February 2012
Rainwater harvesting practices: A key concept of energy-water linkage for sustainable development
Water shortage is a big problem in Ethiopia. The main challenge is to develop an appropriate and affordable innovation that can help to bridge the gap between demand and supply of water. Mostly, water supply plants are installed at a plain region, and Jimma zone of Ethiopia is a high land. Thus, water transportation, operation and maintenance of supply system consumes a big chunk of energy supply. The...
February 2012
Heavy metals distribution in the soils of Peshawar valley, Northern-Pakistan
Information about metals concentrations in soil profiles of Peshawar-Pakistan in relation to their parent material is in scarcity. The study was aimed to identify the source of metals in soils and to determine the level of depletion and enrichment. Twenty two soil profiles derived from alluvium, piedmont alluvium, loess and re-deposits loess underlain by quaternary sediments with their respective parent...
February 2012
Life cycle assessment of biological-mechanical treatment in solid waste management
Mechanical-biological waste treatment process commonly produce an organic rich fraction containing nutrients and organic matter which have the potential to improve physical, chemical and biological health of soil. Based on recommended BMT-based integrated MSW management system, life cycle assessment is employed to compare the environmental impact potential (EIP) of two BMT-based waste treatment strategies...
February 2012
ESU-GOO: The join order algorithm for optimizing small join queries
The near exhaustive search algorithm named ESU-GOO was proposed to optimize small join queries. It optimizes the join query time which consists of both the time to generate join query results and the time to search the join order solution, whereas methods such as exhaustive search and greedy algorithm optimizes only one of them. The ESU-GOO integrates Greedy Operator Ordering (GOO) to Exhaustive...
February 2012
Effect of shock vibrations due to speed control humps to the health of city bus drivers
Speed Control Humps (SCH) are used to slow down the vehicles and improve traffic safety. While passing over the humps, the drivers of public transport buses are exposed to shock vibrations. An analysis of the effects of shock vibrations to the health of a city bus driver, while passing over three types of SCHs, is made by simulation, using an original oscillatory model with five degrees of freedom (DOF). The...
February 2012
Super-resolution image reconstruction using sparse parameter dictionary framework
Super-resolution (SR) image reconstruction is the signal processing technique of fusing many low resolution images into a single higher resolution image. A sparse parameter dictionary framework for super-resolution image reconstruction is proposed, which amalgamates the feature patches of high-resolution and low-resolution images using sparse parameter dictionary coding. This technique fabricates a sparse...
February 2012
Sensitivity of direct smear microscopy for the diagnosis of TB in high HIV prevalent population
Diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) amongst HIV patients is a great challenge due to the low density of Acid Fast bacilli (AFB) in their sputum. The study was conducted to determine the sensitivity of direct smear microscopy (DSM) for TB diagnosis in HIV endemic setting using culture as a gold standard. During the period of study, 549 TB suspects were screened, and they comprised of 396(72%) HIV-positive...
February 2012
A surrogate modelling to predict surface roughness and surface texture when grinding AISI 1042 carbon steel
The quality of the surface produced during carbon steel is important as it influences the performance of the finished part to a great extent. This paper discusses the optimization of cylindrical grinding when grinding carbon steel (AISI 1042) and effect of three variables (work speed, diameter of workpiece and depth of cut) towards surface roughness with aluminium oxide as grinding wheel. Surrogate modelling...
February 2012
Effects of farmers’ cultural practices on the weedy rice infestation and rice production
An on-farm trial was conducted at the Muda Agricultural Development Authority rice fields, Kedah, Peninsular Malaysia from November, 2003 to July, 2006 to study the impacts of farmers’ cultural practices on the weedy rice infestation and rice production. Five sample farmers (A, B, C, D and E) from five different sampling sites were selected on the basis of severity of weedy rice infestation on their...
February 2012
Face- central incisor form matching in selected south Asian population
This research intended to examine the morphometric relationship between the face and inverted maxillary central incisor in Malays and Chinese. 120 volunteers who met defined criteria participated in the study. Measurements were made directly and on digital images of each subject’s frontal facial view and the corresponding stone cast of the maxillary teeth. An image analyzer was used to divide the image of the face...
