Abstract: The present study investigates the effectiveness of
newly designed clayey pellets (fired clay pellets diameter sizes of 5
and 8 mm, and unfired clay pellets with the diameter size of 15 mm)
as the beds in the column adsorption process. The adsorption
experiments in the batch mode were performed before the column
experiment with the purpose to determine the order of adsorbent
package in the column which was to be designed in the investigation.
The column experiment was performed by using a known mass of the
clayey beds and the volume of the waste printing developer, which
was purified. The column was filled in the following order: fired clay
pellets of the diameter size of 5 mm, fired clay pellets of the diameter
size of 8 mm, and unfired clay pellets of the diameter size of 15 mm.
The selected order of the adsorbents showed a high removal
efficiency for zinc (97.8%) and copper (81.5%) ions. These
efficiencies were better than those in the case of the already existing
mode adsorption. The obtained experimental data present a good
basis for the selection of an appropriate column fill, but further
testing is necessary in order to obtain more accurate results.
Abstract: Concrete is an essential building material which is
widely used in construction industry all over the world due to its
compressible strength. Curing of concrete plays a vital role in
durability and other performance necessities. Improper curing can
affect the concrete performance and durability easily. When areas
like scarcity of water, structures is not accessible by humans external
curing cannot be performed, so we opt for internal curing. Internal
curing (or) self curing plays a major role in developing the concrete
pore structure and microstructure. The concept of internal curing is to
enhance the hydration process to maintain the temperature uniformly.
The evaporation of water in the concrete is reduced by self curing
agent (Super Absorbing Polymer – SAP) there by increasing the
water retention capacity of the concrete. The research work was
carried out to reduce water, which is prime material used for concrete
in the construction industry. Concrete curing plays a major role in
developing hydration process. Concept of self curing will reduce the
evaporation of water from concrete. Self curing will increase water
retention capacity as compared to the conventional concrete. Proper
self curing (or) internal curing increases the strength, durability and
performance of concrete. Super absorbing Polymer (SAP) used as
internal curing agent. In this study 0.2% to 0.4% of SAP was varied
in different grade of high strength concrete. In the experiment
replacement of cement by silica fumes with 5%, 10% and 15% are
studied. It is found that replacement of silica fumes by 10 % gives
more strength and durability when compared to others.
Abstract: Nanotechnology in pristine sense refers to building of
structures at atomic and molecular scale. Meticulously
nanotechnology encompasses the nanomaterials with at least one
dimension size ranging from 1 to 100 nanometres. Unlike the literal
meaning of its name, nanotechnology is a massive concept beyond
imagination. This paper predominantly deals with relevance of
nanotechnology in automotive industries. New generation of
automotives looks at nanotechnology as an emerging trend of
manufacturing revolution. Intricate shapes can be made out of fairly
inexpensive raw materials instead of conventional fabrication
process. Though the current era have enough technology to face
competition, nanotechnology can give futuristic implications to pick
up the modern pace. Nanotechnology intends to bridge the gap
between automotives with superior technical performance and their
cost fluctuation. Preliminarily, it is an area of great scientific interest
and a major shaper of many new technologies. Nanotechnology can
be an ideal building block for automotive industries, under constant
evolution offering a very wide scope of activity. It possesses huge
potential and is still in the embryonic form of research and
development.
Abstract: In this paper, a modified Wilkinson power divider for
GSM application is presented. The quarter–wavelength microstrip
lines in the conventional Wilkinson power divider (WPD) are
replaced by one-eighth wavelength transmission line. Wilkinson
power divider is designed using λ/4 and λ/8 transmission line. It has
the operating frequency of 915 MHz which is used in the GSM
standard. The proposed Wilkinson Power Divider is designed using
the simulation tool Advanced Design System. The results of λ/8
transmission line are very close to the results of λ/4 transmission line.
The isolation loss of λ/8 transmission line is improved by introducing
a capacitor between the output ports. The proposed Wilkinson power
divider has the best return loss of greater than -10 dB and isolation
loss of -15.25 dB. The λ/8 transmission line Wilkinson power divider
has the reduced size of 53.9 percentages than λ/4 transmission line
WPD. The proposed design has simple structure, better isolation loss
and good insertion loss.
Abstract: In this research, we propose to conduct diagnostic and
predictive analysis about the key factors and consequences of urban
population relocation. To achieve this goal, urban simulation models
extract the urban development trends as land use change patterns from
a variety of data sources. The results are treated as part of urban big
data with other information such as population change and economic
conditions. Multiple data mining methods are deployed on this data to
analyze nonlinear relationships between parameters. The result
determines the driving force of population relocation with respect to
urban sprawl and urban sustainability and their related parameters.
This work sets the stage for developing a comprehensive urban
simulation model for catering to specific questions by targeted users. It
contributes towards achieving sustainability as a whole.
Abstract: Banda Sea Collision Zone (BSCZ) is the result of the
interaction and convergence of Indo-Australian plate, Eurasian plate
and Pacific plate. This location is located in eastern Indonesia. This
zone has a very high seismic activity. In this research, we will
calculate the rate (λ) and Mean Square Error (MSE). By this result,
we will classification earthquakes distribution in the BSCZ with the
point process approach. Chi-square is used to determine the type of
earthquakes distribution in the sub region of BSCZ. The data used in
this research is data of earthquakes with a magnitude ≥ 6 SR for the
period 1964-2013 and sourced from BMKG Jakarta. This research is
expected to contribute to the Moluccas Province and surrounding
local governments in performing spatial plan document related to
disaster management.
Abstract: Objective: Acute coronary syndrome is a clinical
condition encompassing ST segments elevation myocardial
infraction, Non ST segment is elevation myocardial infraction and un
stable angina is characterized by ruptured coronary plaque, stress and
myocardial injury. Angina pectoris is a pressure like pain in the chest
that is induced by exertion or stress and relived with in the minute
after cessation of effort or using sublingual nitroglycerin. The present
research was undertaken to study the drug utilization pattern of
antiplatelet drugs for the ischemic heart disease in a tertiary care
hospital. Method: The present study is retrospective drug utilization
study and study period is 6months. The data is collected from the
discharge case sheet of general medicine department from medical
department Rajiv Gandhi institute of medical sciences, Kadapa. The
tentative sample size fixed was 250 patients. Out of 250 cases 19
cases was excluded because of unrelated data. Results: A total of 250
prescriptions were collected for the study according to the inclusion
criteria 233 prescriptions were diagnosed with ischemic heart disease
17 prescriptions were excluded due to unrelated information. out of
233 prescriptions 128 are male (54.9%) and 105 patients are were
female (45%). According to the gender distribution, the prevalence of
ischemic heart disease in males are 90 (70.31%) and females are 39
(37.1%). In the same way the prevalence of ischemic heart disease
along with cerebrovascular disease in males are 39 (29.6%) and
females are 66 (62.6%). Conclusion: We found that 94.8% of drug
utilization of antiplatelet drugs was achieved in the Rajiv Gandhi
institute of medical sciences, Kadapa from 2011-2012.
Abstract: Dietary cholesterol has elicited the most public
interest as it relates with coronary heart disease. Thus, humans have
been paying more attention to health, thereby reducing consumption
of cholesterol enriched food. Egg is considered as one of the major
sources of human dietary cholesterol. However, an alternative way to
reduce the potential cholesterolemic effect of eggs is to modify the
fatty acid composition of the yolk. The effect of palm oil (PO),
soybean oil (SO), sesame seed oil (SSO) and fish oil (FO)
supplementation in the diets of layers on egg yolk fatty acid,
cholesterol, egg production and egg quality parameters were
evaluated in a 42-day feeding trial. One hundred and five Isa Brown
laying hens of 34 weeks of age were randomly distributed into seven
groups of five replicates and three birds per replicate in a completely
randomized design. Seven corn-soybean basal diets (BD) were
formulated: BD+No oil (T1), BD+1.5% PO (T2), BD+1.5% SO (T3),
BD+1.5% SSO (T4), BD+1.5% FO (T5), BD+0.75% SO+0.75% FO
(T6) and BD+0.75% SSO+0.75% FO (T7). Five eggs were randomly
sampled at day 42 from each replicate to assay for the cholesterol,
fatty acid profile of egg yolk and egg quality assessment. Results
showed that there were no significant (P>0.05) differences observed
in production performance, egg cholesterol and egg quality
parameters except for yolk height, albumen height, yolk index, egg
shape index, haugh unit, and yolk colour. There were no significant
differences (P>0.05) observed in total cholesterol, high density
lipoprotein and low density lipoprotein levels of egg yolk across the
treatments. However, diets had effect (P
Abstract: In this paper, an attempt has been made for the design
of a robotic library using an intelligent system. The robot works on
the ARM microprocessor, motor driver circuit with 5 degrees of
freedom with Wi-Fi and GPS based communication protocol. The
authenticity of the library books is controlled by RFID. The proposed
robotic library system is facilitated with embedded system and ARM.
In this library issuance system, the previous potential readers’
authentic review reports have been taken into consideration for
recommending suitable books to the deserving new users and the
issuance of books or periodicals is based on the users’ decision. We
have conjectured that the Wi-Fi based robotic library management
system would allow fast transaction of books issuance and it also
produces quality readers.
Abstract: Searching the “Island of stability” is a topic of
extreme interest in theoretical as well as experimental modern
physics today. This “island of stability” is spanned by superheavy
elements (SHE's) that are produced in the laboratory. SHE's are
believed to exist primarily due to the “magic” stabilizing effects of
nuclear shell structure. SHE synthesis is extremely difficult due to
their very low production cross section, often of the order of pico
barns or less. Stabilizing effects of shell closures at proton number
Z=82 and neutron number N=126 are predicted theoretically. Though
stabilizing effects of Z=82 have been experimentally verified, no
concluding observations have been made with N=126, so far. We
measured and analyzed the total evaporation residue (ER) cross
sections for a number of systems with neutron number around 126 to
explore possible shell closure effects in ER cross sections, in this
work.
Abstract: Maintenance and design engineers have great concern
for the functioning of rotating machineries due to the vibration
phenomenon. Improper functioning in rotating machinery originates
from the damage to rolling element bearings. The status of rolling
element bearings require advanced technologies to monitor their
health status efficiently and effectively. Avoiding vibration during
machine running conditions is a complicated process. Vibration
simulation should be carried out using suitable sensors/ transducers to
recognize the level of damage on bearing during machine operating
conditions. Various issues arising in rotating systems are interlinked
with bearing faults. This paper presents an approach for fault
diagnosis of bearings using neural networks and time/frequencydomain
vibration analysis.
Abstract: The statistical study has become indispensable for various fields of knowledge. Not any different, in Geotechnics the study of probabilistic and statistical methods has gained power considering its use in characterizing the uncertainties inherent in soil properties. One of the situations where engineers are constantly faced is the definition of a probability distribution that represents significantly the sampled data. To be able to discard bad distributions, goodness-of-fit tests are necessary. In this paper, three non-parametric goodness-of-fit tests are applied to a data set computationally generated to test the goodness-of-fit of them to a series of known distributions. It is shown that the use of normal distribution does not always provide satisfactory results regarding physical and behavioral representation of the modeled parameters.
Abstract: The occurrences of precipitation, also commonly
referred as rain, in the form of "convective" and "stratiform" have
been identified to exist worldwide. In this study, the radar return
echoes or known as reflectivity values acquired from radar scans
have been exploited in the process of classifying the type of rain
endured. The investigation use radar data from Malaysian
Meteorology Department (MMD). It is possible to discriminate the
types of rain experienced in tropical region by observing the vertical
characteristics of the rain structure. .Heavy rain in tropical region
profoundly affects radiowave signals, causing transmission
interference and signal fading. Required wireless system fade margin
depends on the type of rain. Information relating to the two
mentioned types of rain is critical for the system engineers and
researchers in their endeavour to improve the reliability of
communication links. This paper highlights the quantification of
percentage occurrences over one year period in 2009.
Abstract: Polymeric composites are being increasingly used as
repair material for repairing critical infrastructures such as building,
bridge, pressure vessel, piping and pipeline. Technique in repairing
damaged pipes is one of the major concerns of pipeline owners.
Considerable researches have been carried out on the repair of
corroded pipes using composite materials. This article attempts a
short review of the subject matter to provide insight into various
techniques used in repairing corroded pipes, focusing on a wide range
of composite repair systems. These systems including pre-cured
layered, flexible wet lay-up, pre-impregnated, split composite sleeve
and flexible tape systems. Both advantages and limitations of these
repair systems were highlighted. Critical technical aspects have been
discussed through the current standards and practices. Research gaps
and future study scopes in achieving more effective design
philosophy are also presented.
Abstract: This experimental study consists of a characterization
of epoxy grout where an amount of 2% of graphene nanoplatelets
particles were added to commercial epoxy resin to evaluate their
behavior regarding neat epoxy resin. Compressive tests, tensile tests
and flexural tests were conducted to study the effect of graphene
nanoplatelets on neat epoxy resin. By comparing graphene-based and
neat epoxy grout, there is no significant increase of strength due to
weak interface in the graphene nanoplatelets/epoxy composites.
From this experiment, the tension and flexural strength of graphenebased
epoxy grouts is slightly lower than ones of neat epoxy grout.
Nevertheless, the addition of graphene has produced more consistent
results according to a smaller standard deviation of strength.
Furthermore, the graphene has also improved the ductility of the
grout, hence reducing its brittle behaviour. This shows that the
performance of graphene-based grout is reliably predictable and able
to minimise sudden rupture. This is important since repair design of
damaged pipeline is of deterministic nature.
Abstract: Contemporary metropolitan areas and large cities are
dynamic, rapidly growing and continuously changing. Thus, urban
transformations and mutations are not a new phenomenon, but rather
a continuous process. Basic factors of urban transformation are
related to development of technologies, globalisation, lifestyle, etc.,
which in combination with local factors have generated an extremely
great variety of urban development conditions. This article discusses
the main urbanisation processes in Lithuania during last 50-year
period and social factors affecting urban functional mutations.
Abstract: Zinc borates are used as a multi-functional flame
retardant additive for its high dehydration temperature. In this study,
the method of ultrasonic mixing was used in the synthesis of zinc
borates. The reactants of zinc oxide (ZnO) and boric acid (H3BO3)
were used at the constant reaction parameters of 90°C reaction
temperature and 55 min of reaction time. Several molar ratios of
ZnO:H3BO3 (1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 and 1:5) were conducted for the
determination of the optimum reaction ratio. Prior to synthesis the
characterization of the synthesized zinc borates were made by X-Ray
Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
(FT-IR). From the results Zinc Oxide Borate Hydrate
[Zn3B6O12.3.5H2O], were synthesized optimum at the molar ratio of
1:3, with a reaction efficiency of 95.2%.
Abstract: A Reconfigurable Wilkinson power divider is
proposed in this paper. In existing system only a limited number of
bandwidth is used at the output ports, in the proposed Wilkinson
power divider different band of frequencies are obtained by using
PIN diode. By tuning the PIN diode, different frequencies are
achieved. The size of the power divider is reduced for the operating
frequency and increases the fractional bandwidth.
Abstract: In the present research, whole meal barley flour
(WBF) was supplemented with gelatinized corn flour (GCF) in 0 and
30%. Whole meal wheat flour (WWF) was mixed with defatted rice
bran (DRB) to produce 0, 20, 25, and 30% replacement levels.
Rheological properties of dough were studied. Thermal properties
and starch crystallinity of flours were evaluated. Flat bread, balady
bread and pie were prepared from the different flour blends. The
different bakeries were sensory evaluated. Color of raw materials and
crust of bakery products were determined. Nutrients contents of raw
flours and food products were assessed. Results showed that addition
of GCF to WBF increased the viscosity and falling number of the
produced dough. Water absorption, dough development time and
dough stability increased with increasing the level of DRB in dough
while, weakening and mixing tolerance index decreased.
Extensibility and energy decreased, while, resistance to extension
increased as DRB level increased. Gelatinized temperature of WWF,
WBF, GCF, and DRB were 13.26, 35.09, 28.33, and 39.63,
respectively. Starch crystallinity was affected when DRB was added
to WWF. The highest protein content was present in balady bread
made from 70% WWF and 30% DRB. The highest calcium,
phosphorus, and potassium levels were present in products made
from 100% WBF. Sensory attributes of the products were slightly
affected by adding DRB and GCF. Conclusion: Addition of DRB or
GCF to WWF or WBF, respectively affect the physical, chemical,
rheological and sensory properties of balady bread, flat bread, and pie
while improved their nutritive values.
Abstract: A Friction stir welding tool is a critical component to
the success of the process. The tool typically consists of a rotating
round shoulder and a threaded cylindrical pin that heats the work
piece, mostly by friction, and moves the softened alloy around it to
form the joint. In this research work, an attempt has been made to
investigate the relationship between FSW variables mainly tool
profile, rotating speed, welding speed and the mechanical properties
(tensile strength, yield strength, percentage elongation, and micro
hardness) of friction stir welded aluminum alloy 5083 joints. From
the experimental details, it can be assessed that the joint produced by
using Triflute profile tool has contribute superior mechanical and
structural properties as compared to Tapered unthreaded & Threaded
tool for 1000rpm.