Effectiveness of glass as a substitute for cement and fine aggregate in concrete mix

Construction field is a field that is wider than the other fields. The construction is becoming increasingly rapidly to meet the growing population. In the field of construction, concrete is an essential element to construct a building. Production of concrete leads to a reduction in natural resources as materials used in producing a concrete. For example of fine aggregate and cement. Furthermore, this problem gets attention from some parties in finding an alternative to reduce waste and maintained the natural resources to produce concrete using waste materials. Therefore, waste materials will be used in the concrete mix to reduce landfill and can reduce residual waste. Glass has high potential to be replaced as a cement-pozzolan [1]. Glass can be used in concrete as three kinds of elements include coarse aggregate, fine aggregate, and powder. Thus, the aim of this project is to replace glass as the replacement of cement and fine aggregate in concrete. In significant of this study, the issues regarding environmental can be reduced. Moreover, recycling waste will help to conserve the earth's natural resources, reduce landfill space and save energy and money [2]. Thus, this study will give an advantage to the various parties, particularly in the field of construction

Control logic distribution trade-offs in software-defined wireless networks

The SDN (Software-Defined Networks) architecture separates the data and the control planes of the networks. It logically centralizes the control of a network in a central point that is an SDN controller, which acts as a brain of the network and is in charge of telling each network node how to forward incoming packets by installing the appropriate forwarding rules. One of the main advantages it brings is programmability through this single entity (the logical controller) with which network management applications must interact to apply their policies. Through agreed-upon APIs, the network managers can exploit the full potential of SDN. SDN generally assumes ideal control channels between the SDN controller and the network nodes, which may not be the case in challenging environments that are becoming more common due to dense deployment of small cells (SCs) with reduced coverage in 5G and beyond 5G deployments. In 5G and beyond 5G use cases, cost-effective wireless transport networks are required to connect the SCs. In this context, mmWave technology is a good player to connect the SCs as mmWave provides larger radio spectrum chunks that in turn provide larger bandwidth and higher data rate. To manage the dense deployment of SCs in the mobile networks, on the network management/control front, network programmability and virtualization are also an integral part of 5G and beyond 5G networks. In this regard, to provide end-to-end connectivity, management and orchestration of all the segments of the networks ranging from RAN (Radio Access Network), transport network to the core is vital. On the transport networks side (the main focus of the dissertation), SDN plays an important role as SDN enables programmability and virtualization in the network. Though SDN Provides huge flexibility in network management by splitting the control plane from the data plane, it has some limitations in wireless networks context as separation of the control plane from the data plane introduce the extra points of failure in the SDN paradigm (e.g., control communication channel failure, SDN controller failure). In the wide-area networks (WAN) scenarios where in-band channels (e.g., microwave or mmWave links) are responsible to carry control traffic between the forwarding nodes and the SDN controller, the assumption of the availability of a reliable network may not be possible as the performance of the wireless link changes with the environmental conditions, which leads to a high risk of experiencing channel impairments, which might cause centralized SDN operation failure by affecting communication between the transport component of SCs and the SDN controller. To overcome SDN from failure, the dissertation presents a hybrid SDN scheme that explores the benefits of centralized and distributed operations depending on control communication channel conditions. Our hybrid SDN approach combines both centralized and distributed modes in the same node to form a hybrid control plane architecture. We introduce a local agent in the node that is composed of a monitoring framework to detect reliability of the control communication channel and a decision module that conceive a novel control logic switching algorithm to make a decision whether to operate in a centralized or distributed mode. We evaluate the proposed solution under a variety of unreliable network conditions (e.g., link impairments, control packet loss) to investigate the operational performance of the hybrid SDN during high loss conditions. The experimental results show that the proposed hybrid SDN solution substantially improves the aggregated throughput, particularly when control channel packet loss ratios increase, which in turn keeps the network operational in hard conditions where the centralized SDN would result in a non-operational network.La arquitectura SDN (Software-Defined Networks) separa los planos de datos y control de las redes. Centraliza lógicamente el control de una red en un controlador SDN. Una de las principales ventajas que aporta es la programabilidad a través de esta única entidad (el controlador lógico) con la que las aplicaciones de gestión de red deben interactuar para aplicar sus políticas. SDN generalmente asume canales de control ideales entre el controlador SDN y los nodos de la red, lo que puede no ser el caso en entornos inalámbricos (o menos estables) que se están volviendo más comunes debido al despliegue denso de celdas pequeñas (SC) con cobertura reducida en 5G (y más allá). En los casos de uso de futuras redes, se requieren redes de transporte inalámbricas rentables para conectar los SC. En este contexto, la tecnología mmWave es apropiada para conectar las SC, ya que mmWave proporciona fragmentos de espectro más grandes que, a su vez, proporcionan un mayor ancho de banda y una mayor velocidad de datos. Para administrar el despliegue denso de SC en redes móviles, se requiere administración/control de la red, de la virtualización y de la programabilidad de la red, ay que son parte integral de las redes 5G/6G. En este sentido, para proporcionar conectividad de extremo a extremo, es vital la gestión y la orquestación de todos los segmentos de red que van desde la RAN (Red de acceso radio), la red de transporte hasta el núcleo de la red. Por lo que respecte a las redes de transporte (el enfoque principal de la tesis), SDN juega un papel importante ya que SDN permite la programabilidad y la virtualización en la red. Aunque SDN proporciona una gran flexibilidad en la gestión de redes al dividir el plano de control del plano de datos, tiene algunas limitaciones en el contexto de las redes inalámbricas, ya que la separación del plano de control del plano de datos introduce puntos adicionales de fallo en el paradigma SDN (p. ej., fallo del canal de comunicación, fallo del controlador SDN). En los escenarios de redes de área extendida (WAN) donde los canales en-banda (p. ej., enlaces de microondas o mmWave) son responsables de transportar el tráfico de control entre los nodos de red y el controlador SDN, la suposición de la disponibilidad de una red confiable puede no ser posible, ya que el rendimiento del enlace inalámbrico cambia con las condiciones ambientales, lo que conduce a un alto riesgo de experimentar deterioros en el canal, lo que podría causar errores en la operación SDN centralizada al afectar la comunicación entre el componente de transporte de los SC y el controlador SDN. Para superar estos problemas de SDN, la tesis presenta un esquema de SDN híbrido que explora los beneficios de las operaciones centralizadas y distribuidas según sean las condiciones del canal de comunicación de control. Nuestro enfoque SDN híbrido combina los modos centralizados y distribuidos en el mismo nodo para formar una arquitectura de plano de control híbrido. Introducimos un agente local en el nodo que se compone de un marco de monitorización para detectar la confiabilidad del canal de comunicación de control y un módulo de decisión que concibe un algoritmo de conmutación de lógica de control novedoso para tomar la decisión de operar en un modo centralizado o distribuido. Evaluamos la solución propuesta bajo una variedad de condiciones de red poco confiables (p. ej., deterioros de enlace, pérdida de paquetes de control) para investigar el rendimiento operativo de la SDN híbrida durante condiciones de alta pérdida. Los resultados experimentales muestran que la solución SDN híbrida propuesta mejora sustancialmente el rendimiento agregado, particularmente cuando aumentan las tasas de pérdida de paquetes del canal de control, lo que a su vez mantiene la red operativa en condiciones difíciles donde la SDN centralizada daría como resultado una red no operativa.Postprint (published version

Plant genetic resources and climate change: threats and needs for adaptation through plant breeding

The need for food will continue to increase during the 21st century. By developing higher yielding, disease-resistant and adverse environment-tolerant crops, crop scientists will be at the forefront of the efforts to increase the global food supply. Over the past 50 years, there has been a three-fold increase in agricultural production. The use of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) is the pivot of this significant achievement. However, these varieties need optimum growing conditions to be productive, and the use of fertilisers, pesticides, mechanisation, and irrigation is an integral part of the higher yields. It is well known that plant genetic resources are the building blocks of new and better varieties. The issue of global climate change has become a dominant issue for the world touching on various aspects of human well-being. While many groups claim that the issue is just an exaggerated science-based concern, there are other groups who actively suggest that it is a nonissue, merely one which is political in nature. In just a couple of years back, we have already been witnessing never-before signs of undesirable climate change on agriculture fast becoming a reality, coupled with their adverse economic outcomes. What is the range of possibilities to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change? Can plant breeding offer any plausible strategies to help crops and commodities adapt to or even take advantage of climate change in a long term? In Malaysia, plant breeding efforts have contributed immensely to the development of superior varieties and clones to uplift our major crops and commodities particularly rice, rubber and oil palm. For these priority crops, plant breeders have have made significant genetic gains from the well-organised and resourceful breeding programmes, as well as assembled considerable germplasm across the world to broaden their genetic base. However, for many important crops, breeding research to improve them are still inadequate and poorly balanced in terms of priority. In fact, there is still a large number of crops which are either still grappling with meagre plant breeding or virtually not touched by plant breeding. With rapid and gradually imminent temperature rise to aggravate climate change, plant breeding will inevitably be burdened with far more breeding objectives than it has been designed to meet heretofore. Therefore, we need to look imperatively at the considerable significance of plant genetic resources and plant breeding to move agriculture further, and to subdue the negative climate change

Estimation of adrenal corticosteroids in blood.

1, The literature of the various methods of estimation of the free plasma corticosteroids has been reviewed, and the fluorometric method of assay has been preferred on account of its simplicity and marked sensitivity,2, A simplified procedure for the estimation of free Cortisol and free corticosterone in human plasma has been described. It involves methylene chloride extraction and direct measurement of the fluorescence in 75/' sulphuric acid without purification or separation of the steroids. This technique was shown to be precise, simple, very sensitive and reasonably specific and to yield good recoveries of the ad ed Cortisol and corticosterone to the plasma. In spite of certain specificity limitation, it lias practical applications in estimating these two steroids in snail samples of plasma volumes ( 1 ml. ) and in studies which are designated principally to demonstrate increases or decreases in the adrenocortical hormones without absolute specificity,3, A procedure 1ms been described which can be applied to human plasma as well as to rat or rabbit plasma to correct for the interfering fluorescent material in the unfractionated plasma extract. This procedure depends on the comparison between the rate of development of the fluorescence of the plasma and of standard solution of Cortisol and corticosterone. The difference in the rate of development of Cortisol and eorticosterone fluorescence has been utilised to calculate their respective amounts in the plasma extract.4, The mean value for free plasma Cortisol in 27 normal adults was 9.61 +/- 2.71 and for free plasma corticosterone 0.40 * 0.21 microgram per 100 ml. In 9 cases of normal pregnancy at 36 weeks, the average free plasraa Cortisol was 24 and corticosterone 0.67 micrograms per 100 ml. A rise in the free Cortisol and a disappearance of free corticosterone from the plasma was observed in response to surgery

Leadership style in knowledge-based culture: The competitive advantage approach

In nowadays economy, knowledge becoming the primary bases of core competency and key to superior performance. Several reasons are advanced for the implementation of knowledge management (KM) within companies. These includes of the widespread digitalisation of business environments; the rise of time-based competition that require firms to learn as much as possible in very short periods; the globalization of operations; and the high incidence of mergers and takeovers. Thus, for these reasons, it is crucial for a company to explore any factors that can enhance the knowledge-based organization. The proper way in managing the knowledge will lead to firm’s competitive advantage achievement. In this paper, the leadership styles as important factors in enhance the practices of knowledge-based culture will be the main focused. Specifically, this paper is to address three main objectives. First objective is to discuss the important of leadership styles in association to organizational learning culture, the most excellent principal in order to manage and value knowledge. Secondly, this paper will explain the important of leadership styles in firm’s competitive advantage achievement. And lastly, this paper will further discuss the important of leadership role in inter-firm settings and it relationship to competitive advantage

Mediating Effect of Customer Satisfaction on Service Quality and Trust Relationship in Malaysian Banking Industry

The aim of this study is to develop a mediating effect understanding of customer satisfaction on service quality and trust relationship in Malaysia commercial banking industry. The model was developed and later tested by adopting the partial Least Square (PLS) procedure on data collected from a survey that yielded 512 usable questionnaires. The findings showed that service quality boosts satisfaction in Malaysia commercial banking. It was also exposed that satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between service quality and trust. In future, more research needs to be carried out to explore the role of satisfaction in Malaysia banking industry. It is important to do the study utilizing experimental design by capturing longitudinal data in Malaysia banking industry using robust measures. The findings suggest that the relationship between satisfaction and profitability may reside in satisfaction’s influence on trust, and that satisfaction plays a crucial function within the Malaysia banking industry. This research is one of the first known attempts to use PLS to test a mediation effect. (Abstract by author

Low loss waveguide-based Butler matrix with iris coupling control method for millimeterwave applications

This paper proposes a low loss 4×4 Butler matrix based on rectangular waveguide cavity resonators technology for millimeterwave beamforming network using iris coupling method. This method has the advantage of controlling the electrical fields and the coupling factor inside a complex medium such as waveguide cavity resonators. The coupling factor of 6 dB for 4×4 Butler matrix is achieved by tuning the iris coupling k-value between the waveguide cavity resonators. Thus, avoiding a higher phase difference losses and component losses at upper millimeterwave bands. To validate the proposed method, CST software simulations are performed under several iris coupling k-values to achieve a 6 dB coupling factor. Then, the proposed 4×4 Butler matrix is 3D metal printed using selective laser melting (SLM) technique. The measured reflection and isolation coefficients are observed below −10 dB, with coupling coefficients ranging between −6 and −7 dB. The phase differences of −42.02°, 42.02°, −130.95°, and 133.3° are achieved at the outputs. It confirmed that using this proposed method has the superiority over the conventional microstrip and waveguide coupling methods by a 1 dB coupling factor loss and a 3° phase difference error

Structural, electronic and optical properties of defect chalcopyrite CdGa2S4 and HgGa2S4 compounds by first principles

The physical properties of defect chalcopyrite compounds are discussed here. Initial study are carried out under the framework of density functional theory by keeping in view the device manufacturing characteristics relating to structure, energy band configuration and bonding nature of the selected PbGa2S4 and HgGa2S4 defect chalcopyrite compounds. The computational work are executed using highly accurate full potential linearized-augmented plane wave + local orbital approach through the latest edition of Wien2k software. In a next step, the electronic properties of PbGa2S4 and HgGa2S4 defect chalcopyrite compounds are investigated. Precise band gap are calculated by employing GGA and LDA techniques. This work provided a comprehensive theoretical study of the physical properties with special emphasis on structural and electronic properties of defect chalcopyrite compounds

Flexural behaviour of reinforced concrete beams containing glass wastes as partial replacement of fine aggregate and cement

New product development of concrete materials give advantages in terms of cost and wastage of materials. Thus, one effective way is to use disposable materials such as waste glass in concrete to minimize the use of raw materials. In the present study, the use of waste glass was conducted to determine its suitability as a material replacement in the making concrete