Abstract: In order to avoid the potentially devastating
consequences of global warming and climate change, the carbon
dioxide “CO2" emissions caused due to anthropogenic activities must
be reduced considerably. This paper presents the first study
examining the feasibility of carbon sequestration in construction and
demolition “C&D" waste. Experiments were carried out in a self
fabricated Batch Reactor at 40ºC, relative humidity of 50-70%, and
flow rate of CO2 at 10L/min for 1 hour for water-to-solids ratio of 0.2
to 1.2. The effect of surface area was found by comparing the
theoretical extent of carbonation of two different sieve sizes (0.3mm
and 2.36mm) of C&D waste. A 38.44% of the theoretical extent of
carbonation equating to 4% CO2 sequestration extent was obtained
for C&D waste sample for 0.3mm sieve size. Qualitative,
quantitative and morphological analyses were done to validate
carbonate formation using X-ray diffraction “X.R.D.," thermal
gravimetric analysis “T.G.A., “X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy
“X.R.F.," and scanning electron microscopy “S.E.M".
Abstract: In this paper, the robust exponential stability problem of uncertain discrete-time recurrent neural networks with timevarying delay is investigated. By constructing a new augmented Lyapunov-Krasovskii function, some new improved stability criteria are obtained in forms of linear matrix inequality (LMI). Compared with some recent results in literature, the conservatism of the new criteria is reduced notably. Two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the less conservatism and effectiveness of the proposed results.
Abstract: in this paper, we propose a numerical method
for the approximate solution of fuzzy Fredholm functional
integral equations of the second kind by using an iterative
interpolation. For this purpose, we convert the linear fuzzy
Fredholm integral equations to a crisp linear system of integral
equations. The proposed method is illustrated by some fuzzy
integral equations in numerical examples.
Abstract: We study the dynamic response of a wind turbine
structure subjected to theoretical seismic motions, taking into account
the rotational component of ground shaking. Models are generated
for a shallow moderate crustal earthquake in the Madrid Region
(Spain). Synthetic translational and rotational time histories are
computed using the Discrete Wavenumber Method, assuming a point
source and a horizontal layered earth structure. These are used to
analyze the dynamic response of a wind turbine, represented by a
simple finite element model. Von Mises stress values at different
heights of the tower are used to study the dynamical structural
response to a set of synthetic ground motion time histories
Abstract: New Zealand-s product markets experienced a surge in
import competition beginning from the late 1970-s when its
government began to promote a policy of more open markets. This
study considers how the trade liberalization aspect of the policy may
have influenced unionization and union-organizing success. For
describing the trade liberalization, a model shows how the removal of
import tariffs can lead to countervailing influences upon the union
membership of a domestic firm. The evidence supports the prediction
that union membership has been decreased rather than increased. In
the context of debates concerning globalization, it can be said that the
power of unions has been diminished.
Abstract: Middle-gate is located in Hasankeyf, Batman dating
back to 1800 BC and is one of the important historical structures in
Turkey. The ancient structure has suffered major structural cracks
due to aging as well as lateral pressure of a cracked rock which is
predicted to be about 100 tons. The existing support system was
found to be inadequate to support the load especially after a recent
rock fall in the close vicinity. Concerns were increased since the
existing support system that is integral with a damaged and cracked
gate wall needed to be replaced by a new support system. The
replacement process must be carefully monitored by crackmeters and
control mechanisms should be integrated to prevent cracks to expand
while the same crack width needs to be maintained after the
operation. The control system and actions taken during the
intervention are explained in this paper.
Abstract: Vinegar or sour wine is a product of alcoholic and
subsequent acetous fermentation of sugary precursors derived from
several fruits or starchy substrates. This delicious food additive and
supplement contains not less than 4 grams of acetic acid in 100 cubic
centimeters at 20°C. Among the large number of bacteria that are
able to produce acetic acid, only few genera are used in vinegar
industry most significant of which are Acetobacter and
Gluconobacter. In this research we isolated and identified an
Acetobacter strain from Iranian apricot, a very delicious and sensitive
summer fruit to decay, we gathered from fruit's stores in Isfahan,
Iran. The main culture media we used were Carr, GYC, Frateur and
an industrial medium for vinegar production. We isolated this strain
using a novel miniature fermentor we made at Pars Yeema
Biotechnologists Co., Isfahan Science and Technology Town (ISTT),
Isfahan, Iran. The microscopic examinations of isolated strain from
Iranian apricot showed gram negative rods to cocobacilli. Their
catalase reaction was positive and oxidase reaction was negative and
could ferment ethanol to acetic acid. Also it showed an acceptable
growth in 5%, 7% and 9% ethanol concentrations at 30°C using
modified Carr media after 24, 48 and 96 hours incubation
respectively. According to its tolerance against high concentrations of
ethanol after four days incubation and its high acetic acid production,
8.53%, after 144 hours, this strain could be considered as a suitable
industrial strain for a production of a new type of vinegar, apricot
vinegar, with a new and delicious taste. In conclusion this is the first
report of isolation and identification of an Acetobacter strain from
Iranian apricot with a very good tolerance against high ethanol
concentrations as well as high acetic acid productivity in an
acceptable incubation period of time industrially. This strain could be
used in vinegar industry to convert apricot spoilage to a beneficiary
product and mentioned characteristics have made it as an amenable
strain in food and agricultural biotechnology.
Abstract: Among the various cooling processes in industrial
applications such as: electronic devices, heat exchangers, gas
turbines, etc. Gas turbine blades cooling is the most challenging one.
One of the most common practices is using ribbed wall because of
the boundary layer excitation and therefore making the ultimate
cooling. Vortex formation between rib and channel wall will result in
a complicated behavior of flow regime. At the other hand, selecting
the most efficient method for capturing the best results comparing to
experimental works would be a fascinating issue. In this paper 4
common methods in turbulence modeling: standard k-e, rationalized
k-e with enhanced wall boundary layer treatment, k-w and RSM
(Reynolds stress model) are employed to a square ribbed channel to
investigate the separation and thermal behavior of the flow in the
channel. Finally all results from different methods which are used in
this paper will be compared with experimental data available in
literature to ensure the numerical method accuracy.
Abstract: While the explosive increase in information published
on the Web, researchers have to filter information when searching for
conference related information. To make it easier for users to search
related information, this paper uses Topic Maps and social information
to implement ontology since ontology can provide the formalisms and
knowledge structuring for comprehensive and transportable machine
understanding that digital information requires. Besides enhancing
information in Topic Maps, this paper proposes a method of
constructing research Topic Maps considering social information.
First, extract conference data from the web. Then extract conference
topics and the relationships between them through the proposed
method. Finally visualize it for users to search and browse. This paper
uses ontology, containing abundant of knowledge hierarchy structure,
to facilitate researchers getting useful search results. However, most
previous ontology construction methods didn-t take “people" into
account. So this paper also analyzes the social information which helps
researchers find the possibilities of cooperation/combination as well as
associations between research topics, and tries to offer better results.
Abstract: Continuous measurements and multivariate methods are applied in researching the effects of energy consumption on indoor air quality (IAQ) in a Finnish one-family house. Measured data used in this study was collected continuously in a house in Kuopio, Eastern Finland, during fourteen months long period. Consumption parameters measured were the consumptions of district heat, electricity and water. Indoor parameters gathered were temperature, relative humidity (RH), the concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) and differential air pressure. In this study, self-organizing map (SOM) and Sammon's mapping were applied to resolve the effects of energy consumption on indoor air quality. Namely, the SOM was qualified as a suitable method having a property to summarize the multivariable dependencies into easily observable two-dimensional map. Accompanying that, the Sammon's mapping method was used to cluster pre-processed data to find similarities of the variables, expressing distances and groups in the data. The methods used were able to distinguish 7 different clusters characterizing indoor air quality and energy efficiency in the study house. The results indicate, that the cost implications in euros of heating and electricity energy vary according to the differential pressure, concentration of carbon dioxide, temperature and season.
Abstract: In this paper, multiobjective design of multi-machine Power System Stabilizers (PSSs) using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is presented. The stabilizers are tuned to simultaneously shift the lightly damped and undamped electro-mechanical modes of all machines to a prescribed zone in the s-plane. A multiobjective problem is formulated to optimize a composite set of objective functions comprising the damping factor, and the damping ratio of the lightly damped electromechanical modes. The PSSs parameters tuning problem is converted to an optimization problem which is solved by PSO with the eigenvalue-based multiobjective function. The proposed PSO based PSSs is tested on a multimachine power system under different operating conditions and disturbances through eigenvalue analysis and some performance indices to illustrate its robust performance.
Abstract: The effect of muscle loss due to transfemoral
amputation, on energy expenditure of hip joint and individual
residual muscles was simulated. During swing phase of gait, with
each muscle as an ideal force generator, the lower extremity was
modeled as a two-degree of freedom linkage, for which hip and knee
were joints. According to results, muscle loss will not lead to higher
energy expenditure of hip joint, as long as other parameters of limb
remain unaffected. This finding maybe due to the role of biarticular
muscles in hip and knee joints motion. Moreover, if hip flexors are
removed from the residual limb, residual flexors, and if hip extensors
are removed, residual extensors will do more work. In line with the
common practice in transfemoral amputation, this result demonstrates
during transfemoral amputation, it is important to maintain the length
of residual limb as much as possible.
Abstract: The treatment of the industrial wastewater can be
particularly difficult in the presence of toxic compounds. Excessive
concentration of Chromium in soluble form is toxic to a wide variety
of living organisms. Biological removal of heavy metals using natural
and genetically engineered microorganisms has aroused great interest
because of its lower impact on the environment. Ralston
metallidurans, formerly known as Alcaligenes eutrophus is a LProteobacterium
colonizing industrial wastewater with a high content
of heavy metals. Tris-buffered mineral salt medium was used for
growing Alcaligenes eutrophus AE104 (pEBZ141). The cells were
cultivated for 18 h at 30 oC in Tris-buffered mineral salt medium
containing 3 mM disodium sulphate and 46 mM sodium gluconate as
the carbon source. The cells were harvested by centrifugation,
washed, and suspended in 10 mM Tris HCl, pH 7.0, containing 46
mM sodium gluconate, and 5 mM Chromium. Interaction among
induction of chr resistance determinant, and chromate reduction have
been demonstrated. Results of this study show that the above bacteria
can be very useful for bioremediation of chromium from industrial
wastewater.
Abstract: Protein subchloroplast locations are correlated with its
functions. In contrast to the large amount of available protein
sequences, the information of their locations and functions is less
known. The experiment works for identification of protein locations
and functions are costly and time consuming. The accurate prediction
of protein subchloroplast locations can accelerate the study of
functions of proteins in chloroplast. This study proposes a Random
Forest based method, ChloroRF, to predict protein subchloroplast
locations using interpretable physicochemical properties. In addition
to high prediction accuracy, the ChloroRF is able to select important
physicochemical properties. The important physicochemical
properties are also analyzed to provide insights into the underlying
mechanism.
Abstract: Interactive installations for public spaces are a
particular kind of interactive systems, the design of which has been
the subject of several research studies. Sensor-based applications are
becoming increasingly popular, but the human-computer interaction
community is still far from reaching sound, effective large-scale
interactive installations for public spaces. The 6DSpaces project is
described in this paper as a research approach based on studying the
role of multisensory interactivity and how it can be effectively used
to approach people to digital, scientific contents. The design of an
entire scientific exhibition is described and the result was evaluated
in the real world context of a Science Centre. Conclusions bring
insight into how the human-computer interaction should be designed
in order to maximize the overall experience.
Abstract: In this paper presents a technique for developing the
computational efficiency in simulating double output induction
generators (DOIG) with two rotor circuits where stator transients are
to be included. Iterative decomposition is used to separate the flux–
Linkage equations into decoupled fast and slow subsystems, after
which the model order of the fast subsystems is reduced by
neglecting the heavily damped fast transients caused by the second
rotor circuit using integral manifolds theory. The two decoupled
subsystems along with the equation for the very slowly changing slip
constitute a three time-scale model for the machine which resulted in
increasing computational speed. Finally, the proposed method of
reduced order in this paper is compared with the other conventional
methods in linear and nonlinear modes and it is shown that this
method is better than the other methods regarding simulation
accuracy and speed.
Abstract: Signal processing applications which are iterative in
nature are best represented by data flow graphs (DFG). In these
applications, the maximum sampling frequency is dependent on the
topology of the DFG, the cyclic dependencies in particular. The
determination of the iteration bound, which is the reciprocal of the
maximum sampling frequency, is critical in the process of hardware
implementation of signal processing applications. In this paper, a
novel technique to compute the iteration bound is proposed. This
technique is different from all previously proposed techniques, in the
sense that it is based on the natural flow of tokens into the DFG
rather than the topology of the graph. The proposed algorithm has
lower run-time complexity than all known algorithms. The
performance of the proposed algorithm is illustrated through
analytical analysis of the time complexity, as well as through
simulation of some benchmark problems.
Abstract: This study presents an investigation of
electrochemical variables and an application of the optimal
parameters in operating a continuous upflow electrocoagulation
reactor in removing dye. Direct red 23, which is azo-based, was used
as a representative of direct dyes. First, a batch mode was employed
to optimize the design parameters: electrode type, electrode distance,
current density and electrocoagulation time. The optimal parameters
were found to be iron anode, distance between electrodes of 8 mm
and current density of 30 A·m-2 with contact time of 5 min. The
performance of the continuous upflow reactor with these parameters
was satisfactory, with >95% color removal and energy consumption
in the order of 0.6-0.7 kWh·m-3.
Abstract: Paper deals with the topic of questions as important
components of information behavior in the school. By analyzing the
Corpus Schola2010, the state of contemporary education in terms of
questioning is proven unsatisfactory: 80% of the questions are asked
by teachers; most of teacher-s questions are asked at the beginning of
the first grade, than their number decreases and is settling down on
80±10 questions per lesson. The average number of questions within
one lesson per one pupil is generally less than one whole question.
The highest values are achieved in the first, sixth, eighth and tenth
grade,, i.e. in the transition years in which pupils are moving into
higher levels of education and every following year it declines. We
can state Czech school do not support questioning and question skill
of their pupils, thereby typical Czech schools are neglecting the
development of thinking, reasoning and cooperation of their pupils.
Abstract: To calculate the temperature distribution of the slab in
a hot rolled reheating furnace a mathematical model has been
developed by considering the thermal radiation in the furnace and
transient conduction in the slab. The furnace is modeled as radiating
medium with spatially varying temperature. Radiative heat flux within
the furnace including the effect of furnace walls, combustion gases,
skid beams and buttons is calculated using the FVM and is applied as
the boundary condition of the transient conduction equation of the
slab. After determining the slab emissivity by comparison between
simulation and experimental work, variation of heating characteristics
in the slab is investigated in the case of changing furnace temperature
with various time and the slab residence time is optimized with this
evaluation.