Analysis of dispatching rules in a stochastic dynamic job shop manufacturing system with sequence-dependent setup times

Stochastic dynamic job shop scheduling problem with consideration of sequence-dependent setup times are among the most difficult classes of scheduling problems. This paper assesses the performance of nine dispatching rules in such shop from makespan, mean flow time, maximum flow time, mean tardiness, maximum tardiness, number of tardy jobs, total setups and mean setup time performance measures viewpoint. A discrete event simulation model of a stochastic dynamic job shop manufacturing system is developed for investigation purpose. Nine dispatching rules identified from literature are incorporated in the simulation model. The simulation experiments are conducted under due date tightness factor of 3, shop utilization percentage of 90 % and setup times less than processing times. Results indicate that shortest setup time (SIMSET) rule provides the best performance for mean flow time and number of tardy jobs measures. The job with similar setup and modified earliest due date (JMEDD) rule provides the best performance for makespan, maximum flow time, mean tardiness, maximum tardiness, total setups and mean setup time measures.     

The textural properties of soy paneer

Toned dairy milk and soy milk were mixed in different proportions and coagulated at various temperatures to produce paneer blends, and their textural properties were evaluated. As the soy milk proportion in the blend increased from 0% to 50%, hardness, cohesiveness and chewiness of the samples decreased initially, but further increase in the blend from 50% to 100% cause these values to increase slightly. The proportion of soymilk in the prepared paneer had a significant effect on hardness, cohesiveness, adhesiveness, chewiness and yield, whereas the coagulation temperature affected cohesiveness and yield. The process parameters did not show any effect on the springiness.     

Specification of Process Design Variables for Complex Evaporation Plants

A general expression is developed for determining the degree of freedom in the design of a multiple-effect evaporation plant having some or all of the following auxiliary features: condensate flash tanks, liquor flash tanks, intermediate liquor heaters, multiple feeds, finisher unit, vapor bleed points, and twin-body evaporator effects. These degrees of freedom are utilized in specifying the process design variables for the evaporation plant.     

Effects of Osmotic Agents on Colour,Textural, Structural,Thermal, and Sensory Properties of Apple Slices

Effects of various osmotic agents (i.e., glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, sorbitol, and honey) were evaluated in terms of moisture loss and solid gain besides objective measurements of colour, texture, glass transition temperature; subjective sensory profile; and scanning electron microscopic cellular structure of osmotically dehydrated apple slices. Significantly (p < 0.05) higher solid gains were observed in the samples dipped in glucose and fructose solutions, whereas maltose-treated samples showed higher water loss. The glass transition temperatures varied from ?68.4 to ?45.6°C, minimum in the case of glucose and maximum in maltose-treated ones. The sucrose- and maltose-treated samples had significantly (p < 0.05) higher L* showing restricted browning. The a* value was maximum and minimum in the case of sucrose- and fructose-treated samples, respectively. Hardness was found to be significantly (p < 0.05) higher (20.104 N) in sucrose-treated samples, while it was at a minimum (4.441 N) in sorbitol-treated ones. The scanning electron microscope studies revealed that cellular structure was retained in sucrose-treated samples, while the damage was observed to be more in the glucose- and fructose-treated ones. The sensory attributes of the osmo-dehydrated samples were found to be better in the case of sucrose-treated samples. The type of humectant, in terms of molecular size, significantly influences the mass transfer process that could be optimized to make the process versatile to meet the requirements of processors and consumers.     

Response of serum minerals (calcium,phosphate, and magnesium) and endocrine glands (calcitonin cells and parathyroid gland) of wistar rat after chlorpyrifos administration

Wistar rats (male) were daily administered chlorpyrifos at a dose of 5 mg/kg b wt. and 10 mg/kg b wt. and sacrificed on 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th week. In chlorpyrifos exposed rats hypocalcemia, hypophosphatemia and hypomagnesemia were recorded. At later intervals an increased levels of serum calcium and phosphate were observed. The parathyroid glands and calcitonin cells exhibited increased activity which is evident by increased nuclear volume of these cells. Microsc. Res. Tech. 76:673–678, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Image smog restoration using oblique gradient profile prior and energy minimization

Removing the smog from digital images is a challenging pre-processing tool in various imaging systems. Therefore, many smog removal (i.e., desmogging) models are proposed so far to remove the effect of smog from images. The desmogging models are based upon a physical model, it means it requires efficient estimation of transmission map and atmospheric veil from a single smoggy image. Therefore, many prior based restoration models are proposed in the literature to estimate the transmission map and an atmospheric veil. However, these models utilized computationally extensive minimization of an energy function. Also, the existing restoration models suffer from various issues such as distortion of texture, edges, and colors. Therefore, in this paper, a convolutional neural network (CNN) is used to estimate the physical attributes of smoggy images. Oblique gradient channel prior (OGCP) is utilized to restore the smoggy images. Initially, a dataset of smoggy and sunny images are obtained. Thereafter, we have trained CNN to estimate the smog gradient from smoggy images. Finally, based upon the computed smog gradient, OGCP is utilized to restore the still smoggy images. Performance analyses reveal that the proposed CNN-OGCP based desmogging model outperforms the existing desmogging models in terms of various performance metrics.     

Nutritional Quality of Vegetable Pigeonpeas [Cajanus cajan (L.) Mill sp.]: Mineral and Trace Elements

Mineral and trace elements of green and mature seed of pigeonpea genotypes were determined. Among the genotypes tested a considerable variation was observed in phosphorus, potassium and calcium of both green and mature seeds whereas the variation was small for magnesium. When consumed, green seeds are a richer source of iron, copper and zinc on a dry matter basis than the mature seed whereas there was a reverse trend for manganese. The calcium content of mature seed was significantly higher than green seed and this was attributed to the seed coat content of the mature seed.     

Optimal estimation of interferometric phase for measuring surface deformation

In recent times, time-series interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) methods are developed to retrieve the deformation signal in non-urban areas from distributed scatterers (DS). Phase triangulation algorithm (PTA), an important step in these methods for filtering decorrelation noise from DS, aims at optimal estimation of the filtered wrapped interferometric phase values using InSAR data stack. The uniqueness of this research work lies in the incorporation of one such PTA only to provide an optimal set of wrapped interferometric phase values before phase unwrapping in the open source StaMPS processing environment. The proposed methodology, when adapted to measure surface deformation in Tehri reservoir rim region, Uttarakhand, India using Environmental Satellite (Envisat) C-band advanced synthetic aperture radar images, works efficiently and has enhanced the spatial coverage of measurement pixels compared to standalone PS-InSAR processing. It is also revealed from the one-dimension-line of sight velocity map that resulted velocity estimates are congruent with standalone PS-InSAR processing.     

Cold test of cylindrical open resonator for 42 GHz, 200 kW gyrotron

This paper presents experimental results for cold testing of a gyrotron open resonator. Experiments were carried out to measure resonant frequency and their particular quality factor for TE mode at the frequency 42 GHz. The perturbation technique was used to determine the axial, radial and azimuthal electric field profile for identification of TE₀₃₁ mode at operating frequency 42 GHz. The good agreement between experimental results and theoretical studies was found. The results verify the design and fabrication of the specific gyrotron cavity.     

Compact solid state radio frequency amplifiers in kW regime for particle accelerator subsystems

Radio frequency and Microwave (RFM) infrastructure test facility is under development at RRCAT for evaluating and powering, subsystems of particle accelerator. As a part of this facility, design of 20–30 kW UHF solid state power amplifiers is in progress. For this work, design procedure has been formulated for the development of solid state amplifier modules, radial combiner, divider and directional coupler; with specifications suited to RFM power system for particle accelerator. Methodology has been demonstrated by developing two different compact amplifiers with power output of 2 kW each, operating at 352 MHz and 505.8 MHz, respectively. This paper describes underlying design principles and indigenous development of these amplifiers, consisting of 270–300 W amplifier modules, 8-way 2 kW radial combiner/divider and directional couplers. Design methodology for power combiner has been extended by physically realizing higher power (4 kW) 16-way power combiner and 2-way combiner (8 kW) for higher power (8 kW) amplifier configuration planned. Simple design, indigenous technology, high efficiency and ease of fabrication, are the main features of this design.