Development of an intelligent dynamic modelling system for the diagnosis of wastewater treatment processes

In the 21st Century, water is already a limited and valuable resource, in particular the limited availability of fresh water sources. The projected increase in global population from 6 billion people in 2010 to 9 billion in 2050 will only increase the need for additional water sources to be identified and used. This situation is common in many countries and is frequently exacerbated by drought conditions. Water management planning requires both the efficient use of water sources and, increasingly, the re-use of domestic and industrial wastewaters. A large body of published research spanning several decades is available, and this research study looks specifically at ways of improving the operation of wastewater treatment processes.Process fault diagnosis is a major challenge for the chemical and process industries, and is also important for wastewater treatment processes. Significant economic and environmental losses can be attributed to inappropriate Abnormal Event Management (AEM) in a chemical/processing operation, and this has been the focus of many researchers. Many researchers are now focusing on the application of several fault diagnosis techniques simultaneously in order to improve and overcome the limitations experienced by the individual techniques. This approach requires resolution of the conflicts ascribed to the individual methods, and incurs additional costs and resources when employing more than one technique. The research study presented in this thesis details a new method of using the available techniques. The proposal is to use different techniques in different roles within the diagnostic approach based upon their inherent individual strengths. The techniques that are excellent for the detection of a fault should be employed in the fault detection, and those best applied to diagnosis are used in the diagnosis section of a diagnostic system.Two different techniques are used here, namely a mathematical model and data mining are used for detection and diagnosis respectively. A mathematical model is used which is based upon the principal of analytical redundancy in order to establish the presence of a fault in a process (the fault detection), and data mining is used to produce production rules derived from the historical data for the diagnosis. A dataset from an industrial wastewater treatment facility is used in this study.A diagnostic algorithm has been developed that employs the techniques identified above. An application in Java was constructed which allows the algorithm to be applied, eventually producing an intelligent modelling agent. Thus the focus of this research work was to develop an intelligent dynamic modelling system (using components such as mathematical model, data mining, diagnostic algorithm, and the dataset) for simulation of, and diagnosis of faults in, a wastewater treatment process where different techniques will be assigned different roles in the diagnostic system.Results presented in Chapter 5 (section 5.5) show that the application of this combined technique yields better results for detection and diagnosis of faults in a process. Furthermore, the dynamic update of the set value for any process variable (presented in Chapter 5, section 5.2.1) makes possible the detection of any process disturbance for the algorithm, thereby mitigating the issue of false alarms. The successful embedding of both a detection and a diagnostic technique in a single algorithm is a key achievement of this work, thus reducing the time taken to detect and diagnose a fault. In addition, the implementation of the algorithm in the purposebuilt software platform proved its practical application and potential to be used in the chemical and processing industries

Expanding cellular coverage via cell-edge deployment in heterogeneous networks: spectral efficiency and backhaul power consumption perspectives

Heterogeneous small-cell networks (HetNets) are considered to be a standard part of future mobile networks where operator/consumer deployed small-cells, such as femtocells, relays, and distributed antennas (DAs), complement the existing macrocell infrastructure. This article proposes the need-oriented deployment of smallcells and device-to-device (D2D) communication around the edge of the macrocell such that the small-cell base stations (SBSs) and D2D communication serve the cell-edge mobile users, thereby expanding the network coverage and capacity. In this context, we present competitive network configurations, namely, femto-on-edge, DA-onedge, relay-on-edge, and D2D-communication on- edge, where femto base stations, DA elements, relay base stations, and D2D communication, respectively, are deployed around the edge of the macrocell. The proposed deployments ensure performance gains in the network in terms of spectral efficiency and power consumption by facilitating the cell-edge mobile users with small-cells and D2D communication. In order to calibrate the impact of power consumption on system performance and network topology, this article discusses the detailed breakdown of the end-to-end power consumption, which includes backhaul, access, and aggregation network power consumptions. Several comparative simulation results quantify the improvements in spectral efficiency and power consumption of the D2D-communication-onedge configuration to establish a greener network over the other competitive configurations

Extended Version of Human Development Index with Millennium Development Goals: A Case Study of Pakistan

The objective of the study is to extend the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -2015 and construct the new extended version of HDI, called Millennium Development Index (MDI), by considering a case study of Pakistan. The actual values of Pakistan’s data set is assessed by the progress towards MDGs and constructed the comprehensive index score, which is based upon 7 quantitative goals as assigned by the United Nations up to 2015. The MDI score for each goal is calculated as follows, i.e., Poverty index value is 0.128, educational index value is 0.421, empowerment index value is 0.458, life expectancy is 0.729, HIV/AIDS value is 0.10, maternal index value is 0.200, and clean water index value is 0.744. The stated index values indicate that Pakistan’s economy weakly perform in 5 out of 7 goals, where the index value is less than the 0.50 threshold, while in the case of life expectancy and clean water access, the index value is more than the threshold values and correspond that the economy is progressing efficiently in both of the dimension factors. The overall MDI value is 0.444, which is less than the threshold value as designated by the United Nation’s HDI and conclude that Pakistan’s economy was low progress to MDGs that need significant economic reforms to combat poverty, hunger, and other socio-economic and environmental factors for sustained growth. The calculated MDI score value is the first initiative to extend the HDI score values with MDGS, which should be consider for food-of-thoughts to the policy makers to rank the economies on the basis of MDI instead of existing HDI values.&nbsp

Technologies and solutions for location-based services in smart cities: past, present, and future

Location-based services (LBS) in smart cities have drastically altered the way cities operate, giving a new dimension to the life of citizens. LBS rely on location of a device, where proximity estimation remains at its core. The applications of LBS range from social networking and marketing to vehicle-toeverything communications. In many of these applications, there is an increasing need and trend to learn the physical distance between nearby devices. This paper elaborates upon the current needs of proximity estimation in LBS and compares them against the available Localization and Proximity (LP) finding technologies (LP technologies in short). These technologies are compared for their accuracies and performance based on various different parameters, including latency, energy consumption, security, complexity, and throughput. Hereafter, a classification of these technologies, based on various different smart city applications, is presented. Finally, we discuss some emerging LP technologies that enable proximity estimation in LBS and present some future research areas

Impact of Knowledge Management on Organizational Performance: A Case Study of Selected Universities in Southern Punjab-Pakistan

Knowledge management is an important issue in the business organization. The business firms which is able to manage knowledge will secure competitive advantage and sustainable growth. The objective of this research paper is analyze the impact of knowledge management on organizational performance with respect to selected Universities in Southern Punjab. For this purpose, two Public Universities: Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan and Islamia University of Bahawalpur were selected as a sample of the study. Four variables such as knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, knowledge application, and knowledge protection were taken as independent variables while firm performance was taken as dependent variable. Primary data was collected from 200 respondents that include selected Universities’ academic and non-academic staff. The response rate was about 90 and 71 percent among academic and non-academic staff respectively. Five estimation techniques such as Likert scale, Correlation technique, Score Card, Ration and Regression Analysis were used to draw the results. A comparison was also carried out to measure the performance of Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan and Islamia University of Bahawalpur. The results were robust and signification, showing close relationship between knowledge management and organizational performance. The comparative analysis shows that Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan has performed well in managing knowledge vis-à-vis Islamia University of Bahawalpur. The Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan is ahead of Islamia University Multan in terms of faculty, class performance, and research work and admission criteria. Though this study is specific to two big public Universities of Southern Punjab, yet its results can be generalized to other Universities of Pakistan as well as of the Universities in other countries. Keywords: Knowledge creation, knowledge management, knowledge protection, intellectual capital.

On the traffic offloading in Wi-Fi supported heterogeneous wireless networks

Heterogeneous small cell networks (HetSNet) comprise several low power, low cost (SBSa), (D2D) enabled links wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) access points (APs) to support the existing macrocell infrastructure, decrease over the air signaling and energy consumption, and increase network capacity, data rate and coverage. This paper presents an active user dependent path loss (PL) based traffic offloading (TO) strategy for HetSNets and a comparative study on two techniques to offload the traffic from macrocell to (SBSs) for indoor environments: PL and signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) based strategies. To quantify the improvements, the PL based strategy against the SIR based strategy is compared while considering various macrocell and (SBS) coverage areas and traffic–types. On the other hand, offloading in a dense urban setting may result in overcrowding the (SBSs). Therefore, hybrid traffic–type driven offloading technologies such as (WiFi) and (D2D) were proposed to en route the delay tolerant applications through (WiFi) (APs) and (D2D) links. It is necessary to illustrate the impact of daily user traffic profile, (SBSs) access schemes and traffic–type while deciding how much of the traffic should be offloaded to (SBSs). In this context, (AUPF) is introduced to account for the population of active small cells which depends on the variable traffic load due to the active users

Self-Esteem & Academic Performance among University Students

The current study was conducted to assess the self-esteem and academic performance among university students after arising of several behavioral and educational problems. A total number of 80 students, 40 male students and 40 female students were selected through purposive sampling from G.C University Faisalabad. The participants were administered Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and Academic Performance Rating Scale to measure their self-esteem and academic performance. The score of male and female students was compared. Pearson’s Product Moment and the t-test were used for statistical significance of data. It was found that there was a significant relationship (r=0.879, p<.01) between self-esteem and academic performance. Moreover a significant difference was found between male and female students on self-esteem and academic performance scores, which indicate that female students have high scores on academic performance as compared to male students and male students have high scores on self-esteem as compared to female students Key word:  Self-esteem, Academic Performance, Behavioral & Educational Problems.

Characterization of doxorubicin nanoparticles prepared by ionic gelation

Purpose: To prepare and characterise doxorubicin nanopatrticles and study their drug delivery in breast cancer.Methods: Doxorubicin nanoparticles were prepared by ionic gelation method using sodium alginate as polymer. The formulations were optimized by cross-linking CaCl2 with sodium alginate at different concentrations. Zeta sizer Nano ZS (UK) was used to determine the mean particle size distribution of the nanoparticle preparations. The shape and external morphologies of the nanoparticles were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Drug release was determined and kinetic release analysis was applied to determine the mechanism of drug release.Results: Entrapment efficiency and mean particle size values were correlated. Scanning electron micrographs showed that the nanoparticles were spherical with little irregularity but without cracks. Doxorubicin release from the sodium alginate nanoparticles followed Korsmeyer-Peppas model which suggest that drug release from the nanoparticles was by diffusion and dissociation from the natural polymer matrix.Conclusion: The doxorubicin-loaded nanoparticles showed concentration-dependent increases in entrapment efficiency. The nanoparticles displayed anticancer properties in breast cancer cell line, thus indicating its potential fo chemotherapeutic application.Keywords: Doxorubicin, Ionic gelation, Nanoparticles, Sodium alginate, Drug release mechanism, Anticance

A Marketplace for Efficient and Secure Caching for IoT Applications in 5G Networks

As the communication industry is progressing towards fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks, the traffic it carries is also shifting from high data rate traffic from cellular users to a mixture of high data rate and low data rate traffic from Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Moreover, the need to efficiently access Internet data is also increasing across 5G networks. Caching contents at the network edge is considered as a promising approach to reduce the delivery time. In this paper, we propose a marketplace for providing a number of caching options for a broad range of applications. In addition, we propose a security scheme to secure the caching contents with a simultaneous potential of reducing the duplicate contents from the caching server by dividing a file into smaller chunks. We model different caching scenarios in NS-3 and present the performance evaluation of our proposal in terms of latency and throughput gains for various chunk sizes