THE COMPLEXES OF URBANIZATION IN SOUTH ASIA: ASSESSMENTS, IMPACTS, PLANS AND PROSPECTS FOR INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

Centralized planning policies, lack of democratic participation of the masses in socio-economic activities at community levels, poor legislation and growing share of defense in the annual budget, have not only created rural-urban bias, uneven and unsustainable development but have also generated the problems of mass poverty, unemployment, scarcity of socio-economic services, pollution of water, air and land, and also rising slums and squatter in urban localities, affecting adversely human development in South Asian Countries

SUGGESTED METHODS FOR THE DESIGN OF WASTEWATER SYSTEMS FOR BUILDINGS IN DEVELOPING ENVIRONMENTS

A summary of suggested methods and equations for the design of waste drainage, treatment and disposal systems for buildings in developing countries is presented, bearing in mind the peculiaf circumstances of these countries. &nbsp

ROW LEVEL IMAGE FORGERY DETECTION TECHNIQUE USING EMBEDDED DIGITAL SIGNATURES

Image forgery detection is one of the most important issues in today’s modern world. It has become very easy to change the contents of digital images with image editing tools and software. This paper is presenting a new technique to detect any changes made in digital images. This technique ensures the integrity of digital image at row level and using embedded digital signatures. Using message digest 5 algorithm, digital signature is generated from selected pixels of each row using selected pixels for and embedded in the least significant bits of selected pixel of corresponding row of digital image. The proposed technique is powerful enough to detect different image manipulations. The results show that it can successfully detect one least significant bit alteration made in any pixel of digital image

IMPORTANCE OF HU1V1AN FACTORS IN MANAGING SAFETY AT WORKPLACES

Many safety professionals now believe that human error is the main cause of accidents and injuries at workplaces. For the last few decades, in the developed world considerable research has been carried out to ensure a safe work environment. Despite sophistication in equipment design, guards on machines and a number of other control measures, the risk of accidents has not been entirely eliminated, and therefore, control of human error has now become the focus of research to achieve the target of optimum safety. The developing countries, when compared with the developed countries, are far behind in terms of safety standards at workplaces. A case study, undertaken in the underground coal mining industry of Pakistan showed thathuman failure was responsible for a considerable number of fatal and serious accidents during of the last few years.Besides operator-induced errors, a number of latent failures associated with management inadequacies were reported. The most important of these include: lack of proper job skills; improper design; inadequate maintenance; inadequate provisions of self protective equipment and violations of safety rules, regulations and procedures. The developing countries, benefitingfromthe experience of the developed countries, should give equal emphasis to human factors as a basic control strategy for accident prevention and loss control

Key Performance Indicators Identification and Prioritization for Environmental Sustainability in the Cement Manufacturing Industry in Pakistan Using Analytical Hierarchy Process

This paper examines the role of Key performance Indicators (KPIs) that are believed to influence the environmental sustainability of cement production in Pakistan. Environmental sustainability decision requires a scientific approach of identifying and prioritization of KPIs. The cement industries are confronted with challenges to implement sustainable manufacturing processes. The data gathered through questionnaire distributed among 213 respondents representing 24 cement plants was analyzed using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The proposed KPIs are supposed to assist the decision makers in achieving environmental sustainability. Among the 11 KPIs identified, the KPI “Total amount of Emissions in Metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year” was identified as having the highest impact on environmental sustainability.&nbsp

Finite Element Analysis of the Real Life Loadings on the Ti-27Nb Hip Bone Implant

Bone is an important part of all vertebrates. It support the body and homes the marrow. The bone may be damaged by number of reasons. The objective of this paper is the investigation of the real life loadings on the Ti-27nb hip bone implant using FEA.  The model of the implant was created using CREO PARAMETRIC software. Two weight categories 75Kg and 100 Kg with four different daily life activities stand up, sit down, knee bend and walking were considered in this study. The FEA analysis was performed using commercial FEA software ANSYS. The implant model was meshed using tetrahedral element type. The simulation result show that maximum stress occurs at the neck of the implant for each loading case. The stress level was approximately equal to the strength of Ti-27Nb in 100 Kg, stand up position case

DEVELOPMENT OF A POWER MANAGEMENT CIRCUIT FOR MICROENERGY HARVESTERS

This work reports on the development a power management circuit (PMC) for micro energy harvesters. The circuit is design to regulate the power between three different power sources for the operation of a wireless sensor nodes (WSNs). The main components of the circuit are resistors (carbon film), capacitors (electrolytic), inductors (ferric bead, axial leaded), and a DC voltage regulators (TPS62100DRC-BRR). The layout of the circuit is patterned on a printed circuit board (PCB) using PCB fabrication technology. To the circuit three different types of sources (DC power source, rectified AC voltage and a solar energy harvester) are connected and the output regulated voltage provided by the PMC is measured and analyzed. At different input voltage levels (0.5 to 5.5 V) the circuit successfully regulated to almost a uniform output voltage (2.75 to 2.96 V). With the circuit using a DC power source and a solar (solar cell) energy harvester a super capacitor is charged to a voltage of 2.75 and 2.05 V in 180 s and 840 s respectively. Beyond 100 Ω load resistance the PMC regulated a constant output current of 180 mA. Moreover, beyond 100 Ω load resistance the power consumption of the circuit is almost steady for different input voltage levels. The average consumption of the developed PMC is about 70 m

MARKER BASED TRACKING IN AUGMENTED REALITY APPLICATIONS USING ARTOOLKIT: A CASE STUDY

TIn Augmented Reality applications, registration between a virtual and a real world object is necessary. The registration is needed for tracking video camera pose (position and orientation) with respect to the real world objects. In existing vision-based augmented reality systems, marker-based technique is widely used approach to track the video camera pose. In this paper, we present an analysis of marker-based tracking using ARToolKit. We investigate the effect of marker size, distance between markers and camera, the speed of marker with respect to camera, relationship between marker size and distance, the brightness and contrast level of a camera on tracking a single marker. Experiments were conducted to produce the analysis of these factors

Experimental Investigation of Fracture Toughness, Hardness and Load-Indentation Depth Response of Ti-64 using Vickers Indentation Technique

Titanium alloys display the matchless blend of physical and mechanical properties which have made them appropriate for aerospace, chemical, and biomedical industries services. Preeminent strength-to-density ratio, reduced density, incomparable corrosion resistance and tremendous properties at elevated temperature are the main attribute of titanium alloys. These alloys also exhibit low modulus of elasticity, making it ideal for spring, body implant, dental fixtures and different sports equipment. Ti-64 accounting for more than 50 percent of titanium usage in today modern world high-tech industries subjected to various nature of cyclic loading. This study includes the experimental assessment of fracture toughness of Ti-64 using indentation technique which is easy and fast experimental techniques. For this purpose Vickers-indentation technique is employed to report the hardness followed by fracture toughness evaluation of the studied alloy using indentation energy model. The indentation method resulted a fracture toughness of the studied alloy with 14.5% when compared to the results obtained from strain dependent ductile damage model.  &nbsp

INFLUENCE OF SKEW ANGLE ON LIVE LOAD DISTRIBUTION IN AN I-BEAM COMPOSITE BRIDGE

Bridges constructed on Skew alignment have the most complex behavior. In this study bridges with skew angles of 45 and 63.4 degrees were analyzed under the loading models of 1994 AASHTO code, keeping all other parameters same as those of corresponding right bridges. Whenever a skew is introduced, the bridge (specially bridge deck) behaves as a much stiffer unit relative to its right counterpart, bridge deck tries to bend perpendicular to the skew abutment in the short diagonal direction. Also, part of a loaded lane gets closer to the support, and these features of skew bridge reduces the composite moment of critical interior and exterior girders, i.e. Mcg-skew/Mcg-right . is less than one. Generally, the reduction in composite moment of all the girders in a skew bridge relative to a right bridge, is primarily, due to the fact that part of the loading model gets closer to the supports of a skew bridge. This forces the slab to transmit the loads directly to the abutments, rather than through supporting girders. This observation is substantiated by the fact, that sum of LLF of all the girders in skew bridge is less than one, whereas, this sum of LLF for all the girders in a corresponding right bridge is always equal to one, suggesting that all the LL on skew bridge is not transferred by girders. It should also be noted that, when skew is introduced to a bridge the volume of slab increases as the c/c of girder spacing, b, of a right bridge increases to b/Cos(α) in a skew bridge with an angle of skew equal to α. This increase in volume of a slab increases the stiffness of a bridge structure as a whole, which decreases the deflections and girders composite moments