Archives-December  

Today one of the crisis ecological affecting the world is the phenomenon of desertification. We require a proper understanding of causes and processes of desertification to control the huge phenomenon on the global and regional situation. Desertification is more related to social and anthropogenic issues than natural causes and it becomes more important over the time. Human effects on desertification could be classified as direct and indirect factors. We used ICD method to estimate and assessment of desertification in 456 km2 of Koohdasht basin lands. This method was introduced in 1995 by Ekhtesasi and Mohajer , checking human and environment factors that contributing to desertification of the area, at the end will be introduced the intensity of desertification. The first we collect the data of area then we used ILWIS software to separate the facies in basin and value the parameters of ICD method, we attain the intensity of desertification for each facies and whole basin. The analysis indicated that 35.2 % of land in basin located in low class, 31.99 in medium class, 32.7% had high class and the total area is located in medium class. As well as recognized the most importance factor is human activity.

The present investigation was carried out to find the effect of aqueous and ethanolic extracts of bark of Ficus religiosa for its anti-inflammatory activity in Hamsters. Anti-inflammatory activity was evaluated using acute inflammatory models like carrageenan induced paw edema models. The biochemical parameters like thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), enzymatic anti-oxidants and non enzymatic anti-oxidants were carried out in blood and tissues of control and experimental animals in each group. Oral administration of the ethanolic extract (Ficus religiosa bark) at the dose 100mg/kg body weight (b.w) showed significant effect than aqueous extract and was also much comparable to that of standard drug, Ibuprofen. The mechanism of anti-inflammatory effect of Ficus religiosa is probably due to their inhibitory action on the release of mediators of inflammation.

In this work the combined effect of injector orientation and nozzle hole geometry on performance, emissions and combustion were analyzed. Experiments were carried out on a single cylinder DI diesel engine for different orientation of injector located nearer to intake and exhaust valve in the combustion chamber. Effects of increase in injector opening pressure and injection timing advance were also analyzed. Experiments were carried out by plugging one of the two injector mounting holes. It was observed that for the injector located nearer to the exhaust valve, the combination of static injection timing 26o BTDC and injector opening pressure of 230 bar was found effective in reducing NOx levels with no significant drop in performance. Advancing the injection timing to 29° BTDC with 230 bar injector opening pressure resulted in marginal increase in performance and reduction in Smoke levels by 0.4 Bosch Smoke Unit Number (BSN). NOx emissions were slightly higher than that of baseline. Drop in brake thermal efficiency and increase in smoke emission levels observed for the injector located nearer to intake valve. Performance and smoke levels are inferior to that of conventional baseline reading even after the injection timing advance. Increase of smoke by 1.6 Bosch Smoke Number (BSN) is observed at full load for the injection timing of 29° BTDC. Significant increase in Hydrocarbon and Carbon Monoxide emissions were also observed. In general it is observed that the injector location nearer to the exhaust valve has a very good potential for reducing Oxides of Nitrogen emissions without affecting the performance.

In this paper, the laser beam welding is studied and Aluminium temperature field is gained in this process. The thermal effect of laser beam that specially depends on the laser type and temperature field of it in workpiece, is the main key of analysis and optimization of this process, from which the main goal of this paper has been defined. Utilizing laser as a method to join plastic components is growing in popularity. There are two laser welding mechanisms, keyhole mode and conduction mode. Keyhole welding is widely used because it produces welds with high aspect ratios and narrow heat affected zones. However keyhole welding can be unstable, as the keyhole oscillates and closes intermittently. This intermittent closure causes porosity due to gas entrapment. Conduction welding, on the other hand, is more stable since vaporisation is minimal and hence there is no further absorption below the surface of the material. Conduction welds are usually produced using low-power focused laser beams. This results in shallow welds with a low aspect ratio. In this work, high-power CO2 and YAG lasers have been used to produce laser conduction welds on 2mm and 3mm gauge AA5083 respectively by means of defocused beams. Full penetration butt-welds of and 3mm gauge AA508 using this process have been produced. It has been observed that in this regime the penetration depth increases initially up to a maximum and then decreases with increasing spot size.

This paper deals on flexural strength of RCC one way slabs using fly ash, silica fume and M-sand and steel fibre. One conventional reinforced concrete one way slab and Nine steel fibre reinforced concrete one way slabs with fly ash; silica fume and M sand are casted by changing the reinforcement ratio and thickness. The slabs are size of 1.2m x 0.4m. The slabs were tested under three point loading. The ultimate load carrying capacities of slabs are found out. The results shows that load carrying capacity of slabs are increased with increase of reinforcement percentage and thickness.

Different parts of Moringa oleifera shoot are reportedly useful for nutrition, medicine, water purification and as raw material for the industry. It is however hypothesized that the growth and mineral composition of Moringa could be affected by the medium in which it is growing. Consequently, a factorial experiment involving three pre-determined soil depths of 0-15, 15-30 and 30-45 cm at four soil water levels: 100, 75, 50 and 25% Field Moisture Capacity (FMC ) was conducted in Ibadan, South western Nigeria, to investigate the effect of soil depth and water stress on the growth and mineral composition of Moringa shoot. The total N, C, P, K, Mg and Ca contained in the soil samples collected from the three soil depths were in the order of 0-15>15-30>30-45 cm. As a result, Moringa plants produced in the surface soil (0-15 cm) was superior in height; stem girth, number of leaves and dry matter yield irrespective of water- stress condition. Reduction in FMC from 100 to 50% did not significantly affect growth performance. Surface soil produced stems and leaves richer in mineral composition (Ca, Mg, K, Fe, Cu and Zn) than subsoil. Therefore, growing moringa on a fertile-soil is better for animal health.

Development of a suitable lightweight system in which a sensor is airborne for carrying out surveillance. The sensor should remain airborne for a minimum of 2 minutes at a minimum height of 30 meter and above to do imaging of a proportionate area below. Recognizable real time video information should be transmitted to the ground receiver point suitably located in the observation area. Sensor should be able to detect man-sized objects in above-mentioned conditions. Proposed solution should take up design of configuration and identification of suitable options for sensor, data link, ground observation & control points and other support system(s). System configuration details comprising of sensor, data link, observation, data processing mechanism and support system should form part of the design. There are many approaches for motion detection in a continuous video stream. All of them are based on comparing of the current video frame with one from the previous frames or with something that we'll call background. The camera IC will provide high level functionality for all applications. This camera IC is controlled by microcontroller which is connected to it. The camera automatically focuses the object up to 50 m and is controlled by microcontroller.

The volume calculation of MR Image segmented and estimate the affected intensity of Alzheimer’s disease is dealt with this paper. It is concerned with Voxel Based Morphometry to render the first part segmentation. The result gives an active region which further needs an estimation to justify the diagnosis. As in this case the image is in form of voxels. When properly processed, classified images can represent foundations for diagnostic purposes. A VBM - fuzzy approach was used to take advantage of Voxel Based Morphometry’s ability to fine segmentation based on voxel comparisons of GM, WM & CSF and membership degrees andfunctions of fuzzy logic, respectively. The method of VBM is done with SPM. The method is based on the spatial properties of the MR Brain image features and makes use of SPM multi-scaled representations of the image. A fuzzy classifier is created on basis of the previous segmented data. The method showed high quality classification for images of complex components in determining the intensity of Alzheimer’s and GUI is used as front end for the user comfort.

Performance evaluation in the public organisations helps achieving multiple objectives such as transparency of costs and outcomes, improved service quality, increased employee motivation and so on. On the other hand, its improper transposition of an instrument developed for operations management, which may cause serious distortions when applied to the public organisations, is unpleasant to some organisations. In this study, we investigated the factors that affect adoption and implementation of performance measures and rank them using TOPSIS technique. We found that internal interest groups in the adoption stage and external internal groups in the implementation stage rank first in terms of importance.

The ability to track the real-time location and movement of robots offers a range of useful applications in areas such as safety, security and the supply chain. Real-time Ultra Wide Band Location determination is a technology that uses Ultra-wideband (UWB) and aims at delivering high positional accuracy in harsh industrial environments that previously caused problems for traditional location systems due to electromagnetic interference. Ultra Wide Band systems can calculate the location of tags which are designed to be mounted on assets or worn by a person. They transmit UWB signals that are received by sensors which contain an array of antenna and ultra-wideband radio receivers. The data from these sensors combined with dedicated software uses algorithms to work out the angle of arrival (AOA) of the UWB signal from the tag which is then compared to the time difference of arrival (TDOA). This information is determined between pairs of sensors connected by timing cables. The combination of AOA and TDOA measurement technologies delivers a precise three dimensional location system that is powerful, reliable, and robust for harsh industrial environments. This research examines the use of ultra wide band technology in tracking items such as mobile robots.