QLens: Visual analytics of multi-step problem-solving behaviors for improving question design

With the rapid development of online education in recent years, there has been an increasing number of learning platforms that provide students with multi-step questions to cultivate their problem-solving skills. To guarantee the high quality of such learning materials, question designers need to inspect how students' problem-solving processes unfold step by step to infer whether students' problem-solving logic matches their design intent. They also need to compare the behaviors of different groups (e.g., students from different grades) to distribute questions to students with the right level of knowledge. The availability of fine-grained interaction data, such as mouse movement trajectories from the online platforms, provides the opportunity to analyze problem-solving behaviors. However, it is still challenging to interpret, summarize, and compare the high dimensional problem-solving sequence data. In this paper, we present a visual analytics system, QLens, to help question designers inspect detailed problem-solving trajectories, compare different student groups, distill insights for design improvements. In particular, QLens models problem-solving behavior as a hybrid state transition graph and visualizes it through a novel glyph-embedded Sankey diagram, which reflects students' problem-solving logic, engagement, and encountered difficulties. We conduct three case studies and three expert interviews to demonstrate the usefulness of QLens on real-world datasets that consist of thousands of problem-solving traces

Influence of blend proportion on mechanical properties of banana/cotton blended knit fabric

41-47This study is aimed at analysing the effect of blend proportion on the mechanical properties of banana/cotton blended knit fabrics. The banana fibre is extracted and subjected to alkali treatment and silicon softening followed by blending with cotton fibres in different proportions to produce banana/cotton blended yarns. Single jersey weft knitted fabrics are produced using these banana/cotton blended yarns and the fabric properties are analysed and compared with 100% cotton knitted fabric. It is observed that the banana/cotton blended yarns show decreased strength with increase in banana fibre content. In the banana/cotton blended knit fabric, with the increase in banana fibre proportion, the abrasion resistance increases, bursting strength decreases and pilling decreases

Influence of blend proportion on mechanical properties of banana/cotton blended knit fabric

This study is aimed at analysing the effect of blend proportion on the mechanical properties of banana/cotton blended knit fabrics.  The banana fibre is extracted and subjected to alkali treatment and silicon softening followed by blending with cotton fibres in different proportions to produce banana/cotton blended yarns. Single jersey weft knitted fabrics are produced using these banana/cotton blended yarns and the fabric properties are analysed and compared with 100% cotton knitted fabric. It is observed that the banana/cotton blended yarns show decreased strength with increase in banana fibre content. In the banana/cotton blended knit fabric, with the increase in banana fibre proportion, the abrasion resistance increases, bursting strength decreases and pilling decreases.

A Comparative Study of Models for the Construction Duration Prediction in Highway Road Projects of India

Predicting the duration of construction projects with acceptable accuracy is a problem for contractors and researchers. Numerous researchers and tools are involved in sorting out this problem. The aim of the study is to predict the construction duration using four analytical tools as an approach. The success of construction projects in regard to time depends on various factors such as selection of contractors, consultants, cost of the projects, quality of the projects, the quantity of the projects, environmental factors, etc. Presently available commercial tools in the market are not designed as universally common and concerned. Every tool performs well in a particular situation. The prediction of India’s highway road projects duration is the biggest construction issue in the country due to various reasons. To overcome this problem, the methodology of the paper adopts various strategies to find suitable tools to predict the highway road projects’ duration, in which it classifies and analyzes the collected data. As a part of this work, the details of 363 government infrastructure projects (traditional procurement) were collected from 2000 to 2018. The present study also adopts various tools for duration prediction such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), smoothing techniques, time series analysis, and Bromilow’s time–cost (BTC) model. The results of the study recommend smoothing techniques with a constant value of 0.3, which gave the remarkable very small error of 1.2%, and its outcomes become even better when compared to other techniques

Production of sludge-incorporated paver blocks for efficient waste management

<p>Waste management plays a vital role in the reuse of industry wastes in to useful conversions. The treatment of effluents from the combined textile effluent treatment plant and hypo sludge from the paper industry results in sludge generation, which poses a huge challenge for its disposal. Therefore, an eco-friendly attempt is made to utilize them in the production of paver blocks. Paver blocks are construction units that have vast applications in street roads, walking paths, fuel stations, and so on. In this study, an innovative attempt has been made to manufacture paver blocks incorporating textile effluent treatment plant sludge and hypo sludge, to utilize them in suitable proportions. The effect of adding silica fume and polypropylene fibre in paver blocks has also been studied. Paver blocks containing sludge with different proportions were cast based on the recommendations in Indian Standards (IS) 15658, and the test results were compared with the nominal M20 grade and M30 grade paver blocks. The outcomes of the paver block combinations were studied and found to be an effective utilization of sludge with substantial cement replacement of up to 35%, resulting in effective waste management for specific industries.</p> <p><i>Implications</i>: Presently, paver blocks are construction units that have vast application in street roads and other constructions like walking paths, fuel stations, and so on. Also, paver blocks possess easy maintenance during breakages. Based on this application, an innovative attempt has been made to manufacture paver blocks incorporating textile effluent treatment plant sludge and hypo sludge to utilize them in suitable proportions.</p

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Not AvailableClimate change has become one of the most contentious as well as pressing issue of our times. Changes and variations in rainfall pattern and temperature have already begun to adversely affect capture and culture fish production. The impactful scientific literature produced on climate change in relation to fisheries was tracked for period since 1990 till 2018. The open source freeware Publish or Perish (PoP) desktop application was used to retrieve the scientific articles, which were then subjected to scientometric study. Several relevant word combinations of ‘climate change’, ‘fisheries’, ‘aquaculture’, ‘fish’, and ‘aquatic environment’ were used as search terms in PoP. After repeated screening, a total of 1,221 articles on climate change and fisheries were collated and then subjected to descriptive statistical analysis using MS-Excel and the data visualization software Power Bi. The results showed that output of scientific literature on ‘climate change and fisheries’ significantly increased after 2005. The five journals Journal of Coastal Research, Natural Hazards, Ocean and Coastal Management, Journal of Coastal Conservation and Sustainability Science were the top most preferred journals by authors for publishing ‘climate change in fisheries’ related studies. The 3 most impactful articles on ‘climate change in fisheries’ were authored by EH Allison, WWL Cheung and JM Roessig who were affiliated to institutions in USA and Canada. One third of the publications had single authors while 21% had two authors. In India, E. Vivekanandan (7; CMFRI), R.S. Mahendra (6; INCOIS) and A. S. Rajawat (SAC) are the ones with most publications. Climate science in India is still at nascent stage and increased funding and attention would be essential to evolve evidence based climate change adaptation strategiesNot Availabl

Mathematical modeling and prediction of the thrust force and torque in drilling of sisal/glass-vinyl ester hybrid composite using the RSM, MLPNN, RBFN and ENN methods

289-298Drilling a polymer composite material without defects is not an easy task; even so, these materials are largely used in aerospace and other industries, due to their excellent mechanical properties. Tool wear, delamination and fiber pull out are the major problems in drilling. Literature reveals that the thrust force (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">th) and torque (tq) have a significant effect on tool life and delamination. Therefore, to improve the performance of drilling, it is essential to study the thrust force and torque. This paper discusses the methodologies used in the prediction and evaluation of the thrust force and torque in the drilling of sisal and glass fiber reinforced vinyl ester resin hybrid composite materials. Experiments are conducted in the CNC machining center, and high speed steel (HSS) drill bits are used in the machining center for the drilling operations. Process parameters such as the drill diameter (d), spindle speed (s) and feed rate (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">f) are considered as the controlling factors for the study. The experimental data obtained are used for training and testing with RSM and ANN techniques such as MLPNN, RBFN and ENN. The predicted thrust force and torque, based on the MLPNN model, are found to be in very good agreement with the experimental values

Fisheries as ecosystem services: A case study of the Cauvery river basin, India

Habitat alterations and fragmentation caused by anthropogenic modifications of the riverine landscape have affected fish biodiversity by reducing the number of fish species. Fish are a major element of the aquatic environment, and they play an important role in maintaining ecosystem resilience. However, an incomplete understanding of links between river ecosystem functions and processes with fisheries is one of the major reasons for the alarming rate of decline of fish species. Recognizing the ecosystem services generated by fish populations is essential and is one step toward comprehensive, ecosystem-based management of riverine fisheries. Therefore, this paper is motivated by the need to explore the dimensions of fisheries as an ecosystem service. The data was collected from primary field observations and checklist-based key informant interviews at the seventeen fishing sites selected across an 800 km river stretch of the river. In addition, two focused group discussions with fishers at two sampling sites were held to provide first-hand knowledge of ecosystem services generated by fisheries. At first, the role of fisheries in generating ecosystem services for riverine ecosystem functioning and human demands is outlined using the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment approach. Then, the findings of a survey carried out from the headwaters to the delta of the Cauvery river are presented detailing the fisheries provisioning services, livelihoods, and other ecosystem services. The findings showed that the provisioning and cultural services are highly represented among the four categories of ecosystem services identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. However, in the literature reviewed, supporting, and regulating services are not well-represented. Based on these findings, the applicability of the ecosystem service concept can be elaborated to inform researchers and policymakers to enhance conservation efforts for fisheries.Water Resource

Effect of Nafion loading and the novel flow field designs on Innovative anode electrocatalyst for improved DMFCs performance

Efficiency of a Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) not just merely depends on the catalyst, but also on the flow channels, physical/electrochemical kinetics, Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) preparation and other operating parameters. This article is focused on the influence of novel flow field design and the effect of Nafion loading during MEA preparation on the performance of DMFC. A novel Pt/NiTiO3 was used as the anode electrocatalyst in the DMFC. The results show a 27.8% & 5.1% increment in cell performance due to changes in Nafion loading and flow field designs, respectively. A Nafion loading of 0.5 mg/cm2 and the sinuous flow field gave the highest performance. Thus, Pt-NiTiO3/C performed to be an encouraging anode catalyst with the new sinuous flow field