Broiler Production in Punjab — An Economic Analysis

The cost and return analysis of different sizes of broiler farms in the Punjab state has been carried out based on the primary data collected from 140 broiler farmers for the period March 2008 to February 2009 in three districts, viz. Ludhiana, Hoshiarpur and Muktsar. The study has shown that the total fixed investments per bird have been highest on small farms, followed by medium and large farms. The total variable cost per bird has been reported highest on small farms, followed by medium and large farms. The total cost of meat production per bird has been found highest on small broiler farms, followed by medium and large farms. The net returns per bird over the variable costs have been recorded highest on large farms and economies of scale prevail on these farms. The meat-feed price ratio and benefit-cost ratio have been found to increase with increase in farm-size of broiler farms, which indicates better utilization of inputs on large farms. On the basis of net present value, benefit-cost ratio and internal rate of return, investment in broiler farming has been found profitable in all farm-sizes, it being most profitable on large farms, followed by medium and small farms. The small broiler farms have been observed highly sensitive to increase in costs and decrease in net returns. The study has observed that broiler farming is a profitable venture and has a bright future in the Punjab agriculture for improving economic status of the farming communityAgricultural and Food Policy,

Unusual Ground State Properties of the Kondo-Lattice Compound Yb2Ir3Ge5

We report sample preparation, structure, electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility and heat capacity studies of a new compound Yb$_2$Ir$_3$Ge$_5$. We find that this compound crystallizes in an orthorhombic structure with a space group PMMN unlike the compound Ce$_2$Ir$_3$Ge$_5$ which crystallizes in the tetragonal IBAM (U$_2$Co$_3$Si$_5$ type) structure. Our resistivity measurements indicate that the compound Yb$_2$Ir$_3$Ge$_5$ behaves like a typical Kondo lattice system with no ordering down to 0.4 K. However, a Curie-Weiss fit of the inverse magnetic susceptibility above 100 K gives an effective moment of only 3.66 $\mu$$_B$ which is considerably less than the theoretical value of 4.54 $\mu$$_B$ for magnetic Yb$^3+$ ions. The value of $\theta_{P}$ = -15.19 K is also considerably higher indicating the presence of strong hybridization. An upturn in the low temperature heat capacity gives an indication that the system may order magnetically just below the lowest temperature of our heat capacity measurements (0.4 K). The structure contains two sites for Yb ions and the present investigation suggests that Yb may be trivalent in one site while it may be significantly lower (close to divalent) in the other.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. submitted to Phys. Rev.

Occurrence of elevated nitrate in groundwaters of Krishna delta, India

Nitrate concentrations were measured in the groundwater samples of Krishna delta, India. The results indicate a large variation of nitrate from 10 - 135 mg/l. In 79 groundwater samples, about 39% shows high nitrate contents (>50 mg/l), which is more than the permissible limits in drinking water. In north Krishna delta 49% and in south Krishna delta 26% water samples were found to exceed the permissible limits. This study indicates that groundwater of north Krishna delta is more polluted than south. Nitrate pollution level is found more in dug wells compared to hand pumps/bore wells. In this region 49% dug wells and 31% hand pumps have exceeded the desirable limits. The possible sources for the high nitrate level in groundwater were identified as excessive utilization of nitrogenous fertilizers for agricultural purposes.Key words: Nitrate pollution, groundwater, Krishna delta, India

BUS ACCIDENTS PREVENTION WITH AN INTEGRATED STEERING SYSTEM

This paper is focused on improving the drivability of busses for preventing accidents. Bus accidents are not as frequent as car accidents but each bus accidents puts at least forty human lives in risk which is equivalent to eight saloon cars with the maximum allowable passengers. While there are many parts of the busses which can be looked into for improving the safety this paper is focusing on the steering systems. Nowadays, many automobile manufacturers have integrated safety systems into the steering systems for saloon cars and the results shown are positive. They are proven to be effective as the manufacturers have successfully commercialised their technologies. Similarly, a framework will be developed to implement steering system integrated with safety systems for busses. The suggested framework will be focused on overcoming a specific emergency scenario which bus drivers will encounter most commonly

Integrated Steering System Design for Bus Driver Drowsy Behavior Change

The paper presents an integrated steering system design for bus drivers’ drowsy driving behaviour change. Busses involved in accidents due to drowsy driving is increasing nowadays and those accidents involved a lot of people due to the number of passengers it carries. In order to decrease the rate of accidents for bus driver due to drowsy driving, an integrated steering system that can change their driving behaviour is developed. The developed integrated steering system is then being validated through surveys conducted on drivers with valid driving licence. The survey results have shown that the integrated steering system is a feasible system to the drivers

Up-Scaling and Optimisation of Fire Fighting Ground Vehicle Track System

Current UTeM’s fire fighting machine is developed to operate indoor only. It is not efficient when it is operating on rocky surfaces (outdoor) as it faces the problem of shock and vibration reduction. The track system of the machine cannot move smoothly because the rollers are fixed to the chassis. This paper describes the method of up-scaling and optimising the track system for the current fire fighting machine. The new track system concept is firstly developed by using Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software. Subsequently a prototype is built to validate the functionality of the new track system which is more efficient in absorbing the vibration and shock. Analysis and optimisation of the prototype is performed using CAD method with the CATIA V5 R16 software

Fabrication and Study of Mechanical Properties of Bamboo Fibre Reinforced Bio-Composites

In the present work experimental investigation has been carried out to study the effect of bamboo fibres at different weight percentages (20, 30 and 40) to modify epoxy resin. Tests are conducted on 100 kN servo-hydraulic universal testing machine under displacement mode of control, digital Rockwell hardness testing machine and impact testing machine. Modifying epoxy resin through bamboo fibres and improve mechanical properties is main focus of this study. Bamboo fibres at different wt% (20, 30 and 40) are filled in epoxy resin and the effects of mixing bamboo fibres on mechanical and physical properties are studied. On the basis of mechanical testing results it is found that 30 wt% of bamboo fibre mixed epoxy is giving optimum mechanical properties. The addition of bamboo fibres has improved tensile, flexural and impact properties of epoxy resin and increased water absorption of the material.  On the basis of overall study the epoxy modified with 30% of bamboo fibre is found to be better than other combinations. Keywords: Bamboo fiber, MMC, CMC, PMC, BFGC, SIPN BJRP, BFR

CuisineNet: Food Attributes Classification using Multi-scale Convolution Network

Diversity of food and its attributes represents the culinary habits of peoples from different countries. Thus, this paper addresses the problem of identifying food culture of people around the world and its flavor by classifying two main food attributes, cuisine and flavor. A deep learning model based on multi-scale convotuional networks is proposed for extracting more accurate features from input images. The aggregation of multi-scale convolution layers with different kernel size is also used for weighting the features results from different scales. In addition, a joint loss function based on Negative Log Likelihood (NLL) is used to fit the model probability to multi labeled classes for multi-modal classification task. Furthermore, this work provides a new dataset for food attributes, so-called Yummly48K, extracted from the popular food website, Yummly. Our model is assessed on the constructed Yummly48K dataset. The experimental results show that our proposed method yields 65% and 62% average F1 score on validation and test set which outperforming the state-of-the-art models.Comment: 8 pages, Submitted in CCIA 201