Dual Stage Trade Credit Policy for Integrated Inventory System

The present study considers an integrated production inventory system of a supplier and a retailer. The proposed model explores the vendor managed strategy with the dual stage trade credit also known as progressive payment scheme, lead time and shortages. A nonlinear problem is formulated for the purpose of total profit maximization and solved using conventional global optimization method for nonlinear problem. This article can provide the managerial outline for schematizing the production strategy according to the received orders in a joint business enterprise

Flexible Retaining Barriers for Prevention of Avalanches on National Highway NH-1A

"An avalanche hazard Call be reduced by active and passive methods. In an active method, which is a very effective, avalanche control structures are used to mitigate the avalanche danger. These structures can be installed in any of the three zones of an avalanche, viz., formation zone, middle zone and run-out zone. In the formation zone, avalanche can be controlled by supporting structures/retaining barriers, which are installed in the formation zone with a view to prevent formation of an avalanche. Their placement in the formation zone with proper arrangement and layout helps in preventing fracture in the snow mass. The basic concept lies in converting the shear and tensile stresses in snow into compressive stresses which can be conveniently sustained by the snowcover. Such supporting structures/retaining barriers can be categorised into rigid and flexible types of structures. Snow rakes and snow bridges are categorised as rigid structures, whereas wire rope nets are categorised as flexible structures. The Snow & Avalanche Study Establishment, Chandigarh, had developed snow nets in 1988-89, which were installed at D-10 avalanche site on north portal of Jawahar tunnel, Jammu-Srinagar Highway (NH-1A). These nets were designed considering the snow forces acting in the direction parallel to the slope only. Hence, the movement of the swivel post was restricted in one direction only. However, detailed scientific studies carried out for retaining barriers over the last seven year's have revealed that two types of failures occur in these nets. First, a major failure was noticed in hinge joint of swivel post, and second, a failure was noticed in the foundation of the uphill anchor. To overcome these failures, the swivel post joint has been redesigned as articulated ball and socket joint to cater for omni directional movement to the swivel post, and the uphill anchor foundation has been strengthened by providing the reinforcement. This paper deals with the concept of flexible retaining barriers, including criteria for height of structures, their layout, terrain investigation required and also considers the snow pressure for designing various components of snow nets

Evaluation of new genotypes of brinjal (Solacanum melongena L.) under tarai condition of Uttarakhand

In order to assess the performance of some new genotypes of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) under tarai condition of Uttarakhand, an investigation was carried out at Vegetable Research Centre, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, during autumn-winter cropping season of 2012-13. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design with 4 replications and 9 treatments viz. PB-300, PB-301, PB-302, PB-303, PB-304, PB-305, Kashi Tarun, Punjab Sadabahar and Pant Samrat. To have comparative study, growth characters, per cent fruit infested by fruit borer, fruit yield and finally economics were also worked out. The findings revealed that none of the new genotypes in this study could supersede the local checks in respect to yield related attributes, per cent infested fruit by borer and economics. Amongst 6 genotypes and 3 commercial cultivars, variety Kashi Tarun proved the best with respect to fruit yield (490.73 q/ha) and B:C (2.43). It is also less infested by fruit borer. The per cent infested fruit by borer was 7.16 %. Variety pant samrat and pant bahar were also considered promising with 385.70 and 369.33 q/ha marketable fruit yield

A Novel Approach to PID Controller Design for Improvement of Transient Stability and Voltage Regulation of Nonlinear Power System

In this paper, a novel design method for determining the optimal PID controller parameters for non-linear power system using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is presented. The direct feedback linearization (DFL) technique is used to linearize the nonlinear system for computing the PID (DFL-PID) controller parameters. By taking an example of single machine infinite bus (SMIB) power system it has been shown that PSO based PID controller stabilizes the system and restores the pre-fault system performance after fault is cleared and line is restored. The performance of this controlled system is compared with the performance of DFL-state feedback controlled power system. It has been shown that the performance of DFL-PID controlled system is superior compared to DFL-state feedback controlled system. For simulation MATLAB 7 software is used.

Fabrication of Light Weight Farms Yoke With The Use of Composite Material

Natural fibers are subdivided based on their origins, coming from plants, animals or minerals. All plant fibers are composed of cellulose while animal fibers consist of proteins (hair, silk, and wool). Plant fibers include bask (or stem or soft sclerenchyma) fibers, leaf or hard fibers, seed, fruit, wood, cereal straw, and other grass fibers. Over the last few years, a number of researchers have been involved in investigating the exploitation of natural fibers as load bearing constituents in composite materials. The use of such materials in composites has increased due to their relative cheapness, ability to recycle and for the fact that they can compete well in terms of strength per weight of material. Natural fibers can be considered as naturally occurring composites consisting mainly of cellulose fibrils embedded in lignin matrix. The cellulose fibrils are aligned along the length of the fiber, which render maximum tensile and flexural strengths, in addition to providing rigidity. The reinforcing efficiency of natural fiber is related to the nature of cellulose and its crystallinity. The existing traditional yoke is made up of the wood of trees like Tun and Haldu which are not easily available in different parts of India. The life of a yoke is about 3 to 5 years, due to this 628 tons of wood is required at every 3-5 years in India that would create a burden to the presently available forests. To overcome these problems, there is a need to develop yoke from waste bio-materials. Keeping this in view, a yoke from composite material was designed and developed and relative comparison between traditional wooden and developed yoke has been done

Dynamic analysis of MCF-10A and MCF-7: A simulation approach

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women and is responsible for 15 % of all cancer related deaths. Though there are significant advancements in cancer treatment strategies, clinical tumour treatment methods currently employed are often accompanied by severe side effects as they induce damage to the normal cells along with the cancer cells. The alterations in the biophysical and biomechanical properties of a cell as it undergoes transformation from a normal to cancerous cell results in changes in its dynamic characteristics. These changes can be utilised to induce selective cytotoxicity of tumour cells. In the present study, two simulation models (homogenous and non-homogenous) of normal (MCF-10A) and cancerous (MCF-7) breast cells are developed. A finite element approach using Ansys is adopted to investigate the variation in dynamic characteristics of the cells using the two modelling approaches. Results indicate that the natural frequencies of cells modelled as a homogenous system is greater than that of cells whose sub-cellular material properties are considered for analysis. A comparison of the first four natural frequencies using the two modelling approaches for both MCF-10A and MCF-7 cells are illustrated and the corresponding mode shapes reported. A plot highlighting the variation in the natural frequencies of MCF-10A and MCF-7 using the two modelling approaches is presented

A rare case of ruptured ovarian ectopic pregnancy

An ovarian ectopic pregnancy is a rare presentation. A 31 years old female presented with acute abdomen at period of gestation 8 weeks. Ultrasonography showed complex mass in Rt. adnexa of size of 6.32x3.80 cm. Emergency laparotomy was done under general anaesthesia and ruptured right ovary found. Right salpingo-oophrectomy and left tubectomy was done. The histopathological examination confirmed the ovarian ectopic pregnancy.

Evaluation of Antiulcerogenic Activity of Clerodendron Infortunatum Extract on Albino Rat Gastric Ulceration

Clerodendron infortunatum Linn. (Verbenaceae) is an important and widely used medicinal plant, reported to contain active bitter substance like clerodin, has been widely used as tonic and anthelmintic agent in the country sides of North India. Though, variously used in Ayurveda, Unani system of medicine and Homeopathy in case of ailments like diarrhoea, skin disorders, venereal and scrofulous complaints, wounds, post-natal complications, as vermifuge, laxative and cholagogue, for the removal of ascarids in anus, as external applications on tumours, etc., Background: The present study reports the antiulcer properties of 50% ethanolic extract of Clerodendron infortunatum Linn. (Verbenaceae) leaves have assessed in different acute and chronic gastric ulcer models in rats. Methods: EECI (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight) was administered orally, twice daily for 5 days for prevention from ethanol (EtOH), Cold-restraint stress (CRS), Pylorus-ligation (PL) and 10 days for prevention of acetic acid induced ulcers. Results: The EECI showed significant gastric ulcer protective effect in doses of 400 mg/kg, when given twice daily for 5 days against gastric ulcers induced by ethanol (EtOH), cold restraint stress (CRS) and pyloric ligation (PL). EECI showed dose dependent decrease in ulcer index (UI) against ulcers induced by: (i) Ethanol (control UI: 29.52±2.4 mm2/rat, EECI decrease 21.12±2.3 – 5.3±1.0 (ii) Cold restraint stress (CRS) (control UI: 32.13±2.1, EECI decrease 24.02±2.2 – 4.7±1.1 (iii) pylorus ligation (control UI: 29.25±2.4 mm2/rat, EECI decrease 22.32±2.7 – 5.3±1.0, EECI 400 mg/kg significantly healed ulcers induced by 50% acetic acid after 5 (control UI: 32.30 ± 2.9, EECI decrease 26.27±1.9 – 8.56±0.98 and after 10 days treatment (control UI: 29.02 ± 2.6, healing 21.28±2.1 – 5.78±1.2. EECI prevents the oxidative damage of gastric mucosa by blocking lipid peroxidation and by significant decrease in superoxide dismutase, and increase in catalase activity. Conclusions: Our results show that Clerodendron infortunatum Linn. (Verbenaceae)  possess significant gastro-protective activity which might be due to gastric defence factors and clerodin might be the main constituents responsible for this activity

An Enhanced Texture-Based Feature Extraction Approach for Classification of Biomedical Images of CT-Scan of Lungs

Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) techniques based on texture have gained a lot of popularity in recent times. In the proposed work, a feature vector is obtained by concatenation of features extracted from local mesh peak valley edge pattern (LMePVEP) technique; a dynamic threshold based local mesh ternary pattern technique and texture of the image in five different directions. The concatenated feature vector is then used to classify images of two datasets viz. Emphysema dataset and Early Lung Cancer Action Program (ELCAP) lung database. The proposed framework has improved the accuracy by 12.56%, 9.71% and 7.01% in average for data set 1 and 9.37%, 8.99% and 7.63% in average for dataset 2 over three popular algorithms used for image retrieval

Serum BUN and creatinine estimation in patients of overt hypothyroidism: a case control study

Background: Hypothyroidism or underactive thyroid or low thyroid is a common endocrine disorder characterized by low serum T3 (triiodothyronine), T4 (thyroxine) and raised TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone). Thyroid hormones are involved in renal development and hemodynamic, kidney structure and GFR (glomerular filtration rate). Aim of this study was to see the alteration of basic renal markers in patients of hypothyroidism.Methods: A total of seventy subjects were included in the study. Thirty-five were patients of hypothyroidism and thirty-five were age and sex matched normal controls. Serum T3, T4, TSH, creatinine and BUN (blood urea nitrogen) were estimated in both groups.Results: Serum T3, T4 were significantly decreased and TSH was significantly raised among cases as compared to controls. Mean value of serum creatinine and BUN were within normal range in both the groups but these values were significantly raised among cases as compared to controls with p value 0.02 and 0.003 respectively. Also, there was positive correlation of TSH with BUN and creatinine among cases