Abstract: Sustainability is a very important and heavily
discussed subject, expanding through tourism as well. The study
proposition was to collect data and present it to the competent bodies
so they can mold their public policies to improve the conditions of
the site. It was hypothesized that the lack of data is currently
affecting the quality of life and the sustainable development of the
site and the tourism. The research was held in Mateiros, a city in the
state of Tocantins (TO)/Brasil near Palmas, its capital city. Because
of the concentration of tourists during the high season and several
tourist attractions being around, the research took place in Mateiros.
The methodological procedure had a script of theoretical construction
and investigation of the deductive scientific method parameters
through a case study in the Jalapão/TO/Brazil region, using it as a
tool for a questionnaire given to the competent bodies in an interview
system with the UN sustainability indexes as a base. In the three
sustainable development scope: environmental, social and economic,
the results indicated that the data presented by the interviewed were
scarce or nonexistent. It shows that more research is necessary,
providing the tools for the ones responsible to propose action plans to
improve the site, strengthening the tourism and making it even more
sustainable.
Abstract: Polyaniline is an indispensible component in lightemitting
devices (LEDs), televisions, cellular telephones, automotive,
corrosion-resistant coatings, actuators etc. The electrical conductivity
properties was found be increased by introduction of metal nano
particles. In the present study, an attempt has been made to utilize
platinum nano particles to achieve the improved electrical properties.
Polyaniline and Pt-polyaniline composite are synthesized by
electrochemical routes. X-ray diffractometer confirms the amorphous
nature of polyaniline. The Bragg’s diffraction peaks correspond to
platinum nanoparticles in Pt-polyaniline composite and
thermogravimetric analyzer indicates its decomposition at certain
temperature. The Scanning Electron Micrographs of colloidal
platinum nanoparticles were spherical, uniform shape in the
composite. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the PANI and
composites were also studied which indicate a significant decreasing
resistivity than PANI-Platinum after introduction of pt nanoparticles
in the matrix of polyaniline (PANI).
Abstract: Several embryonic cellular mechanism including cell
cycle, growth and apoptosis are regulated by phosphatidylinositol-3-
kinase (PI3K)/Akt signaling pathway. The goal of present study is to
determine the effects of annatto (Bixa orellana)-derived δ-tocotrienol
(δ-TCT) on the regulations of PI3K/Akt genes in murine morula.
Twenty four 6-8 week old (23-25g) female balb/c mice were
randomly divided into four groups (G1-G4; n=6). Those groups were
subjected to the following treatments for 7 consecutive days: G1
(control) received tocopherol stripped corn oil, G2 was given 60
mg/kg/day of δ-TCT mixture (contains 90% delta & 10% gamma
isomers), G3 was given 60 mg/kg/day of pure δ-TCT (>98% purity)
and G4 received 60 mg/kg/day α-TOC. On Day 8, females were
superovulated with 5 IU Pregnant Mare’s Serum Gonadotropin
(PMSG) for 48 hours followed with 5 IU human Chorionic
Gonadotropin (hCG) before mated with males at the ratio of 1:1.
Females were sacrificed by cervical dislocation for embryo collection
48 hours post-coitum. About fifty morulas from each group were
used in the gene expression analyses using Affymetrix QuantiGene
Plex 2.0 Assay. Present data showed a significant increase (p
Abstract: A Rice Sheller is used for obtaining polished white
rice from paddy. There are about 3000 Rice Shellers in Punjab and
50000 in India. During the process of shelling lot of dust is emitted
from different unit operations like paddy silo, paddy shaker, bucket
elevators, huskers, paddy separator etc. These dust emissions have
adverse effect on the health of the workers and the wear and tear of
the shelling machinery is fast. All the dust emissions spewing out of
these unit operations of a rice Sheller were contained by providing
suitable hoods and enclosures while ensuring their workability. These
were sucked by providing an induced draft fan followed by a high
efficiency cyclone separator that has got an overall dust collection
efficiency of more than 90%. This cyclone separator replaced two
cyclone separators and a filter bag house, which the Rice Sheller was
already having. The dust concentration in the stack after the
installation of cyclone separator is well within the stipulated
standards. Besides controlling pollution, there is improvement in the
quality of products like bran and the life of shelling machinery has
enhanced. The payback period of this technology is less than four
shelling months.
Abstract: The output error of the globoidal cam mechanism can
be considered as a relevant indicator of mechanism performance,
because it determines kinematic and dynamical behavior of
mechanical transmission. Based on the differential geometry and the
rigid body transformations, the mathematical model of surface
geometry of the globoidal cam is established. Then we present the
analytical expression of the output error (including the transmission
error and the displacement error along the output axis) by considering
different manufacture and assembly errors. The effects of the center
distance error, the perpendicular error between input and output axes
and the rotational angle error of the globoidal cam on the output error
are systematically analyzed. A globoidal cam mechanism which is
widely used in automatic tool changer of CNC machines is applied for
illustration. Our results show that the perpendicular error and the
rotational angle error have little effects on the transmission error but
have great effects on the displacement error along the output axis. This
study plays an important role in the design, manufacture and assembly
of the globoidal cam mechanism.
Abstract: Typical load-bearing biological materials like bone,
mineralized tendon and shell, are biocomposites made from both
organic (collagen) and inorganic (biomineral) materials. This
amazing class of materials with intrinsic internally designed
hierarchical structures show superior mechanical properties with
regard to their weak components from which they are formed.
Extensive investigations concentrating on static loading conditions
have been done to study the biological materials failure. However,
most of the damage and failure mechanisms in load-bearing
biological materials will occur whenever their structures are exposed
to dynamic loading conditions. The main question needed to be
answered here is: What is the relation between the layout and
architecture of the load-bearing biological materials and their
dynamic behavior? In this work, a staggered model has been
developed based on the structure of natural materials at nanoscale and
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been used to study the dynamic
behavior of the structure of load-bearing biological materials to
answer why the staggered arrangement has been selected by nature to
make the nanocomposite structure of most of the biological materials.
The results showed that the staggered structures will efficiently
attenuate the stress wave rather than the layered structure.
Furthermore, such staggered architecture is effectively in charge of
utilizing the capacity of the biostructure to resist both normal and
shear loads. In this work, the geometrical parameters of the model
like the thickness and aspect ratio of the mineral inclusions selected
from the typical range of the experimentally observed feature sizes
and layout dimensions of the biological materials such as bone and
mineralized tendon. Furthermore, the numerical results validated with
existing theoretical solutions. Findings of the present work emphasize
on the significant effects of dynamic behavior on the natural
evolution of load-bearing biological materials and can help scientists
to design bioinspired materials in the laboratories.
Abstract: Ceramic Waste Aggregates (CWAs) were made from
electric porcelain insulator wastes supplied from an electric power
company, which were crushed and ground to fine aggregate sizes. In
this study, to develop the CWA mortar as an eco–efficient, ground
granulated blast–furnace slag (GGBS) as a Supplementary
Cementitious Material (SCM) was incorporated. The water–to–binder
ratio (W/B) of the CWA mortars was varied at 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6. The
cement of the CWA mortar was replaced by GGBS at 20 and 40% by
volume (at about 18 and 37% by weight). Mechanical properties of
compressive and splitting tensile strengths, and elastic modulus were
evaluated at the age of 7, 28, and 91 days. Moreover, the chloride
ingress test was carried out on the CWA mortars in a 5.0% NaCl
solution for 48 weeks. The chloride diffusion was assessed by using an
electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). To consider the relation of the
apparent chloride diffusion coefficient and the pore size, the pore size
distribution test was also performed using a mercury intrusion
porosimetry at the same time with the EPMA. The compressive
strength of the CWA mortars with the GGBS was higher than that
without the GGBS at the age of 28 and 91 days. The resistance to the
chloride ingress of the CWA mortar was effective in proportion to the
GGBS replacement level.
Abstract: In developing countries, one of the most important
restrictions about the economic growth is the lack of national savings
which are supposed to finance the investments. In order to overcome
this restriction and achieve the higher rate of economic growth by
increasing the level of output, countries choose the external
borrowing. However, there is a dispute in the literature over the
correlation between external debt and economic growth. The aim of
this study is to examine the effects of external debt on Turkish
economic growth by using VAR analysis with the quarterly data over
the period of 2002:01-2014:04. In this respect, Johansen
Cointegration Test, Impulse- Response Function and Variance
Decomposition Tests will be used for analyses. Empirical findings
show that there is no cointegration in the long run.
Abstract: Live video streaming is one of the most widely used
service among end users, yet it is a big challenge for the network
operators in terms of quality. The only way to provide excellent
Quality of Experience (QoE) to the end users is continuous
monitoring of live video streaming. For this purpose, there are several
objective algorithms available that monitor the quality of the video in
a live stream. Subjective tests play a very important role in fine
tuning the results of objective algorithms. As human perception is
considered to be the most reliable source for assessing the quality of a
video stream subjective tests are conducted in order to develop more
reliable objective algorithms. Temporal impairments in a live video
stream can have a negative impact on the end users. In this paper we
have conducted subjective evaluation tests on a set of video
sequences containing temporal impairment known as frame freezing.
Frame Freezing is considered as a transmission error as well as a
hardware error which can result in loss of video frames on the
reception side of a transmission system. In our subjective tests, we
have performed tests on videos that contain a single freezing event
and also for videos that contain multiple freezing events. We have
recorded our subjective test results for all the videos in order to give a
comparison on the available No Reference (NR) objective
algorithms. Finally, we have shown the performance of no reference
algorithms used for objective evaluation of videos and suggested the
algorithm that works better. The outcome of this study shows the
importance of QoE and its effect on human perception. The results
for the subjective evaluation can serve the purpose for validating
objective algorithms.
Abstract: This paper shows the general perceptions of Spanish
university stakeholders in relation to the university’s annual reports
and the adequacy and potential of intellectual capital reporting. To
this end, a questionnaire was designed and sent to every member of
the Social Councils of Spanish public universities. It was thought that
these participants would provide a good example of the attitude of
university stakeholders since they represent the different social
groups connected with universities. From the results of this study we
are in the position of confirming the need for universities to offer
information on intellectual capital in their accounting information
model.
Abstract: Multiple User Interference (MUI) considers the
primary problem in Optical Code-Division Multiple Access
(OCDMA), which resulting from the overlapping among the users. In
this article we aim to mitigate this problem by studying an
interference cancellation scheme called successive interference
cancellation (SIC) scheme. This scheme will be tested on two
different detection schemes, spectral amplitude coding (SAC) and
direct detection systems (DS), using partial modified prime (PMP) as
the signature codes. It was found that SIC scheme based on both SAC
and DS methods had a potential to suppress the intensity noise, that is
to say it can mitigate MUI noise. Furthermore, SIC/DS scheme
showed much lower bit error rate (BER) performance relative to
SIC/SAC scheme for different magnitude of effective power. Hence,
many more users can be supported by SIC/DS receiver system.
Abstract: Nowadays, technological progress is one of the most
important components of economic growth and the efficiency of
R&D activities is particularly essential for countries. This study is an
attempt to analyze the R&D efficiencies of EU countries. The
indicators related to R&D efficiencies should be determined in
advance in order to use DEA. For this reason a list of input and
output indicators are derived from the literature review. Considering
the data availability, a final list is given for the numerical analysis for
future research.
Abstract: This study compares the intensity of game load among
player positions and between the 1st and the 2nd half of the games.
Two guards, three forwards, and three centers (female basketball
players) participated in this study. The heart rate (HR) and its
development were monitored during two competitive games.
Statistically insignificant differences in the intensity of game load
were recorded between guards, forwards, and centers below and
above 85% of the maximal heart rate (HRmax) and in the mean HR as
% of HRmax (87.81±3.79%, 87.02±4.37%, and 88.76±3.54%,
respectively). Moreover, when the 1st and the 2nd half of the games
were compared in the mean HR (87.89±4.18% vs. 88.14±3.63% of
HRmax), no statistical significance was recorded. This information can
be useful for coaching staff, to manage and to precisely plan the
training process.
Abstract: In recent years, fire accidents have been steadily
increased and the amount of property damage caused by the accidents
has gradually raised. Damaging building structure, fire incidents bring
about not only such property damage but also strength degradation and
member deformation. As a result, the building structure undermines its
structural ability. Examining the degradation and the deformation is
very important because reusing the building is more economical than
reconstruction. Therefore, engineers need to investigate the strength
degradation and member deformation well, and make sure that they
apply right rehabilitation methods. This study aims at evaluating
deformation characteristics of fire damaged and rehabilitated normal
strength concrete beams through both experiments and finite element
analyses. For the experiments, control beams, fire damaged beams and
rehabilitated beams are tested to examine deformation characteristics.
Ten test beam specimens with compressive strength of 21MPa are
fabricated and main test variables are selected as cover thickness of
40mm and 50mm and fire exposure time of 1 hour or 2 hours. After
heating, fire damaged beams are air-recurred for 2 months and
rehabilitated beams are repaired with polymeric cement mortar after
being removed the fire damaged concrete cover. All beam specimens
are tested under four points loading. FE analyses are executed to
investigate the effects of main parameters applied to experimental
study. Test results show that both maximum load and stiffness of the
rehabilitated beams are higher than those of the fire damaged beams.
In addition, predicted structural behaviors from the analyses also show
good rehabilitation effect and the predicted load-deflection curves are
similar to the experimental results. For the further, the proposed
analytical method can be used to predict deformation characteristics of
fire damaged and rehabilitated concrete beams without suffering from
time and cost consuming of experimental process.
Abstract: The purpose of the present study is to find the efficacy
of high school student self-assessment of written production. It aimed
to explore the following two research questions: 1) How is topic
development of their written production improved after student
self-assessment and teacher feedback? 2) Does the consistency
between student self-assessment and teacher assessment develop after
student self-assessment and teacher feedback? The data came from the
written production of 82 Japanese high school students aged from 16
to 18 years old, an American English teacher and one Japanese English
teacher. Students were asked to write English compositions, about 150
words, for thirty minutes without using dictionaries. It was conducted
twice at intervals of two months. Students were supposed to assess
their own compositions by themselves. Teachers also assessed
students’ compositions using the same assessment sheet. The results
showed that both teachers and students assessed the second
compositions higher than the first compositions. However, there was
not the development of the consistency in coherence.
Abstract: In this paper, we consider some integrable Heisenberg
Ferromagnet Equations with self-consistent potentials. We study
their Lax representations. In particular we derive their equivalent
counterparts in the form of nonlinear Schr¨odinger type equations.
We present the integrable reductions of the Heisenberg Ferromagnet
Equations with self-consistent potentials. These integrable Heisenberg
Ferromagnet Equations with self-consistent potentials describe
nonlinear waves in ferromagnets with some additional physical fields.
Abstract: Significant attention has recently been paid to the
cross-cultural negotiations due to the growth of international
businesses. Despite the substantial body of literature examining the
influence of National Culture (NC) dimensions on negotiations, there
is a lack of studies comparing the influence of NC in Latin America
with a Western European countries, In particular, an extensive review
of the literature revealed that a contribution to knowledge would be
derived from the comparison of the influence of NC dimensions on
negotiations in UK and Venezuela. The primary data was collected
through qualitative interviews, to obtain an insight about the
perceptions and beliefs of Venezuelan and British business managers
about their negotiating styles. The findings of this study indicated
that NC has a great influence on the negotiating styles. In particular,
Venezuelan and British managers demonstrated to have opposed
negotiating styles, affecting the way they communicate, approach
people and their willingness to take risks.
Abstract: This research aims to identify traditional Mon cuisines
as well as gather and classify traditional cuisines of Mon
communities in Bangkok. The studying of this research is used by
methodology of the quantitative research. Using the questionnaire as
the method in collecting information from sampling totally amount of
450 persons analyzed via frequency, percentage and mean value. The
results showed that a variety of traditional Mon cuisines of Bangkok
could split into 6 categories of meat diet with 54 items and 6
categories of desserts with 19 items.
Abstract: Taiwanese composer Kuo Chih-Yuan (1921-2013)
studied composition at Tokyo University of the Arts and was
influenced by the musical nationalism prevailing in Japan at the time.
Determined to create world-class contemporary works to represent
Taiwan, he created music with elements of traditional Taiwanese
music in ways that had not been done before. The aims of this study
were to examine the traditional elements used in Kuo Chih-Yuan’s
Variations and Fugue on an Ancient Taiwanese Music (1972), and
how an understanding of these elements might guide pianists to
interpret a more proper performance of his work was also presented
in this study.
Abstract: The design of high pressure water jet based polishing
equipment and its fabrication conducted in this study is reported
herein, together with some preliminary test results for assessing its
applicability for HMA surface polishing. This study also provides
preliminary findings concerning the test variables, such as the
rotational speed, the water jet pressure, the abrasive agent used, and
the impact angel that were experimentally investigated in this study. The preliminary findings based on four trial tests (two on large
slab specimens and two on small size gyratory compacted
specimens), however, indicate that both friction and texture values
tend to increase with the polishing durations for two combinations of
pressure and rotation speed of the rotary deck. It seems that the more
polishing action the specimen is subjected to; the aggregate edges are
created such that the surface texture values are increased with the
accompanied increase in friction values. It may be of interest (but
which is outside the scope of this study) to investigate if the similar
trend exist for HMA prepared with aggregate source that is sand and
gravel.