June 2012

The goal is to explore techniques such as image correspondence using interest points, robust matching with improved RANSAC, homography, and background subtraction and blending. The basic idea of stitch several images into a panorama is to map all the images onto a reference plane. In this project, we choose frame as the reference plane and the homography matrices between other frame images and reference frame are computed using SIFT and improved RANSAC algorithms. Identify key points and matches using SIFT. Then the key point correspondences between two frames are filtered out by the default threshold of descriptor matching. First choose correspondences from the matches, and implemented Normalized Direct Linear Transformation (DLT) to estimate the homography matrix. This process is then automated by improved RANSAC that is iterated, randomly choosing 4 correspondences each time. The degree of match is evaluated by calculating the error of other correspondences based on such homography. The best the homography matrix is then found with most inliers. By using improved RANSAC algorithm. Once the projection transform updated in real time, we still need to blend the frames to compensate for exposure differences and other misalignments.

Using Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) not only economical but also better performance and also conserve the natural resources. To incorporate RAP in asphalt mix design, it is vital to know the amount and quality of the residual binder. The residual binders obtained from two RAP sources using solvent extraction and arson recovery methods were blended with a virgin binder in different proportions. Dynamic shear modulus, stiffness and viscosity of the different blends were compared. Viscosity and PG grading blending charts were developed based on the corresponding test data. It was concluded that the properties of the blends depend on the individual properties of the binders. The stiffness of the binder is increasing with increasing RAP binder. This research only address the binder related study so to quantify RAP in asphalt mix design the other factors like aggregate and volumetric properties need proper considerations.

Wilt disease affects the pulse crops at greater extent mainly due to fusarium species. Fusarium species releases pectolytic and cellulolytic enzymes responsible for disintegration of middle lamella and matrix of cell wall of particular host crop and infect them. Present study mainly use to calculate the role of cellulase(Cx) ,polygalactouronase (PG) and pectin methyl galacturonase(PMG) in fusarium for causing wilt disease. Result shows that with increasing incubation time, the activity of all three enzymes have been enhanced. Polygalacturonase shows highest activity i.e. 24.1 in case of fusarium oxysporum f.sp.ciceri and 38.7 in case of fusarium udum at 90 minutes time interval. While cellulase shows lowest activity 4.8 in case of fusarium oxysporum f.sp.ciceri and 7.1 in case of fusarium udum at 30 minutes interval. In case of fusarium oxysporum f.sp.ciceri r2 value is 0.985, 0.984, 0.980 for PG, PMG and Cx. While fusarium udum shows r2 value 0.993 for PG, 0.988 for PMG and 0.966 for Cx. All three enzymes activity increases with increasing time of experiment. Activity of three enzymes are higher in fusarium udum in comparison to fusarium oxysporum f.sp.ciceri. This shows that fusarium udum have higher pathogenic effect.

The Indian Oil Industry occupies an important place in the economy of the country because of its contribution to the industrial output, employment generation and foreign exchange earnings. The Oil that is produced by the Oil Industry in India provides more than thirty five percent of the energy that is primarily consumed by the people of India. This amount is expected to grow further with both economic and overall growth in terms of production as well as percentage. The demand for oil is predicted to go higher and higher with every passing decade and is expected to reach an amount of nearly 250 million metric ton by the year 2024. Profit earning is the aim of business. In the course of analysis of this study various statistical techniques have been made. The statistical techniques used are correlation, t-test and multiple regression analysis to find out the relationship between the variable and to identify the factor influencing the profitability. Based on the analysis net sales and net profit have some relationship and working capital management was highly influencing factor to find out profitability of selected oil companies in India. Companies must concentrate with other influencing factor for better more of the company.

Now a days mobile phones form an integral part of our daily life. We have billions of users worldwide and this number is ever increasing. Many researchers have proved that radiation of mobile phone is harmful for the health of human beings, animal and plants. Effect of the radiation of mobile phone depends upon the user time. The ongoing use of mobile phones has raised the health effects. This study is done for the people who are not aware about these radiations. After this study, it is found that the radiations of mobile phones are harmful for the people who are living nearby the transmission towers, so people should keep away from the transmission towers and people should use the mobile phone as soon as low timing.

A customized service to citizens can be provided using service-oriented architecture. Web Service Management System (WSMS) is a comprehensive framework that provides an integrated view on the management of web service. It helps in providing a service-centric framework to deliver services to citizens. The proposed WSMS enable citizens to select their needed services. It focuses on the following key components: service composition, service optimization and service privacy preservation. The service composition provides support for combining various services. It also enables the customized delivery of services. The service optimization selects the best needed service to fulfill citizens’ service requirements. The privacy preservation provides security support.

E-Glass reinforced epoxy composites are first exposed to an environment laden with moisture (hygrothermal; 600C, 95% humidity) and then to up and down-thermal shocks for different lengths of time. A 3-point bend test using INSTRON-1195 is carried out to estimate inter laminar shear strength (ILSS) values of the shock treated and untreated samples (after hygrothermal exposure) separately. Low temperature DSC is carried out to record the deviation in Tg, the glass transition temperature. Hygrothermal conditioning without thermal shock reveals a general trend of lowering of ILSS values with varied exposure times. Up and down-thermal shocks are seen to affect the ILSS values differently, the lowest Tg being recorded for samples exposed to up-thermal shock after hygrothermal conditioning. Scanning electron micrographs reveal the mode of failure which includes fiber fragmentation, fiber pull-out and fiber matrix debonding.

Hypophosphatasia is a rare inborn error of metabolism characterized by defective bone and tooth mineralization with a deficiency of serum and tissue liver/bone/kidney tissue alkaline phosphatase (L/B/K ALP) activity. This study involves the identification and confirmation of this disorder in a new born infant subject by detecting the missing allele and is thought to be a X-linked disorder as the same allele is mutated in the mother’s gene.

The ethanolic extract of Calocybe indica was studied for its free radical scavenging property on different in vitro models like 1,1 –diphenyl-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH)Assay, Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power(FRAP)assay and in vitro antilipidperoxidative assay using goat liver homogenate and RBC Ghost model .The in vitro Lipid peroxidation (LPO) was inhibited to a good extent by the Calocybe indica ethanolic extract and the extent of inhibition being higher in the RBC membrane model than the liver homogenate model. The mushroom extract showed good dose-dependent free radical scavenging property in both the models.

Bread is considered to be one of the oldest ‘processed’ foods by the humanity. It is one of the major products of baked foods and is consumed worldwide. Sprouting of pumpkin seed help to increase the nutrient content of the seed. Sprouted grains are seen in a number of baked goods at natural health food stores. The objective of this study was to optimize the refined wheat flour, germinated pumpkin seed flour and butter with respect to bread-making quality. The optimal Design was employed with the following variables of protein, weight loss, porosity and specific volume of the bread. Models developed adequately described the relationships and were confirmed by validation studies. Refined wheat flour showed the greatest effect on models, which effect impaired weight loss and specific volume of germinated pumpkin seed bread. The optimum set of the independent variables was obtained graphically in order to obtain the desired levels of 90g for refined wheat flour, 10g for germinated pumpkin seed flour and 8g for butter. Organoleptic evaluation showed that variation7 with 90g of refined wheat flour; 10g germinated pumpkin seed and 8 g of butter had scored high score for overall acceptability among the variations in the germinated pumpkin seed bread.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have played a significant role world over in the economic development of various countries. In many emerging markets, the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector is one of the principal driving forces for economic and job creation. As a continuation of study of financing of SMEs in Kakamega Municipalilty, we report on the type of collateral requirements for accessing financing by SMEs from financial Institutions (which include business assets/documents, personal assets/documents requested for collateral). 60 SME Owner/Manager were interviewed in Kakamega Municipality. The study utilised descriptive research design which included surveys and fact- finding enquiries of different kinds and data collection using questionnaires. The sampling frame of 1311 was stratified into 6 criteria and systematic random sampling of 60 samples were selected from all the strata using the same sampling proportion (0.045). The analysis of data was done using both quantitative and qualitative methods to report the findings. Functions used for analysis in this study were frequencies, charts and cross tabulations. Qualitative analysis used a central tendency measure which was able to calculate mean scores on a likert scale. Qualitative phase helped to fill in the gaps and provided additional information on measures to enhance SMEs financing. In the study of collateral requirements, it was found that both business and personal assets/documents were the requirement in order to obtain loan from commercial banks. The results revealed that 91.7 percent of the sampled population cited personal assets/documents and business assets/documents each were requested. A total of 71.7 percent cited that both personal and private assets/documents were necessary collateral for one to access formal financing. Other requirements identified were land title deed, two guarantors with an account with the financial institution and pay slip for salaried employment. A total of 91.3 percent indicated that business registration certificate and business bank accounts details were required of them and 65.2 percent cited that pin certificate of business was requested for by the financing institutions. Personal assets/documents requirements as security exhibited 52.2 percent who were asked for title deed documents and personal bank account. The type of documents requested as part of loan application process by commercial banks or micro-finance institutions (MFIs) in Kakamega Municipality revealed that 65.2 percent requested for business financial statements details reports and 56.5 percent requested for formal application to be filled. These findings indicate that keeping of financial statements in Kakamega Municipality highly determines their eligibility for formal financing. Business challenges that faced SMEs in Kakamega Municipality were identified as insecurity, high taxes, unstable and unpredictable economic trends, weekly repayment for group loan, low purchasing power due to economic status of surrounding community, migration of clients, political uncertainty, flow of funds in schools affected (for bookshops), requests for goodwill, monitoring of workers difficult (for furniture shops) and lack of enough capital.

“Hepatotoxicity is the capacity of a drug or chemical to produce injury to the liver diseases. The liver plays a central role in transforming and clearing chemicals which is susceptible to the toxicity from agents. Agents with recognized hepatotoxicity include carbon tetrachloride, alcohol”. In the present study the functional properties of target proteins which are responsible for liver cancer were studied and comparative modeling of target proteins was done for high percent sequence identity for structural homology. The protein structure was modeled using Swiss-PDB as its corresponding structure not available in Protein Data Bank. Docking study of the modeled protein was done with natural compounds Beta sitosterol (Justicia adhatoda), Mimosine (Mimosa pudica), Berberine (Vitex negundo) and synthetic compounds Tiagabine, Vigabatrin, Zolpidem, Chloramphenicol, Gentamicin, Linezolid to treat Liver disease to find the preferred orientation and binding affinity of drug with target protein using scoring functions. Berberine was found to be effective drug selected on the basis of its binding affinity with the target protein and that can be potential target for Liver cancer.

Stone cultural heritage materials are at risk of bio-deterioration caused by diverse populations of microorganisms living in biofilms. The microbial metabolites of these biofilms are responsible for the deterioration of the underlying substratum and may lead to physical weakening and discoloration of stone. Fungal ability in production of pigments and organic acids have crucial role in discoloration and degradation of different types of stone in cultural heritage objects. Additionally, stone objects may support novel communities of microorganism that are active in biodeterioration process this investigation focused on mycological analyses of microbial biofilm from Bhimkichak temple, Malhar of Bilaspur District of Chhattisgarh state which is made of sand stone and which were heavily colonized by fungi. The eight fungal species on sand stone were isolated. Aspergillus sp. was common in stone structure. The identified micro fungi cause discoloration as well as mechanical exfoliation of building stone material that was analyzed through mechanical hyphae penetration and production of dark pigments and organic acid.

The Martensitic Transformation in Ferromagnetic shape memory alloys (FSMAs) can be triggered not only by changes in temperature and stress as that of paramagnetic conventional shape memory alloys, but also by changes in the applied magnetic field. It is well known that ferromagnetic shape memory alloy has diversified utilization, but not satisfactorily use, mainly because of high cost of processing and high cost of alloying elements. Among all Heusler alloy, Ni-Mn-Sn alloy have potential properties and exhibits lower cost. In this experiment Ni50Mn45Sn5 alloys characterize by using differential scanning calorimetric (DSC), optical microscope and X-Ray diffraction technique. The alloy undergoes the martensitic transformation from L21-type cubic structure into an orthorhombic structure.

The study on Indigenous Knowledge of Tribals of Pachaimalai hills, was conducted to study the constraints experienced by the tribal farmers in adopting the indigenous agricultural practices. The study was conducted in Pachaimalai hills of Trichy district.  A sample of one hundred tribal farmers (respondents) was selected from the tribal hamelets using proportionate random sampling technique. Nearly twenty-one indigenous agricultural practices were identified in the crops like paddy, tapioca and sorghum.   In addition, ten common indigenous agricultural practices were also identified. The data were collected with the help of well structured and pretested interview schedule and suitable statistical tools were used to analyse the data.  The important constraints reported were ‘no reward for indigenous agricultural practices by Government Officials’, ‘youth’s preference for urban life,’‘Lack of documentation’, and ‘poor income from agriculture’.