CSI sensing and control: Analytical and experimental results

Recent work on structural identification and large-angle maneuvers with vibration suppression was presented. The recent work has sought to balance structural and controls analysis activities by involving the analysts directly in the validation and experimental aspects of the research. Some new sensing, actuation, system identification, and control concepts were successfully implemented. An overview of these results is given

Does Organizational Culture Matters in Organizational Change? Transformational Leadership and Cynicism About Organizational Change

Culture is fundamental in the organizational change because it becomes a distinguishing feature or characteristic of the organization. In organizational change context, culture is important because differences of organizational culture will affect the different perceptions of employee about organizational change. Leaders need to be an example and be a pioneer in the formation of a positive culture within the organization. This article shows that transformational leadership is able to minimize cynicism about organizational change (CAOC). Transformational leadership is characterized by the ability to become role model which will be followed by all members of the organization. Members’ behavior of the organization would be an organizational culture that had an impact on decreasing CAOC.     Keywords: organizational culture, transformational leadership, CAOC, organizational chang

Storage Stabilisation of Albumin-Loaded Chitosan Nanoparticles by Lyoprotectants

Purpose: To investigate the effect of lyoprotectants on the physical and storage stability of lyophilised bovine serum albumin-loaded chitosan/dextran sulphate (BSA-loaded CS/DS) nanoparticles.Methods: BSA-loaded CS/DS nanoparticles were prepared by ionic-gelation technique. The nanoparticles were harvested by ultra-centrifugation and then various lyoprotectants at different concentrations were added to the nanoparticles prior to lyophilisation at – 40 oC for 24 h. Particle sizeand distribution as well as zeta potential of the nanoparticles were measured by dynamic light scattering method. Entrapment efficiency and BSA retained in the nanoparticles matrices were determined spectrophotometrically at ëmax of 595 nm.Results: The results indicate that 0.5 %w/v trehalose was the most effective lyoprotectant and it essentially maintained the particle size of lyophilised BSA-loaded CS/DS nanoparticles which changed slightly from 188 ± 11 nm to 174 ± 14 nm during lyophilisation. Mannitol was also as effective as trehalose at 0.1 and 1.0 % w/v in stabilising the nanoparticles. The particle size of lyophilized nanoparticles increased moderately from 188 ± 11 nm to 234 ± 12 nm and 287 ± 18 nm at 0.1 and 1.0 % w/v, respectively. In contrast, the other lyoprotectants (inulin and histidine) did not show stabilizing effects. Moreover, trehalose also reduced the degree of particle aggregation from 329 ± 16 to 836 ± 21 nm upon storage for 24 h as compared to CS/DS nanoparticles without trehalose; from 438 ± 14 to1298 ± 18 (p < 0.05). The rate of BSA leakage from the nanoparticles containing trehalose was reduced from 92 to 42 % over a 11-day storage period compared with 99 to 0 % for CS/DS nanoparticles without trehalose.Conclusion: Trehalose (0.5 % w/v) is a promising lyoprotectant for storage stabilisation of BSA-loaded CS/DS nanoparticles.Keywords: Lyoprotectant, Chitosan, Nanoparticles, Trehalose, Bovine serum albumin, Ultracentrifugatio

Effect of pulsed power on particle matter in diesel engine exhaust using a DBD plasma reactor

Nonthermal plasma (NTP) treatment of exhaust gas is a promising technology for both nitrogen oxides (NOX) and particulate matter (PM) reduction by introducing plasma into the exhaust gases. This paper considers the effect of NTP on PM mass reduction, PM size distribution, and PM removal efficiency. The experiments are performed on real exhaust gases from a diesel engine. The NTP is generated by applying high-voltage pulses using a pulsed power supply across a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor. The effects of the applied high-voltage pulses up to 19.44 kVpp with repetition rate of 10 kHz are investigated. In this paper, it is shown that the PM removal and PM size distribution need to be considered both together, as it is possible to achieve high PM removal efficiency with undesirable increase in the number of small particles. Regarding these two important factors, in this paper, 17 kVpp voltage level is determined to be an optimum point for the given configuration. Moreover, particles deposition on the surface of the DBD reactor is found to be a significant phenomenon, which should be considered in all plasma PM removal tests

Exploring the design space of HEVC inverse transforms with dataflow programming

This paper presents the design space exploration of the hardware-based inverse fixed-point integer transform for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). The designs are specified at high-level using CAL dataflow language and automatically synthesized to HDL for FPGA implementation. Several parallel design alternatives are proposed with trade-off between performance and resource. The HEVC transform consists of several independent components from 4x4 to 32x32 discrete cosine transform and 4x4 discrete sine transform.This work explores the strategies to efficiently compute the transforms by applying data parallelism on the different components. Results show that an intermediate version of parallelism, whereby the 4x4 and 8x8 are merged together, and the 16x16 and 32x32 merged together gives the best trade-off between performance and resource. The results presented in this work also give an insight on how the HEVC transform can be designed efficiently in parallel for hardware implementation

Perencanaan Pemeliharaan Mesin Produksi Dengan Menggunakan Metode Reliability Centered Maintenance (Rcm) II Pada Mesin Blowing Om (Studi Kasus: PT Industri Sandang Nusantara Unit Patal Lawang)

PT Industri Sandang Nusantara Unit Patal Lawang mesin-mesin nya bekerja secara terus menerus pada saat produksi sehingga menyebabkan mesin banyak yang mengalami kerusakan saat beroperasi. Untuk mengurangi kerusakan tersebut perlu adanya kebijakan perawatan yang optimal sehingga mesin dapat beroperasi dengan baik. Pada penelitian ini menggunakan metode Reliabilty Centered Maintenance (RCM) II untuk menyelesaikan masalah tersebut. Mesin Blowing OM merupakan salah satu mesin yang penting dalam proses produksi benang. Mesin Blowing OM memiliki downtime tertinggi sehingga penelitian akan terfokus pada kompoenen mesin Blowing OM. Hasil pengolahan data menunjukkan bahwa komponen kritis pada mesin Blowing OM berdasarkan frekuensi kerusakan mesin dan total downtime adalah komponen flat belt dan spike lattice. Hasil analisis interval perawatan menunjukkan bahwa jenis kerusakan permukaan karet flat belt tidak rata memilik interval perawatan yang optimal sebesar 510 jam, karet flat belt longgar 260 jam, flat belt putus 580 jam, kayu spike lattice patah 620 jam, dan paku spike lattice patah 500 jam. Dari perhitungan total biaya perawatan optimal diperoleh hasil dengan jenis kerusakan permukaan karet flat belt tidak rata sebesar Rp 7.973.519,82, karet flat belt longgar Rp 11.000.673,81, flat belt putus sebesar Rp 14.061.553,06, kayu spike lattice patah sebesar Rp 19.170330,63, dan paku spike lattice patah sebesar 30.880.512,66. Metode Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) II dibandingkan dengan total biaya perawatan sebelumnya terjadi penurunan biaya perawatan dalam mesin Blowing OM sebesar 10,27%

A Multiple Items EPQ/EOQ Model for a Vendor and Multiple Buyers System Considering Continuous and Discrete Demand Simultaneously

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IOP Publishing via the DOI in this record.APCOMS-IMEC 2017: joint conference of The 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Manufacturing Systems and The 3rd International Manufacturing Engineering Conference, 7-8 December 2017, Yogyakarta, IndonesiaThis paper proposed a mathematical model for multiple items Economic Production and Order Quantity (EPQ/EOQ) with considering continuous and discrete demand simultaneously in a system consisting of a vendor and multiple buyers. This model is used to investigate the optimal production lot size of the vendor and the number of shipments policy of orders to multiple buyers. The model considers the multiple buyers’ holding cost as well as transportation cost, which minimize the total production and inventory costs of the system. The continuous demand from any other customers can be fulfilled anytime by the vendor while the discrete demand from multiple buyers can be fulfilled by the vendor using the multiple delivery policy with a number of shipments of items in the production cycle time. A mathematical model is developed to illustrate the system based on EPQ and EOQ model. Solution procedures are proposed to solve the model using a Mixed Integer Non Linear Programming (MINLP) and algorithm methods. Then, the numerical example is provided to illustrate the system and results are discussed

Correlation of Oxidative Stress with Serum Trace Element Levels and Antioxidant Enzyme Status in Beta Thalassemia Major Patients: A Review of the Literature

Beta thalassemia major is an inherited disease resulting from reduction or total lack of beta globin chains. Patients with this disease need repeated blood transfusion for survival. This may cause oxidative stress and tissue injury due to iron overload, altered antioxidant enzymes, and other essential trace element levels. The aim of this review is to scrutinize the relationship between oxidative stress and serum trace elements, degree of damage caused by oxidative stress, and the role of antioxidant enzymes in beta thalassemia major patients. The findings indicate that oxidative stress in patients with beta thalassemia major is mainly caused by tissue injury due to over production of free radical by secondary iron overload, alteration in serum trace elements and antioxidant enzymes level. The role of trace elements like selenium, copper, iron, and zinc in beta thalassemia major patients reveals a significant change of these trace elements. Studies published on the status of antioxidant enzymes like catalase, superoxide dismutase, glutathione, and glutathione S-transferase in beta thalassemia patients also showed variable results. The administration of selective antioxidants along with essential trace elements and minerals to reduce the extent of oxidative damage and related complications in beta thalassemia major still need further evaluation

Crop-based irrigation operations in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Vol.II: Research approach and interpretation. Final Report

Irrigation management / Crop-based irrigation / Research / Irrigation canals / Water demand / Performance evaluation / Agricultural production / Pakistan / North West Frontier Province

Room-Temperature Power-Stabilized Narrow-Linewidth Tunable Erbium-Doped Fiber Ring Laser Based on Cascaded Mach-Zehnder Interferometers with Different Free Spectral Range for Strain Sensing

An automatically power-stabilized (with power fluctuation <0.155 dB), narrow-linewidth (0.0171 nm), wavelength-tunable (10.69 nm) erbium-doped fiber laser has been proposed by cascading two fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZI) without using any temperature controlling device. One of the MZIs (here called the 1st MZI) is composed of two 3 dB couplers to form interference patterns while the other MZI (here termed the 2nd MZI) is constructed with a tapered seven-core fiber (SCF) and based on the principle of supermode interference. For the two MZIs, the free spectral range (FSR), the passband bandwidth and the extinction ratio (ER) at 1560 nm are 0.37 nm, 0.19 nm, 16.6 dB and 13.93 nm, 7.93 nm, 10.1 dB, respectively. Due to the major difference between the two FSR values, the 1st MZI and the 2nd MZI respectively play a role in controlling the laser linewidth and suppressing the homogeneous broadening effect to reach to a satisfactory level of power stability. The 2nd MZI is also used to fine tune the laser wavelength by applying strain to the tapered SCF (TSCF) over the spectral range of 1570.22-1559.33 nm, with an incremental step of 0.37 nm being used. The side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of the tunable fiber laser can be up to 45 dB. By appropriately adjusting the polarization controller, dual wavelength lasing can also be achieved. For single wavelength lasing, the 3 dB laser linewidth is 0.0171 nm. The power fluctuation, without a temperature controlling device being used and operating at room temperature, is found to be less than 0.155 dB over 1 hour while the central wavelength drift is less than 0.19 nm