Heat and mass transport impact on MHD second-grade fluid: A comparative analysis of fractional operators

The effect of the magnetic flux plays a major role in convective flow. The process of heat transfer is accompanied by a mass transfer process; for instance, condensation, evaporation, and chemical process. Due to the applications of the heat and mass transfer combined effects in different fields, the main aim of this paper is to do a comprehensive analysis of heat and mass transfer of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) unsteady second-grade fluid in the presence of ramped conditions. The new governing equations of MHD second-grade fluid have been fractionalized by means of singular and nonsingular differentiable operators. To have an accurate physical significance of imposed conditions on the geometry of second-grade fluid, the constant concentration with ramped temperature and ramped velocity is considered. The fractional solutions of temperature, concentration, and velocity have been investigated by means of integral transform and inversion algorithm. The influence of physical parameters and flow is analyzed graphically via computational software (MATHCAD-15). The velocity profile decreases by increasing the Prandtl number. The existence of a Prandtl number may reflect the control of the thickness and enlargement of the thermal effect.     

A multifocus image fusion using highlevel DWT components and guided filter

Multimedia Tools and Applications - It is often difficult and essential to distinguish between focused and de-focused structures in an image. To properly handle such structures, an image fusion...     

A Miniaturized Frequency Reconfigurable Patch Antenna for IoT Applications

Wireless Personal Communications - This work presents a novel frequency reconfigurable patch antenna design for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The proposed antenna structure has hexagonal...     

Effect of Pickings on Germination Percentage and Fiber Quality Traits in Gossypium Hirsutum L

The present investigations were designed to determine the impact of picking dates on seed germination, 100 seed weight and various fiber parameters. Two genotypes FH-113 and FH-114 were evaluated under early and normal sowing. Nine and six pickings were taken under early and normal conditions, respectively. The results revealed significant variation in both the years for fiber traits but for seed germination, the results were non-significant and for seed weight remained significant under both sowing times, respectively. For picking time the estimates were significant under both sowing times thus exhibiting the major role of picking time in this experiment. For germination percentage, the results were variable for both the genotypes. For genotype FH-113, germination remained above 60% during 1st pick and for 5th, 6^th, and 7th pick, the germination rates were higher and nearing almost 70%. For 2nd genotype, the germination remained below 50% from pick-1 to pick-4 and above 50% in pick 5 and 8 but for all other pickings the values remained in the range 45–50%. Under normal sowing both genotypes exhibited germination percentage near 60% at 1st pick but for 2nd and 3rd pick, the germination rate remained between 45% and 50%. Regarding correlation studies among the studied traits germination % had positive and highly significant correlation with 100 seed weight under both sowing times. Fiber fineness and strength had strong and highly significant correlation with fiber maturity under both conditions. The results from this study revealed that pickings during favorable conditions produce better quality and germination.     

An A-stable extended trapezoidal rule for the integration of ordinary differential equations

We examine a single-step implicit-integration algorithm which is obtained by a modification of the well-known trapezoidal rule. The obtained new method is a third-order numerical process and preserves the property of A-stability of the trapezoidal rule. Numerical examples involving stiff linear systems of first-order differential equations are also included to demonstrate the practical usefulness of this new integration procedure.     

A generalized machine learning-based model for the detection of DDoS attacks

As time is progressing, the number and the complexity of methods adopted for launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are changing. Therefore, we propose a methodology for the development of a generalized machine learning (ML)-based model for the detection of DDoS attacks. After exploring various attributes of the dataset chosen for this study, we propose an integrated feature selection (IFS) method which consists of three stages and integration of two different methods, that is, filter and embedded methods to select features which highly contribute to the detection of various types of DDoS attacks. We use light gradient boosting machine (LGBM) algorithm for training of the model for classification of benign and malicious flows. For ensuring satisfactory performance and generalized behavior of the developed model, we test it by passing records of unseen DDoS attack types. Several performance metrics are employed for the evaluation of the model. By comparing the performance of developed model against state-of-the-art models, we state an improvement of around 20% for almost all the reported metrics. We also show that the performance of the model improves if feature space is reduced by 77%. Furthermore, the generalized behavior of the developed model is justified by demonstrating a trade-off between high variance and high bias ML models.     

Empirical Study of Project Managers Leadership Competence and Project Performance

The role of a project manager’s leadership competence in improving project performance is critical. However, little attention has been given to people-related competencies of the project manager as a leader. This study aims to develop and test a model of project manager leadership competence. To investigate the influence of a project manager’s leadership competence on project performance, 289 project managers working on public sector projects in Pakistan were surveyed. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to analyze interrelationships among specific competencies and to explain these competencies in terms of their common underlying dimensions. Hierarchical Regression Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were employed to test research hypotheses and the model. Findings from this study demonstrate that all five leadership competencies of a project manager are significantly related to achievement of project performance in terms of schedule, cost, and quality, as well as stakeholder satisfaction.     

Role of Ni<Superscript>2+</Superscript> Ions in Magnetite Nano-particles Synthesized by Co-precipitation Method

In the present work, nickel-doped iron oxide (Ni_xFe_3?x O ₄) nanoparticles with different concentration of nickel (x = 0, 0.05, 0.1, and 0.15) have been prepared by co-precipitation method. These prepared nanoparticles have been characterized by using x-ray diffractometer, thermo gravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer, and UV-Visible spectroscopy to study their structural, thermal, morphological, magnetic, and optical properties, respectively. The x-ray diffraction confirms the formation of single-phase inverse spinel cubic structure of NiFe₃ O ₄ nanoparticles. Crystallite size has been estimated by the full width at half maximum of the most intense x-ray diffraction peak where vibrational and stretching modes of metal-oxygen bonds in 872 cm are shown in Fourier transform infrared spectra which confirms the formation of nanoparticles. The thermal analysis revealed that the transition temperature and stability increases with increasing Ni concentration. The surface morphology indicated that the particles are spherical in shape with some agglomeration. The magnetic measurement revealed that the coercivity and anisotropy increases with nickel doping in magnetite nanoparticles. The optical analysis revealed that direct and indirect both types of band gap increases when the particle size decreases because the absorption spectra shift toward smaller wavelength. The blue shift confirms the formation of nanoparticles.     

A comparative study of memory‐type control charts under normal and contaminated normal environments

Cumulative sum (CUSUM) and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts are commonly used to detect small changes in the parameters of production processes. Recently, a new control structure was introduced, named as mixed EWMA–CUSUM control chart, which combined both charts. The current study provides a detailed comparison of these three types of control charts when the process parameters are unknown under normal and contaminated normal environments. Performance measures average run length and different percentiles of run length distribution are used for comparison purposes. We investigate six different location estimators with the structures of the three memory charts and study their robustness properties. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.