Abstract: New vehicle electric systems are promoted by the needs of fuel economy and ecology as well as by new functions for the improvement of safety and comfort, reliability, and the availability of the vehicle. Electrically controlled and powered systems for braking, steering and stabilization need a reliable supply of electrical energy. The planned generation of electrical energy (only when it is economically beneficial meaningful), an adequate storage, and thrifty energy housekeeping with an intelligent integration of the battery as the storage medium into the overall concept of the vehicle Energy Management, and early detection of possible restrictions of reliability by Battery Monitoring allows for actions by the Energy Management well in advance, while the driver need not be involved at all. To meet today’s requirements for Battery Monitoring and Energy Management, solutions have been developed for series vehicles launched in years 2001–2003, operating at the 14 V level. In this paper, Battery Monitoring and Management has been done by considering the change of lead-acid battery properties over life, including grid corrosion, water loss, changes of active material properties, loss of active material availability, etc. Also, Battery Monitoring and Power Management to provide cranking capability several days ahead is also analyzed.

Abstract: Measuring the environmental efficiency of countries is important in the climate change process. The aim of this paper is to measure the energy efficiency of OECD countries with undesirable output. For this purpose, the Bad Output index (non-radial and non-oriented, CRS) developed by Tone (2001) is used in order to obtain the efficiency scores for the period 1995-2009. In this paper, I focus on the production process where labour, capital stock (mostly omitted in such papers), and energy consumption are inputs, GDP is a desirable output and CO₂ emission is an undesirable output. To see the energy inefficiencies separately, if there are any, energy input is considered as three separate variables in the model. For this purpose, oil and natural gas consumption are incorporated as one input. Hydropower and nuclear are incorporated as another input. Coal is the third input. An important contribution of this paper is to use various proxy variables for the capital stock. Determining the reasons of these inefficiencies is important for these countries. But modelling the factors behind these inefficiencies is the subject of another paper.

Abstract: Building material and components play a crucial role in solar buildings construction and planning. The literature review of the research emphasize that solar architecture and building integration is in need of some productive design strategies which focuses on reuse of recycled building materials. This paper aims at suggesting a mechanism for optimal use of recycled materials in construction industry which serve energy efficiency as one of the top priorities. The research questions are: 1- what are the priorities of using recycled material as related to energy efficiency issues? 2- Which recycled materials can be used in construction to meet energy efficiency in solar buildings? Recycled cellular glass is selected as research sample to develop inference mechanism. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods as well as problem solving approach are used in this study to answer the research questions related to construction industry particularly energy protection. The findings indicate increase in energy price and increase in the difference between cost of melting raw materials and melting recycled glass; and enactment of regulations for reducing extraction of raw materials and using recycled ones instead in construction projects can significantly affect the cost-effectiveness of using recycled materials in producing cellular glass; especially in contemporary architecture and future ZEB sustecture. In the other word recycled building materials can be adopted in solar architecture to energy efficiency.

Abstract: The present paper is dedicated to the numerical simulation of thermal convection in a two dimensional vertical conical cylinder partially annular space. The governing equations of mass, momentum and energy are solved using the CFD FLUENT code. The results of streamlines and the isotherms of the fluid are discussed for different annuli with various boundary conditions and Rayleigh numbers. Emphasis was put on the height of the inner vertical cylinder influence on the flow and the temperature distribution. More, the effects on the heat transfer are analyzed for different values of the fluid’s physical parameters in the annulus geometry. The heat transfer on the hot wall of the annulus is also computed in order to make comparisons the cylinder annulus for boundary conditions and several Rayleigh numbers. The obtained results in terms of Nusselt number has been found between the present previsions and available data from the published literature data.

Abstract: The Chinese College Entrance Examination (“Gao-Kao”) is the most high stakes assessment in China and parallels the most competitive examinations globally. Although it can provide Chinese educators and policy makers with an enormous pool of information about student achievement growth, school efficiency, etc., the current use of the test is mainly limited to ranking students by their raw scores. In this study, we tried two modifications to the traditional test to connect the assessment outcomes with school accountability. First, we linked the Gao-Kao English tests from 2010 and 2011 and aligned them on a Rasch scale. Secondly, we collected background information of the examinees via a background survey. The result showed that students from Hainan province improved a little in 2011 overall. In addition, school level reports were generated to show the school’s growth as well as the county and province averages. By implementing test equating and background survey measures, this study demonstrated that Gao-Kao data can be used to construct a longitudinal data sourceas an initial step to build a value-added school accountability system. The aforementioned findings and how they are communicated help to frame global use of such high stakes testing. The international context provides a backdrop within which the findings are nested. Contrast with testing in the U.S. serves to highlight unique features of the Gao-Kao examination approach.