Faults and disturbances in chemical process plants provide great challenges to maintenance staff in terms of the time and expenditure spent on trying to locate the root causes. Due to the complex connection of units within any plant and the numerous loops that may be present, the process of managing these faults is a large task and it is a challenge to pin-point exactly the location of the root...

We explore the effects of foreign aid on FDI in a large number of aid-recipient countries using data since the mid-1980s. We control for the various determinants of FDI and we specifically include the interplay of aid with social cohesion and the interplay of aid with human capital. The empirical results from dynamic GMM estimations indicate that the independent impact of aid on FDI is negative...

In Spectrally Efficient Frequency Division Multiplexing (SEFDM) systems the input data stream is divided into several adjacent subchannels where the distance of the subchannels is less than that of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems. Since the subcarriers are not orthogonal in SEFDM systems, they lead to interference at the receiver side. In this paper, an iterative metho...

This study, examines the roles of macroeconomic uncertainty, political risk, as well as host country institutions, in affecting FDI inflows into African economies. The past few decades have witnessed a surge of FDI inflows to developing regions. However, FDI inflows to Africa still remain small when compared to other developing regions. What characteristics does Africa exhibit that deter FDI in...

In the shadow of the energy crisis and environmental degradation, energy intensity is a hot topic in academic circles in China. The energy intensity distribution map of China indicates the fairly large geographic disparities globally and clustering locally in some areas, ascending from the southeast regions to the northwest provinces. Although energy intensity and its determinants vary from pla...

The use of efficient signal processing tools (SPTs) to extract proper indices for the fault detection in induction motors (IMs) is the essential part of any fault recognition procedure. The 2nd part of this two-part paper is, in turn, divided into two parts. Part two covers the signal processing techniques which can be applied to non-stationary conditions. In this paper, all utilized SPTs for n...

In order to effectively extract the characteristics of nonstationary vibration signals from hydropower units under noise interference, an adaptive stochastic resonance and Fourier decomposition method (FDM) based on genetic algorithm (GA) are proposed in this paper. Firstly, GA is used optimize parameters so that signal can reach optimal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) be improved. Secondly, FDM pr...

a new fault tolerant controller (ftc) has been presented in this research by integrating a fault detection and diagnosis (fdd) mechanism in a nonlinear model predictive controller framework. the proposed fdd utilizes a multi-sensor data fusion (msdf) methodology to enhance its reliability and estimation accuracy. an augmented state-vector model is developed to incorporate the occurred sensor fa...

Fabrication of Functionally Graded Parts Longmei Li, Q. Sun, C. Bellehumeur , and P. Gu 2 Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, CANADA Abstract Solid Freeform Fabrication technologies have potential to manufacture parts with locally controlled properties (LCP), which would all...

In this paper we present the latest developments in the design, fabrication and application of single and arrays of biomimetic hair flow-sensors towards high-resolution air-flow imaging. Redesigning the electrode system of the hair sensor (using SOI wafer technology) has led to improve the detection limit down to 1 mm/s air-flow amplitude using 3 kHz measurement bandwidth. SOI technology facili...