Abstract: This paper proposes a new optimization techniques
for the optimization a gas processing plant uncertain feed and
product flows. The problem is first formulated using a continuous
linear deterministic approach. Subsequently, the single and joint
chance constraint models for steady state process with timedependent
uncertainties have been developed. The solution approach
is based on converting the probabilistic problems into their
equivalent deterministic form and solved at different confidence
levels Case study for a real plant operation has been used to
effectively implement the proposed model. The optimization results
indicate that prior decision has to be made for in-operating plant
under uncertain feed and product flows by satisfying all the
constraints at 95% confidence level for single chance constrained and
85% confidence level for joint chance constrained optimizations
cases.
Abstract: The atmospheric pressure plasma torch with a direct
current arc discharge stabilized by water vapor vortex was
experimentally investigated. Overheated up to 450K water vapor was
used as plasma forming gas. Plasma torch design is one of the most
important factors leading to a stable operation of the device. The
electrical and thermal characteristics of the plasma torch were
determined during the experimental investigations. The design and
the basic characteristics of the water vapor plasma torch are presented
in the paper.
Plasma torches with the electric arc stabilized by water vapor
vortex provide special performance characteristics in some plasma
processing applications such as thermal plasma neutralization and
destruction of organic wastes enabling to extract high caloric value
synthesis gas as by-product of the process. Syngas could be used as a
surrogate fuel partly replacing the dependence on the fossil fuels or
used as a feedstock for hydrogen, methanol production.
Abstract: Over the past decade, mobile has experienced a
revolution that will ultimately change the way we communicate.All
these technologies have a common denominator exploitation of
computer information systems, but their operation can be tedious
because of problems with heterogeneous data sources.To overcome
the problems of heterogeneous data sources, we propose to use a
technique of adding an extra layer interfacing applications of
management or supervision at the different data sources.This layer
will be materialized by the implementation of a mediator between
different host applications and information systems frequently used
hierarchical and relational manner such that the heterogeneity is
completely transparent to the VoIP platform.
Abstract: This paper presents the results of a comprehensive
investigation of five blackouts that occurred on 28 August to 8
September 2011 due to bushing failures of the 132/33 kV, 125 MVA
transformers at JBB Ali Grid station. The investigation aims to
explore the root causes of the bushing failures and come up with
recommendations that help in rectifying the problem and avoiding the
reoccurrence of similar type of incidents. The incident reports about
the failed bushings and the SCADA reports at this grid station were
examined and analyzed. Moreover, comprehensive power quality
field measurements at ten 33/11 kV substations (S/Ss) in JBB Ali
area were conducted, and frequency scans were performed to verify
any harmonic resonance frequencies due to power factor correction
capacitors. Furthermore, the daily operations of the on-load tap
changers (OLTCs) of both the 125 MVA and 20 MVA transformers
at JBB Ali Grid station have been analyzed. The investigation
showed that the five bushing failures were due to a local problem, i.e.
internal degradation of the bushing insulation. This has been
confirmed by analyzing the time interval between successive OLTC
operations of the faulty grid transformers. It was also found that
monitoring the number of OLTC operations can help in predicting
bushing failure.
Abstract: Due to the emergence of “Humanized Healthcare"
introduced by Professor Dr. Prawase Wasi in 2003[1], the
development of this paradigm tends to be widely implemented. The
organizations included Healthcare Accreditation Institute (public
organization), National Health Foundation, Mahidol University in
cooperation with Thai Health Promotion Foundation, and National
Health Security Office (Thailand) have selected the hospitals or
infirmaries that are qualified for humanized healthcare since 2008-
2010 and 35 of them are chosen to be the outstandingly navigating
organizations for the development of humanized healthcare,
humanized healthcare award [2].
The research aims to study the current issue, characteristics and
patterns of hospital administration contributing to humanized
healthcare system in Thailand. The selected case studies are from
four hospitals including Dansai Crown Prince Hospital, Leoi;
Ubolrattana Hospital, Khon Kaen; Kapho Hospital, Pattani; and
Prathai Hospital, Nakhonrachasima. The methodology is in-depth
interviewing with 10 staffs working as hospital executive directors,
and representatives from leader groups including directors,
multidisciplinary hospital committees, personnel development
committees, physicians and nurses in each hospital. (Total=40) In
addition, focus group discussions between hospital staffs and general
people (including patients and their relatives, the community leader,
and other people) are held by means of setting 4 groups including 8
people within each group. (Total=128) The observation on the
working in each hospital is also implemented. The findings of the
study reveal that there are five important aspects found in each
hospital including (1) the quality improvement under the mental and
spiritual development policy from the chief executives and lead
teams, leaders as Role model and they have visionary leadership; (2)
the participation hospital administration system focusing on learning
process and stakeholder- needs, spiritual human resource
management and development; (3) the relationship among people
especially staffs, team work skills, mutual understanding, effective
communication and personal inner-development; (4) organization
culture relevant to the awareness of patients- rights as well as the
participation policy including spiritual growth achieving to the same
goals, sharing vision, developing public mind, and caring; and (5)
healing structures or environment providing warmth and convenience
for hospital staffs, patients and their relatives and visitors.
Abstract: This paper presents a new method of fault detection and isolation (FDI) for polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell (FC) dynamic systems under an open-loop scheme. This method uses a radial basis function (RBF) neural network to perform fault identification, classification and isolation. The novelty is that the RBF model of independent mode is used to predict the future outputs of the FC stack. One actuator fault, one component fault and three sensor faults have been introduced to the PEMFC systems experience faults between -7% to +10% of fault size in real-time operation. To validate the results, a benchmark model developed by Michigan University is used in the simulation to investigate the effect of these five faults. The developed independent RBF model is tested on MATLAB R2009a/Simulink environment. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method for FDI under an open-loop condition. By using this method, the RBF networks able to detect and isolate all five faults accordingly and accurately.
Abstract: Speed sensorless systems are intensively studied during recent years; this is mainly due to their economical benefit and fragility of mechanical sensors and also the difficulty of installing this type of sensor in many applications. These systems suffer from instability problems and sensitivity to parameter mismatch at low speed operation. In this paper an analysis of adaptive observer stability with stator resistance estimation is given.
Abstract: A newly designed gas-distributor for granulation of powdery materials in equilibrated fluidized bed and a system for collecting the granules prepared are suggested. The aim of these designs is to solve the problems arising by the granulation of powdery materials in fluidized bed devices. The gasdistributor and the collection system proved to be reliable at operation; they reduce the size of still zones, effectively disperse the binding solution in the bed and ensure the collection of granules of given diameter
Abstract: In the current research, we present an operation framework and protection mechanism to facilitate secure environment to protect mobile agents against tampering. The system depends on the presence of an authentication authority. The advantage of the proposed system is that security measures is an integral part of the design, thus common security retrofitting problems do not arise. This is due to the presence of AlGamal encryption mechanism to protect its confidential content and any collected data by the agent from the visited host . So that eavesdropping on information from the agent is no longer possible to reveal any confidential information. Also the inherent security constraints within the framework allow the system to operate as an intrusion detection system for any mobile agent environment. The mechanism is tested for most of the well known severe attacks against agents and networked systems. The scheme proved a promising performance that makes it very much recommended for the types of transactions that needs highly secure environments, e. g., business to business.
Abstract: To improve HSE standards, oil and gas industries are
interested in using remotely controlled and autonomous robots instead
of human workers on offshore platforms. In addition to earlier reason
this strategy would increase potential revenue, efficient usage of
work experts and even would allow operations in more remote areas.
This article is the presentation of a custom climbing robot, called
Walloid, designed for offshore platform topside automation. This 4
arms climbing robot with grippers is an ongoing project at University
of Oslo.
Abstract: We try to give a solution of version control for
documents in web service, that-s why we propose a new approach
used specially for the XML documents. The new approach is applied
in a centralized repository, this repository coexist with other
repositories in a decentralized system. To achieve the activities of
this approach in a standard model we use the ECA active rules. We
also show how the Event-Condition-Action rules (ECA rules) have
been incorporated as a mechanism for the version control of
documents. The need to integrate ECA rules is that it provides a clear
declarative semantics and induces an immediate operational
realization in the system without the need for human intervention.
Abstract: This study considers the problem of determining
operation and maintenance schedules for a containership equipped
with components during its sailing according to a pre-determined
navigation schedule. The operation schedule, which specifies work
time of each component, determines the due-date of each maintenance
activity, and the maintenance schedule specifies the actual start
time of each maintenance activity. The main constraints are component
requirements, workforce availability, working time limitation,
and inter-maintenance time. To represent the problem mathematically,
a mixed integer programming model is developed. Then,
due to the problem complexity, we suggest a heuristic for the objective
of minimizing the sum of earliness and tardiness between the
due-date and the starting time of each maintenance activity. Computational
experiments were done on various test instances and the
results are reported.
Abstract: In this study, we developed a model to predict the
temperature and the pressure variation in an internal combustion
engine operated in HCCI (Homogeneous charge compression ignition)
mode. HCCI operation begins from aspirating of homogeneous charge
mixture through intake valve like SI (Spark ignition) engine and the
premixed charge is compressed until temperature and pressure of
mixture reach autoignition point like diesel engine. Combustion phase
was described by double-Wiebe function. The single zone model
coupled with an double-Wiebe function were performed to simulated
pressure and temperature between the period of IVC (Inlet valve close)
and EVO (Exhaust valve open). Mixture gas properties were
implemented using STANJAN and transfer the results to main model.
The model has considered the engine geometry and enables varying in
fuelling, equivalence ratio, manifold temperature and pressure. The
results were compared with the experiment and showed good
correlation with respect to combustion phasing, pressure rise, peak
pressure and temperature. This model could be adapted and use to
control start of combustion for HCCI engine.
Abstract: An adaptive Helmholtz resonator was designed and
adapted to hydraulics. The resonator was controlled by open- and
closed-loop controls so that 20 dB attenuation of the peak-to-peak
value of the pulsating pressure was maintained. The closed-loop
control was noted to be better, albeit it was slower because of its low
pressure and temperature variation, which caused variation in the
effective bulk modulus of the hydraulic system. Low-pressure
hydraulics contains air, which affects the stiffness of the hydraulics,
and temperature variation changes the viscosity of the oil. Thus, an
open-loop control loses its efficiency if a condition such as
temperature or the amount of air changes after calibration. The
instability of the low-pressure hydraulic system reduced the
operational frequency range of the Helmholtz resonator when
compared with the results of an analytical model.
Different dampers for hydraulics are presented. Then analytical
models of a hydraulic pipe and a hydraulic pipe with a Helmholtz
resonator are presented. The analytical models are based on the wave
equation of sound pressure. Finally, control methods and the results
of experiments are presented.
Abstract: In this paper the application of neuro-fuzzy system for equalization of channel distortion is considered. The structure and operation algorithm of neuro-fuzzy equalizer are described. The use of neuro-fuzzy equalizer in digital signal transmission allows to decrease training time of parameters and decrease the complexity of the network. The simulation of neuro-fuzzy equalizer is performed. The obtained result satisfies the efficiency of application of neurofuzzy technology in channel equalization.
Abstract: An efficient parallel form in digital signal processor can improve the algorithm performance. The butterfly structure is an important role in fast Fourier transform (FFT), because its symmetry form is suitable for hardware implementation. Although it can perform a symmetric structure, the performance will be reduced under the data-dependent flow characteristic. Even though recent research which call as novel memory reference reduction methods (NMRRM) for FFT focus on reduce memory reference in twiddle factor, the data-dependent property still exists. In this paper, we propose a parallel-computing approach for FFT implementation on digital signal processor (DSP) which is based on data-independent property and still hold the property of low-memory reference. The proposed method combines final two steps in NMRRM FFT to perform a novel data-independent structure, besides it is very suitable for multi-operation-unit digital signal processor and dual-core system. We have applied the proposed method of radix-2 FFT algorithm in low memory reference on TI TMSC320C64x DSP. Experimental results show the method can reduce 33.8% clock cycles comparing with the NMRRM FFT implementation and keep the low-memory reference property.
Abstract: In this paper the General Game problem is described.
In this problem the competition or cooperation dilemma occurs as the
two basic types of strategies. The strategy possibilities have been
analyzed for finding winning strategy in uncertain situations (no
information about the number of players and their strategy types).
The winning strategy is missing, but a good solution can be found by
simulation by varying the ratio of the two types of strategies. This
new method has been used in a real contest with human players,
where the created strategies by simulation have reached very good
ranks. This construction can be applied in other real social games as
well.
Abstract: The notions of I-vague groups with membership and
non-membership functions taking values in an involutary dually
residuated lattice ordered semigroup are introduced which generalize
the notions with truth values in a Boolean algebra as well as those
usual vague sets whose membership and non-membership functions
taking values in the unit interval [0, 1]. Moreover, various operations
and properties are established.
Abstract: Transportation is of great importance in the current
life of human beings. The transportation system plays many roles,
from economical development to after-catastrophe aids such as
rescue operation in the first hours and days after an earthquake. In
after earthquakes response phase, transportation system acts as a
basis for ground operations including rescue and relief operation,
food providing for victims and etc. It is obvious that partial or
complete obstruction of this system results in the stop of these
operations. Bridges are one of the most important elements of
transportation network. Failure of a bridge, in the most optimistic
case, cuts the relation between two regions and in more developed
countries, cuts the relation of numerous regions. In this paper, to
evaluate the vulnerability and estimate the damage level of Tehran
bridges, HAZUS method, developed by Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) with the aid of National Institute of
Building Science (NIBS), is used for the first time in Iran. In this
method, to evaluate the collapse probability, fragility curves are
used. Iran is located on seismic belt and thus, it is vulnerable to
earthquakes. Thus, the study of the probability of bridge collapses, as
an important part of transportation system, during earthquakes is of
great importance. The purpose of this study is to provide fragility
curves for Gisha Bridge, one of the longest steel bridges in Tehran,
as an important lifeline element. Besides, the damage probability for
this bridge during a specific earthquake, introduced as scenario
earthquakes, is calculated. The fragility curves show that for the
considered scenario, the probability of occurrence of complete
collapse for the bridge is 8.6%.
Abstract: In this paper, periodic force operation of a wastewater treatment process has been studied for the improved process performance. A previously developed dynamic model for the process is used to conduct the performance analysis. The static version of the model was utilized first to determine the optimal productivity conditions for the process. Then, feed flow rate in terms of dilution rate i.e. (D) is transformed into sinusoidal function. Nonlinear model predictive control algorithm is utilized to regulate the amplitude and period of the sinusoidal function. The parameters of the feed cyclic functions are determined which resulted in improved productivity than the optimal productivity under steady state conditions. The improvement in productivity is found to be marginal and is satisfactory in substrate conversion compared to that of the optimal condition and to the steady state condition, which corresponds to the average value of the periodic function. Successful results were also obtained in the presence of modeling errors and external disturbances.