Abstract: The measurement of aerodynamic forces and moments
acting on an aircraft model is important for the development of wind
tunnel measurement technology to predict the performance of the full
scale vehicle. The potentials of an aircraft model with and without
winglet and aerodynamic characteristics with NACA wing No. 65-3-
218 have been studied using subsonic wind tunnel of 1 m × 1 m
rectangular test section and 2.5 m long of Aerodynamics Laboratory
Faculty of Engineering (University Putra Malaysia). Focusing on
analyzing the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft model, two
main issues are studied in this paper. First, a six component wind
tunnel external balance is used for measuring lift, drag and pitching
moment. Secondly, Tests are conducted on the aircraft model with
and without winglet of two configurations at Reynolds numbers
1.7×105, 2.1×105, and 2.5×105 for different angle of attacks. Fuzzy
logic approach is found as efficient for the representation,
manipulation and utilization of aerodynamic characteristics.
Therefore, the primary purpose of this work was to investigate the
relationship between lift and drag coefficients, with free-stream
velocities and angle of attacks, and to illustrate how fuzzy logic
might play an important role in study of lift aerodynamic
characteristics of an aircraft model with the addition of certain
winglet configurations. Results of the developed fuzzy logic were
compared with the experimental results. For lift coefficient analysis,
the mean of actual and predicted values were 0.62 and 0.60
respectively. The coreelation between actual and predicted values
(from FLS model) of lift coefficient in different angle of attack was
found as 0.99. The mean relative error of actual and predicted valus
was found as 5.18% for the velocity of 26.36 m/s which was found to
be less than the acceptable limits (10%). The goodness of fit of
prediction value was 0.95 which was close to 1.0.
Abstract: The impact of a proposed pier on tidal current
alteration was evaluated. The proposed pier location was in Salad
Bay on Koa Kood Island, Trat province, Thailand, and was designed
to accommodate passenger ships with a draft of less than 2 m. The
study began with collecting necessary data, including bathymetric,
water elevation and tidal current characteristics. The impact was
assessed using a software package (MIKE21). Although the results
showed that the pier would affect the existing current pattern, the
change was determined to be insignificant, as the design of the piles
for the pier provided sufficient spacing to let the current flow as
freely as possible. Consequences of the altered current, such as
seabed erosion, water stagnation, sediment deposition and
navigational risk were assessed. Environmental mitigation measures
might be necessary if the impacts were considered unacceptable.
Abstract: Ants are fascinating creatures that demonstrate the
ability to find food and bring it back to their nest. Their ability as a
colony, to find paths to food sources has inspired the development of
algorithms known as Ant Colony Systems (ACS). The principle of
cooperation forms the backbone of such algorithms, commonly used
to find solutions to problems such as the Traveling Salesman
Problem (TSP). Ants communicate to each other through chemical
substances called pheromones. Modeling individual ants- ability to
manipulate this substance can help an ACS find the best solution.
This paper introduces a Dynamic Ant Colony System with threelevel
updates (DACS3) that enhance an existing ACS. Experiments
were conducted to observe single ant behavior in a colony of
Malaysian House Red Ants. Such behavior was incorporated into the
DACS3 algorithm. We benchmark the performance of DACS3 versus
DACS on TSP instances ranging from 14 to 100 cities. The result
shows that the DACS3 algorithm can achieve shorter distance in
most cases and also performs considerably faster than DACS.
Abstract: The wireless adhoc network is comprised of wireless
node which can move freely and are connected among themselves
without central infrastructure. Due to the limited transmission range
of wireless interfaces, in most cases communication has to be relayed
over intermediate nodes. Thus, in such multihop network each node
(also called router) is independent, self-reliant and capable to route
the messages over the dynamic network topology. Various protocols
are reported in this field and it is very difficult to decide the best one.
A key issue in deciding which type of routing protocol is best for
adhoc networks is the communication overhead incurred by the
protocol. In this paper STAR a table driven and DSR on demand
protocols based on IEEE 802.11 are analyzed for their performance
on different performance measuring metrics versus varying traffic
CBR load using QualNet 5.0.2 network simulator.
Abstract: The term private equity usually refers to any type of
equity investment in an asset in which the equity is not freely
tradable on a public stock market. Some researchers believe that
private equity contributed to the extent of the crisis and increased
the pace of its spread over the world. We do not agree with this.
On the other hand, we argue that during the economic recession
private equity might become an important source of funds for firms
with special needs (e.g. for firms seeking buyout financing, venture
capital, expansion capital or distress debt financing). However,
over-regulation of private equity in both the European Union and
the US can slow down this specific funding channel to the
economy and deepen credit crunch during global crises.
Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of non-coding
RNAs that hybridize to mRNAs and induce either translation
repression or mRNA cleavage. Recently, it has been reported that
miRNAs could possibly play an important role in human diseases. By
integrating miRNA target genes, cancer genes, miRNA and mRNA
expression profiles information, a database is developed to link
miRNAs to cancer target genes. The database provides experimentally
verified human miRNA target genes information, including oncogenes
and tumor suppressor genes. In addition, fragile sites information for
miRNAs, and the strength of the correlation of miRNA and its target
mRNA expression level for nine tissue types are computed, which
serve as an indicator for suggesting miRNAs could play a role in
human cancer. The database is freely accessible at
http://ppi.bioinfo.asia.edu.tw/mirna_target/index.html.
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to develop a security model for voice eavesdropping protection over digital networks. The proposed model provides an encryption scheme and a personal secret key exchange between communicating parties, a so-called voice data transformation system, resulting in a real-privacy conversation. The operation of this system comprises two main steps as follows: The first one is the personal secret key exchange for using the keys in the data encryption process during conversation. The key owner could freely make his/her choice in key selection, so it is recommended that one should exchange a different key for a different conversational party, and record the key for each case into the memory provided in the client device. The next step is to set and record another personal option of encryption, either taking all frames or just partial frames, so-called the figure of 1:M. Using different personal secret keys and different sets of 1:M to different parties without the intervention of the service operator, would result in posing quite a big problem for any eavesdroppers who attempt to discover the key used during the conversation, especially in a short period of time. Thus, it is quite safe and effective to protect the case of voice eavesdropping. The results of the implementation indicate that the system can perform its function accurately as designed. In this regard, the proposed system is suitable for effective use in voice eavesdropping protection over digital networks, without any requirements to change presently existing network systems, mobile phone network and VoIP, for instance.
Abstract: Wireless ad hoc nodes are freely and dynamically
self-organize in communicating with others. Each node can act as
host or router. However it actually depends on the capability of
nodes in terms of its current power level, signal strength, number
of hops, routing protocol, interference and others. In this research,
a study was conducted to observe the effect of hops count over
different network topologies that contribute to TCP Congestion
Control performance degradation. To achieve this objective, a
simulation using NS-2 with different topologies have been
evaluated. The comparative analysis has been discussed based on
standard observation metrics: throughput, delay and packet loss
ratio. As a result, there is a relationship between types of topology
and hops counts towards the performance of ad hoc network. In
future, the extension study will be carried out to investigate the
effect of different error rate and background traffic over same
topologies.
Abstract: A numerical method for solving the time-independent Schrödinger equation of a particle moving freely in a three-dimensional
axisymmetric region is developed. The boundary of the region
is defined by an arbitrary analytic function. The method uses a
coordinate transformation and an expansion in eigenfunctions. The
effectiveness is checked and confirmed by applying the method to a
particular example, which is a prolate spheroid.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a method of alter duration in
frequency domain that control prosody in real time after pitch
alteration. If there has a method to alteration duration freely among
prosody information, that may used in several fields such as speech
impediment person's pronunciation proof reading or language study.
The pitch alteration method used control prosody altered by PSOLA
synthesis method which is in time domain processing method.
However, the duration of pitch alteration speech is changed by the
frequency domain. In this paper, we altered the duration with the
method of duration alteration by Fast Fourier Transformation in
frequency domain. Consequently, the intelligibility of the pitch and
duration are controlled has a slight decrease than the case when only
pitch is changed, but the proposed algorithm obtained the higher MOS
score about naturalness.
Abstract: A study was conducted to determine the effect of
feeding glycerol on dairy cows performance. Twenty four Holstein
Friesian crossbred (>87.5% Holstein Friesian) lactating dairy cows in
early lactation; averaging 13+2.4 kg of milk, 64+45 days in milk,
55+16 months old and 325+26 kg live weight, were stratified for
milk yield, days in milk, age, stage of lactation and body weight, and
then randomly allocated to three treatment groups. All cows were fed
approximate 8 kg of concentrate together with ad libitum corn silage
and freely access to clean water. Nil or 150 and 300g of glycerol
were supplemented to the cows according to treatment groups. All
cows consumed similar concentrate, corn silage and total DM and
NELP. There were no significant differences in DM intake, CP intake,
NELP intake, milk and milk composition yields. All cows had similar
fat, protein, lactose, solid not fat and total solid percentage. All cows
gain similar live weight. The present study indicated that,
supplementation of glycerol did not enhance milk yield, milk
composition and live weight change.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to study the practical
delivery room experience of nursing students. The respondents were
6 junior nursing students of Suranaree University of Technology who
had a direct experience from practicing in a delivery room between
January 9 and March 30, 2012 as part of Nursing Care of the Family
and Midwifery 3. The data was collected by using in-depth interview,
observation, and reflective report. The results of the study found that
the practical delivery room experience of nursing students consisted
of three issues: 1) stress and coping with stress during practical
exercise, 2) changes in daily routine, and 3) source during practical
exercise. The results of this study would lead to the understanding of
the meaning of the practical exercise of nursing students.
Abstract: The current situation in the eurozone raises a number of topics for discussion and to help in finding an answer to the question of whether a common currency is a more suitable means of coping with the impact of the financial crisis or whether national currencies are better suited to this. The economic situation in the EU is now considerably volatile and, due to problems with the fulfilment of the Maastricht convergence criteria, it is now being considered whether, in their further development, new member states will decide to distance themselves from the euro or will, in an attempt to overcome the crisis, speed up the adoption of the euro. The Czech Republic is one country with little interest in adopting the euro, justified by the fact that a better alternative to dealing with this crisis is an independent monetary policy and its ability to respond flexibly to the economic situation not only in Europe, but around the world. One attribute of the crisis in the Czech Republic and its mitigation is the freely floating exchange rate of the national currency. It is not only the Czech Republic that is attempting to alleviate the impact of the crisis, but also new EU member countries facing fresh questions to which theory have yet to provide wholly satisfactory answers. These questions undoubtedly include the problem of inflation targeting and the choice of appropriate instruments for achieving financial stability. The difficulty lies in the fact that these objectives may be contradictory and may require more than one means of achieving them. In this respect we may assume that membership of the euro zone might not in itself mitigate the development of the recession or protect the nation from future crises. We are of the opinion that the decisive factor in the development of any economy will continue to be the domestic economic policy and the operability of market economic mechanisms. We attempt to document this fact using selected countries as examples, these being the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore the complex
flow structure a novel active-type micromixer that based on concept of
Wankle-type rotor. The characteristics of this micromixer are two
folds; a rapid mixing of reagents in a limited space due to the
generation of multiple vortices and a graduate increment in dynamic
pressure as the mixed reagents is delivered to the output ports.
Present micro-mixer is consisted of a rotor with shape of triangle
column, a blending chamber and several inlet and outlet ports. The
geometry of blending chamber is designed to make the rotor can be
freely internal rotated with a constant eccentricity ratio. When the
shape of the blending chamber and the rotor are fixed, the effects of
rotating speed of rotor and the relative locations of ports on the mixing
efficiency are numerical studied. The governing equations are
unsteady, two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equation
and the working fluid is the water. The species concentration equation
is also solved to reveal the mass transfer process of reagents in various
regions then to evaluate the mixing efficiency.
The dynamic mesh technique was implemented to model the
dynamic volume shrinkage and expansion of three individual
sub-regions of blending chamber when the rotor conducted a complete
rotating cycle. Six types of ports configuration on the mixing
efficiency are considered in a range of Reynolds number from 10 to
300. The rapid mixing process was accomplished with the multiple
vortex structures within a tiny space due to the equilibrium of shear
force, viscous force and inertial force. Results showed that the highest
mixing efficiency could be attained in the following conditions: two
inlet and two outlet ports configuration, that is an included angle of 60
degrees between two inlets and an included angle of 120 degrees
between inlet and outlet ports when Re=10.
Abstract: Predicting short term wind speed is essential in order
to prevent systems in-action from the effects of strong winds. It also
helps in using wind energy as an alternative source of energy, mainly
for Electrical power generation. Wind speed prediction has
applications in Military and civilian fields for air traffic control,
rocket launch, ship navigation etc. The wind speed in near future
depends on the values of other meteorological variables, such as
atmospheric pressure, moisture content, humidity, rainfall etc. The
values of these parameters are obtained from a nearest weather
station and are used to train various forms of neural networks. The
trained model of neural networks is validated using a similar set of
data. The model is then used to predict the wind speed, using the
same meteorological information. This paper reports an Artificial
Neural Network model for short term wind speed prediction, which
uses back propagation algorithm.
Abstract: Fructooligosaccharides derived from microbial enzyme especially from fungal sources has been received particular attention due to its beneficial effects as prebiotics and mass production. However, fungal fermentation is always cumbersome due to its broth rheology problem that will eventually affect the production of FOS. This study investigated the efficiency of immobilized cell system using rotating fibrous bed bioreactor (RFBB) in producing fructooligosaccharides (FOS). A comparative picture with respect to conventional stirred tank bioreactor (CSTB) and RFBB has been presented. To demonstrate the effect of agitation intensity and aeration rate, a laboratory-scale bioreactor 2.5 L was operated in three phases (high, medium, low) for 48 hours. Agitation speed has a great influence on P. simplicissimum fermentation for FOS production, where the volumetric FOS productivity using RFBB is increased with almost 4 fold compared to the FOS productivity in CSTB that only 0.319 g/L/h. Rate of FOS production increased up to 1.2 fold when immobilized cells system was employed at aeration rate similar to the freely suspended cells at 2.0 vvm.
Abstract: The emergence of mobile application services and App
Store has led to the explosive growth of user innovation, which users
voluntarily contribute to. User innovation communities where end
users freely reveal innovative ideas and needs with other community
members are becoming increasingly influential in this area. However,
user-s ideas in user innovation community are not enough to be new
service opportunity, because some of them can already developed as
existing services in App Store. Moreover, the existing services similar
to new service opportunity can be significant references to apply
analogy to develop service concept. In response, this research
proposes Case-Based Reasoning approach to matching the user needs
and existing services, identifying unmet opportunistic user needs, and
retrieving similar services with opportunity. Due to its intuitive and
transparent algorithm, users related to App Store innovation
communities can easily employ Case-Based Reasoning based
approach to their innovation.