Abstract: This paper is to explore the relationship and the level
of stock market integration of the Asian countries, primarily
concentrating on Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea,
with the world from January 1997 to December 2009. The degree of
short-run and long-run stock market integration of those Asian
countries are analyzed in order to determine the significance of series
of regional and world financial crises, liberalization policies and
other financial reforms in influencing the level of stock market
integration. To test for cointegration, this paper applies coefficient
correlation, univariate regression analyses, cointegration tests, and
vector autoregressive models (VAR) by using the four Asian stock
markets main indices and the MSCI World index. The empirical
findings from this work reveal that there is no long-run stock market
integration for the four countries and the world market. However,
there is short run integration.
Abstract: The inability to implement the principles of good
corporate governance (GCG) as demonstrated in the surveys is due to
a number of constraints which can be classified into three; namely internal constraints, external constraints, and constraints coming
from the structure of ownership. The issues in the internal constraints
mentioned are related to the function of several elements of the company. As a business organization, corporation is unable to
achieve its goal to successfully implement GCG principles since it is
not support by its internal elements- functions. Two of several numbers of internal elements of a company are ethical work climate
and leadership style of the top management.
To prove the correlation between internal function of organization
(in this case ethical work climate and transformational leadership)
and the successful implementation of GCG principles, this study
proposes two hypotheses to be empirically tested on thirty surveyed organizations; eleven of which are state-owned companies and
nineteen are private companies. These thirty corporations are listed in
the Jakarta Stock Exchange. All state-owned companies in the
samples are those which have been privatized.
The research showed that internal function of organization give
support to the successful implementation of GCG principle. In this
research we can prove that : (i) ethical work climate has positive
significance of correlation with the successful implementation of
social awareness principle (one of principles on GCG) and, (ii) only
at the state-owned companies, transformational leadership have
positive significance effect to forming the ethical work climate.
Abstract: The evaluation of non-conventional water resources
on seed germination and seedling growth performance at early
growth stages is still in progress especially in forage crops. This
study was designed to test the effect of four types of water qualities
(treated wastewater (TWW), industrial water (IW), grey water (GW),
and Distilled water (DW)) on germination and early seedling vigor of
Leucaena leucocephala. The results showed that the germination
was not significantly affected by the different water qualities. Seed
germination reached maximum after 17, 14, 14, and 21 days under
GW, IW, TWW, and DW treatments, respectively. The highest mean
of shoot length was scored under the GW treatment. And, the highest
mean of root length was scored under DW which was not significant
from GW treatment. The means of shoot fresh was the highest under
the TWW. The means of root fresh weight was not significantly
different from each other's under different treatments. The growth
performance was in progress with no mortality during 21 days of
growth. Thus, the best non-conventional water qualities alternatives
based on the cleanness, nutrients, and toxicity are the GW, TWW and
IW, respectively.
Abstract: Proteins levels produced by bacteria may be increased
in stressful surroundings, such as in the presence of antibiotics. It
appears that many antimicrobial agents or antibiotics, when used at
low concentrations, have in common the ability to activate or repress
gene transcription, which is distinct from their inhibitory effect.
There have been comparatively few studies on the potential of
antibiotics or natural compounds in nature as a specific chemical
signal that can trigger a variety of biological functions. Therefore,
this study was focusing on the effect of essential oils from
Cymbopogon flexuosus and C. nardus in regulating proteins
production by Bacillus subtilis ATCC 21332. The Minimum
Inhibition Concentrations (MICs) of both essential oils on B. subtilis
were determined by using microdilution assay, resulting 0.2% and
1.56% for each C. flexuosus and C. nardus subsequently. The
bacteria were further exposed to each essential oils at concentration
of 0.01XMIC for 2 days. The proteins were then isolated and
analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel
electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Protein profile showed that a band
with approximate size of 250 kD was appeared for the treated
bacteria with essential oils. Thus, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 21332 in
stressful condition with the presence of essential oils at low
concentration could induce the protein production.
Abstract: Environmental awareness and depletion of the
petroleum resources are among vital factors that motivate a number
of researchers to explore the potential of reusing natural fiber as an
alternative composite material in industries such as packaging,
automotive and building constructions. Natural fibers are available in
abundance, low cost, lightweight polymer composite and most
importance its biodegradability features, which often called “ecofriendly"
materials. However, their applications are still limited due
to several factors like moisture absorption, poor wettability and large
scattering in mechanical properties. Among the main challenges on
natural fibers reinforced matrices composite is their inclination to
entangle and form fibers agglomerates during processing due to
fiber-fiber interaction. This tends to prevent better dispersion of the
fibers into the matrix, resulting in poor interfacial adhesion between
the hydrophobic matrix and the hydrophilic reinforced natural fiber.
Therefore, to overcome this challenge, fiber treatment process is one
common alternative that can be use to modify the fiber surface
topology by chemically, physically or mechanically technique.
Nevertheless, this paper attempt to focus on the effect of
mercerization treatment on mechanical properties enhancement of
natural fiber reinforced composite or so-called bio composite. It
specifically discussed on mercerization parameters, and natural fiber
reinforced composite mechanical properties enhancement.
Abstract: Communication is an important factor and a prop in
directing corporate activities efficiently, in ensuring the flow of
knowledge which is necessary for the continuity of the institution, in
creating a common language in the institution, in transferring
corporate culture and ultimately in corporate success. The idea of
transmitting the knowledge among the workers in a healthy manner
has revived knowledge communication. Knowledge communication
can be defined as the act of mutual creation and communication of
intuitions, assessments, experiences and capabilities, as long as
maintained effectively, can provide advantages such as corporate
continuity, access to corporate objectives and making true
administrative decisions. Although the benefits of the knowledge
communication to corporations are known, and the necessary worth
and care is given, some hardships may arise which makes it difficult
or even block it. In this article, difficulties that prevent knowledge
communication will be discussed and solutions will be proposed.
Abstract: The control of commutation of switched reluctance
(SR) motor has nominally depended on a physical position detector.
The physical rotor position sensor limits robustness and increases
size and inertia of the SR drive system. The paper describes a method
to overcome these limitations by using magnetization characteristics
of the motor to indicate rotor and stator teeth overlap status. The
method is using active current probing pulses of same magnitude that
is used to simulate flux linkage in the winding being probed. A
microprocessor is used for processing magnetization data to deduce
rotor-stator teeth overlap status and hence rotor position. However,
the back-of-core saturation and mutual coupling introduces overlap
detection errors, hence that of commutation control. This paper
presents the concept of the detection scheme and the effects of backof
core saturation.
Abstract: The cost of damage to the non-structural systems in
critical facilities like nuclear power plants and hospitals can exceed
80% of the total cost of damage during an earthquake. The failure of
nonstructural components, especially, piping systems led to leakage of
water and subsequent shut-down of hospitals immediately after the
event. Consequently, the evaluation of performance of these types of
structural configurations has become necessary to mitigate the risk and
to achieve reliable designs.
This paper focuses on a methodology to evaluate the static and
dynamic characteristics of complex actual piping system based on
NFPA-13 and SMACNA guidelines. The result of this study revealed
that current piping system subjected to design lateral force and design
spectrum based on UBC-97 was failed in both cases and mode shapes
between piping system and building structure were very different
Abstract: In pattern recognition applications the low level
segmentation and the high level object recognition are generally
considered as two separate steps. The paper presents a method that
bridges the gap between the low and the high level object
recognition. It is based on a Bayesian network representation and
network propagation algorithm. At the low level it uses hierarchical
structure of quadratic spline wavelet image bases. The method is
demonstrated for a simple circuit diagram component identification
problem.
Abstract: We report the results of an lattice Boltzmann
simulation of magnetohydrodynamic damping of sidewall convection
in a rectangular enclosure filled with a porous medium. In particular
we investigate the suppression of convection when a steady magnetic
field is applied in the vertical direction. The left and right vertical
walls of the cavity are kept at constant but different temperatures
while both the top and bottom horizontal walls are insulated. The
effects of the controlling parameters involved in the heat transfer and
hydrodynamic characteristics are studied in detail. The heat and mass
transfer mechanisms and the flow characteristics inside the enclosure
depended strongly on the strength of the magnetic field and Darcy
number. The average Nusselt number decreases with rising values of
the Hartmann number while this increases with increasing values of
the Darcy number.
Abstract: In the project FleGSens, a wireless sensor network
(WSN) for the surveillance of critical areas and properties is currently developed which incorporates mechanisms to ensure information
security. The intended prototype consists of 200 sensor nodes for
monitoring a 500m long land strip. The system is focused on ensuring
integrity and authenticity of generated alarms and availability in the
presence of an attacker who may even compromise a limited number
of sensor nodes. In this paper, two of the main protocols developed
in the project are presented, a tracking protocol to provide secure
detection of trespasses within the monitored area and a protocol for secure detection of node failures. Simulation results of networks
containing 200 and 2000 nodes as well as the results of the first prototype comprising a network of 16 nodes are presented. The focus of the simulations and prototype are functional testing of the protocols
and particularly demonstrating the impact and cost of several attacks.
Abstract: In this paper, a double balanced radio frequency multiplier
is presented which is customized for transmitted reference
ultra wideband (UWB) receivers. The multiplier uses 90nm model
parameters and exploits compensating transistors to provide controllable
gain for a Gilbert core. After performing periodic and quasiperiodic
non linear analyses the RF mixer (multiplier) achieves a
voltage conversion gain of 16 dB and a DSB noise figure of 8.253
dB with very low power consumption. A high degree of LO to RF
isolation (in the range of -94dB), RF to IF isolation (in the range of
-95dB) and LO to IF isolation (in the range of -143dB) is expected
for this design with an input-referred IP3 point of -1.93 dBm and an
input referred 1 dB compression point of -10.67dBm. The amount of
noise at the output is 7.7 nV/√Hz when the LO input is driven by
a 10dBm signal. The mixer manifests better results when compared
with other reported multiplier circuits and its Zero-IF performance
ensures its applicability as TR-UWB multipliers.
Abstract: We try to give a solution of version control for
documents in web service, that-s why we propose a new approach
used specially for the XML documents. The new approach is applied
in a centralized repository, this repository coexist with other
repositories in a decentralized system. To achieve the activities of
this approach in a standard model we use the ECA active rules. We
also show how the Event-Condition-Action rules (ECA rules) have
been incorporated as a mechanism for the version control of
documents. The need to integrate ECA rules is that it provides a clear
declarative semantics and induces an immediate operational
realization in the system without the need for human intervention.
Abstract: Within the framework of a method of the information
theory it is offered statistics and probabilistic model for definition of
cause-and-effect relations in the coupled multicomponent
subsystems. The quantitative parameter which is defined through
conditional and unconditional entropy functions is introduced. The
method is applied to the analysis of the experimental data on
dynamics of change of the chemical elements composition of plants
organs (roots, reproductive organs, leafs and stems). Experiment is
directed on studying of temporal processes of primary soil formation
and their connection with redistribution dynamics of chemical
elements in plant organs. This statistics and probabilistic model
allows also quantitatively and unambiguously to specify the
directions of the information streams on plant organs.
Abstract: Majority of Business Software Systems (BSS)
Development and Enhancement Projects (D&EP) fail to meet criteria
of their effectiveness, what leads to the considerable financial losses.
One of the fundamental reasons for such projects- exceptionally low
success rate are improperly derived estimates for their costs and time.
In the case of BSS D&EP these attributes are determined by the work
effort, meanwhile reliable and objective effort estimation still appears
to be a great challenge to the software engineering. Thus this paper is
aimed at presenting the most important synthetic conclusions coming
from the author-s own studies concerning the main factors of
effective BSS D&EP work effort estimation. Thanks to the rational
investment decisions made on the basis of reliable and objective
criteria it is possible to reduce losses caused not only by abandoned
projects but also by large scale of overrunning the time and costs of
BSS D&EP execution.
Abstract: This study reports an empirical investigation of
fatigue crack initiation and propagation in 2024 T351 aluminium
alloy using constant amplitude loading. In initiation stage, local
strain approach at the notch was used and in stable propagation stage
NASGRO model was applied.
In this investigation, the flat plate of double through crack at hole
is used. Based on experimental results (AFGROW Database), effect
of stress ratio, R, is highlights on fatigue initiation life (FIL) and
fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR). The increasing of dimension of
hole characterizing the notch effect decrease the fatigue life.
Abstract: Based on a theoretical erbium-doped fiber amplifier
(EDFA) model, we have proposed an application of disturbance
observer(DOB) with proportional/integral/differential(PID) controller
to EDFA for minimizing gain-transient time of wavelength
-division-multiplexing (WDM) multi channels in optical amplifier in
channel add/drop networks. We have dramatically reduced the
gain-transient time to less than 30μsec by applying DOB with PID
controller to the control of amplifier gain. The proposed DOB-based
gain control algorithm for EDFA was implemented as a digital control
system using TI's DSP(TMS320C28346) chip and experimental
results of the system verify the excellent performance of the proposed
gain control methodology.
Abstract: The spectral action balance equation is an equation that
used to simulate short-crested wind-generated waves in shallow water
areas such as coastal regions and inland waters. This equation consists
of two spatial dimensions, wave direction, and wave frequency which
can be solved by finite difference method. When this equation with
dominating propagation velocity terms are discretized using central
differences, stability problems occur when the grid spacing is chosen
too coarse. In this paper, we introduce the splitting modified donorcell
scheme for avoiding stability problems and prove that it is
consistent to the modified donor-cell scheme with same accuracy. The
splitting modified donor-cell scheme was adopted to split the wave
spectral action balance equation into four one-dimensional problems,
which for each small problem obtains the independently tridiagonal
linear systems. For each smaller system can be solved by direct or
iterative methods at the same time which is very fast when performed
by a multi-cores computer.
Abstract: Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations
carried out in this paper show that spacer orientation has a major
influence on temperature patterns and on the heat transfer rates. The
local heat flux values significantly vary from high to very low values
at each filament when spacer touches the membrane surface. The
heat flux profile is more uniform when spacer filaments are not in
contact with the membrane thus making this arrangement more
beneficial. The temperature polarization is also found to be less in
this case when compared to the empty channel.
Abstract: In this paper, we present a framework to determine Haar solutions of Bratu-type equations that are widely applicable in fuel ignition of the combustion theory and heat transfer. The method is proposed by applying Haar series for the highest derivatives and integrate the series. Several examples are given to confirm the efficiency and the accuracy of the proposed algorithm. The results show that the proposed way is quite reasonable when compared to exact solution.