1,720,971 research outputs found
Flow distribution and mixing performance of a novel multichannel heat exchanger reactor
Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.A multi-functional heat exchanger reactor (HEX) with 16 mini channels in parallel is designed, fabricated and tested. Two fluids are divided into 16 channels through distributor, then contacted at T-mixers, and finally collected. Both distributor and collector are designed following the arborescent shape. Expected advantage of using this mini HEX reactor include but not confined to: compact size, effective and fast mixing, low pressure drop, efficient and controlled heat remove/supply, easy numbering-up potential, safety, etc.
The internal fluid body is numerically analyzed using CFD approach (ANSYS Fluent) to test the flow distribution uniformity. Results show that for Reynolds number ranging from 8 to 95, good distribution uniformity (maldistribution less than 1.5 %) can be obtained. To test the mixing performance of the mini HEX reactor, Iodide-iodine reaction (Villermaux-Dushman) has been carried out. Experimental results show a good mixing at molecule scale as the flow rate increases and impingement enhanced. The design of multichannel reactor with arborescent distributing and collecting networks makes possible the numbering-up of multiple channels and thus the application of mini reactor in industry.dc201
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Optimal energy-efficiency retrofit and maintenance planning for existing buildings considering green building policy compliance
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017.Reducing global energy consumption is a common challenge faced by the human race due to the energy shortage and growing energy demands. The building sector bears a large responsibility for the total energy consumption throughout the world. In particular, it was concluded that existing buildings, which are usually old and energy-inefficient, are the main reason for the high energy consumption of the building sector, in view of the low replacement rate (about 1%-3% per year) of existing buildings by new energy-efficient buildings. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings is a feasible and effective way to reduce energy consumption and mitigate the environmental impact of the building sector. The high energy intensity and requirements of a green building policy are the main motivation of this study, which focuses on finding cost-effective solutions to green building retrofit and maintenance planning to reduce energy consumption and ensure policy compliance. As about 50% of the total energy usage of a general building is caused by its envelope system, this study first proposes a multi-objective optimization approach for building envelope retrofit planning in Chapter 2. The purpose is to maximize the energy savings and economic benefits of an investment by improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings with the optimal retrofit plans obtained from the proposed approach. In the model formulation, important indicators for decision makers to evaluate an investment, including energy savings, net present value and the payback period, are taken into consideration. In addition, a photovoltaic (PV) power supply system is considered to reduce the energy demand of buildings because of the adequate solar resource in South Africa. The performance degradation of the PV system and corresponding maintenance cost are built into the optimization process for an accurate estimation of the energy savings and payback period of the investment so that decision makers are able to make informed decisions. The proposed model also gives decision makers a convenient way to interact with the optimization process to obtain a desired optimal retrofit plan according to their preferences over different objectives. In addition to the envelope system, the indoor systems of a general building also account for a large proportion of the total energy demand of a building. In the literature, research related to building retrofit planning methods aiming at saving energy examines either the indoor appliances or the envelope components. No study on systematic retrofit plan for the whole building, including both the envelope system and the indoor systems, has been reported so far. In addition, a systematic whole-building retrofit plan taking into account the green building policy, which in South Africa is the energy performance certificate (EPC) rating system, is urgently needed to help decision makers to ensure that the retrofit is financially beneficial and the resulting building complies with the green building policy requirements. This has not been investigated in the literature. Therefore, Chapter 4 of this thesis fills the above-mentioned gaps and presents a model that can determine an optimal retrofit plan for the whole building, considering both the envelope system and indoor systems, aiming at maximizing energy savings in the most cost-effective way and achieving a good rating from the EPC rating system to comply with the green building policy in South Africa. As reaching the best energy level from the EPC rating system for a building usually requires a high amount of investment, resulting in a long payback period, which is not attractive for decision makers in view of the vulnerable economic situation of South Africa, the proposed model treats the retrofit plan as a multi-year project, improving efficiency targets in consecutive years. That is to say, the model breaks down the once-off long-term project into smaller projects over multiple financial years with shorter payback periods. In that way, the financial concerns of the investors are alleviated. In addition, a tax incentive program to encourage energy saving investments in South Africa is considered in the optimization problem to explore the economic benefits of the retrofit projects fully. Considering both the envelope system and indoor systems, many systems and items that can be retrofitted and massive retrofit options available for them result in a large number of discrete decision variables for the optimization problem. The inherent non-linearity and multi-objective nature of the optimization problem and other factors such as the requirements of the EPC system make it difficult to solve the building retrofit problem. The complexity of the problem is further increased when the target buildings have many floors. In addition, there is a large number of parameters that need to be obtained in the building retrofit optimization problem. This requires a detailed energy audit of the buildings to be retrofitted, which is an expensive bottom-up modeling exercise. To address these challenges, two simplified methods to reduce the complexity of finding the optimal whole-building retrofit plans are proposed in Chapter 4. Lastly, an optimal maintenance planning strategy is presented in Chapter 5 to ensure the sustainability of the retrofit. It is natural that the performance of all the retrofitted items will degrade over time and consequently the energy savings achieved by the retrofit will diminish. The maintenance plan is therefore studied to restore the energy performance of the buildings after retrofit in a cost-effective way. Maintenance planning for the indoor systems is not considered in this study because it has been thoroughly investigated in the literature. In addition, a maintenance plan for the PV system involved in the retrofit of this study is investigated in Chapter 2.Electrical, Electronic and Computer EngineeringPhDUnrestricte
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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