(SoE) School of Engineering

<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry through formation of secondary particulate nitrate that contributes a major portion to the mass of particulate matter (PM) that has several impacts on the environment in the scales of local, regional and global. NO2 is regulated in most of the countries, because it acts as a precursor for nitrate formation and it shows significant negative effects on human health. The present study was conducted for measurement of NO2 concentration at 204 and 101 sampling locations in two Indian large cities (population more than 4 million), Delhi and Kanpur, respectively by using passive samplers. From the experimental results, an average concentration of 68.6±20.1μg/m3 was observed in Delhi and it was 36.9±12.1μg/m3 in Kanpur. The observed data from all sampling sites were utilized on the platform of Geographic Information System (GIS) to generate spatially distributed pollution maps (using Kriging interpolation method) and maps of probability of exceedences of air quality standards. Based on the survey results on emission activities, meteorology and pollution maps, this study proposed locations of air quality sampling sites for a long-term monitoring network in Delhi and Kanpur. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.

Civil Engineering

World University root node

Urban Climate

Passive measurement of NO2 and application of GIS to generate spatially-distributed air monitoring network in urban environment

An intensive measurement campaign was undertaken to characterize eight fractions of organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) in particulate matter (PM) at four urban sites with different pollution characteristics during summer, post-monsoon, and winter at Kanpur, India. Speciation samplers were used to collect particulate samples on quartz filters followed by analysis of OC and EC using Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE)-based thermal/optical reflectance (TOR) method. Based on 24-h average results at each site, the highest levels of OC and EC were observed during winter as 96.7 ± 26.9 and 31.8 ± 9.8 μg/m3 at residential site and traffic site, respectively. The levels of OC at residential sites during winter appeared to be more than twice of that during summer. The site close to the road traffic had the least value of OC/EC, as 1.77 ± 0.28 during post-monsoon, and the site influenced by emissions of domestic cooking and heating had the highest value of OC/EC, as 4.05 ± 0.79 during winter. The average abundances of OC1, OC2, OC3, OC4, OP, EC1, EC2, and EC3 in total carbon (TC) at all sites for three seasons were 10.03, 19.04, 20.03, 12.32, 10.53, 33.39, 3.21, and 1.99 %, respectively. A sharp increase in levels of OC1 and EC1-OP during winter at two residential sites revealed that biomass burning could be a significant contributor to carbonaceous aerosols. From the application of EC-tracer method, it was observed that contribution of secondary organic carbon (SOC) to PM mass increased from 5 % during post-monsoon to 16 % during winter at residential sites and from 2 % during post-monsoon to 7 % during winter at traffic sites. Therefore, it could be inferred that increase in primary emissions coupled with unfavorable meteorological conditions could cause particle agglomeration and hygroscopic growth, leading to unpleasant pollution episode during winter. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Environmental Science and Pollution Research

Spatial and seasonal variations of atmospheric particulate carbon fractions and identification of secondary sources at urban sites in North India

This paper presents a dynamic model that can provide prediction for the estimated arrival time of a bus at a given bus stop using Global Positioning System (GPS) data. The proposed model is a hybrid intelligent system combining Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks. While Neural Networks are good at recognizing patterns and predicting, they are not good at explaining how they decide their input parameters. Fuzzy Logic systems, on the other hand, can reason with imprecise information, but require linguistic rules to explain their fuzzy outputs. Thus combining both helps in countering each other’s limitations and a reliable and effective prediction system can be developed. Experiments are performed on a real-world dataset and show that our method is effective in stated conditions. The accuracy of result is 86.293% obtained. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.

Computer Science and Engineering

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)

Bus arrival time prediction using a modified amalgamation of fuzzy clustering and neural network on spatio-temporal data

This article presents the implementation of the Chiu, Carratt, and Soong (CCS) gel/glass model in an analytical solution (AS) derived for the free radical polymerization under isothermal condition. This implantation allows AS to be applicable for the whole range of conversion thus making it more useful for practical applications. The results were compared with numerical solution (NS) as well as with experimental data for two different monomers: styrene (St) and methyl methacrylate (MMA). MMA with chain transfer agent was also used for this purpose. The results were found to be in good agreement with both NS and experimental data. NS with and without quasi-steady state assumption were also found to be in good agreement with each other for the entire range of conversion. As constant time step was used, the effect of stiffness on AS during gel effect was visible at low temperature compared to higher temperature. © 2014 American Chemical Society.

Chemical Engineering

Macromolecules

Analytical solution of free radical polymerization: Applications- implementing gel effect using CCS model

Continuous-flow atom transfer radical polymerization of 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate in tubular microreactors of different diameters and geometries is studied. Scale-up of tubular reactors from micro (876μm ID) to milliscales (1753 and 4083μm IDs) is investigated. Coil flow inverter (CFI) reactors having 3 and 6m length (three and seven bends, respectively) are also considered for this study. Positive effects of flow inversion are visible in all three types of reactors expressed by an increase in molecular weight and monomer conversion as well as a decrease in the PDI for the same operating parameters. An increase in reactor diameter results in an increase in the throughput. It is worthy to mention that a CFI reactor having 4083μm ID and 3m (three bends) is found to increase the throughput by ten times without significantly increasing the PDI compared to a coiled tube microreactor with 876μm ID, 6m and no flow inversion pattern. However, pressure drops are higher (+0.1 bar) in case of larger diameter tubes. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Macromolecular Reaction Engineering

Flow inversion: An effective means to scale-up controlled radical polymerization tubular microreactors

The paper presents frequency modulated thermal wave imaging (FMTWI) as a fast and efficient non-contact technique for in-plane thermal characterization of thin plate nanomaterials. A novel excitation signal in the form of an up-chirp is applied and the thermal response is monitored using an infrared (IR) thermography based temperature sensing system. The in-plane thermal diffusivity of any sample can be measured using the multiple phase information extracted from a single run of the experiment. This feature provides a time efficient approach for thermal measurements using infrared thermography techniques. The theoretical background and experimental details of the technique are discussed, with practical measurement of thermal diffusivity of an empty anodic alumina (AAO) template in direction perpendicular to the nanochannel axis, in support. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Electrical Engineering

Infrared Physics and Technology

Frequency modulated infrared imaging for thermal characterization of nanomaterials

One-dimensional nanostructures such as Ni and Co nanowires (NWs) show anisotropic thermal properties in a direction parallel and perpendicular to the NW axis. Thermal diffusivity of Ni and Co NWs embedded in a 100-nm pore anodic alumina (AAO) template has been measured in a direction perpendicular to the NW axis, using an infrared thermography-based non-contact approach. The measured thermal diffusivity values in the radial direction are 0.728×10 -6 and 0.732×10-6 m2s-1, respectively, for the Ni and Co nanocomposites. The changes in the thermal diffusivity of the synthesized NWs alone were estimated using a first-order lower bound model (FOLBM). A nearly seven- and sixfold reduction, respectively, of thermal diffusivity in a direction perpendicular to the NW axis is estimated for the synthesized Ni and Co NWs. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids

Thermal diffusivity of electrodeposited Ni and Co nanowires using infrared thermography

Social networking applications are changing the way people communicate with their peers and family. Social networking applications have several features that help in connecting one to another, from finding old friends to browsing for new friends and contacts. To harness the true power of social networking, sometimes it may be important to seamlessly identify and connect individuals who are geographically nearby with similar interests at a given time. In this work, we develop and discuss a pervasive and context-aware social networking system in a mobile environment that is able to report the presence of like-minded individuals in real time based on user's location. We discuss how our system computes closeness between two individuals and develop an application to test its efficacy. © 2014 IEEE.

2014 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunication Systems, ANTS 2014

PECSNET: The next generation pervasive and context aware social network

Improvement of energy efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) system is needed to fulfill the energy crises. The power generation of PV array decreases due to partial shading occurs on the PV array. In partial shading condition, the PV modules of the array receive different intensity of solar irradiation and hence mismatch losses occurs between the modules. Thus the power-voltage characteristics of PV arrays contain multiple local maxima and one of them is a global maximum power point (GMPP). This paper presents an novel approach to arrange the physical position of modules in Total Cross Tied (TCT) configuration, without changing the electrical connection of the modules in the array. In this approach, the arrangement of PV modules of TCT configuration is done in such a way that the shading effect is distributed over the entire array, and hence it reduces the multiple local maxima in power-voltage characteristics of the PV array. Thus the tracking of GMPP in the present approach is simpler. In this paper, the power generation of array with TCT and proposed configuration is compared with theoretical and MATLAB simulation results. It is investigated that the power generation of PV array with proposed configuration is enhanced under different shading patterns. © 2014 IEEE.

Proceedings of 6th IEEE Power India International Conference, PIICON 2014

A novel approach to improve power output of PV array under different shading conditions

Several amine-functionalized cation ILs were successfully synthesized, characterized and tested for CO2 absorption studies. Non-functionalized ILs were studied for comparison purpose. The primary amine-ILs have shown higher CO2 solubilities both on molar basis (mol of CO2/mol of IL) and on volume basis (g of CO2/L of IL), compared to non-functionalized and tertiary-amine ILs. Besides amine-functionalization of the cation, anion of the IL has strong influence on CO2 solubility due to its contribution by physical absorption. As a result, the [TF2N]-anion amine-ILs have higher CO2 solubility than [BF4]-anion amine-ILs. Among non-amine functionalized ILs, [P(14)666][TF2N] has the highest CO2 solubility. © 2013 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.