case that brought down South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk early this year”. The Los Angeles Times editorial page bemoaned that, “Science took an unnecessary leap forward Wednesday,” by attempting to find a technological fix to address political and religious objections to stem-cell research. “It’s an impressive advance, but scientists — and society — would be better off if they cou...

The estimation of leak and break frequencies in piping systems is part of the probabilistic safety assessment of technical plants. In this paper, the statistical method based on the evaluation of the German operational experience for piping systems with different diameters is described because an earlier estimation has been updated and extended introducing new methodical aspects and data. Major...

Background: Water distribution networks (WDNs) are facilities that require massive investment and their optimization is very important. This study aimed to optimization and development of models for promoting WDNs with using engineering judgment. In this method, instead of controlling all system states, it is possible to search the optimal set of options based on engineering judgment and hydra...

The design of electrical wiring and hydraulic/pneumatic piping routes in aircraft is a long and repetitive process which is largely done by hand. Presented in this paper is progress in the development of a knowledge based routing system which automates much of the routing process using intelligent algorithms and interchangeable design rules. The system reads three dimensional CAD models to be n...

ii) The control valve Manufacturer can only state the Inherent valve characteristics, which refer to the flowrate (F) – valve travel position (m or Z) relationship, when the pressure drop across the control valve (DPV) is constant. Note that the pressure drop across the control valve (DPV) can be almost constant only if the piping system pressure drop (DPS) is concentrated at the control valve ...