Abstract: One of the approaches to democratization is the fostering of civil society organizations. In Africa, civil society organizations did not fully play their role in the continent-s democratization process due to many factors including the repressive regulations imposed on them by governing parties. In Ethiopia, for the first time in the country-s political history, the civil society played a very active role in the 2005 multi-party election. The involvement of the civil society in this election has far-reaching consequences. One of the objectives of this paper is to assess the consequences of such involvement for both the civil society and the political society in the country. The paper also examines the peculiarities of civil society formation in Africa in general, and in Ethiopia in particular by assessing both the “traditional" and “modern" civil society organizations.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate the
distribution patterns of Cd, Zn and Hg in groundwater by geospatial
interpolation. The study was performed at Rayong province in the
eastern part of Thailand, with high agricultural and industrial
activities. Groundwater samples were collected twice a year from 31
tubewells around this area. Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic
Emission Spectrometer (ICP-AES) was used to measure the
concentrations of Cd, Zn, and Hg in groundwater samples. The
results demonstrated that concentrations of Cd, Zn and Hg range
from 0.000-0.297 mg/L (x = 0.021±0.033 mg/L), 0.022-33.236 mg/L
(x = 4.214±4.766 mg/L) and 0.000-0.289 mg/L (x = 0.023±0.034
mg/L), respectively. Most of the heavy metals concentrations were
exceeded groundwater quality standards as specified in the Ministry
of Natural Resources and Environment, Thailand. The trend
distribution of heavy metals were high concentrations at the
southeastern part of the area that especially vulnerable to heavy
metals and other contaminants.
Abstract: Truly successful bloggers, navigating the public to know them, often use their blogs as a way to better communicate with customers. Integrating with marketing tools, storytelling can be regarded as one of the most effective ways that businesses can follow to gain competitive edge. Even though the literature on marketing contains much discussion of traditional vehicles, the issue of business blogs applying storytelling has, as yet, received little attention. In the exploration stage, this paper identifies four storytelling disciplines and then presents a road map to business blogging. This paper also provides a two-path framework for blog storytelling and initiates an issue for further study.
Abstract: The effects of upflow liquid velocity (ULV) on
performance of expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) system were
investigated. The EGSB reactor, made from galvanized steel pipe
0.10 m diameter and 5 m height, had been used to treat piggery
wastewater, after passing through acidification tank. It consisted of
39.3 l working volume in reaction zone and 122 l working volume in
sedimentation zone, at the upper part. The reactor was seeded with
anaerobically digested sludge and operated at the ULVs of 4, 8, 12
and 16 m/h, consecutively, corresponding to organic loading rates of
9.6 – 13.0 kg COD/ (m3.d). The average COD concentrations in the
influent were 9,601 – 13,050 mg/l. The COD removal was not
significantly different, i.e. 93.0% - 94.0%, except at ULV 12 m/h where
SS in the influent was exceptionally high so that VSS washout had
occurred, leading to low COD removal. The FCOD and VFA
concentrations in the effluent of all experiments were not much
different, indicating the same range of treatment performance. The
biogas production decreased at higher ULV and ULV of 4 m/h is
suggested as design criterion for EGSB system.
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic approach for
designing Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) based
supplementary damping controllers for damping low frequency
oscillations in a single-machine infinite-bus power system. The
design problem of the proposed controller is formulated as an
optimization problem and RCGA is employed to search for optimal
controller parameters. By minimizing the time-domain based
objective function, in which the deviation in the oscillatory rotor
speed of the generator is involved; stability performance of the
system is improved. Simulation results are presented and compared
with a conventional method of tuning the damping controller
parameters to show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed
design approach.
Abstract: Understanding driving behavior is a complicated
researching topic. To describe accurate speed, flow and density of a
multiclass users traffic flow, an adequate model is needed. In this
study, we propose the concept of standard passenger car equivalent
(SPCE) instead of passenger car equivalent (PCE) to estimate the
influence of heavy vehicles and slow cars. Traffic cellular automata
model is employed to calibrate and validate the results. According to
the simulated results, the SPCE transformations present good
accuracy.
Abstract: This paper proposes a method to improve the shortest
path problem on a NURBS (Non-uniform rational basis spline) surfaces.
It comes from an application of the theory in classic differential
geometry on surfaces and can improve the distance problem not only
on surfaces but in the Euclidean 3-space R3 .
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to identify the underlying
causes of late payment from the contractors- perspective in the
Malaysian construction industry and to recommend effective solutions
to mitigate late payment problems. The target groups of respondents in
this study were Grades G3, G5, G6 and G7 contractors with
specialization in building works and civil engineering works registered
with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) in
Malaysia. Results from this study were analyzed with Statistical
Package for the Social Science (SPSS 15.0). From this study, it was
found that respondents have highest ranked five significant variables
out of a total of forty-one variables which can caused late payment
problems: a) cash flow problems due to deficiencies in client-s
management capacity (mean = 3.96); b) client-s ineffective utilization
of funds (mean = 3.88); c) scarcity of capital to finance the project
(mean = 3.81); d) clients failure to generate income from bank when
sales of houses do not hit the targeted amount (mean=3.72); and e)
poor cash flow because of lack of proper process implementation,
delay in releasing of the retention monies to contractor and delay in the
evaluation and certification of interim and final payment (mean =
3.66).
Abstract: This paper considers a robust recovery of sparse frequencies
from partial phase-only measurements. With the proposed
method, sparse frequencies can be reconstructed, which makes full
use of the sparse distribution in the Fourier representation of the
complex-valued time signal. Simulation experiments illustrate the
proposed method-s advantages over conventional methods in both
noiseless and additive white Gaussian noise cases.
Abstract: The aim of the article is extending and developing
econometrics and network structure based methods which are able to
distinguish price manipulation in Tehran stock exchange. The
principal goal of the present study is to offer model for
approximating price manipulation in Tehran stock exchange. In order
to do so by applying separation method a sample consisting of 397
companies accepted at Tehran stock exchange were selected and
information related to their price and volume of trades during years
2001 until 2009 were collected and then through performing runs
test, skewness test and duration correlative test the selected
companies were divided into 2 sets of manipulated and non
manipulated companies. In the next stage by investigating
cumulative return process and volume of trades in manipulated
companies, the date of starting price manipulation was specified and
in this way the logit model, artificial neural network, multiple
discriminant analysis and by using information related to size of
company, clarity of information, ratio of P/E and liquidity of stock
one year prior price manipulation; a model for forecasting price
manipulation of stocks of companies present in Tehran stock
exchange were designed. At the end the power of forecasting models
were studied by using data of test set. Whereas the power of
forecasting logit model for test set was 92.1%, for artificial neural
network was 94.1% and multi audit analysis model was 90.2%;
therefore all of the 3 aforesaid models has high power to forecast
price manipulation and there is no considerable difference among
forecasting power of these 3 models.
Abstract: Clustering is one of an interesting data mining topics
that can be applied in many fields. Recently, the problem of cluster
analysis is formulated as a problem of nonsmooth, nonconvex optimization,
and an algorithm for solving the cluster analysis problem
based on nonsmooth optimization techniques is developed. This
optimization problem has a number of characteristics that make it
challenging: it has many local minimum, the optimization variables
can be either continuous or categorical, and there are no exact
analytical derivatives. In this study we show how to apply a particular
class of optimization methods known as pattern search methods
to address these challenges. These methods do not explicitly use
derivatives, an important feature that has not been addressed in
previous studies. Results of numerical experiments are presented
which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Abstract: The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in schools and higher education is proliferating. Due to its interactive and animated features, it is regarded as a promising technology to increase students- spatial ability. Spatial ability is assumed to have a prominent role in science and engineering domains. However, research concerning individual differences such as spatial ability in the context of VR is still at its infancy. Moreover, empirical studies that focus on the features of VR to improve spatial ability are to date rare. Thus, this paper explores the possible educational values of VR in relation to spatial ability to call for more research concerning spatial ability in the context of VR based on studies in computerbased learning. It is believed that the incorporation of state-of-the-art VR technology for educational purposes should be justified by the enhanced benefits for the target learners.
Abstract: In this paper, we focus on the use of knowledge bases
in two different application areas – control of systems with unknown
or strongly nonlinear models (i.e. hardly controllable by the classical
methods), and robot motion planning in eight directions. The first
one deals with fuzzy logic and the paper presents approaches for
setting and aggregating the rules of a knowledge base. Te second one
is concentrated on a case-based reasoning strategy for finding the
path in a planar scene with obstacles.
Abstract: Recently, content delivery services have grown rapidly
over the Internet. For ASPs (Application Service Provider) providing
content delivery services, P2P architecture is beneficial to reduce
outgoing traffic from content servers. On the other hand, ISPs are
suffering from the increase in P2P traffic. The P2P traffic is
unnecessarily redundant because the same content or the same
fractions of content are transferred through an inter-ISP link several
times. Subscriber ISPs have to pay a transit fee to upstream ISPs based
on the volume of inter-ISP traffic. In order to solve such problems,
several works have been done for the purpose of P2P traffic reduction.
However, these existing works cannot control the traffic volume of a
certain link. In order to solve such an ISP-s operational requirement,
we propose a method to control traffic volume for a link within a
preconfigured upper bound value. We evaluated that the proposed
method works well by conducting a simulation on a 1,000-user scale.
We confirm that the traffic volume could be controlled at a lower level
than the upper bound for all evaluated conditions. Moreover, our
method could control the traffic volume at 98.95% link usage against
the target value.
Abstract: Potassium monopersulfate has been decomposed in
aqueous solution in the presence of Co(II). The effect of the main
operating variables has been assessed. Minimum variations in pH
exert a considerable influence on the process kinetics. Thus, when no
pH adjustment is considered, the actual effect of variables like initial
monopersulfate and/or catalyst concentration may be hindered. As
expected, temperature enhances the monopersulfate decomposition
rate by following the Arrhenius law. The activation energy in the
proximity of 85 kJ/mol has been obtained. Amongst the different
solids tested in the monopersulfate decomposition, only the
perovskite LaTi0.15Cu0.85O3 has shown a significant catalytic activity.
Abstract: The machining of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics
has come to constitute a significant challenge for many fields of
industry. The resulting surface finish of machined parts is of primary
concern for several reasons, including contact quality and impact on
the assembly. Therefore, the characterization and prediction of
roughness based on machining parameters are crucial for costeffective
operations. In this study, a PCD tool comprised of two
straight flutes was used to trim 32-ply carbon fiber laminates in a bid
to analyze the effects of the feed rate and the cutting speed on the
surface roughness. The results show that while the speed has but a
slight impact on the surface finish, the feed rate for its part affects it
strongly. A detailed study was also conducted on the effect of fiber
orientation on surface roughness, for quasi-isotropic laminates used
in aerospace. The resulting roughness profiles for the four-ply
orientation lay-up were compared, and it was found that fiber angle is
a critical parameter relating to surface roughness. One of the four
orientations studied led to very poor surface finishes, and
characteristic roughness profiles were identified and found to only
relate to the ply orientations of multilayer carbon fiber laminates.
Abstract: The pyrolysis characteristics and kinetics of seven marine biomass, which are fixed Enteromorpha clathrata, floating Enteromorpha clathrata, Ulva lactuca L., Zosterae Marinae L., Thallus Laminariae, Asparagus schoberioides kunth and Undaria pinnatifida (Harv.), were studied with thermogravimetric analysis method. Simultaneously, cornstalk, which is a grass biomass, and sawdust, which is a lignocellulosic biomass, were references. The basic pyrolysis characteristics were studied by using TG- DTG-DTA curves. The results showed that there were three stages (dehydration, dramatic weight loss and slow weight loss) during the whole pyrolysis process of samples. The Tmax of marine biomass was significantly lower than two kinds of terrestrial biomass. Zosterae Marinae L. had a relatively high stability of pyrolysis, but floating Enteromorpha clathrata had lowest stability of pyrolysis and a good combustion characteristics. The corresponding activation energy E and frequency factor A were obtained by Coats-Redfern method. It was found that the pyrolysis reaction mechanism functions of three kinds of biomass are different.
Abstract: Gurus of the Classical Management School (like
Taylor, Fayol and Ford) had an opinion that work must be delegated
to the individual and the individual has to be instructed, his work
assessed and paid based on individual performance. The theories of
the Human Relations School have changed this mentality regarding
the concept of groups. They came to the conclusion that the influence
of groups greatly affects the behaviour and performance of its
members.
Group theories today are characterized by problem-solving teams
and self-managing groups authorized to make decisions and execute;
professional communities also play an important role during the
operation of knowledge management systems.
In this theoretical research we try to find answers to a question:
what kind of characteristics (professional competencies, personal
features, etc.) a successful team needs to manage a change to operate
a knowledge management system step by step.
Abstract: This paper presents a new type of mechanism and trajectory planning strategy for bipedal walking robot. The newly designed mechanism is able to improve the performance of bipedal walking robot in terms of energy efficiency and weight reduction by utilizing minimum number of actuators. The usage of parallelogram mechanism eliminates the needs of having an extra actuator at the knee joint. This mechanism works together with the joint space trajectory planning in order to realize straight legged walking which cannot be achieved by conventional inverse kinematics trajectory planning due to the singularity. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is confirmed by computer simulation results.
Abstract: Capacity and efficiency of any refrigerating system
diminish rapidly as the difference between the evaporating and
condensing temperature is increased by reduction in the evaporator
temperature. The single stage vapour compression refrigeration
system is limited to an evaporator temperature of -40 0C. Below
temperature of -40 0C the either cascade refrigeration system or multi
stage vapour compression system is employed. Present work
describes thermal design of main three heat exchangers namely
condenser (HTS), cascade condenser and evaporator (LTS) of
R404A-R508B and R410A-R23 cascade refrigeration system. Heat
transfer area of condenser (HTS), cascade condenser and evaporator
(LTS) for both systems have been compared and the effect of
condensing and evaporating temperature on heat-transfer area for
both systems have been studied under same operating condition. The
results shows that the required heat-transfer area of condenser and
cascade condenser for R410A-R23 cascade system is lower than the
R404A-R508B cascade system but heat transfer area of evaporator is
similar for both the system. The heat transfer area of condenser and
cascade condenser decreases with increase in condensing temperature
(Tc), whereas the heat transfer area of cascade condenser and
evaporator increases with increase in evaporating temperature (Te).