Development of EREC IF Model to Increase Critical Thinking and Creativity Skills of Undergraduate Nursing Students

Critical thinking and creativity are prerequisite skills for working professionals in the 21st century. A survey conducted in 2014 at the Boromarajonani College of Nursing, Chon Buri, Thailand, revealed that these skills within students across all academic years was at a low to moderate level. An action research study was conducted to develop the EREC IF Model, a framework which includes the concepts of experience, reflection, engagement, culture and language, ICT, and flexibility and fun, to guide pedagogic activities for 75 sophomores of the undergraduate nursing science program at the college. The model was applied to all professional nursing courses. Prior to implementation, workshops were held to prepare lecturers and students. Both lecturers and students initially expressed their discomfort and pointed to the difficulties with the model. However, later they felt more comfortable, and by the end of the project they expressed their understanding and appreciation of the model. A survey conducted four and eight months after implementation found that the critical thinking and creativity skills of the sophomores were significantly higher than those recorded in the pretest. It could be concluded that the EREC IF model is efficient for fostering critical thinking and creativity skills in the undergraduate nursing science program. This model should be used for other levels of students.

Experimental Study on Flexural Strength of Reinforced Geopolymer Concrete Beams

This paper presents the flexural response of Reinforced Geopolymer Concrete (RGPC) beams. A commercial finite element (FE) software ABAQUS has been used to perform a structural behavior of RGPC beams. Using parameters such: stress, strain, Young’s modulus, and Poisson’s ratio obtained from experimental results, a beam model has been simulated in ABAQUS. The results from experimental tests and ABAQUS simulation were compared. Due to friction forces at the supports and loading rollers; slip occurring, the actual deflection of RGPC beam from experimental test results were slightly different from the results of ABAQUS. And there is good agreement between the crack patterns of fly ash-based geopolymer concrete generated by FE analysis using ABAQUS, and those in experimental data.

Synthesis of Novel Nanostructured Catalysts for Pyrolysis of Biomass

Nanostructured catalysts were successfully prepared by acidification of diatomite and regeneration of FCC spent catalysts. The obtained samples were characterized by IR, XRD, SEM, EDX, MAS-NMR (27Al and 29Si), NH3-TPD and tested in catalytic pyrolysis of biomass (rice straw). The results showed that the similar bio-oil yield of 41.4% can be obtained by pyrolysis with catalysts at 450oC as compared to that of the pyrolysis without catalyst at 550oC. The bio-oil yield reached a maximum of 42.55% at the pyrolysis temperature of 500oC with catalytic content of 20%. Moreover, by catalytic pyrolysis, bio-oil quality was better as reflected in higher ratio of H/C, lower ratio of O/C. This clearly indicated high application potential of these new nanostructured catalysts in the production of bio-oil with low oxygenated compounds.

Efficacy of Garlic and Chili Combination Solution on Cabbage Insect Pests and Crop Growth in Vietnam

The study was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of Garlic and Chili combination solution on control of insect pests in cabbage crop. The solution was sprayed at different intervals after transplanting. The efficiency of Garlic and chili combination solution on cabbage insect pests was measured. Results revealed that Garlic and chili combination solution was the effectively reduced cabbage insect pests. On other hand, the spray solution not only reduced the number of days required for the cabbage growth but also greatly enhanced the leaf number, head diameter, head weight, and quality of cabbage. Garlic and chili combination solution have positive effects on pests reduction and improve growth, yield and quality of cabbage vegetable.

Numerical Simulation of Multiple Arrays Arrangement of Micro Hydro Power Turbines

River flow over micro hydro power (MHP) turbines of multiple arrays arrangement is simulated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to obtain the flow characteristics. In this paper, CFD software is used to simulate the water flow over MHP turbines as they are placed in a river. Multiple arrays arrangement of MHP turbines lead to generate large amount of power. In this study, a river model is created and simulated in CFD software to obtain the water flow characteristic. The process then continued by simulating different types of arrays arrangement in the river model. A MHP turbine model consists of a turbine outer body and static propeller blade in it. Five types of arrangements are used which are parallel, series, triangular, square and rhombus with different spacing sizes. The velocity profiles on each MHP turbines are identified at the mouth of each turbine bodies. This study is required to obtain the arrangement with increasing spacing sizes that can produce highest power density through the water flow variation.

Effect of Various Pollen Sources to Ability Fruit Set and Quality in ‘Long Red B’ Wax Apple

By hand pollination was conducted to evaluated different pollen sources and their affects on fruit set and quality of wax apple. The following parameters were recorded: fruit set, seed set, fruit characteristics. Results showed that fruit set percentage with seed were significantly high in ‘Long Red B’ when ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’ were used as pollen parents. Pollen of ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’ resulted in high fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit length, bigger flesh thickness, better total soluble solids as compared with other pollens. The observation of pollen-growth in vitro revealed that pollen germination at 15% sucrose concentration are required for optimum pollen germination with the high pollen germination were found in ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’. From the result, we concluded that ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’ were proved to be good pollinizers in ‘Long Red B’. Therefore, artificial cross-pollination using ‘Black’, ‘Thyto’ as pollinizers were strongly recommended for ‘Long Red B’ cultivar in wax apple orchard.

Antibacterial and Antifungal Activity Assesment of Nigella Sativa Essential Oils

Antifungal activities of ether and methanolic extracts of volatiles oils of Nigella Sativa seeds were tested against pathogenic bacterias and fungies strains.The volatile oil were found to have significant antifungal and antibacterial activities compare to tetracycline, cefuroxime and ciprofloxacin positive controls.The ether and methanolic esxtracts were compared to each other for antifungal and antibacterial activities and ether extracts showed stonger activity than methanolic one.

A Study on Polymer Coated Colour Pigments for Water-Based Ink

The pigments covered by film-forming polymers have opened a prospect to improve the quality of water-based printing inks. In this study such pigments were prepared by the initiated polymerization of styrene and methacrylate derivative monomers in the aqueous pigment dispersions. The formation of polymer films covering pigment cores depends on the polymerization time and the ratio of pigment to monomers. At the time of 4 hours and the ratio of 1/10 almost pigment particles are coated by the polymer. The formed polymer covers of pigments have the average thickness of 5.95 nm. The size increasing percentage of the coated particles after a week is 4.5 %, about fourteen-fold lower than of the original ones. The obtained results indicate that the coated pigments are improved dispersion stability in water medium along with a guarantee for the optical colour.

Effect of Gibberellic Acid and 2,4- Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid on Fruit Development and Fruit Quality of Wax Apple

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of gibberellic acid and 2,4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid on flower number, fruit growth and fruit quality of wax apple. GA3 and 2,4-D were applied at small bud and petal fall stage. Number of flower, fruit set, fruit drop, fruit crack, fruit growth and fruit quality were recorded. Results indicated that spraying with 10 ppm GA3 had the best results in number of flower. GA3 spray at 30 ppm gave the faster rate of fruit growth than the other treatments. Fruit set, fruit size as well as fruit weight markedly improved by spraying 30 ppm GA3, followed by 10 ppm GA3 compared to untreated control. Moreover, spray GA3 at 30 ppm was the most effective and increased total soluble solids, reduced titratable acidity and fruit drop. On the other hand, it was noticed that with 10 ppm 2,4-D application also enhanced the fruit growth rate, improved physiological and biochemical characters of fruit compared to untreated control. It was concluded that both GA3 and 2,4-D spray have positive effects on fruit development, reduced fruit drop, fruit crack and improved fruit quality of wax apple under field conditions.

Effect of Secondary Curvature on Mixing Characteristic within Constant Circular Tubes

In this study, numerical simulations on laminar flow in sinusoidal wavy shaped tubes were conducted for mean Reynolds number of 250, which is in the range of physiological flow-rate and investigated flow structures, pressure distribution and particle trajectories both in steady and periodic inflow conditions. For extensive comparisons, various wave lengths and amplitudes of sine function for geometry of tube models were employed. The results showed that small amplitude secondary curvature has significant influence on the nature of flow patterns and particle mixing mechanism. This implies that characterizing accurate geometry is essential in accurate predicting of in vivo hemodynamics and may motivate further study on any possibility of reflection of secondary flow on vascular remodeling and pathophysiology.

Effect of S-Girdling on Fruit Growth and Fruit Quality of Wax Apple

The study was performed to evaluate the effect of Sgirdling, fruit thinning plus bagging with 2,4-D application, fruit thinning plus bagging on growth and quality of wax apple fruit. Girdling was applied three week before flowering. The 2,4-D was sprayed at the small bud and petal fall stage. The effect of all treatments on fruit growth was measured weekly. The physical and biochemical quality characteristics of the fruits were recorded. The results showed that no significant effect on number of bud among treatments. S-girdling, 2,4-D application produced the lowest bud drop, fruit drop compared to untreated control. Moreover, S-girdling enhanced faster fruit growth producing the best final fruit length and diameter than the control treatment. It was also observed that Sgirdling greatly increased fruit set, fruit weight as well as total soluble solid, reduced fruit crack, and titratable acidity. In conclusion, S-girdling had a distinctive and significant effect on most of the fruit quality characteristics assessed. Application 2,4-D was also recommended as the industry norm to increase fruit set, and fruit quality in wax apple.

Design of Electromagnetic Drive Module for Micro-gyroscope

For micro-gyroscopes, the angular rate detection components have to oscillate forwards and backwards alternatively. An innovative design of micro-electromagnetic drive module is proposed to make a Π-type disc reciprocally and efficiently rotate within a certain of angular interval. Twelve Electromagnetic poles enclosing the thin disc are designed to provide the magnetic drive power. Isotropic etching technique is employed to fabricate the high-aspect-ratio trench, so that the contact angle of wire against trench can be increased and the potential defect of cavities and pores within the wire can be prevented. On the other hand, a Π-type thin disc is designed to conduct the pitch motion as an angular excitation, in addition to spinning, is exerted on the gyroscope. The efficacy of the micro-magnetic drive module is verified by the commercial software, Ansoft Maxewll. In comparison with the conventional planar windings in micro-scale systems, the magnetic drive force is increased by 150%.

An Innovative Wireless Sensor Network Protocol Implementation using a Hybrid FPGA Technology

Traditional development of wireless sensor network mote is generally based on SoC1 platform. Such method of development faces three main drawbacks: lack of flexibility in terms of development due to low resource and rigid architecture of SoC; low capability of evolution and portability versus performance if specific micro-controller architecture features are used; and the rapid obsolescence of micro-controller comparing to the long lifetime of power plants or any industrial installations. To overcome these drawbacks, we have explored a new approach of development of wireless sensor network mote using a hybrid FPGA technology. The application of such approach is illustrated through the implementation of an innovative wireless sensor network protocol called OCARI.

Coupled Multifield Analysis of Piezoelectrically Actuated Microfluidic Device for Transdermal Drug Delivery Applications

In this paper, design, fabrication and coupled multifield analysis of hollow out-of-plane silicon microneedle array with piezoelectrically actuated microfluidic device for transdermal drug delivery (TDD) applications is presented. The fabrication process of silicon microneedle array is first done by series of combined isotropic and anisotropic etching processes using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching technology. Then coupled multifield analysis of MEMS based piezoelectrically actuated device with integrated 2×2 silicon microneedle array is presented. To predict the stress distribution and model fluid flow in coupled field analysis, finite element (FE) and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis using ANSYS rather than analytical systems has been performed. Static analysis and transient CFD analysis were performed to predict the fluid flow through the microneedle array. The inlet pressure from 10 kPa to 150 kPa was considered for static CFD analysis. In the lumen region fluid flow rate 3.2946 μL/min is obtained at 150 V for 2×2 microneedle array. In the present study the authors have performed simulation of structural, piezoelectric and CFD analysis on three dimensional model of the piezoelectrically actuated mcirofluidic device integrated with 2×2 microneedle array.

A New Model of English-Vietnamese Bilingual Information Retrieval System

In this paper, we propose a new model of English- Vietnamese bilingual Information Retrieval system. Although there are so many CLIR systems had been researched and built, the accuracy of searching results in different languages that the CLIR system supports still need to improve, especially in finding bilingual documents. The problems identified in this paper are the limitation of machine translation-s result and the extra large collections of document to be found. So we try to establish a different model to overcome these problems.

Response of Wax Apple Cultivars by Applied S-Girdling on Fruit Development and Fruit Quality

The study was carried out to evaluated effect of S-gridling on fruit growth and quality of wax apple. The study was laid in Random completed block design with four replicated. Four treatment were applied as follows: S-girdling, fruit thinning plus bagging with 2,4-D sprayed, fruit thinning plus bagging and the control treatment. 2,4D was sprayed at the small bud and petal fall stage. Girdling was applied three week before flowering. The effect of all treatments on fruit growth was measured weekly. Number of flower, fruit set, fruit drop, fruit crack, and fruit quality were recorded. The result indicated that S-girdling, 2,4D application produced the lowest bud drop, fruit drop compared to untreated control. S-girdling improved faster fruit growth producing the best final fruit length and diameter compared to untreated control. S-girdling also markedly enhanced fruit set, fruit weight, and total soluble solid, reduced fruit crack, titratable acidity. On the other hand, it was noticed that with 2,4-D application also increased the fruit growth rate, improved physiological and biochemical characters of fruit than control treatment. It was concluded that S-girdling was recommended as the industry norm to increase fruit set, fruit quality in wax apple. 2,4D application had a distinctive and significant effect on most of the fruit quality characteristics assessed.

Optimal One Bit Time Reversal For UWB Impulse Radio In Multi-User Wireless Communications

In this paper, with the purpose of further reducing the complexity of the system, while keeping its temporal and spatial focusing performance, we investigate the possibility of using optimal one bit time reversal (TR) system for impulse radio ultra wideband multi-user wireless communications. The results show that, by optimally selecting the number of used taps in the pre-filter the optimal one bit TR system can outperform the full one bit TR system. In some cases, the temporal and spatial focusing performance of the optimal one bit TR system appears to be compatible with that of the original TR system. This is a significant result as the overhead cost is much lower than it is required in the original TR system.

Response of Wax Apple Cultivars by Applied GA3 and 2,4-D on Fruit Growth and Fruit Quality

The experiment was performed to evaluate the effect of GA3, 2,4-D on fruit growth and fruit quality of wax apple. The experiment consisted of Red A, Monulla, Atu, Red B cultivars. GA3 and 2,4-D were applied at the small bud and petal fall stage. Physiological, biochemical characters of fruit were recoded. The result showed application of GA3, 2,4-D greatly response in increasing fruit set for all treatment as compared to control. Fruit weight, fruit size were increased at 10 ppm 2,4-D in ‘Red A’, ‘Red B’, however it was also enhancing at 10 ppm GA3 in ‘Monulla’, ‘Atu’. For ‘Monulla’, ‘Atu’ fruit crack reduced by 10 ppm 2,4-D application, but ‘Red B’, ‘Red A’ gave least fruit crack at 10 and 30 ppm GA3, respectively. ‘Monulla’, ‘Atu’ and ‘Red B’ resulted in response well to 10 ppm GA3 on improving TSS, whereas application of 30 ppm GA3 greatly enhancing TSS in ‘Red A’. For ‘Atu’ titratable acidity markedly reduced by 10 ppm GA3 application, but spraying with 30 ppm GA3 greatly response in reducing titratable acidity in ‘Red A’, ‘Red B’ and ‘Monulla’. It was concluded that GA3, 2,4-D can be an effective tool to enhancing fruit set, fruit growth as well as improving fruit quality of wax apple.