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These days, building sustainable infrastructure requires human endurance. In this sense, the idea of combining PET (polyethylene terephthalate) with pervious concrete is an intriguing field of study. On the one hand, by enabling water to percolate through voids and lowering surface runoff, pervious concrete helps to replenish groundwater levels. Conversely, waste PET plastic, which is produced more frequently these days, is recycled in building projects. Consequently, this leads to two main benefits: concrete’s mechanical and hydraulic qualities are changed, and plastic waste is effectively managed. This study looks at using leftover PET plastic fibres in varying amounts to create pervious concrete and assesses the mechanical properties (compressive strength, flexural strength, split. Porosity and permeability were also found to be correlated. Finally, an abrasion resistance test was conducted. Various percentages of PET plastic fibres, specifically 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% by volume were used in place of natural coarse aggregates in this investigation while maintaining a constant water-to-cement ratio of 0.34. Compressive strength, flexural strength, and split tensile strength are all decreased when the amount of PET plastic in the concrete mix is increased. This decline in trend was notable for compressive strength at 20% replacement and for flexure strength at 10% replacement. Porosity, permeability, and abrasion resistance all indicated a progressive increase for different replacement percentages at the same time. The results of the experiment revealed that the porous concrete had an aggregate-to-binder ratio of 0.34 and a weight-to-cement ratio of 0.34.

Protection and control automation messages transfer between devices and the control center (CC) over IEC 61850 standard protocols in active distribution network (ADN) using Ethernet. Wireless communication network provides real-time monitoring and control of ADN. The proposed novel approach framework presentsline to ground (LG) faults protection and control method utilizing IEC 61850 standards at bay level between intelligent protection devices for fast and reliable protection. Moreover, this bay level peer to peer communication utilizes IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN)to reduce the fault protection time and other messages transferring time instead of Ethernet communication by GOOSE multicast communication services. End to end time delay and throughput of data transmission between the coordination nodes are illustrated using NS2 simulation.

Power generation from Photovoltaic (PV) modules is the best way to utilize the renewable energy in many places. The output of the PV modules will depends on many factors including changes in solar irradiance, temperature, partial shading conditions, operating voltage across terminals of module etc. Apart from operating voltage of PV modules, remaining all factors are depending on nature which we cannot change easily. Hence obtaining an effective voltage regulation of terminals to achieve maximum power from PV module is very important for best utilization. There are many existing maximum power point tracking (MPPT) mechanisms on PV systems but an effective integrating mechanism is required to achieve the best operation under all possible conditions. Artificial neural network (ANN) can able to produce best reference signal corresponding to maximum power location under various random changes very quickly. In other hand, sliding mode controller (SMC) is able to force the boost converter to deliver the best output voltage with fewer ripples under variable input voltage. Fastest response with fewer ripples in dc voltage can help to harvest maximum energy from PV panels. Therefore, integration of ANN with SMC can prepare the MPPT converter to deliver more energy under random changes in irradiance and temperature. The performance of ANN associated SMC for boost converter based MPPT of the PV system is presented in this paper. In order to obtain more realistic response, Hardware-in the-Loop (HIL) is established for proposed system with the help of two OPAL-RT modules. Extensive results by using HIL are presented and discussed under various case studies to enhance the proposed method.

Today, sustainable packaging has become an important way towards achieving the sustainable development by protecting the environment. This paper is an attempt to investigate the factors which affect the intention of Indian consumers towards green packaging, a packaging which is not harmful to the environment. This study considers three factors/ variables namely environmental concern, attitude towards green packaging and willingness to pay as independent variables and purchase intention of consumers towards green packaged products as dependent variable. The data have been collected from 111 respondents and have been analysed by using SPSS software. The correlation and regression analysis were performed to reach the conclusion that which factor affects how much towards consumers’ purchase intention of green packaged products. Findings of this study demonstrated that all the three variables (environmental concern, attitude towards green packaged products and willingness to pay) have a positive effect on the dependent variable (consumers’ intention towards green packaged products).

The detection of waterborne bacteria is crucial to prevent health risks. Current research uses soft computing techniques based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) for the detection of bacterial pollution in water. The limitation of only relying on sensor-based water quality analysis for detection can be prone to human errors. Hence, there is a need to automate the process of real-time bacterial monitoring for minimizing the error, as mentioned above. To address this issue, we implement an automated process of water-borne bacterial detection using a hybrid technique called Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS), that integrates the advantage of learning in an ANN and a set of fuzzy if-then rules with appropriate membership functions. The experimental data as the input to the ANFIS model is obtained from the open-sourced dataset of government of India data platform, having 1992 experimental laboratory results from the years 2003-2014. We have included the following water quality parameters: Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), pH, Electrical conductivity, Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) as the significant factors in the detection and existence of bacteria. The membership function changes automatically with every iteration during training of the system. The goal of the study is to compare the results obtained from the three membership functions of ANFIS- Triangle, Trapezoidal, and Bell-shaped with 35 = 243 fuzzy set rules. The results show that ANFIS with generalized bell-shaped membership function is best with its average error 0.00619 at epoch 100.

We present latest results of soft and small-x QCD measurements with the CMS experiment, such as minimum bias/underlying event physics, and studies on forward jet production.

We present results for the isovector axial, induced pseudoscalar, electric, and magnetic form factors of the nucleon. The calculations were done using 2 + 1 + 1-flavor HISQ ensembles generated by the MILC collaboration with lattice spacings a ≈ 0.12, 0.09, 0.06 fm and pion masses Mπ ≈ 310, 220, 130 MeV. Excited-states contamination is controlled by using four-state fits to two-point correlators and by comparing two-versus three-states in three-point correlators. The Q2 behavior is analyzed using the model independent z-expansion and the dipole ansatz. Final results for the charge radii and magnetic moment are obtained using a simultaneous fit in Mπ, lattice spacing a and finite volume.

We present the first preliminary results for the semileptonic form factor hA1 (w = 1)/ρAj at zero recoil for the B → D*lv decay using lattice QCD with four flavors of sea quarks. We use the HISQ staggered action for the light valence and sea quarks (the MILC HISQ configurations), and the Oktay-Kronfeld (OK) action for the heavy valence quarks.

We present an update on the status of the calculations of isovector and flavor-diagonal charges of the nucleon. The calculations of the isovector charges are being done using ten 2+1+1-flavor HISQ ensembles generated by the MILC collaboration covering the range of lattice spacings a ≈ 0.12, 0.09, 0.06 fm and pion masses Mπ ≈ 310, 220, 130 MeV. Excited-states contamination is controlled by using four-state fits to two-point correlators and three-states fits to the three-point correlators. The calculations of the disconnected diagrams needed to estimate flavor-diagonal charges are being done on a subset of six ensembles using the stocastic method. Final results are obtained using a simultaneous fit in M2π, the lattice spacing a and the finite volume parameter MπL keeping only the leading order corrections.

For the neutron to have an electric dipole moment (EDM), the theory of nature must have T, or equivalently CP, violation. Neutron EDM is a very good probe of novel CP violation in beyond the standard model physics. To leverage the connection between measured neutron EDM and novel mechanism of CP violation, one requires the calculation of matrix elements for CP violating operators, for which lattice QCD provides a first principle method. In this paper, we review the status of recent lattice QCD calculations of the contributions of the QCD Θ-term, the quark EDM term, and the quark chromo-EDM term to the neutron EDM.

In this talk, we motivate the calculation of the matrix elements of novel CP violating operators, the quark EDM and the quark chromo EDM operators, within the nucleon state using lattice QCD. These matrix elements, combined with the bound on the neutron EDM, would provide stringent constraints on beyond the standard model physics, especially as the next generation of neutron EDM experiments reduce the current bound. We then present our lattice strategy for the calculation of these matrix elements, in particular we describe the use of the Schrodinger source method to reduce the calculation of the 4-point to 3-point functions needed to evaluate the quark chromo EDM contribution. We end with a status report on the quality of the signal obtained in the lattice calculations of the connected contributions to the quark chromo EDM operator and the pseudoscalar operator it mixes with under renormalization.

Based on the preformed cluster model (PCM), we have extended our earlier study to investigate the effects of nuclear deformations and orientations of nuclei in context of ground-state de-excitation of Xe to Gd parents, resulting in a doubly closed shell 100Sn daughter and the complementary clusters. The comparison is also made with spherical choice of fragments to extract exclusive picture of the dynamics involved. Since PCM is based on collective clusterization picture, the preformation and penetration probabilities are shown to get modified considerably by inclusion of the quadrupole deformations (β2i) alone, which in turn affects the decay half-lives of the clusters.

The target-like C-yield in the decay of compound systems 32S* and 31P* formed in 20Ne+12C and 19F+12C reactions at E*CN=60 MeV, is studied for the contribution of fusion-fission (ff) decay cross section σff and the deep inelastic (DI) orbiting σorb from the compound nucleus (CN) and non-compound nucleus nCN processes, respectively. The calculations are performed using the collective clusterization of fragments within the dynamical cluster-decay model (DCM) of Gupta and collaborators. Besides studying the competition between ff and DI orbiting phenomenon in the C-yield of these systems, we exclusively investigate the preformation and barrier penetration probabilities P0 and P as a function of angular momentum ℓ values which subsequently affects the contributions of σff and σorb. For calculating the contribution of σff in the C-yield, we have added the contributions from all the minimized intermediate mass fragments (IMFs) for Z=6 in the calculated fragmentation potentials for 32S* (IMFs 11,12,13C are minimized) and for 31P* (IMFs 12,13C are minimized), while calculating subsequently, P0 and the P for these IMFs. The distribution of preformed clusters/fragments as a function of fragment mass visibly explore the nuclear structure effects for the C-yield in decay of these compound systems, wherein, it is shown to be more favoured in the decay of 31P* in comparison to 32S* decay. The contribution of σorb to the C-yield is calculated from P at different allowed ℓ-values (upto ℓmax and also P≤1) of the outgoing fragments (same as that in the entrance channel, i.e., P0=1). Though preliminary but useful results indicates the competition between the CN and nCN process in the C-yield for the compound system 32S* only while the decay of 31P* is of pure CN origin, as observed in the experimental study. The calculations are in good comparison with the available experimental data.

With in the dynamical cluster-decay model (DCM), the compound nucleus fusion/ formation probability PCN is defined for the first time, and its variation with CN excitation energy E* and fissility parameter χ is studied. In DCM, the (total) fusion cross section σfusion is sum of the compound nucleus (CN) and noncompound nucleus (nCN) decay processes, each calculated as the dynamical fragmentation process. The CN cross section σCN is constituted of the evaporation residues (ER) and fusion-fission (ff), including the intermediate mass fragments (IMFs), each calculated for all contributing decay fragments (A1, A2) in terms of their formation and barrier penetration probabilities P0 and P. The nCN cross section σnCN is determined as the quasi-fission (qf) process where P0=1 and P is calculated for the entrance channel nuclei. The calculations are presented for six different target-projectile combinations of CN mass A~100 to superheavy, at various different center-of-mass energies with effects of deformations and orientations of nuclei included in it. Interesting results are that the PCN=1 for complete fusion, but PCN

The possibility of heavy particle radioactivity (heavier clusters) in ground state decays of 287−289115 parent nuclei, resulting in a doubly magic daughter around 208Pb is analyzed using Preformed Cluster Model (PCM) with choices of spherical and quadrupole deformation (β2) having “optimum” orientations of decay products. The behavior of fragmentation potential and preformation probability is investigated in order to extract better picture of the dynamics involved. Interestingly, the potential energy surfaces obtained via the fragmentation process get modified significantly with the inclusion of deformation and orientation effects, which in turn influence the preformation factor.

The dynamical cluster-decay model (DCM) of Gupta and collaborators has been applied successfully to the decay of very-light (A ∼ 30), light (A ∼ 40−80), medium, heavy and super-heavy mass compound nuclei for their decay to light particles (evaporation residues, ER), fusion-fission (ff), and quasi-fission (qf) depending on the reaction conditions. We intend to extend here the application of DCM to study the extreme case of decay of very-light nuclear systems 20,21,22Ne∗ formed in 10,11B+10,11B reactions, for which experimental data is available for their binary symmetric decay (BSD) cross sections, i.e., σBSD. For the systems under study, the calculations are presented for the σBSD in terms of their preformation and barrier penetration probabilities P0 and P. Interesting results are that in the decay of such lighter systems there is a competing reaction mechanism (specifically, the deep inelastic orbiting of non-compound nucleus (nCN) origin) together with ff. We have emipirically estimated the contribution of σnCN. Moreover, the important role of nuclear structure characteristics via P0 as well as angular momentum ℓ in the reaction dynamics are explored in the study.

The decay of 291115* formed in 243Am+48Ca reaction is studied using the dynamical cluster-decay model (DCM), including the possible effect of deformations. A comparative study of spherical and β2-static deformed choices of fragmentation is made for the 2n evaporation residue (ER) of the compound nucleus (CN) 291115*. The heavier neutron clusters 3n and 4n could be fitted only after the inclusion of deformation effect in DCM. Symmetric fission is observed for the spherical approach, which changes to asymmetric one with inclusion of deformation effect. Also, a comparative analysis between spherical and deformed (β2) cases of observed α-decay chains shows that the magnitude of penetration probability gets enhanced whereas preformation factor decreases due to decreased ΔR, when the a-daughter product is taken as spherical rather than deformed.

The dynamical cluster-decay model (DCM) is used to calculate the fusion evaporation residue cross-sections σxn for x=1-4 neutron emissions in the fusion reaction 206Pb+48Ca➔ 254No* at various incident energies. Considering the multipole deformations up to hexadecapole deformations β4i and configurations with “compact” orientation angles θci (θc=20 for 206Pb), the model is shown to give a good description of the measured individual light-particle decay channels, within one parameter fitting, the neck-length ΔR. Considering 204,206,207,208Pb-based reactions, the dependence of 2n-emission yields on the isotopic composition of compound nucleus (CN) is also studied within the DCM. Of the four Pb-isotopes considered, at a fixed excitation energy E*~20 MeV, ΔR is largest for CN with mass number 256, followed by 255, 254 and smallest for 252, which means to suggest that neutrons emission occurs earliest for 256, then for 255, 254 and finally for 252, in complete agreement with experimental data where 256No* has the highest crosssection and 252No* the lowest with 255,254No* lying in between. This result arises due to the penetrability factor, and is related to double magicity of both target and projectile nuclei.