6,794 research outputs found
Exponential approximations in optimal design
One-point and two-point exponential functions have been developed and proved to be very effective approximations of structural response. The exponential has been compared to the linear, reciprocal and quadratic fit methods. Four test problems in structural analysis have been selected. The use of such approximations is attractive in structural optimization to reduce the numbers of exact analyses which involve computationally expensive finite element analysis
Chromium uptake by Fenugreek
Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum- graecum) is both herb (leaves) and a spice (seed) belonging to the family Fabaceae. Fenugreek leaves and seeds are used in the cuisine of India. Fenugreek also has medicinal value. Fenugreek seeds are known to reduce serum glucose and improve glucose tolerance and hence are prescribed to diabetic patients. In the recent past supplemental Chromium is being prescribed to diabetic patients to activate (increased- insulin binding, insulin receptor number, insulin receptor phosphorylation) insulin. Plants can uptake substantial quantities of toxic metals from contaminated soils if these soils are well ameliorated. 

It is then probable that the medicinal efficacy of Fenugreek in the case of diabetes could be enhanced if it takes up chromium from the soil. Preliminary studies are being conducted to note the chromium uptake by Fenugreek from soils which are applied with potassium dichromate
Studies on the Accumulation of Chromium in Fenugreek
Studying Cr uptake by Fenugreek, we note that the maximum concentration of Cr takes place in the shells of the pods followed by leaves, stems and seeds in that order. Interestingly, applied higher doses of Cr does not increase accumulation of Cr in the stems, rather Cr content in the stems levels off. However, the maximum dispersal/distribution of Cr taken up is in the leaves
Simultaneous estimation of super-resolved scene and depth map from low resolution defocused observations
This paper presents a novel technique to simultaneously estimate the depth map and the focused image of a scene, both at a super-resolution, from its defocused observations. Super-resolution refers to the generation of high spatial resolution images from a sequence of low resolution images. Hitherto, the super-resolution technique has been restricted mostly to the intensity domain. In this paper, we extend the scope of super-resolution imaging to acquire depth estimates at high spatial resolution simultaneously. Given a sequence of low resolution, blurred, and noisy observations of a static scene, the problem is to generate a dense depth map at a resolution higher than one that can be generated from the observations as well as to estimate the true high resolution focused image. Both the depth and the image are modeled as separate Markov random fields (MRF) and a maximum a posteriori estimation method is used to recover the high resolution fields. Since there is no relative motion between the scene and the camera, as is the case with most of the super-resolution and structure recovery techniques, we do away with the correspondence problem
The financial crisis in the Gulf and its impact on South Asian migrant workers
The financial crisis originated in the United States of America and
impacted the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC hereafter) countries after
a time lag. The falling oil prices, contracting trade and declining private
investment flows have adversely affected the GDP growth of the Gulf
countries, which in turn affected the flow of migrant labour to and from
them and remittances from them. In this context this study seeks to:
Assess the impact of the recession on key industries in the GCC
economies;
Assess the repatriation of expatriate labourers;
Assess the flow of emigrant labourers and fall in remittances;
Assess the impact of loss of employment on the emigrant
households’ in the country of origin; and
Identify the measures undertaken by various stakeholders to
mitigate the adverse effects.
The study takes a two pronged approach to the subject. The
impact of the global crisis on the GCC economies is first analyzed in
terms of the sectors of the economy affected, the changes in GDP growth
and employment of expatriate labourers. A Survey of migrants in the
destination countries was carried out to assess the loss of employment
and earnings and their coping strategies. It was followed by surveys of
emigrants and return migrants in the countries of origin in South Asia.
Study teams visited the six GCC countries and Malaysia to interview
labourers as well as employers in various sectors.
The global crisis has affected the GCC economies through falling
oil prices, depressed property and equity prices, low investor confidence
and reversal of capital flows. The GDP growth in GCC economies spawns
large population growth, especially large influx of migrant labourers
from South Asia. So a recession is expected to affect the flow of migrants
and remittances. The rising oil prices since 2002 brought about large scale FDI
flow into the GCC economies, rising investment rates and higher GDP
growth rates by boosting the investment in telecom, banking, power
and real estate. Private investment flow played an important role in the
emergence of West Asia as the world’s largest market in project finance
surpassing Western Europe and North America. The rapid growth of the
GCC economies in the 2000s initiated increasing concentration of
employment in manufacturing, construction and trade, and so attracted
a large influx of expatriate unskilled and semi skilled labourers. One
estimate put the composition of Indian expatriates in UAE as 50 per cent
unskilled workers, 25 per cent semi-skilled and 25 per cent skilled
professionals. The large influx of unskilled and semi-skilled workers
led to higher rent inflation on top of unprecedented food inflation,
attributed to global rise in food prices in the late 2000s. Over a quarter
of the population in the GCC countries was spending above 20 per cent
of their disposable income on food then. In response, the governments
raised the wages of the public sector employees. This might have
protected them, but vast segments of workers in manufacturing,
construction and trade suffered real income losses.
The precipitous fall of oil prices and the large losses suffered by
the Sovereign Wealth Funds of the GCC countries had dried up the FDI
inflow and credit flow into the Gulf; much worse, the banking sector
also was facing a severe crisis with few international banks willing to
lend to projects in GCC Countries. The world export demand was not
expected to pick up immediately; and trade discriminatory measures
were increasing as protectionism was spreading globally in the face of
crisis. Added to the adverse economic environment were the not too
transparent bank dealings in the Gulf, poor contract enforcement and
discriminatory property ownership regimes. The silver lining was the
quick rebound of oil prices - current prices surpassed the January 2008
levels- and the improvement in the ‘doing business environment’ in the
Gulf countries. The construction boom in the GCC countries had come to a halt
with 20 to 30 per cent cancellations, the bulk of which was in Dubai and
trade volumes had declined. The phenomenal growth in employment
of the past five or six years had come to a halt and about 40 per cent of
the workers had been affected. Expatriate workers did not leave in large
numbers, but salary cuts were widespread; stoppage of increments,
benefits and perks was also reported.
As regards the impact of the crisis on the South Asian migrant
workers, the databases were poor and the numbers were hard to come by.
The numbers mentioned by Indian ministers ranged between 50,000
and 500,000. An estimate of return migrants to Kerala arrived at by the
Centre for Development Studies, based on a revisit of the emigrants and
return emigrants of their 2008 Kerala Migration Survey, was around
61,000 for Kerala. Applying the methodology of the Kerala Resurvey
to South Asia as a whole, the return emigrants from the Gulf were
estimated to be 264,000. These estimates were far lower than the official
predictions because migrants somehow struggled to stay back and earn
to repay the debt incurred to pay for the cost of migration. Hence, the
migrants’ loss of current employment did not lead to an immediate
return as they would be hunting for various alternatives in which social
support networks also played a part. Thus, the number of migrants
returning would be lower than those losing jobs, the difference implying
that they were in search of employment in the destination countries.
The numbers of migrants from Kerala who lost jobs but continued to
stay in Gulf were estimated to be 39,000 and those who returned at
61,000; and for South Asia, the corresponding numbers were 170,000
and 264,000 respectively.
Despite the crisis and job loss, the demand for expatriate workers
continued in the Gulf as was evident from the outflows of migrant workers
from South Asia. Except for a 35 per cent fall in numbers from India, the
flows in 2009 were comparable to those in 2008. But the direction of flow had changed; UAE was attracting less number of labourers whereas
hardly any change was observed for Saudi Arabia.
Migrant workers sent home remittances which boosted the
economy. India being one of the world’s top remittance recipients at
49 billion) in 2008, the policy makers were
worried that remittance flows might decline due to the crisis. But
estimates showed that remittances had, in fact, increased by 3 to 25
percent in 2009 in the South Asian countries. Micro level data on
remittances from households with an emigrant currently in Gulf confirm
the macro findings: about 94 percent of the households reported
receiving regular remittances and about 30 percent receiving gifts during
the crisis period. No change had been observed in the use of remittances
by those households in 2008-09 compared to normal times. But the
survey showed that 13 per cent of the emigrants reported loss of job.
Nearly half of them had found another job, and a quarter were staying
illegally in the Gulf. The work conditions had also changed due to the
crisis: 25 per cent of the emigrants reported redundancies, 16 per cent
reported postponement of contracts, 20 per cent reduction of wages, 17
per cent heavier workloads and 8 per cent were forced to take annual
leave and proceed home.
The survey among return emigrants in South Asia who had lost
their jobs showed that 73 per cent of them remained unemployed one
month after return; but their proportion had declined to 42 per cent at
the time of survey. Among the employed, 37 per cent had managed to
find regular employment, 40 per cent casual employment and 8 per
cent, contract work. The unemployed return emigrants survived on
past savings, borrowing, and support from family members. And a few
had sold assets to meet expenses.
The governments of the countries of origin and destination have
taken a few steps to mitigate the hardships faced by the workers losing
jobs. The Government of Nepal has announced a plan to meet the cost of migration of those who returned after losing jobs. The Government of
Kerala state has announced a rehabilitation package for the Gulf
returnees. Some GCC countries have relaxed slightly the visa conditions,
allowing those who were thrown out of jobs to stay for longer periods in
their country making it possible for them to search for alternative
employment. The sponsorship condition has also been relaxed in some
cases. Some of these reforms in the GCC countries might not be directly
related to the crisis, because they were in the making for some time now
in the face of severe criticisms of the work and life conditions of the
expatriate workers in those countries even before the crisis struck them
Automated Design of Steel Trusses
Designing an automated procedure for the optimal design of any structural system poses special challenges. Converting this methodology into a practical tool is even more challenging. In this research, a point-and-click software system is developed for the optimal design of roof truss systems. The starting point is a roof template containing minimal user input - outline of the truss, truss spacing, load information, and cost figures. A ground structure is constructed as the starting point of the design iterations. The Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used as the optimization tool to drive the design changes. Using the database of available sections, the member cross-sections are selected for the top and bottom chords, and the webs. In addition, the number and layout of the web members is also determined. The final design is obtained so that the truss has the lowest cost and also satisfies AISI-LRFD design specifications. Numerical experience using the developed methodology and the software system on an Intel-based PC running Microsoft Windows OS shows that optimal designs can be obtained in a few minutes
Lunar sample analysis
Results are presented from an extensive series of new high resolution scanning electron microscope studies of the very primative group of meteorites known as unequilibrated chondrites. These include quantitative analyses of micrometer sized phases and interpretation in terms of relevant phase equilibria. Several new meteorite minerals including high chromium metal, have been discovered
Near room-temperature colossal magnetodielectricity and multiglass properties in partially-disordered La2NiMnO6
We report magnetic, dielectric and magnetodielectric responses of pure
monoclinic bulk phase of partially-disordered La2NiMnO6, exhibiting a spectrum
of unusual properties and establish that this system intrinsically is a true
multiglass with a large magnetodielectric coupling (8-20%) over a wide range of
temperatures (150 - 300 K). Specifically, our results establish a unique way to
obtain colossal magnetodielectricity, independent of any striction effects, by
engineering the asymmetric hopping contribution to the dielectric constant via
the tuning of the relative spin orientations between neighboring magnetic ions
in a transition metal oxide system. We discuss the role of anti-site (Ni-Mn)
disorder in emergence of these unusual properties.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Slightly revised version of previous article in
condmat: arXiv:1202.4319v
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