1,606 research outputs found
Innovative and non-destructive technologies to evaluate quality of rocket leaves for ready to eat salads
No full text‘Rocket’ is a collective name to indicate many species of green leaves belonging to Brassicacea family and are significantly consumed in the Mediterranean countries either as stand-alone salads or mixed with other vegetables. They are well known for their pungent smell, bitter flavor and high nutritional value. Rocket leaves are commercially grown as perennial and annual species, the former known as perennial wall rocket also known as wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenufolia(L.) DC.) and the latter named annual garden rocket (Eruca satvia Mill.). The Diplotaxis tenufolia plant can achieve a height of 80 centimeters (cm) and is characterized by a tap root and lengthy leaves. A typical leaf of Diplotaxis tenufolia is fleshy, oblong and deeply lobed, possessing sharp apexes. On the other hand, Eruca satvia Mill. grows to achieve a height of 40 cm possessing lyrate-pinnatifid leaves, having an enlarged terminal lobe and smaller lateral lobes with a rosette shaped arrangement of the leaves. Eruca satvia Mill. species as compared to the Diplotaxis tenufolia possesses a thin tap root and is characterized by a rigid unbranched stem. Both the species manifest similar morphological and nutritive aspects possessing a characteristic bitter taste based on the account of glucosinolates present. In the modern era, the consumer awareness regarding food safety, origins of the produce, nutritional value and demand for minimally processed fresh produce has led the food industry to explore rapid, reliable and cost effective methods for the evaluation of food products and their shelf-life since the conventional destructive analysis methods are time consuming, expensive, targeted and labor intensive. In this regard, non-destructive methods are gaining significant popularity which are assisting the food industry for the early fruits defect detection, fruits and vegetable classification on the basis of variety, maturity stage and origin and for the prediction of main internal constituents, mainly soluble solids and acids, and physical properties like firmness. On the industrial scale a significant weightage is given towards achieving fresh produce with superior quality in terms of vitamins, antioxidant activity, phenols and secondary metabolites. Rising concerns regarding the nutritional composition led many research works to evaluate the feasibility of the spectral profiles in the visible near infrared range (Vis-NIR), near infrared range (NIR) and hyperspectral images (HSI) for prediction and mapping of desired compounds in fresh produce. It is important to mention that non-destructive techniques cannot completely replace the conventional methods but can serve to assist these techniques saving time, expenses and labor. On the other hand, the non-destructive methods need no sample preparation once the model is developed making the prediction process quick. In this research work non-destructive techniques have been illuminated with respect to their potentiality in rocket leaves with special emphasis on hyperspectral imaging for the quality assessment of the fresh-cut rocket leaves accompanied by a basic introduction of the non-destructive image analysis techniques. In the first research work the feasibility of using spectral profiles for the estimation of the shelf life of the rocket leaves was evaluated using a multivariate accelerated shelf life testing (MASLT) approach. Spectral changes over time were modeled by using principal component analysis (PCA) and as variation to the conventional method, partial least squares (PLS) method. Kinetic charts were built fitting the first principle component (PC1) and the first latent variable (LV1) scores versus time. In both cases, the kinetics were described by a first order reaction, and the model performance was evaluated by the R2 values which ranged between 0.73 to 0.95 for samples stored at three different temperatures, one of them being the market temperature while the rest were categorized as accelerated temperatures which are usually higher than the market temperature. The cut-off value was calculated by judging the unacceptable spectra of samples at the accelerated temperature, as a result of which the shelf life of rocket leaves was estimated using the MASLT approach. The shelf life estimation was done using PCA based MASLT conventionally used as well as using a newly introduced methodology i.e. PLS based MASLT yielding encouraging results in both cases particularly in case of the PLS based MASLT. On the other hand, since the literature regarding quality evaluation of rocket leaves or any other leafy vegetables over time shows that the potential of hyperspectral imaging in the visible and near infrared regions has not been investigated pursing the aim of prediction and mapping of internal constituents. Hence hyperspectral imaging data was evaluated employing Partial Least Squares regression (PLSR) for the prediction of Vitamin C, ascorbic acid (AA), dehydroascorbic acid (DHAA), antioxidant activity and phenols in wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia) over a storage span of 12 days at 5oC. Hyperspectral images of the wild rocket leaves were acquired in the Vis-NIR (400-1000nm) and the NIR (900-1700nm) ranges using different data pretreatments and wavelength selection techniques. The model reliability was checked by the root mean square error (RMSE) and R2 values. Among the predicted parameters Vitamin C, AA, antioxidant activity and phenols were predicted satisfactorily in the NIR range. The prediction maps for the parameters were calculated to follow the changes over the storage period yielding more reliable results in the NIR range. All the results indicated that hyperspectral imaging combined with multivariate data possess the capability to provide reliable information regarding the shelf life estimation of the rocket leaves as well as for the prediction and mapping of the internal constituents
Usman Khalid, Muhammad Shafiullah, Sajid M. Chaudhry: Súlyosbítja-e a konfliktus az energiaszegénységet?3
No full textSzerzők és a kutatás célja
A tanulmányt az Egyesült Arab Emírségek Egyetemén, a Bangladesi Brac Egyetemen, valamint az egyesült királyságbeli Aston Business Schoolban, a gazdaságtan és pénzügy
területén dolgozó Usman Khalid, Muhammad Shafiullah és Sajid M. Chaudhry készítette.
A cikk fő célja, hogy megvizsgálja a belső konfliktusok és az energiaszegénység közötti kapcsolatot, különös tekintettel arra, hogy a belső menekültek helyzete milyen hatással van az energiaellátásra
Thermal-aware scheduling in green data centers / Muhammad Tayyab Chaudhry
No full textData centers can go green by saving electricity in two major areas: computing and cooling. Servers in data centers require a constant supply of cold air from on-site cooling mechanism for reliability. Increased computational load makes servers to dissipate more power as heat and eventually amplifies the cooling load. In thermal-aware scheduling, computations are scheduled with the objective of reducing data center wide thermal gradient, hotspots and cooling magnitude. Complemented by heat modeling, thermal-benchmarking, thermal-aware server arrangement; and thermal-aware monitoring and profiling, this scheduling is energy efficient and economical.
This research work proposes multiple techniques for thermal-benchmarking of data center servers such as: Thermal-benchmarking for Standalone Servers (TBSS), Thermal-benchmarking for Server Comparison (TBSC), Multi-intensity TBSS (MiTBSS) and Thermal-benchmarking for Virtualized Clusters (TBVC). These techniques are useful for thermal evaluation of servers, emulating various types of workloads and creating the thermal profiles. A thermal-aware server relocation algorithm (ThSRA) for thermal-stress free arrangement of servers is also proposed. The experimental results show that the peak outlet temperatures of the servers can be brought closer to average outlet temperature by over 5 times through ThSRA. This also brings the lowering of average peak outlet temperature by 3.5% and minimizing the thermal-stress.
Thermal profiles are used for outlet temperature prediction modeling of the servers. These models include the worst case prediction model (WCPM), optimistic prediction model (OPM) and enhanced optimistic prediction model (EOPM). The best prediction model can predict the outlet temperature of the servers with an average error of up to 0.3 degree Celsius. WCPM is applied for offline hotspot-resistant virtual machine deployment algorithm (HVMDA) and hotspot-aware server arrangement algorithm (HSLERA). The combination of HVMDA and HSLERA leads to increase in server utilization by up to 50% and lowering the peak outlet temperature by up to 3% on average. The WCPM and OPM are used for the implementation of online thermal-aware VM scheduling. These schedulers have comparatively lower thermal-gradient across all servers, lower outlet temperatures across all servers, effective use of computing capacity and the power consumption. The proposed proactive schedulers comparatively show up to 11% in total energy savings. All these thermal-aware techniques are helpful in the establishment of green data centers
L’affaire Chaudhry : le mouvement des robes noires pakistanaises de 2007-2008
No full textEn suspendant le président de la Cour suprême pakistanaise, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, le 9 mars 2007, le général Pervez Musharraf pensait s’être débarrassé d’un magistrat devenu gênant par son activisme judiciaire. Le juge Chaudhry a refusé pourtant de démissionner et, avec le soutien du barreau et d’une partie de la magistrature, engagé une épreuve de force avec le chef de l’État (et de l’armée). C’est le début d’une crise politico-judiciaire qui va précipiter l’effondrement du régime Musharraf, en août 2008
Growth of Livestock Production in Pakistan: An Analysis
No full textAgriculture is the backbone and single largest sector of Pakistan’s economy as its contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) exceeded 25.3 percent during 1997-98. Crops, livestock, fishing and forestry sub-sectors being its main components, only crop and livestock sub-sectors are of critical importance. They accounted for 59.6 and 36.2 percent of the sector’s output respectively. Because of the ongoing process of structural transformation, agriculture’s share in the national economy is shrinking. From 39 percent of GDP in 1969-70 it has fallen to its current levels [Pakistan (1999a)]. The livestock sub-sector however has not followed suit. It has risen from 27.3 percent in 1969-70 to 36.2 percent in 1997-98. This trend in fact would be more pronounced if the national accounts did not underestimate the sub-sector’s components such as farm yard manure, dung cakes for household fuels and animal draft power. Apart from its contributions to national income, the livestock sub-sector is an active employer of thousands of landless poor and subsistence and semi-subsistence small farming families. Being a household activity, women are a special beneficiary of employment in the sub-sector. It is a major source of nourishment like milk, butter oil, eggs and meat and adds immensely to the health, nutrition and well being of rural as well as urban people. While animal fat and butter oil supplies are helpful in containing vegetable oil imports, many products of livestock origin such as wool and wool products, leather and leather made-ups and animal casings are exported and contribute significantly to hard earned foreign exchange [Ahmad, Ahmad and Chaudhry (1996)]. It follows from the above that the livestock sub-sector is likely to maintain its position as the dominant sub-sector of Pakistan’s agricultural sector or even that of the national economy for quite sometime in the future. Despite the rising and critical importance of the sub-sector, there, however, is no corresponding emphasis on analysing its achievements, problems and future prospects and likely policies to brighten these up. In view of this limitation, the present paper makes a limited attempt to study the growth process of the livestock sub-sector.
Spectral and Hyperspectral Technologies as an Additional Tool to Increase Information on Quality and Origin of Horticultural Crops
No full textNowadays, consumer awareness of the impact of site of origin and method of production on the quality and safety of foods, and particularly of fresh produce, is driving the research towards developing various techniques to assist present certifications, traceability, and audit procedures. With regard to horticultural produce, consumer preferences have shifted to fruit and vegetables, which are healthy and ecologically produced, and toward processed foods having sustainable or social certifications and with sites of origin clearly reported on the label. Some recent studies demonstrate the potentiality of near infrared (NIR) technology (including hyperspectral imaging) for discriminating fresh and processed horticultural products based on their composition, quality attributes, and origin. These studies principally mention that each biological tissue possesses a fingerprint NIR spectrum, which consists of a unique and characteristic pattern of radiation, distinguishing a particular biological tissue from physically and/or chemically different samples. Particularly, recent studies discriminated apples, wine, wheat kernels, and derived flours based on their geographical origins. Spectral information allowed discrimination among growing methods (organic and conventional) for asparagus and strawberry fruits, and among harvest dates for fennels, table grapes, and artichokes. Moreover, information about freshness and storage days after minimal processing can be obtained. Recent literature and original results will be discussed. From our perspective, present results suggest that these techniques may have a potentiality to increase information about product history, but if and only if the variability captured by the classification models is vast in terms of diverse samples belonging to various cultivars, varieties, harvest times, cultural practices, geographical origins, storage conditions, and maturity stages, while being used as a complementary method to the conventional ones―either to make an initial screening of critical features, or to add to the amount of available information. Lacking the inclusion of these parameters could result in good classification results, but the reliability of the classification in this case would be dubious in terms of assessment of the factor contributing towards correct classification
Growth of Output and Productivity in Pakistan’s Agriculture: Trends, Sources, and Policy Implications
No full textThe paper aims to review the growth performance of Pakistan’s agriculture from 1950 to 1995. The long-term growth rate of agriculture, although respectable, has exhibited considerable yearly fluctuations even between decades. The period of the fifties and early seventies lacked any growth. Accelerating and high growth rates marked the decade of the sixties but the performance has not been satisfactory since 1979-80 and average growth rates have barely exceeded the population growth rate, with widespread implications for growth of national economy, food security, and social welfare of the masses. Area, modern inputs, and technology have been the major determinants of growth but prices were equally important because of their incentive and disincentive effects. The agriculture price policies adopted during the 1980s are known to have had a negative effect on the development and use of technology in agriculture. In order to boost agricultural productivity, a change in price policy is needed to ensure incentive prices. This could be done by setting agricultural commodity prices at par with corresponding import and export parity prices. A higher investment in research and development can hardly be overemphasised. There is an urgent need to remove the bottlenecks in agricultural input markets since these markets represent the typical monopoly position. To break up the monopoly of registered dealers and to promote competition, free sales in the open market by interested parties and individuals may be allowed.
On branchwise implicative BCI-algebras
No full textWe introduce a new class of BCI-algebras, namely the class of
branchwise implicative BCI-algebras. This class contains the
class of implicative BCK-algebras, the class of weakly implicative
BCI-algebras (Chaudhry, 1990), and the class of medial BCI-algebras.
We investigate necessary and sufficient conditions for two types of BCI-algebras
to be branchwise implicative BCI-algebras
The Chaudhry Court : Deconstructing the Judicialization of Politics in Pakistan
No full textThe Supreme Court of Pakistan underwent a remarkable transformation in its institutional role and constitutional position during the tenure of the former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (2005–2013). This era in Pakistan’s judicial history was also marked by great controversy as the court faced charges that it had engaged in “judicial activism,” acted politically, and violated the constitutionally mandated separation of powers between institutions of the state. This article presents an in-depth analysis of the judicial review actions of the Chaudhry Court and argues that the charge of judicial activism is theoretically unsound and analytically obfuscating. The notion of judicial activism is premised on the existence of artificial distinctions between law, politics and policy and fails to provide a framework for adequately analyzing or evaluating the kind of judicial politics Pakistan has recently experienced. The Supreme Court’s role, like that of any apex court with constitutional and administrative law jurisdiction, has always been deeply and structurally political and will continue to be so in the future. As such, this article focuses on the nature and consequences of the Chaudhry Court’s judicial politics rather than addressing the issue of whether it indulged in politics at all. It analyzes the underlying causes that enabled the court to exercise an expanded judicial function and in doing so engages with the literature on the “judicialization of politics” around the world
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