Search

Tutorial requirements of student modeling are traditionally identified by human tutors through crisp mental calculations, and the accuracy of this identification enhances with the experience of the tutor. These identifications become challenging when the mode of delivery is through e-learning. Automatic identification of tutorial requirements must be included in e-learning through ITS where some intelligent computational paradigms can help in automatic identification of the said requirements. This article proposes some fuzzy logic-based techniques toward the said purpose of automatic tutorial gap identification where analysis of the learner's responses to purposefully designed modular MCQ tests and verbal explanations are taken in to consideration as inputs for the purpose. Variation of the fuzzy logics was taken in to account to justify the usefulness of methods under consideration and to provide a realistic and adaptable approach. The experimental results show that the proposed methods are successful and efficient towards the said purpose.

This paper assesses the effectiveness of microfinance on household income, expenditure and savings. The survey examined those borrowers who had successfully completed at least three cycles of a loan. A household level survey (N=3000) was carried out to collect information about individuals receiving microcredit from one of the largest NGOs, ASA. The authors employed a multiple regression and discovered that the microcredit programme of ASA has a significant positive impact on household income, expenditures and savings. Moreover, the paper reveals that the level of education plays an important and statistically significant role in increasing the household income, expenditure and savings. Hence, the ASA microcredit programme has a positive impact on reducing poverty in Bangladesh and enhancing the competitiveness of deprived rural and urban households in improving their standard of living.

The deleterious impact of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) on human health is contingent upon its ability to create and sustain colony structure, which in turn is dictated by the effective performance of flagella – a multi-protein rotary nanodevice. Hence, to design an effective therapeutic strategy against H. pylori, we here conducted a systematic search for an effective druggable site by focusing on the structure–dynamics–energetics–stability landscape of the junction points of three 1 : 1 protein complexes (FliFC–FliGN, FliGM–FliMM, and FliYC–FliNC) that contribute mainly to the rotary motion of the flagella via the transformation of information along the junctions over a wide range of pH values operative in the stomach (from neutral to acidic). We applied a gamut of physiologically relevant perturbations in the form of thermal scanning and mechanical force to sample the entire quasi – and non-equilibrium conformational spaces available for the protein complexes under neutral and acidic pH conditions. Our perturbation-induced magnification of conformational distortion approach identified pH-independent protein sequence-specific evolution of precise thermally labile segments, which dictate the specific thermal unfolding mechanism of each complex and this complex-specific pH-independent structural disruption notion remains consistent under mechanical stress as well. Complementing the above observations with the relative rank-ordering of estimated equilibrium binding free energies between two protein sequences of a specific complex quantifies the extent of structure-stability modulation due to pH alteration, rationalizes the exceptional stability of H. pylori under acidic pH conditions, and identifies the pH-independent complex–sequence–segment–residue diagram for targeted drug design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is a class of arc-based metal additive manufacturing (AM) under the category of direct energy deposition. As compared to other metal-based AM techniques, WAAM is capable of fabricating medium-to-large sized part (having low level of design complexity) with near fully-dense structure. Ease of near-net shaping with high material utilization rate has made the process economic in various industrial applications staring from prototype to customized product fabrication. Quality of the built part is strongly affected by the feedstock wire composition, welding parameters and deposition strategy. Due to complicated thermal history, WAAMed part suffers from considerable anisotropy in microstructure as well as mechanical properties. The present work attempts to fabricate a 3D slab by layer-wise deposition of molten SS308L-T1 feedstock wire through CMT + MIG based WAAM process. Initially, a few pilot experiments (by depositing single track bead-on-plate welds and stacked weld specimens) are performed to determine values of the appropriate process parameters for WAAM of SS308L part. The appropriate setting of parameters which includes current, voltage, gas flow rate, nozzle-to-plate distance, start/end current percentage, degree of overlap and deposition strategy (applicable for stacked specimens), etc. are obtained based on visual inspection of the built quality and measurable features of bead geometry. Finally, a 3D wall is successfully fabricated having approximate dimension 150 × 25 × 30 mm3. The microstructure evolution and mechanical property characterization of the as built part are carried out. It is experienced that microstructure and mechanical property of WAAMed SS308L are location-dependent. The as built microstructure contains δ ferrite (skeletal, vermicular and lathy morphologies) which is deposited at grain boundaries of γ austenite. The middle zone of the fabricated slab appears to be relatively softer than top and bottom zones; middle zone corresponds to the lowest tensile strength along horizontal direction (~ 541 MPa) but the highest fracture strain (elongation percent ~ 38%). The average tensile strength along horizontal direction is obtained as ~ 548 MPa. Fractographic results of failed tensile specimens evidence ductile fracture mode characterized by dimples along with the presence of second-phase spherical particles. The average microhardness of the as built SS308L obtained is 171 HV0.1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]