Design and Performance Assessment of Dual-Speed Axial Threshing and Separation for Paddy Rice Combines

HighlightsDual-speed axial threshing and separation was designed to improve performance.Loosely connected grains were removed firstly for reducing opportunity for breakage.Machine is complex but a lower effective cylinder speed can reach a good performance.Reasonable feed rate and concave clearance could maintain quality and throughput.ABSTRACT. This research was conducted to assess the performance of a combine, model number 4LZ-4.0 under different threshing functional parameters such as speed of high/low speed cylinder, cylinder-concave clearance and linear speed of concave sieve. An indoor experiment was conducted using the dual-speed axial threshing and separation. These functional parameters were set at five levels. The responses were obtained in terms of broken rate, impurity rate and loss rate. Multi-objective variable optimization was performed using Design-Expert 6.0.10 software. Analysis of variance was done to determine the significant effects of the factor variations on the response values. Design-Expert 6.0.10 software was used to present response surface graphs that were used to describe the variations of the responses as the factors changed from one level to the other. Results showed that with an increase in speed of high/low speed cylinder from 15.42/18.50-22.92/27.50m/s, the percentage of broken rate increased significantly from 0.15% to 1.13%, respectively. At cylinder speeds of 15.42/18.50m/s and 22.92/27.50 m/s rpm, the impurity rate increased from 0.31% to 1.62%, respectively. It was also realized that varying the speed of high/low speed cylinder had a significant effect on the broken rate and impurity rate. The impurity rate increased with an increase in Linear speed of concave sieve from 0.40 to 1.60 m/s, the percentage of impurity rate increased significantly from 0.31% to 1.62% respectively. However, the lowest impurity rate was obtained at an average linear speed of concave sieve of 0.99 m/s. Furthermore, it was realized that increasing the cylinder-concave clearance from 16 to 30 mm, equally increased the percentage of loss rate from 1.78% to 2.93%. From the results obtained, it was suggested that operating the threshing cylinder at a speed of high/low speed cylinder of 18.31/21.97 m/s, cylinder-concave clearance of 22.60 mm and linear velocity of rotary concave of 0.99 m/s, gave a better performance of the machine. Keywords: Axial threshing and separation, Cylinder-concave clearance, Dual-speed, Functional parameters, Linear speed of concave sieve, Speed of high/low speed cylinder.

The Need to Make Sense of a Practice in Investment Arbitration: A Response to Eric De Brabandere

In his article entitled ‘The (Ir)relevance of Transnational Public Policy in Investment Treaty Arbitration – A Reply to Jean-Michel Marcoux’, Eric De Brabandere argues that transnational public policy does not have any significant role to play in investment treaty arbitration, both as a matter of principle and as an avenue to address human rights violations by foreign investors. The present response suggests that a more fundamental point of disagreement between our positions relates to the role of the practice of tribunals in shaping legal norms in international investment law. Inspired by the ‘practice turn’ in the study of international law, it suggests that the relevance and the normativity of transnational public policy are constituted by the practice of tribunals. Addressing human rights violations as an integral part of transnational public policy can thus be considered as a potential evolution of this practice in investment arbitration.

Consciousness, Introspection, and Subjective Measures

In recent years, the divide between conscious and unconscious perception has been the focus of a thriving research area in the science of consciousness. Subjective measures, frequently referred to as ‘introspective measures’, play a prominent role in this literature and have been the subject of intense criticism. This chapter discusses the main types of subjective measures used in current-day science of consciousness. I explain the key worry about such measures, namely the problem of a putatively ever-present response bias. I then turn to the question of whether subjective measures of consciousness are introspective. I show that there is no clear answer to this question, as proponents of subjective measures do not employ a worked out notion of subjective access. In turn, as I explain, this makes the problem of response bias less tractable than it might otherwise be.

RESPOnSE—A Framework for Enforcing Risk-Aware Security Policies in Constrained Dynamic Environments

The enforcement of fine-grained access control policies in constrained dynamic networks can become a challenging task. The inherit constraints present in those networks, which result from the limitations of the edge devices in terms of power, computational capacity and storage, require an effective and efficient access control mechanism to be in place to provide suitable monitoring and control of actions and regulate the access over the resources. In this article, we present RESPOnSE, a framework for the specification and enforcement of security policies within such environments, where the computational burden is transferred to high-tier nodes, while low-tier nodes apply risk-aware policy enforcement. RESPOnSE builds on a combination of two widely used access control models, Attribute-Based Access Control and Role-Based Access Control, exploiting the benefits each one provides. Moreover, the proposed mechanism is founded on a compensatory multicriteria decision-making algorithm, based on the calculation of the Euclidean distance between the run-time values of the attributes present in the security policy and their ideal values, as those are specified within the established policy rules.

Unblocking Progress in Austrian Economics: Response to Skousen

Skousen is to be congratulated for creating an entirely new con- cept in economics, GO. There are not many social scientists of whom such a claim can be made, so this constitutes a gigantic accomplishment on his part. There are other instances of this phenomenon: Menger, Aus- trian Economics; Rothbard, libertarianism; Buchanan and Tullock, Public Choice; Coase and Posner, Law and Economics; Milton Friedman, monetarism, the negative income tax, school vouchers; Wenzel, Private Property Society. Of course, we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. None of these people invented anything entirely out of the whole cloth. There are always predecessors for all scholars. For example, the School of Salamanca in many ways foreshadowed Austrian economics. But the fact that Skousen can even be mentioned in such august company is an indication of his creativity. Of course, there are many and serious reservations that can be launched at some of these,1 and Skousen is no exception to this rule, as I show in this present response. The present paper is a rejoinder to Skousen (2017) which was, in turn, a critique of Barnett and Block (2016), hence “BnB”. It is organ- ized as follows, and I pattern my response to Skousen accordingly: A. Skousen reiterates his position. B. He takes to task BnB on the following grounds. 1. BnB maintain that GO has taken the profes- sion by “storm”, and these authors err in this assertion; 2. Skousen attributes to BnB the claim that Austrian economists must reject aggregate data and upbraids BnB for this; 3. he reiterates his posi- tion on the “consumer spending” myth; 4. Skousen thinks the BnB critique of the Hayek triangle is misplaced; 5. BnB maintained that Skousenʼs GO amounts to no more than measuring vertical inte- gration; Skousen demurs; 6. BnB charged him with double count- ing; Skousen attempts to rebut this charge. I follow this organization of Skousenʼs interspersed with my commentary. In section III, I reiterate several criticisms of BnBʼs, on which Skousen has failed to comment. I conclude in section IV.

Withdrawing treatment from patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness: the wrong answer is what the wrong question begets

In a recent paper, Charles Foster argued that the epistemic uncertainties surrounding prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC) make it impossible to prove that the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment can be in a patient’s best interests and, therefore, the presumption in favour of the maintenance of life cannot be rebutted. In the present response, I argue that, from a legal perspective, Foster has reached the wrong conclusion because he is asking the wrong question. According to the reasoning in two leading cases—Bland and James—the principle of respect for autonomy creates a persuasive presumption against treatment without consent. Therefore, it is the continuation of treatment that requires justification, rather than its withdrawal. This presumption also works as the tiebreaker determining that treatment should stop if there is no persuasive evidence that its continuation is in the best interests of the patient. The presumption in favour of the maintenance of life, on the other hand, should be understood as an evidential presumption on a factual issue that is assumed to be true if unchallenged. However, the uncertainties regarding PDOC actually give reasons for displacing this evidential presumption. Consequently, decision-makers will have to weigh up the pros and cons of treatment having the presumption against treatment without consent as the tiebreaker if the evidence is inconclusive. In conclusion, when the right question is asked, Foster’s argument can be turned on its head and uncertainties surrounding PDOC weigh in to justify the interruption of treatment in the absence of compelling contrary evidence.

Survey of Rehabilitation Clinicians in the United States: Barriers and Critical Use-Cases for mRehab Adoption

This paper presents data and analysis from survey research conducted by the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Information and Communications Technology Access for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Access for Community Living, Health and Function (LiveWell RERC) on the perceptions and attitudes of clinical professionals in rehabilitation medicine regarding mobile health (mHealth) and mobile rehabilitation (mRehab) practices, techniques and technology in the United States. The analytical focus of this paper is on two key survey questions related to specific barriers and opportunities (most critical use-cases) for adopting mHealth/mRehab interventions. We present response data to these two questions segmented by clinical specialty – physical, occupational, speech and recreation therapy – to identify possible variation between and among these rehabilitation professions. This analysis provides a detailed map of the terrain of clinician expectations and experiences for the adoption and implementation of mHealth/mRehab interventions in the United States, and possibly other countries. Results show substantial support for mRehab interventions and technologies across all four clinical specialties. The most frequently identified barriers to effective use of mobile and internet technologies to support patients remotely focused on patients (ability to learn and use the technology, and internet access), not clinicians. The was more variability among clinical specializations regarding best use-cases. Tracking patient adherence to prescribed activities and supporting patients in the home and community were the most frequently cited best use cases across the whole sample.

Performance Assessment of a Self-propelled Paddy Grain Thresher under Different Threshing Functional Parameters

HighlightsThis research was aimed at assessing the performance of a self-propelled paddy grain thresher.Increasing cylinder speed increased the threshing percentage and percentage of broken grains of the machine.More broken grains were obtained at a lower concave clearance.The feed rate did not have much significance on the performance parameters that were evaluated. Abstract.This research was conducted to assess the performance of a self-propelled mini combine harvester, model number 4LZ-0.8 under different threshing functional parameters such as cylinder speed, concave clearance, and feed rate. An indoor experiment was conducted using the mini combine with an axial flow threshing cylinder and tangential feeding of material. These functional parameters were set at 5 levels each. The responses were obtained in terms of threshing percentage, percentage of unthreshed grains and percentage of broken grains. Response values were analyzed using the response surface tool (rstool) in MATLAB. Analysis of variance was done to determine the significant effects of the factor variations on the response values. MATLAB was used to present response surface graphs that were used to describe the variations of the responses as the factors changed from one level to the other. Results showed that with an increase in cylinder speed from 697 to 1202 rpm, the percentage of broken grains increased significantly from 0.0384% to 3.4052%, respectively. At cylinder speeds of 697 and 1202 rpm, the percentage of unthreshed grains increased from 0.1515% to 0.2162%, respectively. Furthermore, an increase in feed rate decreased the threshing percentage. The highest threshing percentage was obtained at an average concave clearance of 27 mm. Furthermore, it was realized that increasing the concave clearance from 18 to 35 mm, equally increased the percentage of unthreshed grains from 0.1478% to 0.3177%. The percentage of grain damage decreased from 3.2758% to 0.0268% with an increase in concave clearance from 18 to 35 mm, respectively. From the results obtained, it was tested and suggested that operating the threshing cylinder at a cylinder speed of 1100 rpm, concave clearance of 27 mm and feed rate of 0.9 kg s-1 offered the best machine performance. At these suggested values of the operating parameters, the threshing percentage was 99.9801%, the percentage of broken grains was 0.0134%, and the percentage of unthreshed grains was 0.0199%. Keywords: Assessment, Axial threshing unit, Cylinder speed, Concave clearance, Feed rate, Functional parameters, Threshing percentage.