Utilization and consumption pattern of water in urban areas: a study in Sambalpur city of Odisha

The study was designed to understand the proper utilization and consumption pattern of water in urban areas. In past few years, ground water level in India is going down. The population has been increased exponentially, leading to improper use of water. Unfortunately, with diminishing resources of water, the human behaviour towards water conservation is not changing. During present study efforts have been made to assess the different income group consumer’s behaviour with respect to the decreasing water supply. It has been observed that due to unawareness, people are using more water than it is needed. The finding shows that the higher income group people in urban area are using more water than lower income group people. The water totally depends on the size of the family. This needs to be addressed immediately by changing public perception towards water use through media and by organizing public awareness programs. It is hoped that the results of the study would benefit the urban development authorities in optimizing the existing water resources through proper distribution system viz-a-viz society

Effect of water dipping on separation techniques of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) arils

For easy separation of arils, pomegranate fruits were subjected to hot water dipping and normal water dipping treatments. Minimum time of separation as 4.10 min/kg of fruit was observed in case of hot water (80±2°C) dip for 2 min which was at par with hot water (80±2°C) dip for 1 min as 4.7 min/kg. All treatments saved time over the traditional method but only hot water dipping was significant without any significant adverse effect on aril quality in comparison with traditional method except anthocyanin and phenols. Anthocyanin content reduced and phenols content increased in comparison to traditional method

Constraining nuclear physics parameters with current and future COHERENT data

Motivated by the recent observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) at the COHERENT experiment, our goal is to explore its potential in probing important nuclear structure parameters. We show that the recent COHERENT data offers unique opportunities to investigate the neutron nuclear form factor. Our present calculations are based on the deformed Shell Model (DSM) method which leads to a better fit of the recent CE$\nu$NS data, as compared to known phenomenological form factors such as the Helm-type, symmetrized Fermi and Klein-Nystrand. The attainable sensitivities and the prospects of improvement during the next phase of the COHERENT experiment are also considered and analyzed in the framework of two upgrade scenarios.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables; v2: minor corrections, version to appear in PL

Nondestructive Evaluation of Wood Using Ultrasonic Dry-Coupled Transducers

The nondestructive evaluation of wood is of considerable importance in several structural applications such as wooden bridge decks, wooden structural components, and wooden railway ties. This problem has attracted the attention of several researchers [1–19]. The specific topics that are being considered include: detection of natural defects like bacterial growth, knots, and splits; grading of wood; estimation of strength and stiffness characteristics; assessment of the effect of chemical treatment on strength; and, in-situ evaluation of degradation in wooden structural components and railway ties. Ultrasonic techniques have achieved a reasonable amount of success in the estimation of structural properties and defects [11, 16, 18]. Detection of natural defects such as knots, splits and decays provides valuable information which can be used for the grading of wood. The wave velocity measurements can also be used for the determination of structural properties (e.g., modulus of elasticity) of wood leading to grading, and to monitor the in-situ degradation of wooden structural members exposed to loads and environmental conditions

Association rule mining based study for identification of clinical parameters akin to occurrence of brain tumor

Healthcare sector is generating a large amount of information corresponding to diagnosis, disease identification and treatment of an individual. Mining knowledge and providing scientific decision-making for the diagnosis & treatment of disease from the clinical dataset is therefore increasingly becoming necessary. Aim of this study was to assess the applicability of knowledge discovery in brain tumor data warehouse, applying data mining techniques for investigation of clinical parameters that can be associated with occurrence of brain tumor. In this study, a brain tumor warehouse was developed comprising of clinical data for 550 patients. Apriori association rule algorithm was applied to discover associative rules among the clinical parameters. The rules discovered in the study suggests - high values of Creatinine, Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN), SGOT & SGPT to be directly associated with tumor occurrence for patients in the primary stage with atleast 85% confidence and more than 50% support. A normalized regression model is proposed based on these parameters along with Haemoglobin content, Alkaline Phosphatase and Serum Bilirubin for prediction of occurrence of STATE (brain tumor) as 0 (absent) or 1 (present). The results indicate that the methodology followed will be of good value for the diagnostic procedure of brain tumor, especially when large data volumes are involved and screening based on discovered parameters would allow clinicians to detect tumors at an early stage of development

Parametric Study on Dynamic Response of Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Bridges

Because of high strength and stiffness to low self-weight ratio and ease of field installation, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials are gaining popularity as the materials of choice to replace deteriorated concrete bridge decks. FRP bridge deck systems with lower damping compared to conventional bridge decks can lead to higher amplitudes of vibration causing dynamically active bridge deck leading serviceability problems. The FRP bridge models with different bridge configurations and loading patterns were simulated using finite element method. The dynamic response results under varying FRP deck system parameters were discussed and compared with standard specifications of bridge deck designs under dynamic loads. In addition, the dynamic load allowance equation as a function of natural frequency, span length, and vehicle speed was proposed in this study. The proposed dynamic load allowance related to the first flexural frequency was presented herein. The upper and lower bounds’ limits were established to provide design guidance in selecting suitable dynamic load allowance for FRP bridge systems