On the Efficiency of Runs Rules Schemes for Process Monitoring

There are two main types of variations, namely, common and special causes leading to in‐control and out‐of‐control states, respectively. Control charts are popular tools used to differentiate between these two states of a process. Implementation of runs rules schemes with control charts is an attractive approach for process monitoring. This study is designed to describe the methodology of runs rules schemes and discuss their implementation for different types of control charts. We have considered memory‐less charts, namely, , S, and R charts for our study purposes. It is examined that the efficiency gain depends on the number of decision points utilized to implement a given rule. Moreover, superiority of runs rules schemes may vary for different types of location and dispersion charts. An application example using a dataset is also included in the study for practical considerations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Systematics study through scanning electron microscopy; a tool for the authentication of herbal drug Mentha suaveolens Ehrh

In all over the world, herbal drugs are usually adulterated with similar species or varieties due to incorrect identification. Most of herbal products devoid purity and quality, therefore an attempt was carried out to identify plant species and authenticate its herbal drug products from Mentha suaveolens. Microscopy tools provide an excellent platform to identify plants at species level. In this study, microscopic and pharmacokinetic parameters of M. suaveolens were observed. Plant species were collected from high diverse areas of Northern Pakistan. Macro and micro‐morphology including palynology and anatomical features were analyzed to study M. suaveolens. Species characteristics were studied, while implementing microscopic techniques for the delimitation and identification of the species. Traditionally Mentha species are used to cure several diseases that is, digestive disorders, respiratory disorders. Micromorphology (stem, leaves, flowers structure, length etc.), palynology (shape, size of pollen etc.), and anatomical characters (types of stomata, epidermal cell shape, and trichomes) were studied. Micromorphology and anatomical characters were of great interest and significance to discuss the taxonomy of the species. Taxonomic characters were studied to characterize and authenticate the species. The aim of the present study is to observe in detail the taxonomic identification of the species in term of morphology, palynology, and foliar epidermal anatomy for the correct identification along with their medicinal uses in the area.     

Synthesis,characterization and use of iron oxide nano particles for antibacterial activity

In this decade, the use of nano particles (NPs) against bacterial growth is increasing day by day due to remarkable alternative properties compared to molecular antibiotics. Thus, the use of iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) has proven one of the most important transition metals oxide‐based remedy in nanotechnological advances and biological applications due to enriched biocompatibility of iron. In this study synthesis of IONPs was carried out via co‐precipitation method. The crystallographic morphology of the synthesized particles was studied via X‐ray diffraction which revealed cubic structure of the particles, whereas, the spinal shaped morphology of the prepared NPs was confirmed from scanning electron microscopy. Likewise, the presence of the major elements in the sample was determined through energy dispersive X‐ray analysis characterization. Bactericidal effect of the NPs was assessed at pre‐defined concentrations (50 and 100 μg/ml) against Gram +ve bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, Gram ?ve bacteria Shigella dysentry and Escherichia coli . Bacterial strains, which demonstrate the potential of NPs. The purpose of this study was assessing the structure of the synthesized NPs for protective effect against harmful bacterial activity.     

Bivariate Dispersion Control Charts for Monitoring Non‐Normal Processes

Multivariate control charts are well known to be more sensitive to the occurrence of variation in processes with two or more correlated quality variables than univariate charts. The use of separate univariate control charts to monitor multivariate process can be misleading as it ignores the correlation between the quality characteristics. The application of multivariate control charts allows for the simultaneous monitoring of the quality characteristics by forming a single chart. The charts operate on the assumption that process observations are normally distributed, but in practice this is not always the case. In this study, we examine and present multivariate dispersion control charts for detecting shifts in the covariance matrix of normal and non‐normal bivariate processes. These control charts, referred to as SMAX, QMAX, MDMAX and MADMAX, rely on dispersion estimates, such as the sample standard deviation (S), interquartile range (Q), average absolute deviation from median (MD) and median absolute deviation (MAD), respectively. We compare the performances of these charts to the existing multivariate generalized variance |S| and RMAX charts for bivariate processes using normal and non‐normal parent distributions. The average run length (ARL) measure is used for the evaluation and comparison of the charts. A real life and simulated datasets are used to demonstrate the application of the charts. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Secure NDN Framework for Internet of Things Enabled Healthcare

Healthcare is a binding domain for the Internet of Things (IoT) to automate healthcare services for sharing and accumulation patient records at anytime from anywhere through the Internet. The current IP-based Internet architecture suffers from latency, mobility, location dependency, and security. The Named Data Networking (NDN) has been projected as a future internet architecture to cope with the limitations of IP-based Internet. However, the NDN infrastructure does not have a secure framework for IoT healthcare information. In this paper, we proposed a secure NDN framework for IoT-enabled Healthcare (IoTEH). In the proposed work, we adopt the services of Identity-Based Signcryption (IBS) cryptography under the security hardness Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptosystem (HCC) to secure the IoTEH information in NDN. The HCC provides the corresponding level of security using minimal computational and communicational resources as compared to bilinear pairing and Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC). For the efficiency of the proposed scheme, we simulated the security of the proposed solution using Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA). Besides, we deployed the proposed scheme on the IoTEH in NDN infrastructure and compared it with the recent IBS schemes in terms of computation and communication overheads. The simulation results showed the superiority and improvement of the proposed framework against contemporary related works.     

Performance analysis of hybrid/single nanofluids on augmentation of heat transport in lid-driven undulated cavity

This numerical study reveals the heat transfer performance of hybrid/single nanofluids inside a lid-driven sinusoidal trapezoidal-shaped enclosure. The right and left inclined surfaces of the trapezium have been considered as insulated, whereas the bottom sinusoidal wavy and the flat top surfaces of the enclosure as hot and cold, respectively. The governing partial differential equations of fluid's velocity and temperature have been resolved by applying the finite element method. The implications of Prandtl number (4.2-6.2), Richardson number (0.1-10.0), undulation number (0-3), nanoparticles volume fraction (0%-3%), and nanofluid/base fluid (water, water–copper (Cu), water–Cu–carbon nanotube, water–Cu–copper oxide (CuO), water–Cu–TiO₂, and water–Cu–Al₂O₃) on the velocity and temperature profiles have been studied. Simulated findings have been represented by means of streamlines, isothermal lines, and average Nusselt number of above-mentioned hybrid nanofluids for varying the governing parameters. The comparison of heat transfer rates using hybrid nanofluids and pure water has been also shown. The heat transfer rate is increased about 15% for varying Richardson number from 0.1 to 10.0. Blending of two nanoparticles suspension in base fluid has a higher heat transfer rate—approximately 5% than a mononanoparticle. Moreover, a higher average Nusselt number is obtained by 14.7% using the wavy surface than the flat surface of the enclosure. Thus, this study showed that applying hybrid nanofluid may be beneficial to obtain expected thermal performance.     

On the Performance of Phase I Dispersion Control Charts for Process Monitoring

Control charts are usually implemented in two phases: the retrospective phase (phase I) and the monitoring phase (phase II). The performance of any phase II control chart structure depends on the preciseness of the control limits obtained from the phase I analysis. In statistical process control, the performance of phase I dispersion charts has mainly been investigated for normal or contaminated normal distributions of the quality characteristic of interest. Little work has been carried out to investigate the performance of a wide range of possible phase I dispersion charts for processes following non‐normal distributions. The current study deals with the proper choice of a control chart for the evaluation of process dispersion in phase I. We have analyzed the performance of a wide range of dispersion control charts, including two distribution‐free structures. The performance of the control charts is evaluated in terms of probability to signal, under normal and non‐normal process setups. These results will be useful for quality control practitioners in their selection of a phase I control chart. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exponentially Weighted Moving Average Chart and Two‐Component Measurement Error

The two‐component measurement error (TCME) model effectively quantifies both the additive and multiplicative errors in analytical measurements. The performance of control charts in presence of TCME model has been investigated by researchers in recent past, but these studies are based on only considering fixed levels for the two‐component model parameters. In this study, we investigated the exponentially weighted moving average chart's performance in presence of TCME for varying levels of two‐component model parameters. A cost function analysis is also presented to determine the optimal number of multiple measurements and the sample size for reducing the effect of TCME. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.