Response analysis of cracked structure subjected to transit mass – a parametric study

This work is focused on determining the response of a multi-cracked structure in the presence of different types of cracks vibrated due to a transit mass. The open transverse and inclined edge cracks of random crack depth are present at various locations of the cracked structure. The mass is moving on the beam at the different critical speeds of the structure. Runge-Kutta fourth order method is employed to evaluate the response of the structure numerically. The significance of different factors like the magnitude of the moving mass, moving speed, crack depth, crack inclination angle and their effects on the response of the deteriorated structure are investigated. Numerical analyses with numerous examples are carried out and validated the results with finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental investigations

Intelligent neuro-controller for navigation of mobile robot

This paper deals with the reactive control of an autonomous robot which move safely in a crowded real world unknown environment and to reach specified target by avoiding static as well as dynamic obstacle. The inputs to the proposed neurocontroller consist of left, right, and front obstacle distance to its locations and target angle between a robot and a specified target being acquired by an array of sensors. A four layer neural networks is used to design and develop the neurocontroller to solve the path and time optimization problem of mobile robots which deals the with cognitive tasks such as learning, adaptation, generalization and optimization. Back propagation method is used to trained the network. This paper analyzes the kinematical modeling of mobile robots as well as the design of control systems for the autonomous motion of the robot. The training of the nets and the control performances analysis have been done in a real experimental setup. The simulation results are compared with experimental results which are satisfactory and shows a very good agreement

Extraction of Scandium (III) from acidic solutions using organo-phosphoric acid reagents: A comparative study

Comparative and synergistic solvent extraction of Sc(III) using two phosphoric acidic reagents such as di-(2-ethyhexyl) phosphoric acid and 2,4,4,tri-methyl,pentyl-phosphinic acid was investigated. Slope analysis method suggests a cation exchange reaction of Sc(III) with both extractants at a molar ratio of extractant: Sc(III) = 2.5:1 at equilibrium pH< 1.5. The plot of log D vs. log [Extractant] yield the slope (n) value as low as 1.2-1.3 and as high as n=7 at low and high extrcatant concentration level, respectively. Extraction isotherm study predicted the need of 2 stages at A: O=1:4 and A: O=1:3 using 0.1 M D2EHPA and 0.1 M Cyanex 272, respectively. Stripping of Sc (III) was carried out at varied NaOH concentration to ascertain the optimum stripping condition for effective enrichment of metal. The predicted stripping condition (2)-stages with A: O=1:3 and 1:4 for D2EHPA and Cyanex 272, respectively) obtained from Mc-Cabe Thiele plot was further validated by 6-cycles CCS study. An actual leach solution of Mg-Sc alloy bearing 1.0 g/L of Sc (III), 2.5 g/L of Mg and 0.2 M HCl was subjected for selective separation of Sc at the optimum condition. The counter current simulation (CCS) study for both extraction and stripping of actual solution resulted quantitative separation of Sc with ∼12 fold enrichment. The organic phase before and after loading of Sc (III) along with the diluents was characterized by FTIR to ascertain the phase transportation of Sc (III)

A visual programming model to implement coarse-grained DSP applications on parallel and heterogeneous clusters

International audienceThe digital signal processing (DSP) applications are one of the biggest consumers of computing. They process a big data volume which is represented with a high accuracy. They use complex algorithms, and must satisfy a time constraints in most of cases. In the other hand, it's necessary today to use parallel and heterogeneous architectures in order to speedup the processing, where the best examples are the su-percomputers "Tianhe-2" and "Titan" from the top500 ranking. These architectures could contain several connected nodes, where each node includes a number of generalist processor (multi-core) and a number of accelerators (many-core) to finally allows several levels of parallelism. However, for DSP programmers, it's still complicated to exploit all these parallelism levels to reach good performance for their applications. They have to design their implementation to take advantage of all heteroge-neous computing units, taking into account the architecture specifici-ties of each of them: communication model, memory management, data management, jobs scheduling and synchronization . . . etc. In the present work, we characterize DSP applications, and based on their distinctive-ness, we propose a high level visual programming model and an execution model in order to drop down their implementations and in the same time make desirable performances

Integrated multisectoral strategy to improve girls' and women's nutrition before conception, during pregnancy and after birth in India (Swabhimaan): protocol for a prospective, non-randomised controlled evaluation

INTRODUCTION: Swabhimaan is a community-based programme to improve adolescent girls’ and women’s nutrition in the rural areas of three Indian states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha with high prevalence of undernutrition. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Swabhimaan has a nested prospective, non-randomised controlled evaluation. Since 2017, five intervention sites receive community-led interventions through national government’s livelihood mission supported women’s self-help group federations and five control sites will initiate these activities 36 months later, in 2020. Community-led activities aim to improve coverage of 18 interventions including adequacy of food consumed, prevention of micronutrient deficiencies, access to basic health services and special care of nutritionally ‘at risk’ girls and women, improving hygiene and access to water and sanitation services and access to family planning services. The evaluation includes baseline (2016–2017), midline (2018–2019) and endline (2020–2021) surveys covering 6638 adolescent girls, 2992 pregnant women and 8755 mothers of children under 2. The final impact analysis will be by intention to treat, comparing primary and secondary outcomes in five intervention areas and five control areas. The primary outcomes are: (1) a 15% reduction in the proportion of adolescent girls with a body mass index (BMI) <18.5 kg/m2; (2) a 15% reduction in the proportion of mothers of children under two with a BMI <18.5 kg/m2 and (3) and a 0.4 cm improvement in mean mid-upper arm circumference among pregnant women. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: All procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha and in compliance with guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki. Evidence will inform maternal and preconception nutrition policy at national and state level. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: 58261b2f46876 and CTRI/2016/11/007482; Pre-results

Human-Centered Design Components in Spiral Model to Improve Mobility of Older Adults

As humans grow older, their cognitive needs change more frequently due to distal and proximal life events. Designers and developers need to come up with better designs that integrate older users’ needs in a short period of time with more interaction with the users. Therefore, the positioning of human end users in the center of the design itself is not the key to the success of design artifacts while designing applications for older adults to use a smartphone as a promising tool for journey planner while using public transportation. This study analyzed the use of human-centered design (HCD) components, the spiral model, and the design for failure (DfF) approach to improve the interactions between older users and designers/developers in gathering usability needs in the concept stage and during the development of the app with short iterative cycles. To illustrate the importance of the applied approach, a case study with particular focus on older adults is presented.The results presented in this study are based on “Assistant” project funded by AAL JP, co-funded by the European Union. The authors would like to thank Dr. Stefan Carmien, my colleague in Assistant, for mentoring and for reading and making comments in the earlier versions of this chapter; participating research institutes; funding agencies; and companies from Finland, Spain, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom for their active support throughout the project