Determination of Yield and Some Quality Characteristics of Winter Canola (Brassica napus ssp. oleifera L.) Cultivars

Canola is a specific edible type of rapeseed, developed in the 1970s, which contains about 40 percent oil. This research was carried out to determine the yield and some quality characteristics of some winter canola cultivars during the 2010-2011 vegetation period in Central Anatolia of Turkey. In this research; Oase, Dante, Californium, Excalibur, Elvis, ES Hydromel, Licord, Orkan, Vectra, Nelson, Champlain and NK Petrol winter canola varieties were used as material. The field experiment was set up in a “Randomized Complete Block Design” with three replications on 21 September 2010. In this research; seed yield, oil content, protein content, oil yield and protein yield were examined. As a result of this research; seed yield, oil content, oil yield and protein yield (except protein content) were significant differences between the cultivars. The highest seed yield (6348 kg ha-1) was obtained from the NK Petrol, while the lowest seed yield (3949 kg ha-1) was determined from the Champlain cultivar was obtained. The highest oil content (46.73%) was observed from Oase and the lowest value was obtained from Vectra (41.87%) cultivar. The highest oil yield (2950 kg ha-1) was determined from NK Petrol while the least value (1681 kg ha-1) was determined from Champlain cultivar. The highest protein yield (1539.3 kg ha-1) was obtained from NK Petrol and the lowest protein yield (976.5 kg ha-1) was obtained from Champlain cultivar. The main purpose of the cultivation of oil crops, to increase the yield of oil per unit area. According the result of this research, NK Petrol cultivar which ranks first with regard to both seed yield and oil yield between cultivars as the most suitable winter canola cultivar of local conditions.

Component Based Framework for Authoring and Multimedia Training in Mathematics

The new programming technologies allow for the creation of components which can be automatically or manually assembled to reach a new experience in knowledge understanding and mastering or in getting skills for a specific knowledge area. The project proposes an interactive framework that permits the creation, combination and utilization of components that are specific to mathematical training in high schools. The main framework-s objectives are: • authoring lessons by the teacher or the students; all they need are simple operating skills for Equation Editor (or something similar, or Latex); the rest are just drag & drop operations, inserting data into a grid, or navigating through menus • allowing sonorous presentations of mathematical texts and solving hints (easier understood by the students) • offering graphical representations of a mathematical function edited in Equation • storing of learning objects in a database • storing of predefined lessons (efficient for expressions and commands, the rest being calculations; allows a high compression) • viewing and/or modifying predefined lessons, according to the curricula The whole thing is focused on a mathematical expressions minicompiler, storing the code that will be later used for different purposes (tables, graphics, and optimisations). Programming technologies used. A Visual C# .NET implementation is proposed. New and innovative digital learning objects for mathematics will be developed; they are capable to interpret, contextualize and react depending on the architecture where they are assembled.

Islam in the Context of Political Processes in Modern Kazakhstan

Religion revival including Islam in Kazakhstan represents reaction, first of all on internal social and political change, events after disintegration of the USSR. Process of revival of Kazakhstan Islam was accompanied as positive, so by negative tendencies. Old mosques were restored, were under construction new, Islamic schools and high schools were created, was widely studied religious the dogmatic person, the corresponding literature was published, expanded contacts with foreign Muslim brothers in the faith, the centers of the Arab-Muslim culture extended. At the same time in Kazakhstan, there are religious-political parties and movements, pursuing radical goals down to change the spiritual and cultural identity of Muslims of Kazakhstan by the forcible introduction of non-traditional religious and political, ethnic and cultural values.

Can Physical Activity and Dietary Fat Intake Influence Body Mass Index in a Cross-sectional Correlational Design?

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of physical activity and dietary fat intake on Body Mass Index (BMI) of lecturers within a higher learning institutionalized setting. The study adopted a Cross-sectional Correlational Design and included 120 lecturers selected proportionately by simple random sampling techniques from a population of 600 lecturers. Data was collected using questionnaires, which had sections including physical activity checklist adopted from the international physical activity questionnaire (IPAQ), 24-hour food recall, anthropometric measurements mainly weight and height. Analysis involved the use of bivariate correlations and linear regression. A significant inverse association was registered between BMI and duration (in minutes) spent doing moderate intense physical activity per day (r=-0.322, p

Requirements and Design of RFID based EManufacturing System

This paper proposes the requirements and design of RFID based system for SFC (Shop Floor Control) in order to achieve the factory real time controllability, Allowing to develop EManufacturing System. The detailed logical specifications of the core functions and the design diagrams of RFID based system are developed. Then RFID deployment in E-Manufacturing systems is investigated..

Effective Implementation of Burst SegmentationTechniques in OBS Networks

Optical Bursts Switching (OBS) is a relatively new optical switching paradigm. Contention and burst loss in OBS networks are major concerns. To resolve contentions, an interesting alternative to discarding the entire data burst is to partially drop the burst. Partial burst dropping is based on burst segmentation concept that its implementation is constrained by some technical challenges, besides the complexity added to the algorithms and protocols on both edge and core nodes. In this paper, the burst segmentation concept is investigated, and an implementation scheme is proposed and evaluated. An appropriate dropping policy that effectively manages the size of the segmented data bursts is presented. The dropping policy is further supported by a new control packet format that provides constant transmission overhead.

Evaluating the Response of Rainfed-Chickpea to Population Density in Iran, Using Simulation

The response of growth and yield of rainfed-chickpea to population density should be evaluated based on long-term experiments to include the climate variability. This is achievable just by simulation. In this simulation study, this evaluation was done by running the CYRUS model for long-term daily weather data of five locations in Iran. The tested population densities were 7 to 59 (with interval of 2) stands per square meter. Various functions, including quadratic, segmented, beta, broken linear, and dent-like functions, were tested. Considering root mean square of deviations and linear regression statistics [intercept (a), slope (b), and correlation coefficient (r)] for predicted versus observed variables, the quadratic and broken linear functions appeared to be appropriate for describing the changes in biomass and grain yield, and in harvest index, respectively. Results indicated that in all locations, grain yield tends to show increasing trend with crowding the population, but subsequently decreases. This was also true for biomass in five locations. The harvest index appeared to have plateau state across low population densities, but decreasing trend with more increasing density. The turning point (optimum population density) for grain yield was 30.68 stands per square meter in Isfahan, 30.54 in Shiraz, 31.47 in Kermanshah, 34.85 in Tabriz, and 32.00 in Mashhad. The optimum population density for biomass ranged from 24.6 (in Tabriz) to 35.3 stands per square meter (Mashhad). For harvest index it varied between 35.87 and 40.12 stands per square meter.

Factors Having Impact on Marketing and Improvement Measures in the Real Estate Sector of Turkey

Marketing is an essential issue to the survival of any real estate company in Turkey. There are some factors which are constraining the achievements of the marketing and sales strategies in the Turkey real estate industry. This study aims to identify and prioritise the most significant constraints to marketing in real estate sector and new strategies based on those constraints. This study is based on survey method, where the respondents such as credit counsellors, real estate investors, consultants, academicians and marketing representatives in Turkey were asked to rank forty seven sub-factors according to their levels of impact. The results of Multiattribute analytical technique indicated that the main subcomponents having impact on marketing in real estate sector are interest rates, real estate credit availability, accessibility, company image and consumer real income, respectively. The identified constraints are expected to guide the marketing team in a sales-effective way.

A Two-Stage Multi-Agent System to Predict the Unsmoothed Monthly Sunspot Numbers

A multi-agent system is developed here to predict monthly details of the upcoming peak of the 24th solar magnetic cycle. While studies typically predict the timing and magnitude of cycle peaks using annual data, this one utilizes the unsmoothed monthly sunspot number instead. Monthly numbers display more pronounced fluctuations during periods of strong solar magnetic activity than the annual sunspot numbers. Because strong magnetic activities may cause significant economic damages, predicting monthly variations should provide different and perhaps helpful information for decision-making purposes. The multi-agent system developed here operates in two stages. In the first, it produces twelve predictions of the monthly numbers. In the second, it uses those predictions to deliver a final forecast. Acting as expert agents, genetic programming and neural networks produce the twelve fits and forecasts as well as the final forecast. According to the results obtained, the next peak is predicted to be 156 and is expected to occur in October 2011- with an average of 136 for that year.

Kerma Profile Measurements in CT Chest Scans– a Comparison of Methodologies

The Brazilian legislation has only established diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) in terms of Multiple Scan Average Dose (MSAD) as a quality control parameter for computed tomography (CT) scanners. Compliance with DRLs can be verified by measuring the Computed Tomography Kerma Index (Ca,100) with a pencil ionization chamber or by obtaining the kerma distribution in CT scans with radiochromic films or rod shape lithium fluoride termoluminescent dosimeters (TLD-100). TL dosimeters were used to record kerma profiles and to determine MSAD values of a Bright Speed model GE CT scanner. Measurements were done with radiochromic films and TL dosimeters distributed in cylinders positioned in the center and in four peripheral bores of a standard polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) body CT dosimetry phantom. Irradiations were done using a protocol for adult chest. The maximum values were found at the midpoint of the longitudinal axis. The MSAD values obtained with three dosimetric techniques were compared.

Landfill Gas Monitoring at Borehole Wells using an Autonomous Environmental Monitoring System

An autonomous environmental monitoring system (Smart Landfill) has been constructed for the quantitative measurement of the components of landfill gas found at borehole wells at the perimeter of landfill sites. The main components of landfill gas are the greenhouse gases, methane and carbon dioxide and have been monitored in the range 0-5 % volume. This monitoring system has not only been tested in the laboratory but has been deployed in multiple field trials and the data collected successfully compared with on-site monitors. This success shows the potential of this system for application in environments where reliable gas monitoring is crucial.

A Power-Controlled Scheduling Scheme Using a Directional Antenna in Smart Home

This paper proposes a power-controlled scheduling scheme for devices using a directional antenna in smart home. In the case of the home network using directional antenna, devices can concurrently transmit data in the same frequency band. Accordingly, the throughput increases compared to that of devices using omni-directional antenna in proportional to the number of concurrent transmissions. Also, the number of concurrent transmissions depends on the beamwidth of antenna, the number of devices operating in the network , transmission power, interference and so on. In particular, the less transmission power is used, the more concurrent transmissions occur due to small transmission range. In this paper, we considered sub-optimal scheduling scheme for throughput maximization and power consumption minimization. In the scheme, each device is equipped with a directional antenna. Various beamwidths, path loss components, and antenna radiation efficiencies are considered. Numerical results show that the proposed schemes outperform the scheduling scheme using directional antennas without power control.

Credit Risk Management and Analysis in an Iranian Bank

While financial institutions have faced difficulties over the years for a multitude of reasons, the major cause of serious banking problems continues to be directly related to lax credit standards for borrowers and counterparties, poor portfolio risk management, or a lack of attention to changes in economic or other circumstances that can lead to a deterioration in the credit standing of a bank's counterparties. Credit risk is most simply defined as the potential that a bank borrower or counterparty will fail to meet its obligations in accordance with agreed terms. The goal of credit risk management is to maximize a bank's risk-adjusted rate of return by maintaining credit risk exposure within acceptable parameters. Banks need to manage the credit risk inherent in the entire portfolio as well as the risk in individual credits or transactions. Banks should also consider the relationships between credit risk and other risks. The effective management of credit risk is a critical component of a comprehensive approach to risk management and essential to the long-term success of any banking organization. In this research we also study the relationship between credit risk indices and borrower-s timely payback in Karafarin bank.

Predicting the Impact of the Defect on the Overall Environment in Function Based Systems

There is lot of work done in prediction of the fault proneness of the software systems. But, it is the severity of the faults that is more important than number of faults existing in the developed system as the major faults matters most for a developer and those major faults needs immediate attention. In this paper, we tried to predict the level of impact of the existing faults in software systems. Neuro-Fuzzy based predictor models is applied NASA-s public domain defect dataset coded in C programming language. As Correlation-based Feature Selection (CFS) evaluates the worth of a subset of attributes by considering the individual predictive ability of each feature along with the degree of redundancy between them. So, CFS is used for the selecting the best metrics that have highly correlated with level of severity of faults. The results are compared with the prediction results of Logistic Models (LMT) that was earlier quoted as the best technique in [17]. The results are recorded in terms of Accuracy, Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE). The results show that Neuro-fuzzy based model provide a relatively better prediction accuracy as compared to other models and hence, can be used for the modeling of the level of impact of faults in function based systems.

Identifying Corruption in Legislation using Risk Analysis Methods

The objective of this article is to discuss the potential of economic analysis as a tool for identification and evaluation of corruption in legislative acts. We propose that corruption be perceived as a risk variable within the legislative process. Therefore we find it appropriate to employ risk analysis methods, used in various fields of economics, for the evaluation of corruption in legislation. Furthermore we propose the incorporation of these methods into the so called corruption impact assessment (CIA), the general framework for detection of corruption in legislative acts. The applications of the risk analysis methods are demonstrated on examples of implementation of proposed CIA in the Czech Republic.

Consumer Product Demand Forecasting based on Artificial Neural Network and Support Vector Machine

The nature of consumer products causes the difficulty in forecasting the future demands and the accuracy of the forecasts significantly affects the overall performance of the supply chain system. In this study, two data mining methods, artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM), were utilized to predict the demand of consumer products. The training data used was the actual demand of six different products from a consumer product company in Thailand. The results indicated that SVM had a better forecast quality (in term of MAPE) than ANN in every category of products. Moreover, another important finding was the margin difference of MAPE from these two methods was significantly high when the data was highly correlated.

Breakdown of LDPE Film under Heavy Water Absorption

The breakdown strength characteristic of Low Density Polyethylene films (LDPE) under DC voltage application and the effect of water absorption have been studied. Mainly, our experiment was investigated under two conditions; dry and heavy water absorption. Under DC ramp voltage, the result found that the breakdown strength under heavy water absorption has a lower value than dry condition. In order to clarify the effect, the temperature rise of film was observed using non contact thermograph until the occurrence of the electrical breakdown and the conduction current of the sample was also measured in correlation with the thermograph measurement. From the observations, it was shown that under the heavy water absorption, the hot spot in the samples appeared at lower voltage. At the same voltage the temperature of the hot spot and conduction current was higher than that under the dry condition. The measurement result has a good correlation between the existence of a critical field for conduction current and thermograph observation. In case of the heavy water absorption, the occurrence of the threshold field was earlier than the dry condition as result lead to higher of conduction current and the temperature rise appears after threshold field was significantly increased in increasing of field. The higher temperature rise was caused by the higher current conduction as the result the insulation leads to breakdown to the lower field application.

Effects of PEG and NaCl Stress on Two Cultivars of Corn (Zea mays L.) at Germination and Early Seedling Stages

To study on effect of PEG and NaCl stress on germination and early seedling stages on two cultivar of corn, two separated experiment were laid out at physiology laboratory, faculty of Agriculture, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran in 2009. This investigation was performed as factorial experiment under Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. Cultivar factor contains of two varieties (sweet corn SC403 and Flint corn SC704) and five levels of stress (0, -2, -4, -6 and -8 bar). The principal aim of current study was to compare the two varieties of maize in relative to the stress conditions. Results indicated that significant decrease was observed in percentage of germination, germination rate, length of radicle and plumule and radicle and plumule dry matter. On the basis of the results, NaCl as compared with PEG had more effect on germination and early seedling stage and sweet corn had more resistant than flint corn in both stress conditions.

Evaluation and Analysis of Lean-Based Manufacturing Equipment and Technology System for Jordanian Industries

International markets driven forces are changing continuously, therefore companies need to gain a competitive edge in such markets. Improving the company's products, processes and practices is no longer auxiliary. Lean production is a production management philosophy that consolidates work tasks with minimum waste resulting in improved productivity. Lean production practices can be mapped into many production areas. One of these is Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (MET). Many lean production practices can be implemented in MET, namely, specific equipment configurations, total preventive maintenance, visual control, new equipment/ technologies, production process reengineering and shared vision of perfection.The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implementation level of these six practices in Jordanian industries. To achieve that a questionnaire survey has been designed according to five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire is validated through pilot study and through experts review. A sample of 350 Jordanian companies were surveyed, the response rate was 83%. The respondents were asked to rate the extent of implementation for each of practices. A relationship conceptual model is developed, hypotheses are proposed, and consequently the essential statistical analyses are then performed. An assessment tool that enables management to monitor the progress and the effectiveness of lean practices implementation is designed and presented. Consequently, the results show that the average implementation level of lean practices in MET is 77%, Jordanian companies are implementing successfully the considered lean production practices, and the presented model has Cronbach-s alpha value of 0.87 which is good evidence on model consistency and results validation.

Usability and Functionality: A Comparison of Key Project Personnel's and Potential Users' Evaluations

Meeting users- requirements is one of predictors of project success. There should be a match between the expectations of the users and the perception of key project personnel with respect to usability and functionality. The aim of this study is to make a comparison of key project personnel-s and potential users- (customer representatives) evaluations of the relative importance of usability and functionality factors in a software design project. Analytical Network Process (ANP) was used to analyze the relative importance of the factors. The results show that navigation and interaction are the most significant factors,andsatisfaction and efficiency are the least important factors for both groups. Further, it can be concluded that having similar orders and scores of usability and functionality factors for both groups shows that key project personnel have captured the expectations and requirements of potential users accurately.