This paper presents an optimisation model for the synthesis of heat exchanger networks (HEN) including the detailed design of the equipments formulated as a decomposition method. Shell and tube pressure drops and fouling are considered, as well as mechanical aspects, like shell and tube bundle diameters, internal and external diameter of tubes, number of tubes, number of baffles, number of shel...

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It is well known that for any sort of evolutionary search we must represent the problem solution in a suitable manner since the choice of representation has a large impact on the type and efficiency of the evolutionary search procedure applied. Usually in evolutionary design applications either bit strings or real number parameters are used to encode the problem. However, during the initial des...

In this paper we will describe a summer camp short-course intended for high-school students with excellent qualifications. The course is addressed to students who are thinking on studying a technical career including a section on universal design for the first time. The department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Universitat de Barcelona will host a workshop on robotics next summer within...

Progress in aircraft designs heavily depend on automatic flight control system. Modern aircraft have a wide flight envelope (linear and nonlinear) region. This study considers the design of stability and control augmentation system (SCAS) in high angle of attack region for a modern type aircraft via back stepping method. Because of highly nonlinear phenomena in aerodynamic parameters, a locally...

We present a new approach to handle dependencies within the general framework of case-control designs, illustrating our approach by a particular application from the field of genetic epidemiology. The method is derived for parent-offspring trios, which will later be relaxed to more general family structures. For applications in genetic epidemiology we consider tests on equality of allele freque...

The problem of designing an atom interferometer with optimum sensitivity to de Broglie wave phase shifts is revisited. Because van der Waals interactions affect how efficiently material gratings work as beam splitters, we find the optimum open fraction for each of the gratings in a three-grating Mach Zehnder atom interferometer depends on the van der Waals interaction strength as well as the at...

For the past decades humans have been placed at centre of designing information and communication technologies (ICT), leading to rise in prominence human-centred design. The field smart cities has equally adopted notions citizen participation as a way ensure that technological solutions improve people’s livelihoods. However, these kinds processes treat urban environment separate from nature, pr...