Search results for: minimum weight

Authors: J. K Adedeji, O. H Olowomofe, C. O Alo, S.T Ijatuyi

Abstract:

The issue of high blood sugar level, the effects of which might end up as diabetes mellitus, is now becoming a rampant cardiovascular disorder in our community. In recent times, a lack of awareness among most people makes this disease a silent killer. The situation calls for urgency, hence the need to design a device that serves as a monitoring tool such as a wrist watch to give an alert of the danger a head of time to those living with high blood glucose, as well as to introduce a mechanism for checks and balances. The neural network architecture assumed 8-15-10 configuration with eight neurons at the input stage including a bias, 15 neurons at the hidden layer at the processing stage, and 10 neurons at the output stage indicating likely symptoms cases. The inputs are formed using the exclusive OR (XOR), with the expectation of getting an XOR output as the threshold value for diabetic symptom cases. The neural algorithm is coded in Java language with 1000 epoch runs to bring the errors into the barest minimum. The internal circuitry of the device comprises the compatible hardware requirement that matches the nature of each of the input neurons. The light emitting diodes (LED) of red, green, and yellow colors are used as the output for the neural network to show pattern recognition for severe cases, pre-hypertensive cases and normal without the traces of diabetes mellitus. The research concluded that neural network is an efficient Accu-Chek design tool for the proper monitoring of high glucose levels than the conventional methods of carrying out blood test.

Keywords: Accu-Chek, diabetes, neural network, pattern recognition.

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Authors: Ismail Algelli Sassi Ehtiwesh, Mohamed Ali Elhaj

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The main goal of the study is to analyze all relevant properties of the electro hydraulic systems and based on that to make a proper choice of the neural network control strategy that may be used for the control of the mechatronic system. A combination of electronic and hydraulic systems is widely used since it combines the advantages of both. Hydraulic systems are widely spread because of their properties as accuracy, flexibility, high horsepower-to-weight ratio, fast starting, stopping and reversal with smoothness and precision, and simplicity of operations. On the other hand, the modern control of hydraulic systems is based on control of the circuit fed to the inductive solenoid that controls the position of the hydraulic valve. Since this circuit may be easily handled by PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signal with a proper frequency, the combination of electrical and hydraulic systems became very fruitful and usable in specific areas as airplane and military industry. The study shows and discusses the experimental results obtained by the control strategy of neural network control using MATLAB and SIMULINK [1]. Finally, the special attention was paid to the possibility of neuro-controller design and its application to control of electro-hydraulic systems and to make comparative with other kinds of control.

Keywords: Neural-Network controller, Mechatronic, electrohydraulic

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Authors: Navneet Singh Deora, Aastha Deswal, H. N. Mishra

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Pasta is one of the most widely consumed food products around the world. Rapid determination of the moisture content in pasta will assist food processors to provide online quality control of pasta during large scale production. Rapid Fourier transform near-infrared method (FT-NIR) was developed for determining moisture content in pasta. A calibration set of 150 samples, a validation set of 30 samples and a prediction set of 25 samples of pasta were used. The diffuse reflection spectra of different types of pastas were measured by FT-NIR analyzer in the 4,000-12,000cm^-1 spectral range. Calibration and validation sets were designed for the conception and evaluation of the method adequacy in the range of moisture content 10 to 15 percent (w.b) of the pasta. The prediction models based on partial least squares (PLS) regression, were developed in the near-infrared. Conventional criteria such as the R², the root mean square errors of cross validation (RMSECV), root mean square errors of estimation (RMSEE) as well as the number of PLS factors were considered for the selection of three pre-processing (vector normalization, minimum-maximum normalization and multiplicative scatter correction) methods. Spectra of pasta sample were treated with different mathematic pre-treatments before being used to build models between the spectral information and moisture content. The moisture content in pasta predicted by FT-NIR methods had very good correlation with their values determined via traditional methods (R² = 0.983), which clearly indicated that FT-NIR methods could be used as an effective tool for rapid determination of moisture content in pasta. The best calibration model was developed with min-max normalization (MMN) spectral pre-processing (R² = 0.9775). The MMN pre-processing method was found most suitable and the maximum coefficient of determination (R²) value of 0.9875 was obtained for the calibration model developed.

Keywords: FT-NIR, Pasta, moisture determination.

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Authors: Beena Sethi

Abstract:

This work involves the degradation of plastic waste in the presence of three different nanocatalysts. A thin film of LLDPE was formed with all three nanocatalysts separately in the solvent. Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetric (DSC) analysis of polymers suggest that the presence of these catalysts lowers the degradation temperature and the change mechanism of degradation. Gas chromatographic analysis was carried out for two films. In gas chromatography (GC) analysis, it was found that degradation of pure polymer produces only 32% C3/C4 hydrocarbons and 67.6% C5/C9 hydrocarbons. In the presence of these catalysts, more than 80% of polymer by weight was converted into either liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons. Change in the mechanism of degradation of polymer was observed therefore more C3/C4 hydrocarbons along with valuable feedstock are produced. Adjustment of dose of nanocatalyst, use of nano-admixtures and recycling of catalyst can make this catalytic feedstock recycling method a good tool to get sustainable environment. The obtained products can be utilized as fuel or can be transformed into other useful products. In accordance with the principles of sustainable development, chemical recycling i.e. tertiary recycling of polymers along with the reuse (zero order recycling) of plastics can be the most appropriate and promising method in this direction. The tertiary recycling is attracting much attention from the viewpoint of the energy resource.

Keywords: Degradation, differential scanning calorimetry, feedstock recycling, gas chromatography, thermogravimetric analysis. DSC.

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Authors: Mohammad D. AL-Tahat, Shahnaz M. Alkhalil

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International markets driven forces are changing continuously, therefore companies need to gain a competitive edge in such markets. Improving the company's products, processes and practices is no longer auxiliary. Lean production is a production management philosophy that consolidates work tasks with minimum waste resulting in improved productivity. Lean production practices can be mapped into many production areas. One of these is Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (MET). Many lean production practices can be implemented in MET, namely, specific equipment configurations, total preventive maintenance, visual control, new equipment/ technologies, production process reengineering and shared vision of perfection.The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implementation level of these six practices in Jordanian industries. To achieve that a questionnaire survey has been designed according to five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire is validated through pilot study and through experts review. A sample of 350 Jordanian companies were surveyed, the response rate was 83%. The respondents were asked to rate the extent of implementation for each of practices. A relationship conceptual model is developed, hypotheses are proposed, and consequently the essential statistical analyses are then performed. An assessment tool that enables management to monitor the progress and the effectiveness of lean practices implementation is designed and presented. Consequently, the results show that the average implementation level of lean practices in MET is 77%, Jordanian companies are implementing successfully the considered lean production practices, and the presented model has Cronbach-s alpha value of 0.87 which is good evidence on model consistency and results validation.

Keywords: Lean Production, SME applications, Visual Control, New equipment/technologies, Specific equipment configurations, Jordan

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Authors: Igor Miňo, Lenka Lešková

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Over the past 80 years, open-field method has evolved as a commonly used tool for the analysis of animal behaviour. The study was carried out using 50 kennel-reared purebred puppies of the German Shepherd dog breed. All dogs were tested in 5^th, 7^th, and 9^th week of age. For the purpose of behavioural analysis, an open-field evaluation report was designed prior to testing to ensure the most convenient, rapid, and suitable way to assess selected behavioural patterns in field conditions. Onset of vocalisation, intensity of vocalisation, level of physical activity, response to sound, and overall behaviour was monitored in the study. Correlations between measures of height, weight and chest circumference, and behavioural characteristics in the 5^th, 7^th, and 9^th week of age were not statistically significant. Onset of vocalisation, intensity of vocalisation, level of physical activity and response to sound differed on statistically significant level between 5^th, 7^th, and 9^th week of age. Results suggest that our practical assessment report may be used as an applicable method to evaluate the suitability of service dog puppies for future working roles.

Keywords: Dog, behaviour, open-field, testing.

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Authors: A. K. Prajapati

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In this paper, the periodic surveillance scheme has been proposed for any convex region using mobile wireless sensor nodes. A sensor network typically consists of fixed number of sensor nodes which report the measurements of sensed data such as temperature, pressure, humidity, etc., of its immediate proximity (the area within its sensing range). For the purpose of sensing an area of interest, there are adequate number of fixed sensor nodes required to cover the entire region of interest. It implies that the number of fixed sensor nodes required to cover a given area will depend on the sensing range of the sensor as well as deployment strategies employed. It is assumed that the sensors to be mobile within the region of surveillance, can be mounted on moving bodies like robots or vehicle. Therefore, in our scheme, the surveillance time period determines the number of sensor nodes required to be deployed in the region of interest. The proposed scheme comprises of three algorithms namely: Hexagonalization, Clustering, and Scheduling, The first algorithm partitions the coverage area into fixed sized hexagons that approximate the sensing range (cell) of individual sensor node. The clustering algorithm groups the cells into clusters, each of which will be covered by a single sensor node. The later determines a schedule for each sensor to serve its respective cluster. Each sensor node traverses all the cells belonging to the cluster assigned to it by oscillating between the first and the last cell for the duration of its life time. Simulation results show that our scheme provides full coverage within a given period of time using few sensors with minimum movement, less power consumption, and relatively less infrastructure cost.

Keywords: Sensor Network, Graph Theory, MSN, Communication.

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Authors: Daehwan Kim, Jaemin Kim, Seongwon Cho, Yongsuk Jang, Sun-Tae Chung, Boo-Gyoun Kim

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AAM has been successfully applied to face alignment, but its performance is very sensitive to initial values. In case the initial values are a little far distant from the global optimum values, there exists a pretty good possibility that AAM-based face alignment may converge to a local minimum. In this paper, we propose a progressive AAM-based face alignment algorithm which first finds the feature parameter vector fitting the inner facial feature points of the face and later localize the feature points of the whole face using the first information. The proposed progressive AAM-based face alignment algorithm utilizes the fact that the feature points of the inner part of the face are less variant and less affected by the background surrounding the face than those of the outer part (like the chin contour). The proposed algorithm consists of two stages: modeling and relation derivation stage and fitting stage. Modeling and relation derivation stage first needs to construct two AAM models: the inner face AAM model and the whole face AAM model and then derive relation matrix between the inner face AAM parameter vector and the whole face AAM model parameter vector. In the fitting stage, the proposed algorithm aligns face progressively through two phases. In the first phase, the proposed algorithm will find the feature parameter vector fitting the inner facial AAM model into a new input face image, and then in the second phase it localizes the whole facial feature points of the new input face image based on the whole face AAM model using the initial parameter vector estimated from using the inner feature parameter vector obtained in the first phase and the relation matrix obtained in the first stage. Through experiments, it is verified that the proposed progressive AAM-based face alignment algorithm is more robust with respect to pose, illumination, and face background than the conventional basic AAM-based face alignment algorithm.

Keywords: Face Alignment, AAM, facial feature detection, model matching.

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Authors: M. N. Zelenin, V. S. Mikhailov, R. P. Zhivotovsky

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It is known that residual welding deformations give negative effect to processability and operational quality of welded structures, complicating their assembly and reducing strength. Therefore, selection of optimal technology, ensuring minimum welding deformations, is one of the main goals in developing a technology for manufacturing of welded structures. Through years, JSC SSTC has been developing a theory for estimation of welding deformations and practical activities for reducing and compensating such deformations during welding process. During long time a methodology was used, based on analytic dependence. This methodology allowed defining volumetric changes of metal due to welding heating and subsequent cooling. However, dependences for definition of structures deformations, arising as a result of volumetric changes of metal in the weld area, allowed performing calculations only for simple structures, such as units, flat sections and sections with small curvature. In case of complex 3D structures, estimations on the base of analytic dependences gave significant errors. To eliminate this shortage, it was suggested to use finite elements method for resolving of deformation problem. Here, one shall first calculate volumes of longitudinal and transversal shortenings of welding joints using method of analytic dependences and further, with obtained shortenings, calculate forces, which action is equivalent to the action of active welding stresses. Further, a finiteelements model of the structure is developed and equivalent forces are added to this model. Having results of calculations, an optimal sequence of assembly and welding is selected and special measures to reduce and compensate welding deformations are developed and taken.

Keywords: Finite elements method, modeling, expected welding deformations, welding, assembling.

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Authors: Anthony Bawa, Konstantinos Banitsas

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Rheumatism is a muscular disorder that affects the muscles of the upper and lower limbs. This condition could potentially progress to impair the movement of patients. This study aims to investigate the hip muscular imbalance in patients with chronic rheumatism. A clinical trial involving a total of 15 participants, made up of 10 patients and five control subjects, took place in KATH Hospital between August and September. Participants recruited for the study were of age 54 ± 8 years, weight 65 ± 8 kg, and height 176 ± 8 cm. Muscle signals were recorded from the rectus femoris, and vastus lateralis on the right and left hip of participants. The parameters used in determining the hip muscular imbalances were the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC%), the mean difference, and hip muscle fatigue levels. The mean signals were compared using a t-test, and the metrics for muscle fatigue assessment were based on the root mean square (RMS), mean absolute value (MAV) and mean frequency (MEF), which were computed between the hip muscles of participants. The results indicated that there were significant imbalances in the muscle coactivity between the right and left hip muscles of patients. The patients’ MVC values were observed to be above 10% when compared with control subjects. Furthermore, the mean difference was seen to be higher with p > 0.002 among patients, which indicated clear differences in the hip muscle contraction activities. The findings indicate significant hip muscular imbalances for patients with rheumatism compared with control subjects. Information about the imbalances among patients will be useful for clinicians in designing therapeutic muscle-strengthening exercises.

Keywords: Muscular, imbalances, rheumatism, hip.

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Authors: Souvik Bhattacharyya, Gautam Sanyal

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Over last two decades, due to hostilities of environment over the internet the concerns about confidentiality of information have increased at phenomenal rate. Therefore to safeguard the information from attacks, number of data/information hiding methods have evolved mostly in spatial and transformation domain.In spatial domain data hiding techniques,the information is embedded directly on the image plane itself. In transform domain data hiding techniques the image is first changed from spatial domain to some other domain and then the secret information is embedded so that the secret information remains more secure from any attack. Information hiding algorithms in time domain or spatial domain have high capacity and relatively lower robustness. In contrast, the algorithms in transform domain, such as DCT, DWT have certain robustness against some multimedia processing.In this work the authors propose a novel steganographic method for hiding information in the transform domain of the gray scale image.The proposed approach works by converting the gray level image in transform domain using discrete integer wavelet technique through lifting scheme.This approach performs a 2-D lifting wavelet decomposition through Haar lifted wavelet of the cover image and computes the approximation coefficients matrix CA and detail coefficients matrices CH, CV, and CD.Next step is to apply the PMM technique in those coefficients to form the stego image. The aim of this paper is to propose a high-capacity image steganography technique that uses pixel mapping method in integer wavelet domain with acceptable levels of imperceptibility and distortion in the cover image and high level of overall security. This solution is independent of the nature of the data to be hidden and produces a stego image with minimum degradation.

Keywords: Cover Image, Pixel Mapping Method (PMM), StegoImage, Integer Wavelet Tranform.

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Authors: M. Sankari, R. Bremananth, C.Meena

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Localization and Recognition of License registration characters from the moving vehicle is a computationally complex task in the field of machine vision and is of substantial interest because of its diverse applications such as cross border security, law enforcement and various other intelligent transportation applications. Previous research used the plate specific details such as aspect ratio, character style, color or dimensions of the plate in the complex task of plate localization. In this paper, license registration character is localized by Enhanced Weight based density map (EWBDM) method, which is independent of such constraints. In connection with our previous method, this paper proposes a method that relaxes constraints in lighting conditions, different fonts of character occurred in the plate and plates with hand-drawn characters in various aspect quotients. The robustness of this method is well suited for applications where the appearance of plates seems to be varied widely. Experimental results show that this approach is suited for recognizing license plates in different external environments. 

Keywords: Character segmentation, Connectivity checking, Edge detection, Image analysis, license plate localization, license number recognition, Quality frame selection

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Authors: Abbas Maleki, Maryam Pournajaf, Rahim Naseri, Reza Rashnavadi

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In order to study the effects of supplemental irrigation, different levels of nitrogen chemical fertilizer and inoculation with rhizobium bacteria on the grain yield of chickpea, an experiment was carried out using split plot arrangement in randomize complete block design with three replication in agricultural researches station of Zanjan, Iran during 2009-2010 cropping season. The factors of experiment consisted of irritation (without irrigation (I1), irrigation at flowering stage (I2), irrigation at flowering and grain filling stages (I3) and full irrigation (I4)) and different levels of nitrogen fertilizer (without using of nitrogen fertilizer (N0), 75 kg.ha^-1 (N75), 150 kg.ha^-1 (N150) and inoculation with rhizobium bacteria (N4). The results of the analysis of variance showed that the effects of irrigation, nitrogen fertilizer levels and bacterial inoculation, were significant affect on number of pods per plant, number grains per plant, grain weight, grain yield, biological yield and harvest index at 1% probability level. Also Results showed that the grain yield in full irrigation treatment and inoculated with rhizobium bacteria was significantly higher than the other treatments.

Keywords: Chickpea, Nitrogen, Supplemental irrigation.

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Authors: Sakir Tasdemir, Mustafa Altin, Gamze Fahriye Pehlivan, Ismail Saritas, Sadiye Didem Boztepe Erkis, Selma Tasdemir

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Artificial intelligence applications are commonly used in industry in many fields in parallel with the developments in the computer technology. In this study, a fire room was prepared for the resistance of wooden construction elements and with the mechanism here, the experiments of polished materials were carried out. By utilizing from the experimental data, an artificial neural network (ANN) was modelled in order to evaluate the final cross sections of the wooden samples remaining from the fire. In modelling, experimental data obtained from the fire room were used. In the developed system, the first weight of samples (ws-gr), preliminary cross-section (pcs-mm2), fire time (ft-minute), and fire temperature (t-oC) as input parameters and final cross-section (fcs-mm2) as output parameter were taken. When the results obtained from ANN and experimental data are compared after making statistical analyses, the data of two groups are determined to be coherent and seen to have no meaning difference between them. As a result, it is seen that ANN can be safely used in determining cross sections of wooden materials after fire and it prevents many disadvantages.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, final cross-section, fire retardant polishes, fire safety, wood resistance.

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Authors: Ghias ul Hassan, Bilal Nasir, Israr ul Haque, ShafiqAwan, Ghias Un NabiTayyab, S. Hassan Akhtar Bokhari, Khawar Saeed, Qazi Masroor

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Introduction: Pegylated Interferon and Ribavirin combination is standard of care in the management of chronic HCV infected patients. Efficacy of the therapy is judged by the ability to achieve biochemical and virological response as judged by RVR, EVR, ETR and SVR.Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of newly marketed biosimilar Pegylated Interferon Alpha 40KD (Peg INF) in chronic HCV patients. Materials and methods: This was observational, prospective multicentre study to evaluate the ability of biosimilar pegylated interferon alfa 2a (40KD) along with Ribavirin (weight based) to achieve SVR. The enrolled patients were separated into Naïve (A), Relapsers (B) and Non Responders(C) based on the previous history of interferon exposure and its response. The RGT was followed on ALT and RVR, EVR, ETR and SVR.Results:As per protocol analysis estimated SVR for three groups is 86.6% for naïve, 89.4% for relapsers and 52.4% for non-responders to standard interferon. Conclusion: It is concluded that Bio-similar pegylated interferon alfa-2a (40kD) along with Ribavirin has good anti-viral efficacy in Naïve, Relapsers and Non-responders to standard IFN of chronic HCV infected patients requiring treatment.

Keywords: SVR (Sustained virological response), NR (Nonresponders), Pegylated Interferon.

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Authors: Amir Mirzaei, Rahim Naseri, Parvaneh Vafa, Meysam Moradi

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In order to investigate the effect of drought stress and row spacing on grain yield and associated traits of Mungbean, an experiment was conducted as a factorial in based on randomized complete block design with three replications in Ilam station, Iran during 2008-2009 growing season. This experiment was conducted in four stages on one kind of Mungbean named Gohar. The experimental factors including (80, 110 and 140mm cumulative evaporation from class A pan) and row spacing (25, 50, and 75cm) were selected. The results of the experiment showed that the varieties affected by the treatment showed significant differences. The highest total yield was obtained in the condition in which evaporation of water was 80mm. Of course some traits such as grain yield did not show a significant difference between the conditions in which evaporation of the irrigation water was 80 and 110mm. The traits under study also showed a significant difference to different raw spacing. Row spacing of 50cm had a higher total yield compared to other raw spaces. It was due to the higher number of pods per plant and grain weight. The interaction of drought stress and row spacing showed that in the condition in which the row space is 50 cm and the evaporation of the irrigation water is 80mm, the highest number of grain is achieved.

Keywords: Stress, Grain yield, Mungbean, Row spacing.

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Authors: Markus Kaiser, Johannes Buchmann

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In this article, a formal specification and verification of the Rabin public-key scheme in a formal proof system is presented. The idea is to use the two views of cryptographic verification: the computational approach relying on the vocabulary of probability theory and complexity theory and the formal approach based on ideas and techniques from logic and programming languages. A major objective of this article is the presentation of the first computer-proved implementation of the Rabin public-key scheme in Isabelle/HOL. Moreover, we explicate a (computer-proven) formalization of correctness as well as a computer verification of security properties using a straight-forward computation model in Isabelle/HOL. The analysis uses a given database to prove formal properties of our implemented functions with computer support. The main task in designing a practical formalization of correctness as well as efficient computer proofs of security properties is to cope with the complexity of cryptographic proving. We reduce this complexity by exploring a light-weight formalization that enables both appropriate formal definitions as well as efficient formal proofs. Consequently, we get reliable proofs with a minimal error rate augmenting the used database, what provides a formal basis for more computer proof constructions in this area.

Keywords: public-key encryption, Rabin public-key scheme, formalproof system, higher-order logic, formal verification.

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Authors: Gabriella Tjondro, Julita Dortua Laurentina Nainggolan

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Introduction: There are several things affecting menstrual cycle, namely, nutritional status, diet, financial status of one’s household and exercises. The most commonly used parameter to calculate the fat in a human body is body mass index. Therefore, it is necessary to do research to prevent complications caused by menstrual disorder in the future. Design Study: This research is an observational analytical study with the cross-sectional-case control approach. Participants (n = 124; median age = 19.5 years ± SD 3.5) were classified into 2 groups: normal, NM (n = 62; BMI = 18-23 kg/m²) and obese, OB (n = 62; BMI = > 25 kg/m²). BMI was calculated from the equation; BMI = weight, kg/height, m². Results: There were 79.10% from obese group who experienced menstrual cycle disorders (n=53, 79.10%; p value 0.00; OR 5.25) and 20.90% from normal BMI group with menstrual cycle disorders. There were several factors in this research that also influence the menstrual cycle disorders such as stress (44.78%; p value 0.00; OR 1.85), sleep disorders (25.37%; p value 0.00; OR 1.01), physical activities (25.37%; p value 0.00; OR 1.24) and diet (10.45%; p value 0.00; OR 1.07). Conclusion: There is a significant relation between body mass index (obese) and menstrual cycle disorders. However, BMI is not the only factor that affects the menstrual cycle disorders. There are several factors that also can affect menstrual cycle disorders, in this study we use stress, sleep disorders, physical activities and diet, in which none of them are dominant.

Keywords: Menstrual disorders, menstrual cycle, obesity, body mass index, stress, sleep disorders, physical activities, diet.

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Authors: I. Ahmad, A. Hannan, S. Ahmad, M. Asif, M. F. Nawaz, M. A. Tanvir, M. F. Azhar

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During this research, a comprehensive survey of tree growing areas of Faisalabad district of Pakistan was conducted to observe the symptoms, spectrum, occurrence and severity of A. nilotica and E. camaldulensis decline. Objective of current research was to investigate specific fungal pathogens involved in decline of A. nilotica and E. camaldulensis. For this purpose, infected roots, bark, neck portion, stem, branches, leaves and infected soils were collected to identify associated fungi. Potato dextrose agar (PDA) and Czepak dox agar media were used for isolations. Identification of isolated fungi was done microscopically and different fungi were identified. During survey of urban locations of Faisalabad, disease incidence on Kikar and Eucalyptus was recorded as 3.9-7.9% and 2.6-7.1% respectively. Survey of Agroforest zones of Faisalabad revealed decline incidence on kikar 7.5% from Sargodha road while on Satiana and Jhang road it was not planted. In eucalyptus trees, 4%, 8% and 0% disease incidence was observed on Jhang road, Sargodha road and Satiana road respectively. The maximum fungus isolated from the kikar tree was Drechslera australiensis (5.00%) from the stem part. Aspergillus flavus also gave the maximum value of (3.05%) from the bark. Alternaria alternata gave the maximum value of (2.05%) from leaves. Rhizopus and Mucor spp. were recorded minimum as compared to the Drechslera, Alternaria and Aspergillus. The maximum fungus isolated from the Eucalyptus tree was Armillaria luteobubalina (5.00%) from the stem part. The other fungi isolated were Macrophamina phaseolina and A. niger.

Keywords: Decline, frequency of mycoflora, A. nilotica, E. camaldulensis, Drechslera australiensis, Armillaria luteobubalina.

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Authors: M. Mhada, E. N. Jellen, S. E. Jacobsen, O. Benlhabib

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The present work has been carried out to evaluate the diversity of a collection of 78 quinoa accessions developed through recurrent selection from Andean germplasm introduced to Morocco in the winter of 2000. Twenty-three quantitative and qualitative characters were used for the evaluation of genetic diversity and the relationship between the accessions, and also for the establishment of a core collection in Morocco. Important variation was found among the accessions in terms of plant morphology and growth behavior. Data analysis showed positive correlation of the plant height, the plant fresh and the dry weight with the grain yield, while days to flowering was found to be negatively correlated with grain yield. The first four PCs contributed 74.76% of the variability; the first PC showed significant variation with 42.86% of the total variation, PC2 with 15.37%, PC3 with 9.05% and PC4 contributed 7.49% of the total variation. Plant size, days to grain filling and days to maturity are correlated to the PC1; and seed size, inflorescence density and mildew resistance are correlated to the PC2. Hierarchical cluster analysis rearranged the 78 quinoa accessions into four main groups and ten sub-clusters. Clustering was found in associations with days to maturity and also with plant size and seed-size traits.

Keywords: Character association, Chenopodium quinoa, Diversity analysis, Morphotypic cluster, Multivariate analysis.

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Authors: Nguyen Minh, Tuan, Chung-Ruey, Yen, Bui Lan, Anh

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The study was carried out to evaluated effect of S-gridling on fruit growth and quality of wax apple. The study was laid in Random completed block design with four replicated. Four treatment were applied as follows: S-girdling, fruit thinning plus bagging with 2,4-D sprayed, fruit thinning plus bagging and the control treatment. 2,4D was sprayed at the small bud and petal fall stage. Girdling was applied three week before flowering. The effect of all treatments on fruit growth was measured weekly. Number of flower, fruit set, fruit drop, fruit crack, and fruit quality were recorded. The result indicated that S-girdling, 2,4D application produced the lowest bud drop, fruit drop compared to untreated control. S-girdling improved faster fruit growth producing the best final fruit length and diameter compared to untreated control. S-girdling also markedly enhanced fruit set, fruit weight, and total soluble solid, reduced fruit crack, titratable acidity. On the other hand, it was noticed that with 2,4-D application also increased the fruit growth rate, improved physiological and biochemical characters of fruit than control treatment. It was concluded that S-girdling was recommended as the industry norm to increase fruit set, fruit quality in wax apple. 2,4D application had a distinctive and significant effect on most of the fruit quality characteristics assessed.

Keywords: S-girdling, 2, 4D, wax apple, fruit growth, fruit quality.

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Authors: P. Pinyaphong, S. Phutrakul

Abstract:

Palm oil could be converted to cocoa butter equivalent by lipase-catalyzed interesterification. The objective of this research was to investigate the structure modification of palm oil to cocoa butter equivalent using Carica papaya lipase –catalyzed interesterification. The study showed that the compositions of cocoa butter equivalent were affected by acyl donor sources, substrate ratio, initial water of enzyme, reaction time, reaction temperature and the amount of enzyme. Among three acyl donors tested (methyl stearate, ethyl stearate and stearic acid), methyl stearate appeared to be the best acyl donor for incorporation to palm oil structure. The best reaction conditions for cocoa butter equivalent production were : substrate ratio (palm oil : methyl stearate, mol/mol) at 1 : 4, water activity of enzyme at 0.11, reaction time at 4 h, reaction temperature at 45 ° C and 18% by weight of the enzyme. The chemical and physical properties of cocoa butter equivalent were 9.75 ± 0.41% free fatty acid, 44.89 ± 0.84 iodine number, 193.19 ± 0.78 sponification value and melting point at 37-39 °C.

Keywords: Carica papaya lipase, cocoa butter equivalent, interesterification, palm oil.

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Authors: Li-Ping Hsiao, Feng-Chuan Pan

Abstract:

Leave of absence is important in maintaining a good status of human resource quality. Allowing the employees temporarily free from the routine assignments can vitalize the workers- morality and productivity. This is particularly critical to secure a satisfactory service quality for healthcare professionals of which were typically featured with labor intensive and complicated works to perform. As one of the veteran hospitals that were found and operated by the Veteran Department of Taiwan, the nursing staff of the case hospital was squeezed to an extreme minimum level under the pressure of a tight budgeting. Leave of absence on schedule became extremely difficult, especially for the intensive care units (ICU), in which required close monitoring over the cared patients, and that had more easily driven the ICU nurses nervous. Even worse, the deferred leaves were more than 10 days at any time in the ICU because of a fluctuating occupancy. As a result, these had brought a bad setback to this particular nursing team, and consequently defeated the job performance and service quality. To solve this problem and accordingly to strengthen their morality, a project team was organized across different departments specific for this. Sufficient information regarding jobs and positions requirements, labor resources, and actual working hours in detail were collected and analyzed in the team meetings. Several alternatives were finalized. These included job rotating, job combination, leave on impromptu and cross-departmental redeployment. Consequently, the deferred leave days sharply reduced 70% to a level of 3 or less days. This improvement had not only provided good shelter for the ICU nurses that improved their job performance and patient safety but also encouraged the nurses active participating of a project and learned the skills of solving problems with colleagues.

Keywords: Information, job rotating, human resource, intensive care unit.

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Authors: Abhijit Mitra

Abstract:

This paper proposes an efficient finite precision block floating point (BFP) treatment to the fixed coefficient finite impulse response (FIR) digital filter. The treatment includes effective implementation of all the three forms of the conventional FIR filters, namely, direct form, cascaded and par- allel, and a roundoff error analysis of them in the BFP format. An effective block formatting algorithm together with an adaptive scaling factor is pro- posed to make the realizations more simple from hardware view point. To this end, a generic relation between the tap weight vector length and the input block length is deduced. The implementation scheme also emphasises on a simple block exponent update technique to prevent overflow even during the block to block transition phase. The roundoff noise is also investigated along the analogous lines, taking into consideration these implementational issues. The simulation results show that the BFP roundoff errors depend on the sig- nal level almost in the same way as floating point roundoff noise, resulting in approximately constant signal to noise ratio over a relatively large dynamic range.

Keywords: Finite impulse response digital filters, Cascade structure, Parallel structure, Block floating point arithmetic, Roundoff error.

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Authors: B. A. Mir, Asim Malik

Abstract:

Bottom ash is a by-product of the combustion process of coal in furnaces in the production of electricity in thermal power plants. In India, about 75% of total power is produced by using pulverized coal. The coal of India has a high ash content which leads to the generation of a huge quantity of bottom ash per year posing the dual problem of environmental pollution and difficulty in disposal. This calls for establishing strategies to use this industry by-product effectively and efficiently. However, its large-scale utilization is possible only in geotechnical applications, either alone or with soil. In the present investigation, bottom ash was collected from National Capital Power Station Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, India. Test samples of bottom ash admixed with 20% clayey soil were prepared and treated with different cement content by weight and subjected to various laboratory tests for assessing its suitability as an engineered construction material. This study has shown that use of 10% cement content is a viable chemical additive to enhance the mechanical properties of bottom ash, which can be used effectively as an engineered construction material in various geotechnical applications. More importantly, it offers an interesting potential for making use of an industrial waste to overcome challenges posed by bottom ash for a sustainable environment.

Keywords: Bottom ash, environmental pollution, solid waste, sustainable environment, waste utilization.

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Authors: S.S. Abdullah, S. Yusup, M.M. Ahmad, A. Ramli, L. Ismail

Abstract:

This paper aims to study decomposition behavior in pyrolytic environment of four lignocellulosic biomass (oil palm shell, oil palm frond, rice husk and paddy straw), and two commercial components of biomass (pure cellulose and lignin), performed in a thermogravimetry analyzer (TGA). The unit which consists of a microbalance and a furnace flowed with 100 cc (STP) min-1 Nitrogen, N2 as inert. Heating rate was set at 20⁰C min-1 and temperature started from 50 to 900⁰C. Hydrogen gas production during the pyrolysis was observed using Agilent Gas Chromatography Analyzer 7890A. Oil palm shell, oil palm frond, paddy straw and rice husk were found to be reactive enough in a pyrolytic environment of up to 900°C since pyrolysis of these biomass starts at temperature as low as 200°C and maximum value of weight loss is achieved at about 500°C. Since there was not much different in the cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin fractions between oil palm shell, oil palm frond, paddy straw and rice husk, the T-50 and R-50 values obtained are almost similar. H2 productions started rapidly at this temperature as well due to the decompositions of biomass inside the TGA. Biomass with more lignin content such as oil palm shell was found to have longer duration of H2 production compared to materials of high cellulose and hemicelluloses contents.

Keywords: biomass, decomposition, hydrogen, lignocellulosic, thermogravimetry

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Authors: K. Sandjak, B. Tiliouine

Abstract:

Structural analysis of flexible pavements has been and still is currently performed using multi-layer elastic theory. However, for thinly surfaced pavements subjected to low to medium volumes of traffics, the importance of non-linear stress-strain behavior of unbound granular materials (UGM) requires the use of more sophisticated numerical models for structural design and performance of such pavements. In the present work, nonlinear unbound aggregates constitutive model is implemented within an axisymmetric finite element code developed to simulate the nonlinear behavior of pavement structures including two local aggregates of different mineralogical nature, typically used in Algerian pavements. The performance of the mechanical model is examined about its capability of representing adequately, under various conditions, the granular material non-linearity in pavement analysis. In addition, deflection data collected by Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) are incorporated into the analysis in order to assess the sensitivity of critical pavement design criteria and pavement design life to the constitutive model. Finally, conclusions of engineering significance are formulated. 

Keywords: Nonlinear resilient behavior, unbound granular materials, RLT test results, FWD backcalculations, finite element simulations, pavement response and performance.

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Authors: Christian Endisch, Christoph Hackl, Dierk Schröder

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This paper presents an exact pruning algorithm with adaptive pruning interval for general dynamic neural networks (GDNN). GDNNs are artificial neural networks with internal dynamics. All layers have feedback connections with time delays to the same and to all other layers. The structure of the plant is unknown, so the identification process is started with a larger network architecture than necessary. During parameter optimization with the Levenberg- Marquardt (LM) algorithm irrelevant weights of the dynamic neural network are deleted in order to find a model for the plant as simple as possible. The weights to be pruned are found by direct evaluation of the training data within a sliding time window. The influence of pruning on the identification system depends on the network architecture at pruning time and the selected weight to be deleted. As the architecture of the model is changed drastically during the identification and pruning process, it is suggested to adapt the pruning interval online. Two system identification examples show the architecture selection ability of the proposed pruning approach.

Keywords: System identification, dynamic neural network, recurrentneural network, GDNN, optimization, Levenberg Marquardt, realtime recurrent learning, network pruning, quasi-online learning.

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Authors: Venkatesh Kumar, Kasun Hewage, Rehan Sadiq

Abstract:

Residential buildings consume significant amounts of energy and produce large amount of emissions and waste. However, there is a substantial potential for energy savings in this sector which needs to be evaluated over the life cycle of residential buildings. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology has been employed to study the primary energy uses and associated environmental impacts of different phases (i.e., product, construction, use, end of life, and beyond building life) for residential buildings. Four different alternatives of residential buildings in Vancouver (BC, Canada) with a 50-year lifespan have been evaluated, including High Rise Apartment (HRA), Low Rise Apartment (LRA), Single family Attached House (SAH), and Single family Detached House (SDH). Life cycle performance of the buildings is evaluated for embodied energy, embodied environmental impacts, operational energy, operational environmental impacts, total life-cycle energy, and total life cycle environmental impacts. Estimation of operational energy and LCA are performed using DesignBuilder software and Athena Impact estimator software respectively. The study results revealed that over the life span of the buildings, the relationship between the energy use and the environmental impacts are identical. LRA is found to be the best alternative in terms of embodied energy use and embodied environmental impacts; while, HRA showed the best life-cycle performance in terms of minimum energy use and environmental impacts. Sensitivity analysis has also been carried out to study the influence of building service lifespan over 50, 75, and 100 years on the relative significance of embodied energy and total life cycle energy. The life-cycle energy requirements for SDH are found to be a significant component among the four types of residential buildings. The overall disclose that the primary operations of these buildings accounts for 90% of the total life cycle energy which far outweighs minor differences in embodied effects between the buildings.

Keywords: Building simulation, environmental impacts, life cycle assessment, life cycle energy analysis, residential buildings.

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Authors: A. P. Singh

Abstract:

The results reported in this paper are the part of an extensive laboratory investigation undertaken to study the effects of fibre parameters on the permeability and strength characteristics of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC). The effect of varying fibre content and curing age on the water permeability, compressive and split tensile strengths of SFRC was investigated using straight steel fibres having an aspect ratio of 65. Samples containing three different weight fractions of 1.0%, 2.0% and 4.0% were cast and tested for permeability and strength after 7, 14, 28 and 60 days of curing. Plain concrete samples were also cast and tested for reference purposes.

Permeability was observed to decrease significantly with the addition of steel fibres and continued to decrease with increasing fibre content and increasing curing age. An exponential relationship was observed between permeability and compressive and split tensile strengths for SFRC as well as PCC. To evaluate the effect of fibre content on the permeability and strength characteristics, the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) statistical method was used. An a level (probability of error) of 0.05 was used for ANOVA test. Regression analysis was carried out to develop relationship between permeability, compressive strength and curing age.

Keywords: Permeability, grade of concrete, fibre shape, fibre content, curing age, steady state, Darcy’s law, method of penetration.

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