Abstract: Master plan is a tool to guide and manage the growth of cities in a planned manner. The soul of a master plan lies in its implementation framework. If not implemented, people are trapped in a mess of urban problems and laissez-faire development having serious long term repercussions. Unfortunately, Master Plans prepared for several major cities of Pakistan could not be fully implemented due to host of reasons and Lahore is no exception. Being the second largest city of Pakistan with a population of over 7 million people, Lahore holds the distinction that the first ever Master Plan in the country was prepared for this city in 1966. Recently in 2004, a new plan titled `Integrated Master Plan for Lahore-2021- has been approved for implementation. This paper provides a comprehensive account of the weaknesses and constraints in the plan preparation process and implementation strategies of Master Plans prepared for Lahore. It also critically reviews the new Master Plan particularly with respect to the proposed implementation framework. The paper discusses the prospects and pre-conditions for successful implementation of the new Plan in the light of historic analysis, interviews with stakeholders and the new institutional context under the devolution plan.
Abstract: The residue number system (RNS), due to its
properties, is used in applications in which high performance
computation is needed. The carry free nature, which makes the
arithmetic, carry bounded as well as the paralleling facility is the
reason of its capability of high speed rendering. Since carry is not
propagated between the moduli in this system, the performance is
only restricted by the speed of the operations in each modulus. In this
paper a novel method of number representation by use of redundancy
is suggested in which {rn- 2,rn-1,rn} is the reference moduli set
where r=2k+1 and k =1, 2,3,.. This method achieves fast
computations and conversions and makes the circuits of them much
simpler.
Abstract: This study examines the design and construction of AC Electronics load surge protection in order to carry electric surge load arisen from faults in low voltage electricity system (single phase/220V) by using the principle of electronics load clamping voltage during induction period so that electric voltage could go through to safe load and continue to work. The qualification of the designed device could prevent both transient over voltage and voltage swell. Both will work in cooperation, resulting in the ability to improve and modify the quality of electrical power in Thailand electricity distribution system more effective than the past and help increase the lifetime of electric appliances, electric devices, and electricity protection equipments.
Abstract: Graph rewriting-based visual model processing is a
widely used technique for model transformation. Visual model
transformations often need to follow an algorithm that requires a
strict control over the execution sequence of the transformation steps.
Therefore, in Visual Model Processors (VMPs) the execution order
of the transformation steps is crucial. This paper presents the visual
control flow support of Visual Modeling and Transformation System
(VMTS), which facilitates composing complex model
transformations of simple transformation steps and executing them.
The VMTS Visual Control Flow Language (VCFL) uses stereotyped
activity diagrams to specify control flow structures and OCL
constraints to choose between different control flow branches. This
paper introduces VCFL, discusses its termination properties and
provides an algorithm to support the termination analysis of VCFL
transformations.
Abstract: This paper presents an experimental investigation using Acoustic Emission (AE) technology to monitor sand transportation in multiphase flow. The investigations were undertaken on three-phase (air-water-sand) flow in a horizontal pipe where the superficial gas velocity (VSG) had a range of between 0.2msˉ¹ to 2.0msˉ¹ and superficial liquid velocity (VSL) had a range of between 0.2msˉ¹ to 1.0msˉ¹. The experimental findings clearly show a correlation exists between AE energy levels, sand concentration, superficial gas velocity (VSG), and superficial liquid velocity (VSL).
Abstract: Nanofluids are novel fluids that are going to have an
important role in future industrial thermal device designs. Studies are
being predominantly conducted on the mechanism of these heat
transfers. The key to this attraction is in the increase in thermal
conductivity brought about by the Nanofluids compared with the
base fluid. Different models have been proposed for calculation of
effective thermal conduction that has been gradually modified. In this
investigation effect of nanolayer structure and Brownian motion of
particles are studied and a new modified thermal conductivity model
is proposed. Temperature, concentration, nanolayer thickness and
particle size are taken as variables and their effect are studied
simultaneously on the thermal conductivity of the fluids, showing the
concentration of the nanoparticles to affect the nanolayer thickness
which also affects the Brownian motion.
Abstract: The most influential programming paradigm today
is object oriented (OO) programming and it is widely used in
education and industry. Recognizing the importance of equipping
students with OO knowledge and skills, it is not surprising that most
Computer Science degree programs offer OO-related courses. How
do we assess whether the students have acquired the right objectoriented
skills after they have completed their OO courses? What are
object oriented skills? Currently none of the current assessment
techniques would be able to provide this answer. Traditional forms of
OO programming assessment provide a ways for assigning numerical
scores to determine letter grades. But this rarely reveals information
about how students actually understand OO concept. It appears
reasonable that a better understanding of how to define and assess
OO skills is needed by developing a criterion referenced model. It is
even critical in the context of Malaysia where there is currently a
growing concern over the level of competency of Malaysian IT
graduates in object oriented programming. This paper discussed the
approach used to develop the criterion-referenced assessment model.
The model can serve as a guideline when conducting OO
programming assessment as mentioned. The proposed model is
derived by using Goal Questions Metrics methodology, which helps
formulate the metrics of interest. It concluded with a few suggestions
for further study.
Abstract: This paper presents a new method to detect high impedance faults in radial distribution systems. Magnitudes of third and fifth harmonic components of voltages and currents are used as a feature vector for fault discrimination. The proposed methodology uses a learning vector quantization (LVQ) neural network as a classifier for identifying high impedance arc-type faults. The network learns from the data obtained from simulation of a simple radial system under different fault and system conditions. Compared to a feed-forward neural network, a properly tuned LVQ network gives quicker response.
Abstract: An effort to develop a unit commitment approach
capable of handling large power systems consisting of both thermal
and hydro generating units offers a large profitable return. In order to
be feasible, the method to be developed must be flexible, efficient
and reliable. In this paper, various proposed methods have been
described along with their strengths and weaknesses. As all of these
methods have some sort of weaknesses, a comprehensive algorithm
that combines the strengths of different methods and overcomes each
other-s weaknesses would be a suitable approach for solving
industry-grade unit commitment problem.
Abstract: The evaluation of conversational agents or chatterbots question answering systems is a major research area that needs much attention. Before the rise of domain-oriented conversational agents based on natural language understanding and reasoning, evaluation is never a problem as information retrieval-based metrics are readily available for use. However, when chatterbots began to become more domain specific, evaluation becomes a real issue. This is especially true when understanding and reasoning is required to cater for a wider variety of questions and at the same time to achieve high quality responses. This paper discusses the inappropriateness of the existing measures for response quality evaluation and the call for new standard measures and related considerations are brought forward. As a short-term solution for evaluating response quality of conversational agents, and to demonstrate the challenges in evaluating systems of different nature, this research proposes a blackbox approach using observation, classification scheme and a scoring mechanism to assess and rank three example systems, AnswerBus, START and AINI.
Abstract: An effort to find out the smaller size of cuttings for propagation of Morus alba was made in experimental area Department of Forestry, Range Management and Wildlife, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Different size of cuttings i.e. 2", 4", 6" and 8" were planted in polythene tubes of 3.5"x7". The effort was also made to compare the performance of cuttings in open air and in polythene low tunnel. Root length, number of root branches, root diameter and root fresh and dry weight were found maximum in two inches cuttings while minimum in four inches cuttings. Root growth was found maximum in open air as compared to under polythene sheet.
Abstract: Presence of phytosterol compound in Durian seed
(Durio zibethinus) or known as King of fruits has been discovered
from screening work using reagent test. Further analysis work has
been carried out using mass spectrometer in order to support the
priliminary finding. Isolation and purification of the major
phytosterol has been carried out using an open column
chromatography. The separation was monitored using thin layer
chromatography (TLC). Major isolated compounds and purified
phytosterol were identified using mass spectrometer and nuclear
magnetic resonance (NMR). This novel finding could promote
utilization of durian seeds as a functional ingredient in food products
through production of standardized extract based on phytosterol
content.
Abstract: The antioxidant compounds are needed for the food, beverages, and pharmaceuticals industry. For this purpose, an appropriate method is required to measure the antioxidant properties in various types of samples. Spectrophotometric method usually used has some weaknesses, including the high price, long sample preparation time, and less sensitivity. Among the alternative methods developed to overcome these weaknesses is antioxidant biosensor based on superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme. Therefore, this study was carried out to measure the SOD activity originating from Deinococcus radiodurans and to determine its kinetics properties. Carbon paste electrode modified with ferrocene and immobilized SOD exhibited anode and cathode current peak at potential of +400 and +300mv respectively, in both pure SOD and SOD of D. radiodurans. This indicated that the current generated was from superoxide catalytic dismutation reaction by SOD. Optimum conditions for SOD activity was at pH 9 and temperature of 27.50C for D. radiodurans SOD, and pH 11 and temperature of 200C for pure SOD. Dismutation reaction kinetics of superoxide catalyzed by SOD followed the Lineweaver-Burk kinetics with D. radiodurans SOD KMapp value was smaller than pure SOD. The result showed that D. radiodurans SOD had higher enzyme-substrate affinity and specificity than pure SOD. It concluded that D. radiodurans SOD had a great potential as biological recognition component for antioxidant biosensor.
Abstract: Intelligent systems are required in order to quickly and accurately analyze enormous quantities of data in the Internet environment. In intelligent systems, information extracting processes can be divided into supervised learning and unsupervised learning. This paper investigates intelligent clustering by unsupervised learning. Intelligent clustering is the clustering system which determines the clustering model for data analysis and evaluates results by itself. This system can make a clustering model more rapidly, objectively and accurately than an analyzer. The methodology for the automatic clustering intelligent system is a multi-agent system that comprises a clustering agent and a cluster performance evaluation agent. An agent exchanges information about clusters with another agent and the system determines the optimal cluster number through this information. Experiments using data sets in the UCI Machine Repository are performed in order to prove the validity of the system.
Abstract: Axial Flux Permanent Magnet (AFPM) Machines require effective cooling due to their high power density. The detrimental effects of overheating such as degradation of the insulation materials, magnets demagnetization, and increase of Joule losses are well known. This paper describes the CFD simulations performed on a test rig model of an air cooled Axial Flux Permanent Magnet (AFPM) generator built at Durham University to identify the temperatures and heat transfer coefficient on the stator. The Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes and the Energy equations are solved and the flow pattern and heat transfer developing inside the machine are described. The Nusselt number on the stator surfaces has been found. The dependency of the heat transfer on the flow field is described temperature field obtained. Tests on an experimental are undergoing in order to validate the CFD results.
Abstract: Boron minerals are very useful for various industrial
activities, such as glass industry and detergent industry, due to its
mechanical and chemical properties. During the production of boron
compounds, many of these are introduced into the environment in the
form of waste. Boron is also an important micro nutrient for the
plants to vegetate but if it exists in high concentrations, it could have
toxic effects. The maximum boron level in drinking water for human
health is given as 0.3 mg/L in World Health Organization (WHO)
standards. The toxic effects of boron should be noted especially for
dry regions, thus, in recent years, increasing attention has been paid
to remove the boron from waste waters. In this study, boron removal
is implemented by ion exchange process using Amberlite IRA-743
resin. Amberlite IRA-743 resin is a boron specific resin and it
belongs to the polymerizate sorbent group within the aminopolyol
functional group. Batch studies were performed to investigate the
effects of various experimental parameters, such as adsorbent dose,
initial concentration and pH, on the removal of boron. It is found
that, when the adsorbent dose increases removal of boron from the
liquid phase increases. However, an increase in the initial
concentration decreases the removal of boron. The effective pH
values for removal of boron are determined between 8.5 and 9.
Equilibrium isotherms were also analyzed by Langmuir and
Freundlich isotherm models. The Langmuir isotherm is obeyed better
than the Freundlich isotherm.
Abstract: This paper presents the results related to the
interference reduction technique in multistage multiuser detector for
asynchronous DS-CDMA system. To meet the real-time
requirements for asynchronous multiuser detection, a bit streaming,
cascade architecture is used. An asynchronous multiuser detection
involves block-based computations and matrix inversions. The paper
covers iterative-based suboptimal schemes that have been studied to
decrease the computational complexity, eliminate the need for matrix
inversions, decreases the execution time, reduces the memory
requirements and uses joint estimation and detection process that
gives better performance than the independent parameter estimation
method. The stages of the iteration use cascaded and bits processed
in a streaming fashion. The simulation has been carried out for
asynchronous DS-CDMA system by varying one parameter, i.e.,
number of users. The simulation result exhibits that system gives
optimum bit error rate (BER) at 3rd stage for 15-users.
Abstract: In countries with hot climates, air-conditioning forms
a large proportion of annual peak electrical demand, requiring
expansion of power plants to meet the peak demand, which goes
unused most of the time. Use of well-designed cool storage can offset
the peak demand to a large extent. In this study, an air conditioning
system with naturally stratified storage tank was designed,
constructed and tested. A new type of diffuser was designed and used
in this study. Factors that influence the performance of chilled water
storage tanks were investigated. The results indicated that stratified
storage tank consistently stratified well without any physical barrier.
Investigation also showed that storage efficiency decreased with
increasing flow rate due to increased mixing of warm and chilled
water. Diffuser design and layout primarily affected the mixing near
the inlet diffuser and the extent of this mixing had primary influence
on the shape of the thermocline. The heat conduction through tank
walls and through the thermocline caused widening of mixed volume.
Thermal efficiency of stratified storage tanks was as high as 90
percent, which indicates that stratified tanks can effectively be used
as a load management technique.
Abstract: Due to the low heavy metal concentrations, the
bottom ash from a 32 MW municipal district heating plant was
determined to be a potential forest fertilizer as such. However,
additional Ca would be needed, because its Ca concentration of 1.9-
% (d.w.) was lower than the statutory Finnish minimum limit value
of 6.0-% (d.w.) for Ca in forest fertilizer. Due to the elevated As
concentration (53.0 mg/kg; d.w.) in the fly ash from the 32 MW
municipal district heating plant, and Cr concentration (620 mg/kg;
d.w.) in the ash fraction (i.e. mixture of the bottom ash and fly ash)
from the 6 MW municipal district heating plant, which exceed the
limit values of 30 mg/kg (d.w.) and 300 mg/kg (d.w.) for As and Cr,
respectively, these residues are not suitable as forest fertilizers.
Although these ash fractions cannot be used as a forest fertilizer as
such, they can be used for the landscaping of landfills or in industrial
and other areas that are closed to the public. However, an
environmental permit is then needed.
Abstract: This paper presents and discusses the numerical simulations of transient laminar natural convection cooling of high Prandtl number fluids in cubical cavities, in which the six walls of the cavity are subjected to a step change in temperature. The effect of the fluid Prandtl number on the heat transfer coefficient is studied for three different fluids (Golden Syrup, Glycerin and Glycerin-water solution 50%). The simulations are performed at two different Rayleigh numbers (5·106 and 5·107) and six different Prandtl numbers (3 · 105 ≥Pr≥ 50). Heat conduction through the cavity glass walls is also considered. The propsed correlations of the averaged heat transfer coefficient (N u) showed that it is dependant on the initial Ra and almost independent on P r. The instantaneous flow patterns, temperature contours and time evolution of volume averaged temperature and heat transfer coefficient are presented and analyzed.