Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2017 Edition


Publication for Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2017.

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Detection of Pneumocystis jirovecii Copy Number in BronchoAlveolar Lavage and Nasal swab Fluids of Immunocompromised Patients[ ]


The current study was tried to identification the of Pneumocystis jirovecii copy number in immunocompromised patients suffering from pulmonary disease, known as (PCP) Pneumocystis pneumonia by using real-time PCR (qPCR) and DNA sequencing for Phylogenetic tree analysis study of local Pneumocystis jirovecii confirmative detection based mitochondrial large subunit ribosomal RNA gene method by used PCR. The present study was conducted on 93 samples 53 samples were bronchoaleveolarlavage BAL were collected from patients whom suffer from (Pneumonia, chronic obstructive Pulmonary disease, Lung cancer, Tuberculosis, and HIV, Transplantation, Asthma, Hepatitis, Diabetes mellitus of both types with chest infection).

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Predicting Rate of Biogas Production from Abattoir Waste using Empirical Models[ ]


Rate of biogas production using Zango-Zaria abattoir waste as substrate was monitored in a 10 litter laboratory scale batch reactor. 2.5 kg of the substrate with substrate to water ratio of 1:1 was used. The retention time was found to be 47 days. Analysis of the substrates gave an average COD of 19350 mg/L, average carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of 14.95, and concentrations of inhibitory substances below the minimum inhibitory values. AAS analysis of the biogas using NDIR Gas Analyzer, GASBOARD - 3100P indicated that its' methane and CO2 content were 67.76 % and 31.13 % respectively.Two empirical models based on the Gompertz and the Modified Logistic equations were used to fit the experimental data based on non-linear regression analysis using Solver tool in Microsoft Excel. Gompertz model gave a better goodness of fit than the Modified Logistic model with correlation coefficients of 0.998 and 0.996 for Gompertz and Modified Logistic models respectively.

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A Study On Impact of Work-Life Balance of Married Women on Human Resource Development[ ]


The role of working women has changed throughout the world due to economic conditions and social demands. This has resulted in a scenario in which working women have pleasure to develop a career as robust as sustaining active management in personal life. Work-life balance has become one of the major challenges in women’s life which has a larger influence on human capital development. A Likert scale based questionnaire for collecting information on the work-life balance of women was administered with 50 respondents by survey method. The data was analyzed using SPSS. This study revealed the statistically significant factors responsible for work-life balance of women under Indian conditions. Keywords- Work-life balance (WLB), human resource management, quality of life, working women, personal life, professional life.

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A STUDY ON MODERN SYSTEMS OF SBI WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PALLAVARAM BRANCH[ ]


This study quantifies the effects of modern systems among customers of SBI Pallavaram. We have taken the sample size of 50 customers at random. The main objective is to study about the customer satisfaction in the usage of modern systems like ATM, E-Banking, Green Channel Counter (GCC), Green Remit Card (GRC), Cheque Drop Box (CDB), Electronic Drop Box (EDB) and Mobile Banking.

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Assessment of sewagetreatment plant effluent and its impact on the surface water and sediment quality of river Ganga at Kanpur[ ]


Heavy Metals contamination has expected significant issue because of their lethality and accumulative behavior.The river Ganga is facing serious threat of heavy metal pollution problem especially at Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The goal of current research is to determine level of heavy metal contamination in municipal waste water and impact of treated sewage on the surface water and sediment nature of river Ganga at Kanpur. This study deals with the measurement of heavy metals i.e. Cu, Zn, Mn, Pb, Cr, and Cd. The heavy metals found in water samples in the range of Cu (0.006 to 1.103mg/l), Zn (2.25 to14.07mg/l), Mn (0.146 to 4.02mg/l), Pb (0.005 to 3.88mg/l), Cr (0.068 to 10.79mg/l), and Cd (0.073 to 0.447mg/l). The order of occurrence of heavy metals was Zn>Cr>Mn>Pb>Cu>Cd. The trend of heavy metals found in sediments were in the range of Cu(7 to 9.99mg /kg), Zn(28.02 to 30.23mg/kg), Mn(41.65 to 44.65mg/kg), Pb(14.96 to 19.07mg/kg), Cr(48.86 to 441mg/kg), and Cd(0.83 to 1.01mg/kg). The order of occurrence of heavy metals in sediments was Cr>Mn>Zn>Pb>Cu>Cd. The information got have been inspected factually to clarify metal-metal affiliation utilizing Pearson relationship coefficient. Various major trace elements i.e. Al, Ca, Fe, K, Na, Rb, Si, Sr, Ti, Zr and Mg also analyzed with the help of WD-XRF in sediments collected from upstream and downstream of river Ganga.

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Plant communities and soil heavy metals relationships in the vicinity of the industrial areas of Korangi and Landhi in Karachi, Pakistan[ ]


A relationship between soil heavy metals and plant communities of the industrial areas of Korangi and Landhi in Karachi was studied. Soil samples were collected from twenty eight stands around the industrial locations of Korangi and Landhi for analysis of ferric, copper, zinc, chromium and lead. On the basis of leading dominant species, fifteen plant communities were recognized in which some of the communities were dominated by single species. All the communities were correlated with the soil heavy metals of the industrial areas. The range of ferric, copper, zinc, chromium and lead in plant communities were between 0.763-12.079 µg-g, 0.023-2.988 µg-g, 0.033-4.220 µg-g, 0.000-4.139 µg-g and 0.000-0.053 µg-g respectively. In all of the plant communities, means values of soil heavy metals were in ferric (7.062 µg-g), copper (1.062 µg-g), zinc (1.031 µg-g), chromium (0.664 µg-g) and lead (0.016 µg-g).

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Analysis of Software Development Effort Estima-tion Using Fuzzy Logic Functionswith COCOMO II Estimation[ ]


Software effort Estimation is the task of estimation of schedule and the work-effort required to develop and/or maintain a software system. Software effort estimation is a most challenging and onerous task that software developers need to perform. Due to the insufficient information available during the early stage of any software development process, it is hard to estimate effort, cost and schedule correctly. This inaccuracy in estimation leads to delay in product development and delivery which in turn leads to loss. Efforts estimation during the development process are useful for the validation and monitoring of the project’s progress. At the time of project closure, these estimates may be useful for project productivity assessment. This paper proposed a fuzzy logic based method applied to different parameters of Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) II to accurately estimate effort to support the project manager during software development process and overcome the problems of uncertainty and imprecision resulting in improved process of software development effort estimation.

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A comparative study of Manpower Planning, Recruitment & Selection Processes in Public Sector Undertaking Companies in India[ ]


This research paper deals with the comparative study of Manpower Planning, Recruitment and selection processes in various of INDIAN Public Sector Undertaking Companies. This research paper highlights the differences and similarities of the policies being followed in various PSUs. This paper is to highlight the comparative analysis of selected policies.

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Wind Turbines Potential Energy Production in three Locations of Kosovo and its Impact on the Environment[ ]


In order to reduce high amount of pollution that Kosovo is facing, its options have to be considered. One of the solutions to reducing the amount of pollutions is using renewable energy resources. There has been quite a number of studies to find sustainable resources that Kosovo has in possession. It came up that, quite an amount of energy can be produced by some renewable resources available in some regions of Kosovo, especially by Wind Turbines that can be installed in a variety of locations, where NEK (NEK umwelttechnik) found the highest wind velocity.

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Enhancement Communication Skills and Handling Obstacles in Universities[ ]


Communication is key element and an efficient process of sending information and mutual understanding among staff. This paper, discuss possibility enhancement communication skills and handling communication obstacles.

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Imaging the Indian Woman in Food Based Television Advertisements[ ]


Food and food based activities like cooking, feeding and serving have traditionally been ascribed to women and any mention of food seems to inexplicably invoke the feminine. This paper argues that this very process of subconsciously invoking the female in relation to food is a product of an active and purposeful discourse in popular media that attempts to provide no space for a woman (or a man) to break out of the stereotypes. In the light of food and kitchen being increasingly featured on television in the form of cookery shows, food reality shows and whole channels dedicated to food and cooking, it seems pertinent to examine how food and how kitchen roles have changed— if at all—through one of the most popular and powerful tools of the current times, television advertisements. This paper looks at Indian television advertisements of kitchen appliances, food and food based products to examine the portrayal of the Indian woman, to study the image of the woman conjured on screen. The multiplicity of languages, cultures and television channels in India pose a difficult challenge in choosing the advertisements as being of a national nature, since the term national itself is problematic in the Indian context. The study examines the imaging of the Indian woman as a mother, wife and homemaker across some of the food based advertisements aired on Indian national channels from around the 1980’s to the present.

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Research in the Efficiency of a Vortex Apparatus for Evaporative Cooling solution of Rock[ ]


In the present work the feasibility and effectiveness of the vortex apparatus used for evaporative cooling of foaming solution of rock is investigated by studying the results of experimentations. Today, the relationship between the vortex structure parameters and characteristics of heat and mass transfer remains very poorly understood. The objective of experimental research we carried out was to determine the capabilities and efficiency of evaporative cooling of foaming pulp of rock. It was also observed that the the method of evaporative cooling of the pulp by air can reduce the pulp temperature significantly. The effectiveness of the use of a vortex apparatus during the process of evaporative cooling can also be defined by the values of volumetric heat transfer coefficient Kv and efficiency η. It was observed that by increasing the air velocity the value of Kv increases significantly. Thus the experimental studies have confirmed that the pulp can be cooled by air using the method of evaporative cooling. The research allowed to establish that at the swirling flow when the Reynolds number is increased to a high value, the volumetric heat transfer coefficient increases about forty times as compared with the values for the untwisted flow which means a significant intensification of the processes of heat and mass transfer occurs due to its acceleration, no less turbulization of the jet, with the emergence of properly alternating vortices etc.

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Analysis of Calculation Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) in the Implementation of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) PC 200-8 Excavator Grab and Magnet Type Case Study in Cakratunggal Steel Mills Company[ ]


This study was conducted to analyze the implementation of TPM in order to determine the value of OEE on heavy equipment Excavator Komatsu PC200-8 Magnet and Grab Type in the Company. The company realized to guarantee quality and continuity of the company for the sake of resource management becomes very important, especially the manufacturing industry that is closely related to the production machine capabilities to support production of good productivity. The machine has components that should always be noticed because that machine requires maintenance on an ongoing basis. To find out how well the treatment machine to achieve the effectiveness of a machine, then the measurement of the value of OEE (Overall Equipment Efectiveness) of the machine. OEE measurement is done by taking into account three important things, namely availability rate, peformance rate and quality rate. Thus, in the study of the made necessary to add variable and adding weights to get a measurement of OEE values of real and refers to the standard method of assessment OEE good and measurements of the existing problems there so it will be found OEE on each tool before and after improvement with Autonomous Maintenance,5W1H,SMED and Continuous Improvement Method.

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GOSTATISTICAL ANALYSIS FOR MANGANESE ELEMENT IN GHORABI IRON ORE MINE AREA, BAHARIYA OASIS, EGYPT[ ]


Manganese represents a problem in iron ore of Ghorabi area and it is considered undesirable ingredient when the ore charging to blast furnace. This paper aims to study the variation of manganese founded in Ghorabi iron ore using geostatistical modelling. The ore is divided geologically into four separated zones. Experimental variograms were constructed to show the spatial variability of manganese element within the deposit. Spherical and gaussian variogram models were fitted to the experimental variograms. After fitting the variogram of each zone to suitable model, the models were used to construct a distribution maps using the ordinary kriging and indicator kriging in different cut-off for the four different zones.

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Contribution of Foreign Aid in the Reduction of Poverty: A Case Study of Pakistan (1986-2015)[ ]


The aim of the study is to explore the impact of foreign aid on poverty in Pakistan during 1986- 2015 through the channel of foreign loans, foreign grants, literacy rate, unemployment and industrialization. To measure poverty researcher used per capita income and to measure foreign aid researcher used foreign grants and foreign loans. The empirical results discovered that foreign aid, specifically foreign loans, have negatively related with per capita income. Researcher also fined that unemployment has negative relation with per capita income in Pakistan. This relation would not only increase unemployment but also increase poverty in Pakistan. Through other empirical finding that is industrialization has positively related with per capita income which shows that industrialization really decreased poverty in Pakistan. Researcher also concludes that grants have positive relation with per capita income. It indicates that grants actually decreased poverty in Pakistan. Another interesting finding of this study is the negative impact of literacy on per capita income. The impact could be due to unemployment because many literate persons are without job and due to this per capita income decreases.

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Role of Physical Parameters in Assessment of Renal Function at Dynamic Reno Graphic Studies of Patients With Renal Disease[ ]


Renal function assessment represent a crucial partener in management of renal disease patients. serum creatinine signify the extent of renal function and it may be used for estimation of ¬the GFR.In this study 10 cases from urology and nephrology center diagnosed as 10 cases are patients pyelonephritis . All these cases are compared by 10 cases with normal kidney function diagnosed as donors. The comparison was between the GFR value, Split function , and T1/2. Washout phase was proposed for evaluation of some indices including T1/2 . Obtaind value of T1/2 may take values ranged >20, <15 or between 15 and 20 min which represent obstruction,no obstruction or inconclusive respectively. Functioning renal mass can be indexed in terms of GRF that rpresent the sum of filtration rate through each functioning nephrons. Some patients may need dialysis or transplantation at GFR _15 mL/min/1.73 m2 because of symptoms of uremia.

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Effect of Temperature and Ground Water on VHF Radio Wave Propagation in Tropical Climate[ ]


Radio-wave propagationis the study of how radio waves travel through a medium from one point to another. Ultra-high Frequency (UHF) and Very High Frequency (VHF) signals are easily reflected by substances and can also be absorbed by some environmental factors such as relative humidity, wind, air and ground temperature, and vegetation. In this paper we present the results of the experimental investigation of the effect of Ground Temperature and Ground Moisture content ratio on the Very High Frequency (VHF) radio wave propagation in wet tropical climate. The data obtained by the experimental method were analysed by 2D-line plotting using originLab software.

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Critical Analysis of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory[ ]


This paper is a critical analysis of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory. The test assesses an individual’s personality and examines clinical syndromes. In this paper, we will give a description of the test. We will also go over the technical aspect of the test. We will further discuss practical use of the test. We will additionally discuss some strengths and weakness of the test. Lastly, we will discuss future research.

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PRIORITY BASED EXP/PF SCHEME FOR LTE DOWNLINK TRANSMISSION[ ]


The variation of user demand in Long Term Evolution (LTE) without corresponding variation in radio resources places enormous burden on the fairness index of scheduling schemes. An attempt to improve on the fairness index would require a scheduling scheme that incorporates user demand variations in its operation. In this paper, a scheduling strategy for dynamic resource allocation schemes in LTE downlink transmission that incorporates the demand variations is proposed. Exponential proportional fairness (EXP/PF) scheduling scheme was modified by introducing type of packet prioritization parameter at each scheduling time to characterize for user demand variation. The modified scheduling scheme was tested using varying quality of service (QoS) class identifiers (QCI) standardized by 3GPP for LTE network to characterize different services. It was also tested on the basis of packet prioritization. The scheduler was simulated with LTE-Sim and compared with EXP/PF and PF schedulers. It performed better than EXP/PF and PF schedulers in terms of packet loss rate and throughput while accommodating user demand.

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EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF NIGERIAN WOODS[ ]


Experimental studies were carried out in order to evaluate the thermal conductivity of Nigerian wood (Mahogany, Agba and Melina), under steady-state conditions. A rig was designed to carry out the experiment for measurements of the effect of temperature and grain directions on the thermal conductivity of Nigerian woods. Experiments were carried out within a distance of holes 20mm effort where thermometer probes were fixed. The heating element is a carbon-steel of 10mm thickness of 1000watts. Digital thermometer is instrumented on all grain structure directions during the experimentations on each tested wood sample. The heating element is electrically heated by varying the heat input with rheostat, at interval of 20 volts at 20 minutes heating.

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Seasonal and Spatial Variations in Physico-Chemical Water Quality of Osun River, Southwest Nigeria at some of its Natural Points[ ]


This study was carried out at six selected sampling stations over the three reaches of Osun River along its main axis to determine seasonal and spatial variations in the general physico-chemical water quality parameters of the river water. From each sampling station, surface water samples were collected bi-monthly for an annual cycle, the samples were treated and analyzed for physico-chemical water quality parameters using applicable standard procedures. The river showed an increasing clarity from its headwaters to the lower reach with regard to mean transparency, turbidity and colour and was also clearer in the dry season than in the rainy season. The water was generally moderately alkaline (pH: 7.41±0.11 - 7.61±0.16) but significantly (P≤0.05) more alkaline in the dry season than in the rainy season. It can be classified as a dilute salt bicarbonate freshwater with mean conductivity at the three reaches ranging from 128.92±1016µS/cm to 141.79±27.29µS/cm. Ca2+ and HCO3- were the dominant cation and anion respectively in all stations investigated and in both seasons. The mean values of most parameters determined were within permissible limits making the river water suitable for most probable domestic and industrial uses and livestock support.

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A Study of Percentage Decoloration of Aqueous Solutions of a Synthetic Dye for Gamma Dosimetry[ ]


In this study, radiolysis induced decoloration (in terms of %decoloration) of aqueous solutions of Sandalfix Orange C2RL (SO) dye was investigated. A UV/VIS spectrophotometer was used for spectrophotometric analysis of sample solutions. Sample solutions were irradiated by using Cs137 gamma source within 0.1-100 kGy dose range. The decoloration was resulted by interaction of gamma radiation with the chromophoric group present in dye molecule and reactions of dye molecule with the primary species produced by water radiolysis. The %decoloration (%Đ) was found to be increased with respect to absorbed dose (D) within selected dose range.

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Prevalence of Occupational Health Problems among Employees Working at a Suburban Sanitary Land Filling Waste Management Site in Sri Lanka[ ]


Occupational health problems are common among the employees of waste management sites. The objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence of occupational health problems, socio demographic data and associated factors among the employees. All the employees underwent general medical examination and further details were collected using an interviewer administered questionnaire. Majority were males (87.8%). 58.5% were educated up to Ordinary Level. 65.9% of participants use alcohol and 51.2% are smokers. The common respiratory problems were cough (68.3%) and shortness of breath (43.9%). Gastritis (26.8%) and diarrhoea (22%) were the common gastrointestinal problems. Common musculoskeletal problems were backache (56.1%) and knee pain (41.6%). 61% of employees had normal BMI. 14.6% of participants had Diabetes Mellitus and 12.2% had Hypertension.

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Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill’ 2016: Gearing up for the next big wave in the Indian Economy[ ]


India is a Tax driven economy. This tax is levied on business owners, entrepreneurs and salaried people. The revenue thus generated by imposing taxes on the general public is used to run and develop the nation. Many economists have quoted that GST is an Indirect Tax that brings together most of the taxes that are imposed on all goods and services (except a few) under a single banner. In this paper a review on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill is proposed that will enable the reader to understand the concept behind passing such a bill in the Legislative Assembly, its characteristic features, the challenges involved and the pros and cons of this bill are discussed.

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DESIGN FOR THERMAL COMFORT DURING WINTER& PSYCHOMETRY TOOL FOR HUMAN COMFORT[ ]


Central Air Conditioning is more reliable for easy operation with a lower maintenance cost. The effective design of central air conditioning can provide lower power consumption, capital cost and improve aesthetics of a building. This paper establishes the result of heating load calculation under different climatic conditions by using E-20 for a multi-story building. Heating load items such as people heat gain, lighting heat gain, infiltration and ventilation heat gain and cooling load due to walls and roofs. Using ISHRAE and CARRIER fundamental hand books and here the study of air water vapor mixture (called psychometric) for human comfort in the air conditioning system for the city Hyderabad.

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Design and fabrication of hazardous electrical lighting waste separator with I.O.T (Internet Of Things/Lan) control[ ]


The Lighting wastes like Fluorescent lamps contain mercury and phosphors. Even a small amount of mercury can be harmful to public health and environment. if a fluorescent lamp breaks, the mercury and other toxic chemical inside can leak out and poison our water resources. It can even enter our body through the air we breathe. Being ignorant of the proper and scientific ways of disposing, people keep them in a safe place in store room. Moreover, I had asked people under survey same question and they didn't have an answer. To be frank, people throwing fluorescent lamps to the neighbor’s compound, or disposing it on the road sides and all. Hence this safety recycling concept is proposed.

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Near net pressing of WC based hardmetal compacts in Cold Iso-static Pressing[ ]


Cutting tools, Forming Dies and wear parts in tungsten carbide – cobalt (WC-Co) based hardmetals are manufactured using powder metallurgy route. One of the critical step is consolidation powder into a compact of approximately 55-65% of theoretical sintered density by Compaction. Subsequently compacts are sintered at temperature where cobalt used as metal binder is liquefied and almost 100% densification is achieved. The type of pressing is decided based on the size and complexity of the product. Cold Iso-static Pressing (CIP) is the most common pressing method when the size of the compact is more than 100mm. The CIP uses flexible rubber bags as a die and punches unlike Mechanical or Hydraulic presses where carbide itself is used as die and punches. Steel mill Rolls in hardmetal grades are one of the product manufactured through powder metallurgy route and used for manufacturing of steel wires through hot rolling process in steel industries.

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Intensity of Heat Transfer in a tube with a Fluidized layer of a Polydisperse Granular material[ ]


Intensification of heat transfer in heat exchangers can be used to reduce the weight and size of heat exchanger or to increase it's heat capacity. The problem of intensification of heat transfer in pipes at a moderate drop of the pressure can be solved by creating a fluidization of solid particles in the upstream of the primary heat transfer agent. In this work the intensification of heat transfer from the wall to the fluidized layer of gas has been studied in depth and it was found that the heat transfer increases significantly in a device with solid particles when compared with a device without solid particles. This work is devoted to the intensification of the external heat transfer in the liquid of fluidized layer of polydispersed granular material by studying the main technological parameters such as a hydraulic resistance of layers of polydispersed particulate material, velocity of fluidization speed, layer expansion and entrainment of solid particles from the apparatus.

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Smallholder Farmers’ Drought Contextual VulnerabilityAssessment in the Drylands of Northwestern Nigeria[ ]


This paper assessed smallholder farmers’ vulnerability to drought in Bungudu, Dange, Dawakin-Tofa and Rimi areas of Northwestern Nige-ria. Rainfall data of four stations was subjected to analysis. Standardized Precipitation Index was generated and intensities and duration of drought computed. Eighty smallholder farmers aged 40 years and above with appreciable years of farming experience were interviewed to determine their sensitivity and adaptive capacity to drought. Vulnerability Assessment Model developed by UNDP was employed to assess communities’ vulnerability to drought. Also Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was conducted in the four localities to complement numeric information with communities’ value judgments. The findings reveal that the most exposed area to drought is however not the most sensitive one. And the most adaptive area is not the least vulnerable. This is due to the high susceptibility to soil erosion observed in the most adaptive (Dawakin-Tofa) that raises its sensitivity.The FGD also expounded the impacts of droughts on livelihoods and environmental resources. It is concluded that farmers’ drought adaptive strategies in the study areas such as: having economic trees in their farms and domestication of small ruminants in their houses and adjusting feeding habit may probably be their sources of high resilience to drought. It is therefore recommended that these strategies should be enhanced and be blended with other strategies that are not common in the communities of the areas such as getting information from meteorological office on what and when to plant and setting up of a community based storage facility of farm produce.

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Performance Analysis of Energy Detection Based Spectrum Sensing Over Wireless Non-Fading AWGN Channels in Cognitive Radio Network[ ]


Energy detection has been adopted as an alternative spectrum sensing method for cognitive radios (CR) due to its low computational complexity and not requiring a priori information of the signal to be detected. The biggest challenge related to spectrum sensing is in developing sensing techniques which are able to detect very weak primary user signals while being sufficiently fast and low cost to implement. This paper analyses the strategy of spectrum sensing by detecting energy over non-fading channels. Two types of filtering scheme are used for signal filtering lowpass and bandpass. The energy of the received signal is used to compute the possibility of primary user.

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Methodology to Produce Deterministic Automaton for Extended Operators in Regular Expression[ ]


Recent and past work for extended operators (AND, MINUS) in regular expression was covered only by Berry-Sethi. However, the estimation of complexity wasn't given (in fact the method produces non-deterministic automaton, NFA). In this paper the methodics known as "overriding" is presented for this task. This methodics uses semantic rules overriding the typical NFA to produce DFA (deterministic finite automaton).

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How to Extend NS-2 for Wireless Sensor Networks Localization[ ]


Localization for wireless sensor networks (WSN) is concerned with determining the location of sensor nodes and it is very important for many WSN applications. The cost and difficulties of building a WSN in a real world makes simulation an essential tool for analyzing and studying the performance of these networks. Little work in this area has been using NS-2, so that this paper aims to present detailed steps for modifying and adding new modules for NS-2 to implement a localization algorithm. In addition, this paper evaluate the performance of a localization algorithm under certain performance metrics.

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Effect of Gd Substitution on Structural and Magnetic Properties of Mn-Ni-Zn Ferrites[ ]


Structural and magnetic properties of Mn0.5Ni0.1Zn0.4Fe2-xGdxO4 (where x = 0.0, 0.015, 0.03, 0.06, and 0.1) sintered at 1250ºC for 3 hours are investigated thoroughly. The samples are prepared by standard solid state reaction technique. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns confirm the formation of single phase spinel structure. SEM micrographs show that the average grain size decreases with increasing Gd content. The initial permeability shows similar trend as average grain size with the variation of Gd content. The magnetic loss is found to decrease with increasing frequency up to 1 MHz and beyond this frequency, magnetic loss increases with the frequency. It is also observed that the value of magnetic loss for the Gd substituted compositions is comparably less than the parent composition at frequency greater than 1 MHz. The saturation magnetization (MS) value increases initially for x = 0.015. Beyond this value of x, MS is decreased with increase in Gd content.

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Development of an Audio Power Amplifier for the Management of Speaking Activities[ ]


This study developed and evaluated the performance of a method of reducing the quiescent energy consumption in conventional class AB audio power amplifiers, which are commonly used in public address systems.The structure of a conventional class AB audio power amplifier was modified to allow it to be successfully and profitably timed via a dynamic selection of a low power mode. The resulting audio power amplifier circuit was modeled with MULTISIM®. A microcontroller circuit, used to control the audio power amplifier in response to user timing commands and presence or absence of audio signals, was also designed and modeled with Proteus® software, and then constructed to bring about a reduction in the quiescent power requirement of the audio power amplifier by a factor of 1000.

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