Multidisciplinary approach to defining public e-procurement and evaluating its impact on procurement efficiency

Utilising the methodology of content analysis, this study uses a multidisciplinary approach to define public e-procurement. Various aspects of e-procurement have been discussed from information systems, supply chain management, electronic commerce/electronic government, and public procurement to come up with an integrated definition of public e-procurement. Following this, e-procurement assimilation has been defined and its impact on procurement efficiency has been evaluated. Following the confirmatory factor analysis in structural equation modelling, dimensional level analysis in ANOVA has been undertaken for the three forms of e-procurement technologies namely e-tendering, e-catalogue management systems, and e-marketplace. The results show the positive and significant impact of the assimilation process on procurement efficiency.     

Experimental investigation of impact of diesel particulate filter on smoke and NO<Subscript>x</Subscript> emissions of a Euro-I compression ignition engine with active and off-board regeneration

Old engines (Euro III or earlier) produce more emissions, and it will be difficult to entirely stop their usage especially in developing and under-developed nations; hence, it is desired that appropriate emission reduction technologies are tested on such engines to analyze their feasibility and economical acceptability. While most such studies have been conducted on constant speed stationary engines and modern engines, this study tried to analyze the effectiveness of an uncoated wall-flow type ceramic diesel particulate filter on a Euro-I, water-cooled, direct injection, variable speed, compression ignition engine in a laboratory set-up in India. Also, this study focused on diesel particulate filter regeneration by two methods: active regeneration by diesel injection in the particulate filter using an electronic control unit and off-board regeneration by taking out and heating the diesel particulate filter in an electrical resistance furnace at 650 °C for 10 h. The results, in the form of smoke emission, NO_x emission and engine performance, obtained using both the regeneration methods were analyzed, and conclusions were drawn. It was found that using diesel particulate filter, particulate matter emissions (smoke) were almost entirely eliminated. It was also found that off-board regeneration had numerous advantages compared to active regeneration. Since a furnace would be needed for off-board regeneration, an exchange process for diesel particulate filter is suggested.     

Interpolation of images using discrete wavelet transform to simulate image resizing as in human vision

This paper presents discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and its inverse (IDWT) with Haar wavelets as tools to compute the variable size interpolated versions of an image at optimum computational load. As a human observer moves closer to or farther from a scene, the retinal image of the scene zooms in or out, respectively. This zooming in or out can be modeled using variable scale interpolation. The paper proposes a novel way of applying DWT and IDWT in a piecewise manner by non-uniform down- or up-sampling of the images to achieve partially sampled versions of the images. The partially sampled versions are then aggregated to achieve the final variable scale interpolated images. The non-uniform down- or up-sampling here is a function of the required scale of interpolation. Appropriate zero padding is used to make the images suitable for the required non-uniform sampling and the subsequent interpolation to the required scale. The concept of zeroeth level DWT is introduced here, which works as the basis for interpolating the images to achieve bigger size than the original one. The main emphasis here is on the computation of variable size images at less computational load, without compromise of quality of images. The interpolated images to different sizes and the reconstructed images are benchmarked using the statistical parameters and visual comparison. It has been found that the proposed approach performs better as compared to bilinear and bicubic interpolation techniques.     

Quadtree-based eigendecomposition for pose estimation in the presence of occlusion and background clutter

Eigendecomposition-based techniques are popular for a number of computer vision problems, e.g., object and pose estimation, because they are purely appearance based and they require few on-line computations. Unfortunately, they also typically require an unobstructed view of the object whose pose is being detected. The presence of occlusion and background clutter precludes the use of the normalizations that are typically applied and significantly alters the appearance of the object under detection. This work presents an algorithm that is based on applying eigendecomposition to a quadtree representation of the image dataset used to describe the appearance of an object. This allows decisions concerning the pose of an object to be based on only those portions of the image in which the algorithm has determined that the object is not occluded. The accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed approach is evaluated on 16 different objects with up to 50% of the object being occluded and on images of ships in a dockyard.

A Chaucer microstrip fractal antenna for mobile applications

In this paper a Chaucer fractal patch antenna integrated with split ring structure is simulated using Ansoft’s (HFSS), as well as fabricated and tested using VNA. The obtained results indicate that the proposed antenna resonates at 2.4 GHz in the ISM band. In addition, the structure offers multi-band operation with the fair value of return loss, gain, and bandwidth, impedance and directivity in the entire range of frequency operation.     

Hydrous iron oxide for removal of inorganic contaminants in simulated stormwater: A batch sorption kinetics study

Urban stormwater runoff, which consists of inorganic and organic contaminants, is a major source of pollutants to receiving waters and therefore they need to be removed. Simultaneous removal of contaminants, Cd²⁺, Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺, Zn²⁺ (heavy metal cations), and SeO₄²⁻ (oxyanion) from a simulated stormwater by a hydrous ferric oxide (HFO) was studied in batch and column sorption experiments. In the batch experiment the rate of sorption of the ions was rapid at the beginning and reached equilibrium in approximately 300 min. The amounts of ions sorbed were proportionate to the respective initial concentration of the ions added to the HFO. Cluster analysis showed that all heavy metals had similar sorption behavior, whereas Se had a distinctly different sorption process. Of the three different kinetic models tested the pseudo-first order kinetic model fitted the data the best. The column experimental results beyond 180 min were consistent with those of the batch experiment that the removal efficiencies of the ions were in proportion to the ion concentration in the feed. Below 180 min, Cu appeared to be preferentially removed than Zn.     

Polyacrylonitrile solution homogeneity study by dynamic shear rheology and the effect on the carbon fiber tensile strength

Poly(acrylonitrile‐co‐methacrylic acid) (PAN‐co‐MAA)/N,N‐dimethylformamide (DMF) solutions were prepared and dynamic shear rheology of these solutions were investigated. With increasing stirring time up to 72 h at 70°C, the polymer solution became less elastic (more liquid‐like) with a ～60% reduction in the zero‐shear viscosity. Relaxation spectra of the PAN‐co‐MAA/DMF solutions yield a decrease in relaxation time (disentanglement time, τ_d), corresponding to an about 8% decrease in viscosity average molecular weight. The log‐log plot of G′ (storage modulus) versus G″ (loss modulus) exhibited an increase in slope as a function of stirring time, suggesting that the molecular level solution homogeneity increased. In order to study the effect of solution homogeneity on the resulting carbon fiber tensile strength, multiple PAN‐co‐MAA/DMF solutions were prepared, and the precursor fibers were processed using gel‐spinning, followed by continuous stabilization and carbonization. The rheological properties of each solution were also measured and correlated with the tensile strength values of the carbon fibers. It was observed that with increasing the slope of the G′ versus G″ log‐log plot from 1.471 to 1.552, and reducing interfilament fiber friction during precursor fiber drawing through the addition of a fiber washing step prior to fiber drawing, the carbon fiber strength was improved (from 3.7 to 5.8 GPa). This suggests that along with precursor fiber manufacturing and carbonization, the solution homogeneity is also very important to obtain high strength carbon fiber. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 56:361–370, 2016. © 2016 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Graphene oxide reinforced polyvinyl alcohol/polyethylene glycol blend composites as high-performance dielectric material

Novel flexible dielectric composites composed of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and graphene oxide (GO) with high dielectric constant and low dielectric loss have been developed using facile and eco-friendly colloidal processing technique. The structure and morphology of the PVA/PEG/GO composites were evaluated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, UV-vis spectroscopy (UV-vis), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The dielectric behavior of PVA/PEG/GO composites was investigated in the wide range of frequencies from 50 Hz to 20 MHz and temperature in the range 40 to 150 °C using impedance spectroscopy. The dielectric constant for PVA and PVA/PEG (50/50) blend film was found to be 10.71 (50 Hz, 150 °C) and 31.22 (50 Hz, 150 °C), respectively. The dielectric constant for PVA/PEG/GO composite with 3 wt% GO was found to be 644.39 (50 Hz, 150 °C) which is 60 times greater than the dielectric constant of PVA and 20 times greater than the dielectric constant of PVA/PEG (50/50) blend film. The PVA/PEG/GO composites not only show high dielectric constant but also show low dielectric loss which is highly attractive for practical applications. These findings underline the possibilities of using PVA/PEG/GO composites as a flexible dielectric material for high-performance energy storage applications such as embedded capacitors.