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Infilled wall is a primary structure which is used in a multistorey RC-framed structure. It is not designed like structural elements, but it is subjected to structural load and response as a heavily damaged element into the building. The main problem of an infilled wall is not actively utilizing in the framed structure and it is not interacted with frame elements. The objective of research is to utilize the infilled wall in the RC-framed structure by improving its performance of behavior. Here, two different types of brick masonry like Autoclaved concrete and clay brick masonry were used as the infilled wall in an RC-framed structure. A singly bay and single storey RC framed structure was cast and tested under a 1/10th scale model by diagonal compressive loading. The specimen was subjected to static loading by a universal testing machine. Infilled wall is weak in tension, so a reinforcing band was used to improve the performance like load carrying capacity, stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation capacity. Based on the results of the experimental study, it is found that reinforcing band with the infilled wall gives better behavior of the RC-framed structure.

Urbanization has become a major phenomenon in India were lakhs are migrating every year increasing the traffic congestions. In many places over population has affected the local authorities even to provide basic transport services. Traffic problems in India are already an extensive task and will become much difficult due to urbanization and changing lifestyle of people. This analysis introduces a solution to the problem in transportation in erode city. In this project the electrical obstructions for transportation movement been identified and mapped by which they can be removed or altered in their routes. An integrated approach to electric utility mapping is more than the sum of its parts. Location and mapping teams need to participate in a multi-phased process that includes lobbying and action on their part. They must be involved from start to finish. This project aims at mapping the electric utilities such as electric poles and transformers in major roadways of Erode City [Corporation limits] using GIS. These utilities have been mapped and differentiated based on their impact to the traffic flow operations in the roads. Initially, locating the utilities has been done through GPS (Global Positioning Systems) which will be very useful for finding the accurate latitude and longitude values. And then, mapping of utilities is carried out through GIS (Geographic Information Systems) which give better results in mapping. The software used for mapping is QGIS. The electric utilities which are obstructions to traffic movement are all to be identified and mapped which will be later altered in their alignment or removed.

Reactive powder concrete (RPC) is a composite material that helps to build more strong and durable structures with optimal material usage which is economically effective. It is more sensitive to environment and a better choice to high strength concrete and high performance concrete. In this paper materials used in the RPC are tested and various mix proportions are developed to determine the properties of concrete. The main objective of the paper is to investigate the RPC mechanical properties with crimpled steel fibers. The strength performance and flexural performance of the RPC specimen is assessed.

Newly the High Strength Concrete (HSC) and High-Performance Concrete (HPC) have been widely used in building projects. HSC and HPC is not just a simple mixture of cement, water and aggregates. HSC and HPC lead to achieving the maximum compressive strength of 120 to 150 MPa. At such level of intensity the coarse aggregate becomes the weakest link in concrete. The strength and durability of concrete was improved by way of removing the coarse aggregate and employing the mineral admixtures and steel fibers is the philosophy to develop Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC). In this paper, the development of incorporated GGBS based Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) with several mineral admixtures and micro steel fiber was studied and discussed. Four different mineral admixtures were added in RPC, such as fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), Quartz powder and silica fumes; also the micro steel fibers were used. The specimens were cast for finding mechanical and durability of RPC was studied and discussed.

Most of the mine disasters occur due to explosion and fire. This proposed system consists of a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sensor, a driver circuit & a Blower which are operated with the help of LabVIEW where methane gas concentration present in subterranean coal mine can be tracked, examined and the generation of a signal by LabVIEW. If the concentration of the methane gas reaches (5-15%), the Blower pumps the atmospheric air into the subterranean coal mine which helps to dilute the methane gas. In a critical situation, the emergency signal will be sent to the fire and police department with the help of the GSM network and through mailing (Gmail) using Lab VIEW .

One of the main sources of dangerous chemicals that are dumped untreated into land and water bodies and have a negative influence on the ecosystem are industrial effluents. Seaweeds are currently used for treating industrial effluent effectively. The technology is at a maturing stage. This paper reviews the characterization and cultivation of seaweeds for wastewater treatment. In this present study, different extracts of four seaweeds such as Gracilaria edulis, Sargassum wightii, Turbinaria ornata, and Kappaphycus alvarezii, from the Mandapam coastal regions were analyzed. The seaweeds are used to treat the leather industry effluents collected from EKM leather processing company, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India. Among all, extracts of Gracilaria edulis survived at different concentrations of TDS: 15,000, 25000, and 35000 mg/l. Out of these different ranges, TDS of about 25000 mg/l seaweed named Gracilaria edulis reduced more amounts of chemicals present in the effluent like TDS (93.90%), phosphates (72.71%), nitrate (75.08%), nitrite (76.92%), and turbidity (99.01%) content. Additionally, we produce the quality and strength of agar gel from the cultivation of Gracilaria edulis by the Nikansui method. Finally, we got the extraction procedure to obtain a higher yield of about 10.26% and a maximum gel strength of 92.06 g·cm−2 while maintaining the melting point at 78°C.

This paper presents an experimental investigation on the behaviour of concrete filled steel tube columns under axial compression. The steel columns were filled with self-compacting and self-curing concrete instead of normal conventional concrete. A test program consisting of square column, circular column and rectangular column was firstly conducted. The behaviour of three concrete filled steel tubular sections (CFSTs) under axial load is presented. The effect of steel tube dimensions, shapes and confinement of concrete are also examined. Measured column strengths are compared with the values predicted by Euro code 4 and American codes. Euro code 4, gives good estimation of self-compaction concrete. However, lower values as measured during the experiments were predicted by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) equation. Also, the effect of thickness of steel tubes, concrete cube strength and steel percentage is also studied. In addition to CFST column the steel tube also acts as confinement for concrete.

Pb(ZrxTi1-x)O3 (PZT) thin films of morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) composition having {001}, {110}, and {111}- orientations were fabricated on silicon substrates (111)Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si using a metal organic decomposition spin-coating technique. The influence of crystallographic orientation on the transverse piezoelectric coefficient e31 * of the films have been determined. The largest e31 * was found in {110}-oriented film. The differences observed in e31 * have been explained on the basis of domain wall contributions which are dependent on film texture. The influence of thin film texture on polarization switching characteristics have also been studied. Copyright © 2012 VBRI Press.

The bark algae constitutes epiphloeic algae which occur on the tree barks. Along with epiphyllic algae which occur on leaves together called epiphytic algae (Haffmann 1989). The epiphytic algae are terrestrial algae found in extreme environments characterized by humidity or by low/high temperature or light intensity. Being in habitats frequently fluctuations of environmental conditions, occur in contrast with the mostly stable aquatic environments. Having exposed to stress situations terrestrial algae develop morphological and physiological adaptations. The prokaryotic blue green algae along with eukaryotic green algae shared major constituents of terrestrial algal populations and the group exists diversity. However the terrestrial algal diversities poorly understood, though they play important role in biodiversity, ecological and economic values. Among the terrestrial algal flora, the algal flora of barks are one of the important components of terrestrial subaerial habitat of tropical region in general and tropical rain forests in particular. The details of investigation on bark algae of tropical forests of India are not available till date except a few scattered reports which deal with occurrence and systematics (Fristch 1907, Haffmann 1989, Fremy 1930). Though the research on bark algae of tropical ecosystem were initiated during the latter part of the 19th century, till date no comprehensive research papers on bark algae of the tropical rain forests are available. An attempt is made to review the potential prospective of investigations on bark algae of tropical ecosystems, based on the earlier literatures with reference to India and neibouring countries. The research paper is also discussed in relation to contemporary research which has carried out in the South Western regions of the India, where lies Western Ghats, which is one of the hot spots of biodiversity.

Thin films of (Pb1−xSrx)TiO3, x=0,0.5,1.0 have been prepared on glass substrates by the chemical-solution method using the spin-coating technique. The optical nonlinearity in the visible spectral region is investigated using short (5 ns) laser pulses at the off-resonant wavelength of 532 nm employing the open aperture z-scan technique. It is found that the third order nonlinear absorption is dependent on the lead content of the films, with the compositions x=0, 0.5 exhibiting large values (β∼10−7 m/W), thereby suggesting the possible use of these materials as optical limiters. No optical nonlinearity is observed for the composition with x=1.0.

Laser-induced photoacoustic technique in the closed cell configuration has been employed to study the anisotropy in thermal parameters of urea L-malic acid, a nonlinear optical crystal. Thermal diffusivity values of the specimen along different crystallographic axes are evaluated from the measured amplitude and phase spectra of photoacoustic signal using one-dimensional model of Rosencwaig and Gersho. Thermal conductivity of the crystal along different axes is calculated using the measured thermal diffusivity and specific heat values. The measured thermal parameters are correlated with mechanical hardness as well as the bonding scheme of the crystal. Analyses of the results show that there is considerable anisotropy in heat diffusion parameters along different crystal orientations. Results are explained on the basis of crystallographic structure and the phonon-assisted heat diffusion mechanism in crystals.

Speaker recognition is a process of recognizing a person based on their unique voice signals and it is a topic of great importance in areas of intelligent and security. Considerable research and development has been carried out to extract speaker specific features and to develop features matching techniques. The goal of this paper is to perform text-independent speaker identification. These models rely on Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) for extraction of speaker specific features and for speaker modelling Vector Quantization (VQ) is used due to high accuracy and simplicity. The proposed system efficiency was analyzed by using 20 filter banks for extracting features. The performance was evaluated using MATLAB against different speakers in different languages such as Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu and English with duration of 2, 3 and 4 s. Experimental result shows that 4 s duration of speech regardless of language is able to produce 98 %, 99 % and 97 % of identification when compared to 2 and 3 s. The system efficiency may further be improved using other speaker modelling techniques like Neural Network, Hidden Markov Model and Gaussian Mixture Model.

In this paper the analysis of the compression process was performed by comparing the compressed signal against the original signal. To do this the most powerful speech analysis and compression techniques such as Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) was implemented using MATLAB. Here nine samples of spoken words are collected from different speakers and are used for implementation. The results obtained from LPC were compared with other compression technique called Discrete Wavelet Transform. Finally the results were evaluated in terms of compressed ratio (CR), Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and Normalized root-mean square error (NRMSE). The result shows that DWT performance was better for these samples than the LPC method.

This paper reports the demonstration of the tunability of the third order nonlinear optical absorption in (Pb1−3x/2Lax)(Zr0.53Ti0.47) (PLZT) thin films. The optical nonlinearity is investigated employing the open aperture z-scan technique at the off-resonant wavelength of 532 nm. By altering the defect chemistry in PZT through A-site aliovalent lanthanum substitution, the nonlinear optical (NLO) absorption can be effectively tuned. The results of the influence of lanthanum concentration on leakage current and microstructure have also been combined to confirm the defect-mediated mechanism of NLO absorption in PLZT thin films.

Nanocrystalline dielectric thin films of (Pb1−x Sr x )TiO3 were dip-coated on different substrates from highly stable precursor solutions derived from a unique metal organic system. Highly crystalline, fine-grained, uniform and crack-free thin films were obtained at temperatures as low as 450 °C. The structural and dielectric properties of the thin films have been investigated to study the suitability of the thin films for tunable dielectric applications.

Pb(ZrxTi1−x)O3 [PZT] thin films of thickness 2.0 μm were fabricated on silicon substrates (111)Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si using a sol-gel spin-coating technique. PZT films on substrates with a strontium titanate bottom layer are preferentially {110}-oriented with a columnar structure. The PZT films exhibit good dielectric properties with a dielectric permittivity, er=1545 and dielectric loss, tan δ=0.04. Excellent piezoelectric characteristics are also exhibited by the {110}-oriented films with an average effective transverse piezocoefficient, e31∗ of −8.4 C/m2. The influence of film texture and composition on the transverse piezocoefficient have also been studied.

The annealing effect on the spectral and nonlinear optical (NLO) characteristics of ZnO thin films deposited on quartz substrates by sol-gel process is investigated. As the annealing temperature increases from 300–1050 °C, there is a decrease in the band gap, which indicates the changes of the interface of ZnO. ZnO is reported to show two emission bands, an ultraviolet (UV) emission band and another in the green region. The intensity of the UV peak remains the same while the intensity of the visible peak increases with increase in annealing temperature. The role of oxygen in ZnO thin films during the annealing process is important to the change in optical properties. The mechanism of the luminescence suggests that UV luminescence of ZnO thin films is related to the transition from conduction band edge to valence band, and green luminescence is caused by the transition from deep donor level to valence band due to oxygen vacancies. The NLO response of these samples is studied using nanosecond laser pulses a...