Abstract: Coal fly ash, an industrial by product of coal
combustion thermal power plants is considered as a hazardous
material and its improper disposal has become an environmental
issue. On the other hand, manufacturing conventional clay bricks
involves on consumption of large amount of clay and leads
substantial depletion of topsoil. This paper unveils the possibility of
using fly ash as a partial replacement of clay for brick manufacturing
considering the local technology practiced in Bangladesh. The effect
of fly ash with different replacing ratio (0%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and
50% by volume) of clay on properties of bricks was studied. Bricks
were made in the field parallel to ordinary bricks marked with
specific number for different percentage to identify them at time of
testing. No physical distortion is observed in fly ash brick after
burning in the kiln. Results from laboratory test show that
compressive strength of brick is decreased with the increase of fly
ash and maximum compressive strength is found to be 19.6 MPa at
20% of fly ash. In addition, water absorption of fly ash brick is
increased with the increase of fly ash. The abrasion value and
Specific gravity of coarse aggregate prepared from brick with fly ash
also studied and the results of this study suggests that 20% fly ash
can be considered as the optimum fly ash content for producing good
quality bricks utilizing present practiced technology.
Abstract: The article deals with the personality of military
professionals (commanders) and their way of leading and
commanding today and in historical context. The first part focuses on
the leadership skills of Alexander the Great, who introduced strategic
innovations and even from today's perspective; he excelled in
efficient work with people. This paper focuses on the way which he
achieved his goals. Further attention is paid to approaches to
commander´s personality by other great generals. The paper is also
focused on personality traits of military professionals necessary for
successful management and leadership in today's variable and
challenging environment. Finally, attention is paid to the effective
and ineffective ways of behavior of commanders and determining
what styles of leadership is appropriate for a given situation, whether
in peacetime or on deployment.
Abstract: Mechanical behavior of 6082T6 aluminum is
investigated at different temperatures. The strain rate sensitivity is
investigated at different temperatures on the grain size variants. The
sensitivity of the measured grain size variants on 3-D grain is
discussed. It is shown that the strain rate sensitivities are negative for
the grain size variants during the deformation of nanostructured
materials. It is also observed that the strain rate sensitivities vary in
different ways with the equivalent radius, semi minor axis radius,
semi major axis radius and major axis radius. From the obtained
results, it is shown that the variation of strain rate sensitivity with
temperature suggests that the strain rate sensitivity at the low and the
high temperature ends of the 6082T6 aluminum range is different.
The obtained results revealed transition at different temperature from
negative strain rate sensitivity as temperature increased on the grain
size variants.
Abstract: Agricultural machinery industry plays an important
role in the industrial development especially the production industry
of the country. There has been continuing development responding to
the higher demand of the production. However, the problem in
agricultural machinery production still exists. Thus, the purpose of
this research is to investigate problems on fundamental factors of
industry based on the entrepreneurs’ point of view. The focus was on
the small and medium size industry receiving factory license type
number 0660 from the Department of Industrial Works. The
investigation was on the comparison between the management of the
small and medium size agricultural industry in 3 provinces in the
central region of Thailand. Population in this study consisted of 189
company managers or managing directors, of which 101 were from
the small size and 88 were from the medium size industry. The data
were analyzed to find percentage, arithmetic mean, and standard
deviation with independent sample T-test at the statistical
significance .05. The results showed that the small and medium size
agricultural machinery manufacturers in the central region of
Thailand reported high problems in every aspect. When compared the
problems on basic factors in running the business, it was found that
there was no statistically difference at .05 in managing of the small
and medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers. However,
there was a statistically significant difference between the small and
medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers on the aspect of
policy and services of the government. The problems reported by the
small and medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers were
the services on public tap water and the problem on politic and
stability of the country.
Abstract: The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is the goal
of regional economic integration by 2015. In the region, tourism is an
activity that is important, especially as a source of foreign currency, a
source of employment creation and a source of income bringing to the
region. Given the complexity of the issues entailing the concept of
sustainable tourism, this paper tries to assess tourism sustainability
with the ASEAN, based on a number of quantitative indicators for all
the ten economies, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, and Brunei. The
methodological framework will provide a number of benchmarks of
tourism activities in these countries. They include identification of the
dimensions; for example, economic, socio-ecologic, infrastructure
and indicators, method of scaling, chart representation and evaluation
on Asian countries. This specification shows that a similar level of
tourism activity might introduce different implementation in the
tourism activity and might have different consequences for the socioecological
environment and sustainability. The heterogeneity of
developing countries exposed briefly here would be useful to detect
and prepare for coping with the main problems of each country in
their tourism activities, as well as competitiveness and value creation
of tourism for ASEAN economic community, and will compare with
other parts of the world.
Abstract: Biochar can be produced from the waste matter and its
application has been associated with returning of carbon in large
amounts into the soil. The impacts of this material on physical and
chemical properties of soil have been described. The biggest part of
the research work is dedicated to the hypothesis of this material’s
toxic effects on the soil life regarding its effect on the soil biological
component. At present, it has been worked on methods which could
eliminate these undesirable properties of biochar. One of the
possibilities is to mix biochar with organic material, such as compost,
or focusing on the natural processes acceleration in the soil. In the
experiment has been used as the addition of compost as well as the
elimination of toxic substances by promoting microbial activity in
aerated water environment. Biochar was aerated for 7 days in a
container with a volume of 20 l. This way modified biochar had six
times higher biomass production and reduce mineral nitrogen
leaching. Better results have been achieved by mixing biochar with
compost.
Abstract: Job satisfaction and motivation have been given an
important attention in psychology because they are seen as main
instruments in maintaining organizational growth and development;
they are also used to accomplish organizational aims and objectives.
However, it has been observed that some institutions failed in
motivating and stimulating their workers; in contrast, workers may be
motivated but not satisfied with the job and failed to perform
efficiently and effectively. It is hoped that the study of this nature
would be of significance value to all stakeholders in education
specifically, lecturers in higher institutions in Nigeria. Also, it is
hoped that the findings of this study will enhance lecturers’
effectiveness and performance in discharging their duties. In the light
of the above statements, this study investigated whether job
satisfaction and motivation predict lecturers’ effectiveness in Nigeria
Police Academy, Wudil, Kano State. Correlational research method
was adopted for the study, while purposive sampling technique was
used to choose the institution and the sampled lectures (70). Simple
random sampling technique was used to select one hundred cadets
across the academy. Two instruments were used to elicit information
from both lecturers and cadets. These were job satisfaction and
motivation; and lecturers’ effectiveness Questionnaires. The
instruments were subjected to pilot testing and found to have
reliability coefficient of 0.69 and 0.71 respectively. The results of the
study revealed that there was a significance relationship among job
satisfaction, motivation and lecturers effectiveness in Nigeria Police
Academy. There was a significance relationship between job
satisfaction and lecturers’ effectiveness in Nigeria Police Academy
the cal r is 0.21 while the crt r is 0.19. at p
Abstract: Over the past few decades, manufacturing has evolved
from a more labor-intensive set of mechanical processes to a
sophisticated set of information based technology processes. With the
existence of various advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs),
more and more functions or jobs are performed by these machines
instead of human labour. This study was undertaken in order to
research the extent of AMTs adoption in manufacturing companies in
Kenya. In order to investigate a survey was conducted via
questionnaires that were sent to 183 selected AMT manufacturing
companies in Kenya. 92 companies responded positively. All the
surveyed companies were found to have a measure of investment in
at least two of the 14 types of AMTs investigated. In general the
company surveyed showed that the level of AMT adoption in Kenya
is very low with investments levels at a mean of 2.057 and
integration levels at a mean of 1.639 in a scale of 1-5.
Abstract: Present empirical paper investigates the relationship
between FDI and economic growth by 10 selected industries in 10
Central and Eastern European countries from the period 1995 to
2012. Different estimation approaches were used to explore the
connection between FDI and economic growth, for example OLS,
RE, FE with and without time dummies. Obtained empirical results
leads to some main consequences: First, the Central and East
European countries (CEEC) attracted foreign direct investment,
which raised the productivity of industries they entered in. It should
be concluded that the linkage between FDI and output growth by
industries is positive and significant enough to suggest that foreign
firm’s participation enhanced the productivity of the industries they
occupied. There had been an endogeneity problem in the regression
and fixed effects estimation approach was used which partially
corrected the regression analysis in order to make the results less
biased. Second, it should be stressed that the results show that time
has an important role in making FDI operational for enhancing output
growth by industries via total factor productivity. Third, R&D
positively affected economic growth and at the same time, it should
take some time for research and development to influence economic
growth. Fourth, the general trends masked crucial differences at the
country level: over the last 20 years, the analysis of the tables and
figures at the country level show that the main recipients of FDI of
the 11 Central and Eastern European countries were Hungary, Poland
and the Czech Republic. The main reason was that these countries
had more open door policies for attracting the FDI. Fifth, according
to the graphical analysis, while Hungary had the highest FDI inflow
in this region, it was not reflected in the GDP growth as much as in
other Central and Eastern European countries.
Abstract: A three-dimensional numerical simulation of flow
through mini and microchannels with designed roughness is
conducted here. The effect of the roughness height (surface
roughness), geometry, Reynolds number on the friction factor, and
Nusselt number is investigated. The study is carried out by
employing CFD software, CFX. Our work focuses on a water flow
inside a circular mini-channel of 1 mm and microchannels of 500 and
100 m in diameter. The speed entry varies from 0.1 m/s to 20 m/s.
The general trend can be observed that bigger sizes of roughness
element lead to higher flow resistance. It is found that the friction
factor increases in a nonlinear fashion with the increase in obstruction
height. Particularly, the effect of roughness can no longer be ignored
at relative roughness height higher than 3%. A significant increase in
Poiseuille number is detected for all configurations considered. The
same observation can be done for Nusselt number. The transition
zone between laminar and turbulent flow depends on the channel
diameter.
Abstract: We present probabilistic multinomial Dirichlet
classification model for multidimensional data and Gaussian process
priors. Here, we have considered efficient computational method that
can be used to obtain the approximate posteriors for latent variables
and parameters needed to define the multiclass Gaussian process
classification model. We first investigated the process of inducing a
posterior distribution for various parameters and latent function by
using the variational Bayesian approximations and important sampling
method, and next we derived a predictive distribution of latent
function needed to classify new samples. The proposed model is
applied to classify the synthetic multivariate dataset in order to verify
the performance of our model. Experiment result shows that our model
is more accurate than the other approximation methods.
Abstract: Privacy is sacred and would normally be expected and preserved by an individual. Online privacy is no longer about the right to be left alone, but also includes the right not to be monitored. However, with the revelations made by United States National Security Agency former employee Edward Snowden that the government is spying on internet communications, individuals’ privacy can no longer be expected. Therefore, this paper is intended to evaluate law related to privacy protection in the digital domain, who should govern it and whether invasion to a person’s privacy is a necessary justification to preserve national security.
Abstract: Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is an essential
component of an organisation’s strategic procedures, which requires
attention of several factors to envisage a range of long-term outcomes
to support strategic project portfolio decisions. To evaluate overall
efficiency at the portfolio level, it is essential to identify the
functionality of specific projects as well as to aggregate those
findings in a mathematically meaningful manner that indicates the
strategic significance of the associated projects at a number of levels
of abstraction. PPM success is directly associated with the quality of
decisions made and poor judgment increases portfolio costs. Hence,
various Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques have
been designed and employed to support the decision-making
functions. This paper reviews possible options to enhance the
decision-making outcomes in organisational portfolio management
processes using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) both from
academic and practical perspectives and will examine the usability,
certainty and quality of the technique. The results of the study will
also provide insight into the technical risk associated with current
decision-making model to underpin initiative tracking and strategic
portfolio management.
Abstract: The purpose of the study is to investigate the level of
intrinsic motivation of trainers after attending a Continuous
Professional Development Course (CPD) organized by Institute of
Teacher Training Malaysia titled, “Transformation of Teaching and
Learning the Fun Way”. This study employed a survey whereby 96
teacher trainers were given Situational Intrinsic Motivational Scale
(SIMS) Instruments. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to
get the validity of this instrument in local setting. Data were analyzed
with SPSS for descriptive statistic. Semi- structured interviews were
also administrated to collect qualitative data on participants’
experiences after participating in the two-day fun-filled program. The
findings showed that the participants’ level of intrinsic motivation
showed higher mean than the amotivation. The results revealed that
the intrinsic motivation mean is 19.0 followed by Identified
regulation with a mean of 17.4, external regulation 9.7 and
amotivation 6.9. The interview data also revealed that the participants
were motivated after attending this training program. It can be
concluded that this program, which was organized by Institute of
Teacher Training Malaysia, was able to enhance participants’ level of
motivation. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a multidimensional
approach to motivation was utilized. Therefore, teacher trainers may
have more success using the “The fun way approach” in conducting
training program in future.
Abstract: The power electronic components within Electric Vehicles (EV) need to operate in several important modes. Some modes directly influence safety, while others influence vehicle performance. Given the variety of functions and operational modes required of the power electronics, it needs to meet efficiency requirements to minimize power losses. Another challenge in the control and construction of such systems is the ability to support bidirectional power flow. This paper considers the construction, operation, and feasibility of available converters for electric vehicles with feasible configurations of electrical buses and loads. This paper describes logic and control signals for the converters for different operations conditions based on the efficiency and energy usage bases.
Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (SC) live yeast culture on microbial
protein supply to small intestine in Kivircik male yearlings when fed
with different ratio of forage and concentrate diets. Four Kivircik
male yearlings with permanent rumen canula were used in the
experiment. The treatments were allocated to a 4x4 Latin square
design. Diet I consisted of 70% alfalfa hay and 30% concentrate, Diet
II consisted of 30% alfalfa hay and 70% concentrate, Diet I and II
were supplemented with a SC. Daily urine was collected and stored at
-20°C until analysis. Calorimetric methods were used for the
determination of urinary allantoin and creatinine levels. The
estimated microbial N supply to small intestine for Diets I, I+SC, II
and II+SC were 2.51, 2.64, 2.95 and 3.43 g N/d respectively.
Supplementation of Diets I and II with SC significantly affected the
allantoin levels in μmol/W0.75 (p
Abstract: The transesterification of dimethyl malonate (DMM)
with phenol has been studied in vapour phase over cordierite
honeycomb coated with solid acid catalysts such as ZrO2,
Mo(VI)/ZrO2 and SO42-/ZrO2. The catalytic materials were prepared
honeycomb coated, powder forms, and characterized for their total
surface acidity by NH3-TPD and crystalinity by powder XRD
methods. Phenyl methyl malonate (PMM) and diphenyl malonate
(DPM) were obtained as the reaction products. A good conversion of
DMM (up to 82%) of MPM with 95% selectivity was observed when
the reactions were carried out at a catalyst bed temperature of 200 °C
and flow-rate of 10 mL/h in presence of Mo(VI)/ZrO2 as catalyst.
However, over SO4^2-/ZrO2 catalyst, the yield of DPM was found to be
higher. The results have been interpreted based on the variation of
acidic properties and powder XRD phases of zirconia on
incorporation of Mo(VI) or SO42– ions. Transesterification reactions
were also carried out over powder forms of the catalytic materials
and the yield of the desired phenyl ester products were compared
with that of the HC coated catalytic materials. The solid acids were
found to be reusable when used for at least 5 reaction cycles.
Abstract: Considering the challenges of short product life cycles
and growing variant diversity, cost minimization and manufacturing
flexibility increasingly gain importance to maintain a competitive
edge in today’s global and dynamic markets. In this context, an
aerodynamic part feeding system for high-speed industrial assembly
applications has been developed at the Institute of Production
Systems and Logistics (IFA), Leibniz Universitaet Hannover. The
aerodynamic part feeding system outperforms conventional systems
with respect to its process safety, reliability, and operating speed. In
this paper, a multi-objective optimisation of the aerodynamic feeding
system regarding the orientation rate, the feeding velocity, and the
required nozzle pressure is presented.
Abstract: In this paper, a robust fault detection and isolation
(FDI) scheme is developed to monitor a multivariable nonlinear
chemical process called the Chylla-Haase polymerization reactor,
when it is under the cascade PI control. The scheme employs a radial
basis function neural network (RBFNN) in an independent mode to
model the process dynamics, and using the weighted sum-squared
prediction error as the residual. The Recursive Orthogonal Least
Squares algorithm (ROLS) is employed to train the model to
overcome the training difficulty of the independent mode of the
network. Then, another RBFNN is used as a fault classifier to isolate
faults from different features involved in the residual vector. Several
actuator and sensor faults are simulated in a nonlinear simulation of
the reactor in Simulink. The scheme is used to detect and isolate the
faults on-line. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the
scheme even the process is subjected to disturbances and
uncertainties including significant changes in the monomer feed rate,
fouling factor, impurity factor, ambient temperature, and
measurement noise. The simulation results are presented to illustrate
the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.
Abstract: Durian skin is a newly explores natural fibre
potentially reinforced polyolefin for diverse applications. In this
work, investigation on the effect of coupling agent, maleic anhydride
polypropylene (MAPP) on the mechanical, morphological, and
thermal properties of polypropylene (PP) reinforced with durian skin
fibre (DSF) was conducted. The presence of 30 wt% DSF
significantly reduced the tensile strength of PP-DSF composite.
Interestingly, even though the same trend goes to PP-DSF with the
presence of MAPP, the reduction is only about 4% relative to
unreinforced PP and 18% higher than PP-DSF without MAPP
(untreated composite or UTC). The used of MAPP in treated
composite (TC) also increased the tensile modulus, flexural
properties and degradation temperature. The enhanced mechanical
properties are consistent with good interfacial interaction as
evidenced under scanning electron microscopy.