Abstract: The objective of this research is to study the people’s level of participation in activities of the community, their satisfaction towards the community, the attachment they have to the community, factors that influence the attachment, as well as the characteristics of the relationships of military families’ of the Royal Guards community of Dusit District. The method used was non-probability sampling by quota sampling according to people’s age. The determined age group was 18 years or older.
One set of a sample group was done per family. The questionnaires were conducted by 287 people. Snowball sampling was also used by interviewing people of the community, starting from the Royal Guards Community’s leader, then by 20 of the community’s well-respected persons. The data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics, such as arithmetic mean and standard deviation, as well as by inferential statistics, such as Independent - Samples T test (T-test), One-Way ANOVA (F-test), Chi-Square. Descriptive analysis according to the structure of the interview content was also used. The results of the research is that the participation of the population in the Royal Guards Community in various activities is at a medium level, with the average participation level during Mother’s and Father’s Days. The people’s general level of satisfaction towards the premises of the Royal Guards Community is at the highest level.
The people were most satisfied with the transportation within the community and in contacting with people from outside the premises. The access to the community is convenient and there are various entrances. The attachment of the people to the Royal Guards Community in general and by each category is at a high level. The feeling that the community is their home rated the highest average. Factors that influence the attachment of the people of the Royal Guards Community are age, status, profession, income, length of stay in the community, membership of social groups, having neighbors they feel close and familiar with, and as well as the benefits they receive from the community. In addition, it was found that people that participate in activities have a high level of positive relationship towards the attachment of the people to the Royal Guards Community. The satisfaction of the community has a very high level of positive relationship with the attachment of the people to the Royal Guards Community.
The characteristics of the attachment of military families’ is that they live in big houses that everyone has to protect and care for, starting from the leader of the family as well as all members. Therefore, they all love the community they live in. The characteristics that show the participation of activities within the community and the high level of satisfaction towards the premises of the community will enable the people to be more attached to the community. The people feel that everyone is close neighbors within the community, as if they are one big family.
Abstract: In real-field applications, the correct determination of voice segments highly improves the overall system accuracy and minimises the total computation time. This paper presents reliable measures of speech compression by detcting the end points of the speech signals prior to compressing them. The two different compession schemes used are the Global threshold and the Level- Dependent threshold techniques. The performance of the proposed method is tested wirh the Signal to Noise Ratios, Peak Signal to Noise Ratios and Normalized Root Mean Square Error parameter measures.
Abstract: CIM is the standard formalism for modeling management
information developed by the Distributed Management Task
Force (DMTF) in the context of its WBEM proposal, designed to
provide a conceptual view of the managed environment. In this
paper, we propose the inclusion of formal knowledge representation
techniques, based on Description Logics (DLs) and the Web Ontology
Language (OWL), in CIM-based conceptual modeling, and then we
examine the benefits of such a decision. The proposal is specified as a
CIM metamodel level mapping to a highly expressive subset of DLs
capable of capturing all the semantics of the models. The paper shows
how the proposed mapping can be used for automatic reasoning
about the management information models, as a design aid, by means
of new-generation CASE tools, thanks to the use of state-of-the-art
automatic reasoning systems that support the proposed logic and use
algorithms that are sound and complete with respect to the semantics.
Such a CASE tool framework has been developed by the authors and
its architecture is also introduced. The proposed formalization is not
only useful at design time, but also at run time through the use of
rational autonomous agents, in response to a need recently recognized
by the DMTF.
Abstract: Protein and Esterase electrophoresis were used to
genetically identify two Saudi tick species. Engorged females of the
camel tick Hyalomma dromedarii (Koch) (Acari: Ixodidae) and the
cattle tick Boophilus annulatus (Say) (Acari: Ixodidae) ticks
collected from infested camels and cattle in the animals resting
house at Hail region in KSA were used. The results showed that
there are a variation in both of protein and esterase activity levels and
a high polymorphism within and between the genera and species of
Hyalomma and Boophilus . In conclusion, the protein and esterase
electrophoretic analysis used in the present study could successfully
distinguish among tick species, commonly found in Saudi Arabia.
Abstract: Pabdeh shaly formation (Paleocene-Oligomiocene)
has been expanded in Fars, Khozestan and Lorestan. The lower
lithostratigraphic limit of this formation in Shiraz area is
distinguished from Gurpi formation by purple shale. Its upper limit is
gradational and conformable with Asmari formation. In order to
study sequence stratigraphy and microfacies of Pabdeh formation in
Shiraz area, one stratigraphic section have been chosen (Zanjiran
section). Petrographic studies resulted in the identification of 9
pelagic and calciturbidite microfacies. The calciturbidite microfacies
have been formed when the sea level was high, the rate of carbonate
deposition was high and it slumped into the deep marine. Sequence
stratigraphy studies show that Pabdeh formation in the studied zone
consists of two depositional sequences (DS) that the lower contact is
erosional (purple shale - type one, SBI or type two, SB2) and the
upper contact is correlative conformity (type two, SB2).
Abstract: According to the governmental data, the cases of oral
cancers doubled in the past 10 years. This had brought heavy burden to
the patients- family, the society, and the country. The literature
generally evidenced the betel nut contained particular chemicals that
can cause oral cancers. Research in Taiwan had also proofed that 90
percent of oral cancer patients had experience of betel nut chewing. It
is thus important to educate the betel-nut hobbyists to cease such a
hazardous behavior. A program was then organized to establish
several training classes across different areas specific to help ceasing
this particular habit. Purpose of this research was to explore the
attitude and intention toward ceasing betel-nut chewing before and
after attending the training classes. 50 samples were taken from a
ceasing class with average age at 45 years old with high school
education (54%). 74% of the respondents were male in service or
agricultural industries. Experiences in betel-nut chewing were 5-20
years with a dose of 1-20 pieces per day. The data had shown that 60%
of the respondents had cigarette smoking habit, and 30% of the
respondents were concurrently alcoholic dependent. Research results
indicated that the attitude, intentions, and the knowledge on oral
cancers were found significant different between before and after
attendance. This provided evidence for the effectiveness of the training
class. However, we do not perform follow-up after the class.
Noteworthy is the test result also shown that participants who were
drivers as occupation, or habitual smokers or alcoholic dependents
would be less willing to quit the betel-nut chewing. The test results
indicated as well that the educational levels and the type of occupation
may have significant impacts on an individual-s decisions in taking
betel-nut or substance abuse.
Abstract: The objective of this research is to develop the
performance indicators (PIs) in operational level for the Pre-hospital Emergency Medical Service (EMS) system employing in Thailand. This research started with ascertaining the current pre-hospital care
system. The team analyzed the strategies of Narerthorn, a government unit under the ministry of public health, and the existing PIs of the pre-hospital care. Afterwards, the current National Strategic Plan of EMS development (2008-2012) of the Emergency
Medical Institute of Thailand (EMIT) was considered using strategic
analysis to developed Strategy Map (SM) and identified the Success
Factors (SFs). The analysis results from strategy map and SFs were used to develop the Performance Indicators (PIs). To verify the set of
PIs, the team has interviewed with the relevant practitioners for the possibilities to implement the PIs. To this paper, it was to ascertain
that all the developed PIs support the objectives of the strategic plan. Nevertheless, the results showed that the operational level PIs suited
only with the first dimension of National Strategic Plan
(infrastructure and information technology development). Besides,
the SF was the infrastructure development (to contribute the EMS system to people throughout with standard and efficiency both in normally and disaster conditions). Finally, twenty-nine indicators
were developed from the analysis results of SM and SFs.
Abstract: This study performs a comparative analysis of the 21 Greek Universities in terms of their public funding, awarded for covering their operating expenditure. First it introduces a DEA/MCDM model that allocates the fund into four expenditure factors in the most favorable way for each university. Then, it presents a common, consensual assessment model to reallocate the amounts, remaining in the same level of total public budget. From the analysis it derives that a number of universities cannot justify the public funding in terms of their size and operational workload. For them, the sufficient reduction of their public funding amount is estimated as a future target. Due to the lack of precise data for a number of expenditure criteria, the analysis is based on a mixed crisp-ordinal data set.
Abstract: A conventional binding method for low power in a
high-level synthesis mainly focuses on finding an optimal binding for
an assumed input data, and obtains only one binding table. In this
paper, we show that a binding method which uses multiple binding
tables gets better solution compared with the conventional methods
which use a single binding table, and propose a dynamic bus binding
scheme for low power using multiple binding tables. The proposed
method finds multiple binding tables for the proper partitions of an
input data, and switches binding tables dynamically to produce the
minimum total switching activity. Experimental result shows that the
proposed method obtains a binding solution having 12.6-28.9%
smaller total switching activity compared with the conventional
methods.
Abstract: Software Development Risks Identification (SDRI),
using Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), is a proposed technique to identify
not only the risk factors but also the causes of the appearance of the
risk factors in software development life cycle. The method is based
on analyzing the probable causes of software development failures
before they become problems and adversely affect a project. It uses
Fault tree analysis (FTA) to determine the probability of a particular
system level failures that are defined by A Taxonomy for Sources of
Software Development Risk to deduce failure analysis in which an
undesired state of a system by using Boolean logic to combine a
series of lower-level events. The major purpose of this paper is to use
the probabilistic calculations of Fault Tree Analysis approach to
determine all possible causes that lead to software development risk
occurrence
Abstract: Abstract–Indoor air (VOCs) samples were collected
simultaneously from variety of indoors (e.g. living rooms, baby-s
rooms) and outdoor environments which were voluntarily selected
from the houses in which pregnant residents live throughout Ankara.
This is the first comprehensive study done in Turkey starting from
prenatal period and continued till the babies had one year old. VOCs
levels were measured over 76 homes. Air samples were collected in
Tenax TA sorbent filled tubes with active sampling method and
analyzed with Thermal Desorber and Gas Chromatography/Mass
spectrometry (TD-GC/MS). At the first sampling period in the baby-s
rooms maximum concentration of toluene was measured about
240.77μg.m-3 and in the living rooms maximum concentration of
naphthalene was 180.24μg.m-3. At the second sampling period in the
baby-s rooms maximum concentration of toluene was measured
about 144.97μg.m-3 and in the living rooms maximum concentration
of naphthalene was 247.89μg.m-3. Concentration of TVOCs in the
first period was generally higher than the second period.
Abstract: The aim of the present study is to analyze the generation of osteoporotic vertebral bone induced by lack of calcium during growth period and analyze its effects for disc degeneration, based on biomechanical and histomorphometrical study. Mechanical and histomorphological characteristics of lumbar vertebral bones and discs of rats with calcium free diet (CFD) were detected and tracked by using high resolution in-vivo micro-computed tomography (in-vivo micro-CT), finite element (FE) and histological analysis. Twenty female Sprague-Dawley rats (6 weeks old, approximate weight 170g) were randomly divided into two groups (CFD group: 10, NOR group: 10). The CFD group was maintained on a refmed calcium-controlled semisynthetic diet without added calcium, to induce osteoporosis. All lumbar (L 1-L6) were scanned by using in vivo micro-CT with 35i.un resolution at 0, 4, 8 weeks to track the effects of CFD on the generation of osteoporosis. The fmdings of the present study indicated that calcium insufficiency was the main factor in the generation of osteoporosis and it induced lumbar vertebral disc degeneration. This study is a valuable experiment to firstly evaluate osteoporotic vertebral bone and disc degeneration induced by lack of calcium during growth period from a biomechanical and histomorphometrical point of view.
Abstract: research goal was to determine the expression levels cDNA of brain embrio at gestation days 10 (GD-10). The Electroforesis DNA results showed that GAPDH, Fibronectin1, Ncam1, Tenascin, Vimentin, Neurofilament heavy, Neurofilament medium and Neurofilament low were 447 bp, 462 bp, 293 bp. 416 bp, 327 bp, 301 bp, 398 bp and 289 bp. Result of real-time RT-PCR on brain Embryo at gestation days 10 showed that the expression of copy gen Fibronectin 36 copies, Ncam 21,708 copies; Tenascin 24,505 copies; Vimentin 538,554 copies; Neurofilament heavy 2,419 copies; Neurofilament medium 92,928 copies; Neurofilament low 125,809 copies. Vimentin expressed gene copies is very high compared with other gene copies. This condition are caused by Vimentin, that contribute to proliferate of brain development. The vimentin role to cell proliferation of brain.
Abstract: Green Forestation Plan (GFP) was expected to promote the reforestation of plains totaling 60,000 has within the first 8 years. Annual subsidies were budgeted at $120,000 per ha, and $2.4 million for 20 years. In this research we have surveyed landlords- opinions toward the GFP in an attempt to understand landlords- incentives for participating in the GFP and their levels of concern and agreement toward the policy design. Based our analysis of landlords- opinions on the policy design, we expect to derive appropriate complementary measures, establish effective promotional schemes, and raise the policy effectiveness of the GFP. According to the results of this research, there was still a relatively high proportion of population who were not aware of GFP; more than 50% of landlords were neutral or willing to participate given high reforestation subsidies; approximately 30% of landlords were unwilling to participate. In terms of the designs of GFP, more than 50% of respondents were concerned and agreed with the policy design. In terms of the period of this policy, 52.7% of respondents indicated that it should be shortened to 15 years or lower. In terms of the amount of the subsidy, 41.7% of respondents showed that it should be raised to approximately $250,000/ha. In terms of land area restrictions, 88.0% of respondents believed that the minimum should be lowered to 0.4 ha. More than 70% of respondents owned less than 0.4 has of land, and since they do not own enough land to be eligible for the program, more than 80% of landlords wished to lower the minimum requirements of land area. In addition, 59.3% of respondents were reluctant to participate in reforestation because their lands were too small to be eligible; 15.0% of respondents were reluctant because the duration was too long. Responses to the question about “how the policy can be adjusted to provide incentives for landlords- participation" revealed that almost 40% of respondents desired higher subsidies. Some policy suggestions are provided as follows: (1) many landlords are still unaware of the GFP so the government should enhance the promotion of the policy; (2) many landlords are unwilling to participate in GFP mainly because they do not own enough lands to be eligible, hence the government should consider adjusting its requirements for minimum agricultural land area; (3) for subsequent promotions on GFP, the government may consider targeting on the landlords with high income and high level of education; (4) because the subsidy of this policy alone provides limited help to landlords, the government should help the landlords to explore other revenue possibilities from afforestation in addition to the existing subsidies and raise the participation incentives.
Abstract: The effects of chitosan, a biodegradable polymer,
were studied in Grammatophyllum speciosum protocorm-like bodies
(PLBs) in vitro culture. The chitosan concentration of 0, 5, 10, 15,
20, 25, 50 or 100 mg/l were supplemented in half-strength Murashige
and Skoog (1/2 MS) liquid or on agar media containing 2% (w/v)
sucrose. The results showed that liquid medium supplemented with
15 mg/l chitosan showed the highest relative growth rate (7-fold
increase) of PLBs. On 1/2 MS agar medium supplemented with 25
mg/l chitosan gave the highest relative growth rate (4-fold increase).
The relative growth rate of G. speciosum PLBs on agar medium was
significantly lower than that in liquid medium. Moreover, chitosan,
supplemented to agar medium promoted shoot formation but not
rooting. However, supplementation at too high a level, such as 100
mg/l can inhibit growth and kill PLBs.
Abstract: Transportation is one of the main activities related to
creating value for the tourists. Transport management in tourism
mainly focuses on managing transfer points and vehicle capacity.
However, transport service level must also be ensured as it now
relates to tourist-s experiences. This paper emphasizes on the
responsiveness as one of key service performance measures. An
evaluation framework is developed and illustarted by using the case
of small bus service in Pattaya city. It can be seen as a great potential
for the city to utilize the small bus transportation in order to meet the
needs of more diverse group of passengers and to support the
expansion of tourist areas. The framework integrates with service
operations management, logistics, and tourism behavior perspectives.
The findings from the investigation of existing small bus service are
presented and preliminarily validate the usability of the framework.
Abstract: A solar refrigeration system based on the adsorptiondesorption
phenomena is designed and analyzed. An annular tubular
generator filled with silica gel adsorbent and with a perforated inner
cylinder is integrated within a flat solar collector. The working fluid
in the refrigeration cycle is water. The thermodynamic analysis and
because of the temperature level that could be attained with a flat
solar collector it is required that the system operates under vacuum
conditions. In order to enhance the performance of the system and to
get uniform temperature in the silica gel and higher desorbed mass,
an apparatus for rotation of the generator is incorporated in the
system. Testing is carried out and measurements are taken on the
designed installation. The effect of rotation is checked on the
temperature distribution and on the performance of this machine and
compared to the flat solar collector with fixed generator.
Abstract: Textures are replications, symmetries and
combinations of various basic patterns, usually with some random
variation one of the gray-level statistics. This article proposes a
new approach to Segment texture images. The proposed approach
proceeds in 2 stages. First, in this method, local texture information
of a pixel is obtained by fuzzy texture unit and global texture
information of an image is obtained by fuzzy texture spectrum.
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of fuzzy
texture spectrum for texture Segmentation.
The 2nd Stage of the method is devoted to a decision process,
applying a global analysis followed by a fine segmentation,
which is only focused on ambiguous points. The above Proposed
approach was applied to brain image to identify the components
of brain in turn, used to locate the brain tumor and its Growth
rate.
Abstract: This paper presents an algebraic approach to optimize
queries in domain-specific database management system
for protein structure data. The approach involves the introduction of
several protein structure specific algebraic operators to query the
complex data stored in an object-oriented database system. The
Protein Algebra provides an extensible set of high-level Genomic
Data Types and Protein Data Types along with a comprehensive
collection of appropriate genomic and protein functions. The paper
also presents a query translator that converts high-level query
specifications in algebra into low-level query specifications in
Protein-QL, a query language designed to query protein structure
data. The query transformation process uses a Protein Ontology that
serves the purpose of a dictionary.
Abstract: Prior to 1975, women in Laos suffered from having
reduced levels of power over decision-making in their families and in
their communities. This has had a negative impact on their ability to
develop their own identities. Their roles were identified as being
responsible for household activities and making preparations for their
marriage. Many women lost opportunities to get educated and access
the outdoor work that might have empowered them to improve their
situations. So far, no accurate figures of either emigrants or return
migrants have been compiled but it appears that most of them were
women, and it was women who most and more frequently remitted
money home. However, very few recent studies have addressed the
relationship between remittances and the roles of women in Laos.
This study, therefore, aims at redressing to some extent the
deficiencies in knowledge. Qualitative techniques were used to gather
data, including individual in-depth interviews and direct observation
in combination with the content analysis method. Forty women in
Vientiane Municipality and Savannakhet province were individually
interviewed. It was found that the monetary remittance was typically
used for family security and well-being; on fungible activities; on
economic and business activities; and on community development,
especially concerning hospitality and providing daily household
necessities. Remittances played important roles in improving many
respondents- livelihoods and positively changed their identities in
families and communities. Women became empowered as they were
able to start commercial businesses, rather than taking care of (just)
housework, children and elders. Interviews indicated that 92.5% of
the respondents their quality of lives improved, 90% felt happier in
their families and 82.5% felt conflicts in their families were reduced.