Firewood-Stove Made in Rwandan Rock

In this paper, we introduce a connection formula between the monomial basis and the shifted Laguerre basis. As an application, some integral representations in terms of Laguerre polynomials for certain sequences are obtained.

Digital signal processing techniques have gained steadily in importance over the past few years in many areas of science and engineering and have transformed the character of instrumentation used in laboratory and plant. This is particularly marked in acoustics, which has both benefited from the developments in signal processing and provided significant stimulus for these developments. As a result acoustical techniques are now used in a very wide range of applications and acoustics is one area in which digital signal processing is exploited to its limits. For example, the development of fast algorithms for computing Fourier transforms and the associated developments in hardware have led to remarkable advances in the use of spectral analysis as a means of investigating the nature and characteristics of acoustic sources. Speech research has benefited considerably in this respect, and, in a rather more technological application, spectral analysis of machinery noise provides information about changes in machine condition which may indicate imminent failure. More recently the observation that human and animal muscles emit low intensity noise suggests that spectral analysis of this noise may yield information about muscle structure and performance.

The banana samples were dried in a laboratory scale microwave oven at different powers of 200, 300, 400 and 500 W. The results showed that microwave power significantly influenced the total heating time and energy efficiency of drying processing. In this study, the measured moisture ratio (MR) values were fitted and compared with predicted values obtained from Midilli’s thin layer drying semi-empirical equation. Highest value of R2 and the lowest values of χ2 and RMSE for banana samples at different powers are obtained as 0.9999, 1.6618×10-5 and 0.0043 respectively. Also, within the range of microwave power values, 200–500 W, effective moisture diffusivities were found to be 1.4×10-5 to 5.52×10-5 m2/min. The microwave power dependence of the effective diffusivity coefficient followed an Arrhenius-type relationship. The activation energy for the moisture diffusion was determined to be 11.2 W/g. Increasing the microwave power resulted in a considerable increase in average energy efficiency and it was in the range of 8.8 to 39%.

Surface mining operations use large tracked shovels to achieve economic bulk production capacities. Shovel reliability, maintainability, availability and efficiency depend on the service life of the crawlers. In rugged and challenging terrains, the extent of crawler wear, tear, cracks and fatigue failure can be extensive resulting in prolonged downtimes with severe economic implications. In particular, crawler shoe wear, tear, cracks and fatigue failures can be expensive in terms of maintenance costs and production losses. This research study is a pioneering effort for understanding and providing long-term solutions to crawler-formation problems in surface mining applications. The external forces acting on the crawler shoes and oil sand are formulated to determine system kinematics. The dynamic model focuses on the external force from machine weight, the crawler contact forces, the contact friction forces and the inertia and gravity forces using multi-body dynamics theory. A virtual prototype simulator of the crawler dynamics is simulated within the MSC ADAMS environment.

In view of the fact that competitiveness of nations postulates the ability of nation to assure the best conditions to develop businesses and to enhance nation well being, it means that it is need to gather effort of nation to obtain good results, as well as to gather nation knowledge to elaborate goals and objectives of nation’s competitiveness development. This paper brings to attention some aspects regarding how to organize a national body to summaries nation’s knowledge necessary to formulate targets to enhance nation competitiveness. A part of this knowledge should be the contribution of competitive intelligence systems organized at national level at the government public institution sustaining decision makers with actionable intelligence about foreign environment and competitors. In this respect, paper offer a general view about who is charged at national level to gather nation knowledge, how is possible to have the best results collecting knowledge and intelligence. Finally, paper propose a methodology to analyses competitive position of nation and information flow in rational decision making to elaborate competitiveness strategy and to implement policies at sector level. Starting with cross transverse analyses in field of nation’s competitiveness theory and practice in some countries found that valuing the advantages gained using the knowledge gathered institutionally by nation efforts and implying system and instrument of competitive intelligence means understanding the potential of knowledge as factor of production and as the most important element of a rational decision making. Presenting some nation’s model organizing own competitiveness coordination, paper shows that the role of state as initiator is decisive. By actionable intelligence delivered to national competitiveness strategy makers, the role of the government’s public institution which has own competitive intelligence system is to facilitate the knowledge creation necessary to finalize

The paper posits the modified interfacial gravity (MIG) as the modified gravity in the interfacial region between homogeneous baryonic matter region and homogeneous dark matter region. The MIG model contains both dark matter and modified gravity to unify the CDM (Cold Dark Matter) model, MOG (Modified Gravity), and MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics). In MIG, the interfacial repulsive Yukawa force in the interfacial region to separate baryonic matter region and dark matter region is equivalent to the repulsive Yukawa force in outer galaxy in MOG.The modified interfacial gravity is interfacial gravity interacting with the interfacial repulsive Yukawa force. The modified interfacial gravity emerges in the interfacial region between dark matter region and baryonic matter region only when the homogeneous surface density is above the critical homogeneous surface density in both dark matter region and baryonic matter region.

Some invariable situations where component to be joined even though machining is not advisable for composites. But special situations here present work aimed at identifying better machining process parameters to arrive at defect free machined surfaces. In general laminated composite materials are machined at very high speed to generate a defect free machined surface. The precise measurement of cutting forces is very essential to know the influence of cutting forces of the work piece. In this connection precision machining is needed the present research work deals experimentations performed with two different mill tools and varieties of tool signatures are carefully analyzed with the mill tool dynamometer. The experimental layout was designed based on the 2^k factorial techniques and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to identify the effect of cutting parameters on surface finish and cutting forces are developed by using multiple regression analysis.

The purpose of present research work was to formulate and evaluate eye care solution of Naphazoline hydrochloride (Vasoconstrictor) and Pheniramine maleate (Antihistaminic) drug for allergic conjunctivitis. The optimum values of responses for viscous eye care solution formulation was found to be 97.6 cps viscosity, 1759 cps mucoadhesion index and 96.67 % CDR for naphazoline hydrochloride and 93.34% CDR for pheniramine maleate. These could be obtained at lower levels of NaCMC and higher level of HPMCE4M (0.25/0.6%w/w respectively).These viscous eye care solution showed acceptable physicochemical properties. The optimized formulation was found to be stable in one month study and providing prolonged release of the drug over an 8 hr period. Irritation study on rabbit eye revealed that it was non-irritant. All the rabbits’ eyes were normal by the end of 5 hour without any redness. There were no other adverse affects on the eyes throughout 8 hours study. This proves that optimized formulations of viscous eye care solution were very effective against common allergic conditions.

Transport Phenomena in Geomechanics occur under uncertain conditions and their parameters dominated by spatial randomness. The prediction of the progress of these phenomena is a stochastic problem rather than a deterministic. To solve the problem a procedure of conducting Stochastic Finite Element Analysis using Polynomial Chaos is presented. It eliminates the need for a large number of Monte Carlo simulations thus reducing computational time and making stochastic analysis of practical problems feasible. This is achieved by polynomial chaos expansion of the concentration. An example of a pollution development in a soil is presented and the results are compared to those obtained from Random Finite Element Analysis. A close matching of the two is observed.