Abstract: This paper develops and extended eclectic paradigm
to fit the firm internationalization process with the real international
business world. The approach is based on Dunning´s, introducing
new concepts like mode of entry, international joint venture o
international mergers and acquisitions. At the same time is presented
a model to describe the Spanish international mergers and
acquisitions in order to determinate the most important factor that
influence in this type of foreign direct investment.
Abstract: There has been a significant decline in active travel
and a massive increase in the use of car dependent travel in many
countries during the past two decades. Evidential risks for people’s
physical and mental health problems are correlated with this
increased use of motorized travel. These health related problems
range from overweight and obesity to increased air pollution. In
response to these rising concerns health professionals, traffic planers,
local authorities and others have introduced a variety of initiatives to
counterbalance the dominance of cars for daily journeys.
However, the nature of travel behavior change interventions,
which aim to reduce car use, are very complex and challenging
regarding their interactions with human behavior. To change travel
behavior at least two aspects have to be taken into consideration.
First, how to alter attitudes and perceptions toward the sustainable
and healthy modes of travel, in competition with experiences of
private car use. And second, how to make these behavior change
processes irreversible and sustainable. There are no comprehensive
models available to guide policy interventions to increase the level of
success of travel behavior change interventions across both these
dimensions.
A comprehensive theoretical framework is required in the effort to
optimize how to facilitate and guide the processes of data collection
and analysis to achieve the best possible guidelines for policy
makers. Regarding the gaps in the travel behavior change research
literature, this paper attempted to identify and suggest a
multidimensional framework in order to facilitate planning the
implemented travel behavior change interventions. A structured
mixed-method model is suggested to improve the analytic power of
the results according to the complexity of human behavior.
In order to recognize people’s attitudes towards a specific travel
mode, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was operationalized.
But in order to capture decision making processes the Transtheoretical
model of Behavior Change (TTM) was also used.
Consequently, the combination of these two theories (TTM and TPB)
has resulted in a synthesis with appropriate concepts to identify and
design an implemented travel behavior change interventions.
Abstract: Moodle is an open source learning management
system that enables creation of a powerful and flexible learning
environment. Many organizations, especially learning institutions
have customized Moodle open source LMS for their own use. In
general open source LMSs are of great interest due to many
advantages they offer in terms of cost, usage and freedom to
customize to fit a particular context. Tanzania Secondary School e-
Learning (TanSSe-L) system is the learning management system for
Tanzania secondary schools. TanSSe-L system was developed using
a number of methods, one of them being customization of Moodle
Open Source LMS. This paper presents few areas on the way Moodle
OS LMS was customized to produce a functional TanSSe-L system
fitted to the requirements and specifications of Tanzania secondary
schools’ context.
Abstract: This paper outlines the basic installation and operation of magnetic inductive flow velocity sensors on large underground cooling water pipelines. Research on the effects of cathodic protection as well as into other factors that might influence the overall performance of the meter is presented in this paper. The experiments were carried out on an immersion type magnetic meter specially used for flow measurement of cooling water pipeline. An attempt has been made in this paper to outline guidelines that can ensure accurate measurement related to immersion type magnetic meters on underground pipelines.
Abstract: In review the generalized data about different methods
of synthesis of biological activity halogenated di-, tri- and tetrahydroxyanthraquinones
is presented. The basic regularity of a
synthesis is analyzed. Action of temperature, pH, solubility, catalysts
and other factors on a reaction product yield is revealed.
Abstract: This study aims to analyze ceramic employees’
occupational health and safety training expectations. To that general
objective, the study tries to examine whether occupational health and
safety training expectations of ceramic employees meaningfully
differentiate depending on demographic features and professional,
social and economic conditions. For this purpose, a questionnaire was
developed by the researcher. The research data were collected
through this questionnaire called “Questionnaire of Occupational
Health and Safety Training Expectation” (QSOHSTE). QSOHSTE
was applied to 125 ceramic employees working in Kütahya, Turkey.
Data obtained from questionnaire were analyzed via SPSS 21.
The findings, obtained from the study, revealed that employees’
agreement level to occupational health and safety training expectation
statements is generally high-level. The findings reveal that employees
expect professional interest such as increased development and
investment, preventive measures for accidents, interventions to
evaluate the working conditions, establishment of safe working
environments and sustainment of adequate equipment for
occupational health and safety training process.
Besides these findings, employees’ agreement level to
occupational health and safety training expectation statements also
varies in terms of educational level, professional seniority, income
level and perception of economic condition.
Abstract: The seismic responses of steel buildings with semirigid
post-tensioned connections (PC) are estimated and compared
with those of steel buildings with typical rigid (welded) connections
(RC). The comparison is made in terms of global and local response
parameters. The results indicate that the seismic responses in terms of
interstory shears, roof displacements, axial load and bending
moments are smaller for the buildings with PC connection. The
difference is larger for global than for local parameters, which in turn
varies from one column location to another. The reason for this
improved behavior is that the buildings with PC dissipate more
hysteretic energy than those with RC. In addition, unlike the case of
buildings with WC, for the PC structures the hysteretic energy is
mostly dissipated at the connections, which implies that structural
damage in beams and columns is not significant. According to these
results, steel buildings with PC are a viable option in high seismicity
areas because of their smaller response and self-centering connection
capacity as well as the fact that brittle failure is avoided.
Abstract: The paper presents a practical three-phase PWM
inverter suitable for low voltage, low rating energy efficient systems.
The work in the paper is conducted with the view to establishing the
significance of the loss contribution from the PWM inverter in the
determination of the complete losses of a photovoltaic (PV) arraypowered
induction motor drive water pumping system. Losses
investigated include; conduction and switching loss of the devices
and gate drive losses. It is found that the PWM inverter operates at a
reasonable variable efficiency that does not fall below 92%
depending on the load. The results between the simulated and
experimental results for the system with or without a maximum
power tracker (MPT) compares very well, within an acceptable range
of 2% margin.
Abstract: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed
during the pyrolysis of scrap tyres to produce tyre pyrolytic oil
(TPO). Due to carcinogenic, mutagenic, and toxic properties PAHs
are priority pollutants. Hence it is essential to remove PAHs from
TPO before utilising TPO as a petroleum fuel alternative (to run the
engine). Agricultural wastes have promising future to be utilized as
biosorbent due to their cost effectiveness, abundant availability, high
biosorption capacity and renewability. Various low cost adsorbents
were prepared from natural sources. Uptake of PAHs present in tyre
pyrolytic oil was investigated using various low-cost adsorbents of
natural origin including sawdust (shisham), coconut fiber, neem bark,
chitin, activated charcoal. Adsorption experiments of different PAHs
viz. naphthalene, acenaphthalene, biphenyl and anthracene have been
carried out at ambient temperature (25°C) and at pH 7. It was
observed that for any given PAH, the adsorption capacity increases
with the lignin content. Freundlich constant Kf and 1/n have been
evaluated and it was found that the adsorption isotherms of PAHs
were in agreement with a Freundlich model, while the uptake
capacity of PAHs followed the order: activated charcoal> saw dust
(shisham) > coconut fiber > chitin. The partition coefficients in
acetone-water, and the adsorption constants at equilibrium, could be
linearly correlated with octanol–water partition coefficients. It is
observed that natural adsorbents are good alternative for PAHs
removal. Sawdust of Dalbergia sissoo, a by-product of sawmills was
found to be a promising adsorbent for the removal of PAHs present in
TPO. It is observed that adsorbents studied were comparable to those
of some conventional adsorbents.
Abstract: Blueberries are widely valued for their high content in
phenolic compounds with antioxidant activity, and hence beneficial
for the human health. In this way, a study was done to determine the
phenolic composition (total phenols, anthocyanins and tannins) and
antioxidant activity of blueberries from three cultivars (Duke,
Bluecrop, and Ozarkblue) grown in two different Portuguese farms.
Initially two successive extractions were done with methanol
followed by two extractions with aqueous acetone solutions. These
extracts obtained were then used to evaluate the amount of phenolic
compounds and the antioxidant activity. The total phenols were
observed to vary from 4.9 to 8.2 mg GAE/g fresh weight, with
anthocyanin’s contents in the range 1.5-2.8 mg EMv3G/g and tannins
contents in the range 1.5- 3.8 mg/g. The results for antioxidant
activity ranged from 9.3 to 23.2 molTE/g and from 24.7 to 53.4molTE/g, when measured, respectively, by DPPH and ABTS
methods. In conclusion it was observed that, in general, the cultivar
had a visible effect on the phenols present, and furthermore, the
geographical origin showed relevance either in the phenols contents
or the antioxidant activity.
Abstract: Maize constitutes a major agrarian production for use
by the vast population but despite its economic importance; it has not
been produced to meet the economic needs of the country. Achieving
optimum yield in maize can meaningfully be supported by land
suitability analysis in order to guarantee self-sufficiency for future
production optimization. This study examines land suitability for
maize production through the analysis of the physicochemical
variations in soil properties and other land attributes over space using
a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework.
Physicochemical parameters of importance selected include slope,
landuse, physical and chemical properties of the soil, and climatic
variables. Landsat imagery was used to categorize the landuse,
Shuttle Radar Topographic Mapping (SRTM) generated the slope and
soil samples were analyzed for its physical and chemical components.
Suitability was categorized into highly, moderately and marginally
suitable based on Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)
classification, using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
technique of GIS. This result can be used by small scale farmers for
efficient decision making in the allocation of land for maize
production.
Abstract: Analysis of the properties of coconut (Cocos nucifera)
and its oil was evaluated in this work using standard analytical
techniques. The analyses carried out include proximate composition
of the fruit, extraction of oil from the fruit using different process
parameters and physicochemical analysis of the extracted oil. The
results showed the percentage (%) moisture, crude lipid, crude
protein, ash and carbohydrate content of the coconut as 7.59, 55.15,
5.65, 7.35 and 19.51 respectively. The oil from the coconut fruit was
odourless and yellowish liquid at room temperature (30oC). The
treatment combinations used (leaching time, leaching temperature
and solute: solvent ratio) showed significant differences (P
Abstract: China is currently the world's largest producer and distributor of electric bicycle (e-bike). The increasing number of e-bikes on the road is accompanied by rising injuries and even deaths of e-bike drivers. Therefore, there is a growing need to improve the safety structure of e-bikes. This 3D frictionless contact analysis is a preliminary, but necessary work for further structural design improvement of an e-bike. The contact analysis between e-bike and the ground was carried out as follows: firstly, the Penalty method was illustrated and derived from the simplest spring-mass system. This is one of the most common methods to satisfy the frictionless contact case; secondly, ANSYS static analysis was carried out to verify finite element (FE) models with contact pair (without friction) between e-bike and the ground; finally, ANSYS transient analysis was used to obtain the data of the penetration p(u) of e-bike with respect to the ground. Results obtained from the simulation are as estimated by comparing with that from theoretical method. In the future, protective shell will be designed following the stability criteria and added to the frame of e-bike. Simulation of side falling of the improvedsafety structure of e-bike will be confirmed with experimental data.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to build a model based on
tissue characterization that is able to discriminate pathological and
non-pathological regions from three-phasic CT images. With our
research and based on a feature selection in different phases, we are
trying to design a neural network system with an optimal neuron
number in a hidden layer. Our approach consists of three steps:
feature selection, feature reduction, and classification. For each
region of interest (ROI), 6 distinct sets of texture features are
extracted such as: first order histogram parameters, absolute gradient,
run-length matrix, co-occurrence matrix, autoregressive model, and
wavelet, for a total of 270 texture features. When analyzing more
phases, we show that the injection of liquid cause changes to the high
relevant features in each region. Our results demonstrate that for
detecting HCC tumor phase 3 is the best one in most of the features
that we apply to the classification algorithm. The percentage of
detection between pathology and healthy classes, according to our
method, relates to first order histogram parameters with accuracy of
85% in phase 1, 95% in phase 2, and 95% in phase 3.
Abstract: Wind energy offers a significant advantage such as no
fuel costs and no emissions from generation. However, wind energy
sources are variable and non-dispatchable. The utility grid is able to
accommodate the variability of wind in smaller proportion along with
the daily load. However, at high penetration levels, the variability can
severely impact the utility reserve requirements and the cost
associated with it. In this paper the impact of wind energy is
evaluated in detail in formulating the total utility cost. The objective
is to minimize the overall cost of generation while ensuring the
proper management of the load. Overall cost includes the curtailment
cost, reserve cost and the reliability cost, as well as any other penalty
imposed by the regulatory authority. Different levels of wind
penetrations are explored and the cost impacts are evaluated. As the
penetration level increases significantly, the reliability becomes a
critical question to be answered. Here we increase the penetration
from the wind yet keep the reliability factor within the acceptable
limit provided by NERC. This paper uses an economic dispatch (ED)
model to incorporate wind generation into the power grid. Power
system costs are analyzed at various wind penetration levels using
Linear Programming. The goal of this study is show how the
increases in wind generation will affect power system economics.
Abstract: The wide use of the Internet-based applications bring many challenges to the researchers to guarantee the continuity of the connections needed by the mobile hosts and provide reliable Internet access for them. One of proposed solutions by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is to connect the local, multi-hop, and infrastructure-less Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) with Internet structure. This connection is done through multi-interface devices known as Internet Gateways. Many issues are related to this connection like gateway discovery, handoff, address auto-configuration and selecting the optimum gateway when multiple gateways exist. Many studies were done proposing gateway selection schemes with a single selection criterion or weighted multiple criteria. In this research, a review of some of these schemes is done showing the differences, the features, the challenges and the drawbacks of each of them.
Abstract: The edges of low contrast images are not clearly
distinguishable to human eye. It is difficult to find the edges and
boundaries in it. The present work encompasses a new approach for
low contrast images. The Chebyshev polynomial based fractional
order filter has been used for filtering operation on an image. The
preprocessing has been performed by this filter on the input image.
Laplacian of Gaussian method has been applied on preprocessed
image for edge detection. The algorithm has been tested on two test
images.
Abstract: The English competence of Thai people was examined
in the context of knowledge of English in everyday life for Small and
Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs), and also integrated with Second
language acquisition (SLA) students’ classroom. Second language
acquisition was applied to the results of the questionnaires and
interview forms. Levels of the need on English used for SME
entrepreneurs in Thailand, satisfaction on joining the street classroom
project were shown to be significantly high for some certain language
functions and satisfaction. Finding suggests that the language
functions on etiquette for professional use is essential and useful
because lesson learned can be used in the real situation for their
career. Implications for the climate of the street classroom are
discussed.
Abstract: Living today in turbulent business environment forces
companies to distinguish from each other, securing sustainable
competitive growth and competitive advantage. The best possible
solution is to invest (effort and financial resources) within
companies’ different practices of human resource management
(HRM), more specifically in employees’ knowledge, skills and
abilities. Applying this approach companies will create enviable level
of human capital securing its economic growth. Employees become
human capital for their employers at the moment when they
contribute with their own knowledge and abilities in creating material
and non-material value of the company. The main aim of this
research is to explore the relations between human capital
investments and business excellence of Croatian companies.
Furthermore, the differences in the level of human capital
investments with regard to several companies’ characteristics (e.g.
size of the company, ownership and type of the industry) are
investigated.
Abstract: This study aims to investigate the possibility of crime
prevention through CCTV by analyzing the appropriateness of the
CCTV location, whether it is installed in the hotspot of crime-prone
areas, and exploring the crime prevention effect and transition effect.
The real crime and CCTV locations of case city were converted into
the spatial data by using GIS. The data was analyzed by hotspot
analysis and weighted displacement quotient (WDQ). As study
methods, it analyzed existing relevant studies for identifying the trends
of CCTV and crime studies based on big data from 1800 to 2014 and
understanding the relation between CCTV and crime. Second, it
investigated the current situation of nationwide CCTVs and analyzed
the guidelines of CCTV installation and operation to draw attention to
the problems and indicating points of CCTV use. Third, it investigated
the crime occurrence in case areas and the current situation of CCTV
installation in the spatial aspects, and analyzed the appropriateness and
effectiveness of CCTV installation to suggest a rational installation of
CCTV and the strategic direction of crime prevention. The results
demonstrate that there was no significant effect in the installation of
CCTV on crime prevention in the case area. This indicates that CCTV
should be installed and managed in a more scientific way reflecting
local crime situations. In terms of CCTV, the methods of spatial
analysis such as GIS, which can evaluate the installation effect, and the
methods of economic analysis like cost-benefit analysis should be
developed. In addition, these methods should be distributed to local
governments across the nation for the appropriate installation of
CCTV and operation. This study intended to find a design guideline of
the optimum CCTV installation. In this regard, this study is
meaningful in that it will contribute to the creation of a safe city.