Mehran University Research Journal of Engineering and Technology

4

Authors: Jamali A.R., Chandio A.D., Khan W., Anwer Z., Soomro I.A

Plasmonic materials are the artificially manufactured materials (metamaterials) typically composed of nanostructure noble metals which give the unique optical properties superior to naturally occurring materials. Such plasmonic material has ability to give surface plasmon when electromagnetic light wave interact with free electrons in conduction band of the noble metals. Entirely absorption of light wave is the one of the major property of such plasmonicmetamaterials. Recently, these metamaterials has drawn the attention of scientists because of its wide range of applications in harvesting energy and sensors. These applications are strongly dependent on adjusting the absorption band-width, peak position and absorption intensity. In this work we show that using ultra-thin multicomponent (i.e. Au NPs incorporated in mixture of SiO2 and TiO2 matrix) nanocomposite deposited on optically thick gold film through subsequent magnetron sputtering. Experimental results show that one can broaden the bandwidth and peak position to span Ultraviolet up to near infrared wavelength range.

8

Authors: Qureshi S., Kratzer J.

EM (Entrepreneurial Making) and MC (Marketing Capabilities) play a crucial role in the success of a firm. Many engineering and technology firms are run by people having an engineering degree which have less exposure to marketing. A strong EO (Entrepreneurial Orientation) enables the firm to carry out and develop its MC in opportunistic, proactive and innovative way. The EO and MC are shaped and defined by various antecedents i.e. technological and market turbulence, market and strategic orientation. The impact and influence of these antecedents vary as the organization moves from its infancy to growth and maturity. The following research tests the impacts of various antecedents during the various stages of the life cycle of the engineering and technology based firms. To conduct the longitudinal study, the engineering and technology firms were grouped in to four categories temporally i.e. (1) less than 2 years, (2) 3-4 years, (3) 5-8 years and (4) more than 9 years. This allowed a quasi longitudinal observation to find out and compare the changes over time. The results show that the various factors influence the MC in varying degree during the various stages of the life cycle of the firm

8

Authors: Abro M.I., Memon R.A., Soomro I.A

Intercritical heat treatments attempts were made to enhance the mechanical properties of reinforcing steel bars milled from scrap metal. For this, two grades of steel bars were obtained from different steel mills and their mechanical properties that include hardness, ultimate tensile strength, and percent elongation before and after intercritical heat treatment were determined. Results indicated that 25.5 and 17.6%, improvements in UTS (Ultimate Tensile Strength) and 18.8 and 14.3% improvement in percent elongation in two grades of reinforcing steel samples containing 0.17 and 0.24% carbon respectively was achieved while heating at 750oC for 2h. Appreciable improvement in the mechanical properties was noted due to birth of sufficient quantity of martensite along with ferrite

8

Authors: Shaikh A., Khurshid I., Memon A.G., Deep A., Hussain T.

Two of the popular refrigeration cycles, VC (Vapor Compression), and VA (Vapor Absorption) are used extensively for refrigeration purposes. In this paper, a system is proposed that works using both cycles powered by an IC (Internal Combustion) engine, where mechanical energy is used to run the VC cycle while exhaust gasses are used to operate the VA cycle. The VC cycle works on R12 refrigerant while LiBr-H2O combination is selected for operation of VA cycle. Firstly, the refrigeration system is modeled, followed by a parametric study to investigate the impacts of various operating parameters on the system performance. The results exhibit that for maximum chilling and overall performance, the condenser and evaporator pressures in the VC cycle are obtained as 710 and 340 kPa, respectively, whereas generator and absorber temperatures in VA cycle are 85 and 20oC, respectively.

10

Authors: Aslam M.W., Batool Z.

This research work has evaluated the performance of urban public bus transport service operating in Gujranwala city of Pakistan. The assessment has been made in terms of financial viability, bus condition, operational performance and user perception. Based on the data requirements, various traffic/transport surveys were conducted including Passenger Boarding and Alighting Survey, Bus Count Survey, Bus Inspection Survey, Illegal Operations Survey and Public Transport User Interview Survey in consultation with concerned department/agencies. Field surveys were also conducted to get input from passengers and local people. Initial investigation informed that out of four operational bus routes, only two routes are profitable. The overall bus operation is running in loss (only 0.3% net profit). It has barely any profit for the bus operator against its investment thereby making the urban bus operation financially non-viable. The whole revenue flow is dependent on passenger ticketing revenue only. Around 35% of the buses are in poor condition with major issues of quality of tyres, no speedometer, worse condition of seats, floor and ceiling, and display of route. Illegal operation of Qingqis/Rickshaws (as para-transit mode) along the bus routes is also decreasing the revenue by capturing the passenger volume. According to passenger opinion analysis, around 55% of the passenger are not satisfied with the service quality and prefer other modes of transport. Their major concerns are absence of facilities for disables and bus stops, bus seating and standing capacity, poor bus condition and pick pocketing. Collectively, these factors are contributing

10

Authors: Afzal M.M., Awan F.G.

Extraction of maximum power from PV (Photovoltaic) cell is necessary to make the PV system efficient. Maximum power can be achieved by operating the system at MPP (Maximum Power Point) (taking the operating point of PV panel to MPP) and for this purpose MPPT (Maximum Power Point Trackers) are used. There are many tracking algorithms/methods used by these trackers which includes incremental conductance, constant voltage method, constant current method, short circuit current method, PAO (Perturb and Observe) method, and open circuit voltage method but PAO is the mostly used algorithm because it is simple and easy to implement. PAO algorithm has some drawbacks, one is low tracking speed under rapid changing weather conditions and second is oscillations of PV systems operating point around MPP. Little improvement is achieved in past papers regarding these issues. In this paper, a new method named ?Decrease and Fix? method is successfully introduced as improvement in PAO algorithm to overcome these issues of tracking speed and oscillations. Decrease and fix method is the first successful attempt with PAO algorithm for stability achievement and speeding up of tracking process in photovoltaic system. Complete standalone photovoltaic system?s model with improved perturb and observe algorithm is simulated in MATLAB Simulink.

10

Authors: Ishaque M.A., Chaudhry A.N

Focusing on health care systems can improve health outcomes now and in the future. Growing economies have serious concerns on the rising cost of health, whereas, in under developed countries like Pakistan, it is not emphasized yet at all. The research is conducted to improve a unique aspect of health care systems to provide effective, patient-centred, high-standard health care while maintaining the cost effectiveness. Research is being qualified in two paradigms qualitative and quantitative. In qualitative research, expert?s interviews have been taken to get the basic knowledge of radiology based testing and their prerequisites, in quantitative research ordered are being analysed to check the frequency and if they are unnecessary or qualified medical necessity guidelines as established in qualitative method. Analysis was made on the basis of the trinity relationship of diagnosis, symptoms and respected order to determine the necessity of the order to get its impact on cost of the overall health of those patients and point out more than 50% unnecessary orders are being performed in two government hospitals. The situation is alarming and policy makers should focus on unnecessary ordering to avoid out of pocket expenses and improve quality of care. The research helps in successful application of health care system modifications and policies pertaining to one aspect of health systems, i.e. cost-effectiveness of health care.

12

Authors: Bari M., Bashir R., Mustafa G.

In this paper, an algorithm is defined to construct 3n-point quaternary approximating subdivision schemes which are useful to design different geometric objects in the field of geometric modeling. We are going to establish a family of approximating schemes because approximating scheme provide maximum smoothness as compare to the interpolating schemes. It is to be observed that the proposed schemes satisfying the basic sum rules with bell-shaped mask go up to the convergent subdivision schemes which preserve monotonicity. We analyze the shape-preserving properties such that convexity and concavity of proposed schemes. We also show that quaternary schemes associated to the certain refinable functions with dilation 4 have higher order shape preserving properties. We also calculated the polynomial reproduction of proposed quaternary approximating subdivision schemes. The proposed schemes have tension parameter, so by choosing different values of the tension parameter we can get different limit curves of initial control polygon. We show in the table form that the proposed schemes are better than the existing schemes by comparing them on the behalf of their support and continuity. The visual quality of proposed schemes is demonstrated by different snapshots.

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Authors: Manganhar A.L., Rajper A.H., Samo S.R

Rooftop, building integrated and building augmented micro wind systems have the potential for small scale power generation in the built environment. Nevertheless, the expansion of micro wind technology is very slow and its market is strongly affected by the low efficiency of conventional wind generators. WAG-RH (Wind Accelerating and Guiding Rotor House) which is a new technique introduced to enhance the efficiency of vertical axis rotor. The present study utilizes other green energy element by integrating the WAG-RH with a solar heating system. In this effort roof of the WAG-RH has been utilized to heat air through micro solar chimney for creating buoyancy effect in the air flow channel at rotor zone in the WAG-RH. The integration is capable of improving the performance of rotor setup in the WAG-RH as well as providing hot air with sufficient air mass flow rate for space heating. The WAG-RH had brought about 138% increase in the performance coefficient(Cp) of conventional three bladed Savonius rotor, whereas solar integrated WAG-RH has contributed 162% increase in the Cp of the same rotor.

12

Authors: Saeed S., Shaikh A., Noor S.A

The impact of cellular phone radiation on human health is the subject of current mindfulness and is an outcome of the huge increase in phone usage throughout the world. Phones use electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range. The issue is associated with wireless use for 50 minutes and above. The excessive use of mobile phone may cause brain tumors. Nowadays the most commonly developed brain tumor type is GBM (Glioblastoma) in multiform and Malignant Astrocytoma. In this paper, we focus on the causes of brain tumor (cancer) due to the cell phone as this increase in glucose metabolism. The aim of the study is to address the aforementioned problems associated with the cell phone. MATLAB programming to detect a brain tumor has been used. We have conducted MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) study to get the best images and results.

12

Authors: Memon M.A., Bhatti S., Nizamani S., Mahoto N.A., Memon F

Life logging has been an eminent topic of concern in recent years with many researchers focusing on capturing daily life activities of human. With the proliferation of IoT (Internet of Things) domain, the devices are now able to record human interaction for longer periods as well as transfer this data easily to other computing devices or cloud storage. This article proposes a novel framework named as LIFEREC which acquires information from IoT aware devices and sensors. It maintains activity profiles of various activities performed by the users in their daily lives. Furthermore, the framework provides recommendations when requested by an individual while taking into account the past life history and current context. Recent research on digitizing human life is quite efficient in amassing enormous data but futile in offering assistance for prospect decisions in life. The data gathered by the lifelog devices may be of a great help in taking decisions. The proposed system gives a new direction to existing mechanisms of providing recommendations by exploiting the current context and the past experiences of human life. The recommendations provided by our proposed system may be very helpful while performing those activities which have already been experienced in the past

12

Authors: Shah A.A., Sahito A.R

Pakistan is facing energy scarcity. The biogas is one of the renewable substitutes. It does not only overcome the energy scarcity but also harness the energy from animal dung which causes the CO2 emissions. The present study was done on the appraisal of potential of biogas from the dung of animals (Buffaloes, Cows, Goats and Sheep) within the villages surrounded by Taluka Saeedabad. The purpose of the study was the energy potential of the biogas and the selection of the most suitable design and size of the biogas plant for the villagers. The present study also includes the domestic biogas plant economics. As per the estimation, total quantity of animal dung generated was about 129 tons/day, which can produce 3859 m3 of biogas per day. On the contrary, for cooking villagers require only 2748 m3 of biogas per day. Moreover, the surplus biogas of 1111 m3 per day can be used to produce electricity of 6666 kWh per day, which can fulfill the demand of about half of the population of villages under study. People are using firewood, cotton stalks, kerosene oil and LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) for cooking. Converting animal dung into the biogas not only reduces the consumption of the traditional fuels used (Firewood, Cotton Stalks, Kerosene Oil and LPG), but also prevents about 900 thousand tons of CO2 emissions into the environment. Additionally, a fixed dome biogas plant of 8-10 m3 size was recommended for each of the houses under study.

14

Authors: Ashraf M. , Sarim M. , Shaikh A.B.

Image segmentation has become a widely studied research problem in image processing. There exist different graph based solutions for interactive image segmentation but the domain of image segmentation still needs persistent improvements. The segmentation quality of existing techniques generally depends on the manual input provided in beginning, therefore, these algorithms may not produce quality segmentation with initial seed labels provided by a novice user. In this work we investigated the use of cellular automata in image segmentation and proposed a new algorithm that follows a cellular automaton in label propagation. It incorporates both the pixels? local and global information in the segmentation process. We introduced the novel global constraints in automata evolution rules; hence proposed scheme of automata evolution is more effective than the automata based earlier evolution schemes. Global constraints are also effective in deceasing the sensitivity towards small changes made in manual input; therefore proposed approach is less dependent on label seed marks. It can produce the quality segmentation with modest user efforts. Segmentation results indicate that the proposed algorithm performs better than the earlier segmentation techniques.

14

Authors: Massan S.R., Wagan A.I., Shaikh M.M

This work focuses on proposing a new algorithm, referred as HMA (Hybrid Metaheuristic Algorithm) for the solution of the WTO (Wind Turbine Optimization) problem. It is well documented that turbines located behind one another face a power loss due to the obstruction of the wind due to wake loss. It is required to reduce this wake loss by the effective placement of turbines using a new HMA. This HMA is derived from the two basic algorithms i.e. DEA (Differential Evolution Algorithm) and the FA (Firefly Algorithm). The function of optimization is undertaken on the N.O. Jensen model. The blending of DEA and FA into HMA are discussed and the new algorithm HMA is implemented maximize power and minimize the cost in a WTO problem. The results by HMA have been compared with GA (Genetic Algorithm) used in some previous studies. The successfully calculated total power produced and cost per unit turbine for a wind farm by using HMA and its comparison with past approaches using single algorithms have shown that there is a significant advantage of using the HMA as compared to the use of single algorithms. The first time implementation of a new algorithm by blending two single algorithms is a significant step towards learning the behavior of algorithms and their added advantages by using them together.

14

Authors: Mahesar A.A., Shar A.M., Memon K.R., Memon H.R., Baladi S.A

The laboratory experiments on samples from Kirthar fold belt of lower Indus basin Sindh Pakistan were carried out to investigate the effect of gas slippage under varying conditions of pore pressures and overburden stress. The samples were dried in an oven at temperature of 600C and were randomly selected for measurement of permeability and porosity. Permeability was measured using nitrogen gas, while the porosity measurements were made using helium gas expansion porosimeter. The bulk volume was determined by measuring sample diameter and length with caliper. The permeability results suggest that gas slippage increases as if low pore pressures are used, which leads to higher measured permeability than intrinsic permeability of samples. An attempt was also made to estimate the permeability using existing correlations and found that there is large scatter in predicted permeability and measured data. This large amount of scatter in the predicted permeability values concludes that unless absolutely necessary, such correlations should not be used where accurate absolute permeability values are needed. Moreover, the permeability and porosity were plotted together to develop a relation between two properties; the power law fitting of the data well explains the relation between permeability and effective porosity