Lateral Capacity of Suction Caissons in Bilinear Soil System

Suction caisson anchors have been proven as efficient and cost-effective foundations for offshore wind turbines. These anchors are subjected to lateral loads which are typical of offshore environment. Many efforts have been made to determine the ultimate lateral capacity of the soil around caissons. Upper bound plastic limit analysis provides a useful framework to estimate the lateral capacity under undrained conditions. A three-dimensional collapse mechanism is assumed by defining four optimization parameters along the geometry of the failure, and ultimate capacity is determined by optimizing the parameters. This method is able to incorporate the soil complexities and has been successfully used in industry for years. But the drawback of the approach is that it requires a lot of computational effort due to the optimization parameters involved. A computationally more efficient method has been devised by reducing the optimization parameters from four to one. However, the expedient restricts the method to analysis of caissons in uniform or linearly varying undrained strengths. In reality, offshore soils are different from strength profile of uniform or linearly varying strength. This research is aimed to develop a methodology which could make the simplified method applicable for bilinear soil strength system. An equivalent strength profile is proposed which, in turn, is used in the simplified method for the estimation of ultimate capacity. The results are validated by the upper bound plastic limit analysis. In the end, series of parametric studies are performed to affirm the validation of the proposed methodology

Optimization of the overall success probability of the energy harvesting cognitive wireless sensor networks

Wireless energy harvesting can improve the performance of cognitive wireless sensor networks (WSNs). This paper considers radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting from transmissions in the primary spectrum for cognitive WSNs. The overall success probability of the energy harvesting cognitive WSN depends on the transmission success probability and energy success probability. Using the tools from stochastic geometry, we show that the overall success probability can be optimized with respect to: 1) transmit power of the sensors; 2) transmit power of the primary transmitters; and 3) spatial density of the primary transmitters. In this context, an optimization algorithm is proposed to maximize the overall success probability of the WSNs. Simulation results show that the overall success probability and the throughput of the WSN can be significantly improved by optimizing the aforementioned three parameters. As RF energy harvesting can also be performed indoors, hence, our solution can be directly applied to the cognitive WSNs that are installed in smart buildings

An evaluation of important criteria for measuring the facade condition of old shophouses in Malaysia

Preserving the facade of the old shop houses is important to reflect the image of an attractive townscape. Be-sides having a unique architectural motif, the facade of an old shop houses also has a high heritage value, particularly in terms of how it was built. Therefore, it is desirable to ensure the facade is always in good condition. However, it is difficult to determine the facade of the old shop houses that whether they are in good condition or not. This is because there are no specific criteria used to classify the condition of the facade. Therefore, this study aims to establish a system of criteria for which the facade of the old shop houses that can be assessed and classified in a comprehensive and sustainable. A total of 74 respondents from various professional fields including industry practitioners and academics have been involved in com-pleting the questionnaire. The results of this study will then be used as a basis for the establishment of the classification model for building facade of old shop houses in Malaysia

Development of Threshold Levels and a Climate-Sensitivity Model of the Hydrological Regime of the High-Altitude Catchment of the Western Himalayas, Pakistan

Water shortages in Pakistan are among the most severe in the world, and its water resources are decreasing significantly due to the prevailing hydro-meteorological conditions. We assessed variations in meteorological and hydrological variables using innovative trend analysis (ITA) and traditional trend analysis methods at a practical significance level, which is also of practical interest. We developed threshold levels of hydrological variables and developed a non-parametric climate-sensitivity model of the high-altitude catchment of the western Himalayas. The runoff of Zone I decreased, while the temperature increased and the precipitation increased significantly. In Zone II, the runoff and temperature increased but the precipitation decreased. A two-dimensional visualization of the Pardé coefficient showed extreme drought events, and indicated greater sensitivity of the hydrological regime to temperature than to precipitation. The threshold levels of runoff for Zones I and II were 320 and 363 mm using the Q80 fixed method, while the mean runoff amounts were estimated to be 79.95 and 55.61 mm, respectively. The transient threshold levels varied by month, and the duration of droughts in Zones I and II ranged from 26.39 to 78.98 days. The sensitivity of the hydrological regime was estimated based on a modified climate-elasticity model (εp = 0.11–0.23, εt = −0.04–2.39) for Zones I and II, respectively. These results highlight the sensitivity of the hydrological regime to temperature, which influences the melting process. However, it is important to establish thresholds for hydrological variables and understand the climate sensitivity of the hydrological regime of the entire basin, so that policy makers and water managers can make sustainable water-resource-management decisions for this region

DETERMINATION OF 10-GINGEROL IN INDIAN GINGER BY VALIDATED HPTLC METHOD OF SAMPLES COLLECTED ACROSS SUBCONTINENT OF INDIA

Objective: A simple, sensitive, precise, and accurate stability indicating HPTLC (high-performance thin-layer chromatography) method for analysis of 10-gingerol in ginger has been developed and validated as perICH guidelines.Methods: The separation was achieved on TLC (thin layer chromatography) aluminum plates pre-coated with silica gel 60F254 using n-hexane: ethyl acetate 55:45 (%, v/v) as a mobile phase. Densitometric analysis was performed at 569 nm.Results: This system was found to have a compact spot of 10-gingerol at RF value of 0.57±0.03. For the proposed procedure, linearity (r2 = 0.998±0.02), limit of detection (18ng/spot), limit of quantification (42 ng/spot), recovery (ranging from 98.35%–100.68%), were found to be satisfactory.Conclusion: Statistical analysis reveals that the content of 10-gingerol in different geographical region varied significantly. The highest and lowest concentration of 10-gingerol in ginger was found to be present in a sample of Patna, Lucknow and Surat respectively which inferred that the variety of ginger found in Patna, Lucknow are much superior to other regions of India

Deadly heat wave in Karachi, July 2015: Negligence or mismanagement?

[No abstract available

Emergence of Antimicrobial Resistance, Causes, Molecular Mechanisms, and Prevention Strategies: A Bovine Perspective

Emergence of the resistance in microbial population is a major threat to both animal and human health. In bovine, the development of microbial resistance is a persistent threat for health especially in the form of zoonotic pandemics due to viral and multidrug bacterial resistance. Mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance in microbes are of natural as well as acquired origin. There are half dozen molecular mechanisms identified that possibly cause the emergence and transfer of antimicrobial resistance within and between different bacterial genera. These mechanisms include degradation of the antibacterial drug by the bacterial enzymes, reduced permeability of the drug by bacteria, increased efflux of the drug, modification of drug target and use of alternative pathways by bacterial cells. Various assays viz. disk diffusion test and E-test, focusing on minimum inhibitory concentration of antimicrobials, have been employed to detect the antimicrobial resistance in microbes. The most important factor responsible for the development of multidrug resistance in bovine pathogenic microbes is irrational use of the antibiotics. Antibiotics are necessary evil, so judicious use of antibiotics, early detection of infections, vaccination, use of immune-modulators and medicinal plants or their derivatives are some of the strategies to reduce the possible emergence of antimicrobial resistance

Quantitative assessment of concept maps for conceptualizing domain ontologies: a case of Quran

The use of graphical knowledge representation formalisms with a representational vocabulary agreement of terms of conceptualization of the universe of discourse is a new high potential approach in the ontology engineering and knowledge management context. Initially, concept maps were used in the fields of education and learning. After that, it became popular in other areas due to its flexible and intuitive nature. It was also proven as a useful tool to improve communication in corporate environment. In the field of ontologies, concept maps were explored to be used to facilitate different aspects of ontology development. An essential reason behind this motivation is the structural resemblance of concept maps with the hierarchical structure of ontologies. This research aims to demonstrate quantitative evaluation of 4 different hypotheses related to the effectiveness of using concept maps for ontology conceptualization. The domain of Quran was selected for the purpose of this study and it was conducted in collaboration with the experts from the Centre of Quranic Research, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The results of the hypotheses demonstrated that concept mapping was easy to learn and implement for the majority of the participants. Most of them experienced improvement in domain knowledge regarding the vocabularies used to refer to the structure of organization of the Quran, namely Juz, Surah, Ayats, tafsir, Malay translation, English translation, and relationships among these entities. Therefore, concept maps instilled the element of learning through the conceptualization process and provided a platform for participants to resolve conflicting opinions and ambiguities of terms used immediately

Energy harvesting non-orthogonal multiple access system with multi-antenna relay and base station

In this paper, we consider downlink non-orthogonal multiple access cooperative communication system. The base station (BS) serves two types of users, which are named relay user (RU) and far user (FU). The BS and RU are equipped with multiple transmit antennas. The RU harvests energy from the BS transmissions to perform the relaying operation for the FU. We have considered 1) amplify-forward; 2) decode-forward; and 3) quantize-map-forward relaying protocols at the RU. As the BS and RU have multiple antennas, therefore we consider 1) beamforming and 2) random antenna selection strategies at the BS and RU. Closed form expressions for the outage probability are provided for the aforementioned relay protocols and antenna strategies. Further, we show that for certain data rate range of the relay and FU the quantize-map-forward relaying protocol can perform better than the other two relaying protocols

4-Hy­droxy-2-methyl-1,1-dioxo-2H-1λ6,2- benzothia­zine-3-carb­oxy­lic acid hemihydrate

In the title compound, C10H9NO5S·0.5H2O, two geometrically different organic mol­ecules are present. The benzene rings and the carboxyl­ate groups are oriented at dihedral angles of 13.44 (4) and 21.15 (18)°. In both mol­ecules, an intra­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond generates an S(6) ring. In the crystal, both moleucles form inversion dimers linked by pairs of O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds to generate R 2 2(8) loops. The dimers are consolidated into chains extending along [100] by bridging O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds from the water mol­ecule. A weak C—H⋯O hydrogen bond also occurs