Archives-September 2013

Children are reported to be taking on more influential roles in the decisions of household purchases. Some of the reasons cited for this are changes in family structures like smaller families and single headed households. Other reasons like enhanced technology and the influx of mass media has also been noted. The aim of this study was to examine the extent of the influence that children, in the pre-adolescent age group, have on purchases. The study further looked at the influence of peers, the influence of television programmes and televised advertisements and the types of techniques used by children to influence a purchase decisions. A survey questionnaire was administered to a sample of thirty households with children within the target age group of eight to twelve years. The sample was randomly selected from the Berea West Senior Primary School in Berea West, Durban. These families fell into the middle income group. The results confirmed the existence of children’s influence on purchase decisions. The results also revealed that peer influence does play a significant role on children’s choices. However the influence of television featured less prominently. Influence tactics and techniques used by children was also analysed to see which were more frequently used.

In the present day scenario rapid product development (RPD) becomes essential for product manufacturers for their survival. However, success of RPD depends on advancement and effective utilization of many more available technologies. Now with the availability of Computer Aided Design (CAD) / Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) for RPD making the demands of the present day industry are taken care. The product development by CAD/CAM reduces the considerable time of equipment and is made with higher accuracy and repeat-ability resulting in faster development of products and less rejection in the long run this approach to product developing results in cost effectiveness. This paper reviews the technological advancements in CAD/CAM Systems. This paper also depicts the lead-time reduction in product development through modeling with CAD/CAM and application of reverse engineering, Rapid prototyping and CNC approach to RPD.

Now a day, global warming has induced changes in precipitation in different regions of the world. Bangladesh is recently experiencing climate change impact related to hazards like cyclone, flood, draught etc. Climate variable like rainfall is the most important parameter which is linked with agricultural aspects too. Most of the rain occurred during monsoon period in Bangladesh. The study on rainfall trend over the country has done using observed station data of Rainfall (In-situ) collected from Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) .These data have been analyzed based on annual and seasonal variation in Bangladesh for last 6 decades. A set of analysis has been carried out for this study. Linear trend lines show the rainfall trend over Bangladesh which is not very significant. The annual and monsoon rainfall is found in decreasing trend in recent times (1981-2010) whereas in increasing trend during the period of 1951-2011. The time series statistical analysis of this study will provide information about annual and seasonal mean total rainfall and rainfall variation over the country for different decades, as well as the rainfall trend in different divisions of Bangladesh in different times. The result of this study will help the policy makers to take necessary steps and measure in different sectors like disaster management, agricultural production, drought mitigation, flood control etc. and to act against the adverse impact of climate change. In this paper, annual, seasonal and divisional rainfall variability and trend analysis over Bangladesh will be discussed.

In this research, Investigation on FRP-cement mortar infilled-steel double-skin tubular member is carried out with emphasis on lateral and vertical load resistance located at seismically active regions. In this new structural member, three constituent materials are optimally combined. The outer tube is made of fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP), the inner tube is made of steel, and the space in-between is filled with cement mortar. These members are highly useful when they are used as columns in scaffolding. These members are cyclically loaded to their Ultimate load to study the behaviour of Double skin tubular short columns (DSTSCs) under increasing d/t ratio by parametric optimization approach using DOE (Design of Experiments). From this experimental research, following conclusions were drawn; As the length of the tube or column increases, load carrying capacity decreases for every particular D/T ratio. As D/T ratio increases, for a particular length of tube ultimate load decreases. As cement mortar ratio increases the ultimate load for d/t =10 &13.5 decreases but for the d/t 17.667 ultimate load decreased and suddenly shot up. As Gap (between the inner steel tube and outer frp) increases the ultimate load for each cement ratio decreases.

The effect of grinding MgTiO3 on the particle size and electrical properties was studied. Initially, good dispersion conditions were optimized via rheological characterizations of the aqueous slurry in variant dispersant amounts. Then, 50% MgTiO3 slurry was grinded using balls of different diameter sizes (0.8 and 0.4 mm) for two consecutive cycles. The milled powder was characterized using laser granulometry, BET method, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy techniques. The crystallite size was calculated using Halder-Wagner methods. The electrical and dielectrical properties were also monitored for different particle size. These results revealed impurities from the zirconium balls, however, without affecting the particle size even if prepared with different grinding operations.

The attempt has been made in the paper to analyze the predicament of dalit woman in Geeta Nagabhushan’s Kannada novel Dange (Mutiny1997) from the feminist perspective. The novel explores various facets of the Indian dalit woman and depicts the social and cultural status of dalit women and portrays intricate human nature, graveness, sufferings and inhuman male oppression to highlight and thereby aims to create an awareness of certain social evils. The novel explores the emotional world of dalit women, revealing an awareness of varied forces with dalit feminine sensibility. The author concentrates on mute miseries and helplessness of Durgi, a dalit woman who is tormented by high castes and openly discourses her inner conflict.

Security systems are basically based on authentication process. It is being more secure using different approaches. Verity of security systems is available in market but, they uses conventional scheme for identification of a person for an authentication process. Authentication is based on identification process. Recently signals like EEG and ECG called physiological signal of a human is a famous subject for the researcher. Many systems are being developed using this unique human characteristic. It is very hard to copy and universal for every human kind. In experiment for person identification method uses EEG signal, Wavelet Packet Decomposition (WPD) for feature extraction and Self-organizing map (SOM) as a classifier.

The wide variety of waveforms in EEG signals and the high non-stationary nature of many of them is one of the main difficulties to develop automatic detection systems for them. In sleep stage classification a relevant transient wave is the K-complex. This report comprehends the developing of new Fuzzy_Neural algorithm in order to achieve an automatic K-complex detection from EEG raw data. The Fuzzy c-means algorithm is used for the rough and rapid recognition of K-complex and the Neural Network classifier does the exact evaluation on the detected K-complex. This Pattern recognition technique is a hardware independent solution for the biomedical signal processing field. This represents a significant criterion for the objective assessment of a patient’s sleep quality.