DC-DC converters are widely used in modern power systems including renewable energy integration, High Voltage DC Transmission system (HVDC), battery chargers, laptops and other home appliances. Suitable controller design for step up Boost DC-DC converter is important to increase its performance in various applications like renewable energy integration and control circuitries. Linear controller are proved to be inefficient under varying operating conditions. Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) is a nonlinear controller offering advantages of robustness, fast dynamic response and ease of implementation.\nIn this research work, SMC for Boost converter is proposed and analyzed using MATLAB® SIMULINK® as simulation platform. State space modelling technique is used for Boost converter. Proposed SMC comprises of two loops; voltage and current, controlled by Proportional Integral (PI) and Hysteresis respectively. Simulation of Boost converter with proposed controller shows good response in terms of less overshoot and settling time for initial transient, supply, load and reference variations.

Plant parasitic nematodes cause a great damage to all agricultural crops; they infect all parts of plant and cause reduction in yield. Synthetic (pesticides) nematicides have been used lately to combat the menace of nematodes on farmlands. Pesticide residues have been detected in fruits and vegetables due to persistence of nematicides in the environment. The disadvantages of pesticide use have brought about interest in alternative methods of managing plant parasitic nematodes. In this regard decayed and fresh stem bark of Anacardium occidentale were extracted, isolated and characterized. The crude extract and isolates were tested for nematicidal activity. Significant (p=0.05) differences were observed in the activity of the extracts. The isolated compounds from fresh extract (ANCO/FRS/CMP) and decayed extract (ANCO/DCD/CMP) of stem bark of A. occidentale extract exhibited higher juvenile mortality and reduced egg hatch whereby the activity of the isolated compound from decayed bark extract was significantly higher. The crude extract (ANCO/FRS/CRD and ANCO/DCD/CRD) had weaker nematicidal activity. Spectroscopic results revealed that microbial action on the buried stem bark produced a different compound which exhibited the nematicidal effect

The typical Neogene, sandstone hydrocarbon system, from Croatian part of the Pannonian Basin System (Europe) is described. Geological settings influenced the production history as well as injection and separation field’s equipment. Applied technological solution provided the long hydrocarbon production with high recovery, despite reservoir heterogeneity and large portion of pelitic detritus.

Flow from the pipe outlets under high head of water, emerges in the form of straight, concentrated shooting jet. Hydraulic structures called stilling basin have to be provided for reducing the energy of high-velocity flow to prevent erosion of the natural bed downstream and banks of river or cannel, so that the flow beyond the basin does not endanger the stability of bed and banks of the downstream channel. Experimental investigation leading to the development of new stilling basin model design for non circular pipe outlet using triangular splitter block along with USBR VI impact wall and sloping end sill reported in this paper. On the basis of present study, newly stilling basin design has been compared with USBR VI stilling basin. The main aim of this research paper is to present an experimental study for the purpose of improving the performance of USBR VI stilling basin for a non circular pipe outlet by developing new physical models in the laboratory. The new models were tested in a rectangular shaped pipe outlet of size 10.8 cm x 6.3 cm, for Froude numbers, namely Fr = 1.85,2.85&3.85 in comparison to USBR VI stilling basin model recommended for the pipe outlets. The new models have been developed by putting the triangular splitter block, while keeping the other configuration of stilling basin geometry same as suggested by USBR VI stilling basin. The scour pattern was measured for each test run. The performance of the basin was compared by performance index (PI). After twelve test runs, it is found that, for a given Froude number range, by inserting the triangular splitter block with same impact wall along with end sill, the performance of stilling basin is improved and also the length of the newly developed basin is reduced to 29% as compared to USBR VI stilling basin for a given flow conditions

High voltage energy transmissions to minimize the energy losses are made. The connection of high voltage networks, control and supply are made of the most important places where substations. Using this equipment in the field that allows you to move along with the increasing of voltage and high currents, some problems arise. This problem is especially of the currents and the temperature distribution of the materials through the distribution of the material leads to energy losses and hence unavailable about the lack of proper efficient. They also continue to threaten the security of the system. Substations expansion connectors are planned to be developed within the scope of this study aims to reduce energy losses and vulnerabilities as much as possible. In this study, criteria for determining the optimal expansion connector dimensions in accordance with the relevant regulations have been developed and tested for energy sustainability and production ease. As a result, the required connector dimensions and manufacturing conditions have been improved to make the current and temperature distribution uniform.

The characterization of growth pattern in organism is essential for body growth studies and pest management. A simple empirical mathematical technique is demonstrated here to understand the reproductive maturity age, mortality and whether the body growth is determinate or indeterminate, by incorporating a time dependent growth function G(t). This growth function for male and female grasshoppers Ceracris nigricornis laeta (Bol.) in Eastern Himalayan region (at Darjeeling, West Bengal, India) is estimated from time data of their body weight and length and consequently the nature of the growth is predicted. The theoretical approach introduced here is not only successfully tested on the grasshopper but also on male Moorish Tortoise (Testudo graeca graeca) and Rockfish (Sebastes mystinus) using the existing experimental data. Therefore this technique not only enriches the growth biology but also contributes in ecology and pest management.

Even if it is less polluting than other farm sectors, grape growing management have to adopt measures for mitigate GHG emissions and to preserve the quality of grapevine by-products. In viticulture, by land and crop management GHG emissions can be reduced through adjusting methods of tillage, fertilizing, harvesting, irrigation, vineyard maintenance, electricity, natural gas, and the transport until the wine marketing, etc. Besides CO2, in vineyards are produced nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4), released from fertilizers and waste/wastewater management. As main GHG in vineyards, N2O can have the same harmfully action like large quantities of CO2. Carbon can be found in grape leaves, shoots, and even fruit pulp, roots, canes, trunk or soil organic matter. C-sequestration in soil by using less tillage and tractor passing is one of the efficient methods to reduce GHG in vineyards, with the inconvenient that many years are need for detectable changes. In last decades, among other methods, cover crops have been used as one of the most efficient way to reduce GHG emissions and increase fertility in vineyards. Even we analyze many references there are still limited information on practical methods in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in viticulture. The aim of the paper is to review the main GHG emissions produced in vineyards and approached methods for their reduction, in order to maintain the quality of grapes and other by-products.

Boron is an important micronutrient that enhances the reproductive growth of crops such as groundnut. Light also plays an important role for pegging of groundnut. There has been little information on the application of boron and light in groundnut in Bangladesh. A field experiment was conducted to study the effects of boron and light on the reproductive development of two groundnut cultivars. Treatments considered as two groundnut cultivars, viz., ‘Dhaka-1 (C1)’ and ‘BARI Chinabadam-8 (C2)’, three levels of boron (B), viz., 0-kg B ha-1 (B0), 1-kg B ha-1 (B1) and 2-kg B ha-1 (B2), and two levels of light, viz., normal daylight (≈12-h light) and normal daylight + 6-h extended red light at night (≈18-h light). Result revealed that the reproductive development, yield and shelling percentage of groundnut were markedly increased with the application of B. Due to the imposition of light all of the reproductive units increased but decreased the number of pods and pod yield. The highest reproductive unit and yield were observed from ‘BARI Chinabadam-8’. Therefore, reproductive development could be improved by application of boron in improved cultivars (BARI Chinabadam-8) but not for under extended light.

Abstract: The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence of non-syndromic hypodontia and oligodontia and to identify the types of associated dental anomalies in the permanent dentition of children and adolescents in the N-W Romania. The study was conducted between 2008 and 2015 on a group of 566 children aged between 12-18 years. Dental agenesis was diagnosed using clinical and radiological criteria. The numbers and types of teeth missing were noted. Third molars were excluded. Hypodontia had a prevalence of 2.00% in girls and 3.76% in boys (p=0,007), and oligodontia of 0.33% in girls and 0.38% in boys (p=0,367). Unique abnormalities were registered at 1.00% in girls and 1.50% in boys (p=0.026), those with two associations at 0.67% in girls and 1.50% in boys (p=0.015), and those with triple association at 0.67% in girls and 1.13% in boys (0.037%). Hypodontia/oligodontia has been identified in association with other dental abnormalities such as inclusion, microdontia, and enamel hypomineralization. The most frequent was the association of hypodontia with enamel hypomineralization.

Strategic planning is an effective tool for long-term planning and utilized by organizations and industries to achieve competitive advantage. Addressing difficulties that the European banking sector has been struggling since the global financial crisis (GFC), this paper raises serious questions about the sustainability of the sector and offers competitive strategy formulations for what European policy makers might consider to focus on. Empirical findings are accomplished by applying a three phase analysis: (i) SWOT to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, (ii) an integrated model of DEMATEL-ANP (DANP) to determine weights of the SWOT factors, and (iii) fuzzy TOPSIS technique to rank and choose the best strategy. Empirical findings from the SWOT analysis suggest a total of twelve factors, which are then used to formulate four strategies. The DANP illustrates that opportunities dimension has the highest impact and strengths has the lowest among others. The fuzzy TOPSIS results demonstrate that “the European Banking Union (EBU) is expected to remove divergence in the Euro area banking sector” is the most important strategy, whilst “the non risk based leverage ratio (LR) requirement by Basel III” has the weakest importance among the strategy preferences.

We present an overview of privacy preserving data mining, one of the most popular directions in the data mining research community. In the first part of the chapter, we presented approaches that have been proposed for the protection of either the sensitive data itself in the course of data mining or the sensitive data mining results, in the context of traditional (relational) datasets. Following that, in the second part of the chapter, we focused our attention on one of the most recent as well as prominent directions in privacy preserving data mining: the mining of user mobility data. Although still in its infancy, privacy preserving data mining of mobility data has attracted a lot of research attention and already counts a number of methodologies both with respect to sensitive data protection and to sensitive knowledge hiding. Finally, in the end of the chapter, we provided some roadmap along the field of privacy preserving mobility data mining as well as the area of privacy preserving data mining at large.

An accurate system for diabetes prediction is proposed in this paper. The proposed system used K-nearest neighbor algorithm for eliminating the undesired data, thus reducing the processing time. However, a proposed classification approach based on Decision Tree (DT) to assign each data sample to its appropriate class. By experiments, the proposed system achieved high classification result which is 98.7% comparing to the existing system using Pima Indians Diabetes (PID) dataset.