Abstract: Managers as the key employees have a very important role in maintaining the workforce performance which is critical to the
construction companies- success in the future. If motivated employees start with motivated managers probably it would seem
plausible if the de-motivated ones start with de-motivated managers. This study aims to analyze the importance of motivated managers to
their successes and construction companies- successes. In this study,
a quantitative method was used and the study area was in Medan, North Sumatera. Questionnaire survey was distributed directly to
construction companies in Medan which are listed in the
Construction Services Development Board. A total of 60 managers responded and the completed questionnaires were analyzed using the
descriptive analysis. The results indicated that the respondents acknowledge the importance of motivation among themselves to the
projects and construction companies- success, implying that it is vital o maintain the motivation and good performance of the workforce.
Abstract: Checkpointing is one of the commonly used techniques to provide fault-tolerance in distributed systems so that the system can operate even if one or more components have failed. However, mobile computing systems are constrained by low bandwidth, mobility, lack of stable storage, frequent disconnections and limited battery life. Hence, checkpointing protocols having lesser number of synchronization messages and fewer checkpoints are preferred in mobile environment. There are two different approaches, although not orthogonal, to checkpoint mobile computing systems namely, time-based and index-based. Our protocol is a fusion of these two approaches, though not first of its kind. In the present exposition, an index-based checkpointing protocol has been developed, which uses time to indirectly coordinate the creation of consistent global checkpoints for mobile computing systems. The proposed algorithm is non-blocking, adaptive, and does not use any control message. Compared to other contemporary checkpointing algorithms, it is computationally more efficient because it takes lesser number of checkpoints and does not need to compute dependency relationships. A brief account of important and relevant works in both the fields, time-based and index-based, has also been included in the presentation.
Abstract: Dill (Anethum graveolens L.) is a popular herb used in
many regions, including Baltic countries. Dill is widely used for
flavoring foods and beverages due to its pleasant spicy aroma. The
aim of this work was to determine the best blanching method for
processing of dill prior to microwave vacuum drying based on
sensory properties, color and volatile compounds in dried product.
Two blanching mediums were used – water and steam, and for part of
samples microwave pretreatment was additionally used. Evaluation of
dried dill volatile aroma compounds, color changes and sensory
attributes was performed. Results showed that blanching significantly
influences the quality of dried dill. After evaluation of volatile aroma
compounds, color and sensory properties of microwave vacuum dried
dill, as the best method for dill pretreatment was established
blanching at 90 °C for 30 s.
Abstract: Security management has changed from the
management of security equipments and useful interface to manager.
It analyzes the whole security conditions of network and preserves the
network services from attacks. Secure router technology has security
functions, such as intrusion detection, IPsec(IP Security) and access
control, are applied to legacy router for secure networking. It controls
an unauthorized router access and detects an illegal network intrusion.
This paper relates to a security engine management of router based on
a security policy, which is the definition of security function against a
network intrusion. This paper explains the security policy and designs
the structure of security engine management framework.
Abstract: In order to encourage the construction of green homes
(GH) in Malaysia, a simple and attainable framework for designing
and building GHs is needed. This can be achieved by aligning GH
principles against Cole-s 'Sustainable Building Criteria' (SBC). This
set of considerations was used to categorize the GH features of three
case studies from Malaysia. Although the categorization of building
features is useful at exploring the presence of sustainability
inclinations of each house, the overall impact of building features in
each of the five SBCs are unknown. Therefore, this paper explored
the possibility of quantifying the impact of building features
categorized in SBC1 – “Buildings will have to adapt to the new
environment and restore damaged ecology while mitigating resource
use" based on existing GH assessment tools and methods and other
literature. This process as reported in this paper could lead to a new
dimension in green home rating and assessment methods.
Abstract: Land with low pH soil spread widely in Indonesia
can be used for soybean (Glycine max) cultivation, however the
production is low. The use of acid tolerant soybean and acidaluminium
tolerant nitrogen-fixing bacteria formula was an
alternative way to increase soybean productivity on acid soils.
Bradyrhizobium japonicum is one of the nitrogen fixing bacteria
which can symbiose with soybean plants through root nodule
formation. Most of the nitrogen source required by soybean plants
can be provided by this symbiosis. This research was conducted to
study the influence of acid-aluminium tolerant B. japonicum strain
BJ 11 formula using peat as carrier on growth of Tanggamus and
Anjasmoro cultivar soybean planted on acid soil fields (pH 5.0-
5.5). The results showed that the inoculant was able to increase the
growth and production of soybean which were grown on fields acid
soil at Sukadana (Lampung) and Tanah Laut (South Kalimantan),
Indonesia.
Abstract: To make use of the limited amounts of water in arid
region, the Iranians developed man-made underground water
channels called qanats (kanats) .In fact, qanats may be considered as
the first long-distance water transfer system. Qanats are an ancient
water transfer system found in arid regions wherein groundwater
from mountainous areas, aquifers and sometimes from rivers, was
brought to points of re-emergence such as an oasis, through one or
more underground tunnels. The tunnels, many of which were
kilometers in length, had designed for slopes to provide gravitational
flow. The tunnels allowed water to drain out to the surface by gravity
to supply water to lower and flatter agricultural land.
Qanats have been an ancient, sustainable system facilitating the
harvesting of water for centuries in Iran, and more than 35 additional
countries of the world such as India, Arabia, Egypt, North Africa,
Spain and even to New world.
There are about 22000 qanats in Iran with 274000 kilometers of
underground conduits all built by manual labor. The amount of
water of the usable qanats of Iran produce is altogether 750 to
1000 cubic meter per second. The longest chain of qanat is
situated in Gonabad region in Khorasan province. It is 70
kilometers long. Qanats are renewable water supply systems that
have sustained agricultural settlement on the Iranian plateau for
millennia. The great advantages of Qanats are no evaporation
during transit, little seepage , no raising of the water- table and no
pollution in the area surrounding the conduits. Qanat systems
have a profound influence on the lives of the water users in Iran, and
conform to Iran-s climate. Qanat allows those living in a desert
environment adjacent to a mountain watershed to create a large oasis
in an otherwise stark environment.
This paper explains qanats structure designs, their history,
objectives causing their creation, construction materials, locations
and their importance in different times, as well as their present
sustainable role in Iran.
Abstract: Cooperative visual modeling is more and more
necessary in our complicated world. A collaborative environment
which supports interactive operation and communication is required
to increase work efficiency. We present a collaborative visual
modeling framework which collaborative platform could be built on.
On this platform, cooperation and communication is available for
designers from different regions. This framework, which is different
from other collaborative frameworks, contains a uniform message
format, a message handling mechanism and other functions such as
message pretreatment and Role-Communication-Token Access
Control (RCTAC). We also show our implementation of this
framework called Orchestra Designer, which support BPLE
workflow modeling cooperatively online.
Abstract: This paper presents the influence of distributed generation (DG) on congestion and locational marginal price (LMP) in an optimal power flow (OPF) based wholesale electricity market. The problem of optimal placement to manage congestion and reduce LMP is formulated for the objective of social welfare maximization. From competitive electricity market standpoint, DGs have great value when they reduce load in particular locations and at particular times when feeders are heavily loaded. The paper lies on the groundwork that solution to optimal mix of generation and transmission resources can be achieved by addressing congestion and corresponding LMP. Obtained as lagrangian multiplier associated with active power flow equation for each node, LMP gives the short run marginal cost (SRMC) of electricity. Specific grid locations are examined to study the influence of DG penetration on congestion and corresponding shadow prices. The influence of DG on congestion and locational marginal prices has been demonstrated in a modified IEEE 14 bus test system.
Abstract: The environmental impacts caused by the current production and consumption models, together with the impact that the current economic crisis, bring necessary changes in the European industry toward new business models based on sustainability issues that could allow them to innovate and improve their competitiveness. This paper analyzes the key environmental issues and the current and future market trends in one of the most important industrial sectors in Spain, the furniture sector. It also proposes new decision support tools -diagnostic kit, roadmap and guidelines- to guide companies to implement sustainability criteria into their organizations, including eco-design strategies and other economical and social strategies in accordance with the sustainability definition, and other available tools such as eco-labels, environmental management systems, etc., and to use and combine them to obtain the results the company expects to help improve its competitiveness.
Abstract: The Implementation of the Union law faces major
challenges today. If for a long period of time, the Community and the
Union have persevered in their legislative vocation, now one can
notice that this large legislative quantity has complicated the task of
knowledge and of application the European standards. Under these
circumstances, it became necessary, in order to give effectiveness to
the European legislation, the development of some operational
application criteria and the generation of some new implementation
tools. The correct application of the European Union legislation by
the national public administrations was considered by the European
Commission as being crucial for further integration and proper
functioning of the internal market. Among the initiatives launched in
the past years to promote the exchange of good administrative
practices in the correct application of European Union legislation,
SOLVIT net has proved to be one of the most effective.
Abstract: Thyroid dysfunction is one of the most frequently
reported complications of chronic blood transfusion therapy in patients with beta-thalassemia major (BTM). However, the occurrence of thyroid dysfunction and its possible association with
iron overload in BTM patients is still under debate. Therefore, this
study aimed to investigate the status of thyroid functions and iron overload in adolescent and young adult patients with BTM in Jordan population. Thirty six BTM patients aged 12-28 years and matched controls were included in this study. All patients have been receiving frequent blood transfusion to maintain pretransfusion hemoglobin
concentration above 10 g dl-1 and deferoxamine at a dose of 45 mg kg-1 day-1 (8 h, 5-7 days/week) by subcutaneous infusion. Blood
samples were drawn from patients and controls. The status of thyroid functions and iron overload was evaluated by measurements of serum
free thyroxine (FT4), triiodothyronine (FT3), thyrotropin (TSH) and
serum ferritin level. A number of some hematological and
biochemical parameters were also measured. It was found that hematocrit, serum ferritin, hemoglobin, FT3 and zinc, copper mean values were significantly higher in the patients than in the controls (P< 0.05). On other hand, leukocyte, FT4 and TSH mean values were
similar to that of the controls. In addition, our data also indicated that
all of the above examined parameters were not significantly affected
by the patient-s age and gender. Deferoxamine approach for removing excess iron from our BTM patient did not normalize the
values of serum ferritin, copper and zinc, suggesting poor compliance
with deferoxamine chelation therapy. Thus, we recommend the use
of a combination of deferoxamine and deferiprone to reduce the risk
of excess of iron in our patients. Furthermore, thyroid dysfunction
appears to be a rare complication, because our patients showed
normal mean levels for serum TSH and FT4. However, high mean
levels of serum ferritin, zinc, copper might be seen as potential risk
factors for initiation and development of thyroid dysfunctions and
other diseases. Therefore, further studies must be carried out at
yearly intervals with large sample number, to detect subclinical
thyroid dysfunction cases.
Abstract: This paper summarizes the results of some experiments for finding the effective features for disambiguation of Turkish verbs. Word sense disambiguation is a current area of investigation in which verbs have the dominant role. Generally verbs have more senses than the other types of words in the average and detecting these features for verbs may lead to some improvements for other word types. In this paper we have considered only the syntactical features that can be obtained from the corpus and tested by using some famous machine learning algorithms.
Abstract: The distribution of macrobenthic polychaetes along
the coastal waters of Penang National Park was surveyed to estimate
the effect of various environmental parameters at three stations
(200m, 600m and 1200m) from the shoreline, during six sampling
months, from June 2010 to April 2011.The use of polychaetes in
descriptive ecology is surveyed in the light of a recent investigation
particularly concerning the soft bottom biota environments.
Polychaetes, often connected in the former to the notion of
opportunistic species able to proliferate after an enhancement in
organic matter, had performed a momentous role particularly with
regard to effected soft-bottom habitats. The objective of this survey
was to investigate different environment stress over soft bottom
polychaete community along Teluk Ketapang and Pantai Acheh
(Penang National Park) over a year period. Variations in the
polychaete community were evaluated using univariate and
multivariate methods. The results of PCA analysis displayed a
positive relation between macrobenthic community structures and
environmental parameters such as sediment particle size and organic
matter in the coastal water. A total of 604 individuals were examined
which was grouped into 23 families. Family Nereidae was the most
abundant (22.68%), followed by Spionidae (22.02%), Hesionidae
(12.58%), Nephtylidae (9.27%) and Orbiniidae (8.61%). It is
noticeable that good results can only be obtained on the basis of good
taxonomic resolution. We proposed that, in monitoring surveys,
operative time could be optimized not only by working at a highertaxonomic
level on the entire macrobenthic data set, but by also
choosing an especially indicative group and working at lower
taxonomic and good level.
Abstract: In the upgrade process of enterprise information
systems, whether new systems will be success and their development
will be efficient, depends on how to deal with and utilize those legacy systems. We propose an evaluation system, which comprehensively
describes the capacity of legacy information systems in five aspects.
Then a practical legacy systems evaluation method is scripted. Base on
the evaluation result, we put forward 4 kinds of migration strategy: eliminated, maintenance, modification, encapsulating. The methods
and strategies play important roles in practice.
Abstract: In recent times, corporations are increasingly under pressure to ensure diversity within their boardrooms and a large number of academic research have reported findings consistent with the view that boards perform better when they include a diverse range of people. Women have unique characteristics needed to positively influence the strategic direction of a corporation and contribute to the growth of firms. In spite of such revelations, evidence suggests that women are under-represented in senior executive and board positions. In many parts of Africa, socio-cultural traditions inhibit women from attaining these roles. Given the emphasis placed on board diversity and inclusion of women as an essential part of good corporate governance, the relationship between gender diversity and board effectiveness deserves both theoretical and empirical investigation. This research is important because it represents the first theoretical review on gender diversity in corporate boards in Nigeria.
Abstract: In this paper, several different types of natural gas liquefaction cycle. First, two processes are a cascade process with two staged compression were designed and simulated. These include Inter-cooler which is consisted to Propane, Ethylene and Methane cycle, and also, liquid-gas heat exchanger is applied to between of methane and ethylene cycles (process2) and between of ethylene and propane (process2). Also, these cycles are compared with two staged cascade process using only a Inter-cooler (process1). The COP of process2 and process3 showed about 13.99% and 6.95% higher than process1, respectively. Also, the yield efficiency of LNG improved comparing with process1 by 13.99% lower specific power. Additionally, C3MR process are simulated and compared with Process 2.
Abstract: Artifact is one of the most important factors in
degrading the CT image quality and plays an important role in
diagnostic accuracy. In this paper, some artifacts typically appear in
Spiral CT are introduced. The different factors such as patient,
equipment and interpolation algorithm which cause the artifacts are
discussed and new developments and image processing algorithms to
prevent or reduce them are presented.
Abstract: Vinegar or sour wine is a product of alcoholic and
subsequent acetous fermentation of sugary precursors derived from
several fruits or starchy substrates. This delicious food additive and
supplement contains not less than 4 grams of acetic acid in 100 cubic
centimeters at 20°C. Among the large number of bacteria that are
able to produce acetic acid, only few genera are used in vinegar
industry most significant of which are Acetobacter and
Gluconobacter. In this research we isolated and identified an
Acetobacter strain from Iranian apricot, a very delicious and sensitive
summer fruit to decay, we gathered from fruit's stores in Isfahan,
Iran. The main culture media we used were Carr, GYC, Frateur and
an industrial medium for vinegar production. We isolated this strain
using a novel miniature fermentor we made at Pars Yeema
Biotechnologists Co., Isfahan Science and Technology Town (ISTT),
Isfahan, Iran. The microscopic examinations of isolated strain from
Iranian apricot showed gram negative rods to cocobacilli. Their
catalase reaction was positive and oxidase reaction was negative and
could ferment ethanol to acetic acid. Also it showed an acceptable
growth in 5%, 7% and 9% ethanol concentrations at 30°C using
modified Carr media after 24, 48 and 96 hours incubation
respectively. According to its tolerance against high concentrations of
ethanol after four days incubation and its high acetic acid production,
8.53%, after 144 hours, this strain could be considered as a suitable
industrial strain for a production of a new type of vinegar, apricot
vinegar, with a new and delicious taste. In conclusion this is the first
report of isolation and identification of an Acetobacter strain from
Iranian apricot with a very good tolerance against high ethanol
concentrations as well as high acetic acid productivity in an
acceptable incubation period of time industrially. This strain could be
used in vinegar industry to convert apricot spoilage to a beneficiary
product and mentioned characteristics have made it as an amenable
strain in food and agricultural biotechnology.
Abstract: Continuous measurements and multivariate methods are applied in researching the effects of energy consumption on indoor air quality (IAQ) in a Finnish one-family house. Measured data used in this study was collected continuously in a house in Kuopio, Eastern Finland, during fourteen months long period. Consumption parameters measured were the consumptions of district heat, electricity and water. Indoor parameters gathered were temperature, relative humidity (RH), the concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) and differential air pressure. In this study, self-organizing map (SOM) and Sammon's mapping were applied to resolve the effects of energy consumption on indoor air quality. Namely, the SOM was qualified as a suitable method having a property to summarize the multivariable dependencies into easily observable two-dimensional map. Accompanying that, the Sammon's mapping method was used to cluster pre-processed data to find similarities of the variables, expressing distances and groups in the data. The methods used were able to distinguish 7 different clusters characterizing indoor air quality and energy efficiency in the study house. The results indicate, that the cost implications in euros of heating and electricity energy vary according to the differential pressure, concentration of carbon dioxide, temperature and season.