Natural resource rents and capital accumulation nexus: do resource rents raise public human and physical capital expenditures?

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - This paper examines the effects of total, mineral, natural gas, and oil rents on the public total, education, health, and infrastructure expenditures...     

Identification and mapping of submerged plants in a shallow lake using Quickbird satellite data

Turkey is a country rich in lakes and wetlands--monitoring of all these will require advances in technology such as remote sensing. In this study, the aquatic plants of the large and shallow Lake Mogan, located in Central Anatolia were identified and mapped using high spatial resolution Quickbird imagery. As Lake Mogan is an important bird area the assessment of submerged plant species is of great value for ecosystem conservation and management. Quickbird multispectral image acquired on August 6, 2005 was geometrically corrected and a water mask was used based on strong absorption of Near Infrared (NIR) wavelengths by calm, clear and deep water. The water mask was applied using band reflectance values for a specific pixel satisfying the conditions of band decreasing property (Green>Red>NIR) and NIR相似文献   

Experimental investigation of biodynamic human body models subjected to whole-body vibration during a vehicle ride

In this study, responses of biodynamic human body models to whole-body vibration during a vehicle ride were investigated. Accelerations were acquired from three different body parts, such as the head, upper torso and lower torso, of 10 seated passengers during a car ride while two different road conditions were considered. The same multipurpose vehicle was used during all experiments. Additionally, by two widely used biodynamic models in the literature, a set of simulations were run to obtain theoretical accelerations of the models and were compared with those obtained experimentally. To sustain a quantified comparison between experimental and theoretical approaches, the root mean square acceleration and acceleration spectral density were calculated. Time and frequency responses of the models demonstrated that neither of the models showed the best prediction performance of the human body behaviour in all cases, indicating that further models are required for better prediction of the human body responses.     

Dynamic simulation and performance prediction of free displacer Stirling engines

ABSTRACT

In this study, a Stirling engine with a free-displacer and a kinematically controlled power piston was proposed and analyzed from thermodynamic and dynamic points of view. The analysis intended to reveal the dynamic behaviors of moving components of the engine as well as predicting global thermal performance of it. A dynamic-thermodynamic mathematical model of the engine involving the isothermal gas pressure equation and motion equations of the displacer, power piston and crankshaft was developed. For the solution of the dynamic-thermodynamic model equations, and simulation of the engine’s running, a computer program was prepared in FORTRAN language. By considering a hot-end temperature of 1,000 K and a cold-end temperature of 350 K, dimensions of mechanic, volumetric and thermal components of the engine were quantified interactively. Variations of engine speed, engine power, displacer stroke, and engine torque were examined with respect to the spring constant, displacer mass, displacer damping constant and external load and, results were graphically presented. In comparison with engines having free-piston and kinematically driven displacer, the thermodynamic performance of the free-displacer engine was found to be lower. The engine was found to be able to work at constant speed and power. The values of the displacer mass and spring constant were optimized as 1,500 g and 1,30,000 N/s, respectively and the global speed of the engine was determined to be 47.75 Hz for these values. The effective and the indicated work of the engine were determined to be 113 and 126 J, respectively.