Design and implementation of an adaptable software environment

In any major software project, a large volume of project-related information must be maintained and manipulated throughout the software life-cycle. Often this information is scattered, in different media ranging from scraps of papers to program listings, poorly cross-referenced, and inaccessible. TRIAD, an adaptable, integrated software development environment, has been designed to integrate and manage all this information in an organized and structured manner.

The TRIAD tool-box environment supports different methodologies to guide the users during development and maintenance of project related information. The environment can be customized by selecting a set of forms which enforce a particular methodology. These forms help develop, integrate, and maintain project information. Forms for a methodology can be tuned to reflect a project-team's experience. When customized by the tuned methodology, TRIAD can provide better project oriented support.

TRIAD uses grammar forms as its organizational model. This paper will discuss the advantages of using grammar forms in the modeling and implementation of an adaptable software information editor, within the TRIAD tool-box environment.     

CO2 absorption kinetics and equilibrium solubility measurements in potassium salts of renewable amino acids from plant- and animal-protein

Aqueous solutions containing alkaline salts of natural amino acids, such as those from protein in plant seeds or high protein animal-based waste, are green CO₂-separation solvents. In the present work, potassium salts of nine such amino acids were chosen for an in-depth study: alanine, arginine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, glycine, leucine, proline, serine, and valine. The kinetics of CO₂ absorption in aqueous solutions of these salts was studied using a stirred cell. From the measurements of the absorption rate at different salt concentrations (molarity 0.1 and higher), CO₂ partial pressures (5–25 kPa), and temperatures (298–308 K), values of the reaction order, rate constant, and activation energy were determined. Additionally, the liquid-side mass transfer coefficient (0.005 cm/s) was also found. Potassium salts of proline, glycine, and arginine were most reactive and, hence, were chosen for equilibrium study. The loading capacity of these salts was measured at 308 K in a vapour–liquid equilibrium setup at near-ambient pressure. On the contrary, the other chosen acids were comparatively less reactive with CO₂.     

Experimental investigation on the effect of MgO and TiO2 nanoparticles in stepped solar still

This work aims at augmenting the amount of potable water using MgO and TiO₂ in stepped solar still. Experiments were carried out for the climatic conditions of Chennai, India, with two different concentrations of nanofluids inside a stepped basin under three different cases. Results show that there is an improvement in yield of fresh water from stepped solar still by 33.18% and 41.05% using 0.1% and 0.2% volume concentration of TiO₂ nanofluid, respectively, whereas the freshwater yield from stepped still with MgO nanofluids improved by 51.7% and 61.89%. Furthermore, the economic analysis revealed that the cost of potable water from the modified solar still reduced from 0.029 to 0.016 $/kg. Similarly, the useful annual energy, yearly cost per kilogram, and annual cost per kilowatt hour are significantly profitable with the use of MgO nanofluid in the stepped basin and found as 512.46 kWh, 0.025 $/kg, and 0.026 $/kWh, respectively. It is also found that the cost of potable water from the modified still significantly increases as the amount of fresh water produced is decreased with increased fabrication cost of the solar still.     

Use of chalcopyrite semiconductors CuXSe2 (X=Al,Ga and In) in solar cells: a theoretical study

The energy of sunlight falling on surface of the earth can be directly converted into electricity by means of the solar cells. Among the various materials used for photovoltaics, the chalcopyrite compounds CuXSe₂ (X=Al, Ga, In) are very promising as semiconductors and have received much attention in the recent years. To check the applicability of these materials in solar cells, we have computed the energy bands, density of states, optical dielectric tensors, reflectivity, refraction and absorption coefficients using the full potential linearized augmented plane wave method. It is seen that the energy bandgap reduces from X=Al→In. The dielectric property of these materials is discussed in terms of interband transitions. The absorption coefficients of these materials in the region of solar radiation (0–5 eV energy) are discussed to explore their use in the fabrication of solar cells.     

Seed reserves of chickpea in relation to molybdenum supply

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L), cv K75 plants were grown till maturity at 0.00001, 0.0001, 0.001 (deficient), 0.02 (adequate), 0.2 (supranormal) and 2.0 (excess) mg dm^?3 Mo in refined sand. The pod and seed yield of chickpea were at a maximum at 0.2 mg dm^?3 Mo, which is ten times higher than the usual Mo requirement. The seed weight of chickpea was decreased more by low (<0.02 mg dm^?3) than excess (2 mg dm^?3) Mo. In chickpea seeds, the concentrations of starch, reducing, non‐reducing and total sugars were highest at 0.02 mg dm^?3 Mo and decreased by Mo stress (<>0.02–0.2 mg dm^?3). In comparison, the content of methionine, lysine, legumin, vicilin, total proteins, protein and non‐protein nitrogen in seeds of chickpea decreased variably both at low (<0.02 mg dm^?3) and high (>0.2 mg dm^?3) Mo. Both deficiency and excess of Mo deteriorated the quality of seeds by increasing the content of phenols, cysteine and albumin and decreasing that of methionine, lysine, legumin and vicilin protein fractions, apart from reducing the seed weight. The quality of seeds deteriorated more by deficiency than excess of Mo in chickpea. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Metallurgical Investigation of the Collapsed Front Structure of a Dragline in a Coal Mine

Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention - A dragline is the largest mobile equipment on earth, and it is called the “kingpin” of any mine site. In this present investigation, a case...     

Performance analysis of diamond search algorithm over full search algorithm

Microsystem Technologies - Motion estimation is a progression used to estimate motion vectors between two or more images with a high degree of temporal redundancy. It is commonly used in video...     

A New Closed-Form Expressions of Channel Capacity with MRC,EGC and SC Over Lognormal Fading Channel

In this work, we derive the closed-form expressions of channel capacity with maximal ratio combining, equal gain combining and selection combining schemes under different transmission policies such as optimal power and rate adaptation, optimal rate adaptation, channel inversion with fixed rate (CIFR) and truncated CIFR. Various approximations to the intractable integrals have been proposed using methods such as Holtzman and Gauss–Hermite approximations and simpler expressions are suggested. Moreover, as an application, the channel capacity of lognormally distributed fading channel in the interference-limited environment is discussed. The obtained closed-form expressions have been validated with the exact numerical results.