Archives-June...  

The effect of fly ash additions on the mechanical properties of ceramic tile composition has been investigated. Fly ash addition in the range of 0-30wt% (Class-A) and 0-30wt% (Class-B) have been added into the tile body composition, wet milled, spray dried,shaped and fired at different temperatures (900, 1000,1050 and 1100 C). The MOR strength improved with increasing fly ash content and reached maximum when 30wt% (Class-A) and 20wt% (Class-B) fly ash used, and with greater additions it decreased. A linear correlation between strength development and Mullite formation was found. The tile with 30wt% fly ash (Class-A) and 20wt% (Class-B) have improved bending strength and have lowest porosities. The effects of fly ash incorporation on the mechanical properties of ceramic tiles and found that a small amount of fly ash addition improves the strength of the ceramic tiles.

Load balancing using clustering can increase network scalability. This paper attempting to apply efficient techniques of load, energy and security such that network life can be increased with security and also its reliability. Continuous aggregation is required in sensor applications to obtain the temporal variation information of aggregates. It helps the users to understand how the environment changes over time and track real time measurements for trend analysis. Due to the high frequency and the long period of a continuous aggregation in every epoch, the false temporal variation pattern would incur a great communication cost. In this paper, we propose a clustering technique which will balance the load among the cluster by using some backup nodes. In the continuous aggregation, the attacker could manipulate a series of aggregation results through compromised nodes to fabricate false temporal variation patterns of the aggregates .We detect and verify a false temporal variations pattern by checking only a small part of aggregation results to reduces a verification cost. A sampling based approach is used to check the aggregation results and we also proposed a security mechanisms to protect the sampling process.

This project proposes a real time fuzzy assisted particle swarm optimization (PSO) based energy management strategy for the multi-source electric vehicles (EVs). In pure EVs the major on-board energy source is the battery which is generally accompanied with other sources such as fuel cell (FC), ultra capacitor (UC) to improve its life time. The energy management algorithm which is formulated as an optimization problem in this project provides optimum sharing of energy sources to meet the vehicle load requirement at every instant without any prior knowledge about the driving profile. The proposed algorithm is simple, efficient and can be easily implemented in a low cost embedded system.

Researches on cassava brown streak diseasis (CBSD) were conducted in North Kivu province. The study aimed to determine incidence and severity of cassava brown streak diseasis, evaluate whitefly abundance and infection origin. Incidence was evaluated using the proportion of damaged cassava plants by the disease and the severity was determined on leaves and stems using score ranging from 1 to 5. Whiteflies counting were done on the five first apical leaves. Infection origin was determined considering symptom appearence apical leaves (origin from whitefly) and on lower leaves (origin from infected cutting). Results show that cassava brown streak diseas is in really present in north Kivu province with incidence reaching 26% and a severity of score 2 from the entire surveyed district. Incidence ranged from 2% with a severity of score 2 in Nyiragongo district up to 39% with a score of 2 in both Beni and Rutshuru district. Observed symptom proportions on stems were higher in Rutshuru (39%) but lower in Nyiragongo (2%). Whitefly population was high in Nyiragongo (37 whiteflies/cassava plant) but lower in Beni (5 whiteflies/cassava plant). Infection proportion due to whiteflies was of 1% in Rutshuru and 13 % in Masisi, while those from infected cutting as planting materials were of 4 % in Rutshuru and 47 % in Lubero

Class room management is a tool to set learning environment. Well managed class rooms make instruction easy and learning must occur. Study was designed to investigate the essentials of classroom management at pre- primary level by using stratified random sampling technique thirty teachers were selected as sample of the study. Results indicate classroom management is a complicated activity which needs a lot of effort it never happens by chance. Physical material need to be set in such a way that traffic in class room will not be effected. Conflicts and misbehavior should also address. Effective teaching strategies enable teacher to become learning facilitator at per-primary level.

This paper estimated the Overpressure magnitudes as well as the resulting “required mud weights” for safe drilling in three Niger Delta Wells (PNW1, WSW2, and WSE1) .PNW1 revealed maximum overpressure magnitude at the depth of 16,000ft with pressure value of 13,120psig. WSW2 showed maximum overpressure magnitude at the depth of 11,600ft with pressure value of 14,500psig while WSE1 revealed an overpressure value of 12,050psig at the depth of 10,700ft considered as depth of maximum pressure. These were all derived based on plots of dc-exponent versus depth; the required mud weight for safe drilling especially at the maximum overpressure were as well computed. PNW1 is located at about 77.2km, N31.6oW of Port Harcourt, WSW2 is located at about 65.2km, S61oW of Warri, while WSE1 is located around 30.3km, S14.6oE of Warri; these towns are all in Nigeria. This method can stand alone as an Overpressure prediction and estimation tool since the parameters it requires are obtained while drilling.

Accurate rainfall prediction is of great interest for water management and flood control. In reality, physical processes influencing the occurrence of rainfall are highly complex, uncertain and nonlinear. In this paper, we present tool for modeling and predicting the behavioral pattern in rainfall phenomena based on past observations. The aim of this paper is to predict the seasonal rainfall of (Iran) khozestan using artificial neural network (ANN) model. In order to evaluate the prediction efficiency, we made use of 33 years of seasonal rainfall data from year 1983 to 2015 of Khozestan Province (Iran). The model were trained with 28 years of seasonal rainfall data. The ANN approache is applied to the data to derive the weights and the regression coefficients respectively. The performance of the model was evaluated by using remaining 5 years of data. The study reveals that ANN model can be used as an appropriate forecasting tool to predict the rainfall.

A new branch of management called knowledge management is created for improved application of knowledge capital in organizations. Applying such process improves knowledge processes and enhances organizational knowledge by linking knowledge management with organizational strategies. Also, it provides proper guidelines to compensate current deficiencies and helps organization to keep its competitive advantage. In present study and after brief study of knowledge management concepts by identifying and considering affecting factors on management success and knowledge management enablers, research hypotheses were revealed to evaluate organizational readiness to execute knowledge management in both individual and organizational sections. Then, these factors were studied by connoisseurs to evaluate the readiness of Bushehr Gas Company. Finally, the readiness of Bushehr Gas Company to execute knowledge management was assessed and confirmed by a questionnaire and the relevant scores were computed. Then, the weak points were identified according to the readiness of the Company and proper guidelines were provided to remove deficiencies.

Soft cheese, often referred to as “Wagashi” in Ghana and parts of West Africa, was produced from cow milk using sodom apple, lime juice and rennet as coagulants. The effects of these coagulants on the yield, physicochemical properties and sensory properties were evaluated. With 3000 ml of milk, the percentage of cheese yield was 23.58%, 21.8% and 19.8% for sodom apple, lime and rennet, respectively. The volume of whey obtained using sodom apple extract was 2100 millilitres, while lime juice and rennet produced 2000 ml and 2200 ml of whey, respectively. The average pH of sodom apple cheese was 5.02, while that of lime juice and rennet was 5.10 and 5.35, respectively. Total titratable acidity values recorded were low, ranging from 0.0072% to 0.00965%, with no significant difference between all the treatments. The moisture content was high in rennet cheese (62.18%), while that of lime and sodom apple were 59.45% and 52.33%, respectively. For free fatty acids, rennet cheese was highest at 12.95%, and lime samples recorded the lowest at 4.65%. Sensory acceptance of samples revealed an acceptance for lime as a coagulant, with the least mean rank of 43.9 over rennet (63.3). The implication of lime acceptance is the readily commercial use and production of soft cheese.

The port of Mombasa is one of the busiest ports along the East African coast because it serves the landlocked countries in the neighbourhood. With the increase in growth of trade in East and Central African countries, the volume of goods, with varying complexities of hazards and awkward weights requiring specialized handling equipment, passing through the port of Mombasa will increase. This presents high probability of occurrence of major accidents. Major accident may include explosion, fire, toxic chemical spill or even lifting equipment failure. This study focused on four key determinants of effective control to occurrence of major accidents namely: Safe systems of work, cargo handling equipment maintenance, training and risk assessment. The study was done adopting a stratified random sampling technique with a target population of 650 and a sample population of 248 determined using Slovin’s formula. The target population consisted of dockworkers majority of whom are ship clerks, tally clerks, lifters, signalers, crane operators, maintenance technicians and truck drivers. There was also middle level management like engineers, technologists, safety and environment officers. The questionnaires, interviews and observation checklist were used to collect data. Results showed 58.2% of the respondents had worked for the organization for more than ten years. The port was found to be a multi-stakeholder operations site with 20% of employees being contractors. A high percentage of 94.2% of respondents held the view that safe operations procedures would not help in control of major accidents in the port when jobs needed to be completed faster, showing the underlying poor safety culture levels in the organization.This could also mean that sometimes the procedures would be disregarded to get the job done. Cargo handling equipment seen in use at the port included: Cranes, container handlers, forklifts, bulk handling equipment. 89.8% of the respondents held the view that cargo handling equipment had potential to lead to occurrence of major accidents.Interview with respondents confirmed that there had been recent and past fatality and dangerous occurrences and incidents related to use of equipment. For the review period of Oct to Dec 2017, over 63% of (88 of 139) the accidents had occurred at the container terminal as compared to the conventional terminal probably because of less equipment used and less traffic compared to the container terminal. Most of the accidents were related to equipment failure and private trucks operated by contractors. Training gaps existed and in various contexts where 53.1% of respondents said they had not undergone any training or awareness on prevention of accidents or hazards despite operating in a potentially risky environment. There were no inclusion of major accidents prevention and awareness topics in the training curriculum reviewed and 82.5% of respondents felt that the training they had received had not given them the confidence required in terms of responding to or handling major accidents if they did occur in their workplaces. The extent of implementing actions and recommendations arising from risk assessment would take long due to delays or bureaucratic approval process, hence increasing risk exposure. It is recommended that a major accident control policy is developed and implemented and that topics in prevention of occurrence of major accident are included in the training curriculum.