Abstract: Proper matching of tractors and implements is crucial for maintaining high operational efficiency on the farm. An object-oriented program in Visual C++ was developed to predict the performance of tractor-implement system. The Brixius Model and ASAE Standards D497.5 were used to predict the tractor performance and implement draft respectively. A simulation subroutine in the program selects the optimum field speed that matches the pull provided by a tractor with the Draft requirement of an implement and displays some performance parameters of the tractor-implement system. Tractor and implement performance parameters such as field speed, drawbar pull, drawbar power, total implement draft, field capacity, and actual operating hours are predicted for the selected tractor-implement system. The program is appropriate for farm machinery management, educational and research purposes. It is user-friendly and could be run on Windows desktop with or without Visual C++ environment. The databases of the tractors and implements could be edited and/or updated to suit the required task of the user.

Abstract: Extraction is an important step for separation of constituents from the plant material. The development of new separation techniques for the chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries has lately received a lot of attention. Compared with the traditional method of extraction using conventional heating, the microwave heating can be another alternative. Microwave heating technique is a simple, inexpensive and valuable tool in applied chemistry where lesser amount of solvent, simplified manipulation and higher purity of final product with lower cost. In this research, a novel modified microwave extraction system has been designed to extract bioactive component purpose. Dicranopteris linearis (Burm.) and Stenochleana palustris (Bedd.) are fern which is commonly used for traditional treatment. These ferns having medical values which is should not be overlooked by medicinal chemists and pharmacologists, either for modern treatment applications or for research purposes. Since today, not much consideration has been given towards the utility of these fern yet in modern medicinal treatment. Thus, the objective of this research is to propose a novel extraction device based on microwave technology which is quicker and allow substantial saving in energy and cost for the extraction of bioactive component from Dicranopteris linearis (Burm.) and Stenochleana palustris (Bedd.) for the next consideration.

Abstract: This paper investigates the suitability of Delay Vector Variance (DVV) algorithm in determining the presence of non-linear and stochastic nature of time series both in the presence and absence of chaos. A differential entropy based method is used to find the optimum embedding dimension and time lag which are needed to represent the time series in phase space. Results obtained from the simulation indicate that the DVV method gives quantitative and easy to interpret output to characterize the underlying times series in terms of non-linear and stochastic nature.

Abstract: This paper presents a scheme for rapid measurement of frequency characteristics of electronic products using DSP techniques. The use of Complementary sequences instead of the Barker sequences completely removes the sidelobe error and provides exact measurement of the product characteristics in the absence of noise. DSP based testing allows us to send all the test frequencies through the device under test. Each test tone in the output waveform can then be separated from other tones using an appropriate digital filter. The gain and phase measurements at each frequency can then be calculated without running many separate tests and thus considerably reducing the measurement time and consequently the time to market (TTM).

Abstract: CB10TSS thixotropic and room temperature cured epoxy based adhesive specially formulated for in-situ bonding of pultruded rod into timber for repair and strengthening of timber structures. The glass transition temperature for CB10TSS is 31.7ºC which considered low for outdoor exposure. Therefore CB10TSS was modified by reinforcing it with nano- and micro-particles and denoted as Nanopox (CB10TSS/nanosilica), Albipox (CB10TSS/liquid rubber) and Timberset (CB10TSS/ceramics). Thermal properties of epoxy adhesives were studied by using dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Albipox showed significant improvement in the glass transition temperature but Timberset has the highest Tg, due to high modulus of ceramic particles. A second scan for all the adhesives increased Tg which shows that the room temperature cured adhesives are not fully cross-linked. In DSC scan, typical graphs of heat flow versus temperature able to describe more characteristic of the curing behavior such as a sharp and deep endothermic dip at Tg which corresponds to a rearrangement of the molecules and the wide and shallow endothermic dip at around 100°C is associated with moisture in the adhesive.

Abstract: In compositional reservoir simulation, equations of state (EOS) are extensively used for phase behavior calculations. Proper characterization of petroleum fractions, however, is essential for proper EOS predictions. In this paper, the most common characterization methods for pure and undefined petroleum fractions are presented. A set of equations for predicting the physical properties of pure components is proposed. The equations require the carbon number as the only input. They accurately calculate properties of pure components with carbon numbers in the range 6-50 while eliminating discrepancies therein. Correlations for characterizing the undefined petroleum fractions assume specific gravity and boiling point as their input parameters. If molecular weight is input instead of boiling point, however, the same molecular weight equation is rearranged and solved nonlinearly for boiling point. This makes their use more consistent and favorable for compositional simulation.

Abstract: Measuring delay using cross correlation technique with signals that are corrupted by noise and are received at two spatially separated sensors often result incorrect measurement. This paper presents a new technique that is Hilbert transform of FFT pruned cross correlation function to improve the accuracy of time delay estimates. To investigate the performance of this technique, frequency algorithms are provided to generate synthetic complex base band signals. For each iteration, it generates two sets of signal. We have to specify input parameters to the simulation model any time delay of signal 2 from signal 1, length and number of complex base band signals to be generated. Such model imitate real-life system, and by varying the uncorrelated complex base band signals to various SNR conditions, further analysis can be performed to compare the performance of this new technique with other existing techniques such as parabolic interpolation, zero crossing of Hilbert transform and FFT pruning.

Abstract: The use of computer simulations for modeling the behavior of pre-existing/inaccessible products/real-life scenarios is increasing in academia and industry. The advantages of computer modeling and simulation are numerous, and include; controlled experimentation on a pre-existing/in-accessible real-life scenario without disturbing the real-life system, time- and space-compression of a real-life system and sensitivity analysis of selected key parameters. The need for such advanced computational techniques for behavioral analysis is increasing in the domain of traffic congestion and control, which has particular significance in an attempt to optimize the movement/flow of traffic in various applications. This study is particularly concerned with optimizing the flow of pilgrims between Holy sites during the Hajj period, which remains a relatively unexplored optimization problem of key significance for the well-being of approximately three-million people each year. The aim of this study is to introduce a new model for optimizing the flow/transportation of pilgrims between the various Holy sites through the deployment of existing techniques in a new application-domain. Mature computer-science literature are considered here for modeling the Makkah road network using the widely applicable concept of queuing and polling systems from computer science and engineering. A further contribution of this paper is that key benefits are obtained by employing a distributed approach to traffic management, including increased efficiency of the available road network, thereby resulting with a decrease in the delays encountered and pollution emitted as a consequence of the inefficient flow of traffic.

Abstract: Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are operator and tethered umbilical free. Ground motion as a result of seismic activity could result in underwater slope instability and land slide. Other geo-hazard issue such as shallow gas hydrates poses threats to human diver. Therefore, after the process of several design concepts generation and evaluation, the concept of revolutionary human-like Vertical Self-balancing AUV was conceived and adopted for this research work. This paper presents the development of a Vertical Self-balancing Experimental AUV and its initial experimental results.

Abstract: Modeling and simulation of a micromachined microhotplate (MHP) designed to achieve low power dissipation and uniform temperature distribution on the sensing area at operating temperatures of up to 700°C is presented in this paper. At the operating temperature of 700°C, it is demonstrated that as the silicon nitride (Si3N4) and silicon carbide (SiC) membrane and heat distributor layer, respectively, is increased from 0.3 µm to 3 µm, the power dissipation of the MHP increases while the mechanical displacement of the MHP membrane decreases. On the other hand, the temperature gradient on the MHP decreases as the thickness of the SiC temperature distributor layer is increased and is a minimum with a value of 0.005°C/?m for SiC thickness of 2 µm and above. However for an increase in the tin dioxide (SnO2) thickness from 0.3 µm to 3 µm, the power dissipation on the MHP is not affected while the mechanical displacement decreases. A comparison between simulation and mathematically modeled results for power dissipation and current density of the MHP showed close agreement. An optimized simulated device exhibited low power dissipation of 9.25 mW and minimum mechanical deflection of 1.2 µm at the elevated temperature of 700°C.

Abstract: In today’s world solid waste management is a global environmental issue which creates significant health and environmental risk. This is a crucial problem in Sri Lanka too due to the lack of a proper solid waste management system. This study was conducted to improve the present solid waste management system of Maharagama Urban Council, Sri Lanka using GIS. Sample survey was done to collect the data about amount of waste generated from a house, number of people and income of a family and the households’ attitude towards the waste from randomly selected houses. GPS survey was carried out to find out the sensitive locations. Model was created to estimate the amount of waste generated from each house. GIS was used to identify the locations for bins and estimate the required capacity of them. It could be found that 1006 bins with 100m service area are required to cover entire area.

Abstract: Hydrogen has wide applications in petroleum, chemical synthesis and has been successfully demonstrated as a potentially zero emission fuel for transportations. As a country that is rich with natural resources and with the aims to be a developed country in 2020, Malaysia is currently intensified its renewable energy activities. The present work reviews all the resources and technologies related to hydrogen production in Malaysia. These technologies include non-renewable e.g. steam methane reforming (SMR) and renewable resources related to biomass processes e.g. gasification, pyrolysis, supercritical water gasification, biological water gas shift reaction, fermentation and water electrolysis e.g. using solar and wind energy. The techno-economic review is then presented for all these technologies to highlight the potential of present and future hydrogen production technologies in Malaysia.

Abstract: Compliance of RMG factories is key requirement for most of the reputed global garments buyers. Actually compliance ensures all labor rights and facilities according to the buyer’s code of conduct. Though Bangladesh is experienced with RMG from late 1970s, it is familiar with compliance issues from last few years. Now a days Compliance is more important factor to achieve a garments export order than the product quality. But only a small number of RMG factories in Bangladesh are complaint out of more than five thousand different scale factories. Because of the huge initial investment and running cost the factory owners are less interested to be a complaint factory owner. This paper presents a comparative study between complaint and non- complaint RMG factories in Bangladesh in respect of Initial Investment, Initial cost for Compliances, Total running cost, Running cost for compliance and Annual turn over . The practical investigation and collected data represent that the Annual turn over for complaint factories is much higher than non- complaint factories for same volume of investment including the cost involved for compliance. So every RMG factory should have to be complaint not only for more profit but also for protection of the human rights by maintaining compliance code of conduct.

Abstract: The estimation of the functions that describe the shear stress and the pressure drop across the short orifice die as a function of shear rate at different mean pressures for linear-low-density polyethylene copolymer (LLDPE) at 190oC is obtained using Genetic Programming (GP) . The GP has been running based on experimental data in two cases; shear stress and pressure drop at different mean pressures to produce shear stress and pressure drop for each target mean pressure. The shear rate and mean pressure of linear-low-density polyethylene copolymer have been used as input variables to find the discovered functions. The experimental, calculated and predicted shear stress and pressure drop are compared. The discovered function shows a good match to the experimental data. We find that the GP technique is a good new mechanism of determination of the shear stress and the pressure drop linear-low-density polyethylene copolymer.