Ultrasonic welding of printed/molded sustainable polymer specimens with energy directors.

Fused deposition modeling is preferred to fabricate the biodegradable poly lactic acid (PLA) parts, owing to its impeccable characteristics, such as, customization, waste minimization and scalability. However, limited printing volume constraint restricts the ubiquitous applications of this technique. The current experimental investigation is focused on the employment of ultrasonic welding technique to address the printing volume challenge. The effect of infill density, type of energy directors (triangular (TED), semicircular (SCED) and cross energy directors (CED)) and different levels of welding parameters have been investigated on the mechanical and thermal behavior of welded joints. Presence of rasters and gap between them plays a pivotal role in overall heat generation at weld interface. The joint performance of 3D printed parts has also been compared with injection molded specimens of same material. All printed/molded welded specimens with CED recorded higher tensile strength than equivalent specimens with TED and SCED. Moreover, These specimens also performed better than specimens without energy directors and recorded higher tensile strength, that is, 317, 73.5, 59.7 and 42% higher for injection molded (IM), 80%, 90% and 100% infill density (IF) specimens without energy directors at lower level of welding parameters (LLWP). These specimens also exhibited higher tensile strength at optimal levels of welding parameters. Although, at medium and higher levels of welding parameters, both printed/molded specimens with CED observed comparatively more degradation of joints due to higher concentration of energy at weld interface. The dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), derivative thermogravimetry (DTG) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) analysis have been performed to substantiate the experimental results.

Health improvement for disadvantaged people in Nepal - an evaluation.

BACKGROUND: An evaluation of progress with participatory approaches for improvement of health knowledge and health experiences of disadvantaged people in eight Districts of Eastern Nepal has been undertaken. METHODS: A random selection of Village Development Committees and households, within the eight Districts where participation and a Rights-based Approach had been promoted specifically by local NGOs were compared with similar villages and households in eight Districts where this approach had not been promoted. Information was sought by structured interview and observation by experienced enumerators from both groups of householders. Health knowledge and experiences were compared between the two sets of households. Adjustments were made for demographic confounders. RESULTS: Complete data sets were available for 628 of the 640 households. Health knowledge and experiences were low for both sets of households. However, health knowledge and experiences were greater in the participatory households compared with the non-participatory households. These differences remained after adjustment for confounders. CONCLUSIONS: The study was designed to evaluate progress with participatory processes delivered by non-governmental organisations over a five year period. Improvements in health knowledge and experiences of disadvantaged people were demonstrated in a consistent and robust manner where interventions had taken place.

Effects of conservation measures on crop diversity and their implications for climate-resilient livelihoods: the case of Rupa Lake Watershed in Nepal.

Agrobiodiversity conservation is vital for achieving sustainability, but empirical studies on the effects of different practices or measures on crop diversity are rare. This study aims to estimate the effects of raising conservation awareness (RCA), building diversity blocks (BDB), and their combination on crop diversity among 240 randomly selected households surrounding the Rupa Lake Watershed in Nepal. Based on descriptive analysis and multiple regression models, the results indicate that the two single measures had no significant effect on the numbers of crop species and varieties grown by households in 2018. However, the combination of RCA and BDB had a significantly positive effect on the number of crop varieties, especially for grain and vegetable crops. Considering that these crops are essential in the daily lives of local people, the results indicate that a strategy that combines both awareness raising and on-farm conservation measures can generate higher crop diversity and better serve the climate-resilient livelihoods of people in mountainous areas.

A global perspective of the richness and evenness of traditional crop-variety diversity maintained by farming communities.

Varietal data from 27 crop species from five continents were drawn together to determine overall trends in crop varietal diversity on farm. Measurements of richness, evenness, and divergence showed that considerable crop genetic diversity continues to be maintained on farm, in the form of traditional crop varieties. Major staples had higher richness and evenness than nonstaples. Variety richness for clonal species was much higher than that of other breeding systems. A close linear relationship between traditional variety richness and evenness (both transformed), empirically derived from data spanning a wide range of crops and countries, was found both at household and community levels. Fitting a neutral "function" to traditional variety diversity relationships, comparable to a species abundance distribution of "neutral ecology," provided a benchmark to assess the standing diversity on farm. In some cases, high dominance occurred, with much of the variety richness held at low frequencies. This suggested that diversity may be maintained as an insurance to meet future environmental changes or social and economic needs. In other cases, a more even frequency distribution of varieties was found, possibly implying that farmers are selecting varieties to service a diversity of current needs and purposes. Divergence estimates, measured as the proportion of community evenness displayed among farmers, underscore the importance of a large number of small farms adopting distinctly diverse varietal strategies as a major force that maintains crop genetic diversity on farm.

Wireless Hearing Aid System Simulations using Advanced Design System™: A Behavioral Modeling Approach.

The stringent requirements on size and power consumption constrain the conventional hearing aid devices from providing the patients an economic and user friendly solution, specifically for better noise cancellation. With the advancements in technologies such as integrated circuits design, wireless communications and digital signal processing techniques, the wireless hearing aids having multi-microphones, analog, digital and mixed signals and radio frequency signals processing circuits, DSP and programmable units seem to be promising to provide enhanced performance. The focus of this paper is about the system simulation of a typical wireless hearing aid using Agilent Advanced Design System™. The behavioral modeling features are exploited to enable the whole system simulations including electro-acoustic transducers. A few system level simulation results are included.