Abstract: In this study, a reformer model simulation to use
refinery (Farashband refinery, Iran) waste natural gas. In the
petroleum and allied sectors where natural gas is being encountered
(in form of associated gas) without prior preparation for its positive
use, its combustion (which takes place in flares, an equipment through
which they are being disposed) has become a great problem because
of its associated environmental problems in form of gaseous emission.
The proposed model is used to product syngas from waste natural gas.
A detailed steady model described by a set of ordinary differential and
algebraic equations was developed to predict the behavior of the
overall process. The proposed steady reactor model was validated
against process data of a reformer synthesis plant recorded and a good
agreement was achieved. H2/CO ratio has important effect on Fischer-
Tropsch synthesis reactor product and we try to achieve this parameter
with best designing reformer reactor. We study different kind of
reformer reactors and then select auto thermal reforming process of
natural gas in a fixed bed reformer that adjustment H2/CO ratio with
CO2 and H2O injection. Finally a strategy was proposed for prevention
of extra natural gas to atmosphere.
Abstract: The paper aims to show that implementing different
types of reflectors in solar energy systems, will dramatically improve
energy production by means of concentrating and intensifying more
sunlight onto a solar cell. The Solar Intensifier unit is designed to
increase efficiency and performance of a set of solar panels. The unit
was fabricated and tested. The experimental results show good
improvement in the performance of the solar energy system.
Abstract: This paper presents a real time force sensing
instrument that is designed for human gait analysis purposes. It is
capable of recording and monitoring ground reaction forces exerted
by human foot during various activities such as walking, running and
jumping in real time. In overall, force sensing mat mainly consists of
three elements: the force sensing mat, signal conditioning circuit and
data acquisition device. Force sensing mat is the mat that contains an
array of force sensing elements. To control and process the incoming
signal from the force sensing mat, Force-Logger and Force-Reloader
are developed using National Instrument Labview. This paper
describes the architecture of the force sensing mat, signal
conditioning circuit and the real time streaming of the incoming data
from the force sensing mat. Additionally, a preliminary experiment
dataset is presented in this paper.
Abstract: Stick models are widely used in studying the
behaviour of straight as well as skew bridges and viaducts subjected
to earthquakes while carrying out preliminary studies. The
application of such models to highly curved bridges continues to
pose challenging problems. A viaduct proposed in the foothills of the
Himalayas in Northern India is chosen for the study. It is having 8
simply supported spans @ 30 m c/c. It is doubly curved in horizontal
plane with 20 m radius. It is inclined in vertical plane as well. The
superstructure consists of a box section. Three models have been
used: a conventional stick model, an improved stick model and a 3D
finite element model. The improved stick model is employed by
making use of body constraints in order to study its capabilities. The
first 8 frequencies are about 9.71% away in the latter two models.
Later the difference increases to 80% in 50th mode. The viaduct was
subjected to all three components of the El Centro earthquake of May
1940. The numerical integration was carried out using the Hilber-
Hughes-Taylor method as implemented in SAP2000. Axial forces
and moments in the bridge piers as well as lateral displacements at
the bearing levels are compared for the three models. The maximum
difference in the axial forces and bending moments and
displacements vary by 25% between the improved and finite element
model. Whereas, the maximum difference in the axial forces,
moments, and displacements in various sections vary by 35%
between the improved stick model and equivalent straight stick
model. The difference for torsional moment was as high as 75%. It is
concluded that the stick model with body constraints to model the
bearings and expansion joints is not desirable in very sharp S curved
viaducts even for preliminary analysis. This model can be used only
to determine first 10 frequency and mode shapes but not for member
forces. A 3D finite element analysis must be carried out for
meaningful results.
Abstract: It is known that an analog Hopfield neural network
with time delay can generate the outputs which are similar to the
human electroencephalogram. To gain deeper insights into the
mechanisms of rhythm generation by the Hopfield neural networks
and to study the effects of noise on their activities, we investigated
the behaviors of the networks with symmetric and asymmetric
interneuron connections. The neural network under the study consists
of 10 identical neurons. For symmetric (fully connected) networks all
interneuron connections aij = +1; the interneuron connections for
asymmetric networks form an upper triangular matrix with non-zero
entries aij = +1. The behavior of the network is described by 10
differential equations, which are solved numerically. The results of
simulations demonstrate some remarkable properties of a Hopfield
neural network, such as linear growth of outputs, dependence of
synchronization properties on the connection type, huge
amplification of oscillation by the external uniform noise, and the
capability of the neural network to transform one type of noise to
another.
Abstract: In order to make environmental test centrifuge balance
automatically and accurately, reduce unbalance centrifugal force,
balance adjusting system of centrifuge is designed. The new balance
adjusting system comprises motor-reducer, timing belt, screw pair,
slider-guideway and four rocker force sensors. According to
information obtained by the four rocker force sensors, unbalanced
value at both ends of the big arm is computed and heavy block is
moved to achieve balance adjusting. In this paper, motor power and
torque to move the heavy block is calculated. In full load running
progress of centrifuge, the stress-strain of screw pair composed by
adjusting nut and big arm are analyzed. A successful application of the
balance adjusting system is also put forwarded. The results show that
the balance adjusting system can satisfy balance require of
environmental test centrifuge.
Abstract: Commercial hydroxyapatite (HA) was reinforced by
adding 2, 5, and 10 wt % of 28.5%CaO-28.5%P2O5-38%Na2 O-
5%CaF2 based glass and then sintered. Although HA shows good
biocompatibility with the human body, its applications are limited to
non load-bearing areas and coatings due to its poor mechanical
properties. These mechanical properties can be improved
substantially with addition of glass ceramics by sintering. In this
study, the effects of sintering hydroxyapatite with above specified
phosphate glass additions are quantified. Each composition was
sintered over a range of temperatures. Scanning electron microscopy
and x-ray diffraction were used to characterize the microstructure and
phases of the composites. The density, microhardness, and
compressive strength were measured using Archimedes Principle,
Vickers Microhardness Tester (at 0.98 N), and Instron Universal
Testing Machine (cross speed of 0.5 mm/min) respectively. These
results were used to indicate which composition provided suitable
material for use in hard tissue replacement. Composites containing 10
wt % glass additions formed dense HA/TCP (tricalcium phosphate)
composite materials possessing good compressive strength and
hardness than HA. In-vitro bioactivity was assessed by evaluating
changes in pH and Ca2+ ion concentration of SBF-simulated body
fluid on immersion of these composites in it for two weeks.
Abstract: Housebuilders in England have been the target of numerous government policies in recent years promoting increased productivity and affordability. As a result, the housebuilding industry is currently faced with objectives to improve the affordability and sustainability of new homes whilst also increasing production rates to 240,000 per year by 2016.Yet amidst a faltering economic climate, the UK Government is forging ahead with the 'Code for Sustainable Homes', which includes stringent sustainable standards for all new homes and sets ambitious targets for the housebuilding industry, the culmination of which is the production of zero carbon homes by 2016.Great uncertainty exists amongst housebuilders as to the costs, benefits and risks of building zero carbon homes. This paper examines the key barriers to zero carbon homes from housebuilders- perspective. A comprehensive opinion on the challenges to deliver zero carbon homes is gathered through a questionnaire survey issued to the major housing developers in England. The study found that a number of cultural, legislative, and financial barriers stand in the way of the widespread construction of zero carbon homes. The study concludes with several recommendations to both the Government and the housebuilding industry to address the barriers that hinder a successful delivery of zero carbon homes in England.
Abstract: Previous studies mass evacuation route network does
not fully reflect the step-by-step behavior and evacuees make routing
decisions. Therefore, they do not work as expected when applied to the
evacuation route planning is valid. This article describes where
evacuees may have to make a direction to select all areas were
identified as guiding points to improve evacuation routes network.
This improved route network can be used as a basis for the layout can
be used to guide the signs indicate that provides the required
evacuation direction. This article also describes that combines
simulation and artificial bee colony algorithm to provide the proposed
routing solutions, to plan an integrated routing mode. The improved
network and the model used is the cinema as a case study to assess the
floor. The effectiveness of guidance solution in the total evacuation
time is significant by verification.
Abstract: Facial expression analysis is rapidly becoming an
area of intense interest in computer science and human-computer
interaction design communities. The most expressive way humans
display emotions is through facial expressions. In this paper we
present a method to analyze facial expression from images by
applying Gabor wavelet transform (GWT) and Discrete Cosine
Transform (DCT) on face images. Radial Basis Function (RBF)
Network is used to classify the facial expressions. As a second stage,
the images are preprocessed to enhance the edge details and non
uniform down sampling is done to reduce the computational
complexity and processing time. Our method reliably works even
with faces, which carry heavy expressions.
Abstract: The relics of traditional folk culture in Kazakhstan are ceremonies or their fragments - such as weddings, funerals, shamanism. The world of spiritual creatures, spirits-protectors, spirits-helpers, injury spirits, spirits of illnesses, etc., is described in detail in shamanic rites (in Kazakh culture it is called bakslyk). The study of these displays of folk culture, which reflect the peoples` ethnic mentality or notions about the structure, values and hierarchies of the universe, includes collection and recording of the field materials and their interpretation, i.e. reconstruction of those meanings which were initially embodied or “coded" in folklore. A distinctive feature of Kazakh nomadic culture is its self-preservation and actualization, almost untouched the ancient mythologies of the world, in particular, the mythologies connected with music, musical instruments and the creator of music. Within the frameworks of the traditional culture the word and the music keep the sacral meaning. The ritual melodies and what they carry – the holly, and at the same time unexplored, powerful and threatening, uncontrolled by people world – keep on attributing the soul to all, connected with culture.
Abstract: In this paper, a robust digital image watermarking
scheme for copyright protection applications using the singular value
decomposition (SVD) is proposed. In this scheme, an entropy
masking model has been applied on the host image for the texture
segmentation. Moreover, the local luminance and textures of the host
image are considered for watermark embedding procedure to
increase the robustness of the watermarking scheme. In contrast to all
existing SVD-based watermarking systems that have been designed
to embed visual watermarks, our system uses a pseudo-random
sequence as a watermark. We have tested the performance of our
method using a wide variety of image processing attacks on different
test images. A comparison is made between the results of our
proposed algorithm with those of a wavelet-based method to
demonstrate the superior performance of our algorithm.
Abstract: A self tuning PID control strategy using reinforcement
learning is proposed in this paper to deal with the control of wind
energy conversion systems (WECS). Actor-Critic learning is used to
tune PID parameters in an adaptive way by taking advantage of the
model-free and on-line learning properties of reinforcement learning
effectively. In order to reduce the demand of storage space and to
improve the learning efficiency, a single RBF neural network is used
to approximate the policy function of Actor and the value function of
Critic simultaneously. The inputs of RBF network are the system
error, as well as the first and the second-order differences of error.
The Actor can realize the mapping from the system state to PID
parameters, while the Critic evaluates the outputs of the Actor and
produces TD error. Based on TD error performance index and
gradient descent method, the updating rules of RBF kernel function
and network weights were given. Simulation results show that the
proposed controller is efficient for WECS and it is perfectly
adaptable and strongly robust, which is better than that of a
conventional PID controller.
Abstract: This paper examines two policy spaces–the ARC and TVA–and their spatialized politics. The research observes that the regional concept informs public policy and can contribute to the formation of stable policy initiatives. Using the subsystem framework to understand the political viability of policy regimes, the authors conclude policy geographies that appeal to traditional definitions of regions are more stable over time. In contrast, geographies that fail to reflect pre-existing representations of space are engaged in more competitive subsystem politics. The paper demonstrates that the spatial practices of policy regions and their directional politics influence the political viability of programs. The paper concludes that policy spaces should institutionalize pre-existing geographies–not manufacture new ones.
Abstract: Early supplier involvement (ESI) benefits new
product development projects several ways. Nevertheless, many castuser
companies do not know the advantages of ESI and therefore do
not utilize it. This paper presents reasons why to utilize ESI in
casting industry and how that can be done. Further, this paper
presents advantages and challenges related to ESI in casting industry,
and introduces a Casting-Network Collaboration Model. The model
presents practices for companies to build advantageous collaborative
relationships. More detailed, the model describes three levels for
company-network relationships in casting industry with different
degrees of collaboration, and requirements for operating in each
level. In our research, ESI was found to influence, for example, on
project time, component cost, and quality. In addition, challenges
related to ESI, such as, a lack of mutual trust and unawareness about
the advantages were found. Our research approach was a case study
including four cases.
Abstract: Based on experimental data using accelerometry technology there was developed an analytical model that approximates human induced ground reaction forces in vertical, longitudinal and lateral directions ascending and descending the stairs. Proposed dynamic loading factors and corresponding phase shifts for the first five harmonics of continuous walking force history in case of stair ascend and descend. Into account is taken imperfectness of individual footfall forcing functions, differences between continuous walking force histories among individuals. There is proposed mean synthetic continuous walking force history that can be used in numerical simulations of human movement on the stairs.
Abstract: pH-sensitive drug targeting using nanoparticles for
cancer chemotherapy have been spotlighted in recent decades. Graft
copolymer composed of poly (L-histidine) (PHS) and dextran
(DexPHS) was synthesized and pH-sensitive nanoparticles were
fabricated for pH-responsive drug delivery of doxorubicin (DOX).
Nanoparticles of DexPHS showed pH-sensitive changes in particle
sizes and drug release behavior, i.e. particle sizes and drug release rate
were increased at acidic pH, indicating that DexPHS nanoparticles
have pH-sensitive drug delivery potentials. Antitumor activity of
DOX-incorporated DexPHS nanoparticles were studied using CT26
colorectal carcinoma cells. Results indicated that fluorescence
intensity was higher at acidic pH than basic pH. These results
indicated that DexPHS nanoparticles have pH-responsive drug
targeting.
Abstract: In this paper, we present optimal control for
movement and trajectory planning for four degrees-of-freedom robot
using Fuzzy Logic (FL) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs). We have
evaluated using Fuzzy Logic (FL) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs)
for four degree-of-freedom (4 DOF) robotics arm, Uncertainties like;
Movement, Friction and Settling Time in robotic arm movement
have been compensated using Fuzzy logic and Genetic Algorithms.
The development of a fuzzy genetic optimization algorithm is
presented and discussed. The result are compared only GA and
Fuzzy GA. This paper describes genetic algorithms, which is
designed to optimize robot movement and trajectory. Though the
model represents is a general model for redundant structures and
could represent any n-link structures. The result is a complete
trajectory planning with Fuzzy logic and Genetic algorithms
demonstrating the flexibility of this technique of artificial
intelligence.
Abstract: A way of generating millimeter wave I/Q signal using inductive resonator matched poly-phase filter is suggested. Normally the poly-phase filter generates quite accurate I/Q phase and magnitude but the loss of the filter is considerable due to series connection of passive RC components. This loss term directly increases system noise figure when the poly-phase filter is used in RF Front-end. The proposed matching method eliminates above mentioned loss and in addition provides gain on the passive filter. The working algorithm is illustrated by mathematical analysis. The generated I/Q signal is used in implementing millimeter wave phase shifter for the 60 GHz communication system to verify its effectiveness. The circuit is fabricated in 90 nm TSMC RF CMOS process under 1.2 V supply voltage. The measurement results showed that the suggested method improved gain by 6.5 dB and noise by 2.3 dB. The summary of the proposed I/Q generation is compared with previous works.
Abstract: With the rapid growth in business size, today's businesses orient towards electronic technologies. Amazon.com and e-bay.com are some of the major stakeholders in this regard. Unfortunately the enormous size and hugely unstructured data on the web, even for a single commodity, has become a cause of ambiguity for consumers. Extracting valuable information from such an everincreasing data is an extremely tedious task and is fast becoming critical towards the success of businesses. Web content mining can play a major role in solving these issues. It involves using efficient algorithmic techniques to search and retrieve the desired information from a seemingly impossible to search unstructured data on the Internet. Application of web content mining can be very encouraging in the areas of Customer Relations Modeling, billing records, logistics investigations, product cataloguing and quality management. In this paper we present a review of some very interesting, efficient yet implementable techniques from the field of web content mining and study their impact in the area specific to business user needs focusing both on the customer as well as the producer. The techniques we would be reviewing include, mining by developing a knowledge-base repository of the domain, iterative refinement of user queries for personalized search, using a graphbased approach for the development of a web-crawler and filtering information for personalized search using website captions. These techniques have been analyzed and compared on the basis of their execution time and relevance of the result they produced against a particular search.