Fluidized bed combustion of high ash anthracite: Analysis of combustion efficiency and particle size distribution

Fluidized bed combustion of high ash anthracite (HAA) was experimentally studied. The combustor consists of 0.25 m ID bed, and auxiliary equipments for coal feeding, ash removal, lemperature control, etc. Experimental results elucidate main cause of fuel loss to be elutriation of fines (i.e., flyash) containing unburned carbon. However, detailed balances of particle size distribution show majority of carbon in flyash comes from fines contained in the feed instead of attrition of coarse particles. The latter is the main source of flyash for conventional coal. The difference is due to much smaller attrition rate of HAA; feed HAA particles do not shrink much in size by combustion and attrition.     

Nitrogen removal using recycled polystyrene bottles as biofilm media

The performance of an attached growth wastewater treatment process was investigated in an effort to improve nitrogen removal efficiency. Recycled Yakult (lactic acid fermentation drink) bottles made of polystyrene were used as a biofilm media. The use of Yakult bottles as a biofilm media has been attempted by numerous researchers in Japan for the removal of solids and organics. However, these studies focused only on the removal of solids and organics. This study extended their application to the removal of nitrogen for domestic sewage treatment. Yakult media was placed in a reactor with 70% apparent reactor volume in a conventional A/O process. The bottom of the Yakult media was removed, and randomly filled Yakult media were effectively able to reduce the flow in tanks, resulting in an increase in the contact time between pollutants and microorganisms. With higher HRT, the nitrogen removal efficiency was increased by up to 83% with 12 hr of HRT. Nitrification appeared to be the limiting factor of nitrogen removal at an HRT that is less than 12 hr, indicating that the Yakult process requires more retention time to achieve nitrification compared to other biofilm processes. The removal efficiencies of organics and solids were high regardless of the change of operational parameters. This article is based on a presentation in “The 7th Korea-China Workshop On Advanced Materials” organized by the Korea-China Advanced Materials Cooperation Center and the China-Korea Advanced Materials Cooperation Center, held at Ramada Plaza Jeju Hotel, Jeju Island, Korea on August 24–27, 2003.     

Thermodynamic reassessment of the Cd−Zn system

The Cd−Zn system has been thermodynamically reassessed with the CALPHAD method by combining more recent experimental data, in particular the activities of zinc in the liquid phase. A good agreement is obtained between the calculated and experimental thermodynamic parameters as well asphase boundaries.     

How purchase intention consummates purchase behaviour: the stochastic nature of product valuation in electronic commerce

This study challenges the conventional assumption that online customers with high purchase intention routinely move to the purchase stage. To this end, the process of how online customers form purchase intention and behaviour is examined. On the basis of product value distribution (PVD), we propose that the hypothetically expected product value (i.e. PVD average) determines purchase intention, whereas the actual probability of attaining the expected product value (i.e. PVD variance) moderates purchase behaviour. This proposal indicates that the expected product value has significance only when repeated purchase is assumed given that most consumers do not repeatedly purchase the same product in reality. Thus, the actual probability of attaining the expected product value more critically affects customer behaviour than does its expected value. The effectiveness of the research model is verified by conducting a survey on 300 online mall shoppers in Korea. The results confirm model effectiveness.     

Retracted: Antecedents and Consequences of Gender Swapping in Online Games

This study examines the reasons underlying gender swapping and its impacts on online gaming behavior. While previous studies considered gender swapping to be an abnormal or rare exception in one's self‐presentation, this study hypothesized that people swap genders as a rational choice based on practical benefits. An online survey was conducted with 318 male players of MMORPGs in Korea. Players swapped gender in games to gain benefits from other players under the condition of anonymity rather than to represent their own gender identity. Men playing female avatars displayed more socially amiable behaviors conventionally characterized as more feminine. Moreover, players were more willing to purchase virtual goods to decorate their gender swapped avatars, mediated by their emotional attachment to their avatar.     

Distinct element method analysis of a retaining wall using a steel frame and fill materials

A technique is developed to clearly establish the shear resistance of a cellular structure, retaining wall composed of a steel frame and fill materials with both continuous and discontinuous characteristics. To overcome the limitation of the existing analysis approach based on continuum mechanics, in which the shear behavior and interaction between the frames and fill material of this type of structure are difficult to describe, this paper introduces displacement incremental analysis into the distinct element method. The results obtained by using the proposed approach are compared with experimental results to verify its accuracy. The results show an internal friction angle of fill materials and overburdening load are major factor determining the shear resistance of a retaining wall with a cellular structure type. From the results of the parametric study on the shear behavior of this type of structure, this paper also proposes a shear resistance moment-shear displacement formula for designing a retaining wall with a cellular structure type.     

Move blocking strategy applied to re-entrant manufacturing line scheduling

Model predictive control (MPC)-based approach to fab-wide scheduling has been suggested to solve constraint-aware production optimization and in-process inventory level control simultaneously at each scheduling instance. However, application of this approach to real fab suffers from computational difficulties brought by the need to solve a huge optimization problem on-line as real fab scheduling problems are characterized by long cycle times, multiple product types, hundreds of machines/processing steps and re-entrant product flows. This study explores the use of an offset-blocking strategy combined with a modified recursive least square (RLS) estimation in the fab-wide scheduler, in order to alleviate the difficulty. The strategy is tested on a modified version of published case study called Intel Mini-Fab (IMF) problem. Despite its simplicity, the blocking strategy showed excellent performance in the face of realistic demand changes and plant/model mismatch.     

Window annealing for pixel-labeling problems

The pixel labeling problems in computer vision are often formulated as energy minimization tasks. Algorithms such as graph cuts and belief propagation are prominent; however, they are only applicable for specific energy forms. For general optimization, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based simulated annealing can estimate the minima states very slowly.This paper presents a sampling paradigm for faster optimization. First, in contrast to previous MCMCs, the role of detailed balance constraint is eliminated. The reversible Markov chain jumps are essential for sampling an arbitrary posterior distribution, but they are not essential for optimization tasks. This allows a computationally simple window cluster sample. Second, the proposal states are generated from combined sets of local minima which achieve a substantial increase in speed compared to uniformly labeled cluster proposals. Third, under the coarse-to-fine strategy, the maximum window size variable is incorporated along with the temperature variable during simulated annealing. The proposed window annealing is experimentally shown to be many times faster and capable of finding lower energy compared to the previous Gibbs and Swendsen-Wang cut (SW-cut) sampler. In addition, the proposed method is compared with other deterministic algorithms like graph cut, belief propagation, and spectral method in their own specific energy forms. Window annealing displays competitive performance in all domains.