Resource Based Build Direction in Additive Manufacturing Process

Three dimensional free-form geometric shapes can be built by putting layers upon layer in a predefined direction via Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes. The fabrication processes require computational as well as physical resources and can vary not only upon the product but its process plan. Overly simplified process plan may expedite the pre-fabrication techniques, but may create difficulty during fabrication of those slices. For an example, slices with concavity or discrete contour plurality may introduce deposition discontinuity, over deposition, and higher build time during the fabrication. These issues demand more resources there by affecting the part quality and fabrication cost. In this work, we focus upon the build direction of AM process plan to address the fabrication and resource utilization. First, a set of uniform build direction is identified and the object is discretized using a set of critical points considering the object concavity along the build direction. Cutting planes are generated and the object is discretized into strips and each strip is analyzed for contour plurality and the build directions are quantified through the allocation of importance factors. The optimal build direction thus found will result in lowest possible fabrication complexity. The proposed methodology is implemented and presented with a sample example in this paper.Mechanical Engineerin

Observing and Estimating the Switching Intentions of Existing Consumers towards New Ethnic Indian Restaurant in Helsinki.

The study was undertaken to investigate the restaurant switching intention among existing customers of ethnic Indian restaurants in Helsinki and to explore implications of the existing consumers’ switching intention on new ethnic Indian restaurants. It has practical significance for both existing and to-be-opened new ethnic Indian restaurants in Helsinki in understanding consumers’ restaurant switching behaviour and in formulating strategies to retain/attract consumers and overall marketing strategies. The Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM) migration model of service switching by Bansal et al. (2005) is used in the study to investigate the switching intention. According to the model, the combined impact of push, pull, and mooring variables creates switching intention. Where push factors push customers away from their current service providers, pull factors pull/attract them towards alternative service providers, and mooring factors play moderating role with push and pull factors as well as affect switching intention directly. Following the PPM model of service switching, a theoretical framework for the study was developed using the most relevant push variables (i.e. food quality, service quality, and price), pull variable (i.e. alternative attractiveness), and mooring variables (i.e. attitude towards switching, social norm towards switching, and variety-seeking tendency). A quantitative survey was conducted among a sample population of 64 respondents seen coming out of four different ethnic Indian restaurants in four different locations of Helsinki. The findings from the survey were interpreted as per the groundings of the PPM model. The findings revealed that 45.3% of the existing customers have positive switching intention, which was assumed to be the product of the combined impact of the push, pull, and mooring variables selected for the study. Among the push variables, the findings revealed that ‘service quality’ plays the dominant role in creating switching intention followed by ‘food quality’ and ‘price’. It was recommended that any new ethnic Indian restaurant should exclusively consider the implications of the push factors into their overall marketing strategy towards existing customers since the impact of the push factors could be influenced or controlled to some degree by the restaurants as these factors are directly related with the operations of restaurants. On the other hand other factors are related with the customers’ cognitive and other psychological processes over which the restaurants has no direct control

Biomass energy in Bangladesh: current status and prospects

Bangladesh has been experiencing several problems over the past few decades. These include over population, energy crisis and global warming, etc. Adequate amount of power generation in a sustainable way is an important issue for rapidly increasing population and economic development. Renewable energy can play an effective role to meet energy demand. Since it is an agrarian country, biomass is one of the potential renewable energy sources in Bangladesh. Agricultural crop residues, animal manure and municipal solid waste are the major sources of biomass energy in the country. This paper presents the scope, potential and technologies related to the use of biomass resources. The study also discusses the biomass projects undertaken by the government and non-government organizations, plans and strategies to promote biomass technologies in Bangladesh

Assessing the Real-Life Socio-Economic Scenario of Established Slums in Dhaka: The Cases of Korail and Sattola

The research aims to assess the current situation of three primary socio-economic indicators, namely education, health and water availability at the two most established slums of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka – Korail and Sattola. Surveys, using cluster and then random sampling to target households, and analysis, found that both slums' children's education level was moderate with 52% - 68% and 20% - 28% availing primary and secondary education, respectively; several NGOs had helped to establish brick-and-mortar latrines and disseminate necessary and effective awareness about sanitation; and surveyed slum dwellers were economically strong, with 68% - 70% of the interviewed households' income levels being 10,000 – 15,000 BDT (USD 118 – 178) per month. A comparative analysis with national level statistics also yielded that the conditions in these slums are truly better than previously thought. Primary recommendation includes in-depth monitoring to understand why such large numbers live in slums, even though they can afford better

Assessing the Real-Life Socio-Economic Scenario of Established Slums in Dhaka: The Cases of Korail and Sattola

The research aims to assess the current situation of three primary socio-economic indicators, namely education, health and water availability at the two most established slums of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka – Korail and Sattola. Surveys, using cluster and then random sampling to target households, and analysis, found that both slums' children's education level was moderate with 52% - 68% and 20% - 28% availing primary and secondary education, respectively; several NGOs had helped to establish brick-and-mortar latrines and disseminate necessary and effective awareness about sanitation; and surveyed slum dwellers were economically strong, with 68% - 70% of the interviewed households' income levels being 10,000 – 15,000 BDT (USD 118 – 178) per month. A comparative analysis with national level statistics also yielded that the conditions in these slums are truly better than previously thought. Primary recommendation includes in-depth monitoring to understand why such large numbers live in slums, even though they can afford better

Coming Stakes in the Ocean: Food Production, Shipping and Trade, Tourism, Ecosystem-biodiversity, New Technologies and Climate Change Challenges in Bangladesh

Blue economy is an emerging concept in all over the world where Bangladesh is not in exception. The blue economy of Bangladesh is subject to multiple interlinked activities. Among the major activities, food production, shipping and trade, tourism, ecosystem-biodiversity, new technologies and climate change challenges are the most promising sectors which are discussed in this chapter to project the present and future potential, constrains, ways to overcome in the context of the blue economy of Bangladesh following various published literatures. The review has revealed that Bangladesh has enormous resources which have great potential to uplift the existing economy, improving livelihoods, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. However, there are lot of constrains which hinder to get the ultimate fruit from these potentialities. The major constrains include lack of policy, institutional or organizational structure and coordination, data or information, knowledge in innovating and diversifying marine products and services, marketing strategies, continuous scientific research, skilled manpower with motivation and dedication, public awareness, maritime security and concern in marine and coastal environment. Initiations to overcome these constrains with long and short term strategic plans and properly implementing the strategic decisions will bring the state more productive and could be a model country with blue economy approach

Unintended bottleneck and essential nonlinearity: Understanding the effects of public primary school expansion on intergenerational educational mobility

We study the effects of 61,000 public primary schools on intergenerational educational mobility in Indonesia using full-count census data, a credible identification strategy, and theory-based nonlinearity in the mobility equation. We find that the mobility curve is concave in most of the cases, and school expansion reduced the degree of concavity. Evidence from a DiD strategy (Duflo (2001)) on primary completion suggests substantial improvements in relative mobility of the children of low educated fathers irrespective of gender. But relative mobility in the college educated households worsened, strengthening the advantages of the better educated households across generations. This highlights the pitfalls of a linear model which incorrectly suggests a weakening of the advantages of the children of educated fathers. For completed years of schooling, there are striking gender differences: the strong effects on sons remain largely unchanged, but there are no significant effects on girls. The surprising absence of an effect on girls is due to an unintended bottleneck at the secondary schooling level creating fierce competition among the Inpres primary graduates. The girls lost ground, experiencing an 8.5 percentage points decline in the probability of completing senior secondary schooling, while the boys reaped a 7.7 percentage points gain. The girls suffered crowding out irrespective of the family background, suggesting that social norms rather than parental economic conditions are the mechanisms at work

Multiplex-PCR protocol development for rapid screening of white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) in shrimp

This study was aimed to develop a faster single step multiplex PCR protocol for the simultaneous detection of white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) with its host (i.e. shrimp) as internal positive control. To do so, four combinations of primer were tested (I. 16S rRNA+Lo F1R1; II. 16S rRNA+Lo F2R2; III. 16S rRNA+Lo F1R2; IV. 16S rRNA+Lo F2R1) which were selected based on two pairs of WSSV specific primer (Lo F1R1 and Lo F2R2) and one pair of shrimp specific primer (16S rRNA). DNA extracted from WSSV infected shrimp were amplified by PCR in a single tube using each of the primer combinations and the thermal cycling conditions as well as reagent compositions were optimized. All the primer combinations yielded their expected band sizes with stronger band resolution intensity that indicated the development of four multiplex PCR protocols. The developed multiplex protocols reduced the chance of cross contamination and these were found to be faster, single step and unique with less effort and resource use. Considering sensitivity and specificity, among the protocols, we suggested the protocols based on 16S rRNA+Lo F1R1 and/or 16S rRNA+Lo F2R2 primer combinations for rapid and routine screening of WSSV in shrimp PL, juvenile and adult