Electro-Mechanical Engineering

The values of electroencephalography (EEG) in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) during therapeutic hypothermia (TH) are still uncertain. The aim of this study is to detect EEG background, the prevalence of seizures during cooling, and to determine different EEG patterns that can predict brain injury in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Thirty-nine newborns with HIE were subjected to TH. Continuous monitoring by video-EEG was carried out throughout cooling and during rewarming. MRI was done for all newborns after rewarming. The predictive value of EEG background for MRI brain injury was evaluated at 6-h intervals during cooling and rewarming. At all-time intervals, normal EEG was associated with no or mild MRI brain injury. At the beginning of cooling, normal background was more predictive of a favorable MRI outcome than at later time points. After 24 h of monitoring, diffuse burst suppression and depressed patterns had the greatest prognostic value. In most patients, a ...

Due to the rapid increase in electric vehicles (EVs) globally, new technologies have emerged in recent years to meet the excess demand imposed on the power systems by EV charging. Among these technologies, a mobile energy storage system (MESS), which is a transportable storage system that provides various utility services, was used in this study to support several charging stations, in addition to supplying power to the grid during overload and on-peak hours. Thus, this paper proposes a new day-ahead optimal operation of a single MESS unit that serves several charging stations that share the same geographical area. The operational problem is formulated as a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP), where the objective is to minimize the total operating cost of the parking lots (PLs). Two different case studies are simulated to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed system compared to the current approach.

There are many benefits for applying pulse irrigation and using rice straw as organic mulching for saving irrigation water under drought conditions. This study investigated the effect of pulse drip irrigation and rice straw organic mulching on yield, water productivity and quality of orange crop under sandy soils conditions during 2016 and 2017 seasons in the research farm station of National Research Centre at Al-Nubariya Region, Al-Buhayrah Governorate, Egypt. The greatest values of productivity, water productivity and some quality characteristics of the orange crop occurred when the daily irrigation water was added eight times daily with the organic mulch of the rice straw at 9 tons per ha-1 where, yield of orange were 33.15 ton. ha-1 and 32.27 ton.ha-1 for 2016 and 2017 respectively compared with the lowest values were 10 ton. ha-1 and 9.8 ton. ha-1 for 2016 and 2017 respectively when the irrigation water was added one time per day and without organic mulching. The effect of add...

Multitasking is an important part of today’s manufacturing plants. Multitask machine tools are capable of processing multiple operations at the same time by applying a different set of part and tool holding devices. Mill-turns are multitask machines with the ability to perform a variety of operations with considerable accuracy and agility. One critical factor in simultaneous machining is to create a schedule for different operations to be completed in minimum make-span. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is developed to address the machine scheduling problem. The adopted assumptions are more realistic when compared with the previous models. The model allows for processing multiple operations simultaneously on a single part; parts are being processed on the same setup and multiple turrets can process a single operation of a single job simultaneously performing multiple depths of cut. A Simulated Annealing algorithm with a novel initial solution and assignment approach is...

For the past two decades, increased efforts by both governments and the general public have been enforced through stricter legislations and more awareness to make manufacturing more environmentally conscious. Product refurbishing and component re-use are being applied on a wider scale worldwide. Disassembly, hence, has attracted more attention both in academia and the industry. Concepts and methods for disassembly planning should be further developed to support this new manufacturing environment. A semi-generative macro disassembly process planning approach based on the Traveling Salesperson formulation has been developed and is reported in this paper. Precedence graphs, which depict the precedence relationships between disassembly operations, are being utilized. The problem of generating optimal macro-level process plans is combinatorial in nature and proven NP-hard. Hence, a random-based hill-climbing heuristic based on Simulated Annealing is tailored for this problem. Finally, a ...

Context The New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, comprising the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties, spanned the mid-16th to the early 11th centuries BC. The late 18th dynasty, which included the reigns of pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, was an extraordinary time. ...