1,145 research outputs found
Oral History of Clarence Dung Taylor
No full textOral History of Clarence Dung Taylor, born in 1968 in Vung Tau, Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother and an American father of African and Indian ancestry. He was 7 years old at the end of the Vietnam-American War and he describes how difficult life became for an Amerasian child and his mother under the new regime. They left Vietnam when he was 13 years old (1981) under the Orderly Departure Program and arrived in upstate New York and assisted by the Lutheran Immigration Refugee Services (LIRS). He reconnected with his father when he was 16 years old. He became an Engineer and moved to Boston for some time before moving to Orange County, California where he continues to work on his business, D&D Entertainment. He is also a radio show host on Vietnam California Radio.Recorded Digitall
Coalition Formation and Operation in Virtual Organisations
No full textThe concept of Virtual Organisations (VOs) or Virtual Enterprises (VEs) is rapidly emerging as an important topic in many areas of computing including e-commerce, grid computing and the semantic Web. One reason for this interest is that VOs provide a means of bringing together a number of autonomous stakeholders in a dynamic fashion in order to address a specific problem or niche. These agents then work together for some period of time and then disband when it is deemed appropriate to do so. There are, however, many technical, social and economic issues associated with this VO lifecycle (i.e. creation, operation, maintenance and dissolution) that need to be addressed before VOs can be considered to be practicable. While previous technical work on VOs has concentrated on providing tools to support different aspects of the VO lifecycle, comparatively little work has focused on the mechanisms for automated VO creation, operation and maintenance. To address this shortcoming, this research aims to study and design mechanisms for the VO creation, operation and maintenance phases. In this thesis, our approach is to use combinatorial auctions and coalition formation mechanisms. In particular, novel algorithms for clearing multi-unit single-item and multi-unit combinatorial auctions have been developed as a means of tackling VO creation and one part of VO maintenance. A novel algorithm for coalition structure generation has also been developed to address VO operation and another part of VO maintenance
LinkMind: Link Optimization in Swarming Mobile Sensor Networks
No full textA swarming mobile sensor network is comprised of a swarm of wirelessly connected mobile robots equipped with various sensors. Such a network can be applied in an uncertain environment for services such as cooperative navigation and exploration, object identification and information gathering. One of the most advantageous properties of the swarming wireless sensor network is that mobile nodes can work cooperatively to organize an ad-hoc network and optimize the network link capacity to maximize the transmission of gathered data from a source to a target. This paper describes a new method of link optimization of swarming mobile sensor networks. The new method is based on combination of the artificial potential force guaranteeing connectivities of the mobile sensor nodes and the max-flow min-cut theorem of graph theory ensuring optimization of the network link capacity. The developed algorithm is demonstrated and evaluated in simulation
Vo Trung Dung : Vietnam et Etats-Unis - une nouvelle ère stratégique ?
No full text[ndlr] A la suite de la visite historique du Secrétaire général du PCV (Nguyen Phu Trong) à la Maison Blanche, lire l'analyse de Vo Trung Dung. Les relations entre Hanoi et Washington, ennemis d’hier, entrent dans une nouvelle ère. Elle a débuté officiellement au lendemain de la visite d’Etat qualifiée d’historique du secrétaire général du parti communiste vietnamien Nguyen Phu Trong à Washington, le 7 juillet dernier. Barak Obama l’a reçu dans le bureau ovale de la Maison Blanche comme un ch..
Advanced Control of the Dynamic Voltage Restorer for Mitigating Voltage Sags in Power Systems
No full textThe paper presents a vector control with two cascaded loops to improve the properties of Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) to minimize Voltage Sags on the grid. Thereby, a vector controlled structure was built on the rotating dq-coordinate system with the combination of voltage control and the current control. The proposed DVR control method is modelled using MATLAB-Simulink. It is tested using balanced/unbalanced voltage sags as well as fluctuant and distorted voltages. As a result, by using this controlling method, the dynamic characteristics of the system have been improved significantly. The system performed with higher accuracy, faster response and lower distortion in the voltage sags compensation. The paper presents real time experimental results to verify the performance of the proposed method in real environments
What Makes Cow-Dung Stabilised Earthen Block Water-Resistant?
No full textThe water-resistance of cow-dung has made it a widely used stabiliser in traditional earthen structures in several Asian and African countries. Multiple studies have shown an improvement in water-resistance with the addition of cow-dung, but none provides insight into this behaviour. The present study investigates the water-resistance behaviour of cow-dung stabilised earthen blocks through an extensive experimental programme to identify and characterise the components of cow-dung responsible for its water-resistance. Fresh cow-dung was collected and separated into fibres (>63 μm), medium-sized microbial aggregates (1-63 μm) and small-sized microbial aggregates (0.5-7 μm). Each component was mixed with soil and samples were prepared at different water contents (optimum water content corresponding to the highest dry density and water content higher than optimum) and compacted with 2.5 MPa force to prepare compressed blocks. The water-resistance of these blocks was evaluated through the immersion and modified drip/rain test. It was found that the small-sized microbial aggregates are almost entirely responsible for water-resistance behaviour of cow-dung stabilised earthen blocks. Small-sized microbial aggregates were further characterised by gas chromatography, mercury intrusion porosimetry, N2- BET surface area, zeta potential measurement and electron microscopy. The results indicate that the small-sized microbial aggregates are composed of clay-sized negatively charged particles that are rich in fatty acids. The hydrophobicity of these particles is hypothesised to be responsible for water-resistance behaviour. These insights are further used to produce stabilised blocks that performed at least 30 times better than the unstabilised blocks in both water-resistance tests. The study concludes with practical recommendations for the use of wet cow-dung over dry cow-dung and a reduction of fibre content to increase the water-resistance of earthen blocks.Materials and EnvironmentGeo-engineeringChemE/Product and Process EngineeringBT/Environmental BiotechnologySpace & Typ
Dung beetle community composition data
No full textData was collected using either dung-baited pitfall traps or flight interception traps. Each row represents one trap, with the author/study information, name of study site, sampling period, trap type and habitat type. Dung beetle species and their abundances are listed. See metadata.csv for more details
Effect of pretreated cow dung fiber on rheological and fatigue properties of asphalt binder
No full textCow dung waste has caused severe environmental pollution and public health issues in China. In this study, the cow dung residues were used as a cheap renewable fiber to modify asphalt binder, providing a new solution for the proper disposal of cow dung waste. Three cow dung fibers with two lengths were prepared using different treatments, including original cow dung fiber (CDF), surface treatments of cow dung fiber (STCDF) and alkali treatments of cow dung fiber (ATCDF). The physicochemical properties of CDF, STCDF and ATCDF were analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and thermogravimetry (TG). The viscidity, rheological properties and fatigue characteristics of CDF modified asphalt binders (CDFMA) were evaluated using Brookfield viscometer and dynamic shear rheometer. The results showed that the rough surfaces of STCDF and ATCDF improved their thermal stability. STCDF and ATCDF enhanced the resistance to permanent deformation under high temperature conditions of modified asphalt binder. STCDF modified asphalt binders exhibited the best viscosity and rheological performance. The increase of fiber length was positively correlated with the high temperature deformation resistance of CDFMA. CDF, STCDF and ATCDF inhibited fatigue cracking of modified asphalt binders compared to base asphalt binders. ATCDF modified asphalt binders exhibited higher fatigue life and smaller crack under the same cyclic loading. The increase in fiber length had a slight improvement on the fatigue resistance of modified asphalt binders.</p
Letter concerning dung samples
No full textA letter from Superintendent Chester A. Author to Dr. Robert Samuels concerning dung samples from the Nug House at Mesa Verde. The letter is followed by a various memorandum and a report on the findings of the findings from the samples
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