The surfactant N-acyl arginine can affect the surface properties of a material and can be synthesized from tetradecanol and arginine. The main problem in the synthesis of the surfactant N-acyl arginine is knowing the effect of reaction time, catalyst, solvent, and substrate to produce the best tetradecanol conversion. The amidation process is carried out by reacting tetradecanol and arginine in a ratio of 1/1.32 - 1/4.68 (moltetradecanol/molarginine) with the addition of tert-amyl alcohol and sodium methoxide catalyst with 1.64-8.36% (w/wsubstrate). The purification process is carried out by adding 10% citric acid, and then it is filtered with filter paper and heated at 90 ° C to evaporate the remaining solvent. The product will be analyzed by determining the acid number to obtain the percent conversion of tetradecanol to N-acyl arginine. The optimum conversion percentage obtained was 91.6% at a catalyst concentration of 7 % (w/wsubstrate), a solvent ratio of 1/3 (mL/mLtetradecanol), and a substrate ratio of 1/4 (moltetradecanol/molarginine), at a temperature of 65 ° C and a time of 4 hours.

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This study provides a systematic characterization of Triassic turbidites associated black shale of the Semantan Formation, extensively distributed in the NS part of the Central Belt, Peninsular Malaysia. Sedimentary characteristics, XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis, and Rock-Eval pyrolysis analysis of the black shale from four different localities were studied. XRD analysis show that illite and kaolinite are dominant clay minerals with abundant traces of non-clay mineral such as quartz. FTIR spectra indicate the presence of aromatic carbon, aromatic C-H in plane bend, and aromatic C-H out of plane bending, OH functional group within black shale organic matter, and traces of quartz. TOC contents are highly variable (0.2-3.67, average: 1.37 wt %) and sourced from allochthonous organic material. The rock-Eval analysis shows that the black shale of the Semantan Formation comprises Type-III kerogens, which propose organic input from terrestrial high plants. UV-Vis absorption ratios E2/E4 (A254/A436) also used to distinguish between the terrestrial and autochthonous sources of organic matter.

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This research is concerned with the dynamic behaviour of steel eccentrically braced frames (EBFs) having moment-shear link. The finite element software ABAQUS is used to analyse the EBFs. An experimentally tested EBF is modelled and the comparison of its obtained result with that of the experimental test validates the modelling method. An EBF is also designed having a moment-shear link. The designed EBF is modelled based on the verified modelling method. Then, the EBF is analysed under three selected earthquake records of Tabas, Chi-Chi, and Northridge. The lateral displacements, base shears, and energy dissipations of the EBF and also moment-shear link rotations are obtained from the results and compared. It is concluded that the largest to smallest values for the lateral displacement and base shear of the EBF, and also link rotation are all related to the Tabas, Chi-Chi, and Northridge records, respectively. However, the EBF dissipates the energy of the Tabas record more than the Northridge record, while, the latter is more than the Chi-Chi record.

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Tracking accuracy is very crucial in production industries such as automotive industrial that heeds high-precision. A slight deviation might cause severe consequences in terms of squandering. The difficulties are increased when faced with the system that is naturally highly nonlinear with major uncertainties such as electro-hydraulic actuator (EHA) system. Therefore, control system is playing enormous roles to significantly improve the EHA system positioning tracking accuracy by lessening the error caused by nonlinear and uncertain characteristics. This paper introduced the conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller, as a trademark to the improved fractional-order PID (FOPID) controller. Which are both optimized by using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. To analyse the positioning tracking capability of the designed controllers, sinusoidal reference trajectory is first implemented. More attentive analyse based on multiple sinusoidal reference trajectory is conducted. Based on the output response, it is observed that the FOPID controller outperforms the PID controller.

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Over the last decades, the robotics industry has evolved exponentially, and humanoid robots cannot only be made but also, they can perform the physical functions of people. From this point of view, robotic hands are vital for many people who suffer either from an amputation or from any other disease. The main objective of this research was to classify the Electromyography (EMG) signals received from the human arm of healthy people and then carry out the manual application with a robotic hand in a virtual environment. This is especially important to understand and classify the geometric structure of the object contained in robotic handheld applications. The classification time and the precision relationship between the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and the Extreme Learning Machines (ELM) used for this classification were investigated. For this, 10 characteristics were extracted and the classifications were tested using ANN and ELM. The successful classification results obtained were compared with each other and applied to a virtual robotic hand using the V-Rep program.

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Meat processing plants as major food processing units consume a large amount of water. In this article, an experimental study of wastewater treatment collected from different meat processing plants in Egypt is demonstrated. Treatment of wastewater was investigated to remove the organic matters and pollutants to reuse the water in different applications like irrigation. Coagulation was used for the treating of wastewater from the meat processing plant. The results showed that coagulation is an efficient process for reducing pollutant in wastewater to the required permissible limits. Different coagulants and concentrations were used in the study. Optimum conditions for the coagulation process are flash mixing at 230 rpm for 1 min, flocculation for 15 min at 15 rpm, and a settling time of 1 hour. Maximum removal of organic pollutants was achieved using ferrous sulphate as coagulant and lime for pH adjustment with a dose of 300 and 400 mg/l respectively. COD and BOD removal efficiency was 92 and 95% respectively. A detailed process for treatment of wastewater from meat processing plants was proposed. An engineering design of wastewater treatment unit is developed based on laboratory and bench scale study.

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The aim of this study is to decolorize reactive dyeing effluent by of solar based photo-Fenton process coupled with lime flocculation, with an objective of reducing reagent requirement of Fenton process and improve the pH of the treated effluent. Coupling with lime flocculation has reduced forty percent of H2O2 reagent requirements of photo-Fenton process for 98% decolorization of simulated reactive dyeing wastewater after a reaction period of 60 minutes and improved effluent pH. It is clear from the literature survey that greater reagent dose of Fenton process is required to decolorize reactive dye effluents containing auxiliary chemicals compared to aqueous solution containing reactive dye alone, due to the inhibitive effect of excess chloride ion present in wastewater. Burnt clay bricks made from chemical sludge, produced during lime flocculation, by replacing 20% of brick earth have the same properties as a standard burnt clay brick and are acceptable from environmental point of view.

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The purpose of this study is to explore application of Machine Learning algorithm in the Predictive Maintenance on an Automation line. Screw height, torque and height data from Auto Gang Drive were used to train machine-learning model. Proper control of the driving process is critical for screw torque process that applied the clamp force is equally distribution. Auto Gang Driver module cycle time is 4.5 seconds, and rapid process control is required to ensure successful process. A supervised machine learning approach is applied for this study. The data were pre-processed and classified into two types of classifications, which are “passed” and “failed”. The ground truth was performed by visual inspection of the workpiece, which is a Hard Disk Drive disk clamp screw driving assembly. Two models of machine learning, Support Vector Model and Decision Tree models, were explored to compare the accuracy of the model. The result showed that Decision Tree has 100% accuracy in predicting the detection of the failure. The Decision Tree model was then deployed on the Auto Gang Driver module to monitor the screw driving process. A framework for machine learning implementation was drawn to replicate the implementation to other automation module. Future work such as monitoring of the health of the machine using data such as incoming compressed air, pressure and flow by applying machine learning can deploy predictive maintenance on the machine.

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Refrigerator and air conditioning consumes most of energy in industry or even at domestic or home applications. They also use refrigerant that harmful to the environment such as depletion of the ozone layer. This project is to fabricate a refrigerator that consume less energy and less harmful substances as refrigerant compare to the typical refrigerator. The size of the refrigerator is focused on mini sized fridge. The cooling method for this project is using the expansion of the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from the tank. The high pressure of LPG from the tank is expands by lowering the pressure using expansion device just like the vapor compression cycle in refrigerator and air conditioning. The project also has the same function as refrigerator and also have burner or stove for cooking as the final use of the LPG after the expansion. The result of the project is the project will have the same function as the domestic refrigerator that provides cooling to keep food in lower temperature. There are more ways and methods to save energy and using natural resources is one of the best method.

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Conversion of food waste into methane has been very important way to cater the energy source crisis. The application of waste to energy technologies such as the production of biogas is considered to be one of the finest options that meet the increasing global demand for energy consumption. In this project, a food waste-biogas system converter was developed to observe the methane production using Buswell approach. The methodology used are customer surveillance, house of quality in defining customers’ needs, morphological chart in defining concepts and Pugh method for selection of best design. The methane volume was taken cumulatively everyday for 15 days. Results show that biogas volume keep increasing until day 15, which was 6.852 L. The highest decrement can be observed at biogas production of day 5 while the highest increment can be observed at day 10 where it was influenced by temperature and climate change.

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The problem of combinatorial optimization in relation to the choice of location of power supplies in solving the problem of development of urban power distribution networks is considered. Two methods of placing power supplies and securing consumers for them have been developed to solve this problem. The first developed method is to place power supplies of the same size, and the second - different sizes. The fundamental difference between the created methods and the existing ones is that the proposed methods take into account all the material of the task and have specialized ways to encode possible solutions, modified crossbreeding and selection operators. Proposed methods effectively address the problem of low inheritance, topological impracticability of the found solutions, as a result of which the execution time was significantly reduced and the accuracy of calculations increased. In the developed methods the absence of the account of restrictions on placement of new power supplies which has allowed to solve a problem of application of methods for a narrow range of tasks is realized. A comparative analysis of the results obtained by placing power supplies of the same size and known methods was performed, and it was found that the developed method works faster than known methods. It is shown that the proposed approach provides a stable convergence of the search process for an acceptable number of steps without artificially limiting the search space and the use of additional expert information on the feasibility of possible solutions. The obtained results allow to offer effective methods for improving the quality of decisions made on the choice of location of power supply facilities in the design of urban electricity.

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In this work, the iterative schemes Taylor order-two (TO2) and Implicit Milstein with Diagonal Brownian (IMDB) are employed to provide a numerical solution to both the deterministic and stochastic point kinetics equations with feedback effects. The different numerical experiments are performed with 500 Brownian motions, their results are compared with the values reported in the literature, these comparisons showed how the proposed schemes produce good approximations in the calculation of the expected values for neutron density and reactivity, determining the time to the peak where the maximum in neutron density occurs with different step external reactivities for a reactor with feedback effects.

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Red mud is solid waste received in the process of obtaining alumina by the Bayer method and is a potentially valuable secondary resource. Currently, the global scientific community is faced with the task of developing environmentally friendly technologies for red mud recycling. Numerous publications discuss both the methods of extracting valuable metals (aluminium, iron, titanium, scandium, rare earth elements), and the use of red mud in building; cement, mineral wool, ceramics manufacturing, etc. This paper summarizes the results of a systematic review of the researches in one specific application area - the extraction of valuable elements (Fe, Al, Na, Ti) from red mud. A total of 162 scientific publications were examined, and 46 of them have been analyzed in the paper. The analysis showed that, depending on the composition of the processed bauxite and the technological scheme for alumina producing, the content of iron oxide (Fe2O3) varies from 7 to 70% by mass, aluminium oxide (Al2O3) - from 2 to 33% by mass, titanium oxide (TiO2 ) from 2.5 to 22% by mass, sodium oxide (Na2O) to 12.5% by mass. The achieved maximum percentage of iron extraction is 97.5%, aluminium - 89.7%, sodium - 96.4%, titanium - 97%. In conclusion, it should be noted that almost all studies have been carried out only in the laboratory conditions. Technological proposals for the integrated processing of red mud are highlighted as the most effective, including the processes of reduction melting, magnetic separation, leaching with mineral (HCl, H2SO4, HNO3) and organic (H2C2O4) acids. Current researches propose to use microwave, ultrasonic radiation, or plasma technologies in recycling. Considering the results and conclusion in the publications observed it seems difficult to conclude about the cost-benefit methods. As a result of the work, a systematizing table of the methods for extracting Fe, Al, Na, Ti from red mud has been proposed. The authors have made some suggestions on the criteria of a technology that would have environmental, energy and economic benefits.

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The revised version of IS 802(Part-1/Sec-1) code was released in 2015. In the code cycle between 1995&2015, the design wind load calculations on the Transmission Line (TL) Tower have been modified. Similarly changes for computation of wind loads with cyclonic load factor (k4 factor) have been advised in the third revised (IS 875-2015) Wind loading code provisions in the Wind Zone – 5(coastal area) of India. The number values 1.00, 1.15 and 1.30 of k4 factor are attributed to the safety of the structures against the unprecedented higher gale speeds during the cyclones. This factor was not reflected in the IS 802 -2015 code provisions. Hence a comparative analysis with Gust factor method was utilized in STAAD Pro Connet V22 version Programme to illustrate the design specifications of 230 kV double Circuit 40 M high with 200 m span Transmission Line (TL) tower in Wind zone 5 of India with IS 802-2015 version and IS 875-2015 code provisions. The design specifications include top deflection, axial force in the bottom profile leg, Base Shear Force and Base Bending moments have obtained 37%, 33%, 35%and 46% more when k4 factor is 1.00. Similarly, 56%, 56%, 58% and 78% higher when k4 factor is 1.15 finally the above parameters have increased by 79%, 83%, 88%, and 115% when k4 factor value 1.30 is applied with IS 875-2015 version. With the above inferences, the code provisions of IS 802 -2015 version cannot proportionate with mandatory recommendations of IS 875-2015 provisions in Wind zone -5 of India. Hence the provisions of k4 factor may be admitted in IS 802 -2015 code for adequate safety of TL towers in (Coastal area) Wind zone-5 of India.

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Passenger ship evacuation is a process to mobilize the passenger onboard under the guidance of ship’s crew to an assembly area before abandon ship. Accidents involving passenger ships such as MS Estonia and Herald of Free Enterprise caused major losses to property and lives. This led to the introduction of a series of guidelines on the evacuation of passengers for high-speed passenger craft by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Regulation 21.1.4 of Chapter III SOLAS requires that all survival craft shall be capable of being launched with their full complement of persons within 30 minutes from the time the abandon ship signal is given, and all the passengers have been mustered with lifejackets donned. The maximum allowable passenger ship evacuation is about 60-80 minutes. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors and standards related to passenger ship evacuation and to determine the evacuation time of vessels under the scope of this study. In this study, Pathfinder Thunderhead software is used to create and run a simulation on ship evacuation. This software is meant to simulate evacuation in buildings. However, the software was used to simulate the evacuation of passengers from passenger vessels Laguna Redang P10 and Laguna Redang P9 that are used to transport passengers from Kuala Terengganu to Redang Island and return. Results of the simulations shown that the evacuation time for Laguna Redang P10 and Laguna Redang P9 is 6 minutes 38 seconds and 6 minutes 03 seconds respectively. These results complied with the standard performance set by IMO. As a conclusion, Laguna Redang P10 and Laguna Redang P9 complied with IMO’s standard on passenger evacuation time.

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The effect of modified sugar palm fiber addition on mechanical properties and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis of bioplastic from avocado seed starch with plasticizer glycerol were studied. Mechanical properties of bioplastic were determined by tensile strengths, elongation at break, and modulus young. Bioplastic manufacturing process is carried out by solution casting technique. Fiber serves as filler in bioplastic, in this research, the filler that was used was modified sugar palm fiber. Modified sugar palm fiber was soaked in 5% (w/v) NaOH to lose the lignin contents. Variations of avocado seed starch and modified sugar palm fiber composition ratio were 6:4, 7:3 and 8:2 (w/w) and variations of glycerol addition were 0.1; 0.2; 0.3; 0.4 (v/w). From the analysis conducted on the mechanical properties, can be found that the best composition ratio between avocado seed starch and modified sugar palm fiber was 6:4 (w/w), the best variation of glycerol addition was 0.1 (v/w), with a tensile strength 3.46 MPa, elongation at break 5.90%, and modulus young 63.45 MPa. From the result of FT-IR analysis indicated O-H group, C-H group, C=O group, and C-O group on bioplastics.

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The article deals with the main problems of a modern industrial technology for producing calcinated petroleum coke from green coke in a tubular rotary kiln. A high quality calcinated coke is obviously necessary both for metallurgy and chemical industry, hence its properties should meet the corresponding high requirements. Petroleum coke is a nice alternative to anthracite coke. Since the total volume of oil refining in the world is high, petcoke production has a stable raw material base, unlike anthracite, which deposits are being gradually depleted. Physical and chemical properties of petcoke and coal coke are similar in many aspects, but a proper anthracite coke sometimes demonstrates better and more stable characteristics compared to ordinary petroleum coke. Moderate or low quality of a definite batch of petroleum coke often limits its possible areas of application. The reason is usually a non-optimal calcination procedure that results in improper internal structure and compositional non-homogenity of a batch of commercial petroleum coke. Improving the situation is necessary for many reasons. Obtaining the high-quality coke for electrodes production is important for aluminium industry. Calcination is the main technological stage where composition homogeneity and structure peculiarities of a definite coke are formed. To meet the technology requirements one should determine the key parameters of calcination process and establish a proper relationship between the regulated parameters and the product quality indicators.

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During the last few years, slope stabilization by means of anchors supported on concrete blocks has increased substantially in Colombia. The implementation of these systems has generated doubts regarding the erosion problems presented in the areas not covered by the support surfaces. To counteract this problem, some designers have proposed the use of single torsional meshes supported by anchors, with the purpose of guaranteeing that the uncovered zones remain confined during the life of the structure, thus avoiding local slope failures. For this research, we evaluated, by means of finite element modeling, the influence of the use of single torsional mesh on the factor of safety and the distribution of forces on the face of the slope when having different dimensions of support surfaces. It was found that the use of the single torsional mesh does not influence the factor of safety, and that its use does not guarantee the confinement of the soil in the areas not covered by the bearing surfaces.

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Currently, complex compounds of lanthanide carbonates remain poorly understood, but this information is of no small importance for research in various fields of science. Processing of dumps of phosphogypsum to produce new marketable products and reducing their total amount is achievable by the carbonate conversion method. At the moment, the average level of beneficial use of phosphogypsum - waste processing apatite or phosphorite raw materials is not more than 2.0%. Moreover, the content in phosphogypsum of valuable components, for example, compounds of rare-earth metals, is comparable with the mass fraction of REE oxides in ores of natural deposits. Targeted extraction of rare earth metals from phosphogypsum will not lead to an improvement in the environmental situation, since the volume of the blade and its composition changes little. To reduce the amount of dump phosphogypsum can lead to its processing on a number of other commercial products. Of particular interest are methods for the conversion of phosphogypsum to produce ammonium or sodium sulfate and commercial calcium carbonate. Mathematical modelling showed the fundamental possibility of such an approach with the extraction of REEs in the form of carbonate complexes in solution by the reaction The presence of rare-earth metals in the chalk obtained by carbonate processing indicates kinetic difficulties in the dissolution of rare-earth phosphates. It should be noted that for both light lanthanides and heavy lanthanides, the degree of extraction into solution is consistent with the Gibbs energy changes calculated in this work. A lower value of Gibbs energy corresponds to a larger value of the degree of extraction (dependences for Nd and Eu); comparable Gibbs energies for holmium and europium lead to a small difference in the degree of extraction into solution for these elements. For heavy REM, there is a greater, compared with light, extraction into the solution, which can be explained by both thermodynamic and kinetic factors and requires separate experimental and theoretical studies.

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The residential and commercial construction demand is on rise worldwide. This development has introduced more critical engineering and architectural applications and innovations. Soft story buildings or towers are a few common examples of these applications. This study presents an inclusive investigation to study the effect of geometric configuration on the seismic response of vertically regular and irregular reinforced concrete frame structures. The main geometric factors will be slenderness ratio, defined as height to width ratio of the structure, and plan aspect ratio, defined as length to width ratio of the structure. The irregular frames will be introduced with the common real life construction feature known as vertical structural irregularities specifically soft story frame cases. The location of irregularity will vary in three locations in the vertical plane viz. bottom, middle and top. The objective of the investigation is to estimate the seismic demand for each slenderness and plan aspect geometric ratio. The variation in geometric ratios involve five slenderness ratios as 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3 as well as five plan aspect ratios as 1.2, 2.4, 3.6, 4.8 and 6. Response spectrum analysis is undertaken for the seismic response interpretation using STAAD Pro software employing finite element technique. The results indicate that the increase of regular frame slenderness leads to slight increase in shear response but higher displacements and drift. The increase in plan aspect ratio increases the frames shear response significantly with almost convergent displacements. Also the regular and irregular frames of smaller slender ratios exhibit higher lower-story displacements and drifts than the frames with higher slender ratios. The bottom irregular frames appear to be more vulnerable as compared to frames having irregularity at middle and top level.

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