TEXTURAL CHANGES IN VEGETABLES DURING THERMAL PROCESSING. II. EFFECTS of ACIDIFICATION and SELECTED PRETREATMENTS ON TEXTURE of TURNIPS

The effect of different preprocessing treatments on the softening of vegetable tissues during acidification of turnips at different temperatures was studied. Texture was characterized by the maximum load force in a puncture test. the different preprocessing treatments considered were blanching alone and coupled with vacuum infusion, freezing/thawing and calcium chloride addition. Samples were acidified at different constant temperatures: 20, 50, 70 and 90C. Results were obtained by comparing the softening occurring for all samples and for non-preprocessed turnips. It was found that for low temperature processing the final result was mainly due to the effect of the preprocessing itself on the turnip texture while for high temperature processing the effect of the preprocessing on the tissues sensitivity to the processing was more important. Blanching alone caused greater softening when processing at 70C but lead to a firmer product when coupled with calcium chloride addition or vacuum infusion for processing at 70 and 90C.     

SPEED AT BREAKDOWN TORQUE OF A SINGLE-PHASE INDUCTION MOTOR

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to present an “exact” analytical expression to calculate speed at breakdown torque and the breakdown torque of single-phase induction motors. From the theoretical expression for torque developed by a single-phase motor, a sixth order polynomial in speed at breakdown torque is obtained, and solved, using a well known method. A real root for per unit speed, i.e. the ratio of speed to the synchronous speed, that lies between 0 and 1 is selected and the actual breakdown torque is determined by substituting it in the torque equation. The breakdown torque, also termed as maximum torque, so obtained has been found to yield better correlation between the predicted and the tested results than the only existing empirical relation. Steps to calculate speed at maximum torque are also suggested. For an arbitrarily selected single-phase induction motor, a curve of speed at breakdown torque as a function of r₂/X is also included for the purposes of illustration and understanding.     

OPTIMUM DESIGN OF SMALL DISTRIBUTION TRANSFORMER USING ALUMINIUM CONDUCTORS

ABSTRACT

Design Optimization of distribution transformer of small KVA rating using aluminium conductors is considered as a nonlinear multivariable constrained programming problem. For this purpose a set of five independent design variables is identified and suitable constraints are imposed to meet the thermal and other performance requirements of the transformer. The various objective functions are formed in terms of cost of active material, capitalized cost of losses as the operating cost and the overall cost as the sum of these two. This is done to select most effective and appropriate optimized design for these types of transformers. The optimization is achieved through Rosenbrock's method of direct search in conjunction with the sequential unconstrained minimization Technique (SUMT). The optimized design results for a 25 KVA distribution transformer using aluminium conductors are presented along with the design results using copper as the winding material for different objective functions.     

OBSERVATIONS ON THE DESIGN OF DISTRIBUTED ARMATURE WINDING BY POLY PHASE SYMMETRISATION

ABSTRACT

The generalised process of designing distributed poly-phase armature windings by the technique of symmetrization offers special advantages in developing dedicated machines for operation with non-sinusoidal supplies.

Principles of symmetrization have been reviewed with special reference to 3-phase windings and important rules governing the applications of the process have been enumerated, both with reference to single-speed balanced and unbalanced windings as well as multi-speed windings.

Although such special windings in general, have wider harmonic spectra compared to standard designs, a judicious selection of symmetrised windings can, in fact prove beneficial in specific cases. The paper attempts to lay down the procedure for systematic design of 3-phase symmetrised windings.     

Varna-based optimization: a novel method for capacitated controller placement problem in SDN

Recently,software defined networking(SDN)is a promising paradigm shift that decouples the control plane from the data plane.It can centrally monitor and control the network through softwarization,i.e.,controller.Multiple controllers are a necessity of current SDN based WAN.Placing multiple controllers in an optimum way is known as controller placement problem(CPP).Earlier,solutions of CPP only concentrated on propagation latency but overlooked the capacity of controllers and the dynamic load on switches,which is a significant factor in real networks.In this paper,we develop a novel optimization algorithm named varna-based optimization(VBO)and use it to solve CPP.To the best of our knowledge,this is the first attempt to minimize the total average latency of SDN along with the implementation of TLBO and Jaya algorithms to solve CPP for all twelve possible scenarios.Our experimental results show that TLBO outperforms PSO,and VBO outperforms TLBO and Jaya algorithms in all scenarios for all topologies.     

Changes in wild ass (Equus hemionus khur) habitat conditions in Little Rann of Kutch,Gujarat from a remote sensing perspective

The Rann of Kutch, Gujarat is the only habitat for one of the endangered sub-species of the Asiatic wild ass (Equus hemionus khur) and most of the population survives in the Wild Ass Sanctuary in Little Rann of Kutch. The area is a saline desert with extremely sparse cover of vegetation. In the past, the habitat supported a thriving population of wild asses. However, due to extensive changes in the land-use around the Rann of Kutch, there has been an increase in the conflict of interests between man and the wild ass. The present paper seeks to analyse the situation with respect to changes in land-use, vegetation cover and salt cultivation to plan proper habitat management inside the sanctuary to mitigate the problem of crop predation by the wild ass through the use of high resolution satellite data.

The Survey of India (SOI) topographic maps of 1960 vintage were used to estimate the past habitat, land-use, vegetal cover and salt fields. The SOI topographic maps and false colour composites provided a limited number of land-use classes for a meaningful comparison of land-use changes. This data has been compared with digitally classified SPOT MLA on SIPS (Satellite Image Processing System, Hyderabad). Various techniques such as principal component analysis, normalized difference vegetation index, unsupervised and supervised classifications were carried to classify various features. Of these techniques, supervised classification provided very useful results for an effective interpretation. It was observed that there has been an increase in irrigated crop fields. This has resulted in enhanced crop predation by wild asses thereby triggering human-wild ass conflicts. The digital interpretation provided crucial information on a number of classes of land-use relevant to the habitat of wild ass. An operational basis of deriving such information for formulating effective conservation strategies is presented.     

Discrete two-time-scale systems

In this paper reduced-order modelling and control analysis of linear, discrete-time systems having dominant and non-dominant modes are presented. Decoupling of modes is achieved using an explicitly invertible linear transformation. A matrix norm condition is derived, the satisfaction of which enables approximate expressions for the block-diagonalizing matrices, eigenvalue distribution and state trajectories to be obtained. Design of stabilizing feedback controllers is developed and it is shown that two gain matrices are needed for separate assignment of dominant and non-dominant eigenvalues. The theoretical analysis is illustrated by control system examples.     

Some new distance measures for type-2 fuzzy sets and distance measure based ranking for group decision making problems

In this paper, we propose some distance measures between type-2 fuzzy sets, and also a new family of utmost distance measures are presented. Several properties of differ- ent proposed distance measures have been introduced. Also, we have introduced a new ranking method for the ordering of type-2 fuzzy sets based on the proposed distance measure. The proposed ranking method satisfies the reasonable prop- erties for the ordering of fuzzy quantities. Some properties such as robustness, order relation have been presented. Lim- itations of existing ranking methods have been studied. Fur- ther for practical use, a new method for selecting the best alternative, for group decision making problems is proposed. This method is illustrated with a numerical example.     

Kinetics of Water Sorption by Soybean and Pigeonpea Grains

Kinetics of liquid water sorption by soybean (Glycine max) and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) seeds was studied at several temperatures. The data could be accurately correlated in terms of an empirical model involving a single rate constant. The temperature dependence of the rate constant followed Arrhenius relation. Swelling of grains due to water sorption was slightly less than the volume of water imbibed. This loss related to the energy of activation of the water sorption process.