Distance and Similarity Measures for Soft Sets

In [P. Majumdar, S. K. Samanta, Similarity measure of soft sets, New Mathematics and Natural Computation 4(1)(2008) 1-12], the authors use matrix representation based distances of soft sets to introduce matching function and distance based similarity measures. We first give counterexamples to show that their Definition 2.7 and Lemma 3.5(3) contain errors, then improve their Lemma 4.4 making it a corllary of our result. The fundamental assumption of Majumdar et al has been shown to be flawed. This motivates us to introduce set operations based measures. We present a case (Example 28) where Majumdar-Samanta similarity measure produces an erroneous result but the measure proposed herein decides correctly. Several properties of the new measures have been presented and finally the new similarity measures have been applied to the problem of financial diagnosis of firms.Comment: 14 pages, accepted manuscript, to appear in New Mathematics and Natural Computatio

Centrifugal assembly of bijel ropes via helical microfluidics

Bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels (bijels) are soft materials that retain a liquid bicontinuous network stabilized by an interfacially jammed layer of nanoparticles. In this thesis, we investigated a microfluidic twisting method to fabricate micro-ropes of nano-structured bijel fibers. This method shows how weak microfibers with tensile strengths of a few kPa can be reinforced by 4 orders of magnitude by means of microfluidic twisting. Microfluidic twisting allows to produce continuous bijel fiber ropes of controllable architecture. Modelling the fluid flow field reveals the rope geometry dependence on a subtle force balance composed of rotational and translational shear stresses. However, the direction of the centrifugal force determines whether microropes undergo undulation during microfluidic twisting. The undulation of ropes can be avoided by decreasing the density of the fiber casting mixture, or upon increasing the density of the co-flowing liquid, enabling a controlled and continuous collection of uniform microropes. We envision microfluidic twisting to enable the fabrication of new composite materials with applications in flexible electronics, micro robotics, actuators, and tissue engineering. Furthermore, the knowledge gained from this thesis will facilitate future studies of microfiber twisting, as well as the assembly of particles, emulsion droplets or biological cells via microfluidic twisting

Artificial recharge of groundwater by injection well

Artificial recharge of groundwater by injection wel

Mainstreaming social marketing in the WASH interventions of Terre des homes in South Asia

The quest of Terre des hommes’ (Tdh), South Asia WASH team for a structured systematic process in hygiene interventions seems appropriate through inclusion of Social Marketing (SM) approach. Social Marketing that is also used for influencing behaviour for social gain (in contrast to the corporate financial gain in case of commercial marketing), is also found to be applicable in community mobilization for water sanitation infrastructure sustainability and in the development of appropriate WASH infrastructure features. Further, Social Marketing is also found to be compatible with the logical framework approach of project cycle management. This paper briefs these aspects of Social Marketing along with its major features that are found to be relevant in the plan of Tdh in its application to address the issue of hand washing with soap

Performance Anomalies in Concurrent Data Structure Microbenchmarks

Recent decades have witnessed a surge in the development of concurrent data structures with an increasing interest in data structures implementing concurrent sets (CSets). Microbenchmarking tools are frequently utilized to evaluate and compare the performance differences across concurrent data structures. The underlying structure and design of the microbenchmarks themselves can play a hidden but influential role in performance results. However, the impact of microbenchmark design has not been well investigated. In this work, we illustrate instances where concurrent data structure performance results reported by a microbenchmark can vary 10-100x depending on the microbenchmark implementation details. We investigate factors leading to performance variance across three popular microbenchmarks and outline cases in which flawed microbenchmark design can lead to an inversion of performance results between two concurrent data structure implementations. We further derive a prescriptive approach for best practices in the design and utilization of concurrent data structure microbenchmarks

NDM-562: BEHAVIOUR OF CONCRETE COLUMNS WITH GFRP CIRCULAR AND RECTILINEAR CONFINING REINFORCEMENT

Glass Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bars are becoming a feasible alternative to steel bars to produce corrosion- free reinforced concrete structures. In an effort to assess the effectiveness GFRP spirals and GFRP rectilinear ties as internal reinforcement in columns, an extensive research program is underway at the University of Toronto. Fifteen 356 mm diameter full-scale circular columns and sixteen 305 mm x 305 mm cross-section square columns were constructed and tested under simulated earthquake loading. This extended abstract presents an example comparison of the experimental behaviour of circular and square concrete columns with internal reinforcement comprising of steel longitudinal bars and GFRP lateral spirals or ties. Results are presented in the form of moment vs. curvature response and shear vs. lateral deflection behaviour

Performance Anomalies in Concurrent Data Structure Microbenchmarks

Recent decades have witnessed a surge in the development of concurrent data structures with an increasing interest in data structures implementing concurrent sets (CSets). Microbenchmarking tools are frequently utilized to evaluate and compare the performance differences across concurrent data structures. The underlying structure and design of the microbenchmarks themselves can play a hidden but influential role in performance results. However, the impact of microbenchmark design has not been well investigated. In this work, we illustrate instances where concurrent data structure performance results reported by a microbenchmark can vary 10-100x depending on the microbenchmark implementation details. We investigate factors leading to performance variance across three popular microbenchmarks and outline cases in which flawed microbenchmark design can lead to an inversion of performance results between two concurrent data structure implementations. We further derive a set of recommendations for best practices in the design and usage of concurrent data structure microbenchmarks and explore advanced features in the Setbench microbenchmark