In this study, an integrated structure of the air separation unit, natural gas liquids recovery equipped with nitrogen removal unit is developed. In this regard, advanced exergy and exergoeconomic analyses are used to examine the irreversibility, possible improvements and the cost of the inefficiencies of the process. The exergy analysis presents information on the origin of the irreversibility...

The United States and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003 with the declared intention of removing Saddam Hussein’s regime. Although it was determined after the war that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD), removing a regime believed to be in possession of WMD raises the possibility that the post-9/11 US security policy is more willing than previously believed to tolerate the risk...

This paper reviews the role of standardization and standards for the various phases of the innovation process ranging from the supply side, i.e. research, to the demand side, i.e. public procurement. In addition, the interrelation between standards and intellectual property rights, especially patents, is addressed. So far, standards have only rarely been considered in policy programmes to promo...

In 2008, approximately 11 million maritime containers passed through U.S. seaports (U.S. Department of Homeland Security [DHS], 2010). These containers carried 90 percent of international commerce moving in and out of the United States, representing $500 billion in U.S. trade from 178,000 foreign businesses (Montaigne, 2004). Maritime trade forms the economic circulatory system of our national ...

T he tragic events of September 11 underscored beyond a shadow of doubt that America is no longer invulnerable to large-scale terrorist attack, and the investigations since conducted into the nature of the threat have unveiled essentially limitless possibilities for more to come. The potential introduction of weapons of mass destruction into such a scenario only furthers the ability of a small ...

Blade-type error, edge collapse cutaway, micro missing, four kinds of defect for RCF-type PCB mill production are deeply analyzed and their preventions measures are given detailed according to the author’s many year’s practice. These measures have been practiced and achieved good results. The research results can increase pass rate of such tools in the production and reduce production costs obv...

In this global era, critical thinking has become crucial for educators and learners. The purpose of this research was to explore how modifying a dialogical strategy in asynchronous online discussion forums impacted Chinese learners’ critical thinking. Due to the Chinese cultural impact of social harmony, the majority of learners tend to maintain silent and avoid critical discussions in instruct...

We describe classes of existentially closed ordered difference fields and rings. We show an Ax-Kochen type result for a class of valued ordered difference fields. 1. Existentially closed real-closed difference fields. In the first part of this paper we will consider on one hand difference totally ordered fields, namely totally ordered fields with a distinguished automorphism σ and on the other ...