Anurag Kandya

Forecasting the Tropospheric Ozone using Artificial Neural Network Modelling Approach: A Case Study of Megacity Madras, India

Ozone, which is a secondary pollutant in the troposphere, is very injurious to human health causing irritation of respiratory system, reducing lung capacity, etc. Adversely affecting the plant growth and deteriorating the materials. Thus it is of prime importance to predict the ozone concentration so that effective mitigation strategies can be adopted. As the formation of the tropospheric ozone is dependent on various meteorological parameters and the concentration of various other air pollutants, it is necessary to consider this dependence aspect in the modelling approach. In this background, the present paper puts forward the study of short-term prediction of tropospheric ozone concentration using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) modelling approach for a busy traffic junction of Madras city, one of the four megacities of India. 8-hourly averaged values of 11 air pollutants concentrations and 6 meteorological parameters were used for the study. The respective data was collected at a busy traffic junction of the city for a period of 19 months i.e. during September 2008–March 2010. 70% of the data was used for training the ANN models while the remaining of 30% data was used for validating them. By changing the neural architecture, 34 ANN models were formulated which were statistically analyzed. Based on the encouraging results (d=0.80, r=0.69, etc.), the paper puts forward the suitability of ANN modelling approach for the short-term prediction of tropospheric ozone concentration.

Experimental Study of Twin Round Bamboo Concrete Infill Parabolic Tied Arch

This paper is concerned about the experimental study of twin round bamboo concrete infill composite parabolic tied arch. Experimental investigation is undertaken to validate the structural load bearing capacity of haritha infill arch. The infill arch is tested under three types of loading condition viz a) crown point loading, b) centre half loading and c) distributed point loading. The experimental results brings out the stiffness of the arch to be 1 kN/mm under crown point loading, 1.67 kN/mm under centre half loading and 1.17 kN/mm under distributed loading. The stresses in the materials are well within their allowable limits. Thus this paper is able to successfully report the structural strength of parabolic tied infill arch which promises to be a structural load bearing element. Since, there is no additional formwork required in casting of the arch, apart from the bamboo which itself acts like the formwork, lesser quantity of steel and very small thickness of concrete being involved, the arch qualifies to be a potential structural element for affordable housing and green constructions.

An evaluation and comparison of the various statistical and deterministic techniques for forecasting the concentration of criteria air pollutants

A statistical approach is about working through the historical data in a general way and finding guides to future behaviour. In the present study, forecasting of the criteria pollutants has been done using simple statistical techniques and attempt has been made for an inter-comparison of these techniques with various advanced statistical and deterministic techniques. The inter-comparison analysis leads us to the conclusion that there is no single modelling approach which generates optimum results. Considering the uncertainty and unavailability of most of the inputs of deterministic and advance statistical techniques, the methods adopted here are proposed to have great potential for air pollution forecasting.