Abstract: This paper presents Buck-Boost converter topology to maintain the input power factor by using the power factor stage control and regulation stage control. Suppose, if we are using the RL load the power factor will be reduced due to the presence of total harmonic distortion in the current wave. To improve the power factor the current waveform should follow the fundamental component of the voltage waveform. These can be achieved by using the high -frequency power converter. Based on the resonant circuit the converter is able to perform the function of Buck, Boost, and buck-boost converter. Here ,we have used Buck-Boost converter, because, the buck-boost converter has more advantages than the boost converter. Here the switching action of the power converter can take place by using the external zero comparator PFC stage control. The power converter consisting of the resonant circuit which is used to control the output voltage gain of the converter. The power converter is operated at a very high switching frequency in the range of 400KHz in order to overcome the switching losses of the power converter. Due to presence of high switching frequency, the power factor will improve. Therefore, the total harmonics distortion present in the current waveform has also reduced. These results has generated in the form of simulation by using MATLAB/SIMULINK software. Similar to the Buck and Boost converters, the operation of the Buck-Boost has best understood, in terms of the inductor's "reluctance" for allowing rapid change in current, which also reduces the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in the input current waveform, which can improve the input Power factor, based on the type of load used.
Abstract: Dengue outbreaks are affected by biological,
ecological, socio-economic and demographic factors that vary over
time and space. These factors have been examined separately and still
require systematic clarification. The present study aimed to investigate
the spatial-temporal clustering relationships between these factors and
dengue outbreaks in the northern region of Sri Lanka. Remote sensing
(RS) data gathered from a plurality of satellites were used to develop
an index comprising rainfall, humidity and temperature data. RS data
gathered by ALOS/AVNIR-2 were used to detect urbanization, and a
digital land cover map was used to extract land cover information.
Other data on relevant factors and dengue outbreaks were collected
through institutions and extant databases. The analyzed RS data and
databases were integrated into geographic information systems,
enabling temporal analysis, spatial statistical analysis and space-time
clustering analysis. Our present results showed that increases in the
number of the combination of ecological factor and socio-economic
and demographic factors with above the average or the presence
contribute to significantly high rates of space-time dengue clusters.
Abstract: Through anther and microspore culture methods, complete homozygous plants can be produced within a year as compared to the long inbreeding method. Isolated microspore culture is one of the most important techniques for rapid development of haploid plants. The efficiency of this method is influenced by several factors such as cultural conditions, growth regulators, plant media, pretreatments, physical and growth conditions of the donor plants, pollen isolation procedure, etc. The main purpose of this study was to improve the isolated microspore culture protocol in order to increase the efficiency of embryoids, its regeneration and reducing albinisms. Under this study we have tested mainly three different microspore isolation procedures by glass rod, homozeniger and by blending and found the efficiency on gametic embryogenesis. There are three types of media viz. washing, pre-culture and induction was used. The induction medium as AMC (modified MS) supplemented by 2, 4-D (2.5 mg/l), kinetin (0.5 mg/l) and higher amount of D-Manitol (90 g/l) instead of sucrose and two types of amino acids (L-glutamine and L-serine) were used. Out of three main microspore isolation procedure by homogenizer isolation (P4) showed best performance on ELS induction (177%) and green plantlets (104%) compared with other techniques. For all cases albinisims occurred but microspore isolation from excised anthers by glass rod and homogenizer showed lesser numbers of albino plants that was also one of the important findings in this study.
Abstract: This paper analyses the structural changes in
education sector since the introduction of liberalization policy in
India. This paper explains how the so-called non-profit trusts and
societies appropriated the liberalization policy and enhanced
themselves as new capitalist class in higher education sector. Over
the decades, the policy witnessed the role of private sector in terms
of maintaining market equilibrium. The state also witnessed the
incompatibility of the private sector in inculcating the values of
social justice. The most important consequence of the policy is to
witness the rise of new capitalist class and academic capitalism.
When the state came to realize that it no longer cope up with
market demands, it opens the entry of private sector in higher
education. Concessions and tax exemptions were provided to the
trusts and societies to establish higher education institutions. There
is a basic difference between western countries and India in
providing higher education by the trusts and societies. In western
countries the big business houses contributed their surplus
revenues to promote higher education and research as a
complementary service to society and nation. In India, several
entrepreneurs came up with business motive using education
sector. Over the period, they accumulated wealth at the cost of
students and concessions from the government. Four major results
can now be identified: production of manpower in view of market
demands; reduction of standards in higher education; bypassing the
values of social justice; and the rise of new capitalist class from the
business of education. This paper tries to substantiate these issues
with the inputs from case studies.
Abstract: Knowledge sharing culture contributes to a positive
working environment. Currently, there is no platform for the Faculty
of Industrial Information Technology (FIIT), Unisel academic staff to
share knowledge among them. As it is done manually, the sharing
process is through common meeting or by any offline discussions.
There is no repository for future retrieval. However, with open
source solution the development of knowledge based application may
reduce the cost tremendously. In this paper we discuss about the
domain on which this knowledge portal is being developed and also
the deployment of open source tools such as JOOMLA, PHP
programming language and MySQL. This knowledge portal is
evidence that open source tools also reliable in developing
knowledge based portal. These recommendations will be useful to
the open source community to produce more open source products in
future.
Abstract: The picture of a perfect road construction site is the one that utilizes conventional vertical road signs and a flagman to optimize the traffic flow with minimum hazel to the public. Former research has been carried out by Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) and Ministry of Works to further enhance smoothness in traffic operations and particularly in safety issues within work zones. This paper highlights on hazardous zones in a certain road construction or road maintenance site. Most cases show that the flagman falls into high risk of fatal accidents within work zone. Various measures have been taken by both the authorities and contractors to overcome such miseries, yet it-s impossible to eliminate the usage of a flagman since it is considered the best practice. With the implementation of new technologies in automating the traffic flow in road construction site, it is possible to eliminate the usage of a flagman. The intelligent traffic light system is designed to solve problems which contribute hazardous at road construction site and to be inline with the road safety regulation which is taken into granted.
Abstract: Higher education has an important role to play in
advocating environmentalism. Given this responsibility, the goal of
higher education should therefore be to develop graduates with the
knowledge, skills and values related to environmentalism. However,
research indicates that there is a lack of consciousness amongst
graduates on the need to be more environmentally aware, especially
when it comes to applying the appropriate knowledge and skills
related to environmentalism. Although institutions of higher learning
do include environmental parameters within their undergraduate and
postgraduate academic programme structures, the environmental
boundaries are usually confined to specific engineering majors within
an engineering programme. This makes environmental knowledge,
skills and values exclusive to certain quarters of the higher education
system. The incorporation of environmental literacy within higher
education institutions as a whole is of utmost pertinence if a nation-s
human capital is to be nurtured to become change agents for the
preservation of environment. This paper discusses approaches that
can be adapted by institutions of higher learning to include
environmental literacy within the graduate-s higher learning
experience.
Abstract: The significance of psychology in studying politics
is embedded in philosophical issues as well as behavioural
pursuits. For the former is often associated with Sigmund Freud
and his followers. The latter is inspired by the writings of Harold
Lasswell. Political psychology or psychopolitics has its own
impression on political thought ever since it deciphers the concept
of human nature and political propaganda. More importantly,
psychoanalysis views political thought as a textual content which
needs to explore the latent from the manifest content. In other
words, it reads the text symptomatically and interprets the hidden
truth. This paper explains the paradigm of dream interpretation
applied by Freud. The dream work is a process which has four
successive activities: condensation, displacement, representation
and secondary revision. The texts dealing with political though can
also be interpreted on these principles. Freud's method of dream
interpretation draws its source after the hermeneutic model of
philological research. It provides theoretical perspective and
technical rules for the interpretation of symbolic structures. The
task of interpretation remains a discovery of equivalence of
symbols and actions through perpetual analogies. Psychoanalysis
can help in studying political thought in two ways: to study the text
distortion, Freud's dream interpretation is used as a paradigm
exploring the latent text from its manifest text; and to apply Freud's
psychoanalytic concepts and theories ranging from individual mind
to civilization, religion, war and politics.
Abstract: This paper presents an assessment study conducted
among the distance learners in India. Open and distance learning
systems have traveled a long way since its inception and its journey
has witnessed the evolution and adoption of different generations of
technology. This study focuses on the distant learners in India.
Sampling for this study has been derived from the mass enrollment
from Tamil Nadu area, a southern state of India. Learners were
chosen from dual mode universities, private universities, Tamil Nadu
Open University and IGNOU. The main focus of the study is to
examine the coverage and appropriation of students support services
and learning aids. It explores two aspects: the facilities available and
the awareness and use of such services. It includes, self-learning
materials, face-to-face counseling, multimedia learning materials,
website, e-learning, radio and television services etc. While exploring
the student-s perspective on these learning aspects, it is important to
understand the perspectives of the teachers. Two different interests
are visible among the teachers. Majority of the teachers support faceto-
face counseling. However, the young teachers are in favour of
online learning and multimedia supports in teaching. Through the
awareness is somewhat high, the actual participation in online is very
low. This is due to the inadequate infrastructure as well as the
traditional attitudes of the teachers. Still the face-to-face sessions
remain popular than online.
Abstract: This paper explores the features of political economy in the dynamics of representative politics in India. Politics is seen as enhancing economic benefits through acquiring and maintenance of power in the realm of democratic set up. The system of representation is riddled with competitive populism. Emerging leaders and parties are forced to accommodate their ideologies in coping with competitive politics. Electoral politics and voting behaviour reflect series of influences mooted by the politicians. Voters are accustomed to expect benefits outs of state exchequer. The electoral competitors show a changing phase of investment and return policy. Every elector has to spend and realize his costs in his tenure. In the case of defeated electors, even the cost recovery is not possible directly; there are indirect means to recover their costs. The series of case studies show the method of party funding, campaign financing, electoral expenditure, and cost recovery. Regulations could not restrict the level of spending. Several cases of disproportionate accumulation of wealth by the politicians reveal that money played a major part in electoral process. The political economy of representative politics hitherto ignores how a politician spends and recovers his cost and multiples his wealth. To be sure, the acquiring and maintenance of power is to enhance the wealth of the electors.
Abstract: This paper presents the results of thermo-mechanical
characterization of Glass/Epoxy composite specimens using Infrared
Thermography technique. The specimens used for the study were
fabricated in-house with three different lay-up sequences and tested
on a servo hydraulic machine under uni-axial loading. Infrared
Camera was used for on-line monitoring surface temperature changes
of composite specimens during tensile deformation.
Experimental results showed that thermomechanical
characteristics of each type of specimens were distinct. Temperature
was found to be decreasing linearly with increasing tensile stress in
the elastic region due to thermo-elastic effect. Yield point could be
observed by monitoring the change in temperature profile during
tensile testing and this value could be correlated with the results
obtained from stress-strain response. The extent of prior plastic
deformation in the post-yield region influenced the slopes of
temperature response during tensile loading. Partial unloading and
reloading of specimens post-yield results in change in slope in elastic
and plastic regions of composite specimens.
Abstract: The 15-a-side Fiji rugby team trains well in preparations for any rugby competition but rarely performs to expectations. In order to help the Fiji local based rugby players to identify some key basic areas in improving their performance, a series of workshops were conducted to assess their nutritional status and dietary habits in relation to energy demand during rugby matches. The nutrition workshop included the administration of questionnaires to 19 local based rugby players, requesting the following information: usual food intakes, training camp food intakes, carbohydrate loading, pre-game meals and post-game meals. The study revealed that poor eating habits of the players resulted in the low carbohydrate intake, which may have contributed to increase levels of fatigue leading to loss of stamina even before the second half of the game. It appears that the diet of most 15-a-side players does not provide enough energy to enable them to last the full eightyminutes of the game.
Abstract: This paper explores the social and political imperatives in the sphere of public policy relating to social justice. In India, the colonial legacy and post-colonial social and political pressures sustained the appropriation of 'caste' category in allocating public resources to the backward class of citizens. For several reasons, 'economic' category could not be placed in allocating resources. This paper examines the reasons behind the deliberative exercises and formulating policies and seeks an alternative framework in realizing social justice in terms of a unified category. This attempt can be viewed as a reconciliation of traditional and modern values for a viable alternative in public policy making.
Abstract: This paper describes the evolution of language
politics and the part played by political leaders with reference to
the Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu. It explores the interesting
evolution from separatism to coalition in sustaining the values of
parliamentary democracy and federalism. It seems that the
appropriation of language politics is fully ascribed to the DMK
leadership under Annadurai and Karunanidhi. For them, the Tamil
language is a self-determining power, a terrain of nationhood, and
a perennial source of social and political powers. The DMK
remains a symbol of Tamil nationalist party playing language
politics in the interest of the Tamils. Though electoral alliances
largely determine the success, the language politics still has
significant space in the politics of Tamil Nadu. Ironically, DMK
moves from the periphery to centre for getting national recognition
for the Tamils as well as for its own maximization of power. The
evolution can be seen in two major phases as: language politics for
party building; and language politics for state building with three
successive political processes, namely, language politics in the
process of separatism, representative politics and coalition. The
much pronounced Dravidian Movement is radical enough to
democratize the party ideology to survive the spirit of
parliamentary democracy. This has secured its own rewards in
terms of political power. The political power provides the means to
achieve the social and political goal of the political party.
Language politics and leadership pattern actualized this trend
though the movement is shifted from separatism to coalition.
Abstract: A nucleotide sequence can be expressed as a numerical sequence when each nucleotide is assigned its proton number. A resulting gene numerical sequence can be investigated for its fractal dimension in terms of evolution and chemical properties for comparative studies. We have investigated such nucleotide fluctuation in the 16S rRNA gene of archaea thermophiles. The studied archaea thermophiles were archaeoglobus fulgidus, methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus, methanocaldococcus jannaschii, pyrococcus horikoshii, and thermoplasma acidophilum. The studied five archaea-euryarchaeota thermophiles have fractal dimension values ranging from 1.93 to 1.97. Computer simulation shows that random sequences would have an average of about 2 with a standard deviation about 0.015. The fractal dimension was found to correlate (negative correlation) with the thermophile-s optimal growth temperature with R2 value of 0.90 (N =5). The inclusion of two aracheae-crenarchaeota thermophiles reduces the R2 value to 0.66 (N = 7). Further inclusion of two bacterial thermophiles reduces the R2 value to 0.50 (N =9). The fractal dimension is correlated (positive) to the sequence GC content with an R2 value of 0.89 for the five archaea-euryarchaeota thermophiles (and 0.74 for the entire set of N = 9), although computer simulation shows little correlation. The highest correlation (positive) was found to be between the fractal dimension and di-nucleotide Shannon entropy. However Shannon entropy and sequence GC content were observed to correlate with optimal growth temperature having an R2 of 0.8 (negative), and 0.88 (positive), respectively, for the entire set of 9 thermophiles; thus the correlation lacks species specificity. Together with another correlation study of bacterial radiation dosage with RecA repair gene sequence fractal dimension, it is postulated that fractal dimension analysis is a sensitive tool for studying the relationship between genotype and phenotype among closely related sequences.
Abstract: This paper explains how mobile learning assures sustainable e-education for multicultural group of students. This paper reports the impact of mobile learning on distance education in multicultural environment. The emergence of learning technologies through CD, internet, and mobile is increasingly adopted by distance institutes for quick delivery and cost-effective purposes. Their sustainability is conditioned by the structure of learners as well as the teaching community. The experimental study was conducted among the distant learners of Vinayaka Missions University located at Salem in India. Students were drawn from multicultural environment based on different languages, religions, class and communities. During the mobile learning sessions, the students, who are divided on language, religion, class and community, were dominated by play impulse rather than study anxiety or cultural inhibitions. This study confirmed that mobile learning improved the performance of the students despite their division based on region, language or culture. In other words, technology was able to transcend the relative deprivation in the multicultural groups. It also confirms sustainable e-education through mobile learning and cost-effective system of instruction. Mobile learning appropriates the self-motivation and play impulse of the young learners in providing sustainable e-education to multicultural social groups of students.
Abstract: Migration in breast cancer cell wound healing assay
had been studied using image fractal dimension analysis. The
migration of MDA-MB-231 cells (highly motile) in a wound healing
assay was captured using time-lapse phase contrast video microscopy
and compared to MDA-MB-468 cell migration (moderately motile).
The Higuchi fractal method was used to compute the fractal
dimension of the image intensity fluctuation along a single pixel
width region parallel to the wound. The near-wound region fractal
dimension was found to decrease three times faster in the MDA-MB-
231 cells initially as compared to the less cancerous MDA-MB-468
cells. The inner region fractal dimension was found to be fairly
constant for both cell types in time and suggests a wound influence
range of about 15 cell layer. The box-counting fractal dimension
method was also used to study region of interest (ROI). The MDAMB-
468 ROI area fractal dimension was found to decrease
continuously up to 7 hours. The MDA-MB-231 ROI area fractal
dimension was found to increase and is consistent with the behavior
of a HGF-treated MDA-MB-231 wound healing assay posted in the
public domain. A fractal dimension based capacity index has been
formulated to quantify the invasiveness of the MDA-MB-231 cells in
the perpendicular-to-wound direction. Our results suggest that image
intensity fluctuation fractal dimension analysis can be used as a tool
to quantify cell migration in terms of cancer severity and treatment
responses.
Abstract: Context awareness is a capability whereby mobile
computing devices can sense their physical environment and adapt
their behavior accordingly. The term context-awareness, in
ubiquitous computing, was introduced by Schilit in 1994 and has
become one of the most exciting concepts in early 21st-century
computing, fueled by recent developments in pervasive computing
(i.e. mobile and ubiquitous computing). These include computing
devices worn by users, embedded devices, smart appliances, sensors
surrounding users and a variety of wireless networking technologies.
Context-aware applications use context information to adapt
interfaces, tailor the set of application-relevant data, increase the
precision of information retrieval, discover services, make the user
interaction implicit, or build smart environments. For example: A
context aware mobile phone will know that the user is currently in a
meeting room, and reject any unimportant calls. One of the major
challenges in providing users with context-aware services lies in
continuously monitoring their contexts based on numerous sensors
connected to the context aware system through wireless
communication. A number of context aware frameworks based on
sensors have been proposed, but many of them have neglected the
fact that monitoring with sensors imposes heavy workloads on
ubiquitous devices with limited computing power and battery. In this
paper, we present CALEEF, a lightweight and energy efficient
context aware framework for resource limited ubiquitous devices.
Abstract: This paper examines the interplay of policy options
and cost-effective technology in providing sustainable distance
education. A case study has been conducted among the learners and
teachers. The emergence of learning technologies through CD,
internet, and mobile is increasingly adopted by distance institutes for
quick delivery and cost-effective factors. Their sustainability is
conditioned by the structure of learners and well as the teaching
community. The structure of learners in terms of rural and urban
background revealed similarity in adoption and utilization of mobile
learning. In other words, the technology transcended the rural-urban
dichotomy. The teaching community was divided into two groups on
policy issues. This study revealed both cost-effective as well as
sustainability impacts on different learners groups divided by rural
and urban location.
Abstract: Congestion control is one of the fundamental issues in computer networks. Without proper congestion control mechanisms there is the possibility of inefficient utilization of resources, ultimately leading to network collapse. Hence congestion control is an effort to adapt the performance of a network to changes in the traffic load without adversely affecting users perceived utilities. AIMD (Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease) is the best algorithm among the set of liner algorithms because it reflects good efficiency as well as good fairness. Our control model is based on the assumption of the original AIMD algorithm; we show that both efficiency and fairness of AIMD can be improved. We call our approach is New AIMD. We present experimental results with TCP that match the expectation of our theoretical analysis.