Quantitative approach for Theory of Constraints in Manufacturing

In this paper, a systematic and quantitative view is presented for the application of the theory of constraints in manufacturing. This is done employing the operational research technique of mathematical programming. The potential of the theory of constraints in manufacturing is demonstrated. By applying the TOC philosophy based on this information, managers will be able to take the right actions that will improve the profitability of their companies. The model is proposed to be used with the TOC philosophy in order to improve the financial performance of a company. Keywords: Theory of Constraints, bottlenecks, Capacity-constrained resources (CCR), Throughpu

Fuzzy based approach for Temporary objective identification

This paper presents a new fuzzy-based approach which identifies the most effective temporary objective of an enterprise, which is usually set based on the pure judgment of top management members or enterprise's experts. The method is based on fuzzy-decision-making system and makes robust utilization of enterprise's experts' knowledge, intuition and expertise. A simple illustrative example is provided to demonstrate how the method can be efficiently and effectively used in practice. The proposed approach can be used to identify the short-term objective of any profit- making-enterprise, and is specially applicable to business industries that are full of qualitative, stochastic, uncertain, and vague variables such as the case in automobile business (e.g., cars, trucks, gears, bearings etc), and is generally applicable to any other business sector.  Keywords: Temporary Objectives, fuzzy decision-making-system, fuzzy expert-syste

A Case Study on Blowout and Its Control in Krishna-Godavari (KG) Basin, East Coast of India: Safety and Environmental Perspective

Major blowouts in Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin have led to number of risks related to loss of human lives, environmental pollution and loss of material assets. The geological complexity of the field and the presence of over pressure zones, mainly in East Godavari sub-basin, particularly in the wells at Amalapuram, Razole and Narsapur have led to major disasters in the past years. Therefore, an attempt has been made to identify the most possible causes of these disasters and to propose a safe drilling procedure to prevent these disasters in the upcoming ventures. This paper highlights the case study of a blowout occurred in KG basin in East Coast of India. An analysis of the blowout was carried out which includes well configuration and details, mechanical equipment used for controlling the blowout, firefighting procedures, financial losses incurred. The effect of exploration and production of oil and gas on the property and environment were also discussed. Efficient drilling and safety procedures were recommended to prevent further blowouts in future. The recommendations presented will be of utmost importance for oil and gas operators and service companies to take necessary steps in future drilling operations in over pressured formations of KG basin to prevent loss to personnel, property and damage to the environment. Keywords: Blowout, Overpressures, Firefighting, Safety Procedures, Environmental Impact

A Case Study on Blowout and Its Control in Krishna-Godavari (KG) Basin, East Coast of India: Safety and Environmental Perspective

Major blowouts in Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin have led to number of risks related to loss of human lives, environmental pollution and loss of material assets. The geological complexity of the field and the presence of over pressure zones, mainly in East Godavari sub-basin, particularly in the wells at Amalapuram, Razole and Narsapur have led to major disasters in the past years. Therefore, an attempt has been made to identify the most possible causes of these disasters and to propose a safe drilling procedure to prevent these disasters in the upcoming ventures. This paper highlights the case study of a blowout occurred in KG basin in East Coast of India. An analysis of the blowout was carried out which includes well configuration and details, mechanical equipment used for controlling the blowout, firefighting procedures, financial losses incurred. The effect of exploration and production of oil and gas on the property and environment were also discussed. Efficient drilling and safety procedures were recommended to prevent further blowouts in future. The recommendations presented will be of utmost importance for oil and gas operators and service companies to take necessary steps in future drilling operations in over pressured formations of KG basin to prevent loss to personnel, property and damage to the environment. Keywords: Blowout, Overpressures, Firefighting, Safety Procedures, Environmental Impact

Biostimulatory Effect of Shilajeet on Wheat (Triticum astivum) Seed Germination

A presoaking treatment of Shilajeet at three different concentrations (10, 100 and 1000ppm) was given for 8 hours to surface sterilized (with 0.1 % HgCl2) seeds of wheat (Lokman variety).There was an increase of 12% and 24% in seed germination at third day of treatment with 10ppm and 100pm shilajeet concentrations, respectively. Enhanced growth of root and shoots were recorded on 6th day of germination. Enzymatic analysis of shilajeet treated germinated seeds revealed increase in activity of ?-amylase (EC, 3.2.1.1), Starch-phosphorylase (EC 2.4.1.1) and Hexokinase (EC 2.7.1.1), the indicator enzymes of seed germination. However, the 1000ppm treatment exhibited an inhibitory effect on percentage germination, seedling growth and on enzyme activities. Increased enzyme activities were also accompanied by the enhancement of water soluble protein in 10ppm and 100ppm shilajeet treated germinated seeds. Keywords: Seed germination, Enzymes, Shilajeet, Triticum astivu

In Vitro Anti Bacterial Potential of Different Extracts of Tagetes Erecta and Tagetes Patula

The antimicrobial activity of cold aqueous, hot aqueous and methanol extracts of Tagetes erecta and Tagetes patula flowers was evaluated by agar well diffusion method against ten different pathogenic species of Gram-negative bacteria viz.,  Escherichia coli, Proteus vulgaris, Proteus mirabilis, Aeromonas sobria, Aeromonas hydrophila, Plesiomonas shigelloides, Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi, Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium, Salmonella enterica serotype Aboni and Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis, four different pathogenic species of Gram-positive bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus circulans and Staphylococcus aureus. Methanol extract of Tagetes erecta at 40 mg/ml concentration was found to have better inhibitory activity when compared to cold and hot aqueous extracts, which were evident through the increased zones of inhibition against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Methanol extract of Tagetes erecta showed highest inhibition zone of 26 mm against Aeromonas sorbia, Aeromonas hydrophila, Staphylococcus aureus (MTCC7405) and Staphylococcus aureus (clinical isolate), while lowest inhibition zone of 12 mm with Bacillus subtilis. Similarly, hot aqueous extracts of Tagetes patula had better activity as compare to cold aqueous extract and methanol extract at 40mg/ml concentration. It had highest and lowest zone of inhibition with Proteus vulgaris OX19 (30 mm) and Staphylococcus aureus (clinical iolate) (13 mm) respectively. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were between concentrations of 20 - 160 mg/ml with aqueous or methanol extracts of Tagetes erecta and Tagetes patula flowers for most of the tested bacteria. Results of antimicrobial activity of extracts indicate that they possess potential broad spectrum antibacterial activity. Keywords: Tagetes flower extracts, antibacterial activit

Hypoxia mimetic agents for ischemic stroke

Every year stroke claims more than 6 million lives worldwide. The majority of them are ischemic stroke. Small molecule-based therapeutics for ischemic stroke has attracted a lot of attention, but none has been shown to be clinically useful so far. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) plays a crucial role in the transcriptional adaptation of cells to hypoxia. Small molecule-based hypoxia-mimetic agents either stabilize HIF-1α via HIF-prolyl hydroxylases (PHDs) inhibition or through other mechanisms. In both the cases, these agents have been shown to confer ischemic neuroprotection in vitro and in vivo. The agents which act via PHD inhibition are mainly classified into iron chelators, iron competitors, and 2 oxoglutarate (2OG) analogs. This review discusses HIF structure and key players in the HIF-1 degradation pathway as well as the genes, proteins and chemical molecules that are connected to HIF-1 and how they affect cell survival following ischemic injury. Furthermore, this review gives a summary of studies that used PHD inhibitors and other HIF-1α stabilizers as hypoxia-mimetic agents for the treatment of ischemic injury

Biometrics beyond the visible spectrum: Imaging technologies and applications

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04391-8_20Proceedings of Joint COST 2101 and 2102 International Conference, BioID_MultiComm 2009, Madrid (Spain)Human body images acquired at visible spectrum have inherent restrictions that hinder the performance of person recognition systems built using that kind of information (e.g. scene artefacts under varying illumination conditions). One promising approach for dealing with those limitations is using images acquired beyond the visible spectrum. This paper reviews some of the existing human body imaging technologies working beyond the visible spectrum (X-ray, Infrared, Millimeter and Submillimeter Wave imaging technologies). The benefits and drawbacks of each technology and their biometric applications are presented.This work has been supported by Terasense (CSD2008-00068) Consolider project of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology

Affective design using machine learning : a survey and its prospect of conjoining big data

Customer satisfaction in purchasing new products is an important issue that needs to be addressed in today’s competitive markets. Consumers not only need to be solely satisfied with the functional requirements of a product, and they are also concerned with the affective needs and aesthetic appreciation of the product. A product with good affective design excites consumer emotional feelings so as to buy the product. However, affective design often involves complex and multi-dimensional problems for modelling and maximising affective satisfaction of customers. Machine learning is commonly used to model and maximise the affective satisfaction, since it is effective in modelling nonlinear patterns when numerical data relevant to the patterns is available. This article presents a survey of commonly used machine learning approaches for affective design when two data streams namely traditional survey data and modern big data are used. A classification of machine learning technologies is first provided which is developed using traditional survey data for affective design. The limitations and advantages of each machine learning technology are also discussed and we summarize the uses of machine learning technologies for affective design. This review article is useful for those who use machine learning technologies for affective design. The limitations of using traditional survey data are then discussed which is time consuming to collect and cannot fully cover all the affective domains for product development. Nowadays, big data related to affective design can be captured from social media. The prospects and challenges in using big data are discussed so as to enhance affective design, in which very limited research has so far been attempted. This article provides guidelines for researchers who are interested in exploring big data and machine learning technologies for affective design

Density correlations and dynamical Casimir emission of Bogoliubov phonons in modulated atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

We present a theory of the density correlations that appear in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate as a consequence of the dynamical Casimir emission of pairs of Bogoliubov phonons when the atom-atom scattering length is modulated in time. Different regimes as a function of the temporal shape of the modulation are identified and a simple physical picture of the phenomenon is discussed. Analytical expressions for the density correlation function are provided for the most significant limiting cases. This theory is able to explain some unexpected features recently observed in numerical calculations of Hawking radiation from analog black holes