A framework to assess privacy in cloud based system

Maher Alghali, M. A. Najwa and I. Roesnita

The development of technology and increasing use of the Internet have led organizations to change from the high cost of owning, maintaining and operating computer resources individually to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. These shared pools offer services such as computing and storage by using pay by use models. The services that are operated by service providers have been known as “cloud computing”. Even though all the advantages of cloud computing, it is also facing many challenges. Privacy issues are the main challenges facing cloud computing and inhibit the cloud from a wide acceptance in practice. The privacy issues impose a strong obstacle to the adoption of cloud technologies. The literature shows that there is still a gap for efficient ways to increase the privacy of cloud computing. Thus, this paper intends to fill the gap by identifying all possible factors that may affect the privacy of cloud users and develop a conceptual framework explaining these effects.

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A genetic algorithm approach to optimal placement of switching and protective equipment on a distribution network

Seyed Mohammad Hashemi, Shahrokh Barati, Said Talati and Heshmat Noori

This paper proposes a genetic algorithm-based method for determining the optimal number and location of switching and protective equipment such as sectionalizers, cut-out fuses and reclosers in distribution network. The presence of a wide range of transient faults in the distribution network means that each switching and protective devices has a different impact on the reliability indices. Installation of switching and protective equipment on the distribution network reduces the duration of outages and improves network reliability, but the high price of some of these devices encourages any attempt to optimize their numbers and location. In this paper, objective function has incorporated the cost of protective equipment and profit gained from reducing unsupplied energy costs, and then a number of constraints have been added to improve the reliability indices. In the end, the Performance of the proposed method has been evaluated by implementing it on a 15-bus network model.

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Deep crustal profile across NW Sabah basin: Integrated potential field data and seismic reflection

The crustal model has been created from the integration of potential field data and complemented by multichannel reflection seismic profiles, allowing the interpretation of five tectono-stratigraphy provinces of Deepwater Fold and Thrust Belt, Sabah Trough, Dangerous Grounds Province and Thrust Sheet Zone. The free-air and magnetic anomaly was published from satellite altimetry data. Seismic interpretation displays structural anticline that indicate fold and thrust zone as the Sabah Trough frontier to the southeast. The formation of half-grabens and normal faults was clearly indicated extension in the entire Dangerous Grounds which subducted beneath to the Sabah Trough. The crustal modeling was used to describe and determine the Moho thickness and the configuration of deeper crustal layer by using the GM-SYS Profile Modeling software. The range of Moho thickness shows slightly variable between 33 and 26 km across of the study area. Analytical signal analysis estimated the depth of magnetic source range between 26 and 33 km disclosed to upper crust. The high density surrounded by low density body at Thrust Sheet Zone interpreted as a thrust block built of Palaeogene Crocker sediment.

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Investigations on the application of pervaporation processes within the ligno-cellulosic ethanol production scheme

The production of ligno-cellulosic ethanol is gaining wide interest with the progressive depletion of fossil fuels. Pervaporation, which is a selective membrane separation process that consumes relatively low energy, is being proposed for utilization within the ethanol production scheme. This work is dedicated to investigations on the application of pervaporation using simulated solutions in two stages namely, concentration of ethanol during fermentation using hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) spiral wound membrane and dehydration of high concentration ethanol using hydrophilic optimized silica membrane. A semi-pilot plant based on a novel conceptual process design combining both membranes to be used interchangeably has been developed. The hydrophobic PDMS system has been operated using spiral wound module of area 0.6 m2 at a flow of 600 L/h and vacuum less than 0.1 mbar. Within the tested range of ethanol concentration, the flux (g/m²/h) varied between 780 and 2300 with a max separation factor of 3.67. The tubular hydrophilic membrane of area 0.04 m² has been operated at a flow of 300 L/m³ and vacuum of less than 0.1 mbar. The flux and concentration have been measured during the experiments at suitable time intervals. At about 95% initial ethanol concentration, the flux ranged between 2700 and 3400 (g/m²/h) and the separation factor reached about 122. For both operational modes, the results reflect optimum conditions for operation with maximum flux and acceptable separation factor. It is concluded that pervaporation proves to be a viable option for separation and dehydration of ethanol due to its technical performance and minimum energy usage.

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Stability and Hopf bifurcation analysis of SIR epidemic model with time delay

A delayed SIR epidemic model in which the susceptible are assumed to satisfy the logistic equation will be taken up for detailed study. The locally asymptotical stability of the disease-free equilibrium and endemic equilibrium will be studied. Further, the Hopf bifurcation analysis will also be addressed. Also, the theoretical analysis will be supported by Numerical simulations for different parametric values.

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Semivariogram modeling using mixture semivariogram model

In semivariogram modeling, data characteristics greatly influence the steps involved in the semivariogram modeling. Homogeneous data will be better modeled with simple semivariogram models such as: exponential, Gaussian, and spherical models. Meanwhile, heterogeneous data are expected to be better modeled with a mixture semivariogram models. A mixture model is a combination of several simple semivariogram models of a certain proportion. The proportion for each model can be determined from the mean squared error (MSE). If the MSE value is smaller, then the proportion of the corresponding simple models will be greater. Even though the mixture is more complicated, the model can be an alternative in semivariogram modeling which allows to give MSE values that is not much different than MSE values yielded by using the simple models.

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Management of energy grasses for biogas production

Global warming from greenhouse gases had caused environmental impact especially from the use of fossil fuel in heating and the electricity sector. Using of biogas was an alternative energy that reduced the amount of greenhouse gases. Thailand has been producing electricity from Napier grass with the target in the years 2012-2021 at 3000 MW. That present was not sufficed for Thailand needs. The objective of this study showed the evaluation of least cost per unit and environmental impact of biogas production from Napier grass, African Star grass and Para grass by using the Extended Deming and Linear Programming in the management of energy grasses plantations, case study of Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand. Simulation management from 7 different scenarios of energy grass plantations was assessed the cost per unit and environmental impact. The result revealed that the scenario 1 simulation of 100 percent of African Star grass plantation that was the most suitable and effective procedure. The results of this study also showed that the energy grasses were highly digestible with relatively high biogas yields, 673 -737 ml/g-VS or 0.673-0.737 m³/kg-VS. A summary of this research could solve the energy problem that it was the increasing of renewable energy by energy grasses. The economics evaluation of the biogas production from the energy grasses sized 1 MW showed that the internal rate of return of this project (IRR) was 12% per year, PI was 1.69, which was greater than 1, this project should be invested and the payback period was 6.0 years. Calculation of the interest rate was 7.25 baht per year. Feed-in Tariff was 4.5 baht per unit. The results of this study could be used as guide in the preparation of the plan promote and development for the biogas production from the energy grasses. The areas used to simulate of linear programming and extended Deming model to manage agricultural land for energy grasses were one way to manage the areas, maximize the benefits the total costs and minimum environmental impact.

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Reduction of Harmonic exploitation DSP controller based shunt active filter for PEMFC fed non-linear load

In this paper the Total Harmonic Distortion is reduced using a DSP based shunt active power filter with Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel cell for a three phase three wire system with nonlinear load. In this APF is connected in parallel with nonlinear load as an equivalent conductance technique is carried out. The concept of using Shunt Active Power Filter is to mitigate harmonics and to compensate reactive power. By using TMS320F2812eZdsp, PWM signals have been generated accurately for controlling the switching of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT’s) in the CC-VSI to make the compensated source current sinusoidal and in-phase with the source voltage. A self charging technique is used to regulate the DC-Link capacitor voltage to a desired level. The proposed controller is realized under MATLAB Simulink and the THD is analyzed using FFT.

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Optimal intercooler layout arrangement for Formula 1 racing engines

This paper demonstrates that efficiency and torque output of the actual Formula 1 power units depends mostly on the turbocharger (TC) efficiency. Compressor and turbine off-design efficiency and turbine energy recovery capability should be maximized to maximize the torque to fuel ratio. Since larger TCs increase turbolag, a new layout for the intercooler is proposed in this paper. This solution reduces turbolag and make it possible to focus on the TC efficiency as a thermal machine. In fact, not only the TC design choices can radically alter the efficiency of the TC itself, but also influence the efficiency of the ICE and of the MGU (Motor Generator Units). Energy evaluation of the TC readily exploits the concept.

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An improved autism predictive mechanism among children using Fuzzy Cognitive Map and feature extraction methods (FEAST)

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) comprises over multiple range of developmental disabilities which includes Autism, Asperser Syndrome, and Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Individuals suffering from Autism Spectrum Disorders often struggle with significant issues over Communication, Social and Behavioral challenges. The need for the early identification of Autism Spectrum Disorder and proper treatment which is crucial for the children as well to family affected due to Autism. To support in early identification of Autism among children and optimize treatment this paper adopts Fuzzy Cognitive Map and feature extraction method. Fuzzy Cognitive Map works on dynamic weight assignment over Autism Spectrum Disorder variables, which is demonstrated using Rapid Miner tool.

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Properties of high permeable concrete utilizing pozzolanic materials

To investigate the possibility to use pozzolanic materials in producing high permeable concrete (HPC), five materials were used to partially replacing ordinary cement: silica fume, fly ash, paper mill ash, palm oil ash and rice husk ash. Several tests were conducted on the cementitious paste and also on the HPC. Results revealed that 5% of pozzolanic material replacement to ordinary cement would yield the best results. However, the good performance of HPC can be determined through balancing of several characteristics such as compressive strength, void ratio, permeability, skid resistance and infiltration rate.

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Synthesis and functionalization of mesoporous silica materials to improve enzymatic conversion of cellulose

Enzymatic activity, reusability, and stability of immobilized cellulase on modified mesoporous material with hexagonal mesostructured and different particle size (micro size and nano size) was studied. Cellulose is a group of enzymesthathydrolyze cellulose into glucose. Mesoporous materials were first modified with various concentrations of VTMS (Vinyltrimethoxysilane). Various characterizations were conducted by using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), nitrogen sorption and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FTIR). Our study showed that the amount of VTMS affected the activity of immobilized cellulose enzymes. The research results suggest that hexagonal structure mesoporous silica material is promising as support for enzyme immobilization.

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Multiplication and Accumulation (MAC) unit is recognized as high potential in every Digital Signal Processors (DSP). Multiplication is one of the essential operations every DSP applications such as Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), Digital Filters and so on. In this paper, Modified Russian Peasant Multiplier (MRPM) is designed through Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) System design environment. The Russian Peasant Multiplier (RPM) is the best multiplication technique for improving their hardware performances. It makes the Partial Product Generation (PPG) process with the help of Multiplexers. Further Carry Select Adder (CSLA) is used in RPM based multiplier for reducing the hardware. However, still it required high speed MAC computational unit for up growing Fourth Generation (4G) based Wireless communication applications. To meet this requirement, MRPM based efficient multiplier is developed in this paper. In proposed MRPM, Modified Square Root Carry Select Adder (MSQRTCSLA) is used for performing addition operation. Further Reduced Wallace Tree Reduction (RWTR) is used in proposed design for simplifying the PPG results. Proposed MSQRTCSLA based MRPM multiplier offers 20.31% reduction in delay consumption and 61.31% reduction in power consumption than best existing Bi-Recoder based MAC unit.

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This paper presents the experimental investigation results of ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) testing conducted on roller compacted concrete (RCC) containing Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag (GGBS) as mineral admixture and Manufactured sand as partial replacement of fine aggregate(50%). The UPV was determined at the age of 24 hours, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, 28 days and 90 days for seven RCC mixtures using cube specimens of plain and GGBS Roller Compacted Concrete (GRCC). The amount of OPC replaced by GGBS was varying from 0% to 60%. The UPV of GRCC was found to be lower for all mixtures at 24 hours in comparison with control mix concrete. But at 3, 7, 28 and 90 days the Ultrasonic pulse velocities were significantly improved for all the mixes. Relationships between compressive strength of GRCC and UPV and Dynamic Elastic Modulus were proposed. A new model is proposed to determine the Dynamic Elastic Modulus of GRCC as a function of age of concrete and percent replacement of GGBS by Ultrasonic Method.

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Scalability is a key concern for SMP based architecture in the current context. NUMA based architecture design seems to be a promising hope addressing the scalability. At the same time CC-NUMA based design architecture demands a deeper understanding and open vistas for key areas of improvement. With the approach of many core environments where memory is distributed among the different cores, it is challenging to design a thread scheduler along with proper data distribution across different nodes in a productive way. Our proposed research tries to investigate, evolve and analyze one of the key design issues for NUMA machine and proposes an innovative solution to address this key design issue under investigation in the current phase of our work. Our Algorithmic design proposed seems to be outperforming with respect to LibNUMA specifically.

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The construction industry has been using recycled aggregate to provide environmentally friendly and low cost concrete and save the natural resources. In this study, recycled aggregate (RA) has been used as replacement material for natural aggregate as a coarse aggregate in the concrete mixture. Uncontrolled Burnt Rice Husk Ash (UBRHA) has been replaced the cement in concrete mixture at different proportions for improving the properties of the recycled aggregate concrete. The performance of Recycled Aggregate Concrete (RAC) containing UBRHA, in the term of compressive strength, water absorption and ultrasonic pulse velocity has been investigated. In this study the recycled aggregate has been used in various percentages such as 0%, 50% and 100%, and UBRHA proportions from 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%. From this study, it was found that the compressive strength of RAC is decreases when RA percentage increases. However, the utilization of URBHA as cement replacement material could enhance the performance of recycled aggregate concrete. In this study, it was found that the optimum replacement for UBRHA is 5%. The compressive strength for concrete containing 5% UBRHA with 100% RA is 30.3MPa. Then, for water absorbtion, it was found that the water absorption for 5% UBRHA with 100% RA is 12.1%. Thus, it can be concluded that RAC containing URHBA could enhance the performance of RAC in term of compressive strength and water absorption. Also, from Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity testing, it could be considered that all specimens are durable concrete.

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Renewable polymer made from renewable material is one of the most important group of polymer because of their versatility and they can be manufactured in a wide range of insulation and automotive application. In this project, renewable polymer based on waste vegetable oil were synthesized and crosslink with commercial polymethane polyphenyl isocyanate. The renewable polymer foam was compressed by using hot compression moulding technique at 90 oC based on the evaporation of volatile matter and known as compressed renewable polymer (CRP). The thermal degradation and activation energy of CRP samples is consistent with the increasing of UV irradiation time at the first degradation, second degradation and third degradation. This is due to thermal stability of CRP samples at the hard segment has a great influence on the thermal stability of soft segment. The higher thermal stability of hard segment leads to a higher degradation temperature of soft segment.

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Permanent joint such as blind rivet is most widely available and commonly used as auxiliary fastening elements. However, this assembly is permanent joint and need to avoid in design for disassembly. The objective of this research is to design and fabricate Interference Press-Fit Nut named INPRENUT. This novel product used as auxiliary fastener in mechanical assembly and it is able to disassemble for recyclability and reusability. Furthermore, INPRENUT has designed and manufactured to fulfill the needs such as; reduce setup time to pre-assemble, safety due to reduce the number sharp tools used, light-weight, and improve part assembly accuracy. In this study, preferred interference fit based on hole basis system was used to mating INPRENUT with aluminum hollow. Finite element Analysis (FEA) was used to analyze the frictional stress and maximum deformation parameter for selected dimensional fit tolerance. The results show that frictional pressure to push-in INPRENUT into aluminum hollow tube is about 435Mpa whereas to pull-out frictional force is 388MPa. Maximum deformation shows small deformation of 0.4µm occurred due to small interference of shaft and hole. Finally, the INPRENUT was fabricated, tested and assembled to an aluminum hollow tube and modular aluminum profiles. The result shows the INPRENUT was able to improve pre-assembly, safety and disassembly quality.

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A systematic transportation system is vital for the development of a country. In Malaysia, the high dependence on private cars is caused by inadequate public transport that does not meet the general needs of commuters. This study was conducted to identify the factors that contributed to drivers’ intention to use electric cars as a greener alternative to fuel-powered vehicles. To explore this issue, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was employed to predict acceptance of electric cars based on driver intention. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 217 car drivers in the Batu Pahat district. Correlation and regression analyses were performed to determine the relationship between the TAM constructs and the intention to use electric car. Results showed that all constructs were found to be statistically significant. In addition, Perceived Ease of Use was a stronger factor that contributed to drivers’ acceptance to use electric cars compared to Perceived Usefulness. The level of the acceptance was highly positive.

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An attempt is made to investigate the feasibility of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) using Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) polymer material reinforced with composite layers to additive manufacture textiles for stab–resistant application. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the cross-sectional design of textiles and their protective performance. This paper presents finite element analysis of a planar CAD model and five additive manufactured textiles with different overlapped scale-linked design features that were created through a CAD system and simulated by a test blade using ANSYS software. Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) polymer was applied to all the test samples in simulation testing, whereas, the specification of test blade was taken from NIJ Standard-0115.00. Result shows the knife penetration through the planar model was much larger than the scale-linked textile models. The overlapping feature of textile models had restricted the penetration of knife. However, Model 5 was the most suitable design for stab protection among the textile models and maximum total deformation distributed on its body was the lowest compared to other designs.

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The aim of installing baffles is to reduce or eliminate, if possible, secondary flow which exists mostly at the inner wall of the turning diffuser. Furthermore, other than distortion at the inner wall, 3-dimensional turning diffuser has secondary flow at both left and right wall. This was due to the diffusing activities which were not only in x-y direction but in y-z direction as well. Experiment on 3-dimensional turning diffuser with baffle has been conducted using airfoil baffle with AOA=17º. Present study focuses on changing angle of attack of the installed baffle and their effects on flow uniformity and pressure recovery using numerical approach. The baffle was rotated 3º clockwise and anti-clockwise resulting in AOA=20º and AOA=14º respectively. Qualitative and quantitative comparison was discussed in this paper. AOA=14º offers higher quality of flow structure as compared to AOA= 20º, but still could not surpass the performance using preliminary design baffle with AOA= 17º. The abnormality of flow in AOA=20º resulting in higher pressure loss, thus affecting pressure recovery. The optimum configuration can be developed if the effort of improving the airfoil design could be enhance in future works.

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Fasteners are a type of relationship which can have a significant impact on the assembly time of the system. Interference Press-fit Aluminum Nut (INPRENUT) is press-fit fastener designed to reduce pre-assembly setup time, pre-assembly setup time, disassembly time, reduce sharp object hazard and improve the quality of the product developed. Therefore, Design for Assembly (DFA) is one of the method used to study INPRENUT contribution in design efficiency improvement of the product assembly. Design efficiency manual fastener insertion in hollow tube follows Boothroyd and Dewhurst guidelines is analyzed and compared with the permanent rivet joint. A case study on wheel mobile robot platform construction is used to measure design efficiency of INPRENUT application in product assembly. The result shows the INPRENUT is able to simplified the design and reduce the part number in the assembly from 92 parts to 36 parts only. Design efficiency result comparison shows INPRENUT score is 7.46% whereas plastic bracket design of wheel mobile robot platform is 3.36%. This result give 222% of improvement. Furthermore, INPRENUT application shows wheel mobile robot parts assembly orientation is parallelled and easy to assembled.

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Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were grown from spin coated Co catalyst thin films using the alcohol catalytic chemical vapor deposition (ACCVD) method for different CVD processing temperatures and at a fixed 15 min CVD processing time. The presence of SWCNT was confirmed by Raman radial breathing mode peak confirmation. The Raman intensity of G band over D band for the as-grown SWCNTs was decreased with increasing CVD processing temperatures. Raman intensity analysis in the radial breathing mode region shows a relatively wide distribution of SWCNTs grown for all CVD processing temperatures, but, owing similar trend of G band and D band intensity decrement as increasing the CVD processing temperatures. In this paper, it was suggested that Co catalyst poisoning and SWCNT burning occurred when the CVD processing temperature was more than 700 °C. The structural properties of the SWCNTs grown have been investigated by Raman spectroscopy with 532 nm laser excitation.

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Evolutionary Polynomial Regression (EPR) has been used to determine the total sediment load in selected rivers in Malaysia. In order to test the robustness and generalization ability of EPR modeling, the approach that is generally adopted is to test the performance of trained EPR models on an independent validation set. If such performance is adequate, the model is deemed to be robust and able to generalize. When evaluating EPR models, consideration must be given not only to their predictive accuracy but also to the interpretive ability of the models. This can be done by carrying out a sensitivity analysis that quantifies the relative importance of model inputs to the corresponding outputs. In this paper, the robustness of EPR models is investigated in a case study of predicting the total sediment load at Malaysian rivers. A procedure that tests the robustness of the predictive ability of EPR models is introduced. The results indicate that the good performance of EPR models in the data used for model calibration and validation also perform in a robust fashion over a range of data used in the model calibration phase. The results also indicate that validating EPR models using the procedure applied in this study are essential in order to investigate their robustness.

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Stone column is one of the most commonly used in soil improvement technique around the world which capable to increase the bearing capacity of soft clay and reduce settlement of structure constructed on them. Due to its higher value of strength and stiffness, it can sustain larger proportion of the applied load which improves the performance of foundation beds. Meanwhile, the substantial amount of bottom ash disposed in the landfills have causes a serious environment pollution. As the bottom ash is part of the residue of combustion of coal and also the by-product produced in a furnace of the power plant. Hence, by reutilize the bottom ash as granular material in vertical granular column, the cost of construction can be reduced and able to achieve more strength of soft clay after being reinforced with a single bottom ash column which been encased with geotextile. Remolded specimens of 50 mm in diameter and 100 mm in height soft kaolin clay installed with single encapsulated bottom ash columns with 10 mm and 16 mm diameter was subsequently tested under Unconfined Compression Test. It can be concluded that the shear strength parameters shows some significant improvement on encased and non-encased bottom ash columns and were affected by the diameter and height of the column.

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Landfill is the area for the disposal of solid waste. The increase in solid waste production has resulted in existing landfills are no longer able to accommodate the number of waste more and more. Difficulty arises in determining suitable area as landfills causing a lot of problems. This study aimed to determine the appropriate area as landfills in Batu Pahat district by using Geographic Information System (GIS). In addition to the Batu Pahat district has yet to have its own landfill. GIS is an information system that can help make a decision on the form of a map display. The ability of GIS is integrating spatial data and data attributes in the collect, store and analyze the data. Spatial Data used in this study includes street maps, land use maps, map series, gradient map, map of flood area, and map of settlements, location map and a map of the river. This data has been divided into two parts in the form of attribute data includes the criteria constraints and criteria factors. The value of the weights given to factor the relative criteria depending on the importance and value of the rating is determined using the model Hierarchy Analytic approach (AHP). Next method of filtering and grant value weighting is analyzed to produce a map showing the extent of the suitability of the landfill. The results show the suitability of the spaces as landfill area.

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Present paper comprises a wide ranging experimental study of mechanically fastened woven CFRP using double-lap joint (DLJ) configurations. Details of the bolted joint materials and its configurations are given. This is followed by an account of the sample preparation process and a description of the range of joint types and variables investigated. Mechanical testing set-up and test method are then described. Experimental results relating to damage observations and ultimate strength are then presented. This is followed by discussion on the relationships between the bearing stress at failure and the hole size of specimens, the level of clamp-up and different joint type.

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Biosorption of heavy metals by Mozambique tilapia (M. tilapia) fish scales is one of the treatment that has emerged as an environmental friendly method for the removal of metal from synthetic and domestic wastewater. The objectives of this study are to characterize the fish scale, determine the adsorption isotherm and biosorption kinetics in synthetic wastewater, and efficiency of fish scale in removing zinc (Zn) ion and ferum (Fe) ions in domestic wastewater. After biosorption process, scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDX) analysis show the presence of shiny bulky particles that indicate the appearance of Zn and Fe ion. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrum confirmed the involvement of nitro compound, carbonyl and amine group in biosorption process. The results also show that optimum condition of Zn ion was best selected in removing heavy metal in domestic wastewater. In addition, Langmuir and pseudo-second-order models exhibited the best fit data for isotherm and kinetic study, respectively. This study highlighted that M. tilapia fish scale is a promising adsorbent in removing Zn and Fe ion from synthetic and domestic wastewater solution.

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Architects are not fond of columns because they obscure views and interrupt space. Previous work has focus on columns made of glass as it creates an interesting visual feature because of its uniqueness i.e. its transparent characteristics. The aim of this study was to investigate the structural performance of the basic tubular single glass column (SGC) and a combination of more than one tubular single glass columns, bundled (BGC) using structural silicone sealants. A series of compression test were carried out on several different geometrical dimensions of tubular single and bundled glass columns to determine their failure mechanism, load carrying capacity and to evaluate the buckling performance. The structural performance to evaluate the column failure behaviour i.e. crushing or buckling was carried out by looking at the effect of different geometrical dimensions and shear connections in the bundled system. This study showed that the failure mechanisms depended strongly on the slenderness ratio of the columns and failure occurred either by crushing or by buckling depending on the column lengths. The scatter in the failure load for specimens that have a higher slenderness ratio was much lower than for those which have lower slenderness ratio. The variations in the strength of similar size glass columns has shown that the existence of the Griffith flaws strongly influenced the glass behaviour. In order to justify the variability of the glass strength, a Weibull statistical distribution has been used. The BGC is an alternative for use as a structural glass column because the structural silicone sealants incorporated into the structure is capable of bonding multiple tubes together. The low modulus of the structural silicone sealant suggests that its capability to achieve a full composite section in the BGC was remarkable.

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Peat is known as a problematic soil because it has low shear strength. This research is to determine the shear strength behaviour of different types of peat. The shear strength of peat is very important for determining the stability of cuts and slope, bearing capacity of foundation and retaining wall. The samples were collected at two different locations, Pontian, Johore and Penor, Pahang, Malaysia. The samples are classified as hemic peat and amorphous peat. The shear strength behaviour of hemic and amorphous can be determined on its cohesion, c and internal friction angle, φ. The result shows that there are different shear strength value between hemic peat and amorphous peat. Direct simple shear and direct shear box is used to determine the shear strength of peat. The value of c and ? for direct shear box gave higher value than direct simple shear. But it shows that direct simple shear is more suitable to determine the shear strength on peat. Shear strength is very important to know during construction, especially for supporting construction equipment and structures and this paper can help geotechnical engineers understand about the shear strength behaviour on peat.

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Projects have been considered as temporary based production systems which need to be designed, produced and delivered within a specified time. It has been asserted by a number of researchers that fast, complex and uncertain projects cannot be managed through the conventional ways and that fast track projects with long, complicated supply chains involving many players and subject to multiple, extensive process design changes have complex flow management that have failed miserably. The conceptual models of construction management and the tools it utilizes (work breakdown structure, critical path method, and earned value management) have been criticized to be deficient in handling the present unique challenges of projects. As a result, the industry is characterized by a number of wastes including: overproduction, lead time, transportation, inappropriate processing, inventories, unnecessary movements, rework and making do wastes. There is therefore the need for practical and robust models and techniques that will help projects teams deal with the issues of wastes in projects. This can only be achieved through the adoption of lean production systems in the construction industry, thus, Lean Construction (LC). In this paper, LC approach and the importance for its implementation has been discussed as the robust approach for project management.

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Synthesis of activated carbon (AC) from agricultural waste is a research area that has gained high interest recently because of its double-faced potential in dealing with disposal challenges and also in converting such waste to useful products. Activated carbons were prepared from oil palm shell by chemical activation using both KOH and K₂CO₃ as chemical activants. The precursor was first carbonized at a temperature of 800°C under a nitrogen flow of 150cm3/min for 2 hours at 10°C/min.It was then impregnated with KOH or K₂CO₃ in the ratio 1:2. The mixture of both KOH or K₂CO₃ impregnated material were then loaded at different times into the reactor for subsequent heating. It was then pre-heated to a temperature of 800°C for 1 hour in the presence of nitrogen gas. The carbonized sample was then activated by heat treatment under the CO₂ flow of 150cm³/min at 800°C for 1hr. Nitrogen adsorption analysis from BET surface area and pore volume were studied. The BET surface area and pore volume of the potassium hydroxide treated (PHAC) and potassium carbonate treated (PCAC) carbons were (305 m²/g and 0.16 cm³/g) and (708 m²/g and 0.31 cm³/g) respectively. The proximate analysis shows a high percentage of fixed carbon and low ash content which is an indication of good precursor for AC production. The FTIR spectra of both carbons showed hydroxyls, alkenes, alkynes, carbonyls and aromatics functional groups. The SEM micrographs showed that both carbons developed pores that are good enough for adsorption of contaminants. However, the results indicate that choice of chemical activant and other activation parameters enable tailoring the porosity of the carbons for a particular environment application.

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One conventional way to address the poor solubility of drugs in order to increase their performance is to use excipients polar organic solvents. However, the use of such organic solvents has many drawbacks. They are often volatile, flammable and toxic. Pharmaceutical ingredients must be free from all such traces. So in this work, we have showed that we can use ionic liquids (ILs) as a replacement for conventional solvent in pharmaceutical industries. The solubility of Acyclovir in ILs was studied within two cations groups of ILs (Ammonium, Pyridinium) and sixteen anions using COSMOtherm-X software at room temperature and atmosphere pressure. COSMO-RS (Conductor like Screening Model for Realistic Solvents) program allows the prediction of many properties of pure fluids, fluid mixtures, and solutions. The results showed that the solubility of Acyclovir in ammonium-based ILs is relatively higher than other studied ILs. Considering ammonium salts examined in this work, tetramethylammonium-acetate [N1111] [OAc], trimethylethylammonium-acetate [N1112] [OAc] and dimethylethylpropylammonium-acetate [N1123] [OAc] are excellent solvents. Due to the increasing of side alkyl chain (methyl) and proper solubility toward the drug compound, makes them suitable for further studies.

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This work reports a study on evaluation of antioxidant activity of some tropical fruit peel extracts and optimization of extraction conditions for recovery of antioxidants from the selected fruit peel. Due to the extensively growing of many fruit processing industries, the fruit peels are often removed as a waste residue. Hence, the research has shift to focus on fruit residues as potential source of natural antioxidant replacing the synthetic one which may poses several side effects. Extraction was done on selected tropical fruits peels including rambutan, banana, mangosteen, logan to evaluate their antioxidant activity. Rambutan with ethanol extract possesses highest antioxidant activity which is 77.21 ± 0.17 % as compared to longan (73.24 ± 0.11%), mangosteen (46.97 ± 0.29) and banana (41.65 ± 0.22) for ethanolic extraction. Thus, rambutan was chosen to be continued with screening and optimization process. Single factor experiment using the one factor at a time (OFAT) method was done to study the effect of solvent to solid ratio (300:10 to 300:50 mL/g), extraction temperature (78 to 85 oC) and extraction time (120 to 360 minutes). Next, central composite rotatable design (CCRD) coupled with Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was applied to optimize the extraction conditions on the antioxidant activity of rambutan peels. From the result, the highest antioxidant activity of about 96.12 ± 0.013 % was found at optimum conditions of solvent to solid ratio, 300:33 (mL/g); extraction temperature, 81oC and extraction time, 262.95 minutes. Based on statistical analysis, the extraction temperature was the most significant (p<0.0001) parameter condition affecting antioxidant activity and R2 value of 0.9810 denoted that the model developed was adequate in optimizing the extraction conditions of antioxidant properties from rambutan peels.

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Nanoindentation technique has been used extensively to measure the nanomechanical properties of thin films. However, the determination of the surface mechanical properties such as scratch behavior using this technique is relatively new. In this work, the scratch property of polyurethane nanocomposites was studied and proposed. A series of polyurethane-graphite oxide (GO) and polyurethane carbon nanotubes (single-walled (SWNT) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT)) were prepared by in situ polymerization. It is believed that the preparation of polymer/GO or polymer/CNTs nanocomposites with homogeneous dispersion of nanofillers in the matrices is a crucial step to developing high-performance polymer nanocomposites. The results pronounced that with incorporation of nanofillers (GO and CNTs) the scratch depth of polyurethane matrix was dramatically reduced. With only 4wt% of GO the PU nanocomposites had greater hardness and showed better scratch resistance. In addition, the scratch penetration was less for PU-SWCNT composites than for the PU-MWCNT composites and it demonstrated as the time to achieve the maximum depth increased.

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The thermophysical properties such as density and viscosity of binary liquid mixtures were determined experimentally over the entire composition range at 303.15K, 308.15K and 313.15K. The experimentally determined thermophysical properties of the binary liquid mixtures were used to calculate the excess molar volume V^E and viscosity deviations Δη with two hydrocarbons bromobenzene and ethylbenzene. The excess thermophysical properties of liquid mixtures provide additional information regarding molecular interactions. The calculated excess volumes, V^E and deviations in viscosities, Δη exhibited positive and negative values respectively over the whole range of composition in both binary systems. The Krishnan-Laddha and Jouyban-Acree Models were used to correlate deviations in viscosities, Δη, to derive the binary coefficients and standard deviations of these systems. The fitted outcomes and the calculated data clearly indicated that weak interactions present in two mixtures. It is mainly because of the number and position of methyl groups existing in these aromatic hydrocarbons. It can be concluded that the data found with the values fitted by the corresponding Krishnan-Laddha and Jouyban-Acree models gives high degree of precision.

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In the present work, a continuous and well-intergrown zeolitic imidazole framework (ZIF)-8 membrane was synthesized using microwave-assisted secondary solvothermal growth method. The resultant membrane was characterized through scanning electron microscopy and EDX mapping. The performance of ZIF-8 membrane in the permeation of H₂ and N₂ were performed at different pressure differences ranging from 100 kPa to 700 kPa. Results showed that, the membrane was highly robust with sustainable permeation performance up to 700 kPa. Furthermore, the resultant membrane exhibited high ideal H2/N2 selectivity of 10.25.

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In this study, phosphonium-based hydrophobic ionic liquids were synthesized and confirm their structures by NMR, FT-IR and CHNS. Their thermal stability was studied by thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) and shows excellent thermal stability as compare to other ILs. Comparatively phosphonium-based ILs are less elaborated for many applications. Although in separation technology the ILs applications are still in their early stages, the academic interest is increasing in ILs. Dyes are the substantial source of pollution as a wastewater. These ILs were applied as adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous media and the selected IL on laboratory scale shows good performance with the stripping efficiency of 84.95%. The kinetics study expressed that the adsorption of MB on IL fitted in the pseudo-second order kinetics models with correlation coefficient value (R2) of 0.999. The study proved that ionic liquids are an effective and environmentally benign adsorbent for MB removal from aqueous solution.

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Ultrasonic assisted mass transfer is one of the potential alternatives that possess the advantages of high mass transfer enhancement with absence of moving part. A higher frequency ultrasonic irradiation generates a higher streaming turbulent force. However, most of the current studies are performed under low frequency ultrasonic irradiation. In this paper, a high frequency ultrasonic assisted mass transfer was studied in a water batch reactor. The mass transfer coefficient was determined by the dynamic pressure step method. The power of the ultrasonic irradiation was measured using calorimetric method. The result showed that, approximate 28 % power from the electrical dissipation power has been converted to the ultrasonic irradiation power. Besides, based on the experimental result, the mass transfer coefficient has been significantly enhanced by the ultrasonic irradiation up to 20 times faster for CO₂ desorption as compared to the case without ultrasonic irradiation.

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The compatibilizing effect of polypropylene maleic anhydride (PPMAH) on the mechanical and morphological properties of polypropylene (PP)/ acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR)/palm kernel shell (PKS) composites were studied. PP and NBR are found highly incompatible and can be improved by compatibilizer such as PPMAH. The composites were melt mixed using heated two roll mill at 180 ^oC and speed of 15 rpm with six different loading (100/0/10, 80/20/10, 70/30/10, 60/40/10, 50/50/10, 40/60/10 phr) with fixed 5 phr PPMAH. Increasing of NBR loading in PP/NBR/PKS composites decreases the tensile strength and Young’s modulus but increases the elongation at break. The results showed that higher tensile strength and Young’s modulus were obtained for PPMAH compatibilized composites as compared to uncompatibilized composites. Tensile fractured surfaces observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) indicates improved adhesion of palm kernel shell with polypropylene/acrylonitrile butadiene rubber matrices in the presence of polypropylene maleic anhydride.

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The thermophysical properties of liquid mixtures provide additional information regarding molecular interactions. A perusal of the literature revealed that the predictions of thermophysical properties of liquid mixtures are scarce. With an aim, the thermophysical properties of viscosity, excess molar volume V^E and viscosity deviations Δη of liquid mixtures are predicted by using various nonlinear models. In this reseach Jouyban-Acree viscosity models have been used for predicting viscosity of Acetophenone with P-xylene and 1, 4 Dioxane with Benzene at different mole fractions measured at various temperatures in the atmospheric pressure condition. From experimentation excess volumes, V^E, and deviations in viscosities, Δη, of mixtures at infinite dilutions have been obtained. The measured systems show positive V^E and negative Δη with increasing temperatures. From the positive excess molar volume, when aromatics, which exist in a highly associated form in the pure state, are mixed with polar solvents (ketones), the monomerization occurs and new specific interactions appear in the solution. The negative viscosity deviation depends on the size and shape of the molecules and molecular interactions. These measured data tailored to the Jouyban-Acree nonlinear models to derive the binary coefficients Jouyban-Acree model is more adequate for the thermo physical and the standard deviation was found to be <2.06 %. The molecular interactions existing between the components and comparison of liquid mixtures were also discussed.

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Human dependency to fossil fuels are currently facing a depletion threat as the number of oil reserves are clenching and this matter can be solved by interchanging the usage of diesel to biodiesel. The production of biodiesel can be achieved by the transesterification process. In this study, transesterification of waste frying oil (WFO) which catalyzed by dolomite have been investigated. The characteristic of the catalyst were tested using XRD (X-Ray Diffractometer) and SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) to confirm the mineral presents and the morphology of raw dolomite and calcined dolomite, respectively. Transesterification process was perform to see the influence of alcohol: oil molar ratio, weight percentage of catalyst, reaction time and reaction temperature towards product yield. From the characterization, calcination of dolomites results in the formation of the MgO-CaO form, which is the active catalytic component and led to the changing of its morphological properties. The transesterification of WFO with methanol can be actively catalyzed over dolomite catalysts with amount of 1.5wt.% at reaction temperature of 60°C, methanol/oil molar ratio, 6:1 and reaction time of 120min. With this reaction conditions, it can produce highest FAME up to 96.7 wt.%.

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Phase inversion processes have been used to fabricate hollow fibre membranes but these processes often lead to morphological defects such as formation of macrovoids. Thus far, several approaches have been investigated to solve this problem, but no consensuses have been achieved. In this study, the optimal dope viscosity for PEI/NMP solution was elucidated to produce improved membrane morphological structure that can enhance its gas separation performance. Five concentrations of PEI/NMP dope solutions were prepared and their viscosities were measured. The critical viscosity was found to be at approximately 25 wt. % polymer concentration at ambient conditions. SEM analysis revealed that the most uniform finger-like pores with a thin skinned upper layer was obtained at critical dope viscosity.

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The model which can be used to make a prediction about how long you need to replace the assessment item bank (AIB) or make significant changes to it (or update it) is considered in the paper. The target function is proposed to predict the number of students’ testing sessions, on the assumption that students purposefully are making copies and exchanging each other of test items and answers to them, so actually after a while they have a large number of templates with ready-made answers. In this case, the test does not give an objective assessment of knowledge and an item bank has to be updated. The paper provides a formula for calculating the cardinality of assessment item bank, length of single test or amount of tasks (items) per one session of testing, and the amount of testing sessions during the entire period of use of the item bank.

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Solar thermal has been proposed as a solution to lower the dependency on fossil fuel sources. The solar atlas issued in 1991, indicates that Egypt as on of the Sun Belt countries. Solar water heaters can be a cost-effective way to provide hot water in the homes. It is possible to make full use of external parts of the solar energy that building can use, and to realize external harmony of landscape building. A field study showing the current use situation of solar water heaters based on previous application programs that applied the use of solar water heaters for residential blocks of flats build by Egyptian government during the late 70th and early 80s. The research proposed Participation and Funding Management for future residential projects in Cairo, goal ling to achieve sustainable urban development and Streamline overlaps and interconnections between various parties involved in the project. The research is an attempt to maximize the use of solar energy as a non-conventional energy resource for residential buildings in the field of solar water heating in Cairo, Egypt.

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Present investigation explores the application of video processing in non-contact type temperature measurement for turbulent flames. Average flame features for a small time period are compared with actual flame temperature to establish a correlation. Features like spread, intensity of red, blue and green component are taken up for detailed study. Thelimitation of image processing method for flame feature extraction in a pressurised fuel supplied low capacity boiler is also revealed through this experimental research. Through this comparative study it is indicated that when combustion is highly turbulent in nature, images may not represent the actual condition; instead average features of image frames from videos of this turbulent process for short period of time can be considered as a better option for representing the condition of process. Video of turbulent flame for a short period of time is separated into time dependent picture frames for detailed study. Analysis of picture frames reveals the volatile nature of features, frame by frame. Experiments are conducted on a 25 liters diesel fired boiler prototype and analysis of video of flickering flame is done by Matlab®.

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A large number of steel structures, such as bridges, offshore platforms, large mining equipment and buildings, need retrofitting. The use of composite materials patching is a very attractive alternative to the traditional reinforcement or repair methods (i.e. bolted doubler plates, welding), overcoming many of their limitations and disadvantages. In this paper numerical models of hole drilled steel plate without repair and composite patch repaired hole drilled steel plate were developed, analyzed and compared using ANSYS software. The hole acts as damage, such as severe corrosion, in the steel plate, resulting in the development of high stress concentrations. Three-ply composite patch reduces the maximum equivalent (von-Mises) stress and maximum equivalent elastic strain of the damaged plate by approximately 17.7% and 19.5%, respectively. Analyzing strains, stresses and failure criteria of the composite laminate requires to model the single layers a composite design is built up by. This method is called meso-scale approach. It requires material properties and thicknesses for each layer of the design. Plywise stress and strain results indicate that maximum stress and strain has taken place in the center of the first ply.

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This paper illustrates the composition of photovoltaic solar cells in planar antenna geometry. The nature of a solar cell kept intact in addition to receive and transmit electromagnetic waveforms. There shown a good agreement with measured and simulated results. Furthermore the application field of this new structure in wireless communication systems is summarized. Experimental and full-wave simulation results of the presented solar planar antenna, SOLPLANT, operating within the frequency band of 1.9-11.6 GHz, confirm the suitability of the proposed design for wideband communication systems with a wide impedance bandwidth of 18.36%, 452.3 MHz, and a high gain of 9.102 dB. In this paper, cross shape defected ground structure is projected to improve the Bandwidth, return loss, efficiency and compactness of micro strip patch antenna. The performance of antenna is characterized by the shape, dimension and location of defected ground structure at specific position on ground plane. These antennas have significant advantages such as low profile, light weight, relatively low manufacturing cost, and polarization diversity. This paper compares the performance of micro-strip patch antenna having radiating elliptical shape with varying DGS profile. To compare and analyse the performance, High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) software is used.

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MANET faces many challenges owing to its infrastructure-less nature. The central governing authority is absent in the jargon of MANET and thus, this work exploits clustering technique. The clustering technique relies on the leader node and this work elects a leader node by means of trust mechanism. The elected leader node is recycled for every period of time, so as to preserve the energy of that node. The trust metrics employed to elect a leader node of a cluster are energy, packet delivery ratio and mobility. Besides this, a trustworthy routing policy is introduced, so as to increase the reliability and the quality of the service. A trustworthy route depends on the count of trustworthy nodes being present along the specific path. The experimental results prove the efficacy of this work.

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Development of high Nd₂Fe14B based energy-intensive magnets has shown that in principle R-Fe intermetallic compounds with high content of iron are good and relatively cheap magnetic materials. However, a disadvantage of such compounds is the low Curie temperature, which decreases in the R-Fe system with increasing of iron concentration, and becomes the smallest ~ 300-400 K in the case of R₂Fe17. Magnetic properties of the compound can be significantly modified by doping of various interstitial or substitutional impurities. The work presents the results of the investigation on the effect of Sm₂Fe17 alloying with titanium and molybdenum, in particular, on the Curie temperature (TC) and magnetic properties. It is shown that Sm₂Fe17 alloying with titanium and molybdenum increases the lattice parameter and the volume of the lattice cell without changing the lattice symmetry. When measuring the hysteretic properties of Sm₂Fe17 based alloys, it was revealed that the introduction of titanium, as well as molybdenum, leads to a broadening of the hysteresis loop.

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A rectangular microstrip patch antenna with capacitive feeding is presented here. To overcome various problems in other feeding, capacitive feeding technique has used. The designed antenna consists of stacked arrangement of a rectangular radiating patch and a small feeding strip which is fed by coaxial feeding probe. Using capacitively fed rectangular patch antenna, the bandwidth achieved is 40%, for operating frequency of 2.427GHz. The effect of key design parameters like feeding strip length, feeding strip location, and feeding probe height are studied.

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The utilization of varactor diode is advantageous as it offers the beam scanning capability as required for reflectarray antenna but it often said as the contributor to high losses. A superposition of reflectarray elements controlled by varactor diode is evaluated with dynamic phase range enhanced and loss improved at Ku-band for a successful design of an antenna element in the array environments. Simulated results of reflectarray element under normal incidence of two designs with capacitive variation integrated represents the use of varactor is executed by CST Microwave Studio. In capacitance range of 0.08p to 1.0pF, a dynamic phase range of 3230 demonstrates at 13.964 GHz and 14.828 GHz with reflection loss 1.66 dB and 0.99 dB respectively as a result of superposition.

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The problem of Phase unwrapping (PU) is solved by many Phase unwrapping algorithms. Thus far, many PU methods with high accuracy have been achieved. However, the memory utilization and CPU limitations are ignored during designing the algorithms. To effectively solve this problem, a fast PU method is proposed in this method. The proposed algorithm consists of two steps firstly the phase is unwrapped by using the cache efficient G-PUMA algorithm and later on, the unwrapped phase is denoised further by Second order polynomial approximation. The proposed algorithm smartly selects the window according to the smoothness and shows greater attenuation to noise. G-PUMA-SPA algorithm not only unwraps phase faster but also robust to noise. Experiments show that the proposed method can achieve better results than the method PUMA-SPA, Congruence Operation and Least Squares Fitting (CO-LSF) proposed recently.

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This paper discussed the internet access had become primary issues among Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) students and it causes difficulty in discussion for tasks and assignment. Thus, this proposed P2P audio and video calling application using local area network of UTM and it does not require any installation of extra plug-ins. The application reduces the students data usage and reduce the cost of perform audio and video calling. The features of the proposed system are provide a real-time audio and calling application for students to interact with each other; and able to let each other chatting with text and transferring files to each other.

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The calculation of the velocity and temperature of solid particles in the process of cold gas dynamic spraying is considered. The movement of the carrier gas in the de Laval nozzle and in the space between the nozzle exit and the substrate surface is determined by one-dimensional isentropic approach and by CFD method that comprising a solution of Euler and Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations using a commercial package Ansys CFX. Particle velocity and particle temperature are obtained as a functions of particle diameter and input pressure. In the nozzle similar results are obtained by using a one-dimensional isentropic approach and the solution of the Euler equations. Calculated velocity of the particle is slightly greater than the velocity obtained by solutions of the RANS equations. For small particles of 1 micron in diameter, in the space between the nozzle exit and the substrate surface there are the large speed reduction and large particle heating due to of the bow shock near the substrate.

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We report the potential of Mueller decomposition images to discriminate the Breast tissue to generate scattering intensities images with different optical states of seven and four independent variables. Polarimetric imaging is an emerging technique that uses polarized light to probe the acceptance of the tissue with the different independent variable states. A polar decomposition technique reveals the polarization parameters of the breast tissue effectively. It is observed there is a change in the Mueller matrix that which is obtained from the Breast tissue with the states of seven and four independent variables.

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In this paper, we would investigate a hybrid modern and classical algorithm (HMCA) in parameter optimization of electricity demand forecasting. Genetic algorithm (GA) has been successfully applied in optimization problems. As a modern algorithm, GA has a capability to explore the solutions in the global search area, but its drawback is the slow rate of convergence and high number of iterations. The Nelder-Mead is one of the classical algorithms using simplex search methods. This technique, when combining with a modern algorithm can be used for faster optimization processing. The test performance of the hybrid algorithm model (HAM) is conducted using data for Indonesian electricity demand. Results have shown that HMCA is better than GA in term of accuracy and number of iterations.

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Methodology of formation of diagnostic criteria for evaluation of safety of motor transport public service is offered. The main diagnostic indicators are determined. An integral criterion for evaluation of realization of activities as to prevention of accidence by subjects of motor transport activity on the basis of 5-point system is offered.

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The road network in the North of Morocco is often subject to the sliding phenomena leading to slope instabilities which require rapid and expensive interventions. Indeed, significant disorders due to a landslide have occurred at the 34 kilometer point (KP34) on the highway connecting Tangier to Ksar Sghir. In this article, the deformation of a soil stabilized by reinforced concrete piles is studied using finite element modeling. The soil-pile system is modeled using the Elasto-plastic Mohr-Columb Model for the soil and the Elastic model for the pile. Inclinometers were installed on the site to measure soil deformation over time. Results show that the horizontal displacement of the soil is close to that measured in situ. Also, the measured displacements revealed that the method of reinforcement by piles used in some areas of the study is effective in stabilizing landslides, and not for others.

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The aim of this study is to review and evaluate the idea of treating phenol from wastewater by using titanium dioxide (TiO₂) in a photocatalytic reactor to reach an optimal operating treatment condition. A brief review on photocatalytic lab-scale design plus the advantages of using TiO₂ and its ability to remove phenol due to its unique chemical properties were studied. Previous photocatalytic experiments were discussed to obtain the ideal operating conditions for wastewater treatment. The best removal efficiency of phenol was found to be at pH 7 under UV irradiation lamps. Although catalyst dosage and initial feed concentrations are mostly preferred at higher values, the perfect dose was 0.2 wt% of TiO₂. It was proven that the use of an aeration system would increase the efficiency by 50%.

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Owing to the fastest data growth, this era can be claimed as the era of zettabytes. An effective mechanism is the need of this hour, to manage all the available data efficiently. Clustering is a technique to group relevant documents together. This work takes the semantics into account and clusters the document with the hybrid of bisecting k-means and UPGMA algorithm. The semantic analysis is made possible by the inclusion of Wordnet, which is a lexical database. The outcome of this algorithm is more accurate, as the clusters are meaningful. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated with respect to precision, recall, F-measure, accuracy and misclassification rate. The experimental results of the proposed work are satisfactory.

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The term ‘micro’ means small; grid means ‘a network or a matrix’. Many such small networks, centrally supervised and interconnected to form a self-generated power called the Micro-grid. For a pervasive Green energy to exist, three probable solutions are taken into account; generation, economy and sustainable power generation. Sustainable power generation utilizes the renewable resources and hence are more environment friendly with lower carbon footprints. The key objective of this work is to model a self-sustained Micro-grid from the existing Indian distribution feeder, which means a small scale interconnected, centralized single controllable system where the particular region is supplied with distributed energy resources like solar and wind instead of the main grid. In this work, the existing system, implemented in PSCAD, is taken from the Indian Distribution Feeder, which comprises of 2 regions each supplied with 100 KVA transformers. One region is 33 bus systems and the other region is 38 bus systems. They are taken as two separate MGs and these further are split into two sub MGs producing a total of four MGs altogether. Distributed energy sources like wind, solar and diesel are designed individually and interconnected finally to make up a Standalone MG. The results are obtained in PSCAD software package.

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A web forum which is also known as discussion board or Internet forum is an online community of users with a common interest. It is a problem-solving platform that engages experts across the globe. Both technical and non-technical problems are resolved on a daily basis within web forums. Research activities in this domain have been concentrated on answer detection with the assumption that the initial post is a question. The quality of web forum question posts varies from excellent to mediocre or even spam. Detecting good question posts require utilization of salient features. In this paper, we implement a bag-of-words (BoW) model to mine web forum question posts. We empirically address the following questions in the paper. Can BoW model effectively detect web forum question post? What feature selection method is most appropriate for BoW model in this domain? Is choice of classifier influenced by web forum genre? We used three publicly available datasets of varying technical degrees for the experiments. The experimental results revealed that BoW can perform better than complex techniques that implement higher N-gram with part-of-speech tagging.

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In this paper wireless sensor networks, their applications and challenges in biomedicine and healthcare are examined. Future prospects of wireless sensor networks in biomedicine are also examined. The methodology involves the review of related literature and synthesis of relevant information from these literatures to precipitate the application, challenges and prospects of wireless sensor networks in biomedicine. It was found that wireless sensor technologies are used generally for gathering data for medical research and for monitoring of physiological signs as well as motion analysis of patients both in hospital and at home. Numerous challenges facing wireless sensor technologies where identified. However, energy, security and privacy seemed to be the major ones. The research found that there are bright prospects for wireless sensor technologies in biomedicine and healthcare.

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The main methods of the known methods of regulation of operating devices of mounted tillers at a given depth of processing are: altitude, position, power, and combined. However, these methods are effective mainly for massive hinged agricultural tillage equipment operating in more favorable conditions and with special design elements in the form of one or more of the supporting wheels, skis, soles of operating devices, etc. A more promising way to improve penetrability of disc operating devices is the use of forced vibration. The results of experimental verification on a production forest disc harrow KLB-1.7, conducted in VSAFE, confirmed the effectiveness of this method. An in-depth analysis of the functioning of various possible variants of structural embodiment of tractor ancillary equipment allowed offering the following solution to the problem. Using the developed device with a hydraulic drive which is mounted between the tractor ancillary equipment and mounted disc tool, it’s necessary to ensure the ability to regulate the links of tractor ancillary equipment with the help of SCW, during the movement of the device. The conducted analysis confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed design tools.

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Wireless sensor network consists of numerous sensors that are embedded with microprocessors and radio transceivers. These sensor nodes are deployed in a distributed fashion to sense the environmental conditions and this data is sent to a fixed Base Station (BS) of WSN. LEACH (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy) protocol uses distributed algorithm to form the sensor clusters. The selection of Cluster Heads (CH) is random and these CHs send the aggregated data directly to the BS. When the network diameter increases beyond a certain level, the distance between the CHs and the BS also increases. This is the drawback of single-hop communication as it reduces the network life time and energy efficiency of sensor nodes. The paper proposes Radio signal Multi-hop protocol which elects the CH based on the residual energy of sensor nodes. A CH also acts as a Prime Cluster Head (PCH) when it is nearer to the BS and this distance is determined by the radio signal. In a multi-hop network, each PCH receives the aggregated data from its closest CHs which in turn sends this to the BS. The proposed protocol results in improved lifetime and energy efficiency of sensor nodes.

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Organizations are tending to switch over from their legacy system to modernized information system now-a-days. A successful implementation of IS or ERP system is extremely important to future competitive strategy of an organization, but on the other hand the measurement such system’s success is equally important and challenging task to any organization. The goal of success measurement model is to better evaluate, plan and implement ERP projects and help senior managers make better decisions. This paper presents review of all popular models. An attempt is also made here to highlight dimensions of various models, which will ultimately help to understand unique characteristics of these models. At the end of this work authors have tried to distinguish success factors and success indicators. Understanding of success factors and success indicators will help organizations to adopt appropriate implementation strategies leading to success of any IS or ERP system.

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A sequence stratigraphic study of Paleocene to Holocene sediments was conducted in the 3D Kerry seismic profiles within the Kupe field of Taranaki basin. A 3D seismic data block consisting of 286 in-lines and 734 cross-lines covering approximately 15 x 37 km2 were used in this study. The seismic interpretations including seismic facies and sequence boundaries determination as well as borehole analysis were performed by Kingdom 8.8 software. The main objective of the whole analysis is to identify the sequence stratigraphic units of Kupe field and for this reason, a seismic line and Toru-1 well was chosen for detail geological interpretation. Based on seismic data, various seismic facies including parallel, sub-parallel, continuous, discontinuous, wavy, high amplitude, low amplitude, high frequency and low frequency were identified representing the sedimentary patterns of the Tertiary and Quaternary deposits. These sedimentary features were associated with particular formations and age based on well correlation. Basically, about 10 main horizons (H1-H10) were identified by a 3D seeker technique representing the sequence boundaries separating 11 different formations of Paleocene to Recent in age. In this study, after some thorough analysis, the youngest formation was decided to be divided into two parts based on the presence of a new sequence boundary namely J1 detected in the bottom of the top formation characterized by onlap stratal termination indicating a period of sea level rise.

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The inferences of this present work showcase the importance of authentication in Bluetooth. Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1) is a multi-communicator link that links network devices over distances typically up to 100 meters and exchange voice, data, photos, video and other information between paired devices. In a Personal Area Network for example the Computer is connected to the mouse, printer and keyboard via cables. The networked nature of devices creates dangers from a forensic standpoint. Bluetooth solves the end-user problems by replacing the cables with radio waves. Bluetooth communication does not require Line-of-Sight (LOS) as the signal is omnidirectional. This technology has importance as the devices which communicate are carried in pockets, bags, etc., which have no line of sight restrictions. In future Bluetooth modems can be envisioned to connect phones to the Internet through public access points. Key problem is to ensure the security of key exchange and Authentication. Authentication includes Pre-Authentication depending on the type of message transfer. Authentication is needed to prove the identities of one piconet to the other. Messages are categorized as confidential and non-confidential messages. Confidential messages are pre-authenticated by using Stronger Encryption techniques which use Hadamard Pattern for authentication. This work presents a secure authentication mechanism for protecting the communication between anonymous Bluetooth peers using Hadamard’ s Pre-Authenticated - Secured Access Algorithm (HPA-SA). By increasing the complexity of key generation security is improved.

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Ion beam (IB) irradiation to align liquid crystal (LC) molecules has attracted a lot of interest as an alternative of mechanical rubbing method due to its noncontact processing property. However, it suffers from degradation problem which is to decrease pretilt angle with air exposure. I here studied the stability of pretilt angle depending on air exposing sequence and surface cleaning method using IB irradiated amorphous carbon films with and without hydrogen. Specifically, I adopted two different air exposing sequence. Amorphous carbon alignment layers were exposed to the air before or after IB irradiation, followed by assembling LC cells. Then, their pretilt angles were measured by crystal rotation method. When exposing alignment layers to the air before IB irradiation, the pretilt angle was similar regardless of air exposure. However, exposing alignment layers after IB irradiation resulted in severe decrease of pretilt angle. It indicated that dangling bonds generated during IB irradiation on alignment layers are main source for pretilt angle degradation in IB irradiation method. Then, I introduced two different cleaning methods, sonication and rinsing with deionized (DI) water. When cleaning IB irradiated amorphous carbon surfaces via sonication, it induced the degradation of pretilt angle. However, rinsing method on hydrogenated amorphous carbon films did not affect the pretilt angle of LC molecules.

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In this paper a simple mechanical power driven battery charging system is introduced. Specifically, a hand driven system has been developed to charge a rechargeable battery for small scale electricity supply. Instead of using any fossil fuel the system can provide enough electrical energy to charge a battery for domestic applications. The charging unit can be used to provide limited electric supply in the remote and isolated areas where there is no national power grid connection. In addition, the system can be used in the emergency situation for mobile charging, indoor lighting and such applications.

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The article presents the calculation results for the implementation of the integrated method of increasing oil recovery factor, including the multistage hydraulic fracturing in horizontal wells, followed by displacement of residual oil with water or gases of different composition. To evaluate the effectiveness of these technologies injection of various displacement agents has been simulated using a new approach based on the combination of local of dual and compositional medium models. The obtained results indicate the ineffectiveness of the natural modes and water injection for the conditions under consideration, as well as a significant impact of gas agent type, and moreover, location of the horizontal well to a large extent.

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This paper deals with the power quality (PQ) improvement by using a transformer less Hybrid Active Power Filter (HAPF) based on a six switch two leg inverter with battery and solar system through boost converter which increases the reliability of power supply by reducing the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and increase the voltage level. The control methods of instantaneous reactive power theory (pq method) and synchronous reference theory (dq method) are used to extract the current. The comparison results of conventional, battery source with boost converter and solar system with boost converter are carried out by using MATLAB software.

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This paper is an attempt to investigate the possibility of automating assessment of joint damage in hand radiographs. The goal is to design a segmentation algorithm to obtain the area which is an object, the joint space. Image segmentation is the process of partitioning a digital image into several segments. For this study has collected 46 hand radiographic images. Treatment of image preprocessing is done using adaptive threshold and the concept of morphological gradient, then performed segmentation with watershed transformation. Segmentation results were analyzed based on the level of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity using the ROC. Results of the segmentation process is preceded by preprocessing produce images that are not over-segmentation and produce images that are more evident than the value of accuracy of 95.75%, 70.51% sensitivity and specificity of 96.99% in a high percentage.

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In this paper, Time Varying Acceleration Coefficients with Dominant Social Component (TVACDSC), Time Varying Acceleration Coefficients (TVAC) and Fixed Acceleration Coefficient (FAC) Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) techniques are proposed to optimize the proportional, integral and derivative gains of PID controller for two equal area interconnected power system. The performance index is considered as minimization of Integral of Time weighted Absolute value of Error (ITAE). Main purpose of this interconnected power system is to provide better quality of power to consumers. For this reason, the responses are analyzed and compared with the responses of Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) in terms of rise time, settling time, peak overshoot, peak undershoot and time taken to reach the peak overshoot. Finally, suggested the better optimization technique to provide better quality of supply to consumers in interconnected power system.

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This paper describes an application system named HAJJRAH which offer solutions to common problems faced by pilgrims in performing the obligatory and supplementary activities of Hajj and Umrah. Background of pilgrimage and problems faced by various agencies who manage pilgrims were also provided in this paper to give an understanding on the problem surrounding the need of HAJJRAH application. Analysis of market study among potential user and industrialists are presented in this paper to justify market needs and strength of the application’s business idea. Results of the analysis shows that the features provided by HAJJRAH application accommodates and address common problems faced by most pilgrims and various agencies who involved in managing the pilgrims during Hajj and Umrah.

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The paper has presented options of the security system when demounting the radioactive equipment of nuclear power stations, design options for the transport-hoisting equipment demounting, constructive schemes of the fuel-handling machine with the flexible suspension of the overloading object and the automatic device of the turn and capture of a pressure pen case fuse in the Water-Cooled Type Reactor.

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Based on the applications of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) integrated with Internet of Things (IoT), it is proposed to design a health monitoring system which finds the heart rate of patient, temperature where the patient is available and any gas environment (abnormal condition) of the patients in hospitals. In this paper, a cloud environment/IoT is created with the help of Visual studio 2010 and a Local Host (Hospital) is created which gives the information of the heartbeat of patient and his/her environment. This information is updated to a server (medical server) for getting any additional information from doctor/nurse.

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Shot blasting is a method used to clean, strengthen or polish metal. Shot blasting emerged as one of the most effective technique for surface preparation prior to operations such as galvanizing, electroplating, welding, enameling, glass coating and rubberizing. As it is very important in the common industrial usage, there emerges a need to study about the functional and operating parameters relating to shot blasting method, which in turns improves overall production rates, improved finishing and economical viability. This research work is focused on studying the surface finish rate by providing damping on the work piece during the shot blasting process and compares it with a conventional shot blasting process without providing cushioning action for the work piece. Also investigations have been carried out to evaluate parameters which are affecting the coating removal rate during shot blasting process. An experimental set up for the same has been designed and fabricated. Garnet of mesh size 30-60 mesh has been used as blasting abrasive. Springs having stiffness of 120 Kgf/mm and 60 Kgf/mm have been used to provide cushioning effect for the aluminium, GI and mild steel specimens were used for experiments. Compressor with pressure of 10 bar has been used as air supply. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of cushioning of work piece on surface roughness and coating removal time (CRT) .Experiments revealed that the cushioning effect provided for work pieces improves the surface finish, coating removal rate and reduces the coating removal time. This approach also helps the shot blasting method to become economically viable.

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Environmental pollution problems are increased and utilization of renewable sources is important. Moreover, the fossil fuels make the environment weaken and this will encourage providing an alternate energy resources. Wind energy is one of the popular renewable energy resource and this paper deals with a novel charging mechanism utilizing this resource for automatically charging the battery packs of electric vehicles (EVs). In this study, the wind speed is determined for Chennai city in India for four different seasons. The hourly average wind speed for one day has been estimated by Weibull distribution and it is compared with three different methods for the hourly averaged wind data. The results show that the power density method outperforms and the Weibull distribution fit with the wind data. The energy and power density for each season are calculated and the performance of four different small scale turbines has been evaluated. Automatic recharging can reduce the requirement of fossil fuels to generate electricity, as a result CO2 related emissions are reduced tremendously and increase of the traveling distance is minimized. Hence it is not necessary to wait for recharging in various stations and the vehicle can move long distance after one full charge by this method. The simulation result shows that the performance of small scale turbine is satisfactory and the batteries are recharged without using recharging stations.

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The main objective of this study is to develop a conceptual model of M-Learning adoptions. There are dimensions of m-learning adoptions that need to be further investigated and understood. There are four main variables from literature review that deem to be important to be classified for m-learning adoptions towards the development of the conceptual model. The variables are (i) perceived Near-term usefulness, (ii) Perceived Ease of Use, (iii) Personal Innovativeness, and (iv) perceived Long-term Usefulness. The second objective of this study is unravel other dimensions that may be feasible for m-leaning adoptions. The method involved distributing the open-ended questionnaires survey with 131 postgraduate students from 11th Oct 2014 till 25th Nov 2014. The qualitative data provide better understanding of m-learning adoptions and provide recommendations to improve the m-learning adoptions among postgraduate students.

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The calculations of correspondence analysis (CA) are using the long stages matrix operations, so that through many times rounding process, and the Eigenvalues obtained by numerical process. The CA is often using standard residual matrix to calculate the singular value decomposition (SVD), this paper proves that 0 is a singular value of standard residual matrix. Based on that, this paper introduce simplification of correspondence analysis (SoCA) of 2×H contingency table where H=2, 3, 4,?, where obtain the simpler and more precise calculation, because it managed to minimize rounding process, also does not use the numerical process, with use standardized residuals matrix as a matrix to calculate the SVD, it is very useful for data mining techniques.

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The paper is focused on the evaluation of the effect of concrete long-term maturity with respect to chloride ion ingress related durability. The random variation of input parameters is considered. The attention is paid to the durability prediction related to steel reinforcement corrosion initiation based on the chloride penetration. The binary and ternary high performance concrete mixtures are selected for the analysis. The data set from complementary laboratory investigation is used for the description of resistance of concrete against ingress of chlorides. The corrosion initiation risk is expressed in the form of probability over intended life span of the bridge deck. Thus finite element chloride ingress model combined with Monte Carlo simulation technique considering the effect of aging is applied.

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When a fault occurs in a system, after the fault detection and isolation (FDI), the system applies fault-tolerant control, reconfiguration and control restructuring in the best way possible to achieve stability. The Fault-Tolerant Control (FTC) fixes the system's control problems by creating the capabilities of self-repair and fault resilience. In fault-tolerant control literature, the major interests are centered in safety-critical systems. In this paper, the fault considered, is actuator failure which is one of the most severe conditions of failure for a system. The constraint in applying the actuator control signal as a physical constraint has overshadowed the problem. The purpose is to design a reconfiguration block for systems to recover control purposes against negative impacts resulting from the failure, which makes doing this possible without requiring to identification the parameters of faulty system and create changes in the nominal controller. The approach is to distribute the role of the faulty actuator among other working system actuators by adding a virtual actuator between the faulty system and the nominal control as the reconfiguration block, so that it hides the fault from the nominal controller and establishes stability in applying the actuator control signal, in the presence of the constraint.

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To a significant extent, Siwa architecture has been based on climate, geography, available materials, and cultural beliefs. The natural and cultural cycles are about to disappear in many desert vernacular settlements of the world, and in Siwa -Egypt as well. The main concern of this paper is to show the impact of development on society and the built environment, the conflict between man: his traditions, needs and expectations, and his surrounding environment that has become typical of today's life. The paper provides lessons learnt from the environmentally friendly case study buildings in Siwa, and give some suggestions to save desert vernacular architecture. The objective of this paper is to investigate the development of Siwa putting into consideration the space-time relationship. Main problems and constraints facing the future development of both are highlighted. The paper goes on to provide recommendations to ensure the sustainability of architectural development and its initiatives in Siwa and conclude the need for an integrated and comprehensive action plan in the field of cultural heritage preservation, socioeconomic development and basic infrastructure development.

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A shell and tube heat exchanger is a most common type of heat exchanger in oil refineries and other large chemical processes and suited for high pressure applications. In heat exchanger one fluid runs through the tubes, and another fluid flows over the tubes to transfer heat between the two fluids. A model for a heat exchanger is designed and a Fractional Order (FO) Proportional- Integral- Derivative (PID) controller has been proposed in this paper which works on the closed loop error and its fractional derivative and fractional integrator. FOPID is a PID controller whose derivative and integral orders are of fractional rather than integer. The extension of derivative and integral order from integer to fractional order provides more flexibility in design of the controller, thereby controlling wide range of dynamics of a system. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to find the FOPID Controller parameters, Proportional (Kp), Integral (Ki), Derivative (Kd) gains, integral order (?), and the derivative order (µ).

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The authors answer the question of what role the system of housing and public services (HPS) plays in the economy of modern Russia. Presently it does not target consumers and is focused on meeting the needs of companies that supply electricity and heat, as well as utilities. That's why we need a new reform oriented on people and homeowners, the main criteria of which should be energy efficiency and energy conservation. The advantages and disadvantages of the Russian economy are considered in terms of energy efficiency standards. Arguments in favor of the construction of passive residential houses in Russia are provided. The next important step is the creation of conditions for the private sector in housing construction and HPS, under which it would be beneficial to create energy efficient facilities, taking into account the increasing energy efficiency thereof. Retraining and advanced training of civil servants, general public, managers and specialists of construction and development companies, construction enterprises, educational institutions in the spirit of new energy-saving concept are also required. International experience in the construction of energy efficient buildings is considered also.

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Training process of bachelors and masters according to educational standards taking into account individual trajectory of professional development defines formation of the high quality IT specialist according to requirements of the IT companies, vendors and employers. Conceptual factors’ justification of efficient increase of educational process in the Applied Informatics is provided in this article. Isikava’s fishbone diagram is used for modeling of the studied problem. The assessment of results was carried out by methods of ranging and standardization. The analysis of the received ranks has shown that groups of factors – "Succession of disciplines" (26,6%) and "Human resource" (20,7%) are essential to achievement of a goal. The weight of the reasons of the first group’s factors were distributed as follows: curriculum (4,9%), working program (4,5%), individual plan (2,8%), automated information system (2,8%), modular and competence-based approach (3,6%), principle of many paradigms (3,3%), intersubject coordination (4,9%). The weight of the reasons of the second group of factors: qualification of the faculty (11,3%), the level of preparation which is trained (9,6%), image (8%). Distribution of scales has allowed defining the directions of the further work on research: academic subjects’ harmonization of the studied direction of preparation; reference point based on the modular and competence approach; accounting of intersubject coordination. The expert assessment has allowed to analyze the received results, to define the implementation mechanisms of the principle of succession, and also development and monitoring of teachers and trained people’s professionalism. The consistency of working hypothesis has been also confirmed by the results of the assessment of total influence by Pareto's method.

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In today’s world, one of the major public health challenges is Diabetic Mellitus. The report of WHO says 347 million people worldwide have diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Researchers are working to prevent this disease at early stage by predicting the symptoms of diabetes using several methods. Early identification of populations at high risk for diabetes is therefore important for targeted prevention strategies and is necessary to enable proper efforts to be taken for prevention in the large number of individuals at high risk, while avoiding the burden of prevention and treatment for the even larger number of individuals at low risk, both for the individual and for society. In India Diabetes is a huge problem and about one million people died of diabetes in 2012. The main aim of this study is to apply General Regression Neural Networks (GRNN) as a prediction model for Prediction of Type-2 diabetes in Indian Women.

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Wind Energy is one of the cheapest available renewable sources of energy. Now-a-days the demand for electricity increases drastically. A number of wind farms are already in operation and more are planned or under construction due to the increasing demand of the bulk amount of the electricity. It is must to identify the interactions between the Wind Turbines and the Power System. The objective of this paper is to design a Wind Turbine driven with Squirrel Cage Induction Generator embedded in a Power System and to predict the output of the turbine at different wind speeds. The results of the Power Coefficient, Tip Speed Ratio and Generator Speed are tabulated.

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The increasing use of nonlinear loads such as adjustable speed drives, electric arc welders and switching power supplies cause’s large amounts of harmonic currents injects in to distribution system. LC passive filters are traditionally utilized to compensate the harmonic currents since they are simple and low cost solution. However, they are often large and heavy. In contrast, shunt active power filter purpose is to generate harmonic currents having the same magnitude and opposite phase with the harmonics produced by the nonlinear load and to ensure the supply currents contains only fundamental component. Adopting the advantage of indirect current control schemes i.e., absence of harmonic detector, this paper proposes an advanced control strategy to enhance the APF performance. In the proposed control scheme the supply currents are directly measured and regulated to be sinusoidal by an effective harmonic compensator, which is developed based on a PI and VPI controllers and implemented in the fundamental reference frame. In place of PI and VPI controller a new controller implemented with ANN technique applied as current controller for three phase Shunt Active Power Filter then THD will be further reduced and dynamic response of the system also reduced.

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This paper presents an idea about multilevel inverter topology which makes use of the efficient and possible outcomes from all the possible outputs of an inverter configuration. Low and high switching frequencies are compared, to make use of the advantages such as reduced thermal stress and increased convertor efficiency. It is possible that the same inverter topology can give us different levels of output voltages, provided the switching strategy is varied. The same ideology can be used for single phase or three phase multilevel inverters. Here a single multilevel topology is taken for consideration and the different possible output voltage levels are analysed. For simplification and ease of calculation, the simplest configuration using two bridges is analysed.

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Permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) system and proposes control method which can generate maximum output power in overall speed range for integrated starter/alternator. This project analyzes the dual inverter driven open-end machine system consists of two inverters which are connected to the both ends of the machine winding. By disconnecting one inverter from the power source, the dc-link voltage of flying capacitor can be boosted through the machine. Because one inverter is connected to the only power source, output power of the machine is regulated by the source connected inverter. In this paper, modulation method for maximizing output power of inverter and motor with reduced harmonic and loss is proposed. It is a hybrid modulation combining seven-step and fast space vector pulse width modulations. With proposed method, efficiency and operation area are improved and cost of entire driving system is also decreased due to the removing of DC–DC converter. Analyses, strategies, control method, and simulation results are descripted. The experiments with PMSM are accomplished to verify the feasibility of proposed method.

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Fault tolerance is gaining interest as a means to increase the reliability and availability of distributed energy system. In this project presents a new technique for fault detection in vector controlled induction motor (IM) drive. The proposed current estimation uses estimation uses d- and q-axes currents and is independent of the switching states of the three-leg inverter. While the technique introduces a new concept of vector rotation to generate potential estimates of the currents, speed is estimated by one of the available model reference adaptive system (MRAS) based formulations. The objective of the controller was to control the current that supply into the induction motor. The proposed method is extensively simulated in simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK.

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The Indian transportation system has seen several changes in the past decade, with several commuters opting for public transports especially trains. However the safety of these commuters travelling in train is still at its stake. The main objective of this paper targets the safety aspect of passengers, thereby to propose a system that addresses the fiendish cruelty meted out to commuters in recent times. A security system is designed particularly for trains that protect people in danger especially the women in case of night travel. The designed system consists of an attack threat sensor for every bay in the train which can be triggered/ pressed by the passenger in case of danger. This immediately gives attack/danger information to the nearby compartments, main engine room and police station with help of two controller modules-- Beaglebone black, MSP430G2553 and two wireless communication modules—GSM and RF transceiver .Hence this paper discusses the working and the implementation of the wholesome wireless safety system prototype.

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The paper deals with model of a reinforced concrete bridge deck loaded with effects of deicing agents. The theoretical 2D example is focused on the optimization of the mesh of finite elements and assessment of size of time stepping. The model uses finite element method based on thermal-diffusion analogy. The algorithm is implemented in Matlab. The original algorithm that is enhanced by optimization criteria is used to evaluate the results. They are compared with an analytic equation for time dependent chloride penetration including the effect of aging. Thus obtained results allow speeding up further calculations.

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This paper presents microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS)-based electromagnetic micro speaker which is powered using micro thermoelectric generator (µTEG) that extracts energy from the human tissue warmth. Electromagnetically actuated micro speaker reduces form factor, power consumption and increase energy efficiency in hearing aid applications. A µTEG uses energy harvesting method to utilize the temperature differences within a human body and ambience to provide the electrical energy for the micro speaker. In this paper a model that includes the micro speaker and micro thermoelectric generator is described with various domain performances. These domains will be coupled where necessary and the model will focus on efficient power and high sound pressure level (SPL).

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In this investigation, a 3-D modeling of a PEM (polymer electrolyte membrane) fuel cell has been presented by considering Carbon nanotube (CNT) as the electrode and Cobalt as catalyst. Conventional fuel cells utilize graphite electrodes and platinum catalyst. Compared to mechanical and electrical properties of graphite, CNTs offer good mechanical strength and high current density. Similarly Cobalt has been considered as a cost effective counterpart to platinum. The simulation was carried out at 3 different operating temperatures (80oC, 120oCand 160oC)and the results were analyzed. The focus of this work is to design, analyze and compare the water concentration at the cathode side, using the above two catalysts.

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Current solutions for Sleep Apnea needs the patient to undergo over night sleep studies in a sleep laboratory lasting for at least eight hours. This is very costly and sometimes inconvenient for the patients. The use of Micro sensors reduces the cost as well as the size of the entire system for sleep Apnea detection considerably. With the help of a powerful Apnea screening algorithm and the proposed MEMS sensor sleep Apnea can be effectively scored even in home environment. The respiratory rhythm of the patient can be recorded using the proposed sensor and can be conditioned using signal conditioning IC’s in association with an effective Apnea screening algorithm.

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This paper proposes the study and design of a capacitive humidity sensor in MEMS Technology using COMSOL Multiphysics. The main motivation behind this work is the need in automotive industry for a reliable humidity (r.h), new low-cost sensor which would be suitable for placement in cars. In medical applications, they are used to enhance the comfort level of patient by sensing and coupling with microcontrollers. Capacitive humidity sensor is a parallel plate capacitor with a sensitive layer sandwiched between the plates which work under a capacitive operating principle. The design includes a sensing material called membrane which is sensitive to the pressure (Physical quantity) like graphene, which enhance the deposition and even distribution of water molecules in the dielectric medium, this in turn results in better sensitivity.

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Architectural or Engineering design workspace is an arena where denominator activities takes place, however its adequacy has been neglected over the years. This study focused on parametric measures to ascertain design workspace adequacy of selected institutions in Nigeria. Questionnaires with multiple-choice and open-ended questions were administered to undergraduate and postgraduate architecture students of four (4) schools in south-west Nigeria. The sustainable parametric measures of adequacy that were examined include: workspace, lighting, ventilation, safety, privacy and security, building service equipment and the auxiliary facility requirements in the design studio. The outcome of the study revealed parametric indices in line with the sustainable measurements of adequacy. It highlighted other grey areas of adequacy not yet addressed. It also suggested the harmonization of design workspaces in line with tropical and universal standard. Recommendation was also given of energy the design of workspaces in other allied professions i.e civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering spaces.

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Noise generated from wind flow over the two-way radio can decrease communication effectiveness. Psychoacoustics parameters of loudness and sharpness are used to measure the effect of wind noise on the sound quality at wind speed of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 m/s. This was conducted through experimental work using anechoic box and wind tunnel setup. Loudness and sharpness results are used to measure psychoacoustics annoyance. The annoyance level decreases as the wind speed increase.

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In agricultural sectors, there is a lot of waste produced after harvesting activities. This kind of waste is called agricultural waste or agro-waste. Agro-waste has created environmental and technical issue at disposal stage. Agro- waste usually eliminated by burned or decomposed and leads to the arising of some environmental issues. Environmental awareness is one of the vital factors that motivate many researchers to figure out the potential of agro-based crops as an alternative fibre sources. In Malaysia, there has been a growing interest to use agro-waste from pineapple cultivation. Pineapple leaf can be further processed and transformed into high value products. However, current methods need to be improved and new idea need to be developed, with emphasis on pineapple leaf fibre (PALF) extraction methods. This work presents the new idea of pineapple leaf fibre extraction and how it will affected on pineapple leaf fibre properties. A new machine called Pineapple Leaf Fibre Machine 1 (PALF M1) has been invented for this study. In order to analyse the effectiveness of PALF M1, the comparison between current conventional method (hand scrapping) and PALF M1 used to extract pineapple leaf fibre has been made. It has been proof that PALF M1 increased productions rate of pineapple leaf fibre, decreased the pineapple leaves waste and contribute to higher fibre yield (%) compared to hand scrapping.

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A genuine variational principle developed by Gyarmati, in the field of thermodynamics of irreversible processes unifying the theoretical requirements of technical, environmental and biological sciences is employed to study the mixed convection heat transfer about a semi infinite inclined plate in the presence of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and thermal radiation effects. The velocity and temperature distributions inside the boundary layer has been considered as a simple polynomial functions and the variational principle is formulated. The Euler-Langrange equations are reduced to coupled polynomial equations in terms of boundary layer thicknesses. The effects of the magnetic parameter (M), the mixed convection parameter (Ri), the angle of inclination (α), the radiation-conduction parameter (Rd), the temperature ratio (θw) and the Prandtl number (Pr) on the velocity and temperature profiles as well as on the skin friction and heat transfer parameters are presented and analyzed. For some specific values of the governing parameters, the results agree very well with those available in the literature. The present study establishes a high accuracy of results obtained by this variational technique.

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The article presents the results of computer simulation of thermo-mechanical stresses and deformations in the components of power semiconductor devices (PSD) consisting of electrically active silicon crystal and molybdenum temperature compensator put together with the use of two technologies: the technology of low- temperature sintering with an intermediate silver paste layer and the technology of welding with layer of aluminum alloy. The calculations were carried out by the method of finite element analysis using ANSYS software. Results of computer simulation demonstrate that the level of mechanical stresses in the components of PSD with a layer containing sintered silver paste is much lower than in the components with a layer containing aluminum alloy. Based on calculations it can be concluded that the maximum thermo-mechanical stresses during fabrication of these components occur at their periphery in the ring region, where the width is approximately equal to the thickness of PSD component.

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