Tunnel-Based Artificial Neural Network Technique to Calculate the Resonant Frequency of a Thick-Substrate Microstrip Antenna

The mathematical formulation of empirically developed formulas Jirr the calculation of the resonant frequency of a thick-substrate (h s 0.08151 A,,) microstrip antenna has been analyzed. With the use qt' tunnel-based artificial neural networks (ANNs), the resonant frequency of antennas with h satisfying the thick-substrate condition are calculated and compared with the existing experimental results and also with the simulation results obtained with the use of an IE3D software package. The artificial neural network results are in very good agreement with the experimental results

Design Considerations of Sonar Projector Arrays with Improved Performance

Systems which employ underwater acoustic energy for observation or communication are called sonar systems. The active and passive sonars are the two types of systems used for the detection and localisation of targets in underwater. Active sonar involves the transmission of an acoustic signal which, when reflected from a target, provides the sonar receiver with a basis for the detection and estimation. Passive sonar bases its detection and estimation on sounds which emanate from the target itself--Machinery noise, flow noise, transmission from its own active sonar etc.Electroacoustic transducers are used in sonar systems for the transmission and detection of acoustic energy. The transducer which is used for the transmission of acoustic energy is called projector and the one used for reception is called hydrophone. Since a single transducer is not sufficient enough for long range and directional transmission, a properly distributed array of transducers are to be used [9-11].The need and requirement for spatial processing to generate the most favourable directivity patterns for transducer systems used in underwater applications have already been analysed by several investigators [12-21].The desired directivity pattern can be either generated by the use of suitable focussing techniques or by an array of non-directional sensor elements, whose arrangements, spacing and the mode of excitation provide the required radiation pattern or by the combination of these.While computing that the directivity pattern, it is assumed strength of the elements are unaffected by the the source acoustic pressure at each source. However, in closely packed a r r a y s , the acoustic interaction effects experienced among the elements will modify the behaviour of individual elements and in turn will reduce the acoust ic source leve 1 wi t h respect to the maximum t heoret i cal va 1ue a s well as degrade the beam pa t tern. Th i s ef fect shou 1d be reduced in systems that are intended to generate high acoustic power output and unperturbed beam patterns [2,22-31].The work herein presented includes an approach for designing efficient and well behaved underwater transd~cer arrays, taking into account the acoustic interaction effect experienced among the closely packed multielement arrays.Architectural modifications reducing the interaction effect different radiating apertures.

Transition Metal Complexes of Schiff Bases with Azide and Thiocyanate as Coligands:Spectral and Structural Investigations

Metallo-organic chemistry,incorporating the frontiers of both inorganic and organic chemical aspects,is a topic of utility concern.The first exploration of coordinated metal complexes dates back to the ninettenth century,during the days of Alfred Werner.Thereafter,inorganic chemistry witnessed a great outflow of coordination compounds,with unique structural characteristics and diverse applicatons.The diversity in structures exhibited by the coordination complexes of multidentate ligands have led to their usage as sensors,models for enzyme mimetic centers,medicines etc.The liganda chosen are of prime importance in determining the properties of coordination compounds.Schiff bases are compounds obtained by the condensation of an aidehyde or ketone with an amine.The chemical properties of Schiff bases and their complexes are widely explored in recent years owing to their pharmacological activity,their catalytic activities and so on.On the other hand pseudohalides like azide and thiocyanate are versatile candidates for the construction of dimeric or polymeric complexes having excellent properties and diverse applications.So a combination of the Schiff bases and the pseudohalogens for the synthesis of metal complexes can bring about interesting results.An attempt into this area is the besis of this Ph.D theis.

Sustainability of Participatory Projects: Study of Productive Sector under Peoples’ Planning in Chempu Village Panchayat of Kottayam District

The study has wider policy implications as it identifies the possible variables which influence the sustainability of participatory productive sector projects. The method which is developed to study the sustainability of projects under People’s Planning in Chempu Panchayat could be used for studying the same in other panchayats also. Unlike the case of the standard features of sustainability identified, the independent variables vary according to the nature of the project. Hence, this needs to be modified accordingly while applying the method in a dissimilar domain. Selection of a single panchayat for the present study is relevant on the basis of a common package of inputs for decentralised planning which is forwarded by the State Planning Board respectively for the three-tier panchayat system in Kerala. The dynamic filed realities could be brought out in view of a comprehensive planning approach through an in depth study of specific cases.The assessment of the nature and pattern of productive sector projects in the selected Village Panchayat puts the projects under close scrutiny. The analysis has depended largely on secondary sources of information, especially from panchayat level plan documents, and also on the primary information obtained using direct observation and on-site inspection of project sites. An analysis of the nature and pattem of productive sector projects is important as it gives all necessary information regarding follow-up, monitoring/evaluation and even termination of a particular project. It has also revealed the tendencies of including infrastructure and service sector projects under ‘productive’ category, especially for maintaining the stipulated ratio (40:30:30) of grant-in-aid distribution. The study regarding the allocation and expenditure pattern of plan funds is vital in policy level as it reveals the under-noticed allocation and expenditure pattern of plan funds other than grant-in-aid. One major limitation of the study has been the limited availability of secondary data, especially regarding project-wise expenditure and monitoring/evaluation reports of various project committees.

Legal Protection for Consumer of Pharmaceutical Products

The overall focus of the thesis involves the legal protection for consumers of pharmaceutical products.The work on “Legal Protection for Consumers of Pharmaceutical Products” is undertaken to study the legal framework that is existing for this purpose and the functioning of regulating mechanism that is envisaged under it. The purpose of the study is to analyse how far these measures are effective in adequately protecting various aspects of consumer interest. Methodology adopted for the study is analytical.The present study revealed that the theory of freedom of contract is only an ideal relevant when the parties are assumed to be on equal footing.In a more complicated social and economic society, it ceased to have any relevance. Many countries in the world enacted legislations to protect the consumers of pharmaceutical products.The meaning of ‘consumers of drugs’ provided in the law is inclusive and not exhaustive one. The definition of ‘drug’ as interpreted by the courts is comprehensive enough to take in it not only medicines but also substances. The meaning of the word substances has been widened by the interpretation of the courts so as to include all the things used in treatment.The definition of the word ‘consumer’ has been liberally interpreted by the courts so as to provide protective net to a large section of the public.The studies subsequent to this report also revealed that there is a shortage of essential drugs necessary to cure local diseases like tuberculosis and malaria where as drugs containing vitamins and other combinations which are more profitable for the manufacturers are produced and marketed in abundance.The study of the provisions in this regard revealed that the duty of the drug controlling authorities is confined to scrutinize the data of the clinical test already conducted by the sponsor of the drug.Study of the clinical trial procedure under the U.S. law revealed that there is a continuous supervision over clinical trials and controls are provided on the treatment use of an investigational productStudy of the clinical trial procedure under the U.S. law revealed that there is a continuous supervision over clinical trials and controls are provided on the treatment use of an investigational product.the study of the provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and the rules framed under it revealed that the law in this regard is comprehensive to protect the consumer provided it is sufficiently supported by adequately equipped enforcement machinery.

A study of the information seeking bebavior of science and technology teachers and researchers of Cocbin University of Science and Technology and University of Kerala in the cbanged library environment

Information communication technology (IC T) has invariably brought about fundamental changes in the way in which libraries gather. preserve and disseminate information. The study was carried out with an aim to estimate and compare the information seeking behaviour (ISB) of the academics of two prominent universities of Kerala in the context of advancements achieved through ICT. The study was motivated by the fast changing scenario of libraries with the proliferation of many high tech products and services. The main purpose of the study was to identify the chief source of information of the academics, and also to examine academics preference upon the form and format of information source. The study also tries to estimate the adequacy of the resources and services currently provided by the libraries.The questionnaire was the central instrument for data collection. An almost census method was adopted for data collection engaging various methods and tools for eliciting data.The total population of the study was 957, out of which questionnaire was distributed to 859 academics. 646 academics responded to the survey, of which 564 of them were sound responses. Data was coded and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software and also with the help of Microsofl Excel package. Various statistical techniques were engaged to analyse data. A paradigm shift is evident by the fact that academies push themselves towards information in internet i.e. they prefer electronic source to traditional source and the very shift is coupled itself with e-seeking of information. The study reveals that ISB of the academics is influenced priman'ly by personal factors and comparative analysis shows that the ISB ofthc academics is similar in both universities. The productivity of the academics was tested to dig up any relation with respect to their ISB, and it is found that productivity of the academics is extensively related with their ISB. Study also reveals that the users ofthe library are satisfied with the services provided but not with the sources and in conjunction, study also recommends ways and means to improve the existing library system.

Influence of additives on the charactaristics of stone matrix asphalt

The increase in traffic growth and maintenance expenditures demands the urgent need for building better, long-lasting, and more efficient roads preventing or minimizing bituminous pavement distresses. Many of the principal distresses in pavements initiate or increase in severity due to the presence of water. In Kerala highways, where traditional dense graded mixtures are used for the surface courses, major distress is due to moisture induced damages. The Stone Matrix Asphalt (SMA) mixtures provide a durable surface course. Proven field performance of test track at Delhi recommends Stone Matrix Asphalt as a right choice to sustain severe climatic and heavy traffic conditions. But the concept of SMA in India is not so popularized and its application is very limited mainly due to the lack of proper specifications. This research is an attempt to study the influence of additives on the characteristics of SMA mixtures and to propose an ideal surface course for the pavements. The additives used for this investigation are coir, sisal, banana fibres (natural fibres), waste plastics (waste material) and polypropylene (polymer). A preliminary investigation is conducted to characterize the materials used in this study. Marshall test is conducted for optimizing the SMA mixtures (Control mixture-without additives and Stabilized mixtures with additives). Indirect tensile strength tests, compression strength tests, triaxial strength tests and drain down sensitivity tests are conducted to study the engineering properties of stabilized mixtures. The comparison of the performance of all stabilized mixtures with the control mixture and among themselves are carried out. A statistical analysis (SPSS package Ver.16) is performed to establish the findings of this study

Vibrational spectroscopic studies and computational study of quinoline-2-carbaldehyde benzoyl hydrazone

FT-IR spectrum of quinoline-2-carbaldehyde benzoyl hydrazone (HQb H2O) was recorded and analyzed. The synthesis and crystal structure data are also described. The vibrational wavenumbers were examined theoretically using the Gaussian03 package of programs using HF/6-31G(d) and B3LYP/6-31G(d) levels of theory. The data obtained from vibrational wavenumber calculations are used to assign vibrational bands obtained in infrared spectroscopy of the studied molecule. The first hyperpolarizability, infrared intensities and Raman activities are reported. The calculated first hyperpolarizability is comparable with the reported values of similar derivatives and is an attractive object for future studies of non-linear optics. The geometrical parameters of the title compound obtained from XRD studies are in agreement with the calculated values. The changes in the CAN bond lengths suggest an extended p-electron delocalization over quinoline and hydrazone moieties which is responsible for the non-linearity of the molecule

Solid Waste Management: A Case Study of Arppukara Grama Panchayat Of Kottayam District, Kerala (India)

The rising pressure of Population, together with the constantly changing technologies, and development perspectives, contribute to the ever increasing volumes of wastes in different forms. The solid and liquid wastes generated in the urban areas were considered a burden to the society, and hazardous to the environment. The fact is that the growth of consumerist culture and aimless throwing of refuse by the people created the outbreak of environmental pollution. Unhygienic environment and solid waste accumulation coincided with mosquito breeding which causes, the spread of most epidemics. The rationale behind most of the diseases is the unhygienic pattern followed by the people both in rural and urban areas. As an environmental package, the disposal of solid waste from different sources, such as house holds markets, commercial areas, slaughter houses, hospitals and industries, therefore assumed crucial importance. So as a part of the theory and practice, a study on the area, solid waste management of Arppukara Grama Panchayat of Kottayam district is taken into consideration. The study conducted here proposes, to examine the quality and quantity of the solid waste generated in the panchayat and also it's impact on the existing social, economical, environmental and ecological systems

A semi-automatic method for segmentation and 3D modeling of glioma tumors from brain MRI

This work presents an efficient method for volume rendering of glioma tumors from segmented 2D MRI Datasets with user interactive control, by replacing manual segmentation required in the state of art methods. The most common primary brain tumors are gliomas, evolving from the cerebral supportive cells. For clinical follow-up, the evaluation of the pre- operative tumor volume is essential. Tumor portions were automatically segmented from 2D MR images using morphological filtering techniques. These seg- mented tumor slices were propagated and modeled with the software package. The 3D modeled tumor consists of gray level values of the original image with exact tumor boundary. Axial slices of FLAIR and T2 weighted images were used for extracting tumors. Volumetric assessment of tumor volume with manual segmentation of its outlines is a time-consuming proc- ess and is prone to error. These defects are overcome in this method. Authors verified the performance of our method on several sets of MRI scans. The 3D modeling was also done using segmented 2D slices with the help of a medical software package called 3D DOCTOR for verification purposes. The results were validated with the ground truth models by the Radi- ologist.

Design, Development and Realization of Quadratic Volterra Filters for Selected Applications

The basic concepts of digital signal processing are taught to the students in engineering and science. The focus of the course is on linear, time invariant systems. The question as to what happens when the system is governed by a quadratic or cubic equation remains unanswered in the vast majority of literature on signal processing. Light has been shed on this problem when John V Mathews and Giovanni L Sicuranza published the book Polynomial Signal Processing. This book opened up an unseen vista of polynomial systems for signal and image processing. The book presented the theory and implementations of both adaptive and non-adaptive FIR and IIR quadratic systems which offer improved performance than conventional linear systems. The theory of quadratic systems presents a pristine and virgin area of research that offers computationally intensive work. Once the area of research is selected, the next issue is the choice of the software tool to carry out the work. Conventional languages like C and C++ are easily eliminated as they are not interpreted and lack good quality plotting libraries. MATLAB is proved to be very slow and so do SCILAB and Octave. The search for a language for scientific computing that was as fast as C, but with a good quality plotting library, ended up in Python, a distant relative of LISP. It proved to be ideal for scientific computing. An account of the use of Python, its scientific computing package scipy and the plotting library pylab is given in the appendix Initially, work is focused on designing predictors that exploit the polynomial nonlinearities inherent in speech generation mechanisms. Soon, the work got diverted into medical image processing which offered more potential to exploit by the use of quadratic methods. The major focus in this area is on quadratic edge detection methods for retinal images and fingerprints as well as de-noising raw MRI signals

Performance Assessment of Sandwich Structures with Debonds and Dents

A sandwich construction is a special form of the laminated composite consisting of light weight core, sandwiched between two stiff thin face sheets. Due to high stiffness to weight ratio, sandwich construction is widely adopted in aerospace industries. As a process dependent bonded structure, the most severe defects associated with sandwich construction are debond (skin core bond failure) and dent (locally deformed skin associated with core crushing). Reasons for debond may be attributed to initial manufacturing flaws or in service loads and dent can be caused by tool drops or impacts by foreign objects. This paper presents an evaluation on the performance of honeycomb sandwich cantilever beam with the presence of debond or dent, using layered finite element models. Dent is idealized by accounting core crushing in the core thickness along with the eccentricity of the skin. Debond is idealized using multilaminate modeling at debond location with contact element between the laminates. Vibration and buckling behavior of metallic honeycomb sandwich beam with and without damage are carried out. Buckling load factor, natural frequency, mode shape and modal strain energy are evaluated using finite element package ANSYS 13.0. Study shows that debond affect the performance of the structure more severely than dent. Reduction in the fundamental frequencies due to the presence of dent or debond is not significant for the case considered. But the debond reduces the buckling load factor significantly. Dent of size 8-20% of core thickness shows 13% reduction in buckling load capacity of the sandwich column. But debond of the same size reduced the buckling load capacity by about 90%. This underscores the importance of detecting these damages in the initiation level itself to avoid catastrophic failures. Influence of the damages on fundamental frequencies, mode shape and modal strain energy are examined. Effectiveness of these parameters as a damage detection tool for sandwich structure is also assessed