A STEP AP224 agent-based early manufacturability assessment environment using XML

Early design assessment activities have a significant impact on reducing the cost of manufacture. The efficient utilisation of the product development time and the level of coordination of the early design activities between the major stakeholders are becoming key factors for success in manufacturing today. The paper reports on a new distributed early design manufacturability assessment methodology using collaborative autonomous agents. A product data model compliant with STEP AP224 and corresponding process and facility data models are proposed to support the decision-making process. XML was used as a medium for exchange of requests and information between design, manufacturing, and facility planning agents. A prototype Web-enabled system for rapid product manufacturability assessment in the extended enterprise has been developed using distributed multi-agent CORBA objects. The reported research is a step towards the development of a generic prototype tool for collaborative design evaluation and rapid assessment of the manufacturing feasibility and resource availability at different stages of the product development process.     

Numerical Investigation of Forced Convection Nonequilibrium Effects on Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media

A numerical investigation is performed to analyze the coupled heat and mass transfer in porous media with a strong exothermic reaction. Similar problems have received great attention due to their relevance in a wide variety of engineering applications, such as heat pipes, drying technologies, nuclear reactors, catalytic reactors, environmentally clean utilization of energy, and many others. The momentum transfer in the porous substrate is modeled with the Darcy–Brinkman–Forchheimer law, while the temperature and concentration fields are obtained subsequently from the energy and diffusion equations. The considered configuration consists of a cylindrical duct where a first-order reaction is supposed to occur. The governing equations are solved by using the finite-volume method. The SIMPLER algorithm is applied to solve the momentum and continuity equations. The power-law scheme is used to model the interaction between convection and diffusion terms. The effect of the main governing parameters, such as permeability, aspect ratio, solid-to-fluid conductivity ratio, Reynolds number, Biot number, and the modified Frank-Kamenetskii number, are studied. The comparison with previously published work shows excellent agreement.     

Fourth-order accurate difference schemes for solving Benjamin–Bona–Mahony–Burgers (BBMB) equation

Engineering with Computers - In this paper, two high-order difference schemes for the Benjamin–Bona–Mahony–Burgers (BBMB) equation are proposed. The first scheme is two level and...     

Thermodynamic properties of the benzene and n-heptane system at elevated temperatures

The total vapour pressure and the composition of the liquid and vapour phases of the benzene and n-heptane system have been experimentally determined under equilibrium conditions at 110, 125, 140, 155, 170, 185, 200 and 215 °C. The corresponding composition of the vapour phase was also estimated using an expression for the liquid phase activity coefficient as a function of the composition of the liquid phase. Several expressions were compared and it has been found that the three-constant Redlich and Kister equation gave the best fit of the experimental vapour pressure data than the other equations. Comparison between the calculated and measured vapour compositions has shown a discrepancy of y_meas,—y_calc. of the order of 0.02 mol fraction or 10 times the experimental tolerance. Nevertheless, the experimental values were reasonably thermodynamically consistent. The low values of the liquid phase activity coefficients indicated that the behaviour of this particular system was not far from ideality. Also, it was found that the degree of non-ideality decreased with the increase in temperature. The behaviour of the vapour phase was shown also to be nearly ideal. The excess Gibbs free energy of mixing was calculated, and it was found to be non-symmetrical with mole fraction. On increasing the temperature of the system, the liquid composition corresponding to the maximum G^E tended to shift to a higher benzene concentration, whilst at a fixed liquid composition, G^E initially decreased and then remained stationary or increased again. This was thought to be due to differences in the molar volumes of the two components.     

Smart-Fragile Authentication Scheme for Robust Detecting of Tampering Attacks on English Text

Content authentication, integrity verification, and tampering detection of digital content exchanged via the internet have been used to address a major concern in information and communication technology. In this paper, a text zero-watermarking approach known as Smart-Fragile Approach based on Soft Computing and Digital Watermarking (SFASCDW) is proposed for content authentication and tampering detection of English text. A first-level order of alphanumeric mechanism, based on hidden Markov model, is integrated with digital zero-watermarking techniques to improve the watermark robustness of the proposed approach. The researcher uses the first-level order and alphanumeric mechanism of Markov model as a soft computing technique to analyze English text. Moreover, he extracts the features of the interrelationship among the contexts of the text, utilizes the extracted features as watermark information, and validates it later with the studied English text to detect any tampering. SFASCDW has been implemented using PHP with VS code IDE. The robustness, effectiveness, and applicability of SFASCDW are proved with experiments involving four datasets of various lengths in random locations using the three common attacks, namely insertion, reorder, and deletion. The SFASCDW was found to be effective and could be applicable in detecting any possible tampering.     

A systematic literature review of machine learning applications in IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of interconnected smart objects having capabilities that collectively form an ecosystem and enable the delivery of smart services to users. The IoT is providing several benefits into people's lives through the environment. The various applications that are run in the IoT environment offer facilities and services. The most crucial services provided by IoT applications are quick decision for efficient management. Recently, machine learning (ML) techniques have been successfully used to maximize the potential of IoT systems. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature on the integration of ML methods in the IoT. The challenges of IoT systems are split into two categories: fundamental operation and performance. We also look at how ML is assisting in the resolution of fundamental system operation challenges such as security, big data, clustering, routing, and data aggregation.     

Viscosity of methanol + benzene mixtures

The viscosity of pure methanol and benzene have been determined at 35, 40, 45, 50 and 55°C in a Canon—Fenske viscometer. Values of the viscosity coefficients were fitted to De Guzman's equation, i.e. where it was shown that both A and E_visc for the two compounds are functions of temperature. The viscosity of 10 different concentration levels of methanol + benzene mixtures have also been measured at 35, 40 and 45°C. Points of maximum and minimum viscosities were shown to exist, the compositions of which vary with temperature. Estimates of the viscosity coefficients of methanol + benzene mixtures at 100, 120, 160 and 200°C have been made from the vapour-liquid equilibrium data of this system. It was found that points of minimum viscosity still exist while points of maximum viscosity have disappeared. These phenomena are discussed in terms of the dissociation of methanol “polymers” and the formation of benzene + methanol complexes.     

Thermodynamic properties of the n-hexane and benzene system at elevated temperatures

The total vapour pressure and the composition of the liquid of the n-hexane and benzene mixtures have been measured under equilibrium conditions at 90, 110, 130, 150, 170 and 190°C. The corresponding vapour phase compositions were estimated using an expression of the liquid phase activity coefficient as a function of composition of the liquid phase. Several expressions were compared and the three-constant Redlich and Kister equation was found to give the best fit to the experimental vapour pressure data. The virial equation of state as well as a modified Redlich and Kwong equation were used to express the deviation of the vapour phase from the ideal. Results were compared and the discrepancy was found to be within the experimental tolerance. The low values of the liquid phase activity coefficients indicated that the behaviour of this particular system was not far from ideal. Also, it was found that the degree of deviation from the ideal decreased with the increase in temperature. The excess Gibbs free energy of mixing was calculated and it was found to be non-symmetrical with liquid composition. On increasing the temperature of the system, the liquid composition corresponding to the maximum G^E tended to shift to a lower n-hexane concentration, while at fixed liquid composition, G^E initially decreased and then remained stationary or increased again. This was thought to be due to differences in the molar volumes of the two components.     

Viscosity of organic liquids at elevated temperatures and the corresponding vapour pressures

This work involved the measurement of the viscosities of pure organic liquids at temperatures ranging from 353.15 K to 463.15 K and at the corresponding vapour pressures. A rolling ball viscometer was used where considerable emphasis was given to achieve simplicity and rapidity in obtaining results, without sacrificing the accuracy. Considering the forces affecting the motion of the ball inside the viscometer tube, an equation for the calibration of the viscometer at the same working temperature was derived. The constants of this equation were determined using benzene as the reference liquid, and the dependency of the constants on the temperature was also established. Comparing the derived equation with published ones demonstrated its adequacy in both the streamline and transition flow conditions. The liquids studied were toluene, methanol and n-hexane. In some cases, the results compared reasonably well with published data while in others, deviations of up to 15% were found. Nine equations were tested with the experimental results for the prediction of the viscosity of these liquids. It was found that the 3-constant Agrawal and Thodos empirical equation gave the least average deviation.     

Phase equilibria calculations with a modified redlich-kwong equation of state

A modified Redlich-Kwong equation of state for pure substances in the liquid-vapour coexisting phase region is suggested in which the fugacity coefficients of the two phases are equated and the resulting relationship is solved by assuming ω_b to be temperature dependent while ω_a remains constant. A generalised correlation for ω_b is found with the acentric factor as a parameter. This approach is compared with the other two possible modifications, i.e. when ω_a is a funtion of temperature while ω_b is constant, and when both ω_a and ω_b are temperature dependent. Comparison revealed the excellent attainment of the equilibrium conditions when the proposed method is applied. Predicted volumetric properties and isothermal enthalpy departures of the liquid and vapour as well as the saturation vapour pressures are also compared which reveal the adequacy of the new modification. With the application of the mixing rules, the proposed modified equation is successfully applied to VLE calculations for binary mixtures of different complexities.