Erum Aamir - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Erum Aamir

Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, Feb 11, 2024

Catalysis science & technology, 2024

Journal of Umm Al-Qura University for Engineering and Architecture, May 5, 2024

International journal of oceanography & aquaculture, 2024

Advances in civil and industrial engineering book series, Mar 17, 2023

Precipitation plays vital role in the economy of agricultural country like Pakistan. Baluchistan ... more Precipitation plays vital role in the economy of agricultural country like Pakistan. Baluchistan being the largest province of Pakistan in term of land is facing reoccurring droughts as well as flashflood due unprecedent torrential precipitation pattern. It is quite intriguing to observe the changing pattern of precipitation in Baluchistan. Precipitation has become less frequent but intense in nature which results in flash flooding, landslides, damages to the infrastructure , trade, environment, and ecosystem. Decrease in precipitation are leading to droughts, crop destruction and food scarcity. The assessment of variability in the precipitation trend in Baluchistan is of paramount importance because among all the provinces, Baluchistan is the worst hit, it's under drought warning by Pakistan metrological department (PMD) and already facing water crisis. No substantive studies have been carried out in analyzing the trends in precipitation in Baluchistan. This situation might put China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) at risk also. This study is performed on monthly precipitation time series from PMD for determining trends in precipitation on 41 years data from 1977 to 2017 over 13 selected stations in Baluchistan. Due to the non-linear nature of the precipitation data, non-parametric Mann-Kendall (MK) test was used to determine the increasing or decreasing trends in precipitations on monthly basis. Large scale atmospheric circulations and climate indices that affect precipitation were considered to determine their influence on precipitation. The linear association between the climatic indices and Global Precipitation climatology Project (GPCP) precipitation in the monthly time series is determined using Pearson's Correlation. The Partial Mann Kendall test was used to determine the variation in the trend under the influence of climate indices. This study shows that decreasing trends in precipitation are more pronounced rather than the increasing trends and this variation in trends have been explained by the moderate to the strong influence of climate indices on precipitation trends in Baluchistan.

2019 International Conference on Electrical, Communication, and Computer Engineering (ICECCE)

Virtual Reality (VR) is a latest technology that gives an immersive experience to its users throu... more Virtual Reality (VR) is a latest technology that gives an immersive experience to its users through a virtually created environment. The construction industry is usually a slow adapter of the latest technologies and automation, nevertheless, lately VR is started to be explored in the construction sector. Additionally, Building Information Modelling (BIM) is regarded as a revolutionary development in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. The industry is adopting BIM as governments are making it mandatory to be employed for public projects, such as the UK Government, because of numerous benefits it can yield. The current research work is undertaken to find out utilization of VR technology through integration with BIM in the construction industry of Pakistan. Numerous benefits of technologies and possible barriers in adopting the technologies are also outlined. Furthermore, a questionnaire survey is conducted (263 valid responses) to find out if VR should be adopted in the construction industry of Pakistan; 80.60% agreed with the preposition, 17.88% stayed neutral, while 1.52% disagreed, therefore, the clear majority agreed that it should be embraced. Integration of BIM and VR can provide immersive virtual experience that will help in the rapid decision making during the design process and will increase a client's satisfaction. Moreover, it improves communication and collaboration among participants in a project, which will support better project management and successful delivery of construction projects.

During recent years crystallisation has found applications in many chemical industries, such as p... more During recent years crystallisation has found applications in many chemical industries, such as pharmaceutical, petrochemical, micro-electronics and food industries. Crystallisation is a basic step for purification or separation for a large variety of organic, inorganic and pharmaceutical compounds. Most of the product qualities are directly related to the shape of the crystal size distribution (CSD). The main difficulty in batch crystallisation processes is to accomplish a uniform and reproducible CSD. On-line control during the process allows for improved crystalline product quality, shorter process times and reduction or elimination of compromised batches. The actual prediction and estimation of the shape of the distribution at the end of the batch can provide useful information for monitoring or designing the operating curve for the supersaturation controller. Model-based approaches provide consistency of the CSD, can be used for better control and also for product design by rev...

NUST Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

Precipitation is the main source of fresh water in the water cycle. Climate change, because of gl... more Precipitation is the main source of fresh water in the water cycle. Climate change, because of global warming and the consequent change in the water cycle, is a global security issue. It would significantly influence water and food security. Disasters such as floods and droughts would lead to an adverse effect on the economy, peace, and geo-political situation around the world. In the present study, the change in precipitation patterns at Gwadar port is quantified in the context of climate change since it is the crown jewel in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), as well as a vital part of One Belt One Road (OBOR) project. A data set of 40 years (1979-2018) is analyzed utilizing Mann-Kendall (MK) technique for precipitation trend detection, and Multi-Linear Regression Analysis (MLR) to develop a model of the study area. The model presents the potential determinants causing the variability in the precipitation patterns of the selected region. The model developed accounts for ...

IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 2018

Pakistan's largest province by area, is Baluchistan hosts deep sea Gawadar port and is playing a ... more Pakistan's largest province by area, is Baluchistan hosts deep sea Gawadar port and is playing a vital role in one belt one road (OBOR) plan. CPEC, a Regional route comes under OBOR which connect Pakistan's Gwadar port to Chinese Xinjiang Province. CPEC Corridor upon construction is expected to revolutionize the infrastructure, economy, trade, finance, demography, environment, culture, socioeconomic conditions, of Pakistan. Much of western and central CPEC routes pass through it. However, Baluchistan, due to its topography and rugged terrain, is under constant risk of rainfall driven flash floods. Flash floods are responsible for colossal damages to the infrastructure, especially roads, bridges, trade, communication that ultimately badly affects the humans, economy and the environment. The intensity and frequency of rainfall are increasing due to climate change and flash floods put everything at high risk. In this view, the assessment of changes in rainfall has got significant importance. More or less no appreciable studies have been conducted on the precipitation trend analysis and in Baluchistan. This research is focused on assessment of trend analysis in precipitation of Baluchistan using 40 years (1977-2016) data of 13 stations in Baluchistan. The data has been obtained from the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). Precipitation data sample is checked for normal distribution, abrupt changes, cycles, outliers and missing values. Normal distribution of precipitation data set is done by conducting tests for normality like the Shapiro-Wilk W test, Anderson-Darling, Lilliefors, and Jarque-Bera test. Statistical tests, being the most direct methods of detecting changes in extreme rainfall intensities were adopted. Two nonparametric tests Mann-Kendall (MK) and Spearman's rho (SR) have been used to find the trends in annual and seasonal precipitations. Nonparametric methods are selected as they are less sensitive to data gaps if it exists. Theil Sen slope estimator has been used to compute the magnitude of the trend. The seasonal and regional MK test has also been applied to test the seasonal and regional trends.

Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987), Jan 11, 2016

High energy consumption in the urban environment impacts the urban surface energy budget and caus... more High energy consumption in the urban environment impacts the urban surface energy budget and causes the emission of anthropogenic heat fluxes (AHFs) into the atmosphere. AHFs vary over time and space. Thus, a reliable estimation of AHF is needed for mesoscale meteorological modeling. This study used a statistical regression method to estimate the annual mean gridded AHF with high spatial (1-km) resolution. Compared with current methods for AHF estimation, the statistical regression method is straightforward and can be easily incorporated with meteorological modeling. AHF of the highly populated urban areas in Taiwan were estimated using data from the anthropogenic pollutant emission inventory of CO and NOx for year 2010. Over 40% of the total AHF values in Taiwan main island fell within the range of 10-40 Wm(-2). When the study domain was confined to urban land, the percentage contributions from AHF values were increased, with over 68% of the total AHF values within the range of 10-...

Journal of Process Control, 2015

Abstract This paper discusses the optimization and control of the one dimensional (1-D) packed be... more Abstract This paper discusses the optimization and control of the one dimensional (1-D) packed bed model of underground coal gasification (UCG) process for an actual UCG site. The optimization is performed to compensate for the uncertainty in coal and char ultimate analysis (caused by repeated measurements of different samples) and in steam to oxygen (O 2 ) ratio at the reaction front. The constrained nonlinear optimization problem is solved by using state of the art sequential quadratic programing (SQP) algorithm to minimize the error between experimental and simulated heating values. The results of the optimized model are validated with actual filed trials which show a good match for heating value of the product gases. The super twisting controller, a second order sliding mode control (SOSMC) algorithm is successfully implemented on the process model, which keeps the heating value of the product gas at the desired level in the presence of the matched disturbance: steam produced from water influx from surrounding aquifers and due to the moisture content of the coal.

A pilot scale wastewater treatment plant was designed, constructed and operated on site to treat ... more A pilot scale wastewater treatment plant was designed, constructed and operated on site to treat wastewater from a combined effluent drain. The activated sludge process (ASP) was used at three different hydraulic retention times (HRT) of 12, 10 and 8 hrs at an average MLSS concentration of 3500 mg/L. Under each HRT, the pilot plant was operated for a period of 10-12 weeks. Chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), total organic carbon (TOC) and total suspended solids (TSS) were the major variables of interest. Average COD removal efficiency at HRT of 12, 10 and 8 hrs was 77, 80, and 87% respectively. Average BOD removal efficiency was 76, 79, and 88 % at HRT of 12, 10 and 8 hrs respectively. For the same HRTs, the average TOC removal efficiency was 64, 65 and 75% respectively. The average TSS removal efficiency was found to be 87, 90 and 96% at the given HRTs. 8 hr HRT was found to be the most appropriate in almost all cases. The average values of BOD reduced from 274.6 to 35.5 (mg/L), COD from 459.7 to 63.9 (mg/L), TSS from 528.2 to 23.4 (mg/L) and TOC from 134.3 to 33.2 (mg/L). This study proved that ASP at HRT of 8 hrs would treat the combined effluent to a level well within National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS).

Optimization is performed in order to validate the model, by using state of the art sequential qu... more Optimization is performed in order to validate the model, by using state of the art sequential quadratic programming algorithm (SQP).

Computer Aided Chemical Engineering, 2010

Abstract The paper presents a methodology for the systematic design of operating recipes for batc... more Abstract The paper presents a methodology for the systematic design of operating recipes for batch cooling crystallisation systems with the aim to produce a desired target crystal size distribution. The population balance model is solved using the method of characteristics under the assumptions of a constant supersaturation and growth dominated process, yielding a simplified analytical expression for the size distribution. A method is proposed for designing the seed distribution, which can be used in conjunction with the supersaturation set-point design to shape the product crystal size distribution (CSD). The approach designs the seed as a mixture of crystals obtained from standard sieve analysis. A second approach is also proposed which uses dynamic seed addition during the batch to control the final size distribution.

2012 International Conference on Emerging Technologies, 2012

ABSTRACT The design of underground coal gasification (UCG) process is a difficult task, especiall... more ABSTRACT The design of underground coal gasification (UCG) process is a difficult task, especially if its performance needs to be compared with surface gasification, because in UCG there is a lack of direct control to many important parameters. In this work a nonlinear time domain model of UCG is formulated by incorporating some assumptions in already existing models of [1] and [2]. The input of the model is molar flow rate of inlet gas (mixture of Air and steam), and output is the calorific value of exit gas. In order to keep the calorific value at a desired value in the presence of external disturbance, the model is used in a closed loop configuration with a sliding mode controller (SMC).

Journal of Process Control, 2014

ABSTRACT A control oriented model underground coal gasification (UCG) is developed by adaptation ... more ABSTRACT A control oriented model underground coal gasification (UCG) is developed by adaptation in [Thorsness and Rozsa, 1978]. The model is solved for lignite coal deposited in block 5 of Thar coal fields. The model is capable of predicting time and space profiles of some important parameters. The uncertainties in coal properties are compensated by optimizing certain parameters, using sequential quadratic programming algorithm. The results of solved model are compared with actual field trials.

Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2012

ABSTRACT The paper presents an experimental validation of a novel methodology for the systematic ... more ABSTRACT The paper presents an experimental validation of a novel methodology for the systematic design of the set point operating curves for supersaturation-controlled, seeded crystallization processes, which produces a desired target crystal size distribution (CSD). The direct design approach is based on the idea of operating the system within the metastable zone (MSZ) bounded by the nucleation and the solubility curves. The proposed approach is based on an analytical CSD estimator, obtained by the analytical solution of the population balance equation for supersaturation-controlled growth-dominated processes. Based on the analytical estimator a design parameter for supersaturation-controlled processes is defined as a function of the supersaturation, time, and growth kinetics. Using the design parameter and the analytical CSD estimator, the temperature profiles in the time domain are determined to obtain a target distribution with a desired shape, while maintaining the constant supersaturation. The resulting temperature profile in the time domain can then be used as a set point for the temperature controller. This methodology provides a systematic targeted direct design approach for practical applications and scale-up. Experimental evaluations of two temperature trajectories designed with the proposed approach were carried out to achieve the desired target shape of the CSD. The experiments illustrate that the proposed targeted direct design approach can be used to systematically design different temperature trajectories and hence batch times, which lead to similar desired product CSD.