Three-Dimensional Electrohydrodynamic Enhanced Water Evaporation Using Needle-Arrayed Electrodes

Abstract

A study was made of the electrohydrodynamic (EHD) effect on the water evaporation rate of a channel flow with a needle-arrayed electrode system using both numerical and experimental methods. The local charged density, flow, and concentration distributions and their growth along the flow stream of a rectangular channel were described in detail. The results showed that the EHD effect on the evaporation rate increased with increases in applied voltage and electrode pitch and decreased in electrode height. For example, at an applied voltage of 16?kV, the mass transfer enhancement was 1.5 times than that of the electrode pitch from 50 to 100?mm at an electrode height of 20?mm. The mass transfer enhancement was twice as great for electrode height from 20 to 15?mm at an applied voltage of 12?kV and pitch of 100?mm. The present needle-arrayed electrode system results were compared with a five-wire electrode system based on the same geometric model and boundary conditions. It was concluded that the needle electrode cases achieved better mass transfer gains than the wire electrode cases for the present evaluated cases. Finally, the numerical results obtained satisfactory consistency with experimental data with a maximum error of 25%.     

Predictable texts and interactive-compensatory hypotheses: Evaluating individual differences in reading ability, context use, and comprehension.

Examined the word-recognition and comprehension processes of 36 1st graders as they read a predictable text. Interactive-compensatory predictions related to comprehension were evaluated. Results suggest that when reading predictable texts, attention for both good and poor readers is available for comprehension processing but for different reasons. Consistent with predictions from the interactive-compensatory model by K. E. Stanovich (1980), good readers were able to attend to the meaning of a story because of automatic, context-free word-recognition skills. Poor readers were able to attend to the meaning of a story because of their automatic use of repetitive sentence context to facilitate word recognition. Thus, predictable texts may be appropriately used to provide comprehension opportunities for poorer readers. Predictable texts may give these students opportunities to engage in inferential reasoning and other comprehension processes, opportunities that infrequently occur because poor readers' attention is usually occupied by word-recognition demands. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On estimating the spectral exponent of fractional Brownian motion

Three estimators of the exponent α in the power spectral density g(λ)=c_g|λ|^-α of fractional Brownian motion are evaluated. These are (i) the periodogram-based estimator αˆ_PG (ii) the maximum likelihood estimator αˆ_ML; and (iii) the Allan (1966) variance-based estimator αˆ_AV. Large-sample properties of the mean-square error (MSE) and the associated sampling distribution are examined, αˆ_PG emphasis on the case α∈(1, 2). The MSE performance of αˆ_PG is judged to be inferior to that of both αˆ_ML and αˆ_AV. The rate of decrease of MSE is the same for αˆ_ML and αˆ_AV; the former estimator has smaller MSE, while the latter is less sensitive to departures from the power-law model and is considerably easier to compute     

Rigid body considerations for non-linear finite element analysis

The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate how the concept of rigid body motions can be employed to derive the external stiffness matrix for an initially stressed finite element. Such a matrix is as important as the elastic and geometric stiffness matrices. It can be used not only in an eigenvalue analysis for testing the zero energy modes of a finite element under initial loadings, but for calculating the element forces in a step-by-step non-linear analysis. The two-dimensional beam element presented in this paper serves as a vehicle to demonstrate the concept involved. The principle of virtual work in its updated Lagrangian form has been adopted as the method of formulation. Several examples are provided to illustrate the adequacy of the present approach.     

The simulation of an emotional robot implemented with fuzzy logic

Recently, researchers have tried to better understand human behaviors so as to let robots act in more human ways, which means a robot may have its own emotions defined by its designers. To achieve this goal, in this study, we designed and simulated a robot, named Shiau_Lu, which is empowered with six universal human emotions, including happiness, anger, fear, sadness, disgust and surprise. When we input a sentence to Shiau_Lu through voice, it recognizes the sentence by invoking the Google speech recognition method running on an Android system, and outputs a sentence to reveal its current emotional states. Each input sentence affects the strength of the six emotional variables used to represent the six emotions, one corresponding to one. After that, the emotional variables will change into new states. The consequent fuzzy inference process infers and determines the most significant emotion as the primary emotion, with which an appropriate output sentence as a response of the input is chosen from its Output-sentence database. With the new states of the six emotional variables, when the robot encounters another sentence, the above process repeats and another output sentence is then selected and replied. Artificial intelligence and psychological theories of human behaviors have been applied to the robot to simulate how emotions are influenced by the outside world through languages. In fact, the robot may help autistic children to interact more with the world around them and relate themselves well to the outside world.     

Synthesis and properties of <Emphasis Type="Italic">ortho</Emphasis>-linked aromatic poly(ester-amide)s and poly(ester-imide)s bearing 2,3-bis(benzoyloxy)naphthalene units

Two new naphthalene-ring-containing bis(ester-amine)s, 2,3-bis(4-aminobenzoyloxy)naphthalene (p-2) and 2,3-bis(3-aminobenzoyloxy)naphthalene (m-2), were prepared from the condensation of 2,3-dihydroxynaphthalene with 4-nitrobenzoyl chloride and 3-nitrobenzoyl chloride, respectively, followed by catalytic hydrogenation. The novel aromatic poly(ester-amide)s and poly(ester-imide)s having 2,3-linked bis(benzoyloxy)naphthalene units have been synthesized from the polycondensation reactions of bis(ester-amine)s (p-2 and m-2) or an equimolar mixture of 4,4′-oxydianiline and p-2 or m-2 with various aromatic dicarboxylic acids and dianhydrides. The synthesis of the poly(ester-amide)s was achieved by the phosphorylation polyamidation reaction by means of triphenyl phosphate, and the synthesis of the poly(ester-imide)s included ring-opening polyaddition to give poly(amic acid)s followed by chemical imidization to polyimides. Most of the poly(ester-amide)s were readily soluble in various organic solvents. Six poly(ester-amide)s and two poly(ester-imide)s derived from less rigid diacids and dianhydrides, respectively, were amorphous and could be solution-cast into transparent and tough films with good mechanical properties. Most of the poly(ester-amide)s displayed discernible glass-transition temperatures (T _gs) between 192 and 223 °C in the DSC traces. All of the poly(ester-imide)s, except for one sample, showed clear T _g values between 225 and 265 °C by DSC. These poly(ester-imide)s showed excellent thermal stability with 10 wt% loss temperatures above 460 °C in nitrogen or air.     

Practical design and implementation of recognition assisted dynamic surveillance system

Open Service Gateway Initiative (OSGi) and Open-source Computer Vision (OpenCV) are widely used for developing applications. OSGi is constructed to provide a service platform with high application interoperability while OpenCV is used to provide many application programming interfaces (APIs) about image processing. In this paper, we design a recognition assisted surveillance system based on OSGi and OpenCV platforms. The system features dynamic monitoring by a camera carried by a robot and a Java 2 Micro-Edition (J2ME) viewer on a mobile phone. With the assistance of image recognition techniques, the captured frames are adaptively reproduced for handheld phones in a limited bandwidth environment. The proposed adaptive pause time control mechanism can efficiently improve the synchronization relationship between captured and viewed frames across heterogeneous networks. The evaluation results show that the proposed scheme can save power for the moveable camera and have a shorter time delay between the captured and viewed frames.     

Improving solar development policy and planning through stakeholder engagement: The Long Island Solar Roadmap Project

The Long Island Solar Roadmap Project involves a collaborative research approach with multiple organizational entities and actors engaged in a stakeholder driven process. Long Island is a space-constrained region with a steep urban to rural gradient, resulting in a complex suite of local governments, development priorities, and utility, planning, and development actors. This project is integrating technological, economic, and social data into a spatial planning output that allows decision makers to see where mid-to-large scale solar development (capacity of 250 kW and larger) is technically, economically, and socially feasible. This spatial output involves innovative methods of evaluating site suitability based on criteria developed by stakeholders. The project’s stakeholder and partnership driven approach allow the team to consider technological and economic feasibility across a wide variety of solar development forms and financial models. Social science data collected via a residential electric utility ratepayer survey is used to examine the perceptual barriers and opportunities for solar development as well as the sites and types of solar development that community members are most likely to support. The Long Island Solar Roadmap Project is an example of how research and community engagement can improve solar development policy and planning.