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Faced with reduced levels of food, animals must adjust to the consequences of the shortfall in energy. We explored how C57BL/6 mice withdrew energy from different body tissues during three months of food restriction at graded levels up to 40% (calorie restriction: CR). We compared this to the response to equivalent levels of protein restriction (PR) without a shortfall in calories. Under CR there was a dynamic change in body mass over 30 days and thereafter it stabilized. The time to reach stability was independent of the level of restriction. At the end of three months whole body dissections revealed differential utilization of the different tissues.

Adipose tissue depots were the most significantly utilized tissue, and provided 55.8 to 60.9% of the total released energy. In comparison, reductions in the sizes of structural tissues contributed between 29.8 and 38.7% of the energy. The balance was made up by relatively small changes in the vital organs. The components of the alimentary tract grew slightly under restriction, particularly the stomach, and this was associated with a parallel increase in assimilation efficiency of the food (averaging 1.73%). None of the changes under CR were recapitulated by equivalent levels of PR.

INTRODUCTION The impact of reducing the level of food intake (variously called dietary restriction or calorie restriction CR) [, ] on animal lifespan was discovered almost 100 years ago []. Since that time there has been an expanding interest in the generality of the effect across different species [, ], and the impact of different levels of CR on healthspan and lifespan [, ]. There has also been much recent interest in the potentially important roles of different macronutrients within the diet [] and the importance of background genotype on the magnitude and direction of the effect [-]. In addition there has been a large effort for at least the last 3 decades to try and discover the underlying molecular mechanisms by which CR exerts its effects [, -].

When an animal is first placed onto CR it faces an immediate discrepancy between the number of calories it is ingesting and the number of calories it is expending. The only way to bridge this immediate gap is to withdraw energy that is stored in its tissues. All tissues contain energy that can be metabolized to make good the shortfall.

They vary however in their energy density, and hence utility as an energy supply. Fat tissue, contains more calories per gram than lean body tissue, and therefore might be considered the ideal source of energy to meet the gap between intake and demand. Indeed up until relatively recently many considered that this was the primary function of adipose tissue: to provide an energy reserve to meet the immediate energy shortfall when supply fails. Following the discovery of leptin [], a hormone produced by white adipocytes, it has become clear that adipose tissue also performs many vital endocrine roles [].

As CR continues, and fat reserves are finite, there is a need to bring back into balance the level of expenditure with the level of intake. This could be achieved by increasing the level of energy extraction from the food [] or by reducing energy expenditure. This latter response might be accomplished by reducing levels of physical activity, reducing body temperature, or by reducing the sizes of the organs in the body which utilize energy at the highest rates. Such organs for example include the brain, heart, kidneys, alimentary tract and liver [].

Reducing the sizes of these tissues may, however, compromise their metabolic functions. Hence animals face a complex choice in which tissues they should utilize, and which they should preserve.

Some tissues, however, may be readily sacrificed, such as the reproductive organs. Indeed, one of the ideas behind the lifespan increasing effects of CR is that when individuals shut down reproductive physiology and behavior, resources are instead diverted towards somatic maintenance [, ]. Animals responding to CR therefore face a complex set of decisions about which tissues they should withdraw energy from, so that they are able to meet the immediate shortfall and reduce their energy demands, yet maintain as much as possible metabolic functioning. To clarify, although we use the terms ‘choice’ and ‘decision’ with respect to these processes, following the terminology of many previous studies regarding energy allocation ‘decisions’, we do not mean to imply that these processes involve any conscious decision making on the part of the animals involved. Moreover, while this terminology also presumes that the changes observed are ‘adaptive’ it should always be borne in mind that this may not be the case.

Although many studies have explored the impacts of CR on the sizes of individual tissues [-], very few studies have provided a comprehensive analysis of the responses across the entire body e.g. [] and [], and none previously at graded levels of restriction. In the current study we sought to make such a comprehensive body composition analysis. Since the need to modulate the sizes of the energy consuming tissues would be greater when the level of restriction is greater, it would be anticipated that the extent of response would in some way be linked to the extent of CR. How do animals change their decisions about what tissues to protect and which ones to utilize as the levels of restriction change?

To address this issue we explored the patterns of change in relation to graded levels of CR from 0 to 40%. Finally, it has been suggested that the responses to reducing the availability of food depend less on the shortfall in calories, and more on the shortfall of specific macronutrients, notably protein []. We therefore contrasted the responses of the animals to graded levels of CR (where both calorie and protein supply change in tandem) to the responses to graded restrictions only in the levels of dietary protein (hereafter called protein restriction (PR)). Food intake All mice which were exposed to the same 12 hour ad libitum (12AL) feeding regime during baseline quickly acclimated to only having their food available during darkness and consumed their daily energy requirements within the restricted time that it was accessible (Figure ). The mean food intake recorded over the baseline period across all the mice was 56.09 ± 0.26 kJ/day ( n = 49 individuals measured over 14 days) (Figure ). The protein intake over the same period averaged 0.668 grams per day. No significant difference between the six restricted groups was found over this period (One way ANOVA, F (5, 48) = 1.26, p >0.05).

When the 24 hour ad libitum (24AL) group was first given 24h access to food there was a short period of about 3 days of hyperphagia (Figure ). Food intake increased by 44% on day 1 to 80.2 ± 3.64 kJ/day, but this then returned to baseline levels by day 4. Across the restriction phase, average food intake over the entire period was not significantly different between the two ad libitum groups and averaged 60.09 ± 1.71 kJ/day in the 24AL group and 54.81 ± 1.82 kJ/day in the 12AL group (GLM-RM, F (1, 15) = 4.46, p = 0.052). Because the CR animals always ate their entire ration, when the average level of restriction was expressed relative to the baseline intakes, the 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% restricted (10, 20, 30 and 40CR) groups achieved exactly these percentage levels of restriction. However, if the level of intake at the final week of restriction was compared to the average intakes of the 12AL or 24AL groups during the same weeks the estimated values of the percentage levels of restriction were slightly different at 9, 18, 29 and 39%, relative to 12AL, and 17, 24, 35 and 44% relative to 24AL group, for nominally 10, 20, 30 and 40CR groups respectively. Body mass No significant difference in average body mass was observed between groups over the baseline period (One way ANOVA F (5, 48) = 1.03, p >0.05) (Figure ).

Over the three month treatment body mass varied significantly over time (RM-GLM, F (80, 3440) = 26.74, p 0.05). Hence the time taken for mass loss to stabilize in response to the restriction was independent of the extent of restriction. Compared to the 12AL control group, a significantly lower body mass was observed in all CR groups at the end of treatment (one way ANOVA F (5, 43) = 34.12, p. Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) analysis of body composition Using DXA, body mass, fat mass and fat-free mass were recorded at baseline, 4, 8 and ~ 12 weeks after CR started. By pooling all measurements there was a significant effect of time (F (3, 120) = 51.96, 7.34, 23.3, p. Body composition by dissection after three months CR The mean and standard deviations of the weights of all the wet organs at dissection across all the groups, and the calculated percent change relative to the 12AL group are provided in Table.

The correlation coefficients of the responses of the different tissues across all the individuals are provided in. These correlations are illustrated in Figure (lower half), and show a major division in the correlation structure between the components of the alimentary tract and the other organs. The responses of the alimentary tract components were weakly positively correlated with each other, but were either weakly (ileum, colon and caecum) or strongly (stomach) negatively correlated with all the other organs. In contrast, the responses of the other organs were mostly strongly correlated with each other. The main exceptions to this were the testes, reproductive accessory organs and tail, which showed only weak correlations with the other components and between themselves.

Correlation matrix showing the magnitude of the correlation in the responses to calorie restriction (CR) of different organs across all individuals A dendrogram based on these correlation patterns is shown in Figure. This analysis grouped the organ responses together into 4 major groups. Consistent with the correlation matrix (Figure ), the first major separation was between the four components of the alimentary tract and the rest of the body. Among the organs in the rest of the body, the dendrogram analysis separated the responses into three different groups.

The first group consisted of the main vital organs (brain, kidneys, spleen, heart, lungs and pancreas). The second group consisted of a mix of structural organs (carcass and skin) and the adipose tissue compartments (epididymal (EPI), retroperitoneal (retro), subcutaneous (sub cut), mesenteric and brown adipose tissue (BAT)).

The final grouping involved four organs that were not functionally related. These included the reproductive tissues (accessory organs and testes), the liver and the tail.

Dendrograms showing the similarity in responses of the different organs to a. Graded caloric restriction (CR) and b. Graded protein restriction (PR). EPI is epididymal white adipose tissue (WAT), Retro is retroperitoneal WAT, Sub Cut is subcutaneous WAT. The patterns of change in these different organs separated into the groups identified from the correlation and dendrogram analysis are illustrated in Figure. The vital organs generally showed an almost linear pattern of decline in size in relation to the severity of restriction (Tables and and Figure ).

However the percentage reductions relative to the 12AL group were relatively modest, especially for the brain which declined by a maximum of 4.4% under 40CR, and generally only reached significance at the highest levels of restriction (Table ). The lungs, heart and pancreas showed larger maximal percent weight losses between 11.7 and 26.7% and the largest losses relative to the 12AL animals were observed in the kidney (maximal loss 46.9%) and spleen (66.3%). The patterns of change in the second grouping from the correlation analysis were also roughly linear with the extent of restriction (Table and Figure ), but in these cases the extent of loss in mass relative to the 12AL group was much greater (Tables and and Figure ), particularly for the white adipose tissue components which showed maximal losses at 40CR between 59.4% (mesenteric) and 85.5% (retro). The structural components had relatively lower losses compared to the white adipose tissue, being maximally around 34% loss in the 40CR group relative to 12AL in both the skin and carcass.

BAT showed an intermediate maximal relative loss of 44%. In the third group identified by the correlation analysis the changes did not appear to be linearly related to the extent of restriction. Hence the liver appeared to lose mass at a relatively constant 26% below the 12AL liver mass in the 20CR, 30CR and 40CR groups (all significantly different to 12AL but not different from each other: Table ). The tail lost very little mass, averaging 5.7 to 10.8% below the 12AL group in the 20CR, 30CR and 40CR groups (all non-significantly different from 12AL: Tables and ), and the testes were on average 9% smaller than the 12AL group for 10CR, 20CR and 30CR groups (all non-significant), only showing a significant decline at 40CR (28.8% lower than the 12AL group).

The only organs in this group that deviated from this pattern were the reproductive accessory organs, which showed a more linear decline with the extent of restriction (Tables and and Figure ). The final grouping was the alimentary tract components. These all had positive changes relative to the 12AL group. Although the patterns with change in the level of restriction were less clear (Table and Figure ) there did appear to overall be greater investment as the extent of restriction increased. Effects of treatment (3 months exposure to calorie restriction (CR) or ad libitum (AL) intake) and the effect of baseline body mass on the tissue masses of C57BL/6 mice Utilizing ratios to express data may lead to interpretation issues, e.g.

To express the relative utilization of different tissues across all the treatment groups, avoiding the use of ratios, we plotted the final weight of each organ against the final body mass across all individuals. We then fitted a linear least squares fit regression to these data and used the gradient (β) to express the differential utilization of the tissues. On this basis, an organ with a gradient of β = 1 would be utilized at the same rate as total body mass as restriction severity increased. Anything with a gradient greater than 1 was declining more rapidly than body mass and hence was being preferentially utilized at high levels of restriction.

In contrast, organs that had β gradients between 0 and 1 were being relatively protected, and any organ with a negative gradient (β. Assimilation efficiency Assimilation efficiency calculated as the percent of the ingested energy that was assimilated, excluding urinary losses, did not differ significantly between the CR treatment groups at baseline when they were all treated identically (F (5, 36) = 0.42, p >0.05). Assimilation efficiency averaged 92.3% (Figure ). Following CR exposure there was a significant group effect on assimilation efficiency (F (5, 32) = 9.53, p 0.05) from each other or from 12AL, but they were all greater than the 24AL group. The extent of increase in assimilation efficiency varied between 1.16% (sd = 1.15) in the 20CR group and 2.97% (sd = 2.10) in the 30CR group. If we use the average increased assimilations, then actual realized levels of restriction in the nominally 10CR, 20CR, 30CR and 40CR groups based on gross intake were 8.4%, 18.8%, 27.0% and 38.3% respectively.

At an individual level, we found no relationship between the level of assimilation efficiency when under CR and the sizes of the components of the alimentary tract (multiple regression analysis p >0.05 for all alimentary tract components). Bone characteristics No restriction effect was found in the DXA measurements of bone mineral content and density (BMC and BMD) and bone area (BA). However changes over time within the diet groups were significant (GLM-RM, BMC: F (3, 129) = 4.35, p 0.05) which supports data indicating a higher BMC recorded by DXA in the CR groups. Body composition by dissection at three months The mean and standard deviations of the weights of all the wet organs at dissection across all the groups are provided in Table.

The correlation coefficients of the responses of the different tissues across all the individuals are provided in the supplementary material (). These correlations are illustrated in Figure in the top half of the diagram. The correlation structure under PR was completely different from that under CR. The correlations between tissues were much weaker than under CR and in both positive and negative directions.

Moreover, there was no clear separation between the responses of the alimentary tract components and the rest of the body as was evident under CR. The dendrogram (Figure ) based on this correlation matrix separated the responses into four groups. Note that the branch points in this dendrogram sit much further back than in the CR dendrogram (Figure ), reflecting the poorer correlations between tissues in the PR animals. The first group comprised four vital organs (brain, heart, kidneys and spleen). The second group comprised 5 tissues with variable functions (carcass, BAT, mesenteric fat, testes and the pancreas).

The third group comprised all the alimentary tract components along with the tail and lungs. Finally, the fourth group consisted of three white adipose tissue depots along with the liver, skin and reproductive organs. Wet tissue weights (g) of all organs across all treatment groups at the end of 3 months of protein restriction (PR) The patterns of change in the individual organs in these 4 groupings are illustrated in Figure and the relevant statistics are shown in Table. PR did not significantly affect the sizes of the different organs, apart from a marginal effect on the testes (GLM, p >0.05), not significant after Bonferroni correction). There were significant relationships however between the final masses of several organs and the initial baseline body mass (Table ). These included the major structural organs (carcass, skin and tail) and the liver.

Comparison of responses to calorie and protein restriction (CR vs PR) Since protein contents of the PR diets were designed to match the protein intakes of the nominal 20, 30 and 40% CR animals, we compared the body composition responses of the CR groups to the equivalent PR animals to establish the extent to which the impact of CR might be attributable to the reduced levels of protein in the CR diet (Table ). If for example the decline in weight of a particular organ under CR was mirrored by the same change under PR then we could attribute the change in that organ to the protein rather than calorie deficit. In contrast, if the loss in weight under CR was not mirrored by the same change under PR then we could be confident the effect was not due to the protein deficit and more likely due to the calorie deficit. Both CR and PR experiments had a 12AL group fed the same diet throughout. As expected most organs in these two groups did not differ significantly ( p >0.0006 equivalent to >0.05 using Bonferroni correction) between the CR and PR treatments, although we did detect significant differences in the sizes of the lungs, stomach, caecum and ileum.

The sources of these differences are unclear. Comparing the 20CR and 20PR groups the organs that were significantly different (GLM, p. Calculated energy equivalence of the altered tissue masses under CR We did not measure directly the energy contents of the component tissues following dissection since we preserved the tissues for other analyses (see methods). All tissues consist of a mix of water containing no usable energy and organic materials that can be mobilized to provide energy. To convert the changes in wet tissue mass from the dissections into equivalent energy it is therefore necessary to know the tissue water contents. We measured the water contents in the tissues of 60 individual C57BL/6 mice dissected using the same protocol as used for the CR and PR animals. Tissues were dried to constant weight (14 days at 60ÐC as described previously [].

Water contents of the vital organs and alimentary tract averaged around 70 to 72.5% and were highly reproducible (standard errors across all individuals for given tissues were generally under 1%) (Table ). In contrast the water contents of the adipose tissue depots were highly variable between individuals (except for BAT).

Across individuals there was no relationship between the size of a tissue depot and its water content so we assumed that when an animal withdrew tissue, the tissue composition was unchanged. When mobilizing the lean tissue compartments, we assumed the tissue comprised the relevant amount of water, with the balance comprising protein with an energy equivalence of 17 kJ/g [] and that when the animals utilized their fat stores, we assumed the tissue comprised the relevant amount of water and the balance was lipid comprising 39.5 kJ/g []. We utilized the average difference in tissue sizes between each of the CR groups, and the 12AL group, to make these calculations and then summed the energy across all the tissues to obtain the energy made available by reducing their tissues masses. These calculations are summarized in Table. Calculated energy and protein released by reducing the sizes of the major organs when under calorie restriction (CR) As the severity of CR increased the amount of energy withdrawn from body tissues also increased from 42.2 kJ at 10CR to 109.5 kJ at 40CR.

The proportional contribution to these totals from different tissues was not constant. The proportion of energy supplied from structural tissues (carcass, skin and tail) increased as the severity of CR increased from 29.8% at 10CR to 38.4% at 40CR.

In contrast, the percent contributions from the vital organs, and the adipose tissue, declined as the severity of CR increased. In the case of the vital organs, the contribution fell from 4.7% to 3.7% as CR increased from 10 to 40% and in fat tissue it fell from 60.9% at 10CR to 56% at 40CR.

The reproductive organs also decreased from 3.8% to 2.6%. We calculated the energy shortfall of the supplied food relative to the baseline intake, adjusting for the change in assimilation efficiency under restriction, over the first 29 days of restriction. We chose this period because from the DXA analysis it seemed that all the organ changes were complete after the first month and 29 days was the average inflection point of the mass loss curve. This allowed us to calculate the contribution that withdrawing tissues had made to the total energy shortfall. At 10CR this was 31.2%.

However, for the more severe restrictions the contribution was remarkably similar across the different levels at 17.5 to 19.9% (Table ). The calculated protein released by mobilizing the tissues was also estimated and then compared with the shortfall in protein intake. We compared the estimated intake of 0.668g per day protein at baseline and the estimated levels of restriction (accounting for changes in assimilation). Over the first 29 days of restriction the percent contribution of withdrawn tissue to the protein shortfall was 59.1% in the 10CR group.

In the other three groups the contribution was lower, but similar across the groups at 38 to 43%. Calorie restriction The trajectories of body mass change and the calculated inflection points of the mass loss curves suggested that independent of the level of CR, it took the animals about 29 days to adjust to the imposition of CR feeding. This was consistent with the longitudinal DXA analyses of body composition, which showed a large significant difference by day 30, but no significant further change until the end of the experiment. The detailed changes in body composition that we detected at the end of the three month feeding had probably already occurred therefore by the end of the first month of restriction. The dynamics of change during the first 30 days of restriction remain unclear from this study.

However, several previous studies have explored changes in organ sizes during this early dynamic phase of restriction, and they suggest that fat withdrawal occurs rapidly [] and that the liver is among the first organs to respond by decreasing in weight [] before detectable changes occur in the heart and brain. We found that mice under CR invested in growth of their alimentary tracts, particularly the stomach. Previous work has also suggested that CR induced growth of the stomach of rats, particularly the fundus []. Although this was not observed in other studies where stomach weight was preserved but not enlarged []. Similarly others found preservation but not enlargement of the stomach, small intestine and large intestine of C57BL/6 mice subjected to 27% CR at 14 months of age for 70 days [].

The enlargement of the small intestine was significant when body mass was used as a covariate in the analysis. The enlargement reported in the current study was probably driven by the fact the mice on restriction rapidly consume all the food that is provided for them. This may be adaptive because mice in the wild under restriction may need to ingest food rapidly to avoid it being eaten by conspecific or interspecific competitors. Enlargement of the other portions of the alimentary tract was less marked than for the stomach, but consistent with previous observations of elevated protein synthesis rates in the intestines of CR rats [, ]. The enlargement of the alimentary tract was accompanied by an increase in assimilation efficiency for the mice under CR (relative to the 24AL group), by on average 1.7%. Others also reported an increase in digestive efficiency by mice on 27% CR by 1.58% but in that case the difference was not significant []. In our study, these changes were not closely linked together, since there was no correlation at the individual level between the elevated assimilation and the morphology of the alimentary tract.

More likely the elevated assimilation was linked to a combination of changes in gross morphology and changes in nutrient transport, since previous work has shown that sugar transport and the absorption of amino acids are both elevated under long term CR in mice [, ]. These changes together clearly moderate the impact of restriction.

The energy (and protein) required to grow the alimentary tract was trivially small compared with the consequent amelioration of the restriction. Hence, on average, the change in the tract morphology required an investment of between 0.4 to 0.8 kJ of energy (Table ), yet the improved assimilation resulted in between 0.58 and 0.89 kJ/day greater energy absorption.

So the cost of growing the tract was covered by the improved energy absorption in just one day, and the benefits persisted through the restriction period. Apart from the alimentary tract all the other body tissues lost weight under CR and increasingly so in relation to the severity of restriction. However, there was a clear hierarchy in utilization with some organs/tissues preferentially utilized while others were protected.

Among the most preferentially utilized tissues were the adipose tissue depots. This preferential utilization of adipose tissue has been reported previously in several studies [, -] including in humans [-] and is consistent with the fact that adipose tissue contains the least water (Table ) and lipids have the highest energy yield per gram []. Adipose tissue therefore represents the most effective source of energy to make up for the immediate shortfall in intake when CR commences. The utilization of fat, however, was regulated so that its use was proportional to the level of restriction.

This strongly suggests that the mice do not employ a strategy of first utilizing their fat stores and then drawing on other tissues when placed under restriction. Rather they continuously coordinate the use of both fat and lean tissues from the onset of restriction in relation to the restriction level. Presumably the slightly greater reliance on fat in the 10% CR group explains why the initial weight loss was not linearly related to the restriction level (Figure ). Previous work has suggested that utilization of fat during CR may occur preferentially from the visceral adipose tissue depots leading to a change in fat distribution [] (but see [, ] for studies that found no such effect). Our data were consistent with this pattern, since EPI and retro stores were preferentially exploited as CR severity increased relative to the sub cut compartment in the 12AL animals. Mesenteric fat, however, contrasted these patterns and was utilized less than the other three stores.

Overall, however, the ratio of sub cut to visceral (summed EPI, retro and mesenteric fat) fell from 1.13 in 12AL animals to 0.94 in 40CR animals. This trend was consistent with the supposed remodeling away from the visceral compartment as severity of CR increased, although the ratio was almost constant in the 10, 20 and 30% CR groups (1.017, 0.985 and 1.007 respectively). The fact that use of fat and lean tissue is coordinated and simultaneous rather than sequential leads inevitably to the steady state levels of body fat, after the dynamic phase of restriction is completed, being in proportion to the level of restriction (Figure, Tables and ).

Since life and health span also vary in direct relation to the level of restriction [, ] the effect of CR on fat storage has been suggested to be the primary mechanism by which CR exerts its life and healthspan enhancing effects [, -]. Surgically removing (particularly visceral) fat increases lifespan [] and mice with adipose tissue selective ablation of the insulin receptor (FIRKO mice) have reduced adipose tissue and live about 18% longer.

However, applying CR to ob/ob mice results in a mouse that is still fatter than control AL fed wild type mice yet lives longer []. Moreover, across strains of mice that varied in the lifespan response to CR, it was those mice that lost the most fat that had the most negative lifespan responses to CR, suggesting that fat loss may be actually detrimental to the CR effect []. However if the analysis of these data is restricted to mice that improved lifespan when treated with CR, this negative relationship disappears [], although it does not become positive. The most preserved adipose tissue depot was the interscapular BAT. Nevertheless it was still preferentially utilized relative to other organs (gradient >1) and in the 40CR group the BAT was only 44.4% of that in the 12AL animals. Very few other studies have examined the effects of CR on BAT, an exception being Selman (2005) who found in rats that BAT was much larger in the CR animals after both 6 and 24 months of restriction [].

We did not replicate these findings in mice after three months of restriction. Consistent with many other studies on calorie reduced diets we observed that there was also a substantial reduction in lean tissue mass. In fact, although the proportional use of lean tissue (ie non adipose tissue but excluding the vital and reproductive organs) was lower than the adipose tissue stores (Figure ) the absolute weight loss in the carcass and skin was much higher. For example, compared to 12AL mice, the mice on 40CR lost 2.1 g of fat across the four white adipose tissue stores but lost 4.7 g from the carcass and 1.4 g from the skin.

This reduction contrasts with early studies, which suggested that lean tissue mass is preserved under CR []. An even greater difference was observed after six months of CR in rats, where the carcass was 30 g lighter and skin 10g lighter but the combined fat stores only differed by just under 5 g []. It might be argued that the failure to preserve lean tissue mass occurred because under the protocol we used protein was also restricted at the same time as energy [].

This interpretation seems unlikely, however, because when we placed mice under PR without a calorie deficit, the same reductions in the lean tissue mass did not occur (Figure and Table ). The lean tissue reductions were therefore driven by the shortfall in calories rather than protein. In fact energy in these tissues contributed between 29.8 and 38.4% of the total energy released by tissue mobilization, and this percentage increased as the severity of restriction increased, while the percent contribution from the fat stores declined.

The reduction in lean tissue mass was therefore a substantial contributor to the energy shortfall. We found that most of the vital organs also lost weight in relation to the extent of restriction, but they were relatively protected (i.e. The gradients of mass at dissection against total mass were. Protein restriction Most CR protocols, like ours, restrict the total diet and hence provide not only fewer calories but also proportionately lower levels of all the macronutrients, perhaps chief among which is the level of protein supply []. In fact it has been argued that the impact of CR may be due primarily to the reduced intake of protein, rather than reduced intake of calories [,, ]. We were interested, therefore, in the extent to which the observed changes in body composition under CR might be explained by changes in PR, and thus ran a second experiment in which protein was restricted without a calorie deficit to determine what aspects of the CR changes would be recapitulated under PR alone.

We observed that under PR the body composition remained virtually unchanged. Moreover, none of the observed differences in individual organ sizes after three months of PR reached statistical significance compared to the 12AL group.

However, there was an overall significant impact on the total fat mass (summed across depots). As PR increased the animals became fatter over the three month manipulation period. Since the animals were provided with the same total calorie intake as during the baseline period and the same intake across the different PR groups, the most likely reason for this effect on fatness was that reducing the levels of protein in the diet reduced the specific dynamic action (SDA) of the diet, which is known to be greatest for the protein component []. Thus while gross energy intake remained constant the net metabolizable energy increased as the protein level declined.

This would lead to surplus energy above requirements that the animals could deposit as fat. Since the extra fat in the 40PR group amounted to just over 1 g (39.5 kJ), this was equivalent to less than 0.3 kJ/day over the 90 day experiment and hence entirely consistent in magnitude with an alteration in the level of SDA. The only organs that did not differ between the CR and PR treatments were those organs that were invested in or highly protected under CR (Figure and Table ).

All the tissues that lost significant mass only did so under the CR and not under the PR treatments (compare Figures and ). Since the PR experiments recapitulated none of the major changes observed under equivalent levels of CR, we conclude that the major alterations in body composition of mice under CR come about entirely because of the restriction of calories, and the need to make good the immediate shortfall of energy and to match longer term energy demands to the diminished supply.

The former is achieved primarily by withdrawing energy from the fat reserves and structural tissues (e.g. Skin and skeletal muscle) and the latter by reducing the sizes of the vital organs. Overall design and rationale We characterized the body composition response to CR and PR in C57BL/6 male mice, a strain known to have a positive lifespan response under CR []. The time-point at which CR is started has an impact on the lifespan effect.

Initiation of CR at 4 weeks of age shortened lifespan [] while CR introduced at 6 weeks increased lifespan []. Nevertheless both these early start points impact development, and are probably unrealistic models for implementation of CR in humans. Here mice were introduced to CR or PR at 20 weeks of age, approximately equivalent to early human adulthood, and close to the time when mice reach skeletal maturity []. This start time avoids impacts of CR on developmental processes.

Previous studies suggested CR begun at six months was as effective at increasing lifespan as starting at 6 weeks []. A linear relationship between the extent of CR and the magnitude of the lifespan effect has also been indicated, up to at least a restriction of 65% which led to a 60% increase in lifespan [,, ]. We therefore exposed mice to 5 different levels of CR: 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40% lower calories than their own individual intakes measured over a baseline period of 14 days prior to introducing the restricted diets.

Mice on restriction were individually housed and fed daily at lights out (1830h). There is a potential issue with an appropriate control group in CR studies [, ]. Animals that are fed completely ad libitum (AL) may become obese and hence the comparison of CR to AL animals may simply reflect an anti-obesity effect of CR.

This is less of an issue when graded levels of CR are used instead of a single comparison of one CR level to AL animals. A further problem however occurs in relationship to terminal measurements. When animals are under CR they generally consume their food during the first few hours after it has been provided. They then have a protracted period without food before the next daily allocation of food arrives. AL animals in contrast can by definition eat at any time throughout the 24h period. Consequently, when it comes to culling animals to perform molecular biology work the CR animals may have been starving for 10-16 h, while the AL animals may have eaten in the hour immediately prior to culling. The CR v AL comparison may then be confounded by an immediate ‘time since last meal’ effect.

To avoid these issues we used 2 ‘control groups’ exposed to 0% CR. For the first group (24AL) we allowed them 24h access to food without restriction. For the second group (12AL) we allowed them unrestricted access to food for the 12h of darkness but then removed the food at lights on (0630h), replacing it 12h later at lights off when the CR animals were also fed. Hence these animals, like the CR animals, had been starving for at least 7.5 h when we came to cull them between 1400 and 1800h.

All animals were fed a high carbohydrate open source diet (D12450B: Research diets, NJ, USA) which contains 20% protein, 70% carbohydrate and 10% fat (by energy). For the animals on PR we started with the same diet containing 20% protein as the control group. We then modified this diet by reducing its protein level and replacing the missing protein with carbohydrate to achieve protein levels of 16, 14 and 12% protein. Animals on these protein diets were prevented from overeating to compensate for the reduced protein and were fed a fixed weight of food equivalent to their own individual baseline intake on the 20% protein diet. Hence their energy intakes were the same as during the baseline period but their protein intakes were restricted by 20, 30 and 40%, to match the protein levels consumed by the 20, 30 and 40% CR groups (D13020201, D13020202 and D13020203 respectively, Research Diets, NJ, USA). To match the CR protocol these animals were also only fed in darkness. For both studies the period of restriction was set at three months.

The overall aim of the study was to collect extensive phenotype data across the 7-9 animals in each group. These data included transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic profiles in multiple tissues, physiological, endocrinological and behavioral responses, as well as morphological changes. The focus of the current paper includes the changes in daily food intake, body mass, digestive efficiency, Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measures throughout the restriction period, and primarily detailed aspects of the body composition changes established after the three months of restriction were complete. Future papers will address the other outcome measures. Ethics statement All procedures were reviewed and approved by University of Aberdeen ethical approval committee and carried out under a Home Office issued license compliant with the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

C57BL/6 mice were purchased from Charles River (Ormiston, UK). Free access to water was provided. Body mass and food intake were recorded daily, immediately prior to feeding. Over a 2 week baseline period a number of measures were taken among which are reported here: DXA, and digestive efficiency measures. Mice were allocated into 6 experimental groups matched for body mass. Prior to culling all parameters measured at baseline were repeated and referred to as the final measures (F). Mice were killed approximately 4 hours prior to lights out from 1400 to 1800 h by a terminal CO 2 overdose.

After death a blood sample was collected by heart puncture. Brains were removed, weighed and frozen in isopentane over dry ice. All remaining tissues were rapidly removed (~10mins), weighed, divided appropriately for future analysis and snap frozen in liquid nitrogen. The liver was divided into 7 pieces and individually frozen in cryovials to avoid freeze/thaw artefacts. Any apparent disease states were recorded. The tibia and femur of the right leg were preserved by wrapping in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) soaked tissue, sealed in plastic bags and stored at −20°C for analysis of mechanical properties. The tibia and femur of the left leg were fixed in 3.7% formaldehyde, and scanned by micro-computed tomography (micro-CT).

For full details on methods please refer to [, ]. Precise measurements of length and diameter of both tibia and femur were recorded using a digital micrometer (± 0.01 mm) (RS 572-044, Mitutoyo, Andover, UK) and the mechanical properties were evaluated by three-point bending using an Instron 5564 testing machine (Instron, High Wycombe, UK). MathCAD software was used for analysis of data (Mathsoft Engineering and Education Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA). Ultrasound was used to measure the speed of sound in a bone slice using a pulser receiver (Model 5052 PR, Panametrics Inc, Waltham, MA, USA) and an oscilloscope (Hitachi V-665A, Tokyo, Japan). The density of the cortical bone was determined using Archimedes' principle.

Finally, the water, organic and mineral contents of the bones were calculated from wet, dry (24h at 105ÐC) and ashed (24h at 600ÐC) weights. The left tibia and femur of 12AL control ( n = 5) and 30CR mice ( n = 4) were analyzed by three-dimensional micro-CT using Skyscan 1072 X-ray Microtomograph Scanner (Skyscan, Aartselaar, Belgium). Skyscan Nrecon software was used to reconstruct the images using a modified Feldkamp algorithm to obtain a three-dimension image which was then analyzed using the software CTAN. The fractional bone volume, (i.e. The percentage of bone volume relative to the total volume (BV/TV), trabecular thickness (Tb Th), trabecular separation (Tb Sp), trabecular number (Tb N), trabecular pattern factor (Tb Pf), the structural model index (SMI) and the degree of anisotropy (DoA) were recorded). Bomb calorimetry Feces collected over 6 days during baseline and following 11-12 weeks of restriction, were carefully separated from sawdust, weighed and dried along with a sample of each diet. Gross energy content for each diet or fecal sample was measured by bomb calorimetry (Parr 6100 calorimeter using a semi-micro 1109 oxygen bomb 1109A, Scientific and Medical Products Ltd, Cheadle, UK) with a minimum of three replicates, within ±0.25 kJ.

Metabolizable energy intake (MEI) (kJ/day) was calculated from the gross energy intake (GEI) and energy output assuming a 3% energy loss via urine [, ]. The apparent energy absorption efficiency was calculated as the percentage of the ingested food taken up by the body. Statistical analysis Statistical analyses were performed using the PASW Statistics package 18, Minitab version 16 and R.

All data were first checked for normality using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and if necessary were normalized by log transformation prior to analysis. Unless otherwise stated general linear models (GLM), were used to compare data across time with individual ID entered into the model as a random factor nested within group to account for repeated measures (RM). Where time was not a factor (e.g.

Comparing groups at baseline) we used one way ANOVA. Where appropriate, following GLM or one way ANOVA post-hoc Tukey tests were used, with a significance threshold set at p 1.0), relatively protected (β ≤ 1.0 and ≥ 0.0) or invested in (β.

The Effects Of Sawdust Addition On The Insulating Characteristics Of Clays From The Federal Capital Territory Of Abuja Abstract: l Capital of Abuja like linear shrinkage, solid density, apparent porosity and thermal conductivity were characterized with a view of studying the effect of sawdust on them. The results showed that the linear shrinkage improved from an average of 8.57% for the three samples for 0% sawdust to an average of 8.32% with 40% addition of saw dust, bringing them closer to the lower range of the international standard of 7-10%.

Solid density averaged 3.18g/cm3 with 0% saw dust and 2.91g/cm 3 with 40% saw dust, still bringing them closer to the international range of 2.3-3.5g/cm3. Apparent porosity averaged 13% with 0% saw dust and 17% with 40% addition of saw dust bringing them closer to the acceptable range of 20-80%. While thermal conductivity averaged 0.493W/mo k with 0% saw dust and 0.134W/mo k with 40% saw dust thereby improving their insulating properties. This 40% sawdust addition was discovered to be the maximum under which mechanical strength and other refractory properties of clay will remain stable. Agha O A (1998) Testing of local refractory clay for producing furnace lining bricks. Thesis: Mech. Akinbode F O.

An investigation on the properties of termite hill as refractory material for furnace lining: Indian Foundry Journal. (1999) Investigation on local refractory materials for high temperature applications, PhD Thesis mech. Federal University Of Technology, Minna 4. The Nature properties of soil, 20th Edition and Pub Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersey 5. (1994) Industrial Minerals and rocks, 6th Edition, Pergamon Press, Oxford.

IEE (1992) Wiring regulation requirement for electrical installation BS7671, 15th Edition, A Mclay and co. Ltd Cardiff 7. Ijagbemi C.O.(2002) Development and performance evaluation of a biomass clay lined cookstove.

Meng thesis, Department of mechanical Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria. Li Zaigeng and Zhou Ningsheng (2001) Technological advancement in the preparation and application of monolithic refractories.

China's refractories Volume 10 number 1 9. And Agbajelola D. (2011) Characterization of some selected clay deposits in Benue State. A paper presented at the 2nd Biennial Engineering Conference. School of Engineering and Engineering technology, Federal University of Technology, Minna 10. Mahmoud S., Ayman H and Mousa A (2003) Pretreatment effects on the catalytic activity of Jordanian bentonite.

Journal of the clay mineral society Volume 51 number 1 Manukaji John U. A Review On Historical And Present Developments In Ejector Systems Abstract: Ejectors are simple pieces of equipment. Nevertheless, many of their possible services are overlooked.

They often are used to pump gases and vapours from a system to create a vacuum. However, they can be used for a great number of other pumping situations. This paperprovides reviewon the development in ejectors, applications of ejector systems and system performance enhancement. Several topics are categorized provides useful guidelines regarding background and operating principles of ejector including mathematical modelling, numerical simulation of ejector system, geometric optimizations. Research works carried out recently are still limited to computer modelling, forthe real industrial applications more experimental and large-scale work are needed in order to provide better understanding.

Reference [1] Riffat SB, Jiang L, Gan G. Recent Development in Ejector Technology: A Review. International Journal of Ambient Energy1995; 26:13–26. [2] Chunnanond K, Aphornratana S. Ejectors: Applications in Refrigeration Technology. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 2004; 8:129–55.

[3] Abdulateef JM, Sopian K, Alghoul MA, Sulaiman MY. 'Review on Solar-Driven Ejector Refrigeration Technologies. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 2009; 13:1338–49. [4] El-Dessouky H, Ettouney H, Alatiqi I, AlNuwaibit G. 'Evaluation of Steam Jet Ejectors' Chemical Engineering and Processing: Process Intensification' 2002; 41:551–61. [5] Pianthong K, Seehanam W, Behnia M, Sriveerakul T, Aphornratana S. 'Investigation and Improvement of Ejector Refrigeration System Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Technique' Energy Conversion and Management 2007; 48:2556–64.

[6] Ma X, Zhang W, Omer SA, Riffat SB. Experimental investigation of a novel steam ejector refrigerator suitable for solar energy applications. Applied Thermal Engineering 2010; 30:1320-5.

[7] Chunnanond K, Aphornratana S. 'AnExperimental Investigation of a Steam Ejector Refrigerator: The Analysis of the Pressure Profile along the Ejector'. Applied Thermal Engineering 2004; 24:311–22. [8] Selvaraju A, Mani A. Experimental investigation on R134a vapour ejector refrigeration system.

International Journal of Refrigeration 2006; 29: 1160–6. [9] Sankarlal T, Mani A. Experimental Investigations on Ejector Refrigeration System with Ammonia. Renewable Energy 2007; 32:1403–13. [10] Chaiwongsa P, Wong wises S. Experimental study on R-134a refrigeration system using a two-phase ejector as an expansion device.

Applied Thermal Engineering 2008; 28:467–77 Mohammed Raffe Rahamathullah, Karthick Palani, Thiagarajan Aridass, Prabakaran Venkatakrishnan, Sathiamourthy, Sarangapani Palani 010-034 5. Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles from Microbial Source-A Green Synthesis Approach, and Evaluation of its Antimicrobial Activity against Escherichia coli Abstract: Nanoparticles synthesis by biological methods using various microorganisms, plants, and plant extracts and enzymes have attracted a great attention as these are cost effective, nontoxic, eco-friendly and an alternative to physical and chemical methods. In this research, Silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) were synthesized from AgNO3 solution by green synthesis process with the assistance of microbial source only. The detailed characterization of the Ag NPs were carried out using UV-visible spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), Dynamic light scattering (DLS) analysis, and their antimicrobial evaluation was done against Escherichia coli. The UV-visible spectroscopy analysis showed the surface plasmon resonance property of nanoparticles. The DLS analysis showed the particle distribution of synthesized silver nanoparticles in solution, and SEM analysis showed the morphology of nanoparticles.

The elemental composition of synthesized sample was confirmed by EDS analysis. Antibacterial assay of synthesized Ag NP was carried out in solid (Nutrient Agar) growth medium against E.coli. The presence of zone of inhibition clearly indicated the antibacterial activity of silver nanoparticles. Key words: MAntibacterial assay, eco-friendly, nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles, zone of inhibition Reference [1] Kim, S.W., Nam, S.H. And An, Y.J., Interaction of silver nanoparticles with biological surfaces of Caenorhabditis elegans.

Ecotoxicol Environ Saf, 77, 2011, 64-70. [2] Hussain, S.M., Hess, K.L., Gearhart, J.M., Geiss, K.T. And Schlager, J.J., In vitro toxicity of nanoparticles in BRL 3A rat liver cells.

Toxicol In Vitro, 19 (7), 2005, 975-983(2005) [3] Premanathan, M., Karthikeyan, K., Jeyasubramanian, K. And Manivannan, G., Selective toxicity of ZnO nanoparticles toward Gram-positive bacteria and cancer cells by apoptosis through lipid peroxidation. Nanomedicine, 7 (2), 2011, 184-192. [4] Srivastava, M., Singh, S. And Self, W.T., Exposure to silver nanoparticles inhibits selenoprotein synthesis and the activity of thioredoxin reductase. Environ Health Perspect, 120 (1), 2012, 56-61. [5] Nagy, A., Harrison, A., Sabbani, S., Munson, R.S., Jr., Dutta, P.K.

And Waldman, W.J., Silver nanoparticles embedded in zeolite membranes: release of silver ions and mechanism of antibacterial action. Int J Nanomedicine, 6, 2011, 1833- 1852. [6] Bhumkar, D.R., Joshi, H.M., Sastry, M. And Pokharkar, V.B., Chitosan reduced gold nanoparticles as novel carriers for transmucosal delivery of insulin. Pharm Res, 24 (8), 2007, 1415-1426(2007).

[7] Arunachalam, R., Dhanasingh, S., Kalimuthu, B., Uthirappan, M., Rose, C. And Mandal, A.B., Phytosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using Coccinia grandis leaf extract and its application in the photocatalytic degradation.

Colloids Surf B Biointerfaces, 94, 2012, 226-230. [8] Patil, R.S., Kokate, M.R.

And Kolekar, S.S., Bioinspired synthesis of highly stabilized silver nanoparticles using Ocimum tenuiflorum leaf extract and their antibacterial activity. Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc, 91C, 2011, 234- 238. [9] Kumar, R., Roopan, S.M., Prabhakarn, A., Khanna, V.G. And Chakroborty, S., 'Agricultural waste Annona squamosa peel extract: Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles'.

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc, 90,173-176. [10] Natrajan, Kannan, Subbalaxmi Selvaraj, and V. Microbial production of silver nanoparticles. Digest Journal of Nanomaterials and Biostructures 5(1), 2010: 135-140. Behera S.S., Jha S., Arakha M., Panigrahi T.K. Recognition of Similar Shaped Handwritten Marathi Characters Using Artificial Neural Network Abstract: The growing need have handwritten Marathi character recognition in Indian offices such as passport, railways etc has made it vital area of a research.

Similar shape characters are more prone to misclassification. In this paper a novel method is provided to recognize handwritten Marathi characters based on their features extraction and adaptive smoothing technique. Feature selections methods avoid unnecessary patterns in an image whereas adaptive smoothing technique form smooth shape of charecters.Combination of both these approaches leads to the better results. Previous study shows that, no one technique achieves 100% accuracy in handwritten character recognition area. This approach of combining both adaptive smoothing & feature extraction gives better results (approximately 75-100) and expected outcomes.

Key words: character recognition, features Extraction, adaptive Smoothing, Image segmentation, pattern matching, Image Pixel Rating Reference [1] T.M. Mitchell, 'Machine Learning', McGraw-Hill Education (ISE Editions), December 1997.

Mohamad, M.M. Anwar, 'Recognition of Online Isolated Handwritten Characters by Back propagation Neural Nets Using SubCharacter Primitive Features', IEEE Multitopic Conference( INMIC), 2006, pp. 157 - 162 [3] G. Stamatopoulos, 'An EfficientFeature Extraction and Dimensionality Reduction Scheme for Isolated Greek Handwritten Character Recognition', IEEE Ninth International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition(ICDAR ), 2007, vol.

1073 – 1077 Figure 2. Misclassification Rate of Bayesian Network and C4.5 with FULL,CFS and CON Features Sets 34 Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT) [4] J.R. Kulkarni, R.S.

Prasad, 'Offline handwritten character recognition of Gujrati script using pattern matching', IEEE 3rd International Conference on Anticounterfeiting, Security,and Identification in Communication, 2009, pp. Lee, 'An HMMRFBased Statistical Approach for Off-line Handwritten Character Recognition', IEEE Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, 1996, vol. Fujisawa, 'Performance evaluation of pattern classifiers for handwritten character recognition', International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR), 2002, vol. Ishigaki, 'A Statistical Approach for Handwritten Character Recognition Using Bayesian Filter', IEEE 3rd International Conference on Innovative ComputingInformation and Control, 2008, pp.

Yarman-Vural, 'An Overview Of Character Recognition Focused On Off-line Handwriting', IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 2001, vol. Gokmen, 'Comparison of SVM and ANN performance for handwritten character classification', Proceedings of the IEEE12th Signal Processing and Communications Applications Conference, 2004, pp. Verma, 'Handwritten Hindi Character recognition Using Multilayer Perceptron and Radial Basis Function Neural Networks,' Proceedings of IEEE International conference on Neural Networks, 1995, vol.

Ramaraj, 'Neural Network Based Offline Tamil Handwritten Character Recognition System', IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Multimedia Applications, 2007, vol. Mrs.Archana P.Jane, Prof.Mukesh.A.Pund 063-067 8. An Overview Of Pavement Management System For Industrial Areas Abstract: With the current surge in national economy the industrial traffic has increased many folds in terms of quantity of load and traffic volume.

This results in early deterioration of the roads. Also the serviceability reduces hampering the industry's supply of raw material and transport of finished goods. An efficient road transportation system is of vitally important for smooth operations of industrial units. Construction of new roads needs an enormous investment. However, once constructed the road network system requires huge resources to maintain serviceability and to ensure safe passage at an appropriate speed and with low VOC (Vehicle Operating Cost). Road maintenance is therefore an essential function and should be carried out on a timely basis. The cost of providing and maintaining the roads for the industrial areas at an acceptable serviceability level is quite high.

It is therefore essential for a transportation engineer to attempt establishing an acceptable pavement condition level from economic, safety and environmental point of view. In today's economic environment of constrained budgets, as the existing road infrastructure has aged, a more systematic approach towards determining maintenance and rehabilitation needs is necessary. The efficient pavement management system shall provide objective information and useful analysis to ensure consistent and cost effective decisions related to preservation of existing industrial road network in healthy condition. Key words: Pavement, maintenance, management rehabilitation, transportation Reference 1.

Allez, F., Dauzats,M., Joubert, P., Labat, G.P., and Pusselli, M. 'ERASME: An Expert System for Pavement Maintenance'. Transportation Research Record, 1205, pp 1-5. Al-Shawi, M.A.,Cabrera, J.G., Watson, A.S, 1989. 'Pavement Expert; An Expert to Assist in the Evaluation of Concrete Pavements'.

Proceeding of Transportation and Planning Meeting, Leeds, England, P293. Ameri Mahmod, Eftehkarzadah Farhad. Pavement Management System forRoads. Iran Science and Technology University. Ayati Esmail.

Optimum Method for Distribution Road Maintenance Budget in the Country Road and Transportation quarterly journal. (In Persian). Basri, NEA, 1999.

'An Expert System for the Design of Composting Facilities in Developing Contries'. PhD Dissertation, University of Leeds. Bennett, C.R. And Paterson, W.D.O. Guidelines on Calibration and Adaptation. And Wang, H., 'Harmonizing Automated Rut Depth Measurement', Report to Transfund, New Zealand, 2002 8.

Broten, M., Corner, C., and Muntasir, A., 2004a. 'State Airport Pavement Management Practices and the Impact on Pavement Condition'. Presented at 6th International Conference on Managing Pavements, Queenland, Australia.

Chang Albitres, C., P. Krugler, and R. 'A Knowledge Approach Oriented to Improved Strategic Decisions in Pavement Management Practices'.

1st Annual Inter-university Symposium of Infrastructure Management. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. URMS; A Graphical Ban Road Way Management System of Network Level Transportation Research Record, Trr1337.

Landge 068-075 9. Effects Of Different Fragmentation Thresholds On Data Dropped And Retransmission Attempts In A Wireless Local Area Network Abstract: act This paper discusses the effects of different fragmentation thresholds on data dropped and retransmission attempts in a wireless local area network. A wireless local area network (LAN) is a network that connects computer systems and devices within the same geographical area but without the use of wire. Fragmentation threshold is one of the parameters used in a wireless local area network which specifies the values to decide if the Media Access Control (MAC) Service Data Unit (MSDU) received from the higher layer network needs fragmentation before transmission.

The number of fragments to be transmitted is calculated based on the size of the MSDU and the fragmentation threshold. OPNET IT guru 9.1 software was used for the analysis. Based on the graphical results obtained, it can be said that fragmentation increases the size of queue and the number of data dropped in a transmission, and also the smaller the fragmentation, the more increase in the retransmission attempts.

Key words: Data dropped, fragmentation threshold, LAN, packet drop probability, retransmission attempts. Reference [1] Ralph M. Stair and George W. Renolds, Fundamentals of information systems (3 rd Edition,Thomson Course Technology, Massachusetts, USA, 2006) [2] Holtzman, J.M., Wireless technology (John Wiley and Sons, USA, 2007) [3] Chetoui Y. And Bouabdallah N., Adjustment mechanism for the IEEE 802.11 contention window: An efficient bandwidth sharing scheme, Computer Communications Journal, Vol. 13 [4] Okeshi P.N., Fundamentals of wireless communication (Global Publishers Co., Lagos, Nigeria, 2009) [5] Andree Tanenbaum, Berry Ker cheval, LAN computer networks and network topology (2 ndedition, McGraw Hill, New York, 2009) [6] Achinkole S. O., Computer networks (Orient Printers and Communications, Accra, Ghana, 2010) [7] Makta M.

H., Basic computer mmunication (Educational Printing & Publishers, Accra, 2008) [8] Ede K. I., A guide to wireless communication networks (Excellent Series Printers, Lagos, Nigeria, 2009) Isizoh A. N., Anazia A.E., Okide S.O., Okwaraoka C.A.P., Onyeyili T.I. Software-Based Visual Loan Calculator For Banking Industry Abstract: The use of Visual Loan calculator for banking industry is very necessary in modern day banking system using many design techniques for security reasons. This paper thus presents the software-based design and implementation of a Visual Loan calculator for banking industry using Visual Basic.Net (VB.Net).

The fundamental approach to this is to develop a Graphical User Interface (GUI) using VB.Net operating tools, and then developing a working program which calculates the interest of any loan obtained. The VB.Net programming was done, implemented and the software proved satisfactory. Key words: Principal, rate, simple interest, time, Visual Basic.Net Reference [1] Ochi-Okorie A.S., Computer fundamentals: Introduction and utilization (Solid Rock Computer Press, Lagos, 2008) [2] Hutson Michael, Introduction to visual basic.net (John Wesley and Sons, New York, 2008) [3] Wright Peter, Beginning visual basic.net (Wrox Press Ltd, Canada, 2009) [4] Stroo Eric and Stuart J.

Stuple, Microsoft visual basic programmer's guide (Microsoft Press, USA, 2007) [5] Kratter M. C., Practical use of visual studio 2008 (Prentice Hall Ltd, India, 2008) [6] Afata Emmanuella, Applications of visual basic.net (Chriscord Publishers Ltd, Accra, 2006) Isizoh A. N., Anazia A.E., Okide S.O., Onyeyili T.I., Okwaraoka C.A.P. Production of Household Paint using Clay Materials Abstract: The use of clay materials for the production of emulsion paints was investigated. Two types of clay: White tinged with Purple and Smooth clay (WSP) and Grey Brown and Coarse clay (GBC), were used for the production of Emulsion Clay Paints (ECP).

Conventional Chemical pigmented Paint (CP) was also produced as a control. Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy, (AAS) was used to determine the chemical composition of the clay and the concentration of heavy metals on the paints produced. Total organic content (TOC) and quality control tests were also carried out on the paints. The results of the analysis on the two clay types showed that they contained (45.26 and 47.370)% of silicon oxide and (38.26 and 35.72)% of aluminum oxide respectively. ECP has TOC values of (0.34-0.52)% while CP has TOC value of (0.29-0.31). The cost per litre of CP was (N262.17) while that of ECP was (N111.64), which is about 50% lesser. Reference [1] J.

Lowe, 'A three Dimensional Approach to Solubility', Journal of Paint Technology, Vol. 20 – 28, 2008.

Abidalla, 'Natural house paint', Retrieved March 3rd 2011, from 2008. Rangwala, 'Pigment History of Chemistry Artistic importance of Colouring agents', retrieved March 4th, 2011, from 2009. Binsacca, 'VOC-free Paints and Natural Paints provide Eco-Friendly Options with comparable performance', retrieved April 25, 2011, from 2008. [5] Nigerian Industrial Standard, NIS 278: Part 6, Standard for paint and varnishes, Nigerian Industrial Standard, Lagos, 1990. [6] World Health Organisation, Bentonite, Kaolin and selected Clay Minerals, Environmental Health Criteria 231,World Health Organisation, 2005. [7] EPA, Regulation for the use of primers, EPA Rule 4C CFR Part 63 subpart HHHHHH (EPA 6H Rule), United State, 2011.

Middleton, and R. Murray, 'Environmental Characteristics of Clays and Clay Minerals Deposits', retrieved May 3rd 2011, from: icsofclay/claymi neraldeposit.mht, 1987. [9] Nigerian Industrial Standard, NIS 273, Specification for emulsion paint for decorative purpose, Nigerian Industrial Standard, Lagos, 1990.

Olowu 085-093 12. Detecting Copy Move Forgery In Digital Images Abstract: In today's world several image manipulation software's are available. Manipulation of digital images has become a serious problem nowadays. There are many areas like medical imaging, digital forensics, journalism, scientific publications, etc, where image forgery can be done very easily. To determine whether a digital image is original or doctored is a big challenge. To find the marks of tampering in a digital image is a challenging task.

The detection methods can be very useful in image forensics which can be used as a proof for the authenticity of a digital image. In this paper we propose the method to detect region duplication forgery by dividing the image into overlapping block and then perform searching to find out the duplicated region in the image. Key words: — Image forgery, Copy move forgery, Block matching, PCA, Region duplication detection. Reference [1] Tao Jing Xinghua li, Feifei Zhang, Image Tamper Detection Algorithm Based on Radon and fourier-Mellin Transform',pp 212-215 IEEE 2010. Summers, Sarah C.

Wahl'Multimedia Security and Forensic Authentication of Digital images, '52006/sasummer/doc/cs525projsummersW ahl.doc'. Soukal, and J. Lukas, 'Detection of Copy-Move Forgery in Digital Images', in Proceedings of Digital Forensic Research Workshop, August 2003.

Popescu and H. Farid, 'Exposing Digital Forgeries by Detecting Duplicated Image Regions,' Technical Report, TR2004-515, Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College, pp.

758-767, 2006. [5] Guoqiang Shen, Lanchi Jiang, Guoxuan Zhang, 'An Image Retrieval Algorithm Based on Color Segment and Shape Moment Invariants,' Second International Symposium. Computational Intelligence and Design vol.

10, no.2, pp. [6] M.Sridevi, C.Mala and S.Sandeep 'Copy – move image forgery detection', Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT), Vol. [7] Hieu Cuong Nguyen and Stefan Katzenbeisser'Detection of copy-move forgery in digital images using Radon transformation and phase correlation',Eighth International Conference on Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing, IEEE, pp. Wei, 'Identifying Tampered Regions Using Singular Value Decomposition in Digital Image Forensics,' International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering, pp.

926-930, 2008. Mahdian and S.

Saic, 'Detection of copy-move forgery using a method based on blur moment invariants.,' Elsevier Forensic Science International, vol. [10] S.-jin Ryu, M.-jeong Lee, and H.-kyu Lee, 'Detection of Copy-Rotate- Move Forgery Using Zernike Moments,' IH, LNCS 6387, vol. Huang, and G. Qiu, 'Robust Detection of Region-Duplication Forgery in Digital Image,' 18th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR'06), pp.

746-749, 2006. Ashima Gupta, Nisheeth Saxena, S.K. Vasistha 094-097 13. Measuring Performance Degradation in Multi-core Processors due to Shared resources Abstract: The effect of resource sharing in multicore processors can lead to many more effects most of which are undesirable. This effect of Cross-core interference is a major performance bottleneck. It is important that Chip multiprocessors (CMPs) incorporate methods that minimise this interference.

To do so, some accurate measure of Cross Core Interference needs to be devised. This paper studies the relation between Instructions per cycle (IPC) of a core and the cache miss rate across various workloads of the SPECCPU 2006 benchmark suite by conducting experimentation on a Full System simulator and makes some important observations that need to be taken into account while allocating resources to a core in multi-core processors. Key words:: Chip Multiprocessors (CMPs), CrossCore Interference, Pre-fetching, Instructions Per Cycle (IPC), LLC ( Last Level cache)Miss rate Reference 1. Alexandra Fedorova, Margo Seltzer, Michael D.

Smith, Improving Performance Isolation on Chip Multiprocessors via an Operating System Scheduler, Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Parallel Architecture and Compilation Techniques( PACT'07), Page(s): 25-36. Alex Settle, Dan Connors, Enric Gilbert, Antonio Gonzalez, A dynamically reconfigurable cache for multithreaded processors, Journal of Embedded Computing, Volume 2 Issue 2, April 2006, Page(s):221-233. Lingjia Tang, Jason Mars, Mary Lou Soffa, Contentiousness vs Sensitivity: improving contention aware runtime systems on multicar architectures, Proceedings of 1st International Workshop on Adaptive Selftuning Computing Systems for the Exaflop Era ( EXADAPT'11), Pgs. Qureshi and Yale N. Patt, Utility-Based Cache Partitioning: A LowOverhead, High-Performance, Runtime Mechanism to Partition Shared Caches, in Proceedings of the 39th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO 39). IEEE Computer Society: Orlando, Florida, USA, 2006, Pgs. Nikrouz Faroughi, Profiling of parallel processing programs on shared memory multiprocessors using Simics, ACM SIGARCH, Pgs.51-56.

Sergey Zhuravlev, Sergey Blagodurov, Alexandra Fedorova, Addressing Shared Resource Contention in Multi-core Processors via Scheduling, Proceedings of the fifteenth edition of ASPLOS on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems,ASPLOS'10, Pgs.129-142. Xiaomin Jia,Jiang Jiang, Tianlei Jhao,Shubo Qi,Minxuan Zhang, Towards Online Application Cache Behaviors Identification in CMPs, Proceedings of the High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC), 2010, Pgs. Y Xie, G H Loh. Dynamic classification of program behaviors in CMPs. Proc Workshop on Chip Multiprocessor Memory Systems and Interconnects.

Beijing, China, 2008., Pgs.28–36. Rafael Rico, SPEC CPUint2006 characterization, Technical Report TRHPC -01-2009 10. Simics Programming Guide, Version 3.0. Simics User Guide for Unix, Version 3.0. Www.spec.org 13.

Www.software.intel.com Sapna Prabhu, Dr. Daruwala 098-102 14. Ajax Architecture Implementation Techniques Abstract: Today's rich Web applications use a mix of Java Script and asynchronous communication with the application server. This mechanism is also known as Ajax: Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. The intent of Ajax is to exchange small pieces of data between the browser and the application server, and in doing so, use partial page refresh instead of reloading the entire Web page. AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a powerful Web development model for browser-based Web applications. Technologies that form the AJAX model, such as XML, JavaScript, HTTP, and XHTML, are individually widely used and well known.

However, AJAX combines these technologies to let Web pages retrieve small amounts of data from the server without having to reload the entire page. This capability makes Web pages more interactive and lets them behave like local applications. Web 2.0 enabled by the Ajax architecture has given rise to a new level of user interactivity through web browsers. Many new and extremely popular Web applications have been introduced such as Google Maps, Google Docs, Flickr, and so on. Ajax Toolkits such as Dojo allow web developers to build Web 2.0 applications quickly and with little effort. Key words: Web applications, Java Script, Web application 2.0, Ajax architecture technology Reference 1.

Jesse James Garrett (18 February 2005). 'Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications'. Retrieved 19 June 2008. Ullman, Chris (March 2007).

Beginning Ajax. Wrox.ISBN 978-0-470-10675-4. Archived from the original on 5 July 2008. Retrieved 24 June 2008.

'Dynamic HTML and XML: The XMLHttpRequest Object'. Retrieved 25 June 2008. Hopmann, Alex. 'Story of XMLHTTP'. Alex Hopmann's Blog. Retrieved 17 May 2010.

'A Brief History of Ajax'. Aaron Swartz. 22 December 2005.

Retrieved 4 August 2009. 'JavaScript Object Notation'. Archived from the original on 16 June 2008. Retrieved 4 July 2008. 'Speed Up Your Ajax-based Apps with JSON'. DevX.com.Archived from the original on 4 July 2008. Retrieved 4 July 2008.

'Why use Ajax?' 10 November 2005.Archived from the original on 29 May 2008. Retrieved 26 June 2008. 'Deep Linking for AJAX'. 'HTML5 specification'.

Retrieved 21 October 2011. Syed.Asadullah Hussaini, S.Nasira Tabassum, M.Khader Baig 111-117 16. A Review Of Failure Of Composite Materials Abstract: Composite materials are ideal for aerospace applications due to their high strength to weight ratio and their excellent fatigue resistance. Fiber reinforced Composite is widely used in light weight structures for different applications.

The main properties that describe a composite material are the engineering constants and the strength properties of a single unidirectional lamina that make the laminated structure. The experimental evaluation of these properties is quite costly and time consuming because they are functions of several variables such as the individual constituents of the composite, fiber volume fraction, packing geometry and fabrication processes. Hence, analytical models to predict these properties were developed by researchers to aid the design of composites. In recent years numerous failure theories have been proposed and are available to the composite structural designer. Object of this review is to gather the available guide lines for theoretical models of failure analysis of fiber reinforced Composite. Reference [1]. Daniel and O.

Ishai, Engineering Mechanics of Composite Materials, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2005 [2]. Tao, Purdue University, D.W. Oplinger, William J. Hughes Technical Center, 'Comparative evaluation of failure analysis methods for composite laminates', National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, Virginia 22161. C., 'Standard Failure Criteria Needed for Advanced Composites,' AIAA.

Khelifa, Eng. Journal, Vol. 29, No.2, 2011 Rajanish M, Dr. Nanjundaradhya N V, Dr.

Ramesh S Sharma, Dr. Bhaskar pal 122-124 18. THREE-PHASE FAULT CURRENTS EVALUATION FOR NIGERIAN 28-BUS 330kv TRANSMISSION SYSTEM Abstract: Fault studies are important power system analysis for stable and economical operations of power systems.

Faults are categorised as symmetrical and unsymmetrical. In this paper, three-phase symmetrical fault is simulated using the Nigerian 28-Bus, 330kV Transmission Grid. Two different MatLab based programmes were developed; one program was for Load Flow Studies which determines prefault conditions for the power system based on Newton-Raphson method. The other program determines fault current magnitudes for threephase short-circuit on the power system. The information gained from the fault studies can be used for proper relay select Key words: Power System, Power Flow, ThreePhase Fault, Short-Circuit Current.

Reference [1] Muhammad, Aree A. (2011), 'Simmulation of Different Types of Faults on Northern Iraq Power System', IGEC VI – 2011 – 028. [2] Ibe, A.O.

And Uzonwa, N.K. (2005), 'Power System Simulation for Short Circuit Current in the Selection of Switchgears', Nigerian Journal of Industrial and Systems Studies, Vol.

3, pp 9 – 15. [3] Okelola, M.O., Yussuf, A.A., and Awosope, C.O.A. (2005), 'Fault Analysis: An Application of Venin's Method to 330kV Transmission Grid System in Nigeria', LAUTECH Journal of Engineering and Technology, Vol. 1, pp 30 – 43. [4] Okemiri, O.N., (2008), 'Basic Protection Scheme on Power System', The Nigerian Tribune, Tuesday 12th February 2008, pp 24.

[5] El-Hawary, M.E. (2008), 'Introduction to Electrical Power System', Wiley, IEEE Press.

[6] Ravi Kumar, S.V. And Siva Nagaraju, S. (2007), 'Loss Minimisation by Incorporation of UPFC in Load Flow Analysis', International Journal of Electrical and Power Engineering, Vol. 3, pp 321 – 327. [7] Nagrath, I.J.

And Kothari, D.P. (1994), 'Power System Engineering', Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi.

[8] Wang Xi-Fan, Yonghua Song and Malcolm Irving, (2008), 'Modern Power System Analysis', Springer Science + Business Media LLC. [9] Gupta, B.R. (2006), 'Power System Analysis and Design', S. Chand and Company Ltd. [10] Mehta, V.K and Mehta Rohit (2006), 'Principles of Power Systems', S. Chand & Company Ltd, New Delhi, India.

Adepoju, Muhammed A. Tijani, Mufutau A. Sanusi, Dauda O. Olatunji 125-132 19. JIT: A Strategic Tool of Inventory Management Abstract: Investment in inventory absorbs a large portion of the working capital of a company and often it represents a large portion of the total assets of a business. By improving return on investment by increasing the rate of inventory turnover, management often wants to ensure economic efficiency.

Effective inventory management enables a firm to provide lower costs, rapid response and flexibility for its customers. Just-in-time (JIT) philosophy is most widely adopted and practices in the recent years worldwide.

It aims at reducing total production costs by producing only what is immediately needed and eliminates wastes. It is based on a radically different concept, deviating substantially from the existing manufacturing practices in many respects. It is a very effective tool to reduce the wastage of inventory and manage it effectively. It has the potential to bring substantial changes in the existing setup of a company; can give it a new face, broaden its acceptability and ensure a longer life. It can strategically change the atmosphere needed for longer survival. JIT is radically different from MRP and goes beyond materials management.

The new outlook acquired by the company can meet global expectations of the customers. JIT happens to provide global markets. The present paper examines the strategic role of JIT in inventory management.

Information technology helps JIT in managing inventory effectively, as it helps in integrating the components of supply chain network. Quality aspect of inventory management has also been discussed.

Key words: Inventory, Inventory management, ABC Analysis, JIT, Information system, Quality, Supply chain network, SCM. Tersine, R.H (1994). Principles of Inventory and Materials Management, Prentice Hall, Englewood Chiffs NJ. Karmarkar, U (Sept.-Oct 1989). Getting control of just-in-time, Harvard Business Review, pp.

Ward, P (May 1994). Logistics: a simple guide, Professional Manager, pp. Schonberger, R.J (1986). World Class Manufacturing: The Lessons of Simplicity Applied, Free Press, New York. Harmon, R.L and Peterson, L.D (1990). Reinventing the Factory: Productivity Breakthroughs in Manufacturing Today, Free Press, New York.

Kaihara, T (2003). Multi-agent based Supply Chain Modeling with Dynamic Environment, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol.

Verwijmeren, M (2004). Software Component Architecture in Supply Chain Management, Computers in Industry, Vol. O'Brien, James. Management Information Systems, Fourth Edition, Galgotia Publications, New Delhi. Oz Effy (1999). Management Information Systems, Galgotia Publications, New Delhi. Flowers, S (1996).

Software Failure: Management failure, John Wiley, U.K. Satyendra Singh 133-136 20. Effect of Wafer Dimension on the Dispersion and other Polarizing Abstract: In this paper we propose some index guided Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) with elliptical holes. The design has been proposed such that it shows a decrease in the value of ratio of the area of elliptical air holes to that of the wafer dimension.

The effect of variation in wafer dimension of a constant lattice size is analyzed for observing the unique properties of PCF like dispersion, birefringence, confinement loss and other polarizing properties. The simulation of the proposed structures has been carried out using OptiFDTD simulator with Full vector mode solver using FDTD method. The dispersion reported is almost zero at a wavelength of 0.3m for some of the structures proposed. It is observed that all the structures proposed has shown the most negative dispersion in between the wavelength range of 0.35 0.4   m m . The birefringence reported is of the order of 103. However the confinement loss reported is low and of the order of 105.

Besides zero confinement loss is observed at a wavelength of 0.25m and at 0.9m for the structure proposed in configuration V and configuration I. Key words: Photonic crystal fiber (PCF), Total international reflection (TIR), Birefringence, Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD), Transparent Boundary Condition (TBC), Confinement Loss, Vnumber, Normalized Wavelength. Reference [1] J. Birks, and P. Russell, 'Photonic bandgap guidance in optical fibers,' Science, vol. 1476-1478, Nov.

Russell, 'Photonic crystal fibers: new ways to guidelight,' Science, vol. 276-277, Apr. [3] K Suzuki, H.

Kawanishi, M. Tanaka and M.

Fujita, 'Opticalproperties of a low-loss polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber', Opt. Express, vol. 670-676, July 2001.

Knight, and P. Russell, 'Endless single-mode photonic crystal fiber,' Opt. 961- 963, July1997. [5] K.K.Sharma, Pranaw Kumar, 'Some novel photonic crystal fiber structures based on Pascal‟s triangle and their dispersion behaviour' ICECT 2012, Kanyakumari, India, april6-8,2012. Nakajima, and I. Sankawa, 'Dispersion flattened photoniccrystal fiber with large effective area and low confinement loss,' J.

Technol., vol. 4178–4183, Dec. [7] M Pourmahyabadi and Sh. Mohammad Nejad, ― Numerical analysis of IndexGuiding photonic crystal fibers with low confinement loss and ultra-flattened dispersion by FDFD method,‖ Journal of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering Iran University of Science & Technology, vol. 3, pp.170-179, Sep. [8] Ritu Sharma,Vijay jaynyani, Rahul gupta 'Effect of wafer dimension on the mode profile in PCF,' International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, vol2,no. 6,November 2009.

Varshney, N.J. Fujisawa, Numerical investigation and optimization of a photonic crystal fiber for simultaneous dispersion compensation over S+C+L wavelength bands,‖ Optics Communications, vol 274, pp.74-79, 2007. [10] H.Ademgil, S.Haxha,'Highly birefringent PCF with ultralow chromatic dispersion and low confinement loss', Journal of light wave technology, Vol. [11] Razzak, S. How To Start Services In Windows Xp From Command Prompt. M Abdur,Namihira, Yoshinori,'Simultaneous control of dispersion and confinement loss with octogonal PCF for communication system', The international conference on electrical engineering 2008, No. Joannopoulos, Steven G. Ohnson, Josgua N.

Biohazard Umbrella Chronicles Jpn Iso Wii Creator. Winn, Robert D. Mede, Photonic crystal fiber: Molding the flow of light, 2nd edition, Priceton University Press, 2008.

Properties of PCF Pranaw Kumar, Abhijit Mishra, Shashi Bhushan Panda, Swagat Mohanty 137-142 21. Lean manufacturing: A better way for enhancement in productivity Abstract: Productivity is the impact of peoples working together. Machines are merely an extended way of collective imagination and energy.

Lean Manufacturing is the most used method for continues improvement of business. Organization management philosophy focusing on the reduction of wastage to improve overall customer value. 'Lean' operating principles began in manufacturing environments and are known by a variety of synonyms; Lean Manufacturing, Lean Production, Toyota Production System, etc. It is commonly believed that Lean started in Japan 'The notable activities in keeping the price of Ford products low is the steady restriction of the production cycle. The longer an article is in the process of manufacture and the more it is moved about, the greater is its ultimate cost.' 'A systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement, flowing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.' Keep in mind that Lean applies to the entire organization.

Although individual components or building blocks of Lean may be tactical and narrowly focused, we can only achieve maximum effectiveness by using them together and applying them cross-functionally through the system. Reference [1]. McKenzie and J. Roberts, (2011a), 'Does managementmatter: Evidence from India', NBER Working Paper 16658. Van Reenen (2011b), 'Americans do I.T. US multinationals and the productivity miracle' Monden, Yasuhiro, Toyota Production System: An Integrated Approach to Just-in- [3].

Time (Third Edition), Engineering & Management Press, NorcrossJerry Kilpatrick, Lean Principles, Utah Manufacturing Extension Partnership, 2003 [4]. E., Schroeder, R. O., The impact of Total Productive Maintenance on manufacturing performance. Journal of Operations Management, 19 (1), 39-58. Achanga, P., Shehab, E., Roy, R., and Nelder, G., (2006), 'Critical success factors for Lean implementation within SMEs', Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, vol. Pankaj Kumar Ahir,Lalit Kumar Yadav, Saurabh Singh Chandrawat 143-146 22. Synthesis, Characterization and Alignment of Mn2+ and/or Eu3+ Doped Cadmium Telluride Nanowires Abstract: The foremost objective of the proposed research is to synthesize magnetically-active CdTe nanowires that can be manipulated by magnetic fields.

The ability to do so will facilitate fabrication of molecular electronics and a whole host of other potential applications. The research will employ doping of CdTe with either Mn2+ or Eu3+ or a mixture of both to create nanoparticles with net magnetic moments. The particles size and morphology will be probed by AFM and TEM while the extent of doping and distribution of dopant ions will be determined by bulk analysis by ICP, surface analysis by XPS, EPR and X-ray powder diffraction. The magnetic moment and magnetic ordering will be determined by use of a SQUID magnetometer. Doped CdTe particles with suitable magnetic moments will then be converted to CdTe wires using a technique originally developed for undoped CdTe. The changes in morphology, size, composition, and structure will be monitored using the same analytical methods used for characterization of the precursor nanoparticles.

Finally, nanowires that possess a sufficient magnetic moment will be aligned using a magnetic field to prove the viability of this approach for manufacturing nanoscale devices and electronics. Key words: dopant, morphology, nanowire, lithography, paramagnetism Reference 1. J.; Razavi, B.; Smith, P. A.; Mbindyo, J. K.; Natan, M. J.; Mayer, T. S.; Mallouk, T.

A.; Keating, C. D.; Electrochemical synthesis of multi-material nanowires as building blocks for functional nanostructures, Mat. Symp., 2001, 636, D4.6.1-5 2. Fasol, G., Selective Electrodeposition of magnetic and metallic nanowires: A new approach to a fundamental technology, Eurotechnology Japan K. Feltin, N.; Levy, L.; Ingert, D., Unusual static and dynamic magnetic properties of Cd1-xMnxS nanocrystals, J.

Of Applied Physics, 2000, 87, 3, 1415-1423 4. A.; Wiacek, R. J.; Saunders, A.

E.; Korgel, B. A.; Synthesis and characterization of dilute magnetic semiconductor manganese-doped indium arsenide nanocrystals, Nanoletters, 2003, 3, 10, 1441-1447 5. Jun, Y; Jung, Y.; Cheon, J., Architectireal control of magnetic semiconductor nanocrystals, J. Soc., 2002, 124, 4, 615-619 6. Tsujii, N.; Kitazawa, H.; Kido, G., Magnetic properties of Mn and Eu doped ZnS nanocrystals, J. Of Applied Physics, 2003, 93, 10, 6957-6959 7. Schrier, J.; Whaley, K.

B., A simple model for magnetization ratios in doped nanocrystals, Condensed Matter, 2003, 1-8 8. Viswanatha, R.; Sapra, S.; Gupta, S. S.; Satpati, B.; Satyam, P. N.; Sarma, D. D., Synthesis and characterization of Mn-doped ZnO nanocrystals, J. B, 2004, 108, 6303-6310 9. A.; Norberg, N.

S.; Nguyen, Q. P.; Parker, J. M.; Gamelin, D. R.; Magnetic quantum dots: Synthesis, spectroscopy, and magnetism of Co2+ and Ni2+ doped ZnO nanocrystals, J. Soc., 2003, 125, 8 10. A.; Wiacek, R.

J.; Saunders, A. E.; Korgel, B. A., Synthesis and characterization of dilute magnetic semiconductor manganese-doped indium arsenide nanocrystals, Nanoletters, 2003, 3, 10, 1441-1447 Volkan Cicek, Mehmet Ozdemir 147-157 23. Use of Experimental Box-Behnken Design for the Estimation of Interactions Between Harmonic Currents Produced by Single Phase Loads Abstract: In this paper, it is aimed to deal with the interactions of harmonic currents produced by different single phase loads. For this purpose, compact fluorescent lamps, incandescent lamps, and electric heaters were chosen as single phase loads. The study was performed by adopting a full range of response surface methodology using Box–Behnken experimental design to express the net harmonic current (3rd and 5th) as an empirical model.

The model provided an excellent explanation of the relationship among the number of loads and the net harmonic currents. Contour graphs of some of the harmonic currents was plotted to show the interactions clearly and to discuss the results of model in the graphic detail. The results of experiments showed that the harmonic interaction between the loads can be defined as a regression model which is statistically significant. Key words: Box-Behnken Design, Harmonic Currents, Harmonic Distortion, Single Phase Loads Reference 1 Y.J. Wang, 'Summation of harmonic currents produced by AC/DC static power converters with randomly fluctuating loads', IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 1129-1135, 1994. 2 Task Force on Harmonics Modeling and Simulation, 'Modeling devices with nonlinear voltage-current characteristics for harmonic studies', IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol.

1802- 1811, 2004. Blaabjerg, 'Harmonic cancellation by mixing nonlinear single-phase and three-phase loads', IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 152-159, 2000. 4 Task Force on Harmonics Modeling and Simulation, 'Modeling and simulation of the propagation of harmonics in electric power networks, Part I: Concepts, models, and simulation techniques', IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 452-465, 1996. BaSudan, Y.G.

Hegazy, 'Probabilistic modeling of distribution system loads for harmonic studies', IEEE, Vol. 1778-1781, 2001. Mansoor, W.M. Thallam, M.T. Samotyj, 'Predicting the net harmonic currents produced by large numbers of distributed single-phase computer loads', IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 2001-2006, 1995. Mansoor, E.F.

Doyle, 'Estimating the net harmonic currents produced by selected distributed single-phase loads: computers, televisions, and incandescent light dimmers', IEEE, Vol. 1090-1094, 2002. Prudenzi, 'The continuous harmonic monitoring of single-phase electronic appliances: desktop PC and printers', IEEE, Vol. 697-702, 2000. Mohamed, 'Determining harmonic characteristics of typical single phase non-linear loads', Proc. Student Conference on Research andDevelopment (SCORED), Putrajaya, Malaysia, August 2003 10 U. Prudenzi, 'Time-varying harmonics of single-phase non-linear appliances', IEEE, Vol.

1066-1071, 2002. Oguz Perincek, Metin Colak 158-165 24.

AES-128 Bit Algorithm Using Fully Pipelined Architecture for Secret Communication Abstract: In this paper, an efficient method for high speed hardware implementation of AES algorithm is presented. So far, many implementations of AES have been proposed, for various goals that effect the Sub Byte transformation in various ways.

These methods of implementation are based on combinational logic and are done in polynomial bases. In the proposed architecture, it is done by using composite field arithmetic in normal bases. In addition, efficient key expansion architecture suitable for 6 sub pipelined round units is also presented. These designs were described using VerilogHDL, simulated using Modelsim.

Key words: AES, VLSI Cryptosystems, Encryption, Decryption, Block Cipher, Encipher, Decipher Reference [1] National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Information Technology Laboratory (ITL), Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 197, November 2001 [2] X. Parhi, On the Optimum Constructions of Composite Field for the AES Algorithm, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-II: Express Briefs, VOL.

10, OCTOBER 2006. Fischer and M. Drutarovsky, Two methods of Rijndael mplementation in reconfigurable hardware, in Proc. CHES 2001, Paris, France, May 2001, pp.

Verbauwhede, Architectural optimization for a 1.82 Gbits/sec VLSI implementation of the AES Rijndael algorithm, in Proc. CHES 2001, Paris, France, May 2001, pp. McLoone and J. McCanny, Rijndael FPGA implementation utilizing look-up tables, in IEEEWorkshop on Signal Processing Systems,Sept. Rijmen, Efficient Implementation of the Rijndael S-box, 2000. Available online at www.iaik.tugraz.at/RESEARCH/krypto /AES/old / rijmen/ rijndael/sbox.pdf. Munetoh, A Compact Rijndael Hardware Architecture with S-Box Optimization, Proceedings of ASIACRYPT 2001, LNCS Vol.2248, pp.

239 - 254, Springer-Verlag, December 2001. Preneel, and I. Verbauwhede, A Systematic Evaluation of Compact Hardware Implementations for the Rijndael SBox, In Alfred Menezes, editor, CT-RSA, volume 3376 of LNCS, pages323-333. Springer, 2005. Rohatgi, Efficient implementation of Rijndael encryption with composite field arithmetic, in Proc.

CHES, Paris, France, May 2001, pp. [10] J.Wolkerstorfer, E. Oswald, and M. Lamberger, An ASIC implementation of the AES S-boxes, in Proc. RSA Conf., San Jose, CA, Feb.2002, pp. Parhi, High-speed VLSI architectures for the AES algorithm, IEEE Trans. VLSI Systems, Vol.

957 - 967, Sept. Mazocca, and A. Strollo,, An FPGA based performance analysis of the unrolling, tiling and pipelining of the AES algorithm, Proc.

FPL 2003, Portugal, Sept. M.Gnanambika, S.Adilakshmi, Dr.Fazal Noorbasha 166-169 25. Finger Vein &Texture Recognization Using Score Level Fusion And 2-D Gabor Filter For Human Identification Abstract: The paper presents a new approach to improve the performance of finger-vein identification systems presented in the literature. The proposed system simultaneously acquires the finger-vein and low-resolution fingerprint images and combines these two evidences using a novel score-level combination strategy. We examine the previously proposed finger-vein identification approaches and develop a new approach that illustrates it superiority over prior published efforts. We develop and investigate two new scorelevel combinations, i.e., holistic and nonlinear fusion, and comparatively evaluate them with more popular score-level fusion approaches to ascertain their effectiveness in the proposed system. Key words: Fingerprint Recognization,FingerVein Recognization,Fusion,Hand Biometrics Reference [1] Encyclopedia of Biometrics, S.

New York: Springer- Verlag, 2009. Park, 'Restoration method of skin scattering blurred vein image for finger vein recognition,' Electron. 1074–1076, Oct.

[3] J.-D.Wu and S.-H. Ye, 'Driver identification using finger-vein patterns with Radon transform and neural network,' Expert Sys.

And Appl., vol. Method,' U.S. Patent 20 100 080 422 A1, Apr.

1, 2010 [4] Feature extraction of finger vein patterns based on repeated line tracking and its application to personal identification - N. Nagasaka, and T. Miyatake,2004 [5]. Extraction of finger-vein patterns using maximum curvature points in image profiles - N.

Nagasaka, and T. Human identification using knucklecodes - A.

Personal recognition using hand-shape and texture - A. Pores and ridges: High resolution fingerprint matching using level 3 features - A.K. Diptanu Bhowmik 170-177 26. Determining the atmospheric stability classes for Mazoe in Northern Zimbabwe Abstract: The paper presents the method that was used in determining the atmospheric stability classes for a place called Mazoe Citrus situated in Northern Zimbabwe for two consecutive years, 2011 and 2012. The stability classes are an important tool to be used in the environmental impact assessment for an area before an industrial power plant is set up. The study has shown that conditions favoring neutral stability are prevalent and that there is moderate to strong winds with slight insolation and a cloud cover of more than 50% for 60% of the time Key words: stability class, effluent, insolation, temperature Reference [1] Canepa. L, Ratto C.F, Plume rise description in the code SAFE AIR.

International journal of environment and Pollution, 14 (6), 2000, 235-245. [2] Essa, K, Mubarak S, Elsaid F, Effects of plume rise and wind speed on extreme values of air pollutants concentration. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics; Sprigler 93(3), 2006, 247-253. Y, Lamb B leclers M.Y, Lovejoy S, Multifractional analysis of line source plume concentration in surface layer flows. Journal of applied Meteorology 40, 2001, 229-245. [4] Georgopoulos P.G, sanfield J.H, Instanteneous concentration fluctuations in point source plumes, AlChE journal 32(10), 1986, 1042-1654. [5] Gifford, F.A, Atmospheric transport and diffusion over cities; Nuclear safety 13, 1972, 391-402.

[6] Slade D.H, Meteorology and Atomic Energy,(National information services,1968) S. Magidi 178-181 27. A Generalized Approach for Kinematic Synthesis and Analysis of Alternate Mechanism for Stone Crusher Using Relative Velocity Method Abstract: In this paper alternate mechanism for design and analysis of small size stone crusher mechanism is discussed.

The basic idea is to optimize the design of the crusher which would be best suited for stone which need crushing force of 3 Tons. Presently for reducing sizes of stones from 10cm x 10cm to 2.5cm x 2.5cm in quarries is laborious job and is done manually our approach is to design a best optimum mechanism for said conditions. Key words: Dynamic, Kinematic synthesis and analysis, Sector gear, Static.

Reference 1) Anjali J. Modak, Design and Development of a small capacity stone crusher mechanism, Indian Journal of Applied Research, Volume: 3,Issue: 2 February 2013,ISSN - 2249- 555X 2) Dr.

Reifschneider, Teaching Kinematic Synthesis of Linkages without Complex Mathematics, journal of Industrial Technology, Volume 21, Number 4-October 2005 through December. Books: 3) Dr. Habib,MEG 373'Kinematic and Dynamics of Machinery', Chapter 5 Force Analysis. Collins, Henery Busby, George Stoab, 'Mechanical Design of Machine Elements & Machines' Chapter 18 Flywheel and High –Speed Rotors. 5) Shriniwas S. Bali, Satish Chand, Transmission Angle in Mechanism (Triangle in mech), Pergamon Mechanism and Machine Theory 37(2002)175-195.

Waldron / Gary L. Kinzel, Kinematice, Dynamics,& Design of Machinery, edition 2007. Khurmi and J.K.

Gupta, Theory of Machines, edition 2002 8) Robert L.Norton,Machine Design,pearson Second edition. 9) Amitabha Ghosh and Ashok Kumar Mallik,Theory of Mechanisms and Machines,Third Edition Reprint 2008. Theses: 10) James G. D Thesis in Minning and Mineral Engineering, 'Fracture toughness based models for the prediction of power consumption,product size, and capacity of jaw crushers' July 2003. 11) Robert L.Norton,Machine Design,pearson Second edition. Modak 189-194 29.

Sufficient Number of Diversity Antennas for 64 QAM over Wireless Fading Channel Abstract: This paper describes the calculation of the absolute diversity gain (ADG) and relative diversity gain (RDG) in SNR in order to determine the sufficient number of diversity antennas for 64 QAM for different Rician parameter K. The effect of increase in Rician parameter K is simulated for 64 QAM and the bit error rate for different Rician parameter K (0, 6 & 12) is simulated in MATLAB. The sufficient number of diversity antennas for K=0 dB, 6 dB and 12 dB is found to be four, two and one respectively, for 64 QAM. The effect of increase in Rician parameter K is simulated for 64 QA M. Key words: 64 QAM, Rician parameter, Absolute Diversity Gain, Relative Diversity Gain, Bit error rate, diversity antennas Reference [1] BER Performance of Reed-Solomon Code Using M-ary FSK Modulation in AWGN Channel, International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol.

3, No.1, 2011 [2] Difference Threshold Test forM-FSK SignalingWith Reed–Solomon Coding and Diversity Combining in Rayleigh Fading Channels, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 3, MAY 2005 [3] Performance Analysis of Combined Transmit Selection Diversity and Receive Generalized Selection Combining in Rayleigh Fading Channels Xiaodong Cai, Member, IEEE, and Georgios B. Giannakis, Fellow, IEEE, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 6, NOVEMBER 2004 [4] Bit-Error Probabilities of 2 and 4DPSK with Nonselective Rayleigh Fading, Diversity Reception, and Correlated Gaussian Interference,Pooi Yuen Kam, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 4, APRIL 1997 [5] D. Brennan, 'Linear Diversity Combining Techniques,' Proc. Alouini, Digital Communications over Fading Channels.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2000. Reed, 'Linear diversity analyses for M-PSK in Rician fading channels,' IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 1749-1753, Nov. Vinay Negi, Sanjeev Kumar Shah, Sandeep Singh, Arun Shekhar, Tanuja Sund 205-207 31.

Comparison of Interestingness Measures: Support-Confidence Framework versus Lift-Irule Framework Abstract: Data Mining is considered to be a step of paramount importance in the process of Knowledge Discovery in Databases. The term 'Interestingness Measure' unequivocally forms a very essential aspect of extraction of 'interesting' rules from databases. As there are a huge number of association rules or patterns that are generated by most Association Rule Mining Algorithms, there arises a need to prune away the unnecessary and unwanted rules. The rules that are crucial and indispensable can therefore be presented to the end user based on the application of these 'Interestingness Measures'. The reason this is done is so that the user gets a narrow focus on only those rules that will provide better business understanding and intelligence. However, there are a plethora of measures available today, and selecting the best amongst them requires a thorough research on each of them. This paper therefore provides a comparative study of certain important measures, thereby highlighting which measure is apt for application in which situation.

Key words: Association Rule Mining, Confidence, Interestingness Measures, Irule, Lift, Support Reference Journal Papers: [1] Zaid Makani, Sana Arora and Prashasti Kanikar. Article: A Parallel Approach to Combined Association Rule Mining. International Journal of Computer Applications 62(15), 2013, 7-13.

Wets, Defining Interestingness for Association Rules, International Journal 'Information Theories & Applications', Vol.10, 370 – 375. [3] Prashasti Kanikar, Dr.

Ketan Shah, Extracting Actionable Association Rules from Multiple Datasets, International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications, Vol. 2, Issue 3, May-Jun 2012, pp.1295-1300 [4] Prashasti Kanikar and Ketan Shah, An Efficient Approach for Extraction of Actionable Association Rules. International Journal of Computer Applications 54(11), 2012, 5-10. [5] Yuejin Zhang, Lingling Zhang, Guangli Nie, Yong Shi, A Survey of Interestingness Measures for Association Rules, International Conference on Business Intelligence and Financial Engineering, 2009, 460 – 463. [6] Jianhua Liu, Xiaoping Fan, Zhihua Qu, A New Interestingness Measure of Association Rules, Second International Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computing, 2008, 393 – 397.

[7] Philippe Lenca, Patrick Meyer, Benoit Vaillant, Stephane Lallich, On selecting interestingness measures for association rules: User oriented description and multiple criteria decision aid, European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 184, issue 2 (January 16, 2008), 610-626. Thesis: [8] Xuan – Hiep Huynh, Interestingness Measure for Association Rules in a KDD process: Post processing of rules with ARQAT tool, doctoral diss., University of Nantes, Nantes, 2010. Proceedings Papers: [9] Paulo J. Azevedo, Al´ıpio M. Jorge, Comparing Rule Measure for Predictive Association Rules, Proceeding ECML of the 18th European conference on Machine Learning, Springer–Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007, 510- 517. [10] Pang– Ning Tan, Vipin Kumar, Jaideep Srivastava, Selecting the Right Interestingness Measure for Association Patterns, Proceeding of the eighth ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining, New York, USA, 2002, pp. [11] Merceron, A., and Yacef, K.

Interestingness Measures for Association Rules in Educational Data. Proceedings for the 1st International Conference on Educational Data Mining, Montreal, Canada, 2008, 57 – 66. Chandraveer S.Deora, Sana Arora, Zaid Makani 208-215 32. Optimal Selectionof Binary Codes for Pulse Compression in Surveillance Radar Abstract: The papers aim to make a comparative study of binary phase codes in Radar pulse compression. Pulse compression allows radar to use long waveforms in order to obtain high energy and simultaneously achieve the resolution of a short pulse by internal modulation of the longpulse. This technique increases signal bandwidth through frequency or phase coding. This paper does a comparative analysis of binary codes based on the simulation results of their autocorrelation function and identifies 13 bit Barker code as the most optimal binary code for surveillance radar.

Key words: Pulse compression, Range resolution, Peak side lobe level (PSL), Barker Code, Golay Code Reference [1] Merrill I. Skolnik, Introduction to radar systems, McGraw Hill Book Company Inc.,1962. [2] Carpentier, Michel H., 'Evolution of Pulse Compression in the Radar Field,' Microwave Conference, 1979. 9th European, vol., no., pp.45-53, 17-20 Sept.

1979 [3] Prasad, N.N.S.S.R.K.; Shameem, V.; Desai, U.B.; Merchant, S.N.;, 'Improvement in target detection performance of pulse coded Doppler radar based on multicarrier modulation with fast Fourier transform (FFT),' Radar, Sonar and Navigation, IEEE Proceedings -, vol.151, no.1, pp. 11- 17, Feb 2004doi: 10.1049/ip-rsn:20040119 [4] Bassem R. Mahafza,'Radar Signal Analysis and processing using MATLAB',- CRC Press 2009 Sonia Sethi 216-223 33. Implementing NAND Flash Controller using Product Reed Solomon code on FPGA chip Abstract: Reed–Solomon (RS) codes are widely used to identify and correct errors in storage systems and transmission and. When RS codes are used for so many memory system and reduces error in data. (255, 223) product ReedSolomon (RS) for non-volatile NAND flash memory systems. Reed-Solomon codes are the most used in digital data storage systems, but powerful for tool burst errors.

To correct multiple random errors and burst errors in order, The composing of product code in to column-wise RS codes and row-wise RS codes may allow to decode multiple errors beyond their error correction capability. The consists of proposed code is two shortened RS codes and a conventional Reed-Solomon code.The nonvolatile NAND flash Controller memory systems.

Reed-Solomon codes are the most Powerful used in data storage systems. The proposed coding scheme on a FPGA-based simulator with using an FPGA device. The proposed code can correct 16 symbol erro.