Abstract: Due to the continuous increment of the load demand,
identification of weaker buses, improvement of voltage profile and
power losses in the context of the voltage stability problems has
become one of the major concerns for the larger, complex,
interconnected power systems. The objective of this paper is to
review the impact of Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS)
controller in Wind generators connected electrical network for
maintaining voltage stability. Wind energy could be the growing
renewable energy due to several advantages. The influence of wind
generators on power quality is a significant issue; non uniform power
production causes variations in system voltage and frequency.
Therefore, wind farm requires high reactive power compensation; the
advances in high power semiconducting devices have led to the
development of FACTS. The FACTS devices such as for example
SVC inject reactive power into the system which helps in maintaining
a better voltage profile. The performance is evaluated on an IEEE 14
bus system, two wind generators are connected at low voltage buses
to meet the increased load demand and SVC devices are integrated at
the buses with wind generators to keep voltage stability. Power
flows, nodal voltage magnitudes and angles of the power network are
obtained by iterative solutions using MIPOWER.
Abstract: Durian is the flagship fruit of Mindanao and there is
an abundance of several cultivars with many confusing identities/
names.
The project was conducted to develop procedure for reliable and
rapid detection and sorting of durian planting materials. Moreover, it
is also aimed to establish specific genetic or DNA markers for routine
testing and authentication of durian cultivars in question.
The project developed molecular procedures for routine testing.
SSR primers were also screened and identified for their utility in
discriminating durian cultivars collected.
Results of the study showed the following accomplishments:
1. Twenty (29) SSR primers were selected and identified based on
their ability to discriminate durian cultivars,
2. Optimized and established standard procedure for identification
and authentication of Durian cultivars
3. Genetic profile of durian is now available at Biotech Unit
Our results demonstrate the relevance of using molecular
techniques in evaluating and identifying durian clones. The most
polymorphic primers tested in this study could be useful tools for
detecting variation even at the early stage of the plant especially for
commercial purposes. The process developed combines the efficiency
of the microsatellites development process with the optimization of
non-radioactive detection process resulting in a user-friendly protocol
that can be performed in two (2) weeks and easily incorporated into
laboratories about to start microsatellite development projects. This
can be of great importance to extend microsatellite analyses to other
crop species where minimal genetic information is currently
available. With this, the University can now be a service laboratory
for routine testing and authentication of durian clones.
Abstract: The grain quality of chickpea in Iran is low and
instable, which may be attributed to the evolution of cultivars with a
narrow genetic base making them vulnerable to biotic stresses. Four
chickpea varieties from diverse geographic origins were chosen and
arranged in a randomized complete block design. Mesorhizobium sp.
cicer strain SW7 was added to all the chickpea seeds. Chickpea seeds
were planted on October 9, 2013. Each genotype was sown 5 m in
length, with 35 cm inter-row spacing, in 3 rows. Weeds were
removed manually in all plots. Results showed that Analysis of
variance on the studied traits showed significant differences among
genotypes for N, P, K and Fe contents of chickpea, but there is not a
significant difference among Ca, Zn and Mg continents of chickpea.
The experimental coefficient of variation (CV) varied from 7.3 to
15.8. In general, the CV value lower than 20% is considered to be
good, indicating the accuracy of conducted experiments. The highest
grain N was observed in Hashem and Jam cultivars. The highest grain
P was observed in Jam cultivar. Phosphorus content (mg/100g)
ranged from 142.3 to 302.3 with a mean value of 221.3. The negative
correlation (-0.126) was observed between the N and P of chickpea
cultivars. The highest K and Fe contents were observed in Jam
cultivar.
Abstract: The changes of the optical and structural properties of
Bismuth-Boro-Tellurite glasses pre and post gamma irradiation were
studied. Six glass samples, with different composition [(TeO2)0.7
(B2O3)0.3]1-x (Bi2O3)x prepared by melt quenching method were
irradiated with 25kGy gamma radiation at room temperature. The
Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to explore
the structural bonding in the prepared glass samples due to exposure,
while UV-VIS Spectrophotometer was used to evaluate the changes
in the optical properties before and after irradiation. Gamma
irradiation causes profound changes in the peak intensity as shown by
FTIR spectra which is due to the breaking of the network bonding.
Before gamma irradiation, the optical band gap, Eg value decreased
from 2.44 eV to 2.15 eV with the addition of Bismuth content. The
value kept decreasing (from 2.18 eV to 2.00 eV) following exposure
to gamma radiation due to the increase of non-bridging oxygen
(NBO) and the increase of defect in the glass. In conclusion, the glass
with high content of Bi2O3 (0.30Bi) give smallest Eg and show less
changes in FTIR spectra after gamma irradiation which indicate that
this glass is more resistant to gamma radiation compared to other
glasses.
Abstract: In the Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) paradigm
the effect of overlap between inputs on the activation of columns in
the spatial pooler is studied. Numerical results suggest that similar
inputs are represented by similar sets of columns and dissimilar inputs
are represented by dissimilar sets of columns. It is shown that the
spatial pooler produces these results under certain conditions for
the connectivity and proximal thresholds. Following the discussion
of the initialization of parameters for the thresholds, corresponding
qualitative arguments about the learning dynamics of the spatial
pooler are discussed.
Abstract: The article represents the results of clinical researches
of composite herbal medicinal product based on essential oils of
Sedum plants growing in Kazakhstan in commercial reserves at the
territory of Kazakhstan. The results of comparative analysis are
represented in obstetric-gynecologic practice during combined
therapy for postnatal complications, inflammatory infiltrates in the
area of surgical wounds including wounds after caesarean section.
Abstract: With the growing of computer and network, digital
data can be spread to anywhere in the world quickly. In addition,
digital data can also be copied or tampered easily so that the security
issue becomes an important topic in the protection of digital data.
Digital watermark is a method to protect the ownership of digital data.
Embedding the watermark will influence the quality certainly. In this
paper, Vector Quantization (VQ) is used to embed the watermark into
the image to fulfill the goal of data hiding. This kind of watermarking
is invisible which means that the users will not conscious the existing
of embedded watermark even though the embedded image has tiny
difference compared to the original image. Meanwhile, VQ needs a lot
of computation burden so that we adopt a fast VQ encoding scheme by
partial distortion searching (PDS) and mean approximation scheme to
speed up the data hiding process.
The watermarks we hide to the image could be gray, bi-level and
color images. Texts are also can be regarded as watermark to embed.
In order to test the robustness of the system, we adopt Photoshop to
fulfill sharpen, cropping and altering to check if the extracted
watermark is still recognizable. Experimental results demonstrate that
the proposed system can resist the above three kinds of tampering in
general cases.
Abstract: In this research numerical simulations are performed,
using the multi-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann method, in the
range 3 ≤ β = w[d] ≤ 30 at Re = 100, 200 and 300, where β the
blockage ratio, w is the equispaced distance between centers of
cylinders, d is the diameter of the cylinder and Re is the Reynolds
number, respectively. Special attention is paid to the effect of the
equispaced distance between centers of cylinders. Visualization of
the vorticity contour visualization are presented for some simulation
showing the flow dynamics and patterns for blockage effect. Results
show that the drag and mean drag coefficients, and Strouhal number,
in general, decrease with the increase of β for fixed Re. It is found
that the decreasing rate of drag and mean drag coefficients and
Strouhal number is more distinct in the range 3 ≤ β ≤ 15. We found
that when β > 15, the blockage effect almost diminishes. Our results
further indicate that the drag and mean drag coefficients, peak value
of the lift coefficient, root-mean-square value of the lift and drag
coefficients and the ratio between lift and drag coefficients decrease
with the increase of Re. The results indicate that symmetry boundary
condition have more blockage effect as compared to periodic
boundary condition.
Abstract: This study investigates the use of a time-series of
MODIS NDVI data to identify agricultural land cover change on an
annual time step (2007 - 2012) and characterize the trend. Following
an ISODATA classification of the MODIS imagery to selectively
mask areas not agriculture or semi-natural, NDVI signatures were
created to identify areas cereals and vineyards with the aid of
ancillary, pictometry and field sample data for 2010. The NDVI
signature curve and training samples were used to create a decision
tree model in WEKA 3.6.9 using decision tree classifier (J48)
algorithm; Model 1 including ISODATA classification and Model 2
not. These two models were then used to classify all data for the
study area for 2010, producing land cover maps with classification
accuracies of 77% and 80% for Model 1 and 2 respectively. Model 2
was subsequently used to create land cover classification and change
detection maps for all other years. Subtle changes and areas of
consistency (unchanged) were observed in the agricultural classes
and crop practices. Over the years as predicted by the land cover
classification. Forty one percent of the catchment comprised of
cereals with 35% possibly following a crop rotation system.
Vineyards largely remained constant with only one percent
conversion to vineyard from other land cover classes.
Abstract: The structures obtained with the use of sandwich
technologies combine low weight with high energy absorbing
capacity and load carrying capacity. Hence, there is a growing and
markedly interest in the use of sandwiches with aluminum foam core
because of very good properties such as flexural rigidity and energy
absorption capability. In the current investigation, the static threepoint
bending tests were carried out on the sandwiches with
aluminum foam core and glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP)
skins at different values of support span distances aiming the analyses
of their flexural performance. The influence of the core thickness and
the GFRP skin type was reported in terms of peak load and energy
absorption capacity. For this purpose, the skins with two different
types of fabrics which have same thickness value and the aluminum
foam core with two different thicknesses were bonded with a
commercial polyurethane based flexible adhesive in order to combine
the composite sandwich panels. The main results of the bending tests
are: force-displacement curves, peak force values, absorbed energy,
collapse mechanisms and the effect of the support span length and
core thickness. The results of the experimental study showed that the
sandwich with the skins made of S-Glass Woven fabrics and with the
thicker foam core presented higher mechanical values such as load
carrying and energy absorption capacities. The increment of the
support span distance generated the decrease of the mechanical
values for each type of panels, as expected, because of the inverse
proportion between the force and span length. The most common
failure types of the sandwiches are debonding of the lower skin and
the core shear. The obtained results have particular importance for
applications that require lightweight structures with a high capacity
of energy dissipation, such as the transport industry (automotive,
aerospace, shipbuilding and marine industry), where the problems of
collision and crash have increased in the last years.
Abstract: The present study was carried out to investigate the
effect of alloying elements and thermo-mechanical treatment (TMT)
i.e. hot rolling and forging with different reduction ratios on the
hardness (HV) and impact toughness (J) of heat-treated low alloy
steels. An understanding of the combined effect of TMT and alloying
elements and by measuring hardness, impact toughness, resulting
from different heat treatment following TMT of the low alloy steels,
it is possible to determine which conditions yielded optimum
mechanical properties and high strength to weight ratio.
Experimental Correlations between hot work reduction ratio,
hardness and impact toughness for thermo-mechanically heat treated
low alloy steels are analyzed quantitatively, and both regression and
mathematical hardness and impact toughness models are developed.
Abstract: Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to infer
another’s mental state. With appropriate ToM, one can behave well in
social interactions. A growing body of evidence has demonstrated that
patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) may damage ToM by
affecting on regions of the underlying neural network of ToM.
However, the question of whether there is cerebral laterality for ToM
functions remains open. This study aimed to examine whether there is
cerebral lateralization for ToM abilities in TLE patients. Sixty-seven
adult TLE patients and 30 matched healthy controls (HC) were
recruited. Patients were classified into right (RTLE), left (LTLE), and
bilateral (BTLE) TLE groups on the basis of a consensus panel review
of their seizure semiology, EEG findings, and brain imaging results.
All participants completed an intellectual test and four tasks measuring
basic and advanced ToM. The results showed that, on all ToM tasks,
(1) each patient group performed worse than HC; (2) there were no
significant differences between LTLE and RTLE groups; and (3) the
BTLE group performed the worst. It appears that the neural network
responsible for ToM is distributed evenly between the cerebral
hemispheres.
Abstract: The following article presents Technology Centre of
Ostrava (TCO) in the Czech Republic describing the structure and
main research areas realized by the project ENET - Energy Units for
Utilization of non Traditional Energy Sources. More details are
presented from the research program dealing with transformation,
accumulation and distribution of electric energy. Technology Centre
has its own energy mix consisting of alternative sources of fuel
sources that use of process gases from the storage part and also the
energy from distribution network. The article will be focus on the
properties and application possibilities SiC semiconductor devices for
power semiconductor converter for photovoltaic systems.
Abstract: Behavioral aspects of experience such as will power
are rarely subjected to quantitative study owing to the numerous
complexities involved. Will is a phenomenon that has puzzled
humanity for a long time. It is a belief that will power of an individual
affects the success achieved by them in life. It is also thought that a
person endowed with great will power can overcome even the most
crippling setbacks in life while a person with a weak will cannot make
the most of life even the greatest assets. This study is an attempt
to subject the phenomena of will to the test of an artificial neural
network through a computational model. The claim being tested is
that will power of an individual largely determines success achieved
in life. It is proposed that data pertaining to success of individuals
be obtained from an experiment and the phenomenon of will be
incorporated into the model, through data generated recursively using
a relation between will and success characteristic to the model.
An artificial neural network trained using part of the data, could
subsequently be used to make predictions regarding data points in
the rest of the model. The procedure would be tried for different
models and the model where the networks predictions are found to
be in greatest agreement with the data would be selected; and used
for studying the relation between success and will.
Abstract: Proposed paper dealt with the modelling and analysis of induction motor based on the mathematical expression using the graphical programming environment of Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW). Induction motor modelling with the mathematical expression enables the motor to be simulated with the various required parameters. Owing to the invention of variable speed drives study about the induction motor characteristics became complex. In this simulation motor internal parameter such as stator resistance and reactance, rotor resistance and reactance, phase voltage, frequency and losses will be given as input. By varying the speed of motor corresponding parameters can be obtained they are input power, output power, efficiency, torque induced, slip and current.
Abstract: The present research work investigates the seismic
response of reinforced concrete (RC) frame building considering the
effect of modeling masonry infill (MI) walls. The seismic behavior of
a residential 6-storey RC frame building, considering and ignoring
the effect of masonry, is numerically investigated using response
spectrum (RS) analysis. The considered herein building is designed
as a moment resisting frame (MRF) system following the Egyptian
code (EC) requirements. Two developed models in terms of bare
frame and infill walls frame are used in the study. Equivalent
diagonal strut methodology is used to represent the behavior of infill
walls, whilst the well-known software package ETABS is used for
implementing all frame models and performing the analysis. The
results of the numerical simulations such as base shear,
displacements, and internal forces for the bare frame as well as the
infill wall frame are presented in a comparative way. The results of
the study indicate that the interaction between infill walls and frames
significantly change the responses of buildings during earthquakes
compared to the results of bare frame building model. Specifically,
the seismic analysis of RC bare frame structure leads to
underestimation of base shear and consequently damage or even
collapse of buildings may occur under strong shakings. On the other
hand, considering infill walls significantly decrease the peak floor
displacements and drifts in both X and Y-directions.
Abstract: The following paper presents the results of a study
aimed at achieving a better understanding of the psychological
readiness for mobile learning (m-learning) among Saudi students,
while also evaluating m-learning readiness as a whole in Saudi
Arabia - a topic that has not yet received adequate attention from
researchers. Data was acquired via a questionnaire administered to
131 Saudi students at UK universities, in July 2013. The study
confirmed that students are confident about using mobile devices in
their daily lives, and that they would welcome more opportunities for
mobile learning. The findings also indicated that Saudi higher
education students are very familiar with, and psychologically ready
for, m-learning.
Abstract: Reflux condensation occurs in vertical channels and tubes when there is an upward core flow of vapour (or gas-vapour mixture) and a downward flow of the liquid film. The understanding of this condensation configuration is crucial in the design of reflux condensers, distillation columns, and in loss-of-coolant safety analyses in nuclear power plant steam generators. The unique feature of this flow is the upward flow of the vapour-gas mixture (or pure vapour) that retards the liquid flow via shear at the liquid-mixture interface. The present model solves the full, elliptic governing equations in both the film and the gas-vapour core flow. The computational mesh is non-orthogonal and adapts dynamically the phase interface, thus produces a sharp and accurate interface. Shear forces and heat and mass transfer at the interface are accounted for fundamentally. This modeling is a big step ahead of current capabilities by removing the limitations of previous reflux condensation models which inherently cannot account for the detailed local balances of shear, mass, and heat transfer at the interface. Discretisation has been done based on finite volume method and co-located variable storage scheme. An in-house computer code was developed to implement the numerical solution scheme. Detailed results are presented for laminar reflux condensation from steam-air mixtures flowing in vertical parallel plate channels. The results include velocity and gas mass fraction profiles, as well as axial variations of film thickness.
Abstract: In this paper static scheme of under-frequency based load shedding is considered for chemical and petrochemical industries with islanded distribution networks relying heavily on the primary commodity to ensure minimum production loss, plant downtime or critical equipment shutdown. A simplistic methodology is proposed for in-house implementation of this scheme using underfrequency relays and a step by step guide is provided including the techniques to calculate maximum percentage overloads, frequency decay rates, time based frequency response and frequency based time response of the system. Case study of FFL electrical system is utilized, presenting the actual system parameters and employed load shedding settings following the similar series of steps. The arbitrary settings are then verified for worst overload conditions (loss of a generation source in this case) and comprehensive system response is then investigated.
Abstract: Investigations on the accumulation of heavy metals in
water and sediments of river Ogbese were carried out between
December 2010 and February 2011 using Atomic Absorption
Spectrophotometer. Etheria elliptica a sessile organism was also used
to determine the concentration of heavy metal in the aquatic
environmental. In water, Cu had the highest concentration (0.55 –
0.13 mg/l ±0.1) while in sediments, the highest value obtained was in
Fe (1.46-3.89mg/l±0.27). The minimum concentrations recorded
were in Pb; which was below detectable level. The result also
revealed that the shell accumulate more heavy metals than the flesh
of the mussel with Cu in the shell exhibiting a negative correlation
with all the metals in the flesh. However, the condition factor (K)
value is 6.44, an indication of good health. The length-weight
relationship is expressed as W = -0.48 x L 1.94 (r2 = 0.29) showing the
growth pattern to be negatively allometric.