• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.254-269
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• 2017

The work describes an assessment of the major air pollutants, $NO_2$, $SO_2$, CO, $O_3$, $NH_3$, coarse and fine particulate matter ($PM_{10}$, $PM_{2.5}$) in ambient air in and around a 3 million tonne Petroleum Refinery and the possible impacts on a pristine area marked by the presence of the world-famous Kajiranga National Park, a world heritage site and habitat for the most number of one-horned rhinos in the world. The Refinery is at an aerial distance of 20-25 km from the wildlife habitat. The assessment is based on regular monitoring at four stations around the Refinery and one station near the National Park. Heavy rains during June to August influence the pollutant concentrations while at other times of the year, large traffic volume adds to the pollutant concentrations that peak during November to March, the dry months of the year. Correlation analysis by scatter technique is utilised to obtain the enhancement ratios to predict the variations in the concentrations of the pollutants and their spatial distribution. Computation of air quality index (AQI) indicates that the coarse and the fine particulates in the ambient air could be a major hazard to wildlife in the area.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.22
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• pp.9871-9873
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• 2014

Brain tumors are a mixed group of neoplasms that originate from the intracranial tissues and the meninges with degrees of malignancy varying greatly from benign to aggressive. Not much is known about the epidemiology of primary malignant brain tumors (PMBTs) in our population in North-East India. In this analysis, an attempt was made to identify the age groups, gender distribution, topography and different histological types of PMBT with data from a hospital cancer registry. A total of 231 cases of PMBT were identified and included for the present analysis. Our analysis has shown that most of PMBT occur at 20-60 years of age, with a male to female ratio of 2.3:1. Some 70.5% of cases occurred in cerebral lobes except for the occipital lobe, and astrocytic tumors were the most common broad histological type. In our population the prevalence of PMBT is 1% of all cancers, mostly affecting young and middle aged patients. As brain tumors are rare, so case-control analytic epidemiological studies will be required to establish the risk factors prevalent in our population.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.241-252
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• 2006

Traditional service-level agreements (SLAs), defined by average delay or packet loss, often camouflage the instantaneous performance perceived by end-users. We define a set of metrics for service availability to quantify the performance of Internet protocol (IP) backbone networks and capture the impact of routing dynamics on packet forwarding. Given a network topology and its link weights, we propose a novel technique to compute the associated service availability by taking into account transient routing dynamics and operational conditions, such as border gateway protocol (BGP) table size and traffic distributions. Even though there are numerous models for characterizing topologies, none of them provide insights on the expected performance perceived by end customers. Our simulations show that the amount of service disruption experienced by similar networks (i.e., with similar intrinsic properties such as average out-degree or network diameter) could be significantly different, making it imperative to use new metrics for characterizing networks. In the second part of the paper, we derive goodness factors based on service availability viewed from three perspectives: Ingress node (from one node to many destinations), link (traffic traversing a link), and network-wide (across all source-destination pairs). We show how goodness factors can be used in various applications and describe our numerical results.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.223-246
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• 2018

In this paper the results of CFD simulations, that were carried out to study the impact pressures acting on a symmetric wedge during water entry under the influence of gravity, are presented. The simulations were done using a solver implementing finite volume discretization and using the VOF scheme to keep track of the free surface during water entry. The parameters such as pressure on impact, displacement, velocity, acceleration and net hydrodynamic forces, etc., which govern the water entry process are monitored during the initial stage of water entry. In addition, the results of the complete water entry process of wedges covering the initial stage where the impact pressure reaches its maximum as well as the late stage that covers the rebound process of the buoyant wedge are presented. The study was conducted for a few touchdown velocities to understand its influence on the water entry phenomenon. The simulation results are compared with the experimental measurements available in the literature with good accuracy. The various computational parameters (e.g., mesh size, time step, solver, etc.) that are necessary for accurate prediction of impact pressures, as well as the entry-exit trajectory, are discussed.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.4183-4186
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• 2012

Background: Ovarian cancer is the number one killer among all the gynecological cancers. We undertook association study to identify potential alterations in the genomic DNA of a DNA repair gene, DNA polymerase beta ($pol{\beta}$), involved in base excision repair (BER), in ovarian carcinomas of patients from Haldia, India. Mutations, splice variants have been reported earlier in different tumors other than ovarian tumors. Aim: In this study we explored the possibility of association of any mutation of $pol{\beta}$ (Exon 8) with prognosis in 152 ovarian cancer samples. Results: Alteration in the exon 8 region (Exon 8:468, $A{\rightarrow}C$; 15.1%) was noted among fifty seven polymorphism positive samples. Alteration in the intervening sequence 8 (IVS8, -25, $A{\rightarrow}C$; 3.9%) was also noted. All alterations are heterozygous in nature. Conclusions: We found no significant association among the samples from serous type, stage IV, and the $pol{\beta}$ mutations ($P{\leq}0.01$). Only a slight tendency of association was evident between IVS8, -25, A to C; and stage III. Further analysis with a larger number of samples is needed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1215-1232
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• 2015

In the present paper, a method for identifying damage in a multi storeyed shear building structure is presented using minimum number of modal parameters of the structure. A damage at any level of the structure may lead to a major failure if the damage is not attended at appropriate time. Hence an early detection of damage is essential. The proposed identification methodology requires experimentally determined sparse modal data of any particular mode as input to detect the location and extent of damage in the structure. Here, the first natural frequency and corresponding partial mode shape values are used as input to the model and results are compared by changing the sensor placement locations at different floors to conclude the best location of sensors for accurate damage identification. Initially experimental data are simulated numerically by solving eigen value problem of the damaged structure with inclusion of random noise on the vibration characteristics. Reliability of the procedure has been demonstrated through a few examples of multi storeyed shear structure with different damage scenarios and various noise levels. Validation of the methodology has also been done using dynamic data obtained through experiment conducted on a laboratory scale steel structure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.1589-1599
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• 2017

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are getting more attention in safety-related and safety-critical application development of nuclear power plant instrumentation and control systems. The high logic density and advancements in architectural features make static random access memory (SRAM)-based FPGAs suitable for complex design implementations. Devices deployed in the nuclear environment face radiation particle strike that causes transient and permanent failures. The major reasons for failures are total ionization dose effects, displacement damage dose effects, and single event effects. Different from the case of space applications, soft errors are the major concern in terrestrial applications. In this article, a review of radiation effects on FPGAs is presented, especially soft errors in SRAM-based FPGAs. Single event upset (SEU) shows a high probability of error in the dependable application development in FPGAs. This survey covers the main sources of radiation and its effects on FPGAs, with emphasis on SEUs as well as on the measurement of radiation upset sensitivity and irradiation experimental results at various facilities. This article also presents a comparison between the major SEU mitigation techniques in the configuration memory and user logics of SRAM-based FPGAs.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.11-15
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• 1995

Polysulfone (PS) membranes were prepared by the phase inversion process using water or isopropanol as nonsolvent. The Flory-Huggins theory for a ternary system nonsolvent/solvent/polymer is applied to describe the thermodynamic equilibria of the components. The calculated ternary phase equilibria show that demixing of a PS binary solution with n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) will be fast in a water coagulation bath and will be delayed in an isopropanol bath. The prepared membranes were characterized by SEM, gas adsorption-desorption measurement, and permeability test. The membrane, which is precipitated by fast demixing in a water bath, has nodular structures in the skin region and includes finger-like cavities in the sublayer. The membrane coagulated by isopropanol has a very dense and thick skin structure, which is formed by delayed demixing. The membrane coagulated by isopropanol showed considerably lower pore volume and surface area compared to that observed with water coagulation method. With dimethylformamide (DMF) as solvent and 2-3 wt% of water, the solution can show the liquid-liquid phase separation due to agglomation of the polymer-lean phase from the homogeneous solution. The membranes, which were coagulated near an equilibrium state, show the large (micron size) round pores in the whole membranes. The pores do not contribute the permeation characteristics.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.321-335
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• 2014

Eight trace metals, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn, were measured in the urban soil of Guwahati City, Assam, India from 31 sites representing five different types of land use, residential, commercial, industrial, public utilities, and roadside. Cd and Co occurred in very low concentrations (Cd << Co) in all types of land use without any significant variation from one type of land use to another. Ni concentrations were more than those of Co, and the concentrations depended on land use pattern. Average Cr and Cu concentrations were ${\geq}100mg/kg$, but Cr had a significantly higher presence in industrial land use. Pb concentrations showed similar trends. The two metals, Mn and Zn, were present in much larger amounts compared to the others with values ${\geq}300mg/kg$. Industrial and roadside soil contained much more Mn while commercial soil was enriched with Zn. Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) was used for elucidating the mobility characteristics of the eight heavy metals. Mn suffered the highest leaching from commercial land (9.9 mg/kg on average) and also from other types of land. Co, Cu and Pb showed higher leachability from commercial soils but the leached concentrations were less than those of Mn. The two metals, Zn and Ni, were leached from residential land in considerable amounts. The TCLP showed Mn to be the most leachable metal and Cr the least.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.23-42
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• 2009

In order to reduce vibration or to control shape of structures made of metal or composites, piezoelectric materials have been extensively used since their discovery in 1880's. A recent trend is also seen to apply piezoelectric materials to flexible structures made of rubber-like materials. In this paper a non-linear finite element model using updated Lagrangian (UL) approach has been developed for static analysis of rubber-elastic material with surface-bonded piezoelectric patches. A compressible stain energy function has been used for modeling the rubber as hyperelastic material. For formulation of the nonlinear finite element model a twenty-node brick element is used. Four degrees of freedom u, v and w and electrical potential ${\varphi}$ per node are considered as the field variables. PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) patches are applied as sensors/actuators or sensors and actuators. The present model has been applied to bimorph PVDF cantilever beam to validate the formulation. It is then applied to study the smart rubber components under different boundary and loading conditions. The results predicted by the present formulation are compared with the analytical solutions as well as the available published results. Some results are given as new ones as no published solutions available in the literatures to the best of the authors' knowledge.