been a major area of research. Many researchers have looked into various aspects of the educational system and organizational structure in relation to the quality of service delivery of the staff members. However, there is paucity of research in areas relating to the sense of competence and commitment in relation to leadership styles. Against this backdrop, this study investigated the impact of leadership style and sense of competence on the performance of post-primary school teachers in Oyo state Nigeria. Data were generated across public secondary schools in the city using survey design method. Ibadan as a metropolis has eleven local government areas contained in it. A systematic random sampling technique of the eleven local government areas in Ibadan was done and five local government areas were selected. The selected local government areas are Akinyele, Ibadan North, Ibadan North-East, Ibadan South and Ibadan South-West. Data were obtained from a range of two – three public secondary schools selected in each of the local government areas mentioned above. Also, these secondary schools are a representation of the variations in the constructs under consideration across the Ibadan metropolis. Categorically, all secondary school teachers in Ibadan were clustered into selected schools in those found across the five local government areas. In all, a total of 272 questionnaires were administered to public secondary school teachers, while 241 were returned. Findings revealed that transformational leadership style makes room for job commitment when compared with transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles. Teachers with a high sense of competence are more likely to demonstrate more commitment to their job than others with low sense of competence. We recommend that, it is important an assessment is made of the leadership styles employed by principals and school administrators. This guides administrators and principals in to having a clear, comprehensive knowledge of the style they currently adopt in the management of the staff and the school as a whole; and know where to begin the adjustment process from. Also to make an impact on student achievement, being attentive to teachers’ levels of commitment may be an important aspect of leadership for school principals.
Abstract: System identification of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), to acquire its mathematical model, is a significant step in the process of aircraft flight automation. The need for reliable mathematical model is an established requirement for autopilot design, flight simulator development, aircraft performance appraisal, analysis of aircraft modifications, preflight testing of prototype aircraft and investigation of fatigue life and stress distribution etc. This research is aimed at system identification of a fixed wing UAV by means of specifically designed flight experiment. The purposely designed flight maneuvers were performed on the UAV and aircraft states were recorded during these flights. Acquired data were preprocessed for noise filtering and bias removal followed by parameter estimation of longitudinal dynamics transfer functions using MATLAB system identification toolbox. Black box identification based transfer function models, in response to elevator and throttle inputs, were estimated using least square error technique. The identification results show a high confidence level and goodness of fit between the estimated model and actual aircraft response.
Abstract: In the present study, a design of the suspended polymeric microfluidic platform is introduced that is fabricated with three polymeric layers. Changing the microchannel plane to be perpendicular to microcantilever plane, drastically decreases moment of inertia in that direction. In addition, the platform is made of polymer (around five orders of magnitude less compared to silicon). It causes significant increase in the sensitivity of the cantilever deflection. Next, although the dimensions of this platform are constant, by misaligning the embedded microchannels laterally in the suspended microfluidic platform, the sensitivity can be highly increased. The investigation is studied on four fluids including water, seawater, milk, and blood for flow ranges from low rate of 5 to 70 µl/min to obtain the best design with the highest sensitivity. The best design in this study shows the sensitivity increases around 50% for water, seawater, milk, and blood at the flow rate of 70 µl/min by just misaligning the embedded microchannels in the suspended polymeric microfluidic platform.