High performance computing is increasingly common in technological industries and there are many ... more High performance computing is increasingly common in technological industries and there are many different solutions available on the market. Determining which computing solution is most cost-effective can be difficult. This study outlines the performance between a single-user, traditional high-performance workstation and a multiuser , virtualized workstation. Along with this direct performance comparison, the impacts of virtualization on rendering performance, GPUs, and the technological industry is evaluated in this study. Through the repeated rendering of two different Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models under varying test scenarios, a pool of data including render times and image quality is collected and analyzed. Two phenomena are observed and explained. One is a diminishing return in GPU power output that is observed after allocating four or more GPUs to a single rendering task. The second is a noticeable point of image-noise convergence during a render that could potentially be calculated and exploited to make rendering more time-efficient. These discoveries may impact the effectiveness of virtual GPU scalability and make time-consuming rendering more efficient for industry users. The NVIDIA GRID Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) is found to be cost effective for research laboratories that have several users with diverse needs.
— This paper presents a study on the use of virtual reality (VR) technologies for the purpose of ... more — This paper presents a study on the use of virtual reality (VR) technologies for the purpose of teaching concentrating solar power (CSP) to high school and university students. The main goal is to develop an interactive and immersive VR application to explain the main components and processes used in a CSP plant. The secondary goal is to test the effectiveness of this application by performing case studies. The studies are assessed with pre-test, post-test, and questionnaires. In the initial desktop version, there is a substantial improvement on the post-tests that demonstrates that this type of application can be used as an educational tool. The immersive application achieved testing results in the final study that were similar to other methods assessed and scored 88% positive results on the experience questionnaire.
An accurate estimate of fixed operating costs is essential to determine the financial viability o... more An accurate estimate of fixed operating costs is essential to determine the financial viability of any proposed project. Although other researchers have reported maintenance costs for large-scale concentrating solar power (CSP) plants in the United States [1-2], there is currently little information available specifically for small-scale CSP or solar Industrial Process Heat (IPH) plants. This paper discusses the maintenance of an operating small-scale CSP plant in Louisiana over a four year period. The results are also applicable to a small-scale IPH plant. Maintenance activities and costs are discussed for the collector field, the power block, and the cooling tower. For the collector field, a study of the degradation of mirror reflectance between washings was performed for three different types of reflective polymer thin films (3M 1100, 3M 2020, and Konica Minolta). Overall, the 3M 2020 film provided better reflectivity between washings than the other films. An optimized mirror washing schedule was determined. Optimal mirror washing schedules are very site-dependent, but for this humid subtropical location, the most economical washing schedule was found to be every 114 days, or approximately three times per year. A recommended maintenance plan for small-scale CSP and IPH plants is presented and actual maintenance costs over a four year period are provided. It was found that maintenance costs for small-scale plants are substantially larger than for large-scale plants, and that maintenance costs for small-scale IPH plants are much lower than for small-scale CSP plants, making IPH applications significantly more attractive. The average annual maintenance cost for a small-scale CSP plant was found to be approximately $457/kWe, or $0.27/kWhe. For a small-scale IPH plant the costs were $3.72/m 2 , $7.81/kWt, and $0.005/kWht.
IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS), 2017
This paper identifies 441 phrases that are seven words long or longer, that are common to the Boo... more This paper identifies 441 phrases that are seven words long or longer, that are common to the Book of Mormon and the New Testament, but that are not found in the Old Testament. These phrases are proposed as candidate quotations of the New Testament by the Book of Mormon. This is important because the presence of any New Testament material in the Book of Mormon would seem to be inherently anachronistic and therefore potentially problematic for those who accept the Book of Mormon as a religious text. This study defines three categories of New Testament quotations in the Book of Mormon, and identifies for each category the potential modes of transmission that would permit the appearance of a New Testament quotation in the Book of Mormon that would also be consistent with the internal structure of the book. This study shows that all potential modes of transmission either require a supernatural assumption or the conclusion that authorship of the Book of Mormon postdates the King James Version of the Bible.
Abstract The simulated MIG lab (sMIG) is a training simulator for Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding. ... more Abstract The simulated MIG lab (sMIG) is a training simulator for Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding. It is based on commercial off the shelf (COTS) components and targeted at familiarizing beginning students with the MIG equip-ment and best practices to follow to become ...
The goal of this project is to develop a training system that can simulate the welding process in... more The goal of this project is to develop a training system that can simulate the welding process in real-time and give feedback that avoids learning wrong motion patterns for beginning welders and can be used to analyze the process by the teacher afterwards. The system is based ...
A thermal model of a single Ultralight Fabric Reflux Tube (UFRT) was constructed and tested again... more A thermal model of a single Ultralight Fabric Reflux Tube (UFRT) was constructed and tested against data for an array of such tubes tested in the NASA-JSC facility. Modifications to the single fin model were necessary to accommodate the change in radiation shape factors due to adjacent tubes. There was good agreement between the test data and data generated for the same cases by the thermal model. The thermal model was also used to generate single and linear array data for the lunar environment (the primary difference between the test and lunar data was due to lunar gravity). The model was also used to optimize the linear spacing of the reflux tubes in an array. The optimal spacing of the tubes was recommended to be about 5 tube diameters based on maximizing the heat transfer per unit mass. The model also showed that the thermal conductivity of the Nextel fabric was the major limitation to the heat transfer. This led to a suggestion that the feasibility of jacketing the Nextel fiber...
1997 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. Computational Cybernetics and Simulation, 1997
... W. Zhang, G. Wang, T. Chambers', W. E. Simon3, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX 77... more ... W. Zhang, G. Wang, T. Chambers', W. E. Simon3, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX 77710, POBox 10056 Email: zhang@hal.lamar.edu Abstract: Multiagent neurofuzzy control of folding-legged uniped robot locomotion and gymnastics is introduced. ...
High performance computing is increasingly common in technological industries and there are many ... more High performance computing is increasingly common in technological industries and there are many different solutions available on the market. Determining which computing solution is most cost-effective can be difficult. This study outlines the performance between a single-user, traditional high-performance workstation and a multiuser , virtualized workstation. Along with this direct performance comparison, the impacts of virtualization on rendering performance, GPUs, and the technological industry is evaluated in this study. Through the repeated rendering of two different Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models under varying test scenarios, a pool of data including render times and image quality is collected and analyzed. Two phenomena are observed and explained. One is a diminishing return in GPU power output that is observed after allocating four or more GPUs to a single rendering task. The second is a noticeable point of image-noise convergence during a render that could potentially be calculated and exploited to make rendering more time-efficient. These discoveries may impact the effectiveness of virtual GPU scalability and make time-consuming rendering more efficient for industry users. The NVIDIA GRID Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) is found to be cost effective for research laboratories that have several users with diverse needs.
— This paper presents a study on the use of virtual reality (VR) technologies for the purpose of ... more — This paper presents a study on the use of virtual reality (VR) technologies for the purpose of teaching concentrating solar power (CSP) to high school and university students. The main goal is to develop an interactive and immersive VR application to explain the main components and processes used in a CSP plant. The secondary goal is to test the effectiveness of this application by performing case studies. The studies are assessed with pre-test, post-test, and questionnaires. In the initial desktop version, there is a substantial improvement on the post-tests that demonstrates that this type of application can be used as an educational tool. The immersive application achieved testing results in the final study that were similar to other methods assessed and scored 88% positive results on the experience questionnaire.
An accurate estimate of fixed operating costs is essential to determine the financial viability o... more An accurate estimate of fixed operating costs is essential to determine the financial viability of any proposed project. Although other researchers have reported maintenance costs for large-scale concentrating solar power (CSP) plants in the United States [1-2], there is currently little information available specifically for small-scale CSP or solar Industrial Process Heat (IPH) plants. This paper discusses the maintenance of an operating small-scale CSP plant in Louisiana over a four year period. The results are also applicable to a small-scale IPH plant. Maintenance activities and costs are discussed for the collector field, the power block, and the cooling tower. For the collector field, a study of the degradation of mirror reflectance between washings was performed for three different types of reflective polymer thin films (3M 1100, 3M 2020, and Konica Minolta). Overall, the 3M 2020 film provided better reflectivity between washings than the other films. An optimized mirror washing schedule was determined. Optimal mirror washing schedules are very site-dependent, but for this humid subtropical location, the most economical washing schedule was found to be every 114 days, or approximately three times per year. A recommended maintenance plan for small-scale CSP and IPH plants is presented and actual maintenance costs over a four year period are provided. It was found that maintenance costs for small-scale plants are substantially larger than for large-scale plants, and that maintenance costs for small-scale IPH plants are much lower than for small-scale CSP plants, making IPH applications significantly more attractive. The average annual maintenance cost for a small-scale CSP plant was found to be approximately $457/kWe, or $0.27/kWhe. For a small-scale IPH plant the costs were $3.72/m 2 , $7.81/kWt, and $0.005/kWht.
IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS), 2017
This paper identifies 441 phrases that are seven words long or longer, that are common to the Boo... more This paper identifies 441 phrases that are seven words long or longer, that are common to the Book of Mormon and the New Testament, but that are not found in the Old Testament. These phrases are proposed as candidate quotations of the New Testament by the Book of Mormon. This is important because the presence of any New Testament material in the Book of Mormon would seem to be inherently anachronistic and therefore potentially problematic for those who accept the Book of Mormon as a religious text. This study defines three categories of New Testament quotations in the Book of Mormon, and identifies for each category the potential modes of transmission that would permit the appearance of a New Testament quotation in the Book of Mormon that would also be consistent with the internal structure of the book. This study shows that all potential modes of transmission either require a supernatural assumption or the conclusion that authorship of the Book of Mormon postdates the King James Version of the Bible.
Abstract The simulated MIG lab (sMIG) is a training simulator for Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding. ... more Abstract The simulated MIG lab (sMIG) is a training simulator for Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding. It is based on commercial off the shelf (COTS) components and targeted at familiarizing beginning students with the MIG equip-ment and best practices to follow to become ...
The goal of this project is to develop a training system that can simulate the welding process in... more The goal of this project is to develop a training system that can simulate the welding process in real-time and give feedback that avoids learning wrong motion patterns for beginning welders and can be used to analyze the process by the teacher afterwards. The system is based ...
A thermal model of a single Ultralight Fabric Reflux Tube (UFRT) was constructed and tested again... more A thermal model of a single Ultralight Fabric Reflux Tube (UFRT) was constructed and tested against data for an array of such tubes tested in the NASA-JSC facility. Modifications to the single fin model were necessary to accommodate the change in radiation shape factors due to adjacent tubes. There was good agreement between the test data and data generated for the same cases by the thermal model. The thermal model was also used to generate single and linear array data for the lunar environment (the primary difference between the test and lunar data was due to lunar gravity). The model was also used to optimize the linear spacing of the reflux tubes in an array. The optimal spacing of the tubes was recommended to be about 5 tube diameters based on maximizing the heat transfer per unit mass. The model also showed that the thermal conductivity of the Nextel fabric was the major limitation to the heat transfer. This led to a suggestion that the feasibility of jacketing the Nextel fiber...
1997 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. Computational Cybernetics and Simulation, 1997
... W. Zhang, G. Wang, T. Chambers', W. E. Simon3, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX 77... more ... W. Zhang, G. Wang, T. Chambers', W. E. Simon3, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX 77710, POBox 10056 Email: zhang@hal.lamar.edu Abstract: Multiagent neurofuzzy control of folding-legged uniped robot locomotion and gymnastics is introduced. ...
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