Abstract: The model tests were conducted in the laboratory
without and with Plastic recycled polymer in fly ash steep slopes
overlaying soft foundation soils like fly ash and powai soil in order to
check the stability of steep slope. In this experiment, fly ash is used
as a filling material and Plastic Recycled Polymers of diameter =
3mm and length = 4mm were made from waste plastic product (lower
grade plastic product). The properties of fly ash and Plastic recycled
polymers are determined. From the experiments, load and settlement
have measured. From these data, load –settlement curves have
reported. It has been observed from test results that load carrying
capacity of mixture fly ash with Plastic Recycled Polymers slope is
more than that of fly ash slope. The deformation of Plastic Recycled
Polymers slope is slightly more than that of fly ash slope. A Finite
Element Method (F.E.M.) was also evaluated using PLAXIS 3D
version. The failure pattern, deformations and factor of safety are
reported based on analytical programme. The results from
experimental data and analytical programme are compared and
reported.
Abstract: Moringa oleifera is a nutritious vegetable tree with
varieties of potential uses, as almost every part of the Moringa
oleifera tree can be used for food. This study was conducted in Oyo
State, Nigeria, to find out the level of acceptability of Moringa
oleifera diversified products among rural and urban dwellers.
Purposive sampling was used to select two local governments’ areas.
Stratified sampling technique was also used to select one community
each from rural and urban areas while snowball sampling technique
was used to select ten respondents each from the two communities,
making a total number of forty respondents. Data were analyzed
using frequencies, percentages, Chi-square, Pearson Product Moment
Correlation and regression analysis. Result from the study revealed
that majority of the respondents (80%) fell within the age range of
20-49 years and 55% of them were male, 55% were married, 70% of
them were Christians, 80% of them had tertiary education. The result
also showed that 85% were aware of the Moringa plant and (65%) of
them have consumed Moringa oleifera and the perception statements
on the benefits of Moringa oleifera indicated that (52.5%) of the
respondents rated Moringa oleifera to be favorable, most of them had
high acceptability for Moringa egusi soup, Moringa tea, Moringa pap
and yam pottage with Moringa. The result of the hypotheses testing
showed that there is a significant relationship between sex of the
respondents and acceptability of the diversified Moringa oleifera
products (x2=6.465, p = 0.011). There is also a significant
relationship between family size of the respondents level of
acceptability of the Moringa oleifera products (r = 0.327, p = 0.040).
Based on the level of acceptability of Moringa oleifera diversified
products; the plant is of great economic importance to the populace.
Therefore, there should be more public awareness through the media
to enlighten people on the beneficial effects of Moringa oleifera.
Abstract: The largest share of policy and money within the
European Union goes to agriculture. The Union’s Common
Agricultural Policy has undergone several transformations in the last
five decades, with the main change taking place in the 1990s. This
change influenced agriculture in the Czech Republic, inasmuch as the
fledgling republic was preparing to join the European Union and
adopt its policies. In the 1990s, Czech agriculture passed from
a centrally planned economy to a market economy and subsequently
adopted the terms of the Common Agricultural Policy. The Czech
Republic is also characterized by a significant diversification of
landscape sphere. Agricultural entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic
are still not accustomed to the possibility of grants from the European
Union. They focus rather on national or regional subsidies. Only half
of all agricultural entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic use European
subsidies. This article focuses on the introduction of the Common
Agricultural Policy to the Czech Republic and its subsequent
influence on Czech agriculture. It is demonstrated through the
implementation rate of the CAP in the EU Member States and
a closer focus on Czech integration.
Abstract: Egg yolk oil is a natural source of bioactive
compounds such as unsaturated fatty acids, oil soluble vitamins,
pigments and others. Bioactive compound content in egg yolk oil
depends from its content in eggs, from which oil was extracted. Many
studies show that bioactive compound content in egg is correlated to
the content of these compounds in hen feed, but there is also an
opinion that hen housing systems also have influence on egg
chemical content. The aim of this study was to determine which
factor, laying hen housing system or hen diet, has a primary influence
on bioactive compound content in egg yolk oil. The egg yolk oil was
extracted from eggs obtained from 4 different hen housing systems:
cage, barn and two groups of free range. All hens were fed with
commercially produced compound feed except one group of free
range hens which get free diet – pastured hens. Extracted egg yolk
oils were analyzed for fatty acids, oil soluble vitamins and β-carotene
content. α-tocopherol, ergocalcipherol and polyunsaturated fatty acid
content in egg yolk oil was higher from eggs obtained from all
housing systems where hens were fed with commercial compound
feed. β-carotene and retinol content in egg yolk oils from free range
free diet eggs was significantly (p>0.05) higher that from other eggs
because hens have access to green forage. Hen physical activity in
free range housing systems decreases content of some bioactive
compound in egg yolk oil.
Abstract: Image compression based on fractal coding is a lossy
compression method and normally used for gray level images range
and domain blocks in rectangular shape. Fractal based digital image
compression technique provide a large compression ratio and in this
paper, it is proposed using YUV colour space and the fractal theory
which is based on iterated transformation. Fractal geometry is mainly
applied in the current study towards colour image compression
coding. These colour images possesses correlations among the colour
components and hence high compression ratio can be achieved by
exploiting all these redundancies. The proposed method utilises the
self-similarity in the colour image as well as the cross-correlations
between them. Experimental results show that the greater
compression ratio can be achieved with large domain blocks but more
trade off in image quality is good to acceptable at less than 1 bit per
pixel.
Abstract: The past two decades, Thailand faced the natural
disasters, for instance, Gay typhoon in 1989, tsunami in 2004, and
huge flood in 2011. The disaster management in Thailand was
improved both structure and mechanism for cope with the natural
disaster since 2007. However, the natural disaster management in
Thailand has various problems, for examples, cooperation between
related an organizations have not unity, inadequate resources, the
natural disaster management of public sectors not proactive, people
has not awareness the risk of the natural disaster, and communities
did not participate in the natural disaster management.
Objective of this study is to find the methods for capacity building
in the natural disaster management of Thailand. The concept and
information about the capacity building and the natural disaster
management of Thailand were reviewed and analyzed by classifying
and organizing data. The result found that the methods for capacity
building in the natural disaster management of Thailand should be
consist of 1) link operation and information in the natural disaster
management between nation, province, local and community levels,
2) enhance competency and resources of public sectors which relate
to the natural disaster management, 3) establish proactive natural
disaster management both planning and implementation, 4)
decentralize the natural disaster management to local government
organizations, 5) construct public awareness in the natural disaster
management to community, 6) support Community Based Disaster
Risk Management (CBDRM) seriously, and 7) emphasis on
participation in the natural disaster management of all stakeholders.
Abstract: The authors propose the identification, analysis and
prognosis of the quantitative and qualitative evolution of the elderly
population in the functional urban areas. The present paper takes into
account the analysis of some representative indicators (the weight of
the elderly population, ageing index, dynamic index of economic
ageing of productive population etc.) and the elaboration of an
integrated indicator that would help differentiate the population
ageing forms in the 48 functional urban areas that were defined based
on demographic and social-economic criteria for all large and
medium cities in Romania.
Abstract: This paper is part of a study to develop robots for
farming. As such power requirement to operate equipment attach to
such robots become an important factor. Soil-tool interaction plays
major role in power consumption, thus predicting accurately the
forces which act on the blade during the farming is very important for
optimal designing of farm equipment. In this paper, a finite element
investigation for tillage tools and soil interaction is described by
using an inelastic constitutive material law for agriculture
application. A 3-dimensional (3D) nonlinear finite element analysis
(FEA) is developed to examine behavior of a blade with different
rake angles moving in a block of soil, and to estimate the blade force.
The soil model considered is an elastic-plastic with non-associated
Drucker-Prager material model. Special use of contact elements are
employed to consider connection between soil-blade and soil-soil
surfaces. The FEA results are compared with experimental ones,
which show good agreement in accurately predicting draft forces
developed on the blade when it moves through the soil. Also a very
good correlation was obtained between FEA results and analytical
results from classical soil mechanics theories for straight blades.
These comparisons verified the FEA model developed. For analyzing
complicated soil-tool interactions and for optimum design of blades,
this method will be useful.
Abstract: In the past few years, the amount of malicious software
increased exponentially and, therefore, machine learning algorithms
became instrumental in identifying clean and malware files through
(semi)-automated classification. When working with very large
datasets, the major challenge is to reach both a very high malware
detection rate and a very low false positive rate. Another challenge
is to minimize the time needed for the machine learning algorithm to
do so. This paper presents a comparative study between different
machine learning techniques such as linear classifiers, ensembles,
decision trees or various hybrids thereof. The training dataset consists
of approximately 2 million clean files and 200.000 infected files,
which is a realistic quantitative mixture. The paper investigates the
above mentioned methods with respect to both their performance
(detection rate and false positive rate) and their practicability.
Abstract: This paper proposes the application of the Smart
Security Concept in the East Mediterranean. Smart Security aims to
secure critical infrastructure, such as hydrocarbon platforms, against
asymmetrical threats. The concept is based on Anti Asymmetrical
Area Denial (A3D) which necessitates limiting freedom of action of
maritime terrorists and piracy by founding safe and secure maritime
areas through sea lines of communication using short range
capabilities.
Abstract: The objective of present research paper is to highlight
the importance of measuring advertisement effectiveness in print
media and to develop a conceptual model for advertisement
effectiveness. The developed model is based on dimensions on which
advertisement effectiveness depends and on the dimensions which are
used to measure the effectiveness. An in-depth and extensive
literature review is carried out to understand the concept of
advertisement effectiveness and its various determinants in context of
print media. Based on the insights gained, a conceptual framework
for advertisement effectiveness is presented. The model is an attempt
to uncover the relatively less explored area of advertisement
effectiveness in Indian advertising scenario. It is believed that present
work will encourage scholars and academicians to further explore the
area and will offer conceptual assistance and a fresh direction in the
domain of advertisement effectiveness.
Abstract: Proposed paper dealt with the modelling and analysis of induction motor based on the mathematical expression using the graphical programming environment of Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW). Induction motor modelling with the mathematical expression enables the motor to be simulated with the various required parameters. Owing to the invention of variable speed drives study about the induction motor characteristics became complex. In this simulation motor internal parameter such as stator resistance and reactance, rotor resistance and reactance, phase voltage, frequency and losses will be given as input. By varying the speed of motor corresponding parameters can be obtained they are input power, output power, efficiency, torque induced, slip and current.
Abstract: A total of 115 yeast strains isolated from local cassava
processing wastes were measured for crude protein content. Among
these strains, the strain MSY-2 possessed the highest protein
concentration (>3.5 mg protein/mL). By using molecular
identification tools, it was identified to be a strain of Pichia
kudriavzevii based on similarity of D1/D2 domain of 26S rDNA
region. In this study, to optimize the protein production by MSY-2
strain, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was applied. The
tested parameters were the carbon content, nitrogen content, and
incubation time. Here, the value of regression coefficient (R2) =
0.7194 could be explained by the model which is high to support the
significance of the model. Under the optimal condition, the protein
content was produced up to 3.77 g per L of the culture and MSY-2
strain contains 66.8 g protein per 100 g of cell dry weight. These
results revealed the plausibility of applying the novel strain of yeast
in single-cell protein production.
Abstract: Non contact evaluation of the thickness of paint
coatings can be attempted by different destructive and nondestructive
methods such as cross-section microscopy, gravimetric mass
measurement, magnetic gauges, Eddy current, ultrasound or
terahertz. Infrared thermography is a nondestructive and non-invasive
method that can be envisaged as a useful tool to measure the surface
thickness variations by analyzing the temperature response. In this
paper, the thermal quadrupole method for two layered samples heated
up with a pulsed excitation is firstly used. By analyzing the thermal
responses as a function of thermal properties and thicknesses of both
layers, optimal parameters for the excitation source can be identified.
Simulations show that a pulsed excitation with duration of ten
milliseconds allows obtaining a substrate-independent thermal
response. Based on this result, an experimental setup consisting of a
near-infrared laser diode and an Infrared camera was next used to
evaluate the variation of paint coating thickness between 60 μm and
130 μm on two samples. Results show that the parameters extracted
for thermal images are correlated with the estimated thicknesses by
the Eddy current methods. The laser pulsed thermography is thus an
interesting alternative nondestructive method that can be moreover
used for nonconductive substrates.
Abstract: The first part of the paper analyzes the dynamics of
the total fertility rate both at the national and regional level, pointing
out the regional disparities in the distribution of this indicator. At the
same time, we also focus on the collapse of the number of live births,
on the changes in the fertility rate by birth rank, as well as on the
failure of acquiring the desired number of children. The second part
of the study centres upon a survey applied to urban families with 3
and more than 3 offspring. The preliminary analysis highlights the
fact that an increased fertility (more than 3rd rank) is triggered by the
parents’ above the average material condition and superior education.
The current situation of Romania, which is still passing through a
period of relatively rapid demographic changes, marked by numerous
convulsions, requires a new approach, in compliance with the recent
interpretations appropriate to a new post-transitional demographic
regime.
Abstract: The paper presents a method for a simple and
immediate motion planning of a SCARA robot, whose end-effector
has to move along a given trajectory; the calculation procedure
requires the user to define in analytical form or by points the
trajectory to be followed and to assign the curvilinear abscissa as
function of the time. On the basis of the geometrical characteristics
of the robot, a specifically developed program determines the motion
laws of the actuators that enable the robot to generate the required
movement; this software can be used in all industrial applications for
which a SCARA robot has to be frequently reprogrammed, in order
to generate various types of trajectories with different motion times.
Abstract: We proposed a Hyperbolic Gompertz Growth Model
(HGGM), which was developed by introducing a shape parameter
(allometric). This was achieved by convoluting hyperbolic sine
function on the intrinsic rate of growth in the classical gompertz
growth equation. The resulting integral solution obtained
deterministically was reprogrammed into a statistical model and used
in modeling the height and diameter of Pines (Pinus caribaea). Its
ability in model prediction was compared with the classical gompertz
growth model, an approach which mimicked the natural variability of
height/diameter increment with respect to age and therefore provides
a more realistic height/diameter predictions using goodness of fit
tests and model selection criteria. The Kolmogorov Smirnov test and
Shapiro-Wilk test was also used to test the compliance of the error
term to normality assumptions while the independence of the error
term was confirmed using the runs test. The mean function of top
height/Dbh over age using the two models under study predicted
closely the observed values of top height/Dbh in the hyperbolic
gompertz growth models better than the source model (classical
gompertz growth model) while the results of R2, Adj. R2, MSE and
AIC confirmed the predictive power of the Hyperbolic Gompertz
growth models over its source model.
Abstract: Transmission shafts are affected by various forces, for
example, during acceleration or sudden breaks, bending during
transportation, vertical forces that lead to cuts. One of the main
failures in combines is breaking shaft which repairmen refer it.
Structural resistance of canal against torque is very important in the
beginning of the movement. For analyzing stress, a typical sample
from a type of combine was selected, called JD955 combine. Long
shaft in this combine was analyzed with finite element method by
Ansys13 generic package under static load. Conducted analysis
showed that there is a maximum stress in contact surfaces of
indentations and also in place of changing diameter. Safety factor
value is low in parts of the shaft and this increases the probability of
failure at these points. To improve the conditions with the least cost
and an approach of product improvement, using alternative alloy is
important.
Abstract: The aims of this study were to determine the factor
structure and psychometric properties (i.e., reliability and convergent
validity) of the Malaysian Multi-Ethnic Discrimination Scale
(MMEDS). It consists of 71-items measure experience, strategies
used and consequences of ethnic discrimination. A sample of 649
university students from one of the higher education institution in
Malaysia was asked to complete MMEDS, as well as Perceived
Ethnic and Racial Discrimination. The exploratory factor analysis on
ethnic discrimination experience extracted two factors labeled ‘unfair
treatment’ (15 items) and ‘Denial of the ethnic right’ (12 items)
which accounted for 60.92% of the total variance. The two sub scales
demonstrated clear reliability with internal consistency above .70.
The convergent validity of the Scale was supported by an expected
pattern of correlations (positive and significant correlation) between
the score of unfair treatment and denial of the ethnic right and the
score of Perceived Ethnic and Racial Discrimination by Peers Scale.
The results suggest that the MMEDS is a reliable and valid measure.
However, further studies need to be carried out in other groups of
sample as to validate the Scale.
Abstract: PhilSHORE is a multi-site, multi-device and multicriteria
decision support tool designed to support the development of
tidal current energy in the Philippines. Its platform is based on
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which allows for the
collection, storage, processing, analyses and display of geospatial
data. Combining GIS tools with open source web development
applications, PhilSHORE becomes a webGIS-based marine spatial
planning tool. To date, PhilSHORE displays output maps and graphs
of power and energy density, site suitability and site-device analysis.
It enables stakeholders and the public easy access to the results of
tidal current energy resource assessments and site suitability
analyses. Results of the initial development show that PhilSHORE is
a promising decision support tool for ORE project developments.