Data Center Load Forecast Using Dependent Mixture Model

The dependency on cloud computing is increasing day by day. With the boom of data centers, the cost is also increasing, which forces industries to come up with techniques and methodologies to reduce the data center energy use. Load forecasting plays a vital role in both efficient scheduling and operating a data center as a virtual power plant. In this thesis work a stochastic method, based on dependent mixtures is developed to model the data center load and is used for day-ahead forecast. The method is validated using three data sets from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and one other data centers. The proposed method proved better than the classical autoregressive, moving-average, as well as the neural network-based forecasting method, and resulted in a reduction of 7.91% mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) for the forecast. A more accurate forecast can improve power scheduling and resource management reducing the variable cost of power generation as well as the overall data center operating cost, which was quantified as a yearly savings of $13,705 for a typical 100 MW coal fired tier-IV data center

Autonomous reconnaissance mission: development of an algorithm for collaborative multi robot communication

A collaborative team of two resource constrained semi-autonomous hexapod robots have been developed that perform navigation tasks while satisfying communication constraints. Our approach is based on the use of a control structure where each hexapod performs elementary tasks, a behavior-based controller generates motion directives to achieve the collaborative tasks, and controller generates the actuator commands to follow the motion directives. The control technique has been developed for a mission where a target location spread across a static environment has to be visited once by the two hexapods while maintaining a relative given distance with wireless communication. Wireless communication under mobile ad-hoc networks are communication networks that do not rely on fixed, preinstalled communication devices like base stations or predefined communication cells. This wireless networks consist of mobile nodes which are characterized by their decentralized organization and the potentially high dynamics of the network structure, therefore ad-hoc network communication system has been the focus in this multi-robot communication. The ad-hoc network has to provide position data to support localization of the mobile robots, which might be of great importance to guide the robots to specific targets and locations. Communications standards considered for the ad-hoc network are Wireless LAN, Bluetooth and ZigBee. In this project Bluetooth and ZigBee are integrated on robots for real experiments

Micro Credit-Women Empowerment Nexus Explored: A Study on the Women of Selected Rural Areas in Natore District, Bangladesh

The literatures on the ‘micro credit –women empowerment’ linkage reveal that there is a causal relationship between micro credit and women empowerment. The findings of this study affirmed that relationships exist between micro credit and women empowerment indeed vis-à-vis studying a selected sample of three hundred and eighty one rural women in Natore district, Bangladesh. This study reveals that a significant number of rural women (72%) attributed their empowerment after receiving micro credit while 33% of the respondents answered negatively. In this regard, this study also reveals that a significant number of respondents can participate in decision making regarding the issues such as cultivation (75%), use of contraceptive methods (76%), political interest (32%) and voting behavior (79%). This study found that receiving micro credit by rural women are significantly associated with their  empowerment through participation in decision making regarding conjugal life, child care, loan taking(p<0.01), use of money received from micro credit (p<0.05), interest in politics(p<0.05),voting behavior, determination  of voting and purchasing or selling of materials. The findings of the study have been explained vis-à-vis sociological theories in the South Asian context. Keywords: Micro credit, Women empowerment, Bangladesh, BRAC

A Graph Neural Network-Based QUBO-Formulated Hamiltonian-Inspired Loss Function for Combinatorial Optimization using Reinforcement Learning

Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) is a generic technique to model various NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems in the form of binary variables. The Hamiltonian function is often used to formulate QUBO problems where it is used as the objective function in the context of optimization. Recently, PI-GNN, a generic scalable framework, has been proposed to address the Combinatorial Optimization (CO) problems over graphs based on a simple Graph Neural Network (GNN) architecture. Their novel contribution was a generic QUBO-formulated Hamiltonian-inspired loss function that was optimized using GNN. In this study, we address a crucial issue related to the aforementioned setup especially observed in denser graphs. The reinforcement learning-based paradigm has also been widely used to address numerous CO problems. Here we also formulate and empirically evaluate the compatibility of the QUBO-formulated Hamiltonian as the generic reward function in the Reinforcement Learning paradigm to directly integrate the actual node projection status during training as the form of rewards. In our experiments, we observed up to 44% improvement in the RL-based setup compared to the PI-GNN algorithm. Our implementation can be found in https://github.com/rizveeredwan/learning-graph-structure

Hexagonal structure hexapod robot: developing a method for omni-directional navigation

In this paper, we propose a method that allows a hexapod robot to navigate omni-directionally with hexagonal structure. Typical body structures for hexapod robot are analyzed. Hexapod robot frequently navigates various directions over variety of surfaces. To enable locomotion in rough surface, hexapod must be able to stably move in any direction. A comparative study, based on different model of hexapod for omni-directional navigation, concludes that the hexagonal hexapod robot can be able to navigate omni-directionally on the complex surface. Finally, a method is developed for omni-directional navigation of the hexapod robot

Consumer choice behavior towards mobile phone operators in Bangladesh

Volume 2, Issue 4, October 201

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Lumber Corset Wearing in Low Back Ache: A Rehabilitation Center Based Cross-sectional Study

Patients are most commonly advised by medical practitioners even after remaining wide range of controversy regarding wearing of lumber corset in low backache (LBA). Therefore, this study aimed to determine the potential evidence of using lumber orthosis in LBA. The study adopted 50 participants (21 male and 29 female) ages ranging between 20 to 60 years as sample selecting randomly from September to December 2015. Outcome evaluated by calculating and presenting descriptive statistics at 0.05 p-value and x2 test with confidence intervals (95%), Odd Ratio (OR), and Relative Risk (RR). Age and sex were not statistically significant determinants (x2 1.172, p 0.279 and x2 0.593, p 0.441, respectively). Wearing orthosis and reduce pain in a journey found as protective (RR 0.79 and RR 0.94) also poor relationship discovered in considering OR (OR 0.242, 95% CI 0.021-2.780 and OR 0.857, 95% CI 0.164-4.467). Our data were unable to provide adequate proof that wearing lumber corset bring any clinical or therapeutic benefit in managing LBA to the patients

Microbiology of Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infection

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is common ailment worldwide with female predominance. Catheter associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) is the most common healthcare related infection commonly used in urinary obstruction and incontinence in critically ill patients with prolonged indwelling catheterization means more than 30 days, which is almost invariable in all patients within 14 days of catheterization which increases morbidity and mortality and treatment expenses. Approximately 80% of nosocomial UTI is CAUTI. CAUTI may be asymptomatic and symptomatic. 2–4% cases may develop bacteraemia. Organisms responsible for CAUTI is similar to UTI as Escherichia coli the commonest than proteus, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Enterococci, Candida, Serratia and rarely with Delftia tsuruhatensis, Achromobacter xylosoxidans and few others. CAUTI can be multibacterial. In CAUTI infective organisms form biofilm and propagate from there. E. coli is the most common isolate of CAUTI but Enterobacter cloacae exhibit highest biofilm production. CAUTI organisms are more antibiotic resistance than UTI. Even due to extensive use of antibiotics now Extended Spectrum Beta Lactamase (ESBL) producing CAUTI organisms are isolated from catheter biofilm