Assessing the Market Stability of Chemical Industry Enterprises

Breakdown of a company is examined and the concept of its stability is given. A system of indexes for characterizing the market position of an enterprise in the chemical industry and predicting its dynamics is proposed. An integral index can be an effective tool in the hands of managers in making managerial decisions related to effectively reacting to changes in the company's market position.     

Java multimedia telecollaboration

Using Java-based tools in multimedia collaborative environments accessed over the Internet can increase an application's client base. Most operating systems support Java, and its "compile once-run everywhere" architecture is easy to maintain and update. The Java-based tools presented here let users share Internet resources, including resources originally designed for single use.     

Flow Reaction Forces upon Blowdown of Safety Valves

The activation of safety valves causes the development of flow reaction forces that have to be transferred in an adequate way via the piping to the steel structure or via the connected vessel into the foundation. If the safety valve outlet piping is connected to a blowdown system or, in case of blowing off into the atmosphere, are equipped with a T‐piece at the outlet, the stationary reaction forces are compensated completely. The transient opening process, however, develops flow reaction forces which culminate in peaks of short duration. In this article, a simple method will be proposed for the estimation of the resulting reaction forces as a function of the length of the pipe at the safety valve outlet. CFD calculations and blowdown tests executed with a full‐lift safety valve have confirmed this method on principle. Special importance is attributed to the short duration of the effect of the reaction forces which seems to have only a negligible impact on the supporting steel structure.     

On the issue of trend and noise in the estimation of extreme rainfall properties.

Up until today extreme rainfall properties are frequently applied in sewer design guidelines. Uncertainty in the estimation of such properties will hence directly influence the dimensions of sewers, structures and pumps. In this paper the issue of potential trend and noise in the estimation is investigated for 6 rain series ranging from 19 to 55 years in duration. Different to recent research that predicts a climate induced-increase in heavy precipitation no clear indication for such trend was found in the investigated historical rain series. Another important aspect is the length of the rain series that is required for the estimation of extreme rainfall properties and the associated uncertainty. The analysis indicates that at least a period of 10 years should be used for the estimation. But even so the possible deviation expressed in terms of the 90 percentile is in the order of 5 to 10% of the 'true value', defined as the value derived when the whole given series is used for the estimation.     

Synthesis and characterization of biocompatible hydroxyapatite coated ferrite

Ferrite particles coated with biocompatible phases can be used for hyperthermia treatment of cancer. We have synthesized substituted calcium hexaferrite, which is not stable on its own but is stabilized with small substitution of La. Hexaferrite of chemical composition (CaO)_0.75(La₂0₃)_0.20(Fe₂O₃)₆ was prepared using citrate gel method. Hydroxyapatite was prepared by precipitating it from aqueous solution of Ca(NO₃)₂ and (NH₄)₂HPO₄ maintaining pH above 11. Four different methods were used for coating of hydroxyapatite on ferrite particles. SEM with EDX and X-ray diffraction analysis shows clear evidence of coating of hydroxyapatite on ferrite particles. These coated ferrite particles exhibited coercive field up to 2 kOe, which could be made useful for hysteresis heating in hyperthermia. Studies by culturing BHK-21 cells and WBC over the samples show evidence of biocompatibility. SEM micrographs and cell counts give clear indication of cell growth on the surface of the sample. Finally coated ferrite particle was implanted in Kasaulli mouse to test its biocompatibility. The magnetic properties and biocompatibility studies show that these hydroxyapatite coated ferrites could be useful for hyperthermia.     

Work of fracture of high impact polystyrene (HIPS) film under plane stress conditions

Essential work of fracture methodology was used to determine plane-stress ductile fracture toughness of high impact polystyrene film of thickness 0.26 mm. Results obtained indicated that specific essential work of fracture, w _e, is independent of loading rate, and for certain specimen sizes, independent of both gauge length and width of the specimen. On the other hand, w _e was found to be affected by the temperature, molecular anisotropy and the geometry of the test specimens. Reasonable estimate of w _e was obtained via crack opening displacement value.     

Robust vector control of induction motors using full-order observer in consideration of core loss

This paper proposes a method for designing a robust full-order observer for vector-controlled induction motors taking core loss into account. Although conventional research focuses on parameter identification, global stability of the identification remains questionable. Therefore, robustness against some parameters is required. This paper describes the design of a robust full-order observer which takes core loss into account, using both the gain-scheduled H/sub /spl infin// control and the linear matrix inequality technique. This design always results in a stable controller. The robustness of the proposed method against variations of resistances is evaluated by experiments.     

Assessing stem cell research productivity

Honour Index (HoI), a method to evaluate research performance within different research fields, was derived from the impact factor (IF). It can be used to rate and compare different categories of journals. HoI was used in this study to determine the scientific productivity of stem cell research in the Asian Four Dragons (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) from 1981 to 2001. The methodology applied in this study represents a synthesis of universal indicator studies and bibliometric analyses of subfields at the micro-level. We discuss several comparisons, and conclude the developmental trend in stem cell research for two decades. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The effect of photon energy and temperature on the persistent tunneling photoconductivity effect in Al/δ(Si)-GaAs structures

The phenomenon of persistent tunneling photoconductivity was studied using the tunneling spectroscopy technique at liquid-helium temperature: the separation between the unoccupied levels in a δ-doped layer at the GaAs surface decreased after illumination. This decrease was due to an increase in the width of the quantum well of the δ-doped layer. For photon energies hv exceeding the GaAs band gap E _g , this increase in the width of the quantum well was related to the accumulation of positive charge in the depth of GaAs induced by the generation of the electron-hole pairs and photoionization of deep centers. For hv < E _g (including the case of CO₂ laser), only photoionization is important. The experimental data agree with the self-consistent calculations. The critical temperature for the effect has been determined (T _c = 45 K); at higher temperatures, the effect disappears.     

Knowledge-based control and case-based diagnosis based upon empirical knowledge and fuzzy logic for the SBR plant.

Because biological wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) involve a long time-delay and various disturbances, in general, skilled operators manually control the plant based on empirical knowledge. And operators usually diagnose the plant using similar cases experienced in the past. For the effective management of the plant, system automation has to be accomplished based upon operating recipes. This paper introduces automatic control and diagnosis based upon the operator's knowledge. Fuzzy logic was employed to design this knowledge-based controller because fuzzy logic can convert the linguistic information to rules. The controller can manage the influent and external carbon in considering the loading rate. The input of the controller is not the loading rate but the dissolved oxygen (DO) lag-time, which has a strong relation to the loading rate. This approach can replace an expensive sensor, which measures the loading rate and ammonia concentration in the reactor, with a cheaper DO sensor. The proposed controller can assure optimal operation and prevent the over-feeding problem. Case-based diagnosis was achieved by the analysis of profile patterns collected from the past. A new test profile was diagnosed by comparing it with template patterns containing normal and abnormal cases. The proposed control and diagnostic system will guarantee the effective and stable operation of WWTPs.