A Processor with Dynamically Reconfigurable Circuit for Floating-Point Arithmetic

This paper describes about dynamic reconfiguration to miniaturize arithmetic circuits in general-purpose processor. Dynamic reconfiguration is a technique to realize required functions by changing hardware construction during operation. The proposed arithmetic circuit performs floating-point arithmetic which is frequently used in science and technology. The data format is floating-point based on IEEE754. The proposed circuit is designed using VHDL, and verified the correct operation by simulations and experiments.

Modeling and Simulation of a Serial Production Line with Constant Work-In-Process

This paper presents a model for an unreliable production line, which is operated according to demand with constant work-in-process (CONWIP). A simulation model is developed based on the discrete model and several case problems are analyzed using the model. The model is utilized to optimize storage space capacities at intermediate stages and the number of kanbans at the last stage, which is used to trigger the production at the first stage. Furthermore, effects of several line parameters on production rate are analyzed using design of experiments.

Dynamical Analysis of Circadian Gene Expression

Microarrays technique allows the simultaneous measurements of the expression levels of thousands of mRNAs. By mining this data one can identify the dynamics of the gene expression time series. By recourse of principal component analysis, we uncover the circadian rhythmic patterns underlying the gene expression profiles from Cyanobacterium Synechocystis. We applied PCA to reduce the dimensionality of the data set. Examination of the components also provides insight into the underlying factors measured in the experiments. Our results suggest that all rhythmic content of data can be reduced to three main components.

Mass Transfer Modeling of Nitrate in an Ion Exchange Selective Resin

The rate of nitrate adsorption by a nitrate selective ion exchange resin was investigated in a well-stirred batch experiments. The kinetic experimental data were simulated with diffusion models including external mass transfer, particle diffusion and chemical adsorption. Particle pore volume diffusion and particle surface diffusion were taken into consideration separately and simultaneously in the modeling. The model equations were solved numerically using the Crank-Nicholson scheme. An optimization technique was employed to optimize the model parameters. All nitrate concentration decay data were well described with the all diffusion models. The results indicated that the kinetic process is initially controlled by external mass transfer and then by particle diffusion. The external mass transfer coefficient and the coefficients of pore volume diffusion and surface diffusion in all experiments were close to each other with the average value of 8.3×10-3 cm/S for external mass transfer coefficient. In addition, the models are more sensitive to the mass transfer coefficient in comparison with particle diffusion. Moreover, it seems that surface diffusion is the dominant particle diffusion in comparison with pore volume diffusion.

Combining Diverse Neural Classifiers for Complex Problem Solving: An ECOC Approach

Combining classifiers is a useful method for solving complex problems in machine learning. The ECOC (Error Correcting Output Codes) method has been widely used for designing combining classifiers with an emphasis on the diversity of classifiers. In this paper, in contrast to the standard ECOC approach in which individual classifiers are chosen homogeneously, classifiers are selected according to the complexity of the corresponding binary problem. We use SATIMAGE database (containing 6 classes) for our experiments. The recognition error rate in our proposed method is %10.37 which indicates a considerable improvement in comparison with the conventional ECOC and stack generalization methods.

Bioremediation of Oil-Polluted Soil of Western Kazakhstan

15 strains of oil-destructing microorganisms were isolated from oil polluted soil of Western Kazakhstan. Strains 2-A and 41-3 with the highest oil-destructing activities were chosen from them. It was shown that these strains oxidized n-alkanes very well, but isoalkanes, isoparaffin, cycloparaffin and heavy aromatic compounds were destructed very slowly. These both strains were tested as preparations for bioremediation of oil-polluted soil in model and field experiments. The degree of utilizing of soil oil by this preparation was 79-84 % in field experiments.

The Chemical Composition of Yoghurt Enriched with Flakes from Biologically Activated Hullless Barley Grain and Malt Extract

The influence of flakes from biologically activated hull-less barley grain and malt extract on chemical composition of yoghurt was studied. Pasteurized milk, freeze-dried yoghurt culture YF-L811 (Chr. Hansen, Denmark), flakes from biologically activated hull-less barley grain (Latvia) and malt extract (Ilgezeem, Latvia) were used for experiments. Yoghurt samples with and without flakes from biologically activated hull-less barley grain and malt extract were analyzed for content of total solids, total proteins, fats, amino acids and riboflavin. The addition of flakes from biologically activated hull-less barley grain and malt extract allowed increase of nutritional value of yoghurt samples. There was obtained the increase of total proteins (p>0.05) and the decrease of fat (p>0.05). The presence of flakes from biologically activated hull-less barley grain and malt extract in yoghurt samples provided significant increase of amino acids amount (p

Evaluating the Tool Wear Rate in Ultrasonic Machining of Titanium using Design of Experiments Approach

Ultrasonic machining (USM) is a non-traditional machining process being widely used for commercial machining of brittle and fragile materials such as glass, ceramics and semiconductor materials. However, USM could be a viable alternative for machining a tough material such as titanium; and this aspect needs to be explored through experimental research. This investigation is focused on exploring the use of ultrasonic machining for commercial machining of pure titanium (ASTM Grade-I) and evaluation of tool wear rate (TWR) under controlled experimental conditions. The optimal settings of parameters are determined through experiments planned, conducted and analyzed using Taguchi method. In all, the paper focuses on parametric optimization of ultrasonic machining of pure titanium metal with TWR as response, and validation of the optimized value of TWR by conducting confirmatory experiments.

Inhibition Effect of Brazilin to Human Bladder Cancer Cell Line T24

The inhibition effect of brazilin to human bladder tumor cell line T24 in vitro and in vivo was studied. The results of the in vitro experiments showed that brazilin has strong inhibition activity on the target cells. The inhibition ratio of 100 μg/mL brazilin and 100 μg/mL mitomycin to the target cells was 90.90 % and 63.24 % respectively, which showed that brazilin has higher inhibition activity than mitomycin under the same concentration. Brazilin could induce cell apoptosis in T24 cells. Significant antitumor activity of brazilin was also showed in the animals experiments. The life extention rate of 200 mg/mL, 300 mg/kg, and 400 mg/kg brazilin intraperitoneally injected into Balb/c-nu-nu nude mice that with human bladder cancer were 51.50 %, 56.90 %, and 58.42 %(P

An Experimental Investigation on the Effect of Deep cold Rolling Parameters on Surface Roughness and Hardness of AISI 4140 Steel

Deep cold rolling (DCR) is a cold working process, which easily produces a smooth and work-hardened surface by plastic deformation of surface irregularities. In the present study, the influence of main deep cold rolling process parameters on the surface roughness and the hardness of AISI 4140 steel were studied by using fractional factorial design of experiments. The assessment of the surface integrity aspects on work material was done, in terms of identifying the predominant factor amongst the selected parameters, their order of significance and setting the levels of the factors for minimizing surface roughness and/or maximizing surface hardness. It was found that the ball diameter, rolling force, initial surface roughness and number of tool passes are the most pronounced parameters, which have great effects on the work piece-s surface during the deep cold rolling process. A simple, inexpensive and newly developed DCR tool, with interchangeable collet for using different ball diameters, was used throughout the experimental work presented in this paper.

An Erosion-based Modeling of Abrasive Waterjet Turning

In this paper, an erosion-based model for abrasive waterjet (AWJ) turning process is presented. By using modified Hashish erosion model, the volume of material removed by impacting of abrasive particles to surface of the rotating cylindrical specimen is estimated and radius reduction at each rotation is calculated. Different to previous works, the proposed model considers the continuous change in local impact angle due to change in workpiece diameter, axial traverse rate of the jet, the abrasive particle roundness and density. The accuracy of the proposed model is examined by experimental tests under various traverse rates. The final diameters estimated by the proposed model are in good accordance with experiments.

Carbothermic Reduction of Mechanically Activated Mixtures of Celestite and Carbon

The effect of dry milling on the carbothermic reduction of celestite was investigated. Mixtures of celestite concentrate (98% SrSO4) and activated carbon (99% carbon) was milled for 1 and 24 hours in a planetary ball mill. Un-milled and milled mixtures and their products after carbothermic reduction were studied by a combination of XRD and TGA/DTA experiments. The thermogravimetric analyses and XRD results showed that by milling celestite-carbon mixtures for one hour, the formation temperature of strontium sulfide decreased from about 720°C (in un-milled sample) to about 600°C, after 24 hours milling it decreased to 530°C. It was concluded that milling induces increasingly thorough mixing of the reactants to reduction occurring at lower temperatures

Performance of Laboratory Experiments over the Internet: Towards an Intelligent Tutoring System on Automatic Control

Intelligent tutoring systems constitute an evolution of computer-aided educational software. We present here the modules of an intelligent tutoring system for Automatic Control, developed in our department. Through the software application developed,students can perform complete automatic control laboratory experiments, either over the departmental local area network or over the Internet. Monitoring of access to the system (local as well as international), along with student performance statistics, has yielded strongly encouraging results (as of fall 2004), despite the advanced technical content of the presented paradigm, thus showing the potential of the system developed for education and for training.

Electroremediation of Cu-Contaminated Soil

This study investigated the removal efficiency of electrokinetic remediation of copper-contaminated soil at different combinations of enhancement reagents used as anolyte and catholyte. Sodium hydroxide (at 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 M concentrations) and distilled water were used as anolyte, while lactic acid (at 0.01, 0.1, and 0.5 M concentrations), ammonium citrate (also at 0.01, 0.1, and 0.5 M concentrations) and distilled water were used as catholyte. A continuous voltage application (1.0 VDC/cm) was employed for 240 hours for each experiment. The copper content of the catholyte was determined at the end of the 240-hour period. Optimization was carried out with a Response Surface Methodology - Optimal Design, including F test, and multiple comparison method, to determine which pair of anolyte-catholyte was the most significant for the removal efficiency. "1.0 M NaOH" was found to be the most significant anolyte while it was established that lactic acid was the most significant type of catholyte to be used for the most successful electrokinetic experiments. Concentrations of lactic acid should be at the range of 0.1 M to 0.5 M to achieve maximum percent removal values.

Study on the Deformation Modes of an Axially Crushed Compact Impact Absorption Member

In this paper, the deformation modes of a compact impact absorption member subjected to axial compression are investigated using finite element method and experiments. A multiple combination compact impact absorption member, referred to as a 'compress-expand member', is proposed to substitute the conventional thin-walled circular tube. This study found that the proposed compact impact absorption member has stable load increase characteristics and a wider range of high load efficiency (Pave/Pmax) than the thin-walled circular tube. Moreover, the proposed compact impact absorption member can absorb larger loads in a smaller radius than the thin-walled cylindrical tube, as it can maintain its stable deformation in increased wall thicknesses.

Active Power Filtering Implementation Using Photovoltaic System with Reduced Energy Storage Capacitor

A novel three-phase active power filter (APF) circuit with photovoltaic (PV) system to improve the quality of service and to reduce the capacity of energy storage capacitor is presented. The energy balance concept and sampling technique were used to simplify the calculation algorithm for the required utility source current and to control the voltage of the energy storage capacitor. The feasibility was verified by using the Pspice simulations and experiments. When the APF mode was used during non-operational period, not only the utilization rate, power factor and power quality could be improved, but also the capacity of energy storage capacitor could sparing. As the results, the advantages of the APF circuit are simplicity of control circuits, low cost, and good transient response.

Numerical Simulation of CNT Incorporated Cement

Cement, the most widely used construction material is very brittle and characterized by low tensile strength and strain capacity. Macro to nano fibers are added to cement to provide tensile strength and ductility to it. Carbon Nanotube (CNT), one of the nanofibers, has proven to be a promising reinforcing material in the cement composites because of its outstanding mechanical properties and its ability to close cracks at the nano level. The experimental investigations for CNT reinforced cement is costly, time consuming and involves huge number of trials. Mathematical modeling of CNT reinforced cement can be done effectively and efficiently to arrive at the mechanical properties and to reduce the number of trials in the experiments. Hence, an attempt is made to numerically study the effective mechanical properties of CNT reinforced cement numerically using Representative Volume Element (RVE) method. The enhancement in its mechanical properties for different percentage of CNTs is studied in detail.

Bioleaching of Spent Catalyst using Moderate Thermophiles with Different Pulp Densities and Varying Size Fractions without Fe Supplemented Growth Medium

Bioleaching of spent catalyst using moderate thermophilic chemolithotrophic acidophiles in growth medium without Fe source was investigated with two different pulp densities and three different size fractions. All the experiments were conducted on shake flasks at a temperature of 65 °C. The leaching yield of Ni and Al was found to be promising with very high leaching yield of 92-96% followed by Al as 41-76%, which means both Ni and Al leaching were favored by the moderate thermophilic bioleaching compared to the mesophilic bioleaching. The acid consumption was comparatively higher for the 10% pulp density experiments. Comparatively minimal difference in the leaching yield with different size fractions and different pulp densities show no requirement of grinding and using low pulp density less than 10%. This process would rather be economical as well as eco-friendly process for future optimization of the recovery of metal values from spent catalyst.

Full Potential Study of Electronic and Optical Properties of NdF3

We report the electronic structure and optical properties of NdF3 compound. Our calculations are based on density functional theory (DFT) using the full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FPLAPW) method with the inclusion of spin orbit coupling. We employed the local spin density approximation (LSDA) and Coulomb-corrected local spin density approximation, known for treating the highly correlated 4f electrons properly, is able to reproduce the correct insulating ground state. We find that the standard LSDA approach is incapable of correctly describing the electronic properties of such materials since it positions the f-bands incorrectly resulting in an incorrect metallic ground state. On the other hand, LSDA + U approximation, known for treating the highly correlated 4f electrons properly, is able to reproduce the correct insulating ground state. Interestingly, however, we do not find any significant differences in the optical properties calculated using LSDA, and LSDA + U suggesting that the 4f electrons do not play a decisive role in the optical properties of these compounds. The reflectivity for NdF3 compound stays low till 7 eV which is consistent with their large energy gaps. The calculated energy gaps are in good agreement with experiments. Our calculated reflectivity compares well with the experimental data and the results are analyzed in the light of band to band transitions.

CNC Wire-Cut Parameter Optimized Determination of the Stair Shape Workpiece

The objective of this research is parameters optimized of the stair shape workpiece which is cut by CNC Wire-Cut EDM (WEDW). The experiment material is SKD-11 steel of stair-shaped with variable height workpiece 10, 20, 30 and 40 mm. with the same 10 mm. thickness are cut by Sodick's CNC Wire-Cut EDM model AD325L. The experiments are designed by 3k full factorial experimental design at 3 level 2 factors and 9 experiments with 2 replicate. The selected two factor are servo voltage (SV) and servo feed rate (SF) and the response is cutting thickness error. The experiment is divided in two experiments. The first experiment determines the significant effective factor at confidential interval 95%. The SV factor is the significant effective factor from first result. In order to result smallest cutting thickness error of workpieces is 17 micron with the SV value is 46 volt. Also show that the lower SV value, the smaller different thickness error of workpiece. Then the second experiment is done to reduce different cutting thickness error of workpiece as small as possible by lower SV. The second experiment result show the significant effective factor at confidential interval 95% is the SV factor and the smallest cutting thickness error of workpieces reduce to 11 micron with the experiment SV value is 36 volt.