Abstract: The power transformer is the most expensive, indispensable and arguably the most important equipment item in a power system Insulation failure in transformers can cause long term interruption to supply and loss of revenue and the condition assessment of the insulation is thus an important maintenance procedure. Oil-impregnated transformer insulation consists of mainly organic materials including mineral oil and cellulose-base paper and pressboard. The operating life of cellulose-based insulation, as with most organic insulation, depends heavily on its operating temperature rise above ambient. This paper reports results of a laboratory-based experimental investigation of partial discharge (PD) activity at high temperature in oil-impregnated insulation. The experiments reported here are part an on-going programme aimed at investigating the way in which insulation deterioration can be monitored and quantified by use of partial discharge diagnostics. Partial discharge patterns were recorded and analysed during increasing and decreasing phases of the temperature. The effect of ageing of the insulation on the PD patterns in oil and oil-impregnated insulation are also considered.
Abstract: Bone growth factors, such as Bone Morphogenic
Protein-2 (BMP-2) have been approved by the FDA to replace grafting for some surgical interventions, but the high dose requirement limits its use in patients. Noggin, an extracellular protein, blocks the effect of BMP-2 by binding to BMP. Preventing
the BMP-2/noggin interaction will help increase the free
concentration of BMP-2 and therefore should enhance its efficacy to
induce bone formation. The work presented here involves
computational design of novel small molecule inhibitory agents of BMP-2/noggin interaction, based on our current understanding of
BMP-2, and its known putative ligands (receptors and antagonists). A
successful acquisition of such an inhibitory agent of BMP-2/noggin interaction would allow clinicians to reduce the dose required of
BMP-2 protein in clinical applications to promote osteogenesis. The
available crystal structures of the BMPs, its receptors, and the binding partner noggin were analyzed to identify the critical residues
involved in their interaction. In presenting this study, LUDI de novo design method was utilized to perform virtual screening of a large
number of compounds from a commercially available library against the binding sites of noggin to identify the lead chemical compounds
that could potentially block BMP-noggin interaction with a high specificity.
Abstract: Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a procedure tool of environmental management for identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the adverse effects of development proposals. EIA reports usually analyze how the amounts or concentrations of pollutants obey the relevant standards. Actually, many analytical tools can deepen the analysis of environmental impacts in EIA reports, such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental risk assessment (ERA). Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is one of steps in LCA to introduce the causal relationships among environmental hazards and damage. Incorporating the LCIA concept into ERA as an integrated tool for EIA can extend the focus of the regulatory compliance of environmental impacts to determine of the significance of environmental impacts. Sometimes, when using integrated tools, it is necessary to consider fuzzy situations due to insufficient information; therefore, ERA should be generalized to fuzzy risk assessment (FRA). Finally, the use of the proposed methodology is demonstrated through the study case of the expansion plan of the world-s largest plastics processing factory.
Abstract: In the paper the research of flat textile products for use
as electrodes was presented. Material-s resistance measurements were
carried out to determine the suitability of the textiles. Based on the received results of studies different types of textile electrodes were
designed. Textile electrodes tests were carried out on human
phantoms. The electro-conductive properties of human forearm
phantom were also described. Based on this results special electroconductive
hydrogels with electro-conductive particles were feasible. The hydrogel is an important element of the forearm-s phantom
model of a survey of electrodes for muscle electrostimulation. The
hydrogel is an equivalent human skin and tissue. The hydrogel should
have a permanence and recurrence of the electro-conductive properties.
Abstract: In this study, in order to clarify wind-induced
phenomena, especially vertical mixing of density stratification in a
closed water area with floating-leaved plants, we conducted hydraulic
experiments on wind flow characteristics, wind wave characteristics,
entrainment phenomena and turbulent structure by using a wind tunnel
test tank and simulated floating-leaved plants. From the experimental
results of wind flow and wind wave characteristics, we quantified the
impact of the occupancy rate of the plants on their resistance
characteristics. From the experimental results of entrainment
phenomena, we defined the parameter that could explain the
magnitude of mixing between the density stratifications, and
quantified the impact of the occupancy rate on vertical mixing
between stratifications. From the experimental results of the turbulent
structure of the upper layer, we clarified the differences in small-scale
turbulence components at each occupancy rate and quantified the
impact of the occupancy rate on the turbulence characteristics. For a
summary of this study, we theoretically quantified wind-induced
entrainment phenomena in a closed water area with luxuriant growth
of floating-leaved plants. The results indicated that the impact of
luxuriant growth of floating-leaved plants in a closed water body
could be seen in the difference in small-scale fluid characteristics, and
these characteristics could be expressed using the small-scale
turbulent components.
Abstract: An attempt has been made several times to identify
and discuss the U.S. experience on the formation of political nation in
political science. The purpose of this research paper is to identify the
main aspects of the formation of civic identity in the United States
and Kazakhstan, through the identification of similarities and
differences that can get practical application in making decisions of
national policy issues in the context of globalization, as well as to
answer the questions “What should unite the citizens of Kazakhstan
to the nation?" and “What should be the dominant identity: civil or
ethnic (national) one?"
Can Kazakhstan being multiethnic country like America, adopt its
experience in the formation of a civic nation? Since it is believed that
the “multi-ethnic state of the population is a characteristic feature of
most modern countries in the world," it states that “inter-ethnic
integration is one of the most important aspects of the problem of
forming a new social community (metaetnic - Kazakh people,
Kazakh nation" [1].
Abstract: Islam has a general principle of increase in
population. But the Muslims are equally obliged to take care of
health, education and the provisions etc. for their offspring and wives
in the best possible way. The Muslims would have to regulate and
manage the number of children, if any situation affects their duties
regarding their wives or children. Islam accomplishes permissibility
of temporary blockade in human fertility if someone faces any
problem regarding health of mother or children. During the life of the
Holy Prophet (SAW), Azl (coitus interruptus) was the only way for
temporary spacing between the children. In technologically
developed environment, the same can be resort through some
advanced methodology or instrument of temporary blockade. Solid
grounds are available in Islam that the fertility rate should be
managed if any of the aspect of human quality is being affected.
Abstract: Increase in using internet makes some problems that
one of them is "internet anxiety". Internet anxiety is a type of anxious
that people may feel during surfing internet or using internet for their
educational purpose, blogging or streaming to digital libraries. The
goal of this study is evaluating of internet anxiety among the
management students. In this research Ealy's internet anxiety
questionnaire, consists of positive and negative items, is completed
by 310 participants. According to the findings, about 64.7% of them
were equal or below to mean anxiety score (50). The distribution of
internet anxiety scores was normal and there was no meaningful
difference between men-s and women's anxiety level in this sample.
Results also showed that there is no meaningful difference of internet
anxiety level between different fields of study in Management. This
evaluation will help managers to perform gap analysis between the
existent level and the desired one. Future work would be providing
techniques for abating human anxiety while using internet via human
computer interaction techniques.
Abstract: One of the important factors of cracks on the asphalt
pavements is bitumen aging that associated with the loss of volatile
components and oxidation of asphalt binder. This paper is about
effect of Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) polymer on asphalt aging
In order to decrease asphalt aging effects. For this purpose samples of
base bitumen and SBS modified bitumen aged according to the
rolling thin film oven test (RTFOT) and pressure aging vessel (PAV),
respectively. Properties of each sample were evaluated using Fourier
Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, n-heptane precipitation,
viscosity test, softening point test and penetration test. FT-IR
Analysis, showed lower oxidation of SBS modified bitumen than
base bitumen, after aging.
Abstract: Today modern simulations solutions in the wind turbine industry have achieved a high degree of complexity and detail in result. Limitations exist when it is time to validate model results against measurements. Regarding Model validation it is of special interest to identify mode frequencies and to differentiate them from the different excitations. A wind turbine is a complex device and measurements regarding any part of the assembly show a lot of noise. Input excitations are difficult or even impossible to measure due to the stochastic nature of the environment. Traditional techniques for frequency analysis or features extraction are widely used to analyze wind turbine sensor signals, but have several limitations specially attending to non stationary signals (Events). A new technique based on autoregresive analysis techniques is introduced here for a specific application, a comparison and examples related to different events in the wind turbine operations are presented.
Abstract: Reasonably priced and well-constructed housing must
be an integral and element supporting a healthy society. The absence
of housing everyone in society can afford negatively affects the
people's health, education, ability to get jobs, develop their
community. Without access to decent housing, economic
development, integration of immigrants and inclusiveness, the society
is negatively impacted. Canada has a sterling record in creating
housing compared to many other nations around the globe. Canadian
housing gets support from a mature and responsive mortgage network
and a top-quality construction industry as well as safe and excellent
quality building materials that are readily available. Yet 1.7 million
Canadian households occupy substandard abodes. During the past
hundred years, Canada's government has made a wide variety of
attempts to provide decent residential facilities every Canadian can
afford. Despite these laudable efforts, today Canada is left with
housing that is inadequate for many Canadians. People who own their
housing are given all kinds of privileges and perks, while people with
relatively low incomes who rent their apartments or houses are
discriminated against.
To help solve these problems, zoning that is based on an
"inclusionary" philosophy is tool developed to help provide people
the affordable residences that they need. No, thirty years after its
introduction, this type of zoning has been shown effective in helping
build and provide Canadians with a houses or apartments they can
afford to pay for. Using this form of zoning can have different results
+depending on where and how it is used. After examining Canadian
affordable housing and four American cases where this type of
zoning was enforced in the USA, this makes various
recommendations for expanding Canadians' access to housing they
can afford.
Abstract: This paper reports the results of an experimental study
conducted to characterise the gas-liquid multiphase flows
experienced within a vertical riser transporting a range of gas-liquid
flow rates. The scale experiments were performed using an
air/silicone oil mixture within a 6 m long riser. The superficial air
velocities studied ranged from 0.047 to 2.836 m/ s, whilst
maintaining a liquid superficial velocity at 0.047 m/ s. Measurements
of the mean cross-sectional and time average radial void fraction
were obtained using a wire mesh sensor (WMS). The data were
recorded at an acquisition frequency of 1000 Hz over an interval of
60 seconds. For the range of flow conditions studied, the average
void fraction was observed to vary between 0.1 and 0.9. An analysis
of the data collected concluded that the observed void fraction was
strongly affected by the superficial gas velocity, whereby the higher
the superficial gas velocity, the higher was the observed average void
fraction. The average void fraction distributions observed were in
good agreement with the results obtained by other researchers. When
the air-silicone oil flows were fully developed reasonably symmetric
profiles were observed, with the shape of the symmetry profile being
strongly dependent on the superficial gas velocity.
Abstract: This paper presents an evaluation of the wind potential in the area of the Lagoon of Venice (Italy). A full anemometric campaign of 2 year measurements, performed by the "Osservatorio Bioclimatologico dell'Ospedale al Mare di Venezia" has been analyzed to obtain the Weibull wind speed distribution and the main wind directions. The annual energy outputs of two candidate horizontal-axis wind turbines (“Aventa AV-7 LoWind" and “Gaia Wind 133-11kW") have been estimated on the basis of the computed Weibull wind distribution, registering a better performance of the former turbine, due to a higher ratio between rotor swept area and rated power of the electric generator, determining a lower cut-in wind speed.
Abstract: People from different cultures favor web pages
characterized by the values of their culture and, therefore, tend to
prefer different characteristics of a website according to their cultural
values in terms of navigation, security, product information, customer
service, shopping and design tools. For a company aiming to
globalize its market it is useful to implement country specific cultural
interfaces and different web sites for countries with different cultures.
This paper, following the conclusions proposed by two models of
Hall and Hofstede, and the studies of Marcus and Gould, defines,
through an empirical analysis, the guidelines of web design for both
the Scandinavian countries and Malaysia.
Abstract: Data compression is used operationally to reduce bandwidth and storage requirements. An efficient method for achieving lossless weather radar data compression is presented. The characteristics of the data are taken into account and the optical linear prediction is used for the PPI images in the weather radar data in the proposed method. The next PPI image is identical to the current one and a dramatic reduction in source entropy is achieved by using the prediction algorithm. Some lossless compression methods are used to compress the predicted data. Experimental results show that for the weather radar data, the method proposed in this paper outperforms the other methods.
Abstract: Electronic seal is an electronic device to check the
authenticity and integrity of freight containers at the point of arrival.
While RFID-based eSeals are gaining more acceptances and there are
also some standardization processes for these devices, a recent
research revealed that the current RFID-based eSeals are vulnerable to
various attacks. In this paper, we provide a feasible solution to
enhance the security of active RFID-based eSeals. Our approach is to
use an authentication and key agreement protocol between eSeal and
reader device, enabling data encryption and integrity check. Our
protocol is based on the use of block cipher AES, which is reasonable
since a block cipher can also be used for many other security purposes
including data encryption and pseudo-random number generation. Our
protocol is very simple, and it is applicable to low-end active RFID
eSeals.
Abstract: REY area has been located in Tehran Province and several archaeological ruins of this area indicate that the settlement in this area has been started since several thousand years ago. In this paper, the main investigation items consist of analysis of oil components and groundwater quality inside the wells. By finding the contents of oil in the well, it is possible to find out the pollution source by comparing the oil contents of well with other oil products that are used inside and outside of the oil farm. Investigation items consist of analysis of BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl-benzene, Xylene), Gas chromatographic distillation characteristics, Water content, Density, Sulfur content, Lead content, Atmospheric distillation, MTBE(Methyl tertiary butyl ether). Analysis of polluting oil components showed that except MW(Monitoring Well)10 and MW 15 that oil with slightly heavy components was detected in them; with a high possibility the polluting oil is light oil.
Abstract: One of the vital developmental tasks that an
individual faces during adolescence is choosing a career. Arriving at
a career decision is difficult and anxious for many adolescents in the
tertiary level. The main purpose of this study is to determine the
factors relating to career indecision among freshmen college students
as basis for the formulation of a comprehensive career counseling
program for the psychological well-being of freshmen university
students. The subjects were purposively selected. The Slovin-s
formula was used in determining the sample size, using a 0.05
margin of error in getting the total number of samples per college and
per major. The researcher made use of descriptive correlational study
in determining significant factors relating to career indecision.
Multiple Regression Analysis indicated that career thoughts, career
decisions and vocational identity as factors related to career
indecision.
Abstract: The forming process parameters of Selective Laser
Sintering(SLS) directly affect the forming efficiency and forming
quality. Therefore, to determine reasonable process parameters is
particularly important. In this paper, the weight of each target of the
forming quality and efficiency is firstly calculated with the Analytic
Hierarchy Process. And then the size of each target is measured by
orthogonal experiment. Finally, the sum of the product of each target
with the weight is compared to the process parameters in each group
and obtained the optimal molding process parameters.
Abstract: Evaluation of contact pressure, surface and
subsurface contact stresses are essential to know the functional
response of surface coatings and the contact behavior mainly depends
on surface roughness, material property, thickness of layer and the
manner of loading. Contact parameter evaluation of real rough
surface contacts mostly relies on statistical single asperity contact
approaches. In this work, a three dimensional layered solid rough
surface in contact with a rigid flat is modeled and analyzed using
finite element method. The rough surface of layered solid is
generated by FFT approach. The generated rough surface is exported
to a finite element method based ANSYS package through which the
bottom up solid modeling is employed to create a deformable solid
model with a layered solid rough surface on top. The discretization
and contact analysis are carried by using the same ANSYS package.
The elastic, elastoplastic and plastic deformations are continuous in
the present finite element method unlike many other contact models.
The Young-s modulus to yield strength ratio of layer is varied in the
present work to observe the contact parameters effect while keeping
the surface roughness and substrate material properties as constant.
The contacting asperities attain elastic, elastoplastic and plastic states
with their continuity and asperity interaction phenomena is inherently
included. The resultant contact parameters show that neighboring
asperity interaction and the Young-s modulus to yield strength ratio
of layer influence the bulk deformation consequently affect the
interface strength.