Indian Railways in the Past Twenty Years Issues, Performance and Challenges

Indian Railways (IR) is Asia’s largest and world’s second largest network under one management, with a separate Ministry and its own annual budget. The network carried about 17 million Passengers and 2 mt freight every day on the route of 63,327 km (2006-07). Although key business operations are freight and passenger, IR is also engaged in several allied services including parcel, catering and production units. Nearly 70 percent of IR’s revenues come from the freight operations, which can be segmented into bulk and other cargo. Over the years, IR has predominantly become a bulk freight carrier, accounting for about 94 percent of the freight revenue. Coal alone accounts for nearly half of the bulk traffic carried. Passenger business accounts for nearly 60 percent of IR’s total transport effort, in terms of train kilometers, but yield less than 30 percent of the total revenues. Suburban services account for 57 percent of the originating passengers, while contribute to only 8 percent of the passenger revenue. To understand the development process of IR’s over the past twenty years, the study covers issues and strategies related to financial and physical aspects of revenue generating freight and passenger traffic from 1987-2007. Study also covers the developments in the parcel, catering and advertising sector.

3D printed microfluidic devices for particle and cell analysis

Particle/cell analysis is crucial in many health, industrial and environmental monitoring processes. Its integration into miniaturised lab-on-a-chip systems enables a host of portable technologies. However, current lab-on-a-chip lithographical fabrication methods are costly, time-consuming and restrictive in design, impeding their widespread implementation. This has led to 3D printing being explored as an alternative in recent years, due to its ability to form devices in a single step, and its three-dimensional freedom. [Continues.

Industrial Separation Processes:Fundamentals

Separation processes on an industrial scale account for well over half of the capital and operating costs in the chemical industry. Knowledge of these processes is key for every student of chemical or process engineering. This book is ideally suited to university teaching, thanks to its wealth of exercises and solutions. The second edition boasts an even greater number of applied examples and case studies as well as references for further reading. - An authoritative introduction to industrial separation technology. - Contains exercises at the end of each subject as well as solutions. - Now with extended and updated examples and case studies

Unit Operations of Particulate Solids

Suitable for practicing engineers and engineers in training, this book covers the most important operations involving particulate solids. Through clear explanations of theoretical principles and practical laboratory exercises, the text provides an understanding of the behavior of powders and pulverized systems. It also helps readers develop skills for operating, optimizing, and innovating particle processing technologies and machinery in order to carry out industrial operations. The author explores common bulk solids processing operations, including milling, agglomeration, fluidization, mixing, and solid-fluid separation

Significant NASA inventions available for licensing in foreign countries

Abstracts of various NASA-owned inventions which are available for foreign licensing in the identified countries are listed in accordance with the NASA Patent Licensing Regulations. Instructions for requested applicatons are explained

A comprehensive review of polymeric wastewater purification membranes

Synthetic membranes are currently employed for multiple separation applications in various industries. They may have been prepared from organic or inorganic materials. Present research majorly focuses on polymeric (i.e., organic) membranes because they show better flexibility, pore formation mechanism, and thermal and chemical stability, and demand less area for installation. Dendritic, carbon nanotube, graphene and graphene oxide, metal and metal oxide, zwitter-ionic, and zeolite-based membranes are among the most promised water treatment membranes. This paper critically reviews the ongoing developments to utilize nanocomposite membranes to purify water. Various membranes have been reported to study their resistance and fouling properties. A special focus is given towards multiple ways in which these nanocomposite membranes can be employed. Therefore, this review provides a platform to develop the awareness of current research and motivate its readers to make further progress for utilizing nanocomposite membranes in water purification

Proceedings of the Scientific-Practical Conference "Research and Development - 2016"

talent management; sensor arrays; automatic speech recognition; dry separation technology; oil production; oil waste; laser technolog