Abstract: Work presented is interested in the characterization of
the quasistatic mechanical properties and in fatigue of a composite
laminated in jute/epoxy. The natural fibers offer promising prospects
thanks to their interesting specific properties, because of their low
density, but also with their bio-deterioration. Several scientific
studies highlighted the good mechanical resistance of the vegetable
fiber composites reinforced, even after several recycling. Because of
the environmental standards that become increasingly severe, one
attends the emergence of eco-materials at the base of natural fibers
such as flax, bamboo, hemp, sisal, jute. The fatigue tests on
elementary vegetable fibers show an increase of about 60% of the
rigidity of elementary fibers of hemp subjected to cyclic loadings. In
this study, the test-tubes manufactured by the method infusion have
sequences of stacking of 0/90° and ± 45° for the shearing and tensile
tests. The quasistatic tests reveal a variability of the mechanical
properties of about 8%. The tensile fatigue tests were carried out for
levels of constraints equivalent to half of the ultimate values of the
composite. Once the fatigue tests carried out for well-defined values
of cycles, a series of static tests of traction type highlights the
influence of the number of cycles on the quasi-static mechanical
behavior of the laminate jute/epoxy.
Abstract: In this research, a questionnaire survey was conducted
to measure nap, drowsiness and fatigue of drivers who work for long
shifts, to discuss about the work environment and health conditions for
taxi and bus drivers who work at night-time. The questionnaire sheet
used for this research was organized into the following categories:
tension/tiredness, drowsiness while driving, and the nap situation
during night-time work. The number of taxi drivers was 127 and the
number of bus drivers was 40. Concerning the results of a comparison
of nap hours of taxi and bus drivers, the taxi drivers’ nap hours are
overwhelmingly shorter, and also the frequency of drivers who
experience drowsiness is higher. The burden on bus drivers does not
change because of the system of a two-driver rotation shift. In
particular, the working environment of the taxi driver may lead to
greater fatigue accumulation than the bus driver’s environment.
Abstract: The spindle system is one of the most important
components of machine tool. The dynamic properties of the spindle
affect the machining productivity and quality of the work pieces.
Thus, it is important and necessary to determine its dynamic
characteristics of spindles in the design and development in order to
avoid forced resonance. The finite element method (FEM) has been
adopted in order to obtain the dynamic behavior of spindle system.
For this reason, obtaining the Campbell diagrams and determining the
critical speeds are very useful to evaluate the spindle system
dynamics. The unbalance response of the system to the center of
mass unbalance at the cutting tool is also calculated to investigate the
dynamic behavior. In this paper, we used an ANSYS Parametric
Design Language (APDL) program which based on finite element
method has been implemented to make the full dynamic analysis and
evaluation of the results. Results show that the calculated critical
speeds are far from the operating speed range of the spindle, thus, the
spindle would not experience resonance, and the maximum
unbalance response at operating speed is still with acceptable limit.
ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL) can be used by spindle
designer as tools in order to increase the product quality, reducing
cost, and time consuming in the design and development stages.
Abstract: The microstrip antennas area has seen some inventive
work in recent years and is now one of the most dynamic fields of
antenna theory. A novel and simple wideband monopole antenna is
presented printed on a single dielectric substrate which is fed by a 50
ohm microstrip line having a low-profile antenna structure with two
parallel s-shaped meandered line of same size. This antenna is fed by
a coaxial feeding tube. In this research, S–form microstrip patch antenna is designed from
measuring the prototypes of the proposed antenna one available
bands with 10db return loss bandwidths of about GPS application
(GPS L2 1490 MHz) and covering the 1400 to 1580 MHz frequency
band at 1.5 GHz, the simulated results for main parameters such as
return loss, impedance bandwidth, radiation patterns, and gains are
also discussed herein. The modeling study shows that such antennas,
in simplicity design and supply, can satisfy GPS application. Two
parallel slots are incorporated to disturb the surface flow path,
introducing local inductive effect. This antenna is fed by a coaxial
feeding tube.
Abstract: This study analyzes the critical gaps in the
architecture of European stability and the expected role of the
banking union as the new important step towards completing the
Economic and Monetary Union that should enable the creation of
safe and sound financial sector for the euro area market. The single
rulebook together with the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the
Single Resolution Mechanism - as two main pillars of the banking
union, should provide a consistent application of common rules and
administrative standards for supervision, recovery and resolution of
banks – with the final aim of replacing the former bail-out practice
with the bail-in system through which possible future bank failures
would be resolved by their own funds, i.e. with minimal costs for
taxpayers and real economy. In this way, the vicious circle between
banks and sovereigns would be broken. It would also reduce the
financial fragmentation recorded in the years of crisis as the result of
divergent behaviors in risk premium, lending activities and interest
rates between the core and the periphery. In addition, it should
strengthen the effectiveness of monetary transmission channels, in
particular the credit channels and overflows of liquidity on the money
market which, due to the fragmentation of the common financial
market, has been significantly disabled in period of crisis. However,
contrary to all the positive expectations related to the future
functioning of the banking union, major findings of this study
indicate that characteristics of the economic system in which the
banking union will operate should not be ignored. The euro area is an
integration of strong and weak entities with large differences in
economic development, wealth, assets of banking systems, growth
rates and accountability of fiscal policy. The analysis indicates that
low and unbalanced economic growth remains a challenge for the
maintenance of financial stability and this problem cannot be
resolved just by a single supervision. In many countries bank assets
exceed their GDP by several times and large banks are still a matter
of concern, because of their systemic importance for individual
countries and the euro zone as a whole. The creation of the Single
Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism is a
response to the European crisis, which has particularly affected
peripheral countries and caused the associated loop between the
banking crisis and the sovereign debt crisis, but has also influenced
banks’ balance sheets in the core countries, as the result of crossborder
capital flows. The creation of the SSM and the SRM should
prevent the similar episodes to happen again and should also provide
a new opportunity for strengthening of economic and financial
systems of the peripheral countries. On the other hand, there is a
potential threat that future focus of the ECB, resolution mechanism
and other relevant institutions will be extremely oriented towards
large and significant banks (whereby one half of them operate in the
core and most important euro area countries), and therefore it remains
questionable to what extent will the common resolution funds will be used for rescue of less important institutions. Recent geopolitical
developments will be the optimal indicator to show whether the
previously established mechanisms are sufficient enough to maintain
the adequate financial stability in the euro area market.
Abstract: Tannase (tannin acyl hydrolase, E.C.3.1.1.20) is an
important hydrolysable enzyme with innumerable applications and
industrial potential. In the present study, a kinetic model has been
developed for the batch fermentation used for the production of
tannase by A.flavus MTCC 3783. Maximum tannase activity of
143.30 U/ml was obtained at 96 hours under optimum operating
conditions at 35oC, an initial pH of 5.5 and with an inducer tannic
acid concentration of 3% (w/v) for a fermentation period of 120
hours. The biomass concentration reaches a maximum of 6.62 g/l at
96 hours and further there was no increase in biomass concentration
till the end of the fermentation. Various unstructured kinetic models
were analyzed to simulate the experimental values of microbial
growth, tannase activity and substrate concentration. The Logistic
model for microbial growth , Luedeking - Piret model for production
of tannase and Substrate utilization kinetic model for utilization of
substrate were capable of predicting the fermentation profile with
high coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.980, 0.942 and
0.983 respectively. The results indicated that the unstructured models
were able to describe the fermentation kinetics more effectively.
Abstract: To evaluate the vigor of wheat seeds and stress of
premature aging effects on germination percentage, root length and
shoot length of five wheat cultivars that include Vynak, Karkheh,
Chamran, Star and Kavir which underwent a period of zero, two,
three, four days in terms of premature aging with 41°C temperature
and 100% relative humidity. Seed germination percentage, root
length and shoot length in these conditions were measured. This
experiment was conducted as a factorial completely randomized
design with four replications in laboratory conditions. The results
showed that each of aging treatments used in this experiment can be
used to detect differences in vigor of wheat varieties. Wheat cultivars
illustrated significant differences in germination percentage, root
length and shoot length in terms of premature aging. The wheat
cultivars; Astar and Vynak had maximum germination percentage
and Karkheh, respectively Kavir and Chamran had lowest percentage
of seed germination. Reactions of root and shoot length of wheat
cultivars was also different. The results showed that the seeds with a
stronger vigor affected less in premature aging condition and the
difference between the percentage of seed germination under normal
conditions and stress was significant and the seeds with the weaker
vigor were more sensitive to the premature aging stress and the
premature aging had more severe negative impact on seed vigor.
Abstract: Singular value decomposition based optimisation of
geometric design parameters of a 5-speed gearbox is studied. During
the optimisation, a four-degree-of freedom torsional vibration model
of the pinion gear-wheel gear system is obtained and the minimum
singular value of the transfer matrix is considered as the objective
functions. The computational cost of the associated singular value
problems is quite low for the objective function, because it is only
necessary to compute the largest and smallest singular values (μmax
and μmin) that can be achieved by using selective eigenvalue solvers;
the other singular values are not needed. The design parameters are
optimised under several constraints that include bending stress,
contact stress and constant distance between gear centres. Thus, by
optimising the geometric parameters of the gearbox such as, the
module, number of teeth and face width it is possible to obtain a
light-weight-gearbox structure. It is concluded that the all optimised
geometric design parameters also satisfy all constraints.
Abstract: Workflow scheduling is an important part of cloud
computing and based on different criteria it decides cost, execution
time, and performances. A cloud workflow system is a platform
service facilitating automation of distributed applications based on
new cloud infrastructure. An aspect which differentiates cloud
workflow system from others is market-oriented business model, an
innovation which challenges conventional workflow scheduling
strategies. Time and Cost optimization algorithm for scheduling
Hybrid Clouds (TCHC) algorithm decides which resource should be
chartered from public providers is combined with a new De-De
algorithm considering that every instance of single and multiple
workflows work without deadlocks. To offset this, two new concepts
- De-De Dodging Algorithm and Priority Based Decisive Algorithm -
combine with conventional deadlock avoidance issues by proposing
one algorithm that maximizes active (not just allocated) resource use
and reduces Makespan.
Abstract: Particle size distribution, the most important
characteristics of aerosols, is obtained through electrical
characterization techniques. The dynamics of charged nanoparticles
under the influence of electric field in Electrical Mobility
Spectrometer (EMS) reveals the size distribution of these particles.
The accuracy of this measurement is influenced by flow conditions,
geometry, electric field and particle charging process, therefore by
the transfer function (transfer matrix) of the instrument. In this work,
a wire-cylinder corona charger was designed and the combined fielddiffusion
charging process of injected poly-disperse aerosol particles
was numerically simulated as a prerequisite for the study of a
multichannel EMS. The result, a cloud of particles with no uniform
charge distribution, was introduced to the EMS. The flow pattern and
electric field in the EMS were simulated using Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) to obtain particle trajectories in the device and
therefore to calculate the reported signal by each electrometer.
According to the output signals (resulted from bombardment of
particles and transferring their charges as currents), we proposed a
modification to the size of detecting rings (which are connected to
electrometers) in order to evaluate particle size distributions more
accurately. Based on the capability of the system to transfer
information contents about size distribution of the injected particles,
we proposed a benchmark for the assessment of optimality of the
design. This method applies the concept of Von Neumann entropy
and borrows the definition of entropy from information theory
(Shannon entropy) to measure optimality. Entropy, according to the
Shannon entropy, is the ''average amount of information contained in
an event, sample or character extracted from a data stream''.
Evaluating the responses (signals) which were obtained via various
configurations of detecting rings, the best configuration which gave
the best predictions about the size distributions of injected particles,
was the modified configuration. It was also the one that had the
maximum amount of entropy. A reasonable consistency was also
observed between the accuracy of the predictions and the entropy
content of each configuration. In this method, entropy is extracted
from the transfer matrix of the instrument for each configuration.
Ultimately, various clouds of particles were introduced to the
simulations and predicted size distributions were compared to the
exact size distributions.
Abstract: Nine Degrees of Freedom (9 DOF) systems are
already in development in many areas. In this paper, an integrated
pressure sensor is proposed that will make use of an already existing
monolithic 9 DOF inertial MEMS platform. Capacitive pressure
sensors can suffer from limited sensitivity for a given size of
membrane. This novel pressure sensor design increases the sensitivity
by over 5 times compared to a traditional array of square diaphragms
while still fitting within a 2 mm x 2 mm chip and maintaining a fixed
static capacitance. The improved design uses one large diaphragm
supported by pillars with fixed electrodes placed above the areas of
maximum deflection. The design optimization increases the
sensitivity from 0.22 fF/kPa to 1.16 fF/kPa. Temperature sensitivity
was also examined through simulation.
Abstract: The purpose of this project is to propose a quick and
environmentally friendly alternative to measure the quality of oils
used in food industry. There is evidence that repeated and
indiscriminate use of oils in food processing cause physicochemical
changes with formation of potentially toxic compounds that can
affect the health of consumers and cause organoleptic changes. In
order to assess the quality of oils, non-destructive optical techniques
such as Interferometry offer a rapid alternative to the use of reagents,
using only the interaction of light on the oil. Through this project, we
used interferograms of samples of oil placed under different heating
conditions to establish the changes in their quality. These
interferograms were obtained by means of a Mach-Zehnder
Interferometer using a beam of light from a HeNe laser of 10mW at
632.8nm. Each interferogram was captured, analyzed and measured
full width at half-maximum (FWHM) using the software from
Amcap and ImageJ. The total of FWHMs was organized in three
groups. It was observed that the average obtained from each of the
FWHMs of group A shows a behavior that is almost linear, therefore
it is probable that the exposure time is not relevant when the oil is
kept under constant temperature. Group B exhibits a slight
exponential model when temperature raises between 373 K and 393
K. Results of the t-Student show a probability of 95% (0.05) of the
existence of variation in the molecular composition of both samples.
Furthermore, we found a correlation between the Iodine Indexes
(Physicochemical Analysis) and the Interferograms (Optical
Analysis) of group C. Based on these results, this project highlights
the importance of the quality of the oils used in food industry and
shows how Interferometry can be a useful tool for this purpose.
Abstract: Bloom’s Taxonomy has been changed during the
years. The idea of this writing is about the revision that has happened
in both facts and terms. It also contains case studies of using
cognitive Bloom’s taxonomy in teaching geometric solids to the
secondary school students, affective objectives in a creative
workshop for adults and psychomotor objectives in fixing a
malfunctioned refrigerator lamp. There is also pointed to the
important role of classification objectives in adult education as a way
to prevent memory loss.
Abstract: Crops diversity and maintaining and enhancing the
fertility of agricultural lands are basic principles of organic farming.
With a wider range of crops in agroecosystem can improve the ability
to control weeds, pests and diseases, and the performance of crops
rotation and food safety. In this sense, the main objective of the
research was to study the productivity and chemical composition of
some alternative crops and their adaptability to soil and climatic
conditions of the agricultural area in Southern Romania and to
cultivation in the organic farming system. The alternative crops were:
lentil (7 genotypes); five species of grain legumes (5 genotypes); four
species of oil crops (5 genotypes). The seed production was, on
average: 1343 kg/ha of lentil; 2500 kg/ha of field beans; 2400 kg/ha
of chick peas and blackeyed peas; more than 2000 kg/ha of atzuki
beans, over 1250 kg/ha of fenugreek; 2200 kg/ha of safflower; 570
kg/ha of oil pumpkin; 2150 kg/ha of oil flax; 1518 kg/ha of camelina.
Regarding chemical composition, lentil seeds contained: 22.18%
proteins, 3.03% lipids, 33.29% glucides, 4.00% minerals, and 259.97
kcal energy values. For field beans: 21.50% proteins, 4.40% lipids,
63.90% glucides, 5.85% minerals, 395.36 kcal energetic value. For
chick peas: 21.23% proteins, 4.55% lipids, 53.00% glucides, 3.67%
minerals, 348.22 kcal energetic value. For blackeyed peas: 23.30%
proteins, 2.10% lipids, 68.10% glucides, 3.93% minerals, 350.14 kcal
energetic value. For adzuki beans: 21.90% proteins, 2.60% lipids,
69.30% glucides, 4.10% minerals, 402.48 kcal energetic value. For
fenugreek: 21.30% proteins, 4.65% lipids, 63.83% glucides, 5.69%
minerals, 396.54 kcal energetic value. For safflower: 12.60%
proteins, 28.37% lipids, 46.41% glucides, 3.60% minerals, 505.78
kcal energetic value. For camelina: 20.29% proteins, 31.68% lipids,
36.28% glucides, 4.29% minerals, 526.63 kcal energetic value. For
oil pumpkin: 29.50% proteins, 36.92% lipids, 18.50% glucides,
5.41% minerals, 540.15 kcal energetic value. For oil flax: 22.56%
proteins, 34.10% lipids, 27.73% glucides, 5.25% minerals, 558.45
kcal energetic value.
Abstract: The output error of the globoidal cam mechanism can
be considered as a relevant indicator of mechanism performance,
because it determines kinematic and dynamical behavior of
mechanical transmission. Based on the differential geometry and the
rigid body transformations, the mathematical model of surface
geometry of the globoidal cam is established. Then we present the
analytical expression of the output error (including the transmission
error and the displacement error along the output axis) by considering
different manufacture and assembly errors. The effects of the center
distance error, the perpendicular error between input and output axes
and the rotational angle error of the globoidal cam on the output error
are systematically analyzed. A globoidal cam mechanism which is
widely used in automatic tool changer of CNC machines is applied for
illustration. Our results show that the perpendicular error and the
rotational angle error have little effects on the transmission error but
have great effects on the displacement error along the output axis. This
study plays an important role in the design, manufacture and assembly
of the globoidal cam mechanism.
Abstract: This study compares the intensity of game load among
player positions and between the 1st and the 2nd half of the games.
Two guards, three forwards, and three centers (female basketball
players) participated in this study. The heart rate (HR) and its
development were monitored during two competitive games.
Statistically insignificant differences in the intensity of game load
were recorded between guards, forwards, and centers below and
above 85% of the maximal heart rate (HRmax) and in the mean HR as
% of HRmax (87.81±3.79%, 87.02±4.37%, and 88.76±3.54%,
respectively). Moreover, when the 1st and the 2nd half of the games
were compared in the mean HR (87.89±4.18% vs. 88.14±3.63% of
HRmax), no statistical significance was recorded. This information can
be useful for coaching staff, to manage and to precisely plan the
training process.
Abstract: In recent years, fire accidents have been steadily
increased and the amount of property damage caused by the accidents
has gradually raised. Damaging building structure, fire incidents bring
about not only such property damage but also strength degradation and
member deformation. As a result, the building structure undermines its
structural ability. Examining the degradation and the deformation is
very important because reusing the building is more economical than
reconstruction. Therefore, engineers need to investigate the strength
degradation and member deformation well, and make sure that they
apply right rehabilitation methods. This study aims at evaluating
deformation characteristics of fire damaged and rehabilitated normal
strength concrete beams through both experiments and finite element
analyses. For the experiments, control beams, fire damaged beams and
rehabilitated beams are tested to examine deformation characteristics.
Ten test beam specimens with compressive strength of 21MPa are
fabricated and main test variables are selected as cover thickness of
40mm and 50mm and fire exposure time of 1 hour or 2 hours. After
heating, fire damaged beams are air-recurred for 2 months and
rehabilitated beams are repaired with polymeric cement mortar after
being removed the fire damaged concrete cover. All beam specimens
are tested under four points loading. FE analyses are executed to
investigate the effects of main parameters applied to experimental
study. Test results show that both maximum load and stiffness of the
rehabilitated beams are higher than those of the fire damaged beams.
In addition, predicted structural behaviors from the analyses also show
good rehabilitation effect and the predicted load-deflection curves are
similar to the experimental results. For the further, the proposed
analytical method can be used to predict deformation characteristics of
fire damaged and rehabilitated concrete beams without suffering from
time and cost consuming of experimental process.
Abstract: In this paper, we consider some integrable Heisenberg
Ferromagnet Equations with self-consistent potentials. We study
their Lax representations. In particular we derive their equivalent
counterparts in the form of nonlinear Schr¨odinger type equations.
We present the integrable reductions of the Heisenberg Ferromagnet
Equations with self-consistent potentials. These integrable Heisenberg
Ferromagnet Equations with self-consistent potentials describe
nonlinear waves in ferromagnets with some additional physical fields.
Abstract: In recent years, honeycomb fiber reinforced plastic
(FRP) sandwich panels have been increasingly used in various
industries. Low weight, low price and high mechanical strength are
the benefits of these structures. However, their mechanical properties
and behavior have not been fully explored. The objective of this
study is to conduct a combined numerical-statistical investigation of
honeycomb FRP sandwich beams subject to torsion load. In this
paper, the effect of geometric parameters of sandwich panel on
maximum shear strain in both face and core and angle of torsion in a
honeycomb FRP sandwich structures in torsion is investigated. The
effect of Parameters including core thickness, face skin thickness,
cell shape, cell size, and cell thickness on mechanical behavior of the
structure were numerically investigated. Main effects of factors were
considered in this paper and regression equations were derived.
Taguchi method was employed as experimental design and an
optimum parameter combination for the maximum structure stiffness
has been obtained. The results showed that cell size and face skin
thickness have the most significant impacts on torsion angle,
maximum shear strain in face and core.
Abstract: The lifetime of a wireless sensor network can be
effectively increased by using scheduling operations. Once the
sensors are randomly deployed, the task at hand is to find the largest
number of disjoint sets of sensors such that every sensor set provides
complete coverage of the target area. At any instant, only one of these
disjoint sets is switched on, while all other are switched off. This
paper proposes a heuristic search method to find the maximum
number of disjoint sets that completely cover the region. A
population of randomly initialized members is made to explore the
solution space. A set of heuristics has been applied to guide the
members to a possible solution in their neighborhood. The heuristics
escalate the convergence of the algorithm. The best solution explored
by the population is recorded and is continuously updated. The
proposed algorithm has been tested for applications which require
sensing of multiple target points, referred to as point coverage
applications. Results show that the proposed algorithm outclasses the
existing algorithms. It always finds the optimum solution, and that
too by making fewer number of fitness function evaluations than the
existing approaches.