Using Big Data to Enhance the Bosch Production Line Performance: A Kaggle Challenge

This paper describes our approach to the Bosch production line performance challenge run by Kaggle.com. Maximizing the production yield is at the heart of the manufacturing industry. At the Bosch assembly line, data is recorded for products as they progress through each stage. Data science methods are applied to this huge data repository consisting records of tests and measurements made for each component along the assembly line to predict internal failures. We found that it is possible to train a model that predicts which parts are most likely to fail. Thus a smarter failure detection system can be built and the parts tagged likely to fail can be salvaged to decrease operating costs and increase the profit margins.Comment: IEEE Big Data 2016 Conferenc

Hybrid Simulated Annealing: An Efficient Optimization Technique

Genetic Algorithm falls under the category of evolutionary algorithm that follows the principles of natural selection and genetics, where the best adapted individuals in a population are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on their advantageous traits to their offsprings. Crossover is a crucial operator in genetic algorithms as it allows the genetic material of two or more individuals in the population to combine and create new individuals. Optimizing it can potentially lead to better solutions and faster convergence of the genetic algorithm. The proposed crossover operator gradually changes the alpha value as the search proceeds, similar to the temperature in simulated annealing. The performance of the proposed crossover operator is compared with the simple arithmetic crossover operator. The experiments are conducted using Python and results show that the proposed crossover operator outperforms the simple arithmetic crossover operator. This paper also emphasizes the importance of optimizing genetic operators, particularly crossover operators, to improve the overall performance of genetic algorithms

New challenges and opportunities for governance in India: a session with Ajit Seth

On 13 July 2015, former Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth spoke on the topic of ‘Governance in India- new challenges and opportunities’. The event was chaired by Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, Senior Fellow for South Asia at the IISS. Ankita Mukhopadhyay and Arushi Kumar report on the event

Synthesis, Characterization and Structure of Copper(II) complex involving Chloride and Tridentae NNS coordinate Schiff base ligand

Mononuclear copper(II) complex [CuLCl2] where L = (2-methylsulfanyl-phenyl)-(phenyl-pyridin-2-yl-methylene)amine, a tridentate NNS donor Schiff base ligand has been synthesized and characterized by microanalysis, IR, UV-Visible spectra and magnetic studies. Crystal structure of the complex has been solved by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies and shows the complex has distorted trigonal bipyramidal geometry

Experimental demonstration of 25 GHz wideband chaos in symmetric dual port EDFRL

We study dynamics of chaos in dual port erbium-doped fiber ring laser (EDFRL). The laser consists of two erbium-doped fibers, intracavity filters at 1549.30 nm, isolators, and couplers. At both ports, the laser transitions into the chaotic regime for pump currents greater than 100 mA via period doubling route. We calculate the Lyapunov exponents using Rosenstein’s algorithm. We obtain positive values for the largest Lyapunov exponent (≈0.2) for embedding dimensions 5, 7, 9 and 11 indicating chaos. We compute the power spectrum of the photocurrents at the output ports of the laser. We observe a bandwidth of ≈ 25 GHz at both ports. This ultra wideband nature of chaos obtained has potential applications in high speed random number generation and communication

A PSO Optimized Model for Identifying Spatio Temporal Hotspots of Terrorist Incidents in India

Terrorism is a global issue that prevails throughout the world on all scales. As the distribution of terrorist activities does not follow a random pattern in space and time, its spatiotemporal analysis has drawn considerable attention in recent years. Further, timely identification of Spatio-temporal terrorist activity hotspots is vital to prioritize the security efforts put by a country’s security enforcement agencies. The state-of-the-art methods for Spatiotemporal hotspot detection are based on scan statistics, which enumerates many Spatio-temporal cylinders, making it a computationally expensive approach. Therefore, this paper presents a time-efficient Particle Swarm Optimizer (PSO) based algorithm to detect the most significant Spatio-temporal hotspots. We formulated an optimization model for the problem and applied three variants of PSO viz. conventional PSO, HCL-PSO, and Ensemble PSO. Finally, these schemes have been used to detect spatio-temporal hotspots of different terrorist attacks in India. The results obtained by PSO-based methods have been compared with SaTScan over two parameters: the time required to detect the hotspot and its quality. All the PSO-based schemes significantly outperformed SaTScan in the timely identification of the hotspots. In addition, the quality of hotspots detected by HCL-PSO is at par with SaTScan, whereas the quality of hotspots detected by the other two approaches is slightly lesser than SaTScan. However, the quality of hotspots detected by the other two variants of PSO is slightly lesser than SaTScan. The results are statistically validated using Friedman’s statistical test

DESIGN, OPTIMISATION AND EVALUATION OF PIROXICAM FAST DISSOLVING TABLETS EMPLOYING STARCH TARTRATE-A NEW SUPERDISINTEGRANT

Objective: To enhance the solubility of poorly soluble drugs by evaluating starch tartrate as a superdisintegrant in the formulation of fast dissolving tablets by employing 23 factorial design. Methods: Starch tartrate was synthesized by gelatinization process. The physical and micromeritic properties were performed to evaluate the synthesized starch tartrate. The fast dissolving tablets of piroxicam were prepared by using starch tartrate as a superdisintegrant in different proportions by direct compression technique using 23 factorial design. The drug content, hardness, friability, disintegration time and other dissolution characteristics like percent dissolved in 5 min (PD5), dissolution efficiency in 5 min (DE5%) and first-order rate constant (K1) were used in the evaluation of prepared fast dissolving tablets. Results: The superdisintegrant starch tartrate prepared was found to be fine, free-flowing slightly crystalline powder. Starch tartrate exhibited good swelling in water. The study between piroxicam and starch tartrate was shown the absence of interaction by fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The drug content (99.83±0.56 %), hardness (3.7–3.9 kg/sq. Cm), and friability (0.12-0.15%) have been effective with regard to all the formulated fast dissolving tablets employing starch tartrate. The disintegration time of all the formulated fast dissolving tablets (FDTs) was found to be in the range of 12±0. 01 to 4500±0.02s. The optimized formulation F6 has the least disintegration time i.e., 12±0. 01s. The In vitro wetting time of the formulated tablets was found to be in the range of 35±0.09 to 1624±0.02s. The In–Vitro wetting time was less (i.e., 90s) in optimized formulation F6. The water absorption ratio of the formulated tablets was found to be in the range of 60±0.12 to 65±0.15%. The cumulative drug dissolved in the optimized formulation F6 was found to be 99.32±0.09% in 10 min. Conclusion: The dissolution efficiency of piroxicam was enhanced when starch tartrate was found to be a superdisintegrant when combined with crospovidone and, hence it could be used in the formulation of fast dissolving tablets to provide immediate release of the contained drug within 10 min

Effect of buoyancy and suction on Sisko nanofluid over a vertical stretching sheet in a porous medium with mass flux condition

The present article investigates the flow and heat transfer of Sisko nanofluid over a permeable vertical stretching surface in a porous medium. The effect of buoyancy, suction, and viscous dissipation has been taken into account. Buongiorno’s model of nanofluid consisting of thermophoresis and Brownian diffusion has been considered. Moreover, zero nanoparticle mass flux condition is employed at the boundary which leads to a more realistic physical problem. Using a suitable transformation governing partial differential equations of fluid flow are transformed into a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The numerical solution of nonlinear ODEs are obtained using the finite difference technique in MATLAB. The influence of physical parameters viz. buoyancy parameter (λ*), porosity parameter (β*), thermophoresis parameter (Nt*), suction parameter (f), Sisko material parameter (A*), Brinkman number (Br*), Brownian diffusion parameter (Nb*) and Lewis number (Le*) on velocity, temperature and nanoparticle volume fraction are shown graphically. Moreover, to understand the physical phenomenon in the boundary layer region, the numerical values of skin friction and Nusselt number are calculated and presented through table values. It has been found that the Brownian diffusion has a negligible impact on Nusselt number relative to the results obtained in previous studies, where nanoparticle volume fraction on the boundary was actively controlled. The obtained results disclose that the buoyancy parameter increases the velocity of fluid while it reduces the temperature. Suction parameter reduces both velocity and temperature, whereas the porosity parameter reduces velocity and enhances the temperature and nanoparticle volume fraction

Set up errors in Brain tumours – A retrospective study to review the current practice of PTV margins in the institution

Set up errors in Brain tumours – A retrospective study to review the current practice of PTV margins in the institution Chaturvedi D.1 , Mehta A.2 , Kumar P.3*   1 Diksha Chaturvedi, Junior Resident, Department of Radiation Oncology, Shri Ram Murti Institute of Medical Sciences, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India. 2 Ankita Mehta, Senior Resident, Department of Radiation Oncology, Shri Ram Murti Institute of Medical Sciences, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India. 3* Piyush Kumar, Professor and Head, Department of Radiation Oncology, Shri Ram Murti Institute of Medical Sciences, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India. Corresponding Author: Dr. Piyush Kumar, Professor and Head, Department of Radiation Oncology, all authors are affiliated to Shri Ram Murti Institute of Medical Sciences, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India, E-mail: [email protected]   Abstract Background Radiotherapy in brain tumors needs accuracy and reproducibility of the patient’s position. There may be set up errors which are taken care by adding planning target volume (PTV) margin. Lesser PTV margins may lead to tumor miss or greater margins may lead to unnecessary radiation of normal brain tissue. The present study is done to evaluate whether the current practice of PTV margins in our institute is optimum or not. Materials and methods Eleven patients of brain tumours who received adjuvant radiotherapy were retrospectively selected for determining the setup errors. These patients were immobilised in supine position and contrast enhanced CT of head was taken for radiotherapy planning. Delineation of gross tumor volume and clinical target volume was done with 5 mm PTV margin. The treatment was delivered by 3-Dimensional Conformal Radiotherapy or Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy Technique. The set up errors in three dimensions were determined retrospectively for all images. PTV margins were calculated using International Commission on Radiation Units And Measurements Report 62, Stroom’s and Van Herk formulae. Results The overall population set up error was 0.034,-0.048, 0.028 in X, Y, Z directions respectively. The population systematic error was calculated to be 0.107, 0.069, 0.092 and population random error was 0.221, 0.202, 0.217 in X, Y, Z directions respectively. The calculated setup margin as per the three formulas was less than 5 mm in all directions. Conclusion The present study showed that the institutional protocol of 5 mm is optimum to counter the setup errors.&nbsp