Abstract: This paper reviews the internal use of blogs and their
potential effectiveness as organisational learning tools. Since the
emergence of the concept of ‘Enterprise 2.0’ there remains a lack of
empirical evidence associated with how organisations are applying
social media tools and whether they are effective towards supporting
organisational learning. Surprisingly, blogs, one of the more
traditional social media tools, still remains under-researched in the
context of ‘Enterprise 2.0’ and organisational learning. The aim of
this paper is to identify the theoretical linkage between blogs and
organisational learning in addition to reviewing prior research on
organisational blogging exploring why this area remains underresearched.
Through a literature review, one of the principal findings
of this paper is that organisational blogs have a mutual compatibility
with the interpretivist aspect of organisational learning. This paper
further advocates that further empirical work in this subject area is
required to substantiate this theoretical assumption.
Abstract: In this paper, Least Mean Square (LMS) adaptive
noise reduction algorithm is proposed to enhance the speech signal
from the noisy speech. In this, the speech signal is enhanced by
varying the step size as the function of the input signal. Objective and
subjective measures are made under various noises for the proposed
and existing algorithms. From the experimental results, it is seen that
the proposed LMS adaptive noise reduction algorithm reduces Mean
square Error (MSE) and Log Spectral Distance (LSD) as compared to
that of the earlier methods under various noise conditions with
different input SNR levels. In addition, the proposed algorithm
increases the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Segmental SNR
improvement (ΔSNRseg) values; improves the Mean Opinion Score
(MOS) as compared to that of the various existing LMS adaptive
noise reduction algorithms. From these experimental results, it is
observed that the proposed LMS adaptive noise reduction algorithm
reduces the speech distortion and residual noise as compared to that
of the existing methods.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the dynamic behavior of
reinforced concrete (RC) slabs. Therefore, the theoretical modal
analysis was performed using two different types of boundary
conditions. Modal analysis method is the most important dynamic
analyses. The analysis would be modal case when there is no external
force on the structure. By using this method in this paper, the effects
of freely and simply supported boundary conditions on the
frequencies and mode shapes of RC square slabs are studied. ANSYS
software was employed to derive the finite element model to
determine the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the slabs.
Then, the obtained results through numerical analysis (finite element
analysis) would be compared with the exact solution. The main goal
of the research study is to predict how the boundary conditions
change the behavior of the slab structures prior to performing
experimental modal analysis. Based on the results, it is concluded
that simply support boundary condition has obvious influence to
increase the natural frequencies and change the shape of the mode
when it is compared with freely supported boundary condition of
slabs. This means that such support conditions have the direct
influence on the dynamic behavior of the slabs. Thus, it is suggested
to use free-free boundary condition in experimental modal analysis to
precisely reflect the properties of the structure. By using free-free
boundary conditions, the influence of poorly defined supports is
interrupted.
Abstract: The fuzzy composition of objects depicted in images
acquired through MR imaging or the use of bio-scanners has often
been a point of controversy for field experts attempting to effectively
delineate between the visualized objects. Modern approaches in
medical image segmentation tend to consider fuzziness as a
characteristic and inherent feature of the depicted object, instead of
an undesirable trait. In this paper, a novel technique for efficient
image retrieval in the context of images in which segmented objects
are either crisp or fuzzily bounded is presented. Moreover, the
proposed method is applied in the case of multiple, even conflicting,
segmentations from field experts. Experimental results demonstrate
the efficiency of the suggested method in retrieving similar objects
from the aforementioned categories while taking into account the
fuzzy nature of the depicted data.
Abstract: A cleaner production project was implemented in a
bakery. The project is based on the substitution of the best available
technique for an obsolete leaven production technology. The new
technology enables production of durable, high-quality leavens.
Moreover, 25% of flour as the original raw material can be replaced
by pastry from the previous day production which has not been sold.
That pastry was previously disposed in a waste incineration plant.
Besides the environmental benefits resulting from less waste, lower
consumption of energy, reduction of sewage waters quantity and
floury dustiness there are also significant economic benefits. Payback
period of investment was calculated with help of static method of
financial analysis about 2.6 years, using dynamic method 3.5 years
and an internal rate of return more than 29%. The supposed annual
average profit after taxationin the second year of operation was
incompliance with the real profit.
Abstract: To practically apply vacuum insulation panels (VIPs)
to buildings or home appliances, VIPs have demanded long-term
lifespan with outstanding insulation performance. Service lives of
VIPs enveloped with Al-foil and three-layer Al-metallized envelope
are calculated. For Al-foil envelope, the service life is longer but edge
conduction is too large compared with the Al-metallized envelope. To
increase service life even more, the proposed double enveloping
method and metal-barrier-added enveloping method are further
analyzed. The service lives of the VIP to employ two enveloping
methods are calculated. Also, pressure increase and thermal insulation
performance characteristics are investigated. For the metalbarrier-
added enveloping method, effective thermal conductivity
increase with time is close to that of Al-foil envelope, especially, for
getter-inserted VIPs. For double enveloping method, if water vapor is
perfectly adsorbed, the effect of service life enhancement becomes
much greater. From these methods, the VIP can be guaranteed for
service life of more than 20 years.
Abstract: E-business technologies, whereby business
transactions are conducted remotely using the Internet, present
unique opportunities and challenges for business. E-business
technologies are applicable to a wide range of organizations and
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are no exception. There
is an established body of literature about e-business, looking at
definitions, concepts, benefits and challenges. In general, however,
the research focus has been on larger organizations, not SMEs. In an
attempt to redress the balance of research, this paper looks at ebusiness
technologies specifically from a small business perspective.
It seeks to identify the possible barriers that SMEs might face when
considering adoption of the e-business concept and practice as part of
their business process change initiatives and implementation. To
facilitate analysis of these barriers a conceptual framework has been
developed which outlines the key conceptual and practical challenges
of e-business implementation in SMEs. This is developed following a
literature survey comprised of three categories: characteristics of
SMEs, issues of IS/IT use in SMEs and general e-business adoption
and implementation issues. The framework is then empirically
assessed against 7 SMEs who have yet to implement e-business or
whose e-business efforts have been unsatisfactory. Conclusions from
the case studies can be used to verify the framework, and set
parameters for further larger scale empirical investigation.
Abstract: In the UK, flooding is responsible for significant
losses to the economy due to the impact on businesses, the vast
majority of which are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
Businesses of this nature tend to lack formal plans to aid their
response to and recovery from disruptive events such as flooding.
This paper reports on work on how an agent-based model (ABM) is
being developed based on interview data gathered from SMEs at-risk
of flooding and/or have direct experience of flooding. The ABM will
enable simulations to be performed allowing investigations of
different response strategies which SMEs may employ to lessen the
impact of flooding, thus strengthening their resilience.
Abstract: The dramatic rise in the use of Social Media (SM)
platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide access to an
unprecedented amount of user data. Users may post reviews on
products and services they bought, write about their interests, share
ideas or give their opinions and views on political issues. There is a
growing interest in the analysis of SM data from organisations for
detecting new trends, obtaining user opinions on their products and
services or finding out about their online reputations. A recent
research trend in SM analysis is making predictions based on
sentiment analysis of SM. Often indicators of historic SM data are
represented as time series and correlated with a variety of real world
phenomena like the outcome of elections, the development of
financial indicators, box office revenue and disease outbreaks. This
paper examines the current state of research in the area of SM mining
and predictive analysis and gives an overview of the analysis
methods using opinion mining and machine learning techniques.
Abstract: A key issue in seismic risk analysis within the context
of Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering is the evaluation of
the expected seismic damage of structures under a specific
earthquake ground motion. The assessment of the seismic
performance strongly depends on the choice of the seismic Intensity
Measure (IM), which quantifies the characteristics of a ground
motion that are important to the nonlinear structural response. Several
conventional IMs of ground motion have been used to estimate their
damage potential to structures. Yet, none of them has been proved to
be able to predict adequately the seismic damage. Therefore,
alternative, scalar intensity measures, which take into account not
only ground motion characteristics but also structural information
have been proposed. Some of these IMs are based on integration of
spectral values over a range of periods, in an attempt to account for
the information that the shape of the acceleration, velocity or
displacement spectrum provides. The adequacy of a number of these
IMs in predicting the structural damage of 3D R/C buildings is
investigated in the present paper. The investigated IMs, some of
which are structure specific and some are non structure-specific, are
defined via integration of spectral values. To achieve this purpose
three symmetric in plan R/C buildings are studied. The buildings are
subjected to 59 bidirectional earthquake ground motions. The two
horizontal accelerograms of each ground motion are applied along
the structural axes. The response is determined by nonlinear time
history analysis. The structural damage is expressed in terms of the
maximum interstory drift as well as the overall structural damage
index. The values of the aforementioned seismic damage measures
are correlated with seven scalar ground motion IMs. The comparative
assessment of the results revealed that the structure-specific IMs
present higher correlation with the seismic damage of the three
buildings. However, the adequacy of the IMs for estimation of the
structural damage depends on the response parameter adopted.
Furthermore, it was confirmed that the widely used spectral
acceleration at the fundamental period of the structure is a good
indicator of the expected earthquake damage level.
Abstract: In oases, the surface water resources are becoming
increasingly scarce and groundwater resources, which generally have
a poor quality due to the high levels of salinity, are often
overexploited. Water saving have therefore become imperative for
better oases sustainability. If drip irrigation is currently recommended
in Morocco for saving water and valuing, its use in the sub-desert
areas does not keep water safe from high evaporation rates. An
alternative to this system would be the use of subsurface drip
irrigation. This technique is defined as an application of water under
the soil surface through drippers, which deliver water at rates
generally similar to surface drip irrigation. As subsurface drip
irrigation is a recently introduced in Morocco, a better understanding
of the infiltration process around a buried source, in local conditions,
and its impact on plant growth is necessarily required. This study
aims to contribute to improving the water use efficiency by testing
the performance of subsurface irrigation system, especially in areas
where water is a limited source. The objectives of this research are
performance evaluation in arid conditions of the subsurface drip
irrigation system for young date palms compared to the surface drip.
In this context, an experimental test is installed at a farmer’s field in
the area of Erfoud (Errachidia Province, southeastern Morocco),
using the subsurface drip irrigation system in comparison with the
classic drip system for young date palms. Flow measurement to
calculate the uniformity of the application of water was done through
two methods: a flow measurement of drippers above the surface and
another one underground. The latter method has also helped us to
estimate losses through evaporation for both irrigation techniques. In
order to compare the effect of two irrigation modes, plants were
identified for each type of irrigation to monitor certain agronomic
parameters (cumulative numbers of palms and roots development).
Experimentation referred to a distribution uniformity of about 88%;
considered acceptable for subsurface drip irrigation while it is around
80% for the surface drip irrigation. The results also show an increase
in root development and in the number of palm, as well as a
substantial water savings due to lower evaporation losses compared
to the classic drip irrigation.
The results of this study showed that subsurface drip irrigation is
an efficient technique, which allows sustainable irrigation in arid
areas.
Abstract: Oases are complex and fragile agro-ecosystems. They
have always existed in environments characterized by an arid climate,
scarcity of rainfall, high temperatures and high evaporation. These
palms have grown up despite the severity of the physical
characteristics thanks to the water's existence and irrigation practice.
The oases are generally spread along non-perennial rivers (wadis),
shallow water table or deep artesian groundwater. However, the
sustainability of oasis system is threatened by water scarcity and
declining of water table levels particularly in arid areas. Located in
the southern east area of Morocco, Tafilalet plain encompasses one of
the largest palm groves in the kingdom. In recent years, this area has
become increasingly threatened by water shortage and has seen a
sharp deterioration under the effect of several combined
anthropogenic and climatic factors. The Bayoud disease, successive
years of drought, Hassan Addakhil dam construction etc are all
factors that have affected both water and phoenicicole heritage of the
area. The objective of this study is to understand the interaction
between qualitative and quantitative degradation of groundwater
resources, and the palm grove dynamics, while reviewing the
assumption that groundwater resources contribute in a direct way to
the conservation of this oasis agroecosystem. A historical analysis
tracing both the oasis dynamics and the groundwater evolution has
been established. Data were collected from satellite images, surveys
with different actors (farmers, Regional Office for Agricultural
Development, Basin agency...). They were complemented by a
synthesis of numerous technical reports in the area. The results
showed that within 40 years, the thickness of the groundwater table
has dropped in 50 %. Along with this, there has been a downsizing of
date palm by 50 %. Areas with higher groundwater level were the
least affected by the downsizing. So we can say that the shallow
groundwater contribute significantly and directly to the water supply
of date palm through its root system, and largely ensures the oasis
ecosystem sustainability.
Abstract: Particles are the most common and cheapest
reinforcement producing discontinuous reinforced composites with
isotropic properties. Conventional fabrication methods can be used to
produce a wide range of product forms, making them relatively
inexpensive. Optimising composite development must include
consideration of all the fundamental aspect of particles including
their size, shape, volume fraction, distribution and mechanical
properties. Research has shown that the challenges of low fracture
toughness, poor crack growth resistance and low thermal stability can
be overcome by reinforcement with particles. The unique properties
exhibited by micro particles reinforced ceramic composites have
made them to be highly attractive in a vast array of applications.
Abstract: It is usually difficult for students to understand some
basic theories in learning thermal energy and power engineering
course. A new teaching method was proposed that we should introduce
the comparison research method of those theories to help them being
understood. “Homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis” teaching is
analyzed as an example by comparison research method.
Abstract: Currently, seismic probabilistic risk assessments
(SPRA) for nuclear facilities use In-Structure Response Spectra
(ISRS) in the calculation of fragilities for systems and components.
ISRS are calculated via dynamic analyses of the host building
subjected to two orthogonal components of horizontal ground
motion. Each component is defined as the median motion in any
horizontal direction. Structural engineers applied the components
along selected X and Y Cartesian axes. The ISRS at different
locations in the building are also calculated in the X and Y directions.
The choice of the directions of X and Y are not specified by the
ground motion model with respect to geographic coordinates, and are
rather arbitrarily selected by the structural engineer. Normally, X and
Y coincide with the “principal” axes of the building, in the
understanding that this practice is generally conservative. For SPRA
purposes, however, it is desirable to remove any conservatism in the
estimates of median ISRS. This paper examines the effects of the
direction of horizontal seismic motion on the ISRS on typical nuclear
structure. We also evaluate the variability of ISRS calculated along
different horizontal directions. Our results indicate that some central
measures of the ISRS provide robust estimates that are practically
independent of the selection of the directions of the horizontal
Cartesian axes.
Abstract: Precast residential houses are normally constructed in Malaysia using precast shear-key wall panel and this panel is designed using BS8110 where there is no provision for earthquake. However, the safety of this house under moderate and strong earthquake is still questionable. Consequently, the full-scale of residential house are designed, constructed, tested and analyzed under in-plane lateral quasi-static cyclic loading. Hysteresis loops are plotted based on the experimental work and compared with modeling of hysteresis loops using HYSTERES in RUAUMOKO 2D program. Modified Takeda hysteresis model is chosen to behave a similar pattern with experimental work. This program will display the earthquake excitations, spectral displacements, pseudo spectral acceleration, mode shape and deformation of the structure. It can be concluded that this building is suffering severe cracks and damage under moderate and severe earthquake.
Abstract: To evaluate the factors which predetermine the
coronary artery disease in patients having positive Exercise Tolerance
Test (ETT) that is treadmill results and coronary artery findings. This
descriptive study was conducted at Department of Cardiology,
Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital & Research Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh
from 1st January, 2014 to 31st August, 2014. All patients who had
done ETT (treadmill) for chest pain diagnosis were studied. One
hundred and four patients underwent coronary angiogram after
positive treadmill result. Patients were divided into two groups
depending upon the angiographic findings, i.e. true positive and false
positive. Positive treadmill test patients who have coronary artery
involvement these are called true positive and who have no
involvement they are called false positive group. Both groups were
compared with each other. Out of 104 patients, 81 (77.9%) patients
had true positive ETT and 23 (22.1%) patients had false positive
ETT. The mean age of patients in positive ETT was 53.46± 8.06
years and male mean age was 53.63±8.36 years and female was
52.87±7.0 years. Sixty nine (85.19%) male patients and twelve
(14.81%) female patients had true positive ETT, whereas 15
(65.21%) males and 8 (34.79%) females had false positive ETT, this
was statistically significant (p
Abstract: Sports games conducted as a group are a form of
therapeutic exercise for aged people with decreased strength and for
people suffering from permanent damage of stroke and other
conditions. However, it is difficult for patients with different athletic
abilities to play a game on an equal footing. This study specifically
examines a computer video game designed for therapeutic exercise,
and a game system with support given depending on athletic ability.
Thereby, anyone playing the game can participate equally. This
video-game, to be specific, is a popular variant of balloon volleyball,
in which players hit a balloon by hand before it falls to the floor. In this
game system, each player plays the game watching a monitor on which
the system displays tailor-made video-game images adjusted to the
person’s athletic ability, providing players with player-adaptive assist
support. We have developed a multiplayer game system with an image
generation technique for the tailor-made video-game and conducted
tests to evaluate it.
Abstract: In this paper an isolated wind-diesel hybrid power
system has been considered for reactive power control study having
an induction generator for wind power conversion and synchronous
alternator with automatic voltage regulator (AVR) for diesel unit is
presented. The dynamic voltage stability evaluation is dependent on
small signal analysis considering a Static VAR Compensator (SVC)
and IEEE type -I excitation system. It's shown that the variable
reactive power source like SVC is crucial to meet the varying
demand of reactive power by induction generator and load and to
acquire an excellent voltage regulation of the system with minimum
fluctuations. Integral square error (ISE) criterion can be used to
evaluate the optimum setting of gain parameters. Finally the dynamic
responses of the power systems considered with optimum gain setting
will also be presented.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the positive
impact of SHRM practices and transformational leadership style on
employees job satisfaction and to develop a conceptual understanding
of the moderating role of transformational leadership between the
relationship of SHRM practices and employees job satisfaction. This
study focuses on four SHRM practices that have positive relationship
with employee’s job satisfaction.