2,128 research outputs found
(iGSE with dc bias condition)
No full textMSc Thesis project & internship (30 ECTS)Design of most power conversion devices requires design of magnetic components and its prior knowledge of electrical performance. Core loss is vital information that design engineer requires during design stages of stator core of electrical machines. In this thesis, iGSEDC method is proposed for predicting high frequency iron core losses under dc bias condition for non-sinusoidal excitations in non grain oriented electrical steels
Influence of crumb rubber modifier on performance characteristics of stone mastic asphalt /Asim Hassan Ali
No full textIn asphalt concrete (AC), bitumen as a binder serves two major functions in road pavement; first, to hold the aggregates firmly and secondly, to act as a sealant against water. However, due to several distresses like fatigue failure, the performance and durability of certain characteristics in bitumen are highly affected by changes with time which can lead to the cracking of pavements. To prevent pavement distresses there are various solutions such as adopting new mix designs or utilisation of asphalt additives. Using asphalt additives in highway construction is known to provide virgin bitumen better engineering properties. Scrap tyres lead to grave disposal problems. However, with the use of scrap tyres in asphalt pavements in the form of an additive, they are advantageous in minimising environmental pollution and maximising natural resource conservation. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effect of adding crumb tyre rubber as a modifier to Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA) mixture performance properties. This study investigated the essential aspects of modified asphalt binder and mixtures in order to better understand the influence of CRM modifiers on the physical-rheological properties of asphalt binder and fatigue resistance of SMA mixture. In this study, 80/100 penetration grade bitumen was used; modified with crumb rubber (CRM) at five different modification levels namely 6 , 12, 16 and 20% respectively by weight of the bitumen. The physical properties of modified bitumen samples were performed using the classic binder tests namely, penetration test, softening point test, ductility test and elastic recovery test. The rheological properties for asphalt binder were conducted using Superpave tests of Brookfield viscosity and dynamic shear rheometer (DSR). The stiffness and mechanical properties as well as fatigue characteristics of (SMA) mixtures produced with and without the crumb rubber were investigated using IDT and ITFT on varying binder content.The results of the study concluded that rubber crumb content plays a main role in influencing the performance and rheological properties of rubberised bitumen binders. The increase in rubber crumb content was from 6 - 20% thus indicating a linear increase in softening point, viscosity, elastic recovery and complex shear modulus. The resilient modulus (Mr) of modified SMA samples including different percentages of CRM was obviously higher in comparison with that of unmodified samples. In addition, crumb rubber content significantly enhanced durability of crumb rubber modified bitumen and led to better aging resistance. Thus, the crumb rubber modified bitumen was less susceptible to temperature susceptibility. With the presence of crumb rubber, the fatigue life of crumb rubber modified bitumen significantly improved. The resistance of crumb rubber in producing horizontal tensile stresses attenuated the production of vertical cracks and deterred these cracks from diffusing along the diameters of the asphalt samples. This in turn improved the fatigue life of reinforced samples. Besides aspiring to decrease piling up of waste materials in the environment, utilising waste tyre rubber has improved the characteristics of engineering structure and materials in asphalt production and comparable industries. Consequently, it has also reduced construction rehabilitation and maintenance costs
Part of speech (POS) tagging in Roman Urdu: datasets and models
No full textRoman Urdu is a prevalent medium of expression on social media, news websites, and text messages in the subcontinent, making it a valuable data source for social media and text analytics, particularly in the Indo-Pak perspective. However, despite the immense potential, limited efforts have been made in the area of Roman Urdu text analytics due to various complexities, such as a lack of a standard lexicon, the informal nature of the text, and the lack of text processing tools. The development of the Roman Urdu Part-of-Speech (POS) dataset and the implementation of a robust tagger hold immense importance for text analytics in Roman Urdu. In this work, we created a comprehensive, large-scale Roman Urdu POS dataset and developed a Roman Urdu POS tagger, laying the foundation for future advancements in advanced text analysis. Our approach involved the utilization of Hidden Markov Models, Neural Networks, state-of-the-art transformer models, and Large Language Models as baselines. In our work, we curated two distinct test datasets: one with lexical variation and the other without such variation. This approach allowed us to test the model’s robustness in handling different linguistic challenges posed by lexical variations. Our tagger yields high-quality output with an accuracy score of 96% without lexical variation and 86% on test data with lexical variations. We also evaluated state-of-the-art Large Language Models (GPT-4o and Llama-3-8B) in zero-shot and few-shot settings, with GPT-4o achieving up to 53.78% accuracy in the few-shot configuration, demonstrating a substantial performance gap compared to specialized models. This work establishes a comprehensive framework for Roman Urdu POS tagging that effectively addresses lexical variation challenges, providing essential resources and benchmarks for advancing Roman Urdu natural language processing research
The Effectiveness of Community-Based Development in Poverty Reduction: A Descriptive Analysis of a Women-Managed NGO in Rural Pakistan
No full textTo assess the targeting performance of community-based development activities and deduce the impact of such activities on poverty reduction, we implemented a survey of a non-governmental organization (NGO) in northwestern Pakistan. A distinct characteristic of this NGO is that it is managed mostly by women and its interventions are conducted through community-based organizations (COs), most of whose members are also female. This characteristic is rather unusual for a male-dominated society like Pakistan. Descriptive analyses of village, CO, and household level data shows that the NGO was able to target poorer villages. Villages with COs are characterized by lower adult literacy rates, lower availability of basic amenities, and higher susceptibility to natural disasters. With regard to household-level welfare indicators - such as consumption, women’s empowerment, children’s school enrolment, and the weight-for-age of infants - we found that the consumption levels of CO member households tended to be lower than that of households in non-CO villages. However, the difference between CO member households and non-member households in CO villages was insignificant, possibly owing to the mixing of the selection effect (i.e., poorer households are served by the NGO) and the causal effect of interventions on poverty reduction. On women’s empowerment and child schooling, CO member households tend to perform better than other households, suggesting the favorable impact of the interventions and/or the self-selection of such households vis-à-vis program participation.
An extension of the localist representation theory: grandmother cells are also widely used in the brain
No full textabstract: Based on considerable neurophysiological evidence, Roy (2012) proposed the theory that localist representation is widely used in the brain, starting from the lowest levels of processing. Grandmother cells are a special case of localist representation. In this article, I present the theory that grandmother cells are also widely used in the brain. To support the proposed theory, I present neurophysiological evidence and an analysis of the concept of grandmother cells. Konorski (1967) first predicted the existence of grandmother cells (he called them “gnostic” neurons)—single neurons that respond to complex stimuli such as faces, hands, expressions, objects, and so on. The term “grandmother cell” was introduced by Jerry Lettvin in 1969 (Barlow, 1995).View the article as published at http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00300/ful
Welfare assessment of dromedary camels kept under pastoralism in Pakistan
No full textStandardized welfare assessment protocols are crucial to enhance animal welfare; up to date, there is no data on the level of welfare of camels kept under pastoralism. A tailored protocol for measuring welfare in dromedary camels kept under nomadic pastoralist conditions was recently developed, drawing from the currently available welfare protocol for dromedary camels kept in intensive systems. This study, therefore, aimed to apply the newly developed tailored protocol and assess the welfare of dromedary camels kept under pastoralism in the Southern Punjab Province of Pakistan. A total of 44 welfare indicators (animal-, resource, and management-based measures) aligning with animal welfare principles (“Good Feeding”, “Good Housing”, “Good Health”, and “Appropriate Behavior”) were gathered into two assessment levels: “Caretaker-Herd level” and “Animal level”. Data were collected in 2023 in the Cholistan desert in the southern Punjab province. Fifty-four herds were evaluated for a total population of 1,186 camels, of which 510 (495 females and 15 males; average age: 5–6 years old) were assessed at the animal level. The indicators were scored and aggregated to obtain Principle Aggregated Indexes (PAIs) and a total Welfare Index (TWI). Using the PAIs classification, 4 herds were categorized as excellent, 42 satisfactory, and 8 unsatisfactory. Total Welfare Index (TWI) varied from 55.7 to 82.2, and the thresholds for classification into tertiles were 65.4 and 70.6. Good feeding and Good housing were the most problematic PAIs, with Good feeding as the most influential variable for classification into welfare categories. As expected, camels kept under pastoralism had a higher level of welfare than those reported in the literature for intensive systems, especially concerning the Appropriate Behavior principle. Our findings are a first step in proposing welfare standards for dromedary in Pakistan and worldwide
Scalable concurrency control in a dynamic membership
No full textSUMMARY We introduce a solution for a concurrency control problem which is frequently encountered in practice: in a dynamic system we want that the load on a centralized resource is uniformly distributed among users, offering a predictable performance as long as it is not overloaded. We propose an original solution based on probabilistic assumptions, and we comment early experimental results
al-Bahjah fi Syarh al-Tuhfah
No full textKitab bermadzhab Maliki ini ditulis oleh Ali bin Abd al-Salam Tusuli, dengan mengutip pendapat Abu Bakar bin Asim , dan membahas tentang masalah-masalah dalam kondisi kehidupan pribadi (pernikahan, perceraian , warisan, dan konsekuensinya) dan transaksi penjualan, pembebasan, perwalian, dan konsekuensinya
Synthesis and characterization of polymer microspheres and its application for phenol adsorption
No full textThis paper reports synthesis of the poly(ethylene glycol dimethacrylate-n-vinyl imidazole) ([poly(EGDMA-VIM)]) microspheres by suspension polymerization for the removal of phenol from an aqueous solution. The synthesized [poly(EGDMA-VIM)] microspheres were characterized by various analysis techniques. The [poly(EGDMA-VIM)] microspheres possessed a high specific surface area (304.4 m2 g(-1)). It was found that the pseudo-second-order kinetic and Freundlich isotherm models could well define the phenol adsorption process. The maximum capacity of the [poly(EGDMA- VIM)] microspheres was calculated to be 34.7441 mg g(-1) at 298 K and natural pH from Langmuir isotherm. The adsorption thermodynamics revealed that the adsorption of phenol was an exothermic and spontaneous process. The [poly(EGDMA-VIM)] microspheres were easily regenerated by using a 0.01 M NaOH solution, and were repeatedly used for at least 5 cycles without losing the adsorption capacity. The experimental results suggest that the [poly(EGDMA-VIM)] microspheres can be implemented as a promising adsorbent for phenol removal from wastewater
The use of waste tyre rubber as additive for asphalt binder / Asim Hassan Ali, Nuha S.Mashaan and Mohamed Rehan Karim
No full textIn recent years, polymer modified asphalt is a relatively costly material for paving roads. One way to reduce the cost of such constructions and rendering them more convenient is by using a cost-effective additive, i.e. waste rubber.Scrap tyres lead to serious disposal problems. However, the use of scrap tyres in asphalt pavements in the form of fillers/additives could improve the asphalt mixture performance properties as well as minimise
environmental pollution. The main purpose of this research is to determine the effect of incorporating waste tyre rubber on the physical and mechanical properties of asphalt materials. The tests undertaken comprise the penetration test, softening point test, viscosity test and dynamic shear rheometer (DSR). The results showed that the addition of rubber has an effect on the properties of bituminous compound by increasing the viscosity,
softening point, shear modulus and a decrease in penetration. Thus, the use of waste tyre rubber could improve the engineering properties of asphalt binder. Additionally, employing waste tyre rubber in sustainable technology could help to reduce some of the current pollution issue of waste tyre disposal
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