“Study of Quality Assurance and Quality Management System in Multistroyed RCC Building”

Quality is one of the important aspects for construction projects. The level of success of construction projects depends upon the quality performance. Quality management provides the environment within related tools, techniques, procedures that can be deployed effectively leading to success of construction project. Though quality management is important at every stage of the project but quality management at execution stage contribute significantly on final quality outcome of construction projects. The QMS (Quality Management System) in construction refers to quality planning, quality assurance and Quality control

Spin-charge and spin-orbital coupling effects on spin dynamics in ferromagnetic manganites

Correlation-induced spin-charge and spin-orbital coupling effects on spin dynamics in ferromagnetic manganites are calculated with realistic parameters in order to provide a quantitative comparison with experimental results for spin stiffness, magnon dispersion, magnon damping, anomalous zone-boundary magnon softening, and Curie temperature. The role of orbital degeneracy, orbital ordering, and orbital correlations on spin dynamics in different doping regimes is highlighted.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure

Foraging behaviour in tadpoles of the bronze frog Rana temporalis: experimental evidence for the ideal free distribution

The ability of bronze frog Rana temporalis tadpoles (pure or mixed parental lines) to assess the profitability of food habitats and distribute themselves accordingly was tested experimentally using a rectangular choice tank with a non-continuous input design. Food (boiled spinach) was placed at two opposite ends of the choice tank in a desired ratio (1:1, 1:2 or 1:4) to create habitat A and B. The tadpoles in Gosner stage 28-33, pre-starved for 24 h, were introduced in an open ended mesh cylinder placed in the center of the choice tank, held for 4 min (for acclimation) and then released to allow free movement and habitat selection. The number of tadpoles foraging at each habitat was recorded at 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 min time intervals. The actual suitability, Si (the food available in a habitat after colonization of tadpoles) of each habitat was obtained from the equation Si =Bi-fi (di) where Bi is basic suitability (amount of food provided at each habitat before release of tadpoles), fi is the rate of depletion of food (lowering effect) with introduction of each tadpole, and di is the density of tadpoles in habitat i. The expected number of tadpoles at each habitat was derived from the actual suitability. With no food in the choice tank, movement of the tadpoles in the test arena was random indicating no bias towards any end of the choice tank or the procedure. In tests with a 1:1 food ratio, the observed ratio of tadpoles (11.71: 12.28) was comparable with the expected 12:12 ratio. The observed number of tadpoles in the habitats with a 1:2 food ratio was 8.71:15.29 and 7.87:16.13 for pure and mixed parental lines respectively. In both cases, the observed ratios were close to the expected values (7:17). Likewise, in experiments with a 1:4 food ratio, the observed number of tadpoles in the two habitats (10.78:37.22) did not differ significantly from the expected ratio of 7:41. In all tests, the number of R. temporalis tadpoles matched ideally with habitat profitability (undermatching index K ≅ 1). The study shows that tadpoles of the bronze frog exhibit an ideal free distribution while foraging regardless of whether they are siblings or non-siblings in a group, which correlates well with their group living strategy in nature

Finite time analysis of temporal difference learning with linear function approximation: Tail averaging and regularisation

We study the finite-time behaviour of the popular temporal difference (TD) learning algorithm when combined with tail-averaging. We derive finite time bounds on the parameter error of the tail-averaged TD iterate under a step-size choice that does not require information about the eigenvalues of the matrix underlying the projected TD fixed point. Our analysis shows that tail-averaged TD converges at the optimal $O\left(1/t\right)$ rate, both in expectation and with high probability. In addition, our bounds exhibit a sharper rate of decay for the initial error (bias), which is an improvement over averaging all iterates. We also propose and analyse a variant of TD that incorporates regularisation. From analysis, we conclude that the regularised version of TD is useful for problems with ill-conditioned features

A Review of Recent Case Law Related to Digital Forensics: The Current Issues

Digital forensics is a new field without established models of investigation. This study uses thematic analysis to explore the different issues seen in the prosecution of digital forensic investigations. The study looks at 100 cases from different federal appellate courts to analyze the cause of the appeal. The issues are categorized into one of four categories, ‘search and seizure’, ‘data analysis’, ‘presentation’ and ‘legal issues’. The majority of the cases reviewed related to the search and seizure activity. Keywords: Computer Investigation, Case Law, Digital Forensics, Legal Issues, and Court

Diversity in Software Engineering Conferences and Journals

Diversity with respect to ethnicity and gender has been studied in open-source and industrial settings for software development. Publication avenues such as academic conferences and journals contribute to the growing technology industry. However, there have been very few diversity-related studies conducted in the context of academia. In this paper, we study the ethnic, gender, and geographical diversity of the authors published in Software Engineering conferences and journals. We provide a systematic quantitative analysis of the diversity of publications and organizing and program committees of three top conferences and two top journals in Software Engineering, which indicates the existence of bias and entry barriers towards authors and committee members belonging to certain ethnicities, gender, and/or geographical locations in Software Engineering conferences and journal publications. For our study, we analyse publication (accepted authors) and committee data (Program and Organizing committee/ Journal Editorial Board) from the conferences ICSE, FSE, and ASE and the journals IEEE TSE and ACM TOSEM from 2010 to 2022. The analysis of the data shows that across participants and committee members, there are some communities that are consistently significantly lower in representation, for example, publications from countries in Africa, South America, and Oceania. However, a correlation study between the diversity of the committees and the participants did not yield any conclusive evidence. Furthermore, there is no conclusive evidence that papers with White authors or male authors were more likely to be cited. Finally, we see an improvement in the ethnic diversity of the authors over the years 2010-2022 but not in gender or geographical diversity.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, 4 table

A Review of Recent Case Law Related to Digital Forensics: The Current Issues

Digital forensics is a new field without established models of investigation. This study uses thematic analysis to explore the different issues seen in the prosecution of digital forensic investigations. The study looks at 100 cases from different federal appellate courts to analyze the cause of the appeal. The issues are categorized into one of four categories, ‘search and seizure’, ‘data analysis’, ‘presentation’ and ‘legal issues’. The majority of the cases reviewed related to the search and seizure activity. Keywords: Computer Investigation, Case Law, Digital Forensics, Legal Issues, and Court

Hypoglycemic effects of Berberis aristata and Tamarindus indica extracts in vitro

AbstractObjectiveThe objective of the present investigation was to evaluate the hypoglycemic potential of Berberis aristata and Tamarindus indica using various in vitro techniques.MethodsThe selected plant extracts were studied for their effects on glucose adsorption capacity, in vitro glucose diffusion, in vitro amylolysis kinetics and glucose transport across the yeast cells.ResultsIt was observed that both the plant extracts adsorbed glucose and the adsorption of glucose increased remarkably with an increase in glucose concentration. No significant (p⩽0.05) differences were observed between the adsorption capacities of B. aristata and T. indica. The results of amylolysis kinetic experimental model exhibited that the rate of glucose diffusion was increased with time from 30 to 180min and both the plant extracts demonstrated significant inhibitory effects on movement of glucose into external solution across dialysis membrane as compared to control. It was observed that the plant extracts also promoted glucose uptake by the yeast cells. Enhancement of glucose uptake was dependent on both the sample and glucose concentration. B. aristata extract exhibited significantly higher (p⩽0.05) activity than the extract of T. indica at all concentrations.ConclusionThe results of the study verified the hypoglycemic activity of the extracts of B. aristata and T. indica. However, the observed effects need to be confirmed using different in vivo models and clinical trials for their effective utilization as therapeutic agents