Zooplankton population in the river tigris: Effects of samarra impoundment

The influences of the Samarra impoundment on the ecology of the downstream sector of the river Tigris are investigated. Zooplankton were collected monthly from July 1987 to July 1988. It was found that zooplankton were most abundant during high river discharges in March. During the month of low river discharge, September, the zooplankton population was greatly reduced immediately below the barrage and remained so to the last downstream station. Several factors seem to explain such differences. The high discharge from the impoundment was found to be the dominating factor and may flush the small backwaters in which zooplankton were abundant, thus increasing the population in the river. Zooplankton species vary in their ability to sustain populations in the river, variations which are due mainly to species-specific characteristics.     

Fuzzy fault tolerant predictive control for a diesel engine air path

This paper proposes a Fuzzy Fault Tolerant Predictive Control (FFTPC) with integral action method for a class of nonlinear systems. The Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy approach is introduced as a modelling technique in order to consider the active control methods adapted to linear models. The proposed control strategy is based on a combination between Parallel Distributed Compensation (PDC) control law and Model Predictive Control (MPC) where the T-S fuzzy aspect uses the Unmeasurable Premise Variables (UPV). A T-S fuzzy observer provides an L2 norm estimation of system state vector and faults. The controller and observer gains are obtained by solving Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) derived from the Lyapunov theory. The validity of the proposed Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) strategy is illustrated through an application to a Diesel Engine Air Path (DEAP) system.     

Adaptive genetic algorithms guided by decomposition for PCSPs: application to frequency assignment problems

This paper proposes Adaptive Genetic Algorithms Guided by structural knowledges coming from decomposition methods, for solving PCSPs. The family of algorithms called AGAGD_x_y is designed to be doubly generic, meaning that any decomposition method and different heuristics for the genetic operators can be considered. To validate the approach, the decomposition algorithm due to Newman was used and several crossover operators based on structural knowledge such as the cluster, separator and the cut were tested. The experimental results obtained on the most challenging Minimum Interference-FAP problems of CALMA instances are very promising and lead to interesting perspectives to be explored in the future.     

Overall performance measurement in a supply chain: towards a supplier-prime manufacturer based model

This study deals with the supply chain (SC) overall performance expression. The developed idea concerns more particularly the performance of the manufactured products. Indeed, two companies or more contribute to the manufacturing of products that are generally assembled by the prime manufacturer company. Moreover, in the industrial practice, performance scorecards are defined with regard to each process; and the overall performance is neither expressed for each company, nor for the whole SC. We propose here to identify the SC overall performance to the combination of the performances of the different involved companies in the SC. Thus, in order to obtain a definition of such performance, we choose to focus first on the performance of the prime manufacturer. In this sense, the approach is based on the SCOR model for the handling of the main processes around the considered product manufacturing. The prime manufacturer performance is then defined as the aggregation of its involved processes?? performances. While the prime manufacturer performance is strongly dependent on the suppliers?? performance, we suggest the integration of the impacting supplier performance into the prime manufacturer scorecards. From an operational point of view, the MACBETH methodology is used to coherently express both processes and overall performances. More precisely, the Choquet aggregation integral operator is applied in order to model mutual interactions between processes. Finally, the expression of a bearing??s manufacturer performance illustrates the proposition.     

Automatic speech recognition system for Tunisian dialect

Although Modern Standard Arabic is taught in schools and used in written communication and TV/radio broadcasts, all informal communication is typically carried out in dialectal Arabic. In this work, we focus on the design of speech tools and resources required for the development of an Automatic Speech Recognition system for the Tunisian dialect. The development of such a system faces the challenges of the lack of annotated resources and tools, apart from the lack of standardization at all linguistic levels (phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical) together with the mispronunciation dictionary needed for ASR development. In this paper, we present a historical overview of the Tunisian dialect and its linguistic characteristics. We also describe and evaluate our rule-based phonetic tool. Next, we go deeper into the details of Tunisian dialect corpus creation. This corpus is finally approved and used to build the first ASR system for Tunisian dialect with a Word Error Rate of 22.6%.     

高纯度低聚果糖的研制

低聚果糖具有优越的生理功能,但是普通级低聚果糖产品含有近50％葡萄糖、蔗糖和果糖,它们没有特殊的功能,并且可能会损害低聚果糖的生理功能．为了制备高纯度低聚果糖,已开发了一些新的技术,例如,采用固定化黑曲霉细胞和葡萄糖异构酶,或采用一种由葡萄糖氧化酶和过氧化物酶组成的双酶体系的酶处理方法和采用模拟移动床的离子交换法．本文简单地介绍这些工艺．     

Characterization and transformation of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Opuntia ficus indica</Emphasis> fruits

Opuntia ficus indica fruits have been associated with health effects, due to their protective actions against oxidation. Nevertheless, few studies about processing of Opuntia fruits are available’; therefore, we studied the pulp characteristics and processing of a local variety, for producing beverage nectars. The pulp had an average pH of 5.64, 13.47 °Brix, with total sugars (106 g L^?1), K (1180 mg L^?1), 503.3 µg L^?1 of β carotene, 120 mg L^?1 of total phenolic compounds, 4.9 mg and 46.9 mg L^?1 respectively for betacyanins and betaxanthins and 243.4 mg L^?1 of vitamin C. The formulated nectars with 35% of pulp (N35) and 45% of pulp (N45) had respectively 14 and 15 °Brix. Minor components represent 1109 and 1112 mg L^?1 of K for N35 and N45 respectively, β carotene (318.6 µg and 362.8 µg L^?1), and vitamin C 227 and 231 mg L^?1. We confirmed the stability and acceptability of these beverages after a month of storage, after stability and panel tests. Therefore, we suggest that the pulp processing can be used as a new form of agro industrial utilization of this underutilized fruit.     

Effects of gating design on structural and mechanical properties of high manganese steel by optimizing casting process parameters

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - The impacts of gating design and riser system on structure-property relationship of high manganese steel specimens produced by CO2 sand molding...     

A Novel Adaptive and Cooperative Scheme to Save Energy for Wireless Sensor Network

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of a novel cooperative adaptive relaying scheme called ISDF (Incremental Selective Decode and Forward). We compare the energy efficiency of this underlying scheme with direct transmission (DT), Fixed and adaptive relaying schemes in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The system is constrained by a minimum value of Signal-to- Noise Ratio (SNR) and the end-to-end throughput. We consider a three-node cooperative system. The relay is equidistant to the source and destination, and then we study different positions of the latter. The destination receives two copies of the message: one from the source and the other from the relay. Then it combines them by using maximal ratio combining (MRC). The proposed scheme differs from other schemes by the combination of the selective decode and forward scheme with the incremental scheme which requires the presence of a feed-back from the destination. The analysis reveals that the proposed ISDF provides good energy efficiency compared to DT and other cooperative schemes. It also shows that DF cooperative scheme (decode and forward , either with feedback or no, is outperformed by AF (amplify and forward) scheme especially when the relay is placed near the destination.

     

Rapid screening test for flame retardation of wood,and its applicability to thermoplastic polymer systems

A rapid screening process was developed to investigate the flame‐retardant properties of new materials and compositions. Wooden tongue depressors (“sticks”) were coated in solutions/suspensions of compositions of interest and tested in a method similar to that of the UL‐94 vertical burn test. The concentration of additives applied to the wooden sticks, as well as the additive application and drying times influenced the burning performance of the sticks, a useful screening method for testing flame retardants applied to wood products. The most promising combination of flame retardants from the wooden stick tests were then compounded into polyolefins, which were tested according to the UL(94) vertical burn protocol. A strong correlation was found between UL(94) results for low density polyethylene, high density polyethylene and polypropylene, and the wooden stick flammability data. This test, therefore, shows promise as a simple, inexpensive, and rapid way to screen new materials and compositions for flammability. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46602.