Search results for: Performance Index

Authors: Vijay Shankar, C.S.P. Ojha, K.S. Hari Prasad

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Maize and Indian mustard are significant crops in semi-arid climate zones of India. Improved water management requires precise scheduling of irrigation, which in turn requires an accurate computation of daily crop evapotranspiration (ETc). Daily crop evapotranspiration comes as a product of reference evapotranspiration (ET0) and the growth stage specific crop coefficients modified for daily variation. The first objective of present study is to develop crop coefficients Kc for Maize and Indian mustard. The estimated values of Kc for maize at the four crop growth stages (initial, development, mid-season, and late season) are 0.55, 1.08, 1.25, and 0.75, respectively, and for Indian mustard the Kc values at the four growth stages are 0.3, 0.6, 1.12, and 0.35, respectively. The second objective of the study is to compute daily crop evapotranspiration from ET0 and crop coefficients. Average daily ETc of maize varied from about 2.5 mm/d in the early growing period to > 6.5 mm/d at mid season. The peak ETc of maize is 8.3 mm/d and it occurred 64 days after sowing at the reproductive growth stage when leaf area index was 4.54. In the case of Indian mustard, average ETc is 1 mm/d at the initial stage, >1.8 mm/d at mid season and achieves a peak value of 2.12 mm/d on 56 days after sowing. Improved schedules of irrigation have been simulated based on daily crop evapo-transpiration and field measured data. Simulation shows a close match between modeled and field moisture status prevalent during crop season.

Keywords: Crop coefficient, Crop evapotranspiration, Field moisture, Irrigation Scheduling

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Authors: O. Chaudhari, A. N. Ghafar, G. Zirgulis, M. Mousavi, T. Ellison, S. Pousette, P. Fontana

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In Swedish tunnel construction, a critical issue that has been repeatedly acknowledged is corrosion and, consequently, failure of the rock bolts in rock support systems. The defective installation of rock bolts results in the formation of cavities in the cement mortar that is regularly used to fill the area under the dome plates. These voids allow for water-ingress to the rock bolt assembly, which results in corrosion of rock bolt components and eventually failure. In addition, the current installation technique consists of several manual steps with intense labor works that are usually done in uncomfortable and exhausting conditions, e.g., under the roof of the tunnels. Such intense tasks also lead to a considerable waste of materials and execution errors. Moreover, adequate quality control of the execution is hardly possible with the current technique. To overcome these issues, a non-shrinking/expansive cement-based mortar filled in the paper packaging has been developed in this study which properly fills the area under the dome plates without or with the least remaining cavities, ultimately that diminishes the potential of corrosion. This article summarizes the development process and the experimental evaluation of this technique for the installation of rock bolts. In the development process, the cementitious mortar was first developed using specific cement and shrinkage reducing/expansive additives. The mechanical and flow properties of the mortar were then evaluated using compressive strength, density, and slump flow measurement methods. In addition, isothermal calorimetry and shrinkage/expansion measurements were used to elucidate the hydration and durability attributes of the mortar. After obtaining the desired properties in both fresh and hardened conditions, the developed dry mortar was filled in specific permeable paper packaging and then submerged in water bath for specific intervals before the installation. The tests were enhanced progressively by optimizing different parameters such as shape and size of the packaging, characteristics of the paper used, immersion time in water and even some minor characteristics of the mortar. Finally, the developed prototype was tested in a lab-scale rock bolt assembly with various angles to analyze the efficiency of the method in real life scenario. The results showed that the new technique improves the performance of the rock bolts by reducing the material wastage, improving environmental performance, facilitating and accelerating the labor works, and finally enhancing the durability of the whole system. Accordingly, this approach provides an efficient alternative for the traditional way of tunnel bolt installation with considerable advantages for the Swedish tunneling industry.

Keywords: corrosion, durability, mortar, rock bolt

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Authors: B.P. Bezruchko, D.A. Smirnov

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Quantitative characterization of nonlinear directional couplings between stochastic oscillators from data is considered. We suggest coupling characteristics readily interpreted from a physical viewpoint and their estimators. An expression for a statistical significance level is derived analytically that allows reliable coupling detection from a relatively short time series. Performance of the technique is demonstrated in numerical experiments.

Keywords: Nonlinear time series analysis, directional couplings, coupled oscillators.

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Authors: Pavel Turcaj, Yuri I. Abramovich, Gordon J. Frazer

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We introduce an adaptive technique for the joint mitigation of transients and continuous-wave radio-frequency co-channel interference (CW RFI) in high-frequency (HF) over-the-horizon radars (OTHRs). The performance of this technique is illustrated using data from an operational surface-wave radar (SECAR) and from recent experimental trials with sky-wave (SW) and sky-wave–line-of-sight (SKYLOS) HF OTHRs.

Keywords:

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Authors: Atef Y. Shenouda, Anton A. Momchilov

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Graphene and CdO with different stoichiometric ratios of Cd(CH₃COO)₂ and graphene samples were prepared by hydrothermal reaction. The crystalline phases of pure CdO and 3CdO:1graphene were identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The particle morphology was studied with SEM. Furthermore, impedance measurements were applied. Galvanostatic measurements for the cells were carried out using potential limits between 0.01 and 3 V vs. Li/Li⁺. The current cycling intensity was 10⁻⁴ A. The specific discharge capacity of 3CdO-1G cell was about 450 Ah.Kg⁻¹ up to more than 100 cycles.

Keywords: CdO, graphene, negative electrode, lithium battery.

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Authors: Panchalee Sukjit, Herwig Unger

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IT infrastructures are becoming more and more difficult. Therefore, in the first industrial IT systems, the P2P paradigm has replaced the traditional client server and methods of self-organization are gaining more and more importance. From the past it is known that especially regular structures like grids may significantly improve the system behavior and performance. This contribution introduces a new algorithm based on a biologic analogue, which may provide the growth of several regular structures on top of anarchic grown P2P- or social network structures.

Keywords: P2P, Pattern generation, Grid, Social network, Inheritance, Reproduction

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Authors: Yehia A. Eldrainy, Mohammad Nazri Mohd. Jaafar, Tholudin Mat Lazim

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This paper presents a cold flow simulation study of a small gas turbine combustor performed using laboratory scale test rig. The main objective of this investigation is to obtain physical insight of the main vortex, responsible for the efficient mixing of fuel and air. Such models are necessary for predictions and optimization of real gas turbine combustors. Air swirler can control the combustor performance by assisting in the fuel-air mixing process and by producing recirculation region which can act as flame holders and influences residence time. Thus, proper selection of a swirler is needed to enhance combustor performance and to reduce NOx emissions. Three different axial air swirlers were used based on their vane angles i.e., 30°, 45°, and 60°. Three-dimensional, viscous, turbulent, isothermal flow characteristics of the combustor model operating at room temperature were simulated via Reynolds- Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) code. The model geometry has been created using solid model, and the meshing has been done using GAMBIT preprocessing package. Finally, the solution and analysis were carried out in a FLUENT solver. This serves to demonstrate the capability of the code for design and analysis of real combustor. The effects of swirlers and mass flow rate were examined. Details of the complex flow structure such as vortices and recirculation zones were obtained by the simulation model. The computational model predicts a major recirculation zone in the central region immediately downstream of the fuel nozzle and a second recirculation zone in the upstream corner of the combustion chamber. It is also shown that swirler angles changes have significant effects on the combustor flowfield as well as pressure losses.

Keywords: cold flow, numerical simulation, combustor;turbulence, axial swirler.

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Authors: Akbar Zamaniyan, Alireza Behroozsarand, Hadi Ebrahimi

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Partial oxidation (POX) of light hydrocarbons (e.g. methane) is occurred in the first part of the autothermal reformer (ATR). The results of the detailed modeling of the reformer based on the thermodynamic model of the POX and 1D heterogeneous catalytic model for the fixed bed section are considered here. According to the results, the overall performance of the ATR can be improved by changing the important feed parameters.

Keywords: Autothermal Reformer, Partial Oxidation, Mathematical Modeling, Process Simulation, Syngas.

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Authors: F. Lazzeri, I. Reiter

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Energy production optimization has been traditionally very important for utilities in order to improve resource consumption. However, load forecasting is a challenging task, as there are a large number of relevant variables that must be considered, and several strategies have been used to deal with this complex problem. This is especially true also in microgrids where many elements have to adjust their performance depending on the future generation and consumption conditions. The goal of this paper is to present a solution for short-term load forecasting in microgrids, based on three machine learning experiments developed in R and web services built and deployed with different components of Cortana Intelligence Suite: Azure Machine Learning, a fully managed cloud service that enables to easily build, deploy, and share predictive analytics solutions; SQL database, a Microsoft database service for app developers; and PowerBI, a suite of business analytics tools to analyze data and share insights. Our results show that Boosted Decision Tree and Fast Forest Quantile regression methods can be very useful to predict hourly short-term consumption in microgrids; moreover, we found that for these types of forecasting models, weather data (temperature, wind, humidity and dew point) can play a crucial role in improving the accuracy of the forecasting solution. Data cleaning and feature engineering methods performed in R and different types of machine learning algorithms (Boosted Decision Tree, Fast Forest Quantile and ARIMA) will be presented, and results and performance metrics discussed.

Keywords: Time-series, features engineering methods for forecasting, energy demand forecasting, Azure machine learning.

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Authors: Richard A. Wasniowski

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A wide spectrum of systems require reliable personal recognition schemes to either confirm or determine the identity of an individual person. This paper considers multimodal biometric system and their applicability to access control, authentication and security applications. Strategies for feature extraction and sensor fusion are considered and contrasted. Issues related to performance assessment, deployment and standardization are discussed. Finally future directions of biometric systems development are discussed.

Keywords: Multimodal, biometric, recognition, fusion.

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Authors: Sergei Aleinik, Yuri Matveev

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In this paper a novel method for the detection of  clipping in speech signals is described. It is shown that the new  method has better performance than known clipping detection  methods, is easy to implement, and is robust to changes in signal  amplitude, size of data, etc. Statistical simulation results are  presented.

 

Keywords: Clipping, clipped signal, speech signal processing.

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Authors: Sujata Upgupta, Prasoon Kumar Singh

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The expansion of large scale coal mining into forest areas is a potential hazard for the local biodiversity and wildlife. The objective of this study is to provide a picture of the threat that coal mining poses to the forests of the East Bokaro landscape. The vulnerable forest areas at risk have been assessed and the priority areas for conservation have been presented. The forested areas at risk in the current scenario have been assessed and compared with the past conditions using classification and buffer based overlay approach. Forest vulnerability has been assessed using an analytical framework based on systematic indicators and composite vulnerability index values. The results indicate that more than 4 km² of forests have been lost from 1973 to 2016. Large patches of forests have been diverted for coal mining projects. Forests in the northern part of the coal field within 1-3 km radius around the coal mines are at immediate risk. The original contiguous forests have been converted into fragmented and degraded forest patches. Most of the collieries are located within or very close to the forests thus threatening the biodiversity and hydrology of the surrounding regions. Based on the vulnerability values estimated, it was concluded that more than 90% of the forested grids in East Bokaro are highly vulnerable to mining. The forests in the sub-districts of Bermo and Chandrapura have been identified as the most vulnerable to coal mining activities. This case study would add to the capacity of the forest managers and mine managers to address the risk and vulnerability of forests at a small landscape level in order to achieve sustainable development.

Keywords: Coal mining, forest, indicators, vulnerability.

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Authors: P. Ashok, G. M. Kadhar Nawaz

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Rough set theory is used to handle uncertainty and incomplete information by applying two accurate sets, Lower approximation and Upper approximation. In this paper, the rough clustering algorithms are improved by adopting the Similarity, Dissimilarity–Similarity and Entropy based initial centroids selection method on three different clustering algorithms namely Entropy based Rough K-Means (ERKM), Similarity based Rough K-Means (SRKM) and Dissimilarity-Similarity based Rough K-Means (DSRKM) were developed and executed by yeast dataset. The rough clustering algorithms are validated by cluster validity indexes namely Rand and Adjusted Rand indexes. An experimental result shows that the ERKM clustering algorithm perform effectively and delivers better results than other clustering methods. Outlier detection is an important task in data mining and very much different from the rest of the objects in the clusters. Entropy based Rough Outlier Factor (EROF) method is seemly to detect outlier effectively for yeast dataset. In rough K-Means method, by tuning the epsilon (ᶓ) value from 0.8 to 1.08 can detect outliers on boundary region and the RKM algorithm delivers better results, when choosing the value of epsilon (ᶓ) in the specified range. An experimental result shows that the EROF method on clustering algorithm performed very well and suitable for detecting outlier effectively for all datasets. Further, experimental readings show that the ERKM clustering method outperformed the other methods.

Keywords: Clustering, Entropy, Outlier, Rough K-Means, validity index.

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Authors: A. A. Pawar, R. R. Kulkarni

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For numerical prediction of the NOX in the exhaust of a compression ignition engine a model was developed by considering the parameter equivalence ratio. This model was validated by comparing the predicted results of NOX with experimental ones. The ultimate aim of the work was to access the applicability, robustness and performance of the improved NOX model against other NOX models.

Keywords: Biodiesel fueled engine, equivalence ratio, Compression ignition engine, exhausts gas temperature, NOX formation.

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Authors: Gulshan Taj M. N. A., Anupam Chakrabarti, Vipul Prakash

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In the present investigation, free vibration of functionally graded material (FGM) skew plates under thermal environment is studied. Kinematics equations are based on the Reddy’s higher order shear deformation theory and a nine noded isoparametric Lagrangian element is adopted to mesh the plate geometry. The issue of C₁ continuity requirement related to the assumed displacement field has been circumvented effectively to develop C₀ finite element formulation. Effective mechanical properties of the constituents of the plate are considered to be as position and temperature dependent and assumed to vary in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution. The displacement components of a rectangular plate are mapped into skew plate geometry by means of suitable transformation rule. One dimensional Fourier heat conduction equation is used to ascertain the temperature profile of the plate along thickness direction. Influence of different parameters such as volume fraction index, boundary condition, aspect ratio, thickness ratio and temperature field on frequency parameter of the FGM skew plate is demonstrated by performing various examples and the related findings are discussed briefly. New results are generated for vibration of the FGM skew plate under thermal environment, for the first time, which may be implemented in the future research involving similar kind of problems.

Keywords: Functionally graded material, finite element method, higher order shear deformation theory, skew plate, thermal vibration.

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Authors: Ndidi F. Amulu, Patrick E. Amulu, Gordian O. Mbah, Callistus N. Ude

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Comparative analysis of the properties of melon seed, coconut fruit and their oil yield were evaluated in this work using standard analytical technique AOAC. The results of the analysis carried out revealed that the moisture contents of the samples studied are 11.15% (melon) and 7.59% (coconut). The crude lipid content are 46.10% (melon) and 55.15% (coconut).The treatment combinations used (leaching time, leaching temperature and solute: solvent ratio) showed significant difference (p < 0.05) in yield between the samples, with melon oil seed flour having a higher percentage range of oil yield (41.30 – 52.90%) and coconut (36.25 – 49.83%). The physical characterization of the extracted oil was also carried out. The values gotten for refractive index are 1.487 (melon seed oil) and 1.361 (coconut oil) and viscosities are 0.008 (melon seed oil) and 0.002 (coconut oil). The chemical analysis of the extracted oils shows acid value of 1.00mg NaOH/g oil (melon oil), 10.050mg NaOH/g oil (coconut oil) and saponification value of 187.00mg/KOH (melon oil) and 183.26mg/KOH (coconut oil). The iodine value of the melon oil gave 75.00mg I2/g and 81.00mg I2/g for coconut oil. A standard statistical package Minitab version 16.0 was used in the regression analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The statistical software mentioned above was also used to optimize the leaching process. Both samples gave high oil yield at the same optimal conditions. The optimal conditions to obtain highest oil yield ≥ 52% (melon seed) and ≥ 48% (coconut seed) are solute - solvent ratio of 40g/ml, leaching time of 2hours and leaching temperature of 50oC. The two samples studied have potential of yielding oil with melon seed giving the higher yield.

Keywords: Coconut, melon, optimization, processing.

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Authors: Balimu Mwiya, Mundia Muya, Chabota Kaliba, Peter Mukalula

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Factors affecting construction unit cost vary depending on a country’s political, economic, social and technological inclinations. Factors affecting construction costs have been studied from various perspectives. Analysis of cost factors requires an appreciation of a country’s practices. Identified cost factors provide an indication of a country’s construction economic strata. The purpose of this paper is to identify the essential factors that affect unit cost estimation and their breakdown using artificial neural networks. Twenty five (25) identified cost factors in road construction were subjected to a questionnaire survey and employing SPSS factor analysis the factors were reduced to eight. The 8 factors were analysed using neural network (NN) to determine the proportionate breakdown of the cost factors in a given construction unit rate. NN predicted that political environment accounted 44% of the unit rate followed by contractor capacity at 22% and financial delays, project feasibility and overhead & profit each at 11%. Project location, material availability and corruption perception index had minimal impact on the unit cost from the training data provided. Quantified cost factors can be incorporated in unit cost estimation models (UCEM) to produce more accurate estimates. This can create improvements in the cost estimation of infrastructure projects and establish a benchmark standard to assist the process of alignment of work practises and training of new staff, permitting the on-going development of best practises in cost estimation to become more effective.

Keywords: Construction cost factors, neural networks, roadworks, Zambian Construction Industry.

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Authors: Tim Dunne, Weicheng Li, Chris Cheng, Qi Peng

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Deeper petroleum reservoirs are more challenging to exploit due to the high hardness and abrasive characteristics of the formations. A cutting structure that consists of particulate diamond impregnated in a supporting matrix is found to be effective. Diamond impregnated bits are favored in these applications due to the higher thermal stability of the matrix material. The diamond particles scour or abrade away concentric grooves while the rock formation adjacent to the grooves is fractured and removed. The matrix material supporting the diamond will wear away, leaving the superficial dull diamonds to fall out. The matrix material wear will expose other embedded intact sharp diamonds to continue the operation. Minimizing the erosion effect on the matrix is an important design consideration, as the life of the bit can be extended by preventing early diamond pull-out. A careful balancing of the key parameters, such as diamond concentration, tungsten carbide and metal binder must be considered during development. Described herein is the design of experiment for developing and lab testing 8 unique samples. ASTM B611 wear testing was performed to benchmark the material performance against baseline products, with further scanning electron microscopy and microhardness evaluations. The recipe S5 with diamond 25/35 mesh size, narrow size distribution, high concentration blended with fine tungsten carbide and Co-Cu-Fe-P metal binder has the best performance, which shows 19% improvement in the ASTM B611 wear test compared with the reference material. In the field trial, the rate of penetration (ROP) is measured as 15 m/h, compared to 9.5, 7.8, and 6.8 m/h of other commercial impregnated bits in the same formation. A second round of optimizing recipe S5 for a higher wear resistance is further reported.

Keywords: Diamond containing material, grit hot press insert, impregnated diamond, insert, rate of penetration, ultrahard formation.

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Authors: Patricia M. Boechler, Heather M. Gautreau

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In this research study, postsecondary students completed an information learning task in an avatar-based 3D virtual learning environment. Three factors were of interest in relation to learning; 1) the influence of collaborative vs. independent conditions, 2) the influence of the spatial arrangement of the virtual environment (linear, random and clustered), and 3) the relationship of individual differences such as spatial skill, general computer experience and video game experience to learning. Students completed pretest measures of prior computer experience and prior spatial skill. Following the premeasure administration, students were given instruction to move through the virtual environment and study all the material within 10 information stations. In the collaborative condition, students proceeded in randomly assigned pairs, while in the independent condition they proceeded alone. After this learning phase, all students individually completed a multiple choice test to determine information retention. The overall results indicated that students in pairs did not perform any better or worse than independent students. As far as individual differences, only spatial ability predicted the performance of students. General computer experience and video game experience did not. Taking a closer look at the pairs and spatial ability, comparisons were made on pairs high/matched spatial ability, pairs low/matched spatial ability and pairs that were mismatched on spatial ability. The results showed that both high/matched pairs and mismatched pairs outperformed low/matched pairs. That is, if a pair had even one individual with strong spatial ability they would perform better than pairs with only low spatial ability individuals. This suggests that, in virtual environments, the specific individuals that are paired together are important for performance outcomes. The paper also includes a discussion of trends within the data that have implications for virtual environment education.

Keywords: Avatar-based, virtual environment, paired learning, individual differences.

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Authors: Nastaran Hajiheydari, Mohammad Soltani Delgosha

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Vendor (supplier) selection is a group decision-making (GDM) process, in which, based on some predetermined criteria, the experts’ preferences are provided in order to rank and choose the most desirable suppliers. In the real business environment, our attitudes or our choices would be made in an uncertain and indecisive situation could not be expressed in a crisp framework. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) could handle such situations in the best way. VIKOR method was developed to solve multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems. This method, which is used to determine the compromised feasible solution with respect to the conflicting criteria, introduces a multi-criteria ranking index based on the particular measure of 'closeness' to the 'ideal solution'. Until now, there has been a little investigation of VIKOR with IFS, therefore we extended the intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) VIKOR to solve vendor selection problem under IF GDM environment. The present study intends to develop an IF VIKOR method in a GDM situation. Therefore, a model is presented to calculate the criterion weights based on entropy measure. Then, the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted geometric (IFWG) operator utilized to obtain the total decision matrix. In the next stage, an approach based on the positive idle intuitionistic fuzzy number (PIIFN) and negative idle intuitionistic fuzzy number (NIIFN) was developed. Finally, the application of the proposed method to solve a vendor selection problem illustrated.

Keywords: Group decision making, intuitionistic fuzzy entropy measure, intuitionistic fuzzy set, vendor selection VIKOR.

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Authors: Zeljko Panian

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The term Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0) describes a collection of organizational and IT practices that help organizations establish flexible work models, visible knowledge-sharing practices, and higher levels of community participation. E2.0 parallels and builds on another term commonly being used in the industry – Web 2.0. E2.0 represents also new packaging for strategic collaboration and Knowledge Management (KM). Organizations rely on collaboration and KM initiatives to attain innovation, growth, productivity, and performance goals.

Keywords: Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, knowledge management, knowledge planner, collaboration.

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Authors: Tereza Dolečková

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Following article provides the comparison of international norms and standards formulating personal expenses, and then it illustrates the national concept of personal expenses of the Ministry of Defence. Then a new salary system of soldiers and the importance of the service appraisal in the context of personal expenses of the Ministry of Defence are explained. The first part of the article includes formulation of the approach to the definition of personal expenses within the international norms and standards and also within the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic. The structure of employees of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic in years 2012 – 2014 and the amount of military expenses and the share of salary expenses of the Ministry of total expenses of the Ministry are clarified there, also the comparison of the amount of military expenses in chosen member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is done. The salary system of professional soldiers in connection with the amendment of the Act No. 221/1999 Coll. on Professional Soldiers is clarified in the second part of this article. The amendment significantly regulates the salary items of soldiers but changes are also in the service appraisal of soldiers which reflects one of seven salary items of soldiers – the performance bonus. The aim of this article is to clarify different approach to define personal expenses with emphasis on the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic which overlaps to the service appraisal of soldiers of the Army of the Czech Republic and their salary system in connection with personal expenses of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic. The efficient and objective system of the service appraisal and the use of its results are connected to the principles of the career advancement; only the best soldiers can advance in the system of the service careers to higher positions. That is why it is necessary to improve the service appraisal so it would provide the maximum information about the performance of a soldier and it would also motivate the soldier in his development. The attention should be paid to the service appraisal of the soldiers of the Army of the Czech Republic to achieve as much objectivity as possible.

Keywords: Career, human resource management and development, personal expenses, salary system of soldiers, service appraisal of soldiers, the Army of the Czech Republic.

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Authors: Meenal Surawar, Rajashree Kotharkar

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Urban Heat Island (UHI) is found more pronounced as a prominent urban environmental concern in developing cities. To study the UHI effect in the Indian context, the Nagpur urban area has been explored in this paper using Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite images through Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. This paper intends to study the effect of LU/LC pattern on daytime Land Surface Temperature (LST) variation, contributing UHI formation within the Nagpur Urban area. Supervised LU/LC area classification was carried to study urban Change detection using ENVI 5. Change detection has been studied by carrying Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to understand the proportion of vegetative cover with respect to built-up ratio. Detection of spectral radiance from the thermal band of satellite images was processed to calibrate LST. Specific representative areas on the basis of urban built-up and vegetation classification were selected for observation of point LST. The entire Nagpur urban area shows that, as building density increases with decrease in vegetation cover, LST increases, thereby causing the UHI effect. UHI intensity has gradually increased by 0.7°C from 2000 to 2006; however, a drastic increase has been observed with difference of 1.8°C during the period 2006 to 2013. Within the Nagpur urban area, the UHI effect was formed due to increase in building density and decrease in vegetative cover.

Keywords: Land use, land cover, land surface temperature, remote sensing, urban heat island.

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Authors: Mojtaba Mahmoodian, Joshua Phelan, Mehdi Shahparvari

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With a large percentage of countries’ total infrastructure expenditure attributed to water network maintenance, it is essential to optimise maintenance strategies to rehabilitate or replace underground pipes before failure occurs. The aim of this paper is to provide water utility managers with a maintenance management approach for underground water pipes, subject to external loading and material corrosion, to give the lowest life cycle cost over a predetermined time period. This reliability-based maintenance management methodology details the optimal years for intervention, the ideal number of maintenance activities to perform before replacement and specifies feasible renewal options and intervention prioritisation to minimise the life cycle cost. The study was then extended to include feasible renewal methods by determining the structural condition index and potential for soil loss, then obtaining the failure impact rating to assist in prioritising pipe replacement. A case study on optimisation of maintenance plans for the Melbourne water pipe network is considered in this paper to evaluate the practicality of the proposed methodology. The results confirm that the suggested methodology can provide water utility managers with a reliable systematic approach to determining optimum maintenance plans for pipe networks.

Keywords: Water pipe networks, maintenance management, reliability analysis, optimum maintenance plan.

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Authors: S. Gharbi, S. Labidi, M. Mars, M. Chelli, F. Ladeb

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The purpose of this study is to reduce radiation dose for chest CT examination by including Tube Current Modulation (TCM) to a standard CT protocol. A scan of an anthropomorphic male Alderson phantom was performed on a 128-slice scanner. The estimation of effective dose (ED) in both scans with and without mAs modulation was done via multiplication of Dose Length Product (DLP) to a conversion factor. Results were compared to those measured with a CT-Expo software. The size specific dose estimation (SSDE) values were obtained by multiplication of the volume CT dose index (CTDIvol) with a conversion size factor related to the phantom’s effective diameter. Objective assessment of image quality was performed with Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) measurements in phantom. SPSS software was used for data analysis. Results showed including CARE Dose 4D; ED was lowered by 48.35% and 51.51% using DLP and CT-expo, respectively. In addition, ED ranges between 7.01 mSv and 6.6 mSv in case of standard protocol, while it ranges between 3.62 mSv and 3.2 mSv with TCM. Similar results are found for SSDE; dose was higher without TCM of 16.25 mGy and was lower by 48.8% including TCM. The SNR values calculated were significantly different (p=0.03<0.05). The highest one is measured on images acquired with TCM and reconstructed with Filtered back projection (FBP). In conclusion, this study proves the potential of TCM technique in SSDE and ED reduction and in conserving image quality with high diagnostic reference level for thoracic CT examinations.

Keywords: Anthropomorphic phantom, computed tomography, CT-expo, radiation dose.

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Authors: Enas Elsayed Abutaleb, Mohamed Taher Eldesoky, Shahenda Abd El Rasol

Abstract:

Background: Muscle Energy Techniques (MET) have been widely used by manual therapists over the past years, but still limited research validated its use and there was limited evidence to substantiate the theories used to explain its effects. Objective: To investigate the effect of Muscle Energy Technique (MET) on anterior pelvic tilt in patients with lumbar spondylosis. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Subjects: Thirty patients with anterior pelvic tilt from both sexes were involved, aged between 35 to 50 years old and they were divided into MET and control groups with 15 patients in each. Methods: All patients received 3sessions/week for 4 weeks where the study group received MET, Ultrasound and Infrared, and the control group received U.S and I.R only. Pelvic angle was measured by palpation meter, pain severity by the visual analogue scale and functional disabilities by the Oswestry disability index. Results: Both groups showed significant improvement in all measured variables. The MET group was significantly better than the control group in pelvic angle, pain severity, and functional disability as p-value were (0.001, 0.0001, 0.0001) respectively. Conclusion and implication: the study group fulfilled greater improvement in all measured variables than the control group which implies that application of MET in combination with U.S and I.R were more effective in improving pelvic tilting angle, pain severity and functional disabilities than using electrotherapy only.

Keywords: Anterior pelvic tilt, lumbar spondylosis, muscle energy technique exercise, palpation meter.

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Authors: Muhammad Imran, Iqra Basit, Mobushir Riaz Khan, Sajid Rasheed Ahmad

Abstract:

The present study investigates the space-time impact of climate change on the rice crop calendar in tropical Gujranwala, Pakistan. The climate change impact was quantified through the climatic variables, whereas the existing calendar of the rice crop was compared with the phonological stages of the crop, depicted through the time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from Landsat data for the decade 2005-2015. Local maxima were applied on the time series of NDVI to compute the rice phonological stages. Panel models with fixed and cross-section fixed effects were used to establish the relation between the climatic parameters and the time-series of NDVI across villages and across rice growing periods. Results show that the climatic parameters have significant impact on the rice crop calendar. Moreover, the fixed effect model is a significant improvement over cross-sectional fixed effect models (R-squared equal to 0.673 vs. 0.0338). We conclude that high inter-annual variability of climatic variables cause high variability of NDVI, and thus, a shift in the rice crop calendar. Moreover, inter-annual (temporal) variability of the rice crop calendar is high compared to the inter-village (spatial) variability. We suggest the local rice farmers to adapt this change in the rice crop calendar.

Keywords: Landsat NDVI, panel models, temperature, rainfall.

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Authors: Saeed Asiri

Abstract:

This research is to design and implement a new kind of agitators called differential agitator. The Differential Agitator is an electro- mechanic set consists of two shafts. The first shaft is the bearing axis while the second shaft is the axis of the quartet upper bearing impellers group and the triple lower group which are called as agitating group. The agitating group is located inside a cylindrical container equipped especially to contain square directors for the liquid entrance and square directors called fixing group for the liquid exit. The fixing group is installed containing the agitating group inside any tank whether from upper or lower position. The agitating process occurs through the agitating group bearing causing a lower pressure over the upper group leading to withdrawing the liquid from the square directors of the liquid entering and consequently the liquid moves to the denser place under the quartet upper group. Then, the liquid moves to the so high pressure area under the agitating group causing the liquid to exit from the square directors in the bottom of the container. For improving efficiency, parametric study and shape optimization has been carried out. A numerical analysis, manufacturing and laboratory experiments were conducted to design and implement the differential agitator. Knowing the material prosperities and the loading conditions, the FEM using ANSYS11 was used to get the optimum design of the geometrical parameters of the differential agitator elements while the experimental test was performed to validate the advantages of the differential agitators to give a high agitation performance of lime in the water as an example. In addition, the experimental work has been done to express the internal container shape in the agitation efficiency. The study ended up with conclusions to maximize agitator performance and optimize the geometrical parameters to be used for manufacturing the differential agitator

Keywords: Differential Agitators, Parametric Optimization, Shape Optimization, Agitation, FEM, ANSYS11.

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Authors: Sitalakshmi Venkataraman

Abstract:

Recent scientific investigations indicate that multimodal biometrics overcome the technical limitations of unimodal biometrics, making them ideally suited for everyday life applications that require a reliable authentication system. However, for a successful adoption of multimodal biometrics, such systems would require large heterogeneous datasets with complex multimodal fusion and privacy schemes spanning various distributed environments. From experimental investigations of current multimodal systems, this paper reports the various issues related to speed, error-recovery and privacy that impede the diffusion of such systems in real-life. This calls for a robust mechanism that caters to the desired real-time performance, robust fusion schemes, interoperability and adaptable privacy policies. The main objective of this paper is to present a framework that addresses the abovementioned issues by leveraging on the heterogeneous resource sharing capacities of Grid services and the efficient machine learning capabilities of artificial neural networks (ANN). Hence, this paper proposes a Grid-based neural network framework for adopting multimodal biometrics with the view of overcoming the barriers of performance, privacy and risk issues that are associated with shared heterogeneous multimodal data centres. The framework combines the concept of Grid services for reliable brokering and privacy policy management of shared biometric resources along with a momentum back propagation ANN (MBPANN) model of machine learning for efficient multimodal fusion and authentication schemes. Real-life applications would be able to adopt the proposed framework to cater to the varying business requirements and user privacies for a successful diffusion of multimodal biometrics in various day-to-day transactions.

Keywords: Back Propagation, Grid Services, MultimodalBiometrics, Neural Networks.

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Authors: Subodh Thankachan, Manisha Pattanaik, S. S. Rajput

Abstract:

In this paper, a new BiCMOS CCII and CCCII, capable of operate at ±0.5V and having wide dynamic range with achieved bandwidth of 480MHz and 430MHz respectively have been proposed. The structures have been found to be insensitive to the threshold voltage variations. The proposed circuits are suitable for implementation using 0.25μm BiCMOS technology. Pspice simulations confirm the performance of the proposed structures.

Keywords: BiCMOS, Current conveyor, Compound current conveyor, Low supply voltage, Threshold voltage variation.

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