180 research outputs found
Biomass for renewable energy production in Pakistan: current state and prospects [Latest Articles]
No full textSynthesis of Nanomaterials and their Integration in Wastewater Treatment Processes
No full textMetal organic frameworks (MOFs) are new class of nanomaterials possessing high surface area, large volume and tuneable pore size. These unique materials are promising candidates for wastewater treatment. In this work, several water stable MOFs, namely HKUST-1, UiO-66, ZIF-67, BioMOF-11, MIL-96 and their derivatives, were synthesized solvo/hydrothermally and used in adsorption and/or catalytic degradation of antibiotics, dyes, and personal care products. It is demonstrated that the materials exhibited high adsorption capacity and good catalytic performance
Synergizing AI and HRM: Leveraging Business Analytics for a Future-Ready Workforce
No full textThis chapter explores the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within the Asian business landscape. It offers a comprehensive examination of the evolution of AI in HRM, emphasizing the benefits and potential challenges associated with implementing AI-driven HRM strategies. The discussion highlights the importance of synergizing AI and HRM through business analytics, offering insights into how AI can enhance recruitment, retention, and employee engagement. The author delve into potential ethical, cultural, and legal issues associated with AI-driven HRM, highlighting the necessity for thoughtful and strategic implementation. Finally, the chapter proposes strategies for successfully incorporating AI in HRM, emphasizing the development of AI competencies, fostering a data-driven culture, and ensuring ethical AI deployment. The discussion provides a foundation for future research, policy development, and practical applications in AI-driven HRM, promoting a future-ready workforce in Asia
Novel CO2 Separation Membranes
No full textUsing membranes for CO2 capture has gained recent prominence in the global scientific community due to its lower capital cost and a quicker separation performance than the conventional separation methods. The membrane process features desirable properties, like compactness, energy efficiency, and environmental friendliness. Various polymeric and inorganic materials have been tested both as unique ingredients and blends to form CO2 separation membranes with a focus on increasing the performance but have had varying rates of success. For commercial viability, the membrane sector requires new techniques and testing materials to lower the cost of CO2 capture. Recently, thermally rearranged polymers, intrinsic microporous polymers, ionic liquid inclusion as fillers, and binary fillers have all emerged as novel trends, focusing on enhancing the working efficiency and sustainability of the membranes. This chapter explores the most recent advances in membrane technology and its future prospects as a sustainable solu ion towards carbon dioxide capture. This Page is compulsory Book Title – Sustainable Carbon Capture: Technologies and Applications Chapter Author(s) – Asif Jamil, Department of Chemical Polymer and Composite Material Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology (New Campus), Lahore, Pakistan, [email protected] Muhammad Latif, Institute of Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of the Punjab, 54590, Lahore, Pakistan, [email protected] Alamin Idris Abdulgadir, Department of Engineering and Chemical Sciences, Karlstad University, SE-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden, [email protected] Danial Qadir, Centre for Sustainable Engineering, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom, [email protected] Hafiz Abdul Mannan, Institute of Polymer and Textile Engineering, University of the Punjab, 54590, Lahore, Pakistan, [email protected]</p
Cross-Genre Author Profile Prediction Using Stylometry-Based Approach Notebook for PAN at CLEF 2016
No full textAbstract.Author profiling task aims to identify different traits of an author by analyzing his/her written text. This study presents a Stylometry-based approach for detection of author traits (gender and age) for cross-genre author profiles. In our proposed approach, we used different types of stylistic features including 7 lexical features, 16 syntactic features, 26 character-based features and 6 vocabulary richness (total 56 stylistic features). On the training corpus, the proposed approach obtained promising results with an accuracy of 0.787 for gender, 0.983 for age and 0.780 for both (jointly detecting age and gender). On the test corpus, proposed system gave an accuracy of 0.576 for gender, 0.371 for age and 0.256 for both
Exploring the Role of Agricultural Services in Production Efficiency in Chinese Agriculture: A Case of the Socialized Agricultural Service System
No full textIn recent decades, the Chinese government launched a socialized agricultural service system to help smallholders quickly modernize. This system helps farmers adopt modern-day farming operations to meet ever-increasing food and fiber requirements. The present study was conducted to analyze the impacts of this system on agricultural production efficiency. To this end, the Hubei province of China was selected, and the required data were retrieved from the Hubei Statistical Yearbook and Rural Statistical Yearbook for the years 2008 to 2019. The entropy method was applied to measure the extent of the adoption of socialized and individual agricultural services, while a data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used for measuring production efficiency. Grey correlation and regression analyses were carried out to analyze the association between production efficiency and agricultural service availability/uptake and the determinants of the former, respectively. The results illustrate that the agricultural socialized service level has increased. Specifically, the service levels of agricultural mechanization and financial insurance increased most rapidly in terms of individual services with the largest numbers of adopters. Science and technology and material services were found to exhibit the most significant relationships with the production efficiency of farmers. The results indicate a greater role of service provision in moderate-to-high-scale development, leading to land productivity and thereby improving agricultural production efficiency. The results also imply a higher demand for socialized agricultural services among farmers considering the value-added potential of such an integrated system with greater spillover options for achieving self-sufficiency in agriculture and ensuring food security
Controlled hydrothermal carbonization of wood-derived lignin-rich lignocellulose: Redefining pyrolytic pathways to tailored biochar and hydrogen-enriched syngas
No full textThis research illustrates the efficacy of hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) as a pretreatment method to improve the pyrolytic performance of wood-derived lignin-rich lignocellulosic biomass (LB), supported by thorough characterization of its derived products such as syngas, tar, and biochar. A systematic comparison of non-HTC-treated LB and HTC-treated LB through their respective pyrolytic-derived biochar (NLB, HLB) obtained across temperatures (400-1000°C) revealed their basic structural and reactivity variations. HTC resulted in a new carbonyl peak with a 28 % increase in Cdouble bondO concentration in derived biochar, with partial aromatization evidenced by Cdouble bondC bonds at 1509 cm-¹ . Spectroscopic analysis confirmed that HTC promoted a defective carbon structure in derived biochar while enhancing its crystallinity and maintaining its integrity even at higher temperatures. XPS analysis demonstrated that at 1000°C, HLB-T10 retained active oxygen functionalities, while its associated pyrolytic products H2 and CO boosted from 22.45 % to 40.4 % and 32.3–33.4 %, respectively, with drastically lowered CO₂ emissions from 39.95 % to 11.5 %. Regulated deoxygenation routes cause tar composition to shift toward desirable aromatic chemicals. This comprehensive strategy offers a sustainable valorization technique that increases syngas generation efficiency, lowers emissions, and optimizes biorefinery product selection.This research was sponsored by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, along with the FLEXBY (GA-101144144), and (JDC2022-048533-I) Projects.Peer reviewe
Soft sensing of biological oxygen demand in industrial wastewater using machine learning models
No full textTraditional methods for determining biological oxygen demand (BOD) from industrial water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) are time-consuming and often impractical for real-time process control. This study explores the application of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) models for the prediction of final effluent BOD (F-BOD) based on physicochemical and operational parameters by leveraging nineteen years of historical laboratory and instrumentation data from the WRRF of an essential oil manufacturing plant. The predictions from these models are then used to simulate the process dynamics, assessing the optimal operational boundary conditions for all input parameters at which the target (F-BOD) falls within the bounds of the best operating point, with minimal process implications and environmental impact. A simple graphical user interface (GUI) was developed to visualise and automate model training, predictions, and simulation processes. The models\u27 performance evaluation indicated that Extra Trees (ExT) is the best-performing model for prediction, with a coefficient of determination (R2) of ~0.98 on test data and ~0.96 on unseen validation data, while the Neural Networks (NN) model is identified as the best-performing model for simulation purposes. Feature importance, ablation study and Shapley Additive explanations (SHAP) analyses identified final effluent chemical oxygen demand, influent wastewater flow rate, and recycle sludge flow as the most influential predictors of F-BOD. The study highlights that AI can not only reduce costs by substituting five-day BOD tests with soft sensor predictions but also has the potential to enhance process efficiency, control, and safety in WRRFs
Process intensification of essential oils extraction using instantaneous controlled pressure drop technology
No full textEssential oils (EOs) are volatile, hydrophobic compounds derived from plants, widely used in food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and fragrance industries for their bioactive potential and associated health benefits. Traditional EO extraction methods are limited by low yields, long processing times, and thermal degradation of sensitive bioactive compounds. Instantaneous Controlled Pressure Drop (CID) technology is an advanced intensification method to overcome these challenges by applying compression-decompression cycles and modifying plant structure to enhance heat and mass transfer. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of CID technology and outlines its mechanism and principles. It compiles global research on CID applied to different plants and compares the technology with conventional and emerging extraction techniques. A process flow diagram is provided to illustrate the operational stages of CID system, including steam injection, vacuum decompression, emulsion collection, and post-treatment. It discusses technical configurations, and explores coupled phenomena of autovaporisation, heat and mass transfer, and resolution of the extraction paradox. CID improves extraction efficiency and high-quality of EOs by overcoming rate-limiting barriers of traditional methods. It addresses extraction paradoxes by reversing vapour pressure gradients and leveraging total pressure for optimal recovery. CID compatibility with conventional methods shows synergistic potential for industrial scalability for greener EOs extraction processes
A low cost SSVEP-EEG based human-computer-interaction system for completely locked-in patients
No full textHuman computer interaction (HCI) for completely locked-in patients is a very difficult task. Nowadays, information technology (IT) is becoming an essential part of human life. Patients with completely locked-in state are generally unable to facilitate themselves by these useful technological advancements. Hence, they cannot use modern IT gadgets and applications throughout the lifespan after disability. Advancements in brain computer interface (BCI) enable operating IT devices using brain signals specifically when a person is unable to interact with the devices in conventional manner due to cognitive motor disability. However, existing state-of-the-art application specific BCI devices are comparatively too expensive. This paper presents a research and development work that aims to design and develop a low-cost general purpose HCI system that can be used to operate computers and a general purpose control panel through brain signals. The system is based on steady state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP). In proposed system, these electrical signals are obtained in response of a number of different flickering lights of different frequencies through electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes and an open source BCI hardware. Successful trails conducted on healthy participants suggest that severely paralyzed subjects can operate a computer or control panel as an alternative to conventional HCI device
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