Abstract: Because of importance of energy, optimization of
power generation systems is necessary. Gas turbine cycles are
suitable manner for fast power generation, but their efficiency is
partly low. In order to achieving higher efficiencies, some
propositions are preferred such as recovery of heat from exhaust
gases in a regenerator, utilization of intercooler in a multistage
compressor, steam injection to combustion chamber and etc.
However thermodynamic optimization of gas turbine cycle, even
with above components, is necessary. In this article multi-objective
genetic algorithms are employed for Pareto approach optimization of
Regenerative-Intercooling-Gas Turbine (RIGT) cycle. In the multiobjective
optimization a number of conflicting objective functions
are to be optimized simultaneously. The important objective
functions that have been considered for optimization are entropy
generation of RIGT cycle (Ns) derives using Exergy Analysis and
Gouy-Stodola theorem, thermal efficiency and the net output power
of RIGT Cycle. These objectives are usually conflicting with each
other. The design variables consist of thermodynamic parameters
such as compressor pressure ratio (Rp), excess air in combustion
(EA), turbine inlet temperature (TIT) and inlet air temperature (T0).
At the first stage single objective optimization has been investigated
and the method of Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm
(NSGA-II) has been used for multi-objective optimization.
Optimization procedures are performed for two and three objective
functions and the results are compared for RIGT Cycle. In order to
investigate the optimal thermodynamic behavior of two objectives,
different set, each including two objectives of output parameters, are
considered individually. For each set Pareto front are depicted. The
sets of selected decision variables based on this Pareto front, will
cause the best possible combination of corresponding objective
functions. There is no superiority for the points on the Pareto front
figure, but they are superior to any other point. In the case of three
objective optimization the results are given in tables.
Abstract: For complete support of Quality of Service, it is better that environment itself predicts resource requirements of a job by using special methods in the Grid computing. The exact and correct prediction causes exact matching of required resources with available resources. After the execution of each job, the used resources will be saved in the active database named "History". At first some of the attributes will be exploit from the main job and according to a defined similarity algorithm the most similar executed job will be exploited from "History" using statistic terms such as linear regression or average, resource requirements will be predicted. The new idea in this research is based on active database and centralized history maintenance. Implementation and testing of the proposed architecture results in accuracy percentage of 96.68% to predict CPU usage of jobs and 91.29% of memory usage and 89.80% of the band width usage.
Abstract: This study was conducted to evaluate the antifungal
activities of Cinnamomum zeylanicum and Origanum vulgare L.
essential oil against Aspergillus flavus in culture media and tomato
paste. 200 ppm of cinnamon and 500 ppm of oregano completely
inhibited A. flavus growth in culture media, while in tomato paste 300
ppm of cinnamon and 200 ppm of oregano had the same effect. Test
panel evaluations revealed that samples with 100 and 200 ppm
cinnamon were acceptable. The results may suggest the potential use
of Cinnamomum zeylanicum essential oil as natural preservative in
tomato paste.
Abstract: This paper estimates the economic values of
household preference for enhanced solid waste disposal services in
Malaysia. The contingent valuation (CV) method estimates an
average additional monthly willingness-to-pay (WTP) in solid waste
management charges of Ôé¼0.77 to 0.80 for improved waste disposal
services quality. The finding of a slightly higher WTP from the
generic CV question than that of label-specific, further reveals a
higher WTP for sanitary landfill, at Ôé¼0.90, than incineration, at Ôé¼0.63.
This suggests that sanitary landfill is a more preferred alternative.
The logistic regression estimation procedure reveals that household-s
concern of where their rubbish is disposed, age, ownership of house,
household income and format of CV question are significant factors
in influencing WTP.
Abstract: Phrases has a long history in information retrieval, particularly in commercial systems. Implicit semantic relationship between words in a form of BaseNP have shown significant improvement in term of precision in many IR studies. Our research focuses on linguistic phrases which is language dependent. Our results show that using BaseNP can improve performance although above 62% of words formation in Malay Language based on derivational affixes and suffixes.
Abstract: Stair climbing is one of critical issues for field robots to
widen applicable areas. This paper presents optimal design on
kinematic parameters of a new robotic platform for stair climbing. The
robotic platform climbs various stairs by body flip locomotion with
caterpillar type main platform. Kinematic parameters such as platform
length, platform height, and caterpillar rotation speed are optimized to
maximize stair climbing stability. Three types of stairs are used to
simulate typical user conditions. The optimal design process is
conducted based on Taguchi methodology, and resulting parameters
with optimized objective function are presented. In near future, a
prototype is assembled for real environment testing.
Abstract: In this paper is shown that the probability-statistic methods application, especially at the early stage of the aviation gas turbine engine (GTE) technical condition diagnosing, when the flight information has property of the fuzzy, limitation and uncertainty is unfounded. Hence is considered the efficiency of application of new technology Soft Computing at these diagnosing stages with the using of the Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks methods. Training with high accuracy of fuzzy multiple linear and non-linear models (fuzzy regression equations) which received on the statistical fuzzy data basis is made. Thus for GTE technical condition more adequate model making are analysed dynamics of skewness and kurtosis coefficients' changes. Researches of skewness and kurtosis coefficients values- changes show that, distributions of GTE work parameters have fuzzy character. Hence consideration of fuzzy skewness and kurtosis coefficients is expedient. Investigation of the basic characteristics changes- dynamics of GTE work parameters allows to draw conclusion on necessity of the Fuzzy Statistical Analysis at preliminary identification of the engines' technical condition. Researches of correlation coefficients values- changes shows also on their fuzzy character. Therefore for models choice the application of the Fuzzy Correlation Analysis results is offered. For checking of models adequacy is considered the Fuzzy Multiple Correlation Coefficient of Fuzzy Multiple Regression. At the information sufficiency is offered to use recurrent algorithm of aviation GTE technical condition identification (Hard Computing technology is used) on measurements of input and output parameters of the multiple linear and non-linear generalised models at presence of noise measured (the new recursive Least Squares Method (LSM)). The developed GTE condition monitoring system provides stage-bystage estimation of engine technical conditions. As application of the given technique the estimation of the new operating aviation engine temperature condition was made.
Abstract: Web applications have become complex and crucial for many firms, especially when combined with areas such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and BPR (Business Process Reengineering). The scientific community has focused attention to Web application design, development, analysis, testing, by studying and proposing methodologies and tools. Static and dynamic techniques may be used to analyze existing Web applications. The use of traditional static source code analysis may be very difficult, for the presence of dynamically generated code, and for the multi-language nature of the Web. Dynamic analysis may be useful, but it has an intrinsic limitation, the low number of program executions used to extract information. Our reverse engineering analysis, used into our WAAT (Web Applications Analysis and Testing) project, applies mutational techniques in order to exploit server side execution engines to accomplish part of the dynamic analysis. This paper studies the effects of mutation source code analysis applied to Web software to build application models. Mutation-based generated models may contain more information then necessary, so we need a pruning mechanism.
Abstract: This paper presents a critical study about the
application of Neural Networks to ion-exchange process. Ionexchange
is a complex non-linear process involving many factors
influencing the ions uptake mechanisms from the pregnant solution.
The following step includes the elution. Published data presents
empirical isotherm equations with definite shortcomings resulting in
unreliable predictions. Although Neural Network simulation
technique encounters a number of disadvantages including its “black
box", and a limited ability to explicitly identify possible causal
relationships, it has the advantage to implicitly handle complex
nonlinear relationships between dependent and independent
variables. In the present paper, the Neural Network model based on
the back-propagation algorithm Levenberg-Marquardt was developed
using a three layer approach with a tangent sigmoid transfer function
(tansig) at hidden layer with 11 neurons and linear transfer function
(purelin) at out layer. The above mentioned approach has been used
to test the effectiveness in simulating ion exchange processes. The
modeling results showed that there is an excellent agreement between
the experimental data and the predicted values of copper ions
removed from aqueous solutions.
Abstract: With deep development of software reuse, componentrelated
technologies have been widely applied in the development of
large-scale complex applications. Component identification (CI) is
one of the primary research problems in software reuse, by analyzing
domain business models to get a set of business components with high
reuse value and good reuse performance to support effective reuse.
Based on the concept and classification of CI, its technical stack is
briefly discussed from four views, i.e., form of input business models,
identification goals, identification strategies, and identification
process. Then various CI methods presented in literatures are
classified into four types, i.e., domain analysis based methods,
cohesion-coupling based clustering methods, CRUD matrix based
methods, and other methods, with the comparisons between these
methods for their advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, some
insufficiencies of study on CI are discussed, and the causes are
explained subsequently. Finally, it is concluded with some
significantly promising tendency about research on this problem.
Abstract: This article is an extension and a practical application
approach of Wheeler-s NEBIC theory (Net Enabled Business
Innovation Cycle). NEBIC theory is a new approach in IS research
and can be used for dynamic environment related to new technology.
Firms can follow the market changes rapidly with support of the IT
resources. Flexible firms adapt their market strategies, and respond
more quickly to customers changing behaviors. When every leading
firm in an industry has access to the same IT resources, the way that
these IT resources are managed will determine the competitive
advantages or disadvantages of firm. From Dynamic Capabilities
Perspective and from newly introduced NEBIC theory by Wheeler,
we know that only IT resources cannot deliver customer value but
good configuration of those resources can guarantee customer value
by choosing the right emerging technology, grasping the economic
opportunities through business innovation and growth. We found
evidences in literature that SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is a
promising emerging technology which can deliver the desired
economic opportunity through modularity, flexibility and loosecoupling.
SOA can also help firms to connect in network which can
open a new window of opportunity to collaborate in innovation and
right kind of outsourcing
Abstract: Product Data Management (PDM) systems for Computer
Aided Design (CAD) file management are widely established
in design processes. This management system is indispensable for
design collaboration or when design task distribution is present. It is
thus surprising that engineering design curricula has not paid much
attention in the education of PDM systems. This is also the case
for eduction of ecodesign and environmental evaluation of products.
With the rise of sustainability as a strategic aspect in companies,
environmental concerns are becoming a key issue in design. This
paper discusses the establishment of a PDM platform to be used
among technical and vocational schools in Austria. The PDM system
facilitates design collaboration among these schools. Further, it will
be discussed how the PDM system has been prepared in order to
facilitate environmental evaluation of parts, components and subassemblies
of a product. By integrating a Business Intelligence
solution, environmental Life Cycle Assessment and communication
of results is enabled.
Abstract: The article deals with dividends and their distribution from investors from a theoretical point of view. Some studies try to analyzed the reaction of the market on the dividend announcement and found out the change of dividend policy is associated with abnormal returns around the dividend announcement date. Another researches directly questioned the investors about their dividend preference and beliefs. Investors want the dividend from many reasons (e.g. some of them explain the dividend preference by the existence of transaction cost; investors prefer the dividend today, because there is less risky; the managers have private information about the firm). The most controversial theory of dividend policy was developed by Modigliani and Miller (1961) who demonstrated that in the perfect and complete capital markets the dividend policy is irrelevant and the value of the company is independent of its payout policy. Nevertheless, in the real world the capital markets are imperfect, because of asymmetric information, transaction costs, incomplete contracting possibilities and taxes.
Abstract: E-government projects have potential for greater efficiency and effectiveness of government operations. For this reason, many developing countries governments have invested heavily in this agenda and an increasing number of e-government projects are being implemented. However, there is a lack of clear case material, which describes the potentialities and consequence experienced by organizations trying to manage with this change. The Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD) is the organization responsible for the e-Government program in Egypt since early 2004. This paper presents a case study of the process of admission to public universities and institutions in Egypt which is led by MSAD. Underlining the key benefits resulting from the initiative, explaining the strategies and the development steps used to implement it, and highlighting the main obstacles encountered and how they were overcome will help repeat the experience in other useful e-government projects.
Abstract: Cell formation is the first step in the design of cellular
manufacturing systems. In this study, a general purpose
computational scheme employing a hybrid tabu search algorithm as
the core is proposed to solve the cell formation problem and its
variants. In the proposed scheme, great flexibilities are left to the
users. The core solution searching algorithm embedded in the scheme
can be easily changed to any other meta-heuristic algorithms, such as
the simulated annealing, genetic algorithm, etc., based on the
characteristics of the problems to be solved or the preferences the
users might have. In addition, several counters are designed to control
the timing of conducting intensified solution searching and diversified
solution searching strategies interactively.
Abstract: Structural redundancy is an interesting point in
seismic design of structures. Initially, the structural redundancy is
described as indeterminate degree of a system. Although many definitions are presented for redundancy in structures, recently the
definition of structural redundancy has been related to the configuration of structural system and the number of lateral load
transferring directions in the structure. The steel frames with infill walls are general systems in the constructing of usual residential buildings in some countries. It is
obviously declared that the performance of structures will be affected by adding masonry infill walls. In order to investigate the effect of
infill walls on the redundancy of the steel frame which constructed
with masonry walls, the components of redundancy including redundancy variation index, redundancy strength index and
redundancy response modification factor were extracted for the
frames with masonry infills. Several steel frames with typical storey number and various numbers of bays were designed and considered.
The redundancy of frames with and without infill walls was evaluated by proposed method. The results showed the presence of infill causes increase of redundancy.
Abstract: Response to the public health-related emergencies is analysed here for a rural university in South Africa. The structure of the designated emergency plan covers all the phases of the disaster management cycle. The plan contains elements of the vulnerability model and the technocratic model of emergency management. The response structures are vertically and horizontally integrated, while the planning contains elements of scenario-based and functional planning. The available number of medical professionals at the Rhodes University, along with the medical insurance rates, makes the staff and students potentially more medically vulnerable than the South African population. The main improvements of the emergency management are required in the tornado response and the information dissemination during health emergencies. The latter should involve the increased use of social media and e-mails, following the Taylor model of communication. Infrastructure must be improved in the telecommunication sector in the face of unpredictable electricity outages.
Abstract: Nondestructive testing in engineering is an inverse
Cauchy problem for Laplace equation. In this paper the problem
of nondestructive testing is expressed by a Laplace-s equation with
third-kind boundary conditions. In order to find unknown values on
the boundary, the method of fundamental solution is introduced and
realized. Because of the ill-posedness of studied problems, the TSVD
regularization technique in combination with L-curve criteria and
Generalized Cross Validation criteria is employed. Numerical results
are shown that the TSVD method combined with L-curve criteria is
more efficient than the TSVD method combined with GCV criteria.
The abstract goes here.
Abstract: This paper presents a signal analysis process for
improving energy completeness based on the Hilbert-Huang
Transform (HHT). Firstly, the vibration signal of a DC Motor obtained
by employing an accelerometer is the model used to analyze the
signal. Secondly, the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and Hilbert
spectrum of the decomposed signal are obtained by applying HHT.
The results of the IMFs constituent and the original signal are
compared and the process of energy loss is discussed. Finally, the
differences between Wavelet Transform (WT) and HHT in analyzing
the signal are compared. The simulated results reveal the analysis
process based on HHT is advantageous for the enhancement of energy
completeness.
Abstract: In this paper we present an enhanced noise reduction method for robust speech recognition using Adaptive Gain Equalizer with Non linear Spectral Subtraction. In Adaptive Gain Equalizer method (AGE), the input signal is divided into a number of subbands that are individually weighed in time domain, in accordance to the short time Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) in each subband estimation at every time instant. Instead of focusing on suppression the noise on speech enhancement is focused. When analysis was done under various noise conditions for speech recognition, it was found that Adaptive Gain Equalizer method algorithm has an obvious failing point for a SNR of -5 dB, with inadequate levels of noise suppression for SNR less than this point. This work proposes the implementation of AGE when coupled with Non linear Spectral Subtraction (AGE-NSS) for robust speech recognition. The experimental result shows that out AGE-NSS performs the AGE when SNR drops below -5db level.