Assessment of the types of public building maintenance contracts in Saudi Arabia

The study revealed that Fixed Price, Cost Plus and Purchased Labour contracts are the top three maintenance contracts adopted whilst Unit Price, Cost Plus A Percentage Fee contracts are alternatives used in the Kingdom. Some other types of maintenance contract were thought to be inappropriate by ministry departments.     

Electrochemical behaviour of Mn3+/Mn2+, Co3+/Co2+ and Ce4+/Ce4+ redox mediators in methanesulfonic acid

The redox behaviour of Mn³⁺/Mn²⁺, Co³⁺/Co²⁺ and Ce⁴⁺/Ce³⁺ mediators commonly used in indirect oxidation of organic compounds were evaluated in methane sulfonic acid on a glassy carbon working electrode employing cyclic voltammetry. Manganic methanesulfonate exhibits higher instability in dilute methanesulfonic acid. The solid MnO₂ formed during disproportionation on the glassy carbon electrode further affects the reproducibility. Cobaltic methanesulfonate formation occurs only at oxygen evolution region rendering the overall oxidation process less efficient. Ceric methane sulfonate formation is highly efficient over a wide acid concentration range. Ceric methanesulfonate can also be employed over a wide temperature range to oxidize different aromatic compounds.     

Photo Sequencing

A group of people taking pictures of a dynamic event with their mobile phones is a popular sight. The set of still images obtained this way is rich in dynamic content but lacks accurate temporal information. We propose a method for photo-sequencing—temporally ordering a set of still images taken asynchronously by a set of uncalibrated cameras. Photo-sequencing is an essential tool in analyzing (or visualizing) a dynamic scene captured by still images. The first step of the method detects sets of corresponding static and dynamic feature points across images. The static features are used to determine the epipolar geometry between pairs of images, and each dynamic feature votes for the temporal order of the images in which it appears. The partial orders provided by the dynamic features are not necessarily consistent, and we use rank aggregation to combine them into a globally consistent temporal order of images. We demonstrate successful photo-sequencing on several challenging collections of images taken using a number of mobile phones.     

2-Transitivity is Insufficient for Local Testability

A basic goal in property testing is to identify a minimal set of features that make a property testable. For the case when the property to be tested is membership in a binary linear error-correcting code, Alon et al. (Trans Inf Theory, 51(11):4032–4039, 2005) had conjectured that the presence of a single low-weight codeword in the dual, and “2-transitivity” of the code (i.e., the code being invariant under a 2-transitive group of permutations on the coordinates of the code) suffice to get local testability. We refute this conjecture by giving a family of error-correcting codes where the coordinates of the codewords form a large field of characteristic two, and the code is invariant under affine transformations of the domain. This class of properties was introduced by Kaufman & Sudan (STOC, 2008) as a setting where many results in algebraic property testing generalize. Our result shows a complementary virtue: This family also can be useful in producing counterexamples to natural conjectures.     

A review of the effects of catalyst and additive on biodiesel production, performance, combustion and emission characteristics

This article is a literature review of the effect of different catalysts and additives on biodiesel production, performance, combustion and emission characteristics. This study is based on the reports of about 60 scientists who published their findings between 1998 and 2010. It was reported that base catalyst produced more biodiesel compared to acid type catalysts. There was not much variation in engine performance with the use of catalyst. Combustion characteristics were improved with the use of additives. It was found that ignition delay was reduced and premixed combustion duration was increased with the addition of catalyst. HC emission and PM emission were reduced with the use of catalysts.     

Hyperbranched poly(cyanurateamine): A new corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in hydrochloric acid medium

Hyperbranched poly(cyanurateamine) (POCYAM) was tested as a novel corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in 0.5–3 M HCl using chemical and electrochemical techniques at 25–70 °C. The results show that this compound has good corrosion inhibiting properties for mild steel in HCl at very low concentrations. Corrosion inhibition efficiency rises with POCYAM concentration. The adsorption of the POCYAM onto the mild steel surface obeys Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. The inhibition mechanism was further corroborated by the values of thermodynamic parameters obtained from the experimental data.     

Copper recovery and simultaneous COD removal from copper phthalocyanine dye effluent using bipolar disc reactor

Electrochemical treatment of real acidic effluent of copper phthalocyanine dye manufacturing plant with a view to explore the feasibility of the simultaneous removal of copper and phthalocyanine using a bipolar disc electrochemical reactor has been investigated. Experiments were conducted in a bipolar capillary gap disc stack electrochemical reactor under batch recirculation mode. Electrodes were RuO₂ and IrO₂ coated on titanium as anode and titanium as cathode. Effects of current density, electrolysis time and effluent flow rate on copper recovery and simultaneous COD removal and energy consumption were critically examined. The current density of 2.5 A dm⁻² and flow rate of 20 L h⁻¹ achieved 91.1% COD removal and 90.1% copper recovery with the energy consumption of 50.86 kWh kg⁻¹ for COD removal and simultaneous recovery of copper in a bipolar disc stack reactor.     

Entropy generation in a channel resembling gas turbine cooling passage: Effect of rotation number and density ratio on entropy generation

Flow into a passage resembling a gas turbine blade cooling passage is considered and entropy generation rate in the passage is examined for unique rotation number and density ratios. In the simulations, leading and trailing walls of the passage are assumed to be at constant temperature. A control volume approach is introduced to discretize the governing equations of flow, heat transfer, and entropy generation. Reynolds stress turbulence model is accommodated in the simulation to account for the turbulence. The study is extended to include two rotational speeds and three density ratios. The passage aspect ratio is kept 10:1. It is found that volumetric entropy generation rate attains high values at passage inlet due to attainment of high temperature gradient in this region. Increasing rotation number and density ratio enhances volumetric entropy generation rate in the passage.     

Optimal time-varying potential profile for electro-hydro-dimerization reactions

Optimal time-varying potential profile for batch electrochemical reactor is evaluated for a major industrial electro-organic synthesis, the electro-hydro-dimerization of acrylonitrile to adiponitrile. The control vector iteration technique is used for computing the optimal profiles. As the technique is continuous on both state and adjoint variables, it can give more accurate profile with no need for any polynomial approximation. A heterogeneous model of the reactor is uniquely used for the formulation of dynamic optimization problem statements by expressing the differential constraints in terms of concentration variations in bulk as well as at the electrode surface. In addition to taking an account of surface concentration variations, the separation of total current as faradic and non-faradic currents is also considered as an additional equality constraint. A path constraint on the electrode potential is imposed for safe reactor function and economical operation. The results of optimum time-varying potential profile are compared with those of applying a steady potential.