Determination of Cleaning Frequency and Power Enhancement of Photovoltaic Panels Using Novel Cleaning Approach

Dust accumulation on the photovoltaic (PV) surface decreases the solar radiation penetration to the PV cells and eventually the power production from the PV system. In order to prevent the dust-based power losses, the PV systems are required to be cleaned frequently depending upon different geographical locations, PV integration schemes, and the scale of the PV power plant. In large-scale power plants, the PVs are periodically cleaned traditionally by water sprinkling that requires sophisticated equipment mobile equipment that at the best involves robotics and hence calls for substantial capital investment as well as water consumption. Since most of the largescale PV plants are located away from the urban centers, water transportation required for PV cleaning incurs tremendous overheads thus increasing the electricity production cost. The desert environment that houses utility-scale PV plants in UAE poses a three folds challenge to keep the plant cleaned namely 1. The increased dust accumulation on the PV surface due to sandstorms that requires more frequent cleaning. 2. The lack of water supply infrastructure in the non-populated spaces. 3. The water scarcity that eventually renders water being the most precious resource. The current project attempts to overcome the grave problem facing PV plant in the desert by proposing an onsite water production employing a PV customized atmospheric water generation (AWG) system. The research involved at first determining the optimal frequency of cleaning within the UAE indicating a minimum of 13 % power loss in UAE within non-sandstorm conditions. The radiation loss due to dust accumulation was calculated by a measured difference in the incident and transmitted radiation through a transparent glass surface. The radiation loss reached up to 27 % within three months during non-sandstorm winter clean sky conditions that represent yet the best-case scenario. The findings enabled designing the optimal capacity of the AWG system. At a second phase, the AWG designed incorporating diurnal dew point drop, adiabatic air expansion in porous media, radioactive cooling over a sky exposed surface, and Peltier cooling in sequential order to achieve an autonomous AWG system. The proposed AWG was constructed and tested with an average water production of 110 ml per night (2-3 hours) having average night-time humidity of 66 % with average electricity consumption of 1.17 kWh/day. The water produced over seven-night reached an average value of almost 1 liter that was sprinkled over the panel and wiped of that achieved completely cleaned PV surface

Named data networking for efficient IoT-based disaster management in a smart campus

Disasters are uncertain occasions that can impose a drastic impact on human life and building infrastructures. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a vital role in coping with such situations by enabling and integrating multiple technological resources to develop Disaster Management Systems (DMSs). In this context, a majority of the existing DMSs use networking architectures based upon the Internet Protocol (IP) focusing on location-dependent communications. However, IP-based communications face the limitations of inefficient bandwidth utilization, high processing, data security, and excessive memory intake. To address these issues, Named Data Networking (NDN) has emerged as a promising communication paradigm, which is based on the Information-Centric Networking (ICN) architecture. An NDN is among the self-organizing communication networks that reduces the complexity of networking systems in addition to provide content security. Given this, many NDN-based DMSs have been proposed. The problem with the existing NDN-based DMS is that they use a PULL-based mechanism that ultimately results in higher delay and more energy consumption. In order to cater for time-critical scenarios, emergence-driven network engineering communication and computation models are required. In this paper, a novel DMS is proposed, i.e., Named Data Networking Disaster Management (NDN-DM), where a producer forwards a fire alert message to neighbouring consumers. This makes the nodes converge according to the disaster situation in a more efficient and secure way. Furthermore, we consider a fire scenario in a university campus and mobile nodes in the campus collaborate with each other to manage the fire situation. The proposed framework has been mathematically modeled and formally proved using timed automata-based transition systems and a real-time model checker, respectively. Additionally, the evaluation of the proposed NDM-DM has been performed using NS2. The results prove that the proposed scheme has reduced the end-to-end delay up from 2% to 10% and minimized up to 20% energy consumption, as energy improved from 3% to 20% compared with a state-of-the-art NDN-based DMS

Inventory Management System for a General Items Warehouse of the Textile Industry

This research is based on Inventory Management System for a General Items Warehouse of the Textile Industry. The overall inventory is managed by applying classification tools such as ABC, FSN & HML that categorize inventory based on consumption value, issuance rate and unit price respectively. Also, it helps to appropriately position the items on the desired rack and position. The optimized layout is designed that reduces the retrieval time, uplift the storage capacity, and have cross aisles that reduce the retrieval time of any item from the warehouse. The system for proper traceability & tracking of the items is also studied that is based on the 1D Barcode. This whole study improves the overall operation of the Supply Chain

Competition Kinetics: An Experimental Approach

In this chapter, free radical kinetics with the help of competition kinetics and some experimental results calculated by competition kinetics to find out the rate constant of reactive species (●OH, eaq−, ●H) with target compound, which is used by radiation chemists is briefly discussed. The competition kinetics method is well validated by taking ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin and bezafibrate as example compounds. The bimolecular rate constants of hydroxyl radical, hydrate electron and hydrogen atom has been calculated for example solute species (ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin and bezafibrate)

Reduction in Packaging Wastes Through Identification of Lean Wastes to Deliver Efficient Waste Controlling Techniques for a Pharmaceutical Industry

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method of reducing material and time waste during packaging in the pharmaceutical industry. This is done by means of identifying the four major lean wastes i.e., motion, inadequate processing, waiting, and defects. These wastes are identified and reduced by means of using lean tools and proposing other cost-effective solutions that would increase process efficiency. Material waste is dealt with through selecting optimal requirements under the constraint limits of ergonomics, engineering, and machine space availability. Along with reduction in change over time, a strategy ensuring improvement in the primary packaging area was developed. The validity of this research has been brought about by means of a case study of a multinational pharmaceutical company. The proposed system proves to be highly beneficial in ensuring wastage and time reduction in changeovers. This strategy provides improved results without any new costs introduced and the production targets were met faster. There is also a special consideration given to the ergonomic aspect of the production processes

Does pin tract infection after external fixator limits its advantage as a cost-effective solution for open fractures in low-middle income countries, a prospective cohort study

OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of pin tract infection in external fixator tibia and its effects on the definite fracture fixation and bone healing. METHODS: The prospective study was conducted at Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, Pakistan, from August 2017 to July 2018, and comprised patients regardless of age and gender with open fracture tibia Gustillo-Anderson type II and type IIIA. Pin tract infection was assessed following the application of locally made external fixation of tibia open fractures. Follow-up was done fortnightly till soft tissue healing, removal of external fixator and definite fracture healing. Pin tract infection was classifiedand treated according to the Checketts-Otterburn classification system. SPSS 20 was used for data analysis. RESULTS: Of the 117 patients, 95(81%) were males and 22(19%) were females with an overall mean age of 24.7±9.35 years. Pin tract infection was documented in 28(23.9%) patients. Minor and major pin tract infections were reported in 27(96.4%) and 1(3.5%) patient respectively. Soft tissues healed in 27(96.4%) cases. CONCLUSION: External fixator for initial stabilisation of open tibial fractures in all patients is recommende

THE INFLUENCE OF SELF-EFFICACY, MOTIVATION, AND INDEPENDENCE ON STUDENTS’ ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS

Entrepreneurship education has been implemented in higher institutions in order to give exposure and develop students’ skills and interest in business. Although entrepreneurship course is taught in many universities, researchers are still arguing whether entrepreneurship education is related to the intention to start a business. This study investigated the impact of self-efficacy, independence, and motivation on entrepreneurial intentions among university students. A total of 496 questionnaires were completed by students of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) who attended Fundamental of Entrepreneurship and Innovation during the academic year 2017/2018 as their compulsory subject. Using PLS-SEM, a two-step approach was used to analyze the data. Self-efficacy, independence, and motivation were found to significantly influence the students’ intention to become entrepreneur, explaining 52% of the variance in intention to become entrepreneur. Additionally, the findings indicate that motivation is the key factor in the entrepreneurial intent of the students. These findings contribute to a better understanding of students’ intention to become an entrepreneur, which is a necessary step to increase more university students to become job creators rather than job seekers. Thus, higher education institutions should revise the curriculum and establish measures to incorporate these three factors for enhancing entrepreneurship education programs at the university.   Keywords: Entrepreneurial education, entrepreneurial intention, independence, motivation, self-efficacy   Cite as: Omar, N. A., Shah, N. U., Abu Hasan, N., & Ali, M. H. (2019). The influence of self-efficacy, motivation, and independence on students’ entrepreneurial intention. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 4(2), 1-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol4iss2pp1-2

Enhancing the teaching and learning process using video streaming servers and forecasting techniques

© 2019 by the authors. Higher educational institutes (HEI) are adopting ubiquitous and smart equipment such as mobile devices or digital gadgets to deliver educational content in a more effective manner than the traditional approaches. In present works, a lot of smart classroom approaches have been developed, however, the student learning experience is not yet fully explored. Moreover, module historical data over time is not considered which could provide insight into the possible outcomes in the future, leading new improvements and working as an early detection method for the future results within the module. This paper proposes a framework by taking into account module historical data in order to predict module performance, particularly the module result before the commencement of classes with the goal of improving module pass percentage. Furthermore, a video streaming server along with blended learning are sequentially integrated with the designed framework to ensure correctness of teaching and learning pedagogy. Simulation results demonstrate that by considering module historical data using time series forecasting helps in improving module performance in terms of module delivery and result outcome in terms of pass percentage. Furthermore, the proposed framework provides a mechanism for faculties to adjust their teaching style according to student performance level to minimize the student failure rate

Monolithic ontological methodology (MOM): An effective software project management approach

Due to rapid changes in software applications, especially incorporating the demands of self-regulating technologies becomes a major challenge in software projects. This research focuses on technological, managerial, and procedural challenges, which are believed to be the most significant factors contributing to projects failure. To address these issues, this study proposes Monolithic Ontological Methodology (MOM) which addresses the weakness in the existing benchmark methodologies including PRINCE2, Extreme Programming, and Scrum in terms of project management, quality control, and stakeholder involvement. The MOM consists of seven phases and each phase has the required number of iterations until it is approved by management. The updated information is recorded and shared with the respective teams. The standard documentation with control language is structured by descriptive logic (DL) that reduces ambiguity and technical debate. Furthermore, the illustration of the MOM includes figures, logical expressions, and descriptions. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was performed. The findings indicate the validity of MOM concerning considered performance metrics. Although the applicability of the proposed methodology involves relatively more documentation and formalities. The adaptive nature of MOM makes it suitable for the standard organization and brings sustainability to the organization by implementing distributed project management

Delay and energy based message delivery in delay tolerant networks

© 2019 IEEE. Routing in delay tolerant network (DTN) is one of the most challenging problems in addressing the application specific requirements. This paper presents a routing algorithm in DTN that achieves the delivery ratio within the given deadline requirements by evaluating the capability of a node to deliver a message to its destination on the basis of destination-dependent and destination-independent attributes of the encountered node. The protocol dynamically adjusts the number of message copies based on our previous works [13] and chooses the most suitable relay node by taking the delivery probability to the destination and the remaining energy level of nodes into account. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm achieves better performance compared to the counterpart and is adaptive to varying network conditions