Abstract: Nano-MgO was successfully deposited on titania using deposition-precipitation method. The catalyst produced was characterised using FTIR, XRD, BET and XRF and its activity was tested on the transesterification reaction of soybean oil to biodiesel. The catalyst activity improved when the reaction temperature was increasedfrom 150 and 225 OC. It was also observed that increasing the reaction time above 1h had no significant benefit on conversion. The stability fixed MgO on TiO2 was investigated using XRF and ICP-OES. It was observed that MgO loss during the reaction was between 0.5-2.3 percent and that there was no correlation between the reaction temperature and the MgO loss.
Abstract: The determination of sugars in foods is very
significant. Their relation in fact, can affect the chemical and
sensorial quality of the matrix (e.g., sweetness, pH, total acidity,
microbial stability, global acceptability) and can provide information
on food to optimize several selected technological processes. Three
stages of ripeness (green, yellow and red) of tomatoes (Lycopersicon
Esculentum cv. Elegance) at different harvest dates were evaluated.
Fruit from all harvests were exposed to different of ozone doses
(0.25, 0.50 and 1 mg O3/g tomatoes) and clean air for 5 day at 15
°C±2 and 90-95 % relative humidity. Then, fruits were submitted for
extraction and analysis after a day from the finish of exposure of each
stage. The concentrations of the glucose and fructose increased in the
tomatoes which were subjected to ozone treatments.
Abstract: This study1 holds for the formation of international financial crisis and political factors for economic crisis in Turkey, are evaluated in chronological order. The international arena and relevant studies conducted in Turkey work in the literature are assessed. The main purpose of the study is to hold the linkage between the crises and political stability in Turkey in details, and to examine the position of Turkey in this regard. The introduction part follows the literature survey on the models explaining causes and results of the crises, the second part of the study. In the third part, the formations of the world financial crises are studied. The fourth part, financial crisis in Turkey in 1994, 2000, 2001 and 2008 are reviewed and their political reasons are analyzed. In the last part of the study the results and recommendations are held. Political administrations have laid the grounds for an economic crisis in Turkey. In this study, the emergence of an economic crisis in Turkey and the developments after the crisis are chronologically examined and an explanation is offered as to the cause and effect relationship between the political administration and economic equilibrium in the country. Economic crises can be characterized as follows: high prices of consumables, high interest rates, current account deficits, budget deficits, structural defects in government finance, rising inflation and fixed currency applications, rising government debt, declining savings rates and increased dependency on foreign capital stock. Entering into the conditions of crisis during a time when the exchange value of the country-s national currency was rising, speculative finance movements and shrinking of foreign currency reserves happened due to expectations for devaluation and because of foreign investors- resistance to financing national debt, and a financial risk occurs. During the February 2001 crisis and immediately following, devaluation and reduction of value occurred in Turkey-s stock market. While changing over to the system of floating exchange rates in the midst of this crisis, the effects of the crisis on the real economy are discussed in this study. Administered politics include financial reforms, such as the rearrangement of banking systems. These reforms followed with the provision of foreign financial support. There have been winners and losers in the imbalance of income distribution, which has recently become more evident in Turkey-s fragile economy.
Abstract: Continuous pyrolysis of Cogongrass by control
temperature in the novel pyrolysis reactor were conducted at three
difference temperatures 400, 450 and 500°C. Preliminary calculate of
the product yields founded the liquid yield of Cogongrass was
highest of 41.45 %, at 500 oC. Indicated that the liquid yield from
Cogongrass had good received yields because it gave over 40 % and
its produced more liquid than that solid and gas. The compounds
detected in bio-oil from Cogongrass showed the functional group,
especially; Phenol, Phenol, 2,5-dimethyl, Phenol, 3-methyl, 2-
methyl-1,3-oxathiofane, Benzene,1-ethyl-4-methoxy, 2-Cyclopenten-
1-one,2,3-dimethyl, 2- Cyclopenten-1- one, 3-Methyl.
Abstract: This paper describes a simulation model for analyzing artificial emotion injected to design the game characters. Most of the game storyboard is interactive in nature and the virtual characters of the game are equipped with an individual personality and dynamic emotion value which is similar to real life emotion and behavior. The uncertainty in real expression, mood and behavior is also exhibited in game paradigm and this is focused in the present paper through a fuzzy logic based agent and storyboard. Subsequently, a pheromone distribution or labeling is presented mimicking the behavior of social insects.
Abstract: In this paper we are to find the optimum
multiwavelet for compression of electrocardiogram (ECG)
signals. At present, it is not well known which multiwavelet is
the best choice for optimum compression of ECG. In this
work, we examine different multiwavelets on 24 sets of ECG
data with entirely different characteristics, selected from MITBIH
database. For assessing the functionality of the different
multiwavelets in compressing ECG signals, in addition to
known factors such as Compression Ratio (CR), Percent Root
Difference (PRD), Distortion (D), Root Mean Square Error
(RMSE) in compression literature, we also employed the
Cross Correlation (CC) criterion for studying the
morphological relations between the reconstructed and the
original ECG signal and Signal to reconstruction Noise Ratio
(SNR). The simulation results show that the cardbal2 by the
means of identity (Id) prefiltering method to be the best
effective transformation.
Abstract: The objective of this research was to study the career
success and the satisfaction of female executives working for schools
in Bangkok, Thailand. This paper drew upon the survey data
collected from 68 female executives. The survey conducted in on
Bangkok schools. The statistics utilized in this paper included
percentage, mean, standard deviation as well as t-test. The findings
revealed that the majority of samples had more than 30 years of
experience, held a master degree, and had an average income of less
than 40,000 baht. The majority of respondents worked not more than
50 hours per week. In addition, the mean score revealed career
development was ranked as their number one career satisfaction and
having a job related to education was ranked as their number one job
satisfaction. Also, the mean score of all categories of satisfaction was
4.61 with standard deviation of 1.677 which indicated that female
executive level of satisfaction was high. In terms of the subjectivity
career success, the hypothesis testing’s result disclosed that female
executives with different married status had a difference in their job
satisfaction which was significant at the 0.05 confidence level.
Abstract: In this paper, a second order autoregressive (AR)
model is proposed to discriminate alcoholics using single trial
gamma band Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) signals using 3 different
classifiers: Simplified Fuzzy ARTMAP (SFA) neural network (NN),
Multilayer-perceptron-backpropagation (MLP-BP) NN and Linear
Discriminant (LD). Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were
recorded from alcoholic and control subjects during the presentation
of visuals from Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set. Single trial
VEP signals were extracted from EEG signals using Elliptic filtering
in the gamma band spectral range. A second order AR model was
used as gamma band VEP exhibits pseudo-periodic behaviour and
second order AR is optimal to represent this behaviour. This
circumvents the requirement of having to use some criteria to choose
the correct order. The averaged discrimination errors of 2.6%, 2.8%
and 11.9% were given by LD, MLP-BP and SFA classifiers. The
high LD discrimination results show the validity of the proposed
method to discriminate between alcoholic subjects.
Abstract: Displacement measurement was conducted on compact normal and shear specimens made of acrylic homogeneous material subjected to mixed-mode loading by digital image correlation. The intelligent hybrid method proposed by Nishioka et al. was applied to the stress-strain analysis near the crack tip. The accuracy of stress-intensity factor at the free surface was discussed from the viewpoint of both the experiment and 3-D finite element analysis. The surface images before and after deformation were taken by a CMOS camera, and we developed the system which enabled the real time stress analysis based on digital image correlation and inverse problem analysis. The great portion of processing time of this system was spent on displacement analysis. Then, we tried improvement in speed of this portion. In the case of cracked body, it is also possible to evaluate fracture mechanics parameters such as the J integral, the strain energy release rate, and the stress-intensity factor of mixed-mode. The 9-points elliptic paraboloid approximation could not analyze the displacement of submicron order with high accuracy. The analysis accuracy of displacement was improved considerably by introducing the Newton-Raphson method in consideration of deformation of a subset. The stress-intensity factor was evaluated with high accuracy of less than 1% of the error.
Abstract: In recent years, global warming has become a
worldwide problem. The reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is a
top priority for many companies in the manufacturing industry. In the
automobile industry as well, the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions
is one of the most important issues. Technology to reduce the weight
of automotive parts improves the fuel economy of automobiles, and is
an important technology for reducing carbon dioxide. Also, even if
this weight reduction technology is applied to electric automobiles
rather than gasoline automobiles, reducing energy consumption
remains an important issue. Plastic processing of hollow pipes is one
important technology for realizing the weight reduction of automotive
parts. Ohashi et al. [1],[2] present an example of research on pipe
formation in which a process was carried out to enlarge a pipe
diameter using a lost core, achieving the suppression of wall thickness
reduction and greater pipe expansion than hydroforming.
In this study, we investigated a method to increase the wall
thickness of a pipe through pipe compression using planetary rolls.
The establishment of a technology whereby the wall thickness of a
pipe can be controlled without buckling the pipe is an important
technology for the weight reduction of products. Using the finite
element analysis method, we predicted that it would be possible to
increase the compression of an aluminum pipe with a 3mm wall
thickness by approximately 20%, and wall thickness by approximately
20% by pressing the hollow pipe with planetary rolls.
Abstract: Education in the modern world provides the socioeconomic
progress of society. In today's society, where the presence
of large middle class ensures its stability and is a symbol of
resolution of hidden economic problems, education is an integral part
of formation and reproduction of the middle class. This article presents part of results of the sociological study conducted under the
project "Kazakhstan model of education: international experience and national traditions" supported by the Foundation of the First President
of Republic of Kazakhstan - Leader of the Nation to determine the
ratio of students to the transformations of the educational system. The
authors conclude that the Kazakhstani system of education, passing
through the transformation processes, improving the quality of
educational programs and trying to correspond to the international
standards, not yet in full range, but begins to perform important
functions in the formation of the middle class.
Abstract: A direct connection between ElectroEncephaloGram
(EEG) and the genetic information of individuals has been
investigated by neurophysiologists and psychiatrists since 1960-s;
and it opens a new research area in the science. This paper focuses on
the person identification based on feature extracted from the EEG
which can show a direct connection between EEG and the genetic
information of subjects. In this work the full EO EEG signal of
healthy individuals are estimated by an autoregressive (AR) model
and the AR parameters are extracted as features. Here for feature
vector constitution, two methods have been proposed; in the first
method the extracted parameters of each channel are used as a
feature vector in the classification step which employs a competitive
neural network and in the second method a combination of different
channel parameters are used as a feature vector. Correct classification
scores at the range of 80% to 100% reveal the potential of our
approach for person classification/identification and are in agreement
to the previous researches showing evidence that the EEG signal
carries genetic information. The novelty of this work is in the
combination of AR parameters and the network type (competitive
network) that we have used. A comparison between the first and the
second approach imply preference of the second one.
Abstract: The electronically available Urdu data is in image form
which is very difficult to process. Printed Urdu data is the root cause
of problem. So for the rapid progress of Urdu language we need an
OCR systems, which can help us to make Urdu data available for the
common person. Research has been carried out for years to automata
Arabic and Urdu script. But the biggest hurdle in the development of
Urdu OCR is the challenge to recognize Nastalique Script which is
taken as standard for writing Urdu language. Nastalique script is
written diagonally with no fixed baseline which makes the script
somewhat complex. Overlap is present not only in characters but in
the ligatures as well. This paper proposes a method which allows
successful recognition of Nastalique Script.
Abstract: Topological changes in mobile ad hoc networks
frequently render routing paths unusable. Such recurrent path failures
have detrimental effects on quality of service. A suitable technique
for eliminating this problem is to use multiple backup paths between
the source and the destination in the network. This paper proposes an
effective and efficient protocol for backup and disjoint path set in ad
hoc wireless network. This protocol converges to a highly reliable
path set very fast with no message exchange overhead. The paths
selection according to this algorithm is beneficial for mobile ad hoc
networks, since it produce a set of backup paths with more high
reliability. Simulation experiments are conducted to evaluate the
performance of our algorithm in terms of route numbers in the path
set and its reliability. In order to acquire link reliability estimates, we
use link expiration time (LET) between two nodes.
Abstract: Thyroid dysfunction is one of the most frequently
reported complications of chronic blood transfusion therapy in patients with beta-thalassemia major (BTM). However, the occurrence of thyroid dysfunction and its possible association with
iron overload in BTM patients is still under debate. Therefore, this
study aimed to investigate the status of thyroid functions and iron overload in adolescent and young adult patients with BTM in Jordan population. Thirty six BTM patients aged 12-28 years and matched controls were included in this study. All patients have been receiving frequent blood transfusion to maintain pretransfusion hemoglobin
concentration above 10 g dl-1 and deferoxamine at a dose of 45 mg kg-1 day-1 (8 h, 5-7 days/week) by subcutaneous infusion. Blood
samples were drawn from patients and controls. The status of thyroid functions and iron overload was evaluated by measurements of serum
free thyroxine (FT4), triiodothyronine (FT3), thyrotropin (TSH) and
serum ferritin level. A number of some hematological and
biochemical parameters were also measured. It was found that hematocrit, serum ferritin, hemoglobin, FT3 and zinc, copper mean values were significantly higher in the patients than in the controls (P< 0.05). On other hand, leukocyte, FT4 and TSH mean values were
similar to that of the controls. In addition, our data also indicated that
all of the above examined parameters were not significantly affected
by the patient-s age and gender. Deferoxamine approach for removing excess iron from our BTM patient did not normalize the
values of serum ferritin, copper and zinc, suggesting poor compliance
with deferoxamine chelation therapy. Thus, we recommend the use
of a combination of deferoxamine and deferiprone to reduce the risk
of excess of iron in our patients. Furthermore, thyroid dysfunction
appears to be a rare complication, because our patients showed
normal mean levels for serum TSH and FT4. However, high mean
levels of serum ferritin, zinc, copper might be seen as potential risk
factors for initiation and development of thyroid dysfunctions and
other diseases. Therefore, further studies must be carried out at
yearly intervals with large sample number, to detect subclinical
thyroid dysfunction cases.
Abstract: This paper proves that the problem of finding connected
vertex cover in a 2-connected planar graph ( CVC-2 ) with maximum degree 4 is NP-complete. The motivation for proving this result is to
give a shorter and simpler proof of NP-Completeness of TRA-MLC (the Top Right Access point Minimum-Length Corridor) problem [1], by finding the reduction from CVC-2. TRA-MLC has many applications in laying optical fibre cables for data communication and electrical wiring in floor plans.The problem of finding connected vertex cover in any planar graph ( CVC ) with maximum degree 4 is NP-complete [2]. We first show that CVC-2 belongs to NP and then we find a polynomial reduction from CVC to CVC-2. Let a graph G0 and an integer K form an instance of CVC, where G0 is a planar graph and K is an upper bound on the size of the connected vertex cover in G0. We construct a 2-connected planar graph, say G, by identifying the blocks and cut vertices of G0, and then finding the planar representation of all the blocks of G0, leading to a plane graph G1. We replace the cut vertices with cycles in such a way that the resultant graph G is a 2-connected planar graph with maximum
degree 4. We consider L = K -2t+3 t i=1 di where t is the number of cut vertices in G1 and di is the number of blocks for which ith cut vertex is common. We prove that G will have a connected vertex
cover with size less than or equal to L if and only if G0 has a connected vertex cover of size less than or equal to K.
Abstract: Semnan is a city in semnan province, northern Iran
with a population estimated at 119,778 inhabitants. It is the
provincial capital of semnan province. Iran is a developing country
and construction is a basic factor of developing too. Hence, Semnan
city needs to a special programming for construction of buildings,
structures and infrastructures. Semnan municipality tries to begin this
program. In addition to, city has some historical monuments which
can be interesting for tourists. Hence, Semnan inhabitants can benefit
from tourist industry. Optimization of Energy in construction
industry is another activity of this municipality and the inhabitants
who execute these regulations receive some discounts. Many parts of
Iran such as semnan are located in highly seismic zones and
structures must be constructed safe e.g., according to recent seismic
codes. In this paper opportunities of IT in construction industry of
Iran are investigated in three categories. Pre-construction phase,
construction phase and earthquake disaster mitigation are studied.
Studies show that information technology can be used in these items
for reducing the losses and increasing the benefits. Both government
and private sectors must contribute to this strategic project for
obtaining the best result.
Abstract: In the present work, Pulsed Electro Acoustic (PEA)
technique was adopted to understand the space charge dynamics in
elastomeric material. It is observed that the polarity of the applied
DC voltage voltage and its magnitude alters the space charge
dynamics in insulation structure. It is also noticed that any addition
of compound to the base material/processing technique have
characteristic variation in the space charge injection process. It could
be concluded based on the present work that the plasticizer could
inject heterocharges into the insulation medium. Also it is realized
that space charge magnitude is less with the addition of plasticizer. In
the PEA studies, it is observed that local electric field in the
insulating material can be much more than applied electric field due
to space charge formation. One of the important conclusions arrived
at based on PEA technique is that one could understand the safe
operating electric field of an insulation material and the charge trap
sites.
Abstract: The distribution of macrobenthic polychaetes along
the coastal waters of Penang National Park was surveyed to estimate
the effect of various environmental parameters at three stations
(200m, 600m and 1200m) from the shoreline, during six sampling
months, from June 2010 to April 2011.The use of polychaetes in
descriptive ecology is surveyed in the light of a recent investigation
particularly concerning the soft bottom biota environments.
Polychaetes, often connected in the former to the notion of
opportunistic species able to proliferate after an enhancement in
organic matter, had performed a momentous role particularly with
regard to effected soft-bottom habitats. The objective of this survey
was to investigate different environment stress over soft bottom
polychaete community along Teluk Ketapang and Pantai Acheh
(Penang National Park) over a year period. Variations in the
polychaete community were evaluated using univariate and
multivariate methods. The results of PCA analysis displayed a
positive relation between macrobenthic community structures and
environmental parameters such as sediment particle size and organic
matter in the coastal water. A total of 604 individuals were examined
which was grouped into 23 families. Family Nereidae was the most
abundant (22.68%), followed by Spionidae (22.02%), Hesionidae
(12.58%), Nephtylidae (9.27%) and Orbiniidae (8.61%). It is
noticeable that good results can only be obtained on the basis of good
taxonomic resolution. We proposed that, in monitoring surveys,
operative time could be optimized not only by working at a highertaxonomic
level on the entire macrobenthic data set, but by also
choosing an especially indicative group and working at lower
taxonomic and good level.
Abstract: In recent times, corporations are increasingly under pressure to ensure diversity within their boardrooms and a large number of academic research have reported findings consistent with the view that boards perform better when they include a diverse range of people. Women have unique characteristics needed to positively influence the strategic direction of a corporation and contribute to the growth of firms. In spite of such revelations, evidence suggests that women are under-represented in senior executive and board positions. In many parts of Africa, socio-cultural traditions inhibit women from attaining these roles. Given the emphasis placed on board diversity and inclusion of women as an essential part of good corporate governance, the relationship between gender diversity and board effectiveness deserves both theoretical and empirical investigation. This research is important because it represents the first theoretical review on gender diversity in corporate boards in Nigeria.