Life painting and light painting: Photography and the early Russian avant-garde

Abstract

‘At worst a colour photograph, at best a graveyard on the edge of town’.1 Kazimir Malevich, ‘Posledniaia glava ncokonchennoi avtobiografii’, in Vasilii Rakitin and Andrei Sarab'anov, eds., N. I. Khardzhiev. Stat'i ob avangarde, Moscow: RA 1997, vol. I, 130. Malevich may well have made this remark after looking through the journal Solntse Rossii (Petrograd), No. 293 (September 1915), which ran an obituary and extensive photographic tribute to Konstantin Makovskii. That is how Kazimir Malevich once described nineteenth-century Realism and the stylization of the fin de siecte that had preceded his establishment of Suprematism in 1915. He emphasized further that for him there was no cardinal difference between ‘naturalism’ (his generic denotation of all pre-Suprematist painting) and ‘photography’. Yet only a decade later Aleksandr Rodchenko was exhorting the new society to dismiss painting and to ‘photograph and be photographed’,² replacing his paintbrush with a handcamera — and zhivopis' with svetopis'— to produce some of the most remarkable photographs of the twentieth century.3 ‘hivopis’ (‘life painting’), while an early, indigenous word for ‘photography’ was ‘svetopis’ (‘light painting’); soon, however, replaced by fotografia.      

‘Swiping … and Daguerreotyping’: Photographing Golf at St Andrews

Abstract

When photography was invented, St Andrews was already a very old town, littered with the remains of a glorious and turbulent his tory: notably the skeletons of a once magnificent cathedral and a large Augustinian priory and a ruined castle, horne of the former bishops and archbishops. Zealous reformers had helped reduce these great symbols of medieval Scotland's archiepiscopal see, which were now picturesque ruins, ideal for recording in the new medium of photography. However, St Andrews in the nineteenth century was more than just ‘that Reformation bombsite’.1 This rather apt phrase was used recently by Les Murray in his poem, St Andrews University AD 2000, one of ten poems specially commissioned to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Fergusson, poet, former St Andrews student and inspiration to Robert Burns. It had a small, sleepy university, with old college buildings nestling among the town's commercial and private properties. But also it had something else alive and stirring in the western end of the town — its famous 'Old' golf course. Around the time the first St Andrews photographs were being made, George Fullerton Carnegie penned the following lines in his Golfiana: Address to St Andrews:     

The covariant electromagnetic Casimir effect for real conducting spherical shells

Using the covariant electromagnetic Casimir effect (recently introduced for real conducting cylindrical shells) 1 Razmi, H and Fadaei, N. 2009. Nucl. Phys. B, 814: 582–593.  [Google Scholar] (Razmi, Fadaei. Nucl. Phys. B 2009, 814, 582), the Casimir force experienced by a spherical shell, under Dirichlet boundary condition, is calculated. The renormalization procedure is based on the plasma cut-off frequency for real conductors. The real case of a gold (silver) sphere is considered and the corresponding electromagnetic Casimir force is computed. In the covariant approach, there is no decomposition of fields to TE and TM modes; thus, we do not need to consider the Neumann boundary condition in parallel to the Dirichlet problem and then add their corresponding results.     

A membership function approach for aggregate production planning problems in fuzzy environments

This paper proposes a novel approach for the aggregate production planning (APP) problem with fuzzy parameters. Different from the results of previous studies, in this paper the membership function of the fuzzy minimal total cost is constructed based on Zadeh's extension principle and fuzzy solutions are provided. A pair of mathematical programs parameterised by possibility level α is formulated to calculate the lower and upper bounds of the fuzzy total cost at α. By enumerating different values of α, the membership function of the fuzzy total cost is constructed. To illustrate the validity of the proposed approach, the example studied by Lai and Hwang (1992 Lai, YJ and Hwang, CL. 1992. Fuzzy mathematical programming: methods and applications, Berlin: Springer.  [Google Scholar]) using Chanas's approach is investigated. Since the objective value is expressed by a membership function rather than by a crisp value, the proposed approach can represent APP systems more accurately, thus obtained solutions which contain more information can offer more chance to achieve the feasible disaggregate plan, and it is beneficial to the decision-maker in practical applications. The proposed approach can also be applied to APP problems with other characteristics.     

Schumpeter, Business Cycles and Co-evolution

In Business Cycles (1939 Schumpeter, J. A. 1939. Business Cycles, New York: McGraw‐Hill.  [Google Scholar]) Schumpeter took up empirical data which had been produced by Kondratieff, and made the “clustering” of innovations into the actual cause of long economic cycles. The book was a failure, largely due to negative reviews which stressed the poor quality of its statistical analysis. In fact, an even more serious fault in it is its reflection of a near‐total blind spot in Schumpeter's perspective about the part played by law in economic life. He thought that “It is entirely immaterial whether or not [changes in the institutional framework] are embodied in, or recognized by, legislation.” The reality is that the concept of co‐evolution of technology and ways of doing business, on the one hand, and legal changes which affect the conditions for investment in them, on the other, explain long cycles much more persuasively than Schumpeter's approach. It suggests that the first Kondratieff cycle was made possible by the availability of “full” property rights, the second by general limited liability law (which Schumpeter thought was “of comparatively small importance”) and the third by new patent legislation which made corporate investment in R&;D attractive. Schumpeter only discussed three cycles, but a co‐evolutionary perspective makes it possible to envisage a fourth cycle as dependent upon the trademark laws which sustain advertising and mass markets, and a fifth one, in which the entertainment and information industries have been similarly underwritten by copyright law. The most plausible reason why Schumpeter undervalued laws was his attraction to the economic interpretation of history. According to this, laws, like ideas, are no more than reflections on a psychic level of social and economic realities, and have little or no power to shape these. For Keynes, in contrast, “it is ideas, not vested interests, that are dangerous for good or ill”. There was consequently no place for co‐evolution in Schumpeter's thought. But what made him publish a book which he described as “a house which is not finished and furnished”, when he did? It could be that the stimulus was evidence of the huge fame which Keynes's General Theory was already winning.     

Diagnosing batch processes with insufficient fault data: generation of pseudo batches

To ensure the safety of a batch process and the quality of its final product, one needs to quickly identify an assignable cause of a fault. Cho and Kim (2003 Cho, HW and Kim, KJ. 2003. A method for predicting future observations in the monitoring of a batch process. J. Qual. Tech, 35: 59–69.  ) recently proposed a diagnosis method for batch processes using Fisher's Discriminant Analysis (FDA), which showed a satisfactory performance on industrial batch processes. However, their method (or any other method based on empirical models) has a major limitation when the fault batches available for building an empirical diagnosis model are insufficient. This is a highly critical issue in practice because sufficient fault batches are likely to be unavailable. In this work, we propose a method to handle the insufficiency of the fault data in diagnosing batch processes. The basic idea is to generate so-called pseudo batches from known fault batches and utilise them as part of the diagnosis model data. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated using a real data set from a PVC batch process. The proposed method is shown to be capable of handling the data insufficiency problem successfully, and yields a reliable diagnosis performance.     

Some insights into Malakooti et al . ‘Integrated group technology,cell formation and process planning’ approach

Rajagopalan and Irani (Some comments on Malakooti et al. ‘Integrated group technology, cell formation, process planning, and production planning with application to the emergency room’. Int. J. Prod. Res., 2006, 44, 2265--2276.) provide a critique of Malakooti et al. (Integrated group technology, cell formation, process and production planning with application to the emergency room. Int. J. Prod. Res., 2004, 42, 1769–1786.) integrated cell/process/capacity formation (ICPCF) approach and suggest an improved method for solving the ICPCF problem. Rajagopalan and Irani (2006 Rajagopalan, RIrani, SA. 2006. Integrated group technology, cell formation, process planning, and production planning with application to the emergency room. Int. J. Prod. Res., 44: 2265–2276. Some comments on Malakooti[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) attempt to solve the emergency room layout problem presented in Malakooti et al. (2004) and claim to have obtained an improved solution from their approach (hybrid flowshop layout). Although there are certain advantages of considering Rajagopalan and Irani's (2006 Rajagopalan, RIrani, SA. 2006. Integrated group technology, cell formation, process planning, and production planning with application to the emergency room. Int. J. Prod. Res., 44: 2265–2276. Some comments on Malakooti[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) approach, we believe that their approach for solving ICPCF problems have significant shortcomings.     

Some properties of topological pressure of a semigroup of continuous maps

Based on the work of Ma and Wu,[9 Ma D, Wu M. Topological pressure and topological entropy of a semigroup of maps. Discrete Contin Dyn Syst. 2011;31:545–557.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]] some equivalent definitions of topological pressure of a semigroup of continuous maps are given and several of their basic properties are provided by using separated sets and spanning sets. We also answer an open problem of Bi? and Urbański.[19 Bi? A, Urbański M. Some remarks on topological entropy of a semigroup of continuous maps. Cubo. 2006;8:63–71. [Google Scholar]] That is, letting f_i, i = 2, … , k, be homeomorphisms acting on a compact metric space, G₁ = {id_X, f₂, … , f_k}, G^{? 1}₁ = {id_X, f^{? 1}₂, …, f_k^{? 1}} and letting G and G^?1 denote the semigroups generated by G₁ and G^{? 1}₁, respectively, we give an example showing that the topological entropy of G does not equal the topological entropy of G^?1.     

The invention and reinvention of Martín Chambi

Abstract

Distanced by over fifty years, Latorre and Thornton offer opposing perceptions of Martin Chambi as an artist.3 This is an abbreviated version of chapter four from my doctoral dissertation, Rethinking Martín Chambi, completed in 1997 at the University of New Mexico. Roberto Latorre, writer for and editor of the intellectual journal Kosko, was an integral part of the cultural milieu of 1 920s Cusco, Peru, where Chambi lived and worked. His statement was part of a review of Chambi's exhibitions from around 1925. Gene Thornton, photography critic at the New York Times during the 1970s, judged Chambi from pictures exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1979. Both critics reflect the aesthetic sensibilities of their time and the context in which they were writing: what are we to make of such disparate interpretations of the same photographer, including the shift from Latorre's emphasis on Chambi's landscapes to Thornton's interest in his portraits? At issue is the difference between Chambi's sense of himself as an artist during his own life, and how that sense was reshaped when Chambi was rediscovered after his death in 1973.     

Optimal manufacturing and delivery schedules in a supply chain system of deteriorating items

The market is changing from minute to minute nowadays. Increasing cooperation and pursuing of the optimal interest of the integrated supply chain system become more effective than acting alone in the face of competition. In this research, an integrated inventory policy between a single producer and a multi-buyer is developed. The model extends the research of Lin and Lin (2007 Lin, C and Lin, YS. 2007. A cooperative inventory policy with deteriorating items for a two-echelon model. European Journal of Operational Research, 178(1): 92–111. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], A cooperative inventory policy with deteriorating items for a two-echelon model. European Journal of Operational Research, 178 (1), 92–111) by changing the single-buyer system to the multi-buyer system. This problem is solved under the assumptions of equal replenishments and production cycles. The producer and buyers collaboratively intend to decrease their joint total cost of operation. We consider the deterioration of items at all levels of producer, buyer and in-transport, and the backorders at buyer's level only. The algorithm to find the optimal solution is given, and Matlab and Maple software are used. A numerical example is also presented.     

Prediction of Concentration Distribution in Pipeline Flow of Highly Concentrated Slurry

The Kaushal and Tomita's (2002a Kaushal , D. R. , and Y. Tomita . 2002a . An improved method for predicting pressure drop along slurry pipeline . Particulate Science and Technology 20 : 1 – 20 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) model, which has already been found satisfactory for broadly graded multisized particulate zinc tailings slurry with moderate concentration up to 26%, flow velocity up to 3.5 m/s in 105 mm diameter pipe, mean diameter 140 μm, and geometric standard deviation of particles of 4.0, is tested for concentration distribution data collected by Kaushal et al. (2005 Kaushal , D. R. , K. Sato , T. Toyota , K. Funatsu , and Y. Tomita . 2005 . Effect of particle size distribution on pressure drop and concentration profile in pipeline flow of highly concentrated slurry . International Journal of Multiphase Flow. 31 : 809 – 823 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) on two sizes of glass beads, of which mean diameter and geometric standard deviation are 440 μm and 1.2, and 125 μm and 1.15, respectively, with concentration up to 50% and flow velocity up to 5 m/s in 54.9 mm diameter pipe. Kaushal and Tomita's (2002a) model gives more asymmetric concentration distributions. A modified model is proposed by alleviating some of the restrictive assumptions used in the existing model. Comparison of experimental data by Kaushal et al. (2005 Kaushal , D. R. , K. Sato , T. Toyota , K. Funatsu , and Y. Tomita . 2005 . Effect of particle size distribution on pressure drop and concentration profile in pipeline flow of highly concentrated slurry . International Journal of Multiphase Flow. 31 : 809 – 823 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Gillies and Shook (1994 Gillies , R. G. , and C. A. Shook . 1994 . Concentration distributions of sand slurries in horizontal pipe flow . Particulate Science Technology 12 : 45 – 69 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and Matousek (2009 Matousek , V. 2009 . Concentration profiles and solids transport above stationary deposit in enclosed conduit . Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 135 : 1101 – 1106 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) with the proposed model is satisfactory.     

Virtual hybrid-FDM system to enhance surface finish

Many rapid prototyping systems which produce prototypes by layer-by-layer material deposition are now commercially available. The layer-by-layer deposition process leads to a stepped surface known as staircase. Staircase formation is a geometric constraint of the layered manufacturing, which can not be eliminated. The presence of staircase on the surface of a prototype detracts from the surface finish and hence restricts functionality of prototypes. It is realized that there is a need to make modifications in RP (rapid prototyping) systems so that prototypes with better surface finish can be produced without incurring high production costs. A virtual hybrid fused deposition modelling system (hybrid-FDM) is proposed in the present work that uses both layer-by-layer deposition and machining. In this system, CAD model is sliced adaptively using limited centre line average (Ra) value as a criterion (Pandey et al. 2003a Pandey, P.M., Reddy, N.V. and Dhande, S.G. 2003a. A real time adaptive slicing for fused deposition modelling. Int. J. Machine Tools and Manufacture, 43: 61–71.  [Google Scholar]). Hot cutter machining/ploughing (HCM) (Pandey et al. 2003b Pandey, P.M., Reddy, N.V. and Dhande, S.G. 2003b. Improvement of surface finish by staircase machining in fused deposition modelling. Journal of Material Processing Technology, 132: 323–331. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is recommended to machine the build edges (staircase) of ABS material. Numerically controlled x?y traversing mechanism is proposed as an attachment to move hot cutters along the periphery of slices to machine build edges. In this paper, geometrical designs of cutters are proposed. A process planning system to decide the number of layers to be deposited and then machined in order to access intricate features of a part is implemented. The developed system simulates surface roughness, before and after hot cutter machining. An experimental study is carried out by machining the build edges of an axisymmetric FDM part on lathe machine to form a basis for a hybrid-FDM system.     

Comparison of Air Temperature Calibrations

European national metrology institutes use calibration systems of various types for calibrating thermometers in air. These were compared to each other for the first time in a project organized by the European Association of National Metrology Institutes (EURAMET). This EURAMET P1061 comparison project had two main objectives: (1) to study the equivalence of calibrations performed by different laboratories and (2) to investigate correlations between calibration methods and achievable uncertainties. The comparison was realized using a pair of 100  \(\Omega \) platinum resistance thermometer probes connected to a digital thermometer bridge as the transfer standard. The probes had different dimensions and surface properties. The measurements covered the temperature range between \(-40\,^{\circ }\mathrm{{C}}\) and \(+150\,^{\circ }\mathrm{{C}}\) , but each laboratory chose a subrange most relevant to its scope and performed measurements at five nominal temperature points covering the subrange. To enable comparison between the laboratories, comparison reference functions were determined using weighted least-squares fitting. Various effects related to variations in heat transfer conditions were demonstrated but clear correlations to specific characteristics of calibration system were not identified. Calibrations in air and liquid agreed typically within \(\pm 0.05\,^{\circ }\mathrm{{C}}\) at \(+10\,^{\circ }\mathrm{{C}}\) and \(+80\,^{\circ }\mathrm{{C}}\) . Expanded uncertainties determined by the participants ranged from \(0.02\,^{\circ }\mathrm{{C}}\) to \(0.4\,^{\circ }\mathrm{{C}}\) and they were shown to be realistic in most cases.     

Dense-Phase Pneumatic Conveying of Slush Ice Through Plastic Pipes

Ice is being used in certain deep mines to transport refrigeration to underground areas. Research has been carried out previously into the pipeline conveying characteristics of ice with air, but there remains a lack of knowledge about some aspects of this complex flow. Previous articles (Sheer, 1995 Sheer , T. J. 1995 . Pneumatic conveying of ice particles through mine-shaft pipelines . Powder Technol. 85 : 203 – 219 . [Google Scholar]; Sheer et al., 2001 Sheer , T. J. , R. Ramsden , & M. Butterworth . 2001. The design of pipelines for transporting ice into deep mines. In Handbook of Conveying and Handling of Particulate Solids , eds. A. Levy and H. Kalman . New York : Elsevier Science. pp. 425–433. [Google Scholar]) have described experimental results on the pneumatic conveying of ice in particulate form (“hard” ice) through successive long horizontal and vertical sections of pipelines into mines. More recent research has been carried out to determine the conveying characteristics of “slush” ice that resembles wet snow, with an ice mass fraction range of 65–75%. Laboratory pneumatic conveying tests with slush ice were conducted through three horizontal plastic pipelines with inner diameters of 43, 54, and 69 mm, each pipeline being approximately 50 m long and including various bends. The tests yielded numerical and photographic data that were used to investigate the conveying characteristics of slush ice (including flow regime transition to plug flow and pressure gradients) and to compare them with the previous results for particulate ice. It was found that the conveying characteristics of the slush depend strongly on the water content. Correlations are proposed for multiphase friction factors.     

Study on the Difference Between the Triple-Point Temperatures of ^{20}Ne and ^{22}Ne Using Sealed Cells

At the National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ), the triple points of \(^{20}\) Ne and \(^{22}\) Ne were realized using modular sealed cells, manufactured by the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM) in Italy to measure the difference of the triple-point temperatures of \(^{20}\) Ne and \(^{22}\) Ne. Standard platinum resistance thermometers (SPRTs) were used that were calibrated by NMIJ on the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90). In previous reports, sealed cells of \(^{20}\) Ne and \(^{22}\) Ne were mounted one at a time in a cryostat and their triple points were realized in separate cool-downs (the single-cell measurement). In this study, first, the triple point was realized using the single-cell measurement for \(^{20}\) Ne and \(^{22}\) Ne cells. Second, the \(^{20}\) Ne and \(^{22}\) Ne cells were mounted together on the same copper block and their triple points were realized subsequently one after the other in the same cool-down of the cryostat (the double-cell measurement). The melting curves observed by the single-cell and the double-cell measurements were almost identical for each cell. The difference of the triple-point temperatures between the two cells, \(^{22}T -^{20}\!T\) , was estimated, not only using the subrange of SPRTs defined in the ITS-90 from 13.8033 K to 273.16 K (subrange 1) but also that defined from 24.5561 K to 273.16 K (subrange 2). The difference in \((^{22}T-^{20}\!\!T)\) between the subranges 1 and 2 is within 0.06 mK, which is caused by the subrange inconsistency in the ITS-90. The standard uncertainty in \((^{22}T-^{20}\!T)\) due to the subrange inconsistency is estimated to be 0.017 mK. After correction for the effects of impurities and other isotopes in the \(^{20}\) Ne and \(^{22}\) Ne cells, the difference in the triple-point temperatures between pure \(^{20}\) Ne and pure \(^{22}\) Ne is estimated to be 0.146 64 (5) K on subrange 1, which is consistent within the uncertainty with the former studies. When \(^{22}T-^{20}\!T\) for pure \(^{20}\) Ne and pure \(^{22}\) Ne is estimated on subrange 2, \(^{22}T-^{20}\!\!T\) becomes 0.146 60 (5), which agrees very well with the former reports of INRiM evaluating \(^{22}T-^{20}\!T\) on subrange 2.     

A cuckoo search algorithm by Lévy flights for solving reliability redundancy allocation problems

A new metaheuristic optimization algorithm, called cuckoo search (CS), was recently developed by Yang and Deb (2009 Yang, X.S. and Deb, S., 2009. Cuckoo search via Lévy flights. In: Proceedings of world congress on nature &; biologically inspired computing (NaBIC 2009), 9–11 December 2009, Coimbatore, India. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 210–214.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2010 Yang, X.S. and Deb, S., 2010. Engineering optimisation by cuckoo search. International Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Optimisation, 1, 330–343. doi: 10.1504/IJMMNO.2010.035430[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). This article uses CS and Lévy flights to solve the reliability redundancy allocation problem. The redundancy allocation problem involves setting reliability objectives for components or subsystems in order to meet the resource consumption constraint, e.g. the total cost. The difficulties facing the redundancy allocation problem are to maintain feasibility with respect to three nonlinear constraints, namely, cost, weight and volume-related constraints. The redundancy allocation problems have been studied in the literature for decades, usually using mathematical programming or metaheuristic optimization algorithms. The performance of the algorithm is tested on five well-known reliability redundancy allocation problems and is compared with several well-known methods. Simulation results demonstrate that the optimal solutions obtained by CS are better than the best solutions obtained by other methods.     

Influence of Grain Size on the Propagation of L_\mathrm{CR} Waves in Low Carbon Steel

The acoustoelastic theory states that mechanical stress relates to the wave speed. The microstructure of the materials influences the propagation of any ultrasonic wave, which is a major drawback in employing critically refracted longitudinal waves (L \(_\mathrm{CR}\) ) in field measurements. The present study investigates the effect of mean austenitic grain size (MAGS) on propagation speed of L \(_\mathrm{CR}\) waves in ASTM A36 low carbon hot-rolled steel plates subjected to different heat treatment temperatures. The samples were heated at 900, 1000, 1050, 1100, 1200  \(^{\circ }\) C for 30 min to obtain different grain sizes. They were measured as received and after the heat treatment, employing the ultrasonic method. The MAGS were compared to the grain size obtained from optical microscopy. The results confirmed the influence of the MAGS on the L \(_\mathrm{CR}\) speed, which can be represented by a second order polynomial curve. From the experimental results, we show that it is necessary to correct the effect of the MAGS on the L \(_\mathrm{CR}\) speed; otherwise we cannot measure the stresses without previous calibration using a stress reference.     

An efficient imperialist competitive algorithm for scheduling in the two-stage assembly flow shop problem

This paper considers a two-stage assembly flow shop problem where m parallel machines are in the first stage and an assembly machine is in the second stage. The objective is to minimise a weighted sum of makespan and mean completion time for n available jobs. As this problem is proven to be NP-hard, therefore, we employed an imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) as solution approach. In the past literature, Torabzadeh and Zandieh (2010 Torabzadeh, E., and M. Zandieh. 2010. “Cloud theory-based Simulated Annealing Approach for Scheduling in the Two-stage Assembly Flow Shop.” Advances in Engineering Software 41: 1238–1243.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) showed that cloud theory-based simulated annealing algorithm (CSA) is an appropriate meta-heuristic to solve the problem. Thus, to justify the claim for ICA capability, we compare our proposed ICA with the reported CSA. A new parameters tuning tool, neural network, for ICA is also introduced. The computational results clarify that ICA performs better than CSA in quality of solutions.     

Creeping Flow of Viscoelastic Fluid Through a Packed Bed: Effect of Particle Shape and Porosity

Experiments were conducted to elucidate the effect of particle shape and porosity on frictional pressure drop for the flow of viscoelastic fluids through a packed bed under creeping flow regime. Extensive pressure drop-flow rate data were generated using different packing materials such as cylinders of different aspect ratios, square plates, triangles, and spheres covering a wide range of sphericity, 0.546 ≤ φ ≤ 1. Effect of bed porosity has been determined using uniform-size spheres of different diameters (4.38 mm, 5.76 mm, and 6.78 mm), covering column to particle diameter ratio in the range of 13.96–21.62; while porosity varies in the range of 0.345–0.375. The experimental results indicate that the modified Ergun correlation, proposed by Sobti and Wanchoo (2014 Sobti, A., and R. K. Wanchoo. 2014. Creeping flow of viscoelastic fluid through a packed bed. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 53:14508–14518.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), can adequately be applied for the nonspherical particles, provided the equivalent volume mean diameter (D_eq) together with sphericity (φ) is used instead of the diameter of the spherical particle (D_p), i.e., D_p = D_eqφ. Further, an attempt has been made to suitably define a packing structure parameter, [(1 ? ?)/(? φ)], which could well capture the balancing effect between porosity and sphericity.