Search results for: Muhammad Umair Shahid

Authors: Muhammad Hazwan H., Azlina M.F., Hasfalina C.M., Zurina Z.A., Hishamuddin J

Abstract:

Gaharu that produced by Aquilaria spp. is classified as one of the most valuable forest products traded internationally as it is very resinous, fragrant and highly valuable heartwood. Gaharu has been widely used in aromatheraphy, medicine, perfume and religious practices. This work aimed to determine the factors affecting solid liquid extraction of gaharu oil using hexane as solvent under experimental condition. The kinetics of extraction was assumed and verified based on a second-order mechanism. The effect of three main factors, which were temperature, reaction time and solvent to solid ratio were investigated to achieve maximum oil yield. The optimum condition were found at temperature 65°C, 9 hours reaction time and solvent to solid ratio of 12:1 with 14.5% oil yield. The kinetics experimental data agrees and well fitted with the second order extraction model. The initial extraction rate (h) was 0.0115 gmL-1min-1; the extraction capacity (Cs) was 1.282gmL-1; the second order extraction constant (k) was 0.007 mLg-1min-1 and coefficient of determination, R2 was 0.945.

Keywords: Gaharu, solid liquid extraction, optimization, kinetics.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3264

Authors: Basit Shahzad, Muhammad Tanvir Afzal

Abstract:

Many algorithms are available for sorting the unordered elements. Most important of them are Bubble sort, Heap sort, Insertion sort and Shell sort. These algorithms have their own pros and cons. Shell Sort which is an enhanced version of insertion sort, reduces the number of swaps of the elements being sorted to minimize the complexity and time as compared to insertion sort. Shell sort improves the efficiency of insertion sort by quickly shifting values to their destination. Average sort time is O(n1.25), while worst-case time is O(n1.5). It performs certain iterations. In each iteration it swaps some elements of the array in such a way that in last iteration when the value of h is one, the number of swaps will be reduced. Donald L. Shell invented a formula to calculate the value of ?h?. this work focuses to identify some improvement in the conventional Shell sort algorithm. ''Enhanced Shell Sort algorithm'' is an improvement in the algorithm to calculate the value of 'h'. It has been observed that by applying this algorithm, number of swaps can be reduced up to 60 percent as compared to the existing algorithm. In some other cases this enhancement was found faster than the existing algorithms available.

Keywords: Algorithm, Computation, Shell, Sorting.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3136

Authors: Muhammad Shafi, Paul W. H. Chung

Abstract:

This paper proposes a hybrid method for eyes localization in facial images. The novelty is in combining techniques that utilise colour, edge and illumination cues to improve accuracy. The method is based on the observation that eye regions have dark colour, high density of edges and low illumination as compared to other parts of face. The first step in the method is to extract connected regions from facial images using colour, edge density and illumination cues separately. Some of the regions are then removed by applying rules that are based on the general geometry and shape of eyes. The remaining connected regions obtained through these three cues are then combined in a systematic way to enhance the identification of the candidate regions for the eyes. The geometry and shape based rules are then applied again to further remove the false eye regions. The proposed method was tested using images from the PICS facial images database. The proposed method has 93.7% and 87% accuracies for initial blobs extraction and final eye detection respectively.

Keywords: Erosion, dilation, Edge-density

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2050

Authors: Muhammad H. Rais,

Abstract:

Truncated multiplier is a good candidate for digital signal processing (DSP) applications including finite impulse response (FIR) and discrete cosine transform (DCT). Through truncated multiplier a significant reduction in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) resources can be achieved. This paper presents for the first time a comparison of resource utilization of Spartan-3AN and Virtex-5 implementation of standard and truncated multipliers using Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL). The Virtex-5 FPGA shows significant improvement as compared to Spartan-3AN FPGA device. The Virtex-5 FPGA device shows better performance with a percentage ratio of number of occupied slices for standard to truncated multipliers is increased from 40% to 73.86% as compared to Spartan- 3AN is decreased from 68.75% to 58.78%. Results show that the anomaly in Spartan-3AN FPGA device average connection and maximum pin delay have been efficiently reduced in Virtex-5 FPGA device.

Keywords: Digital Signal Processing (DSP), FieldProgrammable Gate Array (FPGA), Spartan-3AN, TruncatedMultiplier, Virtex-5, VHDL.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2561

Authors: Nosheen Zareen Khan, Abdul Majeed Siddiqui, Muhammad Afzal Rana

Abstract:

The steady flow of a second order fluid through constricted tube with slip velocity at wall is modeled and analyzed theoretically. The governing equations are simplified by implying no slip in radial direction. Based on Karman Pohlhausen procedure polynomial solution for axial velocity profile is presented. Expressions for pressure gradient, shear stress, separation and reattachment points, and radial velocity are also calculated. The effect of slip and no slip velocity on magnitude velocity, shear stress, and pressure gradient are discussed and depicted graphically. It is noted that when Reynolds number increases magnitude velocity of the fluid decreases in both slip and no slip conditions. It is also found that the wall shear stress, separation, and reattachment points are strongly affected by Reynolds number.

Keywords: Approximate solution, constricted tube, non-Newtonian fluids, Reynolds number.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1726

Authors: Hani Shafeek, Mohammed Aman, Muhammad Marsudi

Abstract:

Applied industrial engineering is concerned with imparting employable skills to improve the productivity for current situation of products and services. The purpose of this case study is to present the results of an initial research study conducted to identify the desired professional characteristics of an industrial engineer with an undergraduate degree and the emerging topic areas that should be incorporated into the curriculum to prepare industrial engineering (IE) graduates for the future workforce. Conclusions and recommendations for applied industrial engineering syllabus have been gathered and reported below. A two-pronged approach was taken which included a method of benchmarking by comparing the applied industrial engineering curricula of various universities and an industry survey to identify job market requirements. This methodology produced an analysis of the changing nature of industrial engineering from learning to practical education. A curriculum study for engineering is a relatively unexplored area of research in the Middle East, much less for applied industrial engineering. This work is an effort to bridge the gap between theoretical study in the classroom and the real world work applications in the industrial and service sectors.

Keywords: Applied industrial engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Industrial Engineering Curriculum, Syllabus.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2529

Authors: Justin Leo Cheang Loong, Khazaimatol S Subari, Muhammad Kamil Abdullah, Nurul Nadia Ahmad, RosliBesar

Abstract:

Heart sound is an acoustic signal and many techniques used nowadays for human recognition tasks borrow speech recognition techniques. One popular choice for feature extraction of accoustic signals is the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) which maps the signal onto a non-linear Mel-Scale that mimics the human hearing. However the Mel-Scale is almost linear in the frequency region of heart sounds and thus should produce similar results with the standard cepstral coefficients (CC). In this paper, MFCC is investigated to see if it produces superior results for PCG based human identification system compared to CC. Results show that the MFCC system is still superior to CC despite linear filter-banks in the lower frequency range, giving up to 95% correct recognition rate for MFCC and 90% for CC. Further experiments show that the high recognition rate is due to the implementation of filter-banks and not from Mel-Scaling.

Keywords: Biometric, Phonocardiogram, Cepstral Coefficients, Mel Frequency

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3552

Authors: Budihardjo Sarwo Sastrosudiro, Arnas Lubis, Muhammad Idrus Alhamid, Nasruddin Jusuf

Abstract:

Solar thermal cooling system was installed on Mechanical Research Center (MRC) Building that is located in Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia. It is the first cooling system in Indonesia that utilizes solar energy as energy input combined with natural gas; therefore, the control system must be appropriated with the climates. In order to stabilize the cooling capacity and also to maximize the use of solar energy, the system applies some controllers. Constant flow rate and on/off controller are applied for the hot water, chilled water and cooling water pumps. The hot water circulated by pump when the solar radiation is over than 400W/m², and the chilled water is continually circulated by pump and its temperature is kept constant 7 °C by absorption chiller. The cooling water is also continually circulated until the outlet temperature of cooling tower below than 27 ^oC. Furthermore, the three-way valve is used to control the hot water for generate vapor on absorption chiller. The system performance using that control system is shown in this study results.

Keywords: Absorption chiller, control system, solar cooling, solar energy.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1479

Authors: Zainul Huda, Muhammad Hani Ajani

Abstract:

The design, manufacture, and operation of thin-walled pressure vessels must be based on maximum safe operating pressure and an adequate factor of safety (FoS). This research paper first reports experimental evaluation of longitudinal and hoops stresses based on working pressure as well as maximum pressure; and then includes a critical study of factor of safety (FoS) in the design of a glass fiber pressure vessel. Experimental work involved the use of measuring instruments and the readings from pressure gauges. Design calculations involved the computations of design stress and FoS; the latter was based on breaking strength of 55 MPa for the glass fiber (pressure-vessel material). The experimentally determined FoS value has been critically compared with the general FoS allowed in the design of glass fiber pressure vessels.

Keywords: Thin-walled pressure vessel, hoop stress, longitudinal stress, factor of safety (FoS), fiberglass.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7783

Authors: Jawairia Umar, Tanveer Hussain, Zulfiqar Ali, Muhammad Maqsood

Abstract:

Different knitted structures and knitted parameters play a vital role in the stretch and recovery management of compression sportswear in addition to the materials use to generate this stretch and recovery behavior of the fabric. The present work was planned to predict the different performance indicators of a compression sportswear fabric with some ground parameters i.e. base yarn stitch length (polyester as base yarn and spandex as plating yarn involve to make a compression fabric) and linear density of the spandex which is a key material of any sportswear fabric. The prediction models were generated by response surface method for performance indicators such as stretch & recovery percentage, compression generated by the garment on body, total elongation on application of high power force and load generated on certain percentage extension in fabric. Certain physical properties of the fabric were also modeled using these two parameters.

Keywords: Compression, sportswear, stretch and recovery, statistical model, kikuhime.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2053

Authors: Jaharah A. Ghani, Muhammad Rizal, Ahmad Sayuti, Mohd Zaki Nuawi, Mohd Nizam Ab. Rahman, Che Hassan Che Haron

Abstract:

This study presents a new method for detecting the cutting tool wear based on the measured cutting force signals using the regression model and I-kaz method. The detection of tool wear was done automatically using the in-house developed regression model and 3D graphic presentation of I-kaz 3D coefficient during machining process. The machining tests were carried out on a CNC turning machine Colchester Master Tornado T4 in dry cutting condition, and Kistler 9255B dynamometer was used to measure the cutting force signals, which then stored and displayed in the DasyLab software. The progression of the cutting tool flank wear land (VB) was indicated by the amount of the cutting force generated. Later, the I-kaz was used to analyze all the cutting force signals from beginning of the cut until the rejection stage of the cutting tool. Results of the IKaz analysis were represented by various characteristic of I-kaz 3D coefficient and 3D graphic presentation. The I-kaz 3D coefficient number decreases when the tool wear increases. This method can be used for real time tool wear monitoring.

Keywords: mathematical model, I-kaz method, tool wear

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2399

Authors: Fatima Rasool, Mahmood Ahmad, Ghulam Murtaza, Haji M. S. Khan, Shujaat A. Khan, Sonia Khiljee, Muhammad Qamar-Uz-Zaman

Abstract:

This study describes the methodology for the development of a validated in-vitro in-vivo correlation (IVIVC) for metoprolol tartrate modified release dosage forms with distinctive release rate characteristics. Modified release dosage forms were formulated by microencapsulation of metoprolol tartrate into different amounts of ethylcellulose by non-solvent addition technique. Then in-vitro and in-vivo studies were conducted to develop and validate level A IVIVC for metoprolol tartrate. The values of regression co-efficient (R2-values) for IVIVC of T2 and T3 formulations were not significantly (p<0.05) different from 1 while the values of R2 for IVIVC of T1 and Mepressor® were significantly (p<0.05) different from 1. Internal prediction errors of IVIVC, calculated from observed Area under Curve (AUC) and predicted AUC, were less than 10%. This study successfully presents a valid level A IVIVC for metoprolol tartrate modified dosage forms.

Keywords: Metoprolol tartrate, Dissolution, Bioavailability, Validated in-vitro in-vivo correlation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2550

Authors: Mansab Ali, Muhammad Khalid Khan

Abstract:

The advances in wireless communication have opened unlimited horizons but there are some challenges as well. The Nature derived air medium between MS (Mobile Station) and BS (Base Station) is beyond human control and produces channel impairment. The impact of the natural conditions at the air medium is the biggest issue in wireless communication. Natural conditions make reliability more cumbersome; here reliability refers to the efficient recovery of the lost or erroneous data. The SR-ARQ (Selective Repeat-Automatic Repeat Request) protocol is a de facto standard for any wireless technology at the air interface with its standard reliability features. Our focus in this research is on the reliability of the control or feedback signal of the SR-ARQ protocol. The proposed mechanism, RSR-ARQ (Reliable SR-ARQ) is an enhancement of the SR-ARQ protocol that has ensured the reliability of the control signals through channel impairment sensitive mechanism. We have modeled the system under two-state discrete time Markov Channel. The simulation results demonstrate the better recovery of the lost or erroneous data that will increase the overall system performance.

Keywords: ISR-ARQ, MAA, RSR-ARQ, SAA.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1241

Authors: Muhammad N. Khan, Syed O. Gillani, Mohsin Jamil, Tarbia Iftikhar

Abstract:

With the increasing demand of bandwidth and data rate, there is a dire need to implement antenna systems in mobile phones which are able to fulfill user requirements. A monopole antenna system with multi-antennas configurations is proposed considering the feasibility and user demand. The multi-antenna structure is referred to as multi-input multi-output (MIMO) antenna system. The multi-antenna system comprises of 4 antennas operating below 6 GHz frequency bands for 4G/LTE and 4 antenna for 5G applications at 28 GHz and the dimension of board is 120 × 70 × 0.8mm3. The suggested designs is feasible with a structure of low-profile planar-antenna and is adaptable to smart cell phones and handheld devices. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first design compared to the literature by having integrated antenna system for two standards, i.e., 4G and 5G. All MIMO antenna systems are simulated on commercially available software, which is high frequency structures simulator (HFSS).

Keywords: High frequency structures simulator (HFSS), mutli-input multi-output (MIMO), monopole antenna, slot antenna.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1891

Authors: Muhammad Nouman Haral, Abdulaziz I. Al-Negheimesh, Galal Fares, Mohammad Iqbal Khan, Abdulrahman M. Alhozaimy

Abstract:

Natural pozzolan (NP) is one of the potential prehistoric alternative binders in the construction industry. It has been investigated as cement replacement in ordinary concrete by several researchers for many purposes. Various supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as fly ash, limestone dust and silica fume are widely used in the production of SCC; however, limited studies to address the effect of NP on the properties of SCC are documented. The current research is composed of different SCC paste and concrete mixtures containing different replacement levels of local NP as an alternative SCM. The effect of volume of paste containing different amounts of local NP related to W/B ratio and cement content on SCC fresh properties was assessed. The variations in the fresh properties of SCC paste and concrete represented by slump flow (flowability) and the flow rate were determined and discussed. The results indicated that the flow properties of SCC paste and concrete mixtures, at their optimized superplasticizer dosages, were affected by the binder content of local NP and the total volume fraction of SCC paste.

Keywords: Binder, fresh properties, natural pozzolan, paste, SCC.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2785

Authors: Mohd Zahari, M. S, Kamaruddin, M. S. Y., Muhammad, R., Kutut, M. Z.

Abstract:

Solidarity and kinship has long been an intangible emblem to Malay community especially in the rural area. It is visibly seen through the dependability among each unit of the community either in religious and social events including the matrimonial or wedding. Nevertheless, the inevitable phenomenon, modernization legitimately alters every facets of human life not only the routines, traditions, rituals, norms but also to the daily activities and the specific occasion. Using triangulation approach of interview and self completed questionnaire this study empirically examine the level of alteration of Malays wedding foodways which relate to the preparation and consumption of it and its impact on the community social bonding. Some meaningful insights were obtained whereby modernization through technology (modern equipments) and social factors (education, migration, and high disposal income) significantly contribute to the alteration of wedding foodways from preparation up to consumption stages. The domino effect of this alteration consequently leads to the fragility of social kinship or somehow reduced cohesiveness and interaction among the individual of Malay society in the rural area.

Keywords: Modernization, Malay, Matrimonial, Foodways, Social Bonding

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2393

Authors: Veronica Sri Lestari, Djoni Prawira Rahardja, Tanrigiling Rasyid, Aslina Asnawi, Ikrar Muhammad Saleh, Ilham Rasyid

Abstract:

Urea Mineral Molasses Block is very important for beef cattle, because it can increase beef production. The purpose of this research was to know beef cattle farmers’ perception towards Urea Mineral Molasses Block (UMMB). This research was conducted in Gowa Regency, South Sulawesi, Indonesia in 2016. The population of this research were all beef cattle farmers. Sample was chosen through purposive sampling. Data were collected through observation and face to face with deep interview using questionnaire. Variables of perception consisted of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability and triability. There were 10 questions. The answer for each question was scored by 1, 2, 3 which refer to disagree, agree enough, strongly agree. The data were analyzed descriptively using frequency distribution. The research revealed that beef cattle farmers’ perception towards UMMB was categorized as strongly agree.

Keywords: Beef cattle, farmers, perception, urea mineral molasses block.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1923

Authors: Summiya Moheuddin, Afzel Noore, Muhammad Choudhry

Abstract:

This paper proposes a novel solution for optimizing the size and communication overhead of a distributed multiagent system without compromising the performance. The proposed approach addresses the challenges of scalability especially when the multiagent system is large. A modified spectral clustering technique is used to partition a large network into logically related clusters. Agents are assigned to monitor dedicated clusters rather than monitor each device or node. The proposed scalable multiagent system is implemented using JADE (Java Agent Development Environment) for a large power system. The performance of the proposed topologyindependent decentralized multiagent system and the scalable multiagent system is compared by comprehensively simulating different fault scenarios. The time taken for reconfiguration, the overall computational complexity, and the communication overhead incurred are computed. The results of these simulations show that the proposed scalable multiagent system uses fewer agents efficiently, makes faster decisions to reconfigure when a fault occurs, and incurs significantly less communication overhead.

Keywords: Multiagent system, scalable design, spectral clustering, reconfiguration.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1381

Authors: Muhammad Nizam, Azah Mohamed, Majid Al-Dabbagh, Aini Hussain

Abstract:

This paper presents dynamic voltage collapse prediction on an actual power system using support vector machines. Dynamic voltage collapse prediction is first determined based on the PTSI calculated from information in dynamic simulation output. Simulations were carried out on a practical 87 bus test system by considering load increase as the contingency. The data collected from the time domain simulation is then used as input to the SVM in which support vector regression is used as a predictor to determine the dynamic voltage collapse indices of the power system. To reduce training time and improve accuracy of the SVM, the Kernel function type and Kernel parameter are considered. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed SVM method, its performance is compared with the multi layer perceptron neural network (MLPNN). Studies show that the SVM gives faster and more accurate results for dynamic voltage collapse prediction compared with the MLPNN.

Keywords: Dynamic voltage collapse, prediction, artificial neural network, support vector machines

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1816

Authors: Hassan Attahiru Gwandu

Abstract:

This study aims at surveying and analyzing the contribution of Sokoto scholars or Sokoto Caliphate in the development of science and technology in West Africa. Today, it is generally accepted that the 19^th century Islamic revivalism in Hausaland was a very important revolution in the history of Hausa society and beyond. It is therefore, as a result of this movement or Jihad; the Hausaland (West Africa in general) witnessed several changes and transformations. These changes were in different sectors of life from politics, economy to social and religious aspect. It is these changes especially on religion that will be given considerations in this paper. The jihad resulted is the establishment of an Islamic state of Sokoto Caliphate, the revival Islam and development of learning and scholarship. During the existence of this Caliphate, a great deal of scholarship on Islamic laws were revived, written and documented by mostly, the three Jihad leaders; Usmanu Danfodiyo, his brother Abdullahi Fodiyo and his son Muhammad Bello. The trio had written more than one thousand books and made several verdicts on Islamic medicine. This study therefore, seeks to find out the contributions of these scholars or the Sokoto caliphate in the development of science in West Africa.

Keywords: Sokoto Caliphate, scholarship, science and technology, West Africa.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2285

Authors: Muhammad Zeeshan UlHaque, Peng Du, Leo K. Cheng, Marc D. Jacobs

Abstract:

Sensory nerves in the foot play an important part in the diagnosis of various neuropathydisorders, especially in diabetes mellitus.However, a detailed description of the anatomical distribution of the nerves is currently lacking. A computationalmodel of the afferent nerves inthe foot may bea useful tool for the study of diabetic neuropathy. In this study, we present the development of an anatomically-based model of various major sensory nerves of the sole and dorsal sidesof the foot. In addition, we presentan algorithm for generating synthetic somatosensory nerve networks in the big-toe region of a right foot model. The algorithm was based on a modified version of the Monte Carlo algorithm, with the capability of being able to vary the intra-epidermal nerve fiber density in differentregionsof the foot model. Preliminary results from the combinedmodel show the realistic anatomical structure of the major nerves as well as the smaller somatosensory nerves of the foot. The model may now be developed to investigate the functional outcomes of structural neuropathyindiabetic patients.

Keywords: Diabetic neuropathy, Finite element modeling, Monte Carlo Algorithm, Somatosensory nerve networks

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2335

Authors: Md F. Mina, Mohammad D.H. Beg, Muhammad R. Islam, Abu K. M. M. Alam A. Nizam, Rosli M. Younus

Abstract:

In this study, structural, mechanical, thermal and electrical properties of poly (lactic acid) (PLA) nanocomposites with low-loaded (0-1.5 wt%) untreated, heat and nitric acid treated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were studied. Among the composites, untreated 0.5 wt % MWCNTs and acid-treated 1.0 wt% MWCNTs reinforced PLA show the tensile strength and modulus values higher than the others. These two samples along with pure PLA exhibit the stable orthorhombic α-form, whilst other samples reveal the less stable orthorhombic β-form, as demonstrated by X-ray diffraction study. Differential scanning calorimetry reveals the evolution of the mentioned different phases by controlled cooling and discloses an enhancement of PLA crystallization by nanotubes incorporation. Thermogravimetric analysis shows that the MWCNTs loaded sample degraded faster than PLA. Surface resistivity of the nanocomposites is found to be dropped drastically by a factor of 1013 with a low loading of MWCNTs (1.5 wt%).

Keywords: Crystallization, multi-walled carbon nanotubes, nanocomposites, Poly (lactic acid).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2603

Authors: Muhammad F. Yaqub, Iqbal Gondal, Joarder Kamruzzaman

Abstract:

Occurrence of a multiple-points fault in machine operations could result in exhibiting complex fault signatures, which could result in lowering fault diagnosis accuracy. In this study, a multiple-points defect model (MPDM) is proposed which can simulate fault signature-s dynamics for n-points bearing faults. Furthermore, this study identifies that in case of multiple-points fault in the rotary machine, the location of the dominant component of defect frequency shifts depending upon the relative location of the fault points which could mislead the fault diagnostic model to inaccurate detections. Analytical and experimental results are presented to characterize and validate the variation in the dominant component of defect frequency. Based on envelop detection analysis, a modification is recommended in the existing fault diagnostic models to consider the multiples of defect frequency rather than only considering the frequency spectrum at the defect frequency in order to incorporate the impact of multiple points fault.

Keywords: Envelop detection, machine defect frequency, multiple faults, machine health monitoring.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2274

Authors: Rosidah Musa, Rezian-na Muhammad Kassim

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to disentangle and validate the underlying factorial-structure of Ecotourism Experiential Value (EEV) measurement scale and subsequently investigate its psychometric properties. The analysis was based on a sample of 225 eco-tourists, collected at the vicinity of Taman Negara National Park (TNNP) via interviewer-administered questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed to determine the factorial structure of EEV. Subsequently, to confirm and validate the factorial structure and assess the psychometric properties of EEV, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was executed. In addition, to establish the nomological validity of EEV a structural model was developed to examine the effect of EEV on Total Eco-tourist Experience Quality (TEEQ). It is unveiled that EEV is a secondorder six-factorial structure construct and it scale has adequately met the psychometric criteria, thus could permit interpretation of results confidently. The findings have important implications for future research directions and management of ecotourism destination.

Keywords: ecotourism, experiential value, experience quality, national park,

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2026

Authors: Muhammad Faisal Zafar, Dzulkifli Mohamad, Razib M. Othman

Abstract:

On-line handwritten scripts are usually dealt with pen tip traces from pen-down to pen-up positions. Time evaluation of the pen coordinates is also considered along with trajectory information. However, the data obtained needs a lot of preprocessing including filtering, smoothing, slant removing and size normalization before recognition process. Instead of doing such lengthy preprocessing, this paper presents a simple approach to extract the useful character information. This work evaluates the use of the counter- propagation neural network (CPN) and presents feature extraction mechanism in full detail to work with on-line handwriting recognition. The obtained recognition rates were 60% to 94% using the CPN for different sets of character samples. This paper also describes a performance study in which a recognition mechanism with multiple thresholds is evaluated for counter-propagation architecture. The results indicate that the application of multiple thresholds has significant effect on recognition mechanism. The method is applicable for off-line character recognition as well. The technique is tested for upper-case English alphabets for a number of different styles from different peoples.

Keywords: On-line character recognition, character digitization, counter-propagation neural networks, extreme coordinates.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2431

Authors: Mian Tahir Aftab, Muhammad Umer, Riaz Ahmad

Abstract:

This article proposes an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) metaheuristic to minimize total makespan for scheduling a set of jobs and assign workers for uniformly related parallel machines. An algorithm based on ACO has been developed and coded on a computer program Matlab®, to solve this problem. The paper explains various steps to apply Ant Colony approach to the problem of minimizing makespan for the worker assignment & jobs scheduling problem in a parallel machine model and is aimed at evaluating the strength of ACO as compared to other conventional approaches. One data set containing 100 problems (12 Jobs, 03 machines and 10 workers) which is available on internet, has been taken and solved through this ACO algorithm. The results of our ACO based algorithm has shown drastically improved results, especially, in terms of negligible computational effort of CPU, to reach the optimal solution. In our case, the time taken to solve all 100 problems is even lesser than the average time taken to solve one problem in the data set by other conventional approaches like GA algorithm and SPT-A/LMC heuristics.

Keywords: Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Genetic algorithms (GA), Makespan, SPT-A/LMC heuristic.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3472

Authors: Muhammad Tariq A. Chaudhary

Abstract:

The tremendous loss of life that resulted in the aftermath of recent earthquakes in developing countries is mostly due to the collapse of non-engineered and semi-engineered building structures. Such structures are used as houses, schools, primary healthcare centers and government offices. These building are classified structurally into two categories viz. non-engineered and semi-engineered. Non-engineered structures include: adobe, unreinforced masonry (URM) and wood buildings. Semi-engineered buildings are mostly low-rise (up to 3 story) light concrete frame structures or masonry bearing walls with reinforced concrete slab. This paper presents an overview of the typical damage observed in non-engineered structures and their most likely causes in the past earthquakes with specific emphasis on the performance of such structures in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. It is demonstrated that seismic performance of these structures can be improved from life-safety viewpoint by adopting simple low-cost modifications to the existing construction practices. Incorporation of some of these practices in the reconstruction efforts after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake are examined in the last section for mitigating seismic risk hazard.

Keywords: Kashmir earthquake, non-engineered buildings, seismic hazard, structural details, structural strengthening.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2943

Authors: Muhammad Akmal Chaudhary

Abstract:

The out-of-band impedance environment is considered to be of paramount importance in engineering the in-band impedance environment. Presenting the frequency independent and constant outof- band impedances across the wide modulation bandwidth is extremely important for reliable device characterization for future wireless systems. This paper presents an out-of-band impedance optimization scheme based on simultaneous engineering of significant baseband components IF1 (twice the modulation frequency) and IF2 (four times the modulation frequency) and higher baseband components such as IF3 (six times the modulation frequency) and IF4 (eight times the modulation frequency) to engineer the in-band impedance environment. The investigations were carried out on a 10W GaN HEMT device driven to deliver a peak envelope power of approximately 40.5dBm under modulated excitation. The presentation of frequency independent baseband impedances to all the significant baseband components whilst maintaining the optimum termination for fundamental tones as well as reactive termination for 2nd harmonic under class-J mode of operation has outlined separate optimum impedances for best intermodulation (IM) linearity.

Keywords: Active load-pull, baseband, device characterisation, waveform measurements.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1973

Authors: Muhammad Rizwan Azhar, Emadadeen Ali

Abstract:

In this paper, periodic force operation of a wastewater treatment process has been studied for the improved process performance. A previously developed dynamic model for the process is used to conduct the performance analysis. The static version of the model was utilized first to determine the optimal productivity conditions for the process. Then, feed flow rate in terms of dilution rate i.e. (D) is transformed into sinusoidal function. Nonlinear model predictive control algorithm is utilized to regulate the amplitude and period of the sinusoidal function. The parameters of the feed cyclic functions are determined which resulted in improved productivity than the optimal productivity under steady state conditions. The improvement in productivity is found to be marginal and is satisfactory in substrate conversion compared to that of the optimal condition and to the steady state condition, which corresponds to the average value of the periodic function. Successful results were also obtained in the presence of modeling errors and external disturbances.

Keywords: Dilution rate, nonlinear model predictive control, sinusoidal function, wastewater treatment.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2209

Authors: Ab. Rashid M.F.F., Gan S.Y., Muhammad N.Y.

Abstract:

Surface roughness (Ra) is one of the most important requirements in machining process. In order to obtain better surface roughness, the proper setting of cutting parameters is crucial before the process take place. This research presents the development of mathematical model for surface roughness prediction before milling process in order to evaluate the fitness of machining parameters; spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut. 84 samples were run in this study by using FANUC CNC Milling α-Τ14ιE. Those samples were randomly divided into two data sets- the training sets (m=60) and testing sets(m=24). ANOVA analysis showed that at least one of the population regression coefficients was not zero. Multiple Regression Method was used to determine the correlation between a criterion variable and a combination of predictor variables. It was established that the surface roughness is most influenced by the feed rate. By using Multiple Regression Method equation, the average percentage deviation of the testing set was 9.8% and 9.7% for training data set. This showed that the statistical model could predict the surface roughness with about 90.2% accuracy of the testing data set and 90.3% accuracy of the training data set.

Keywords: Surface roughness, regression analysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2131