Abstract: The main objective of this study is to test the
relationship between numbers of variables representing the firm
characteristics (market-related variables) and the extent of voluntary
disclosure levels (forward-looking disclosure) in the annual reports of
Egyptian firms listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. The results
show that audit firm size is significantly positively correlated (in all
the three years) with the level of forward-looking disclosure.
However, industry type variable (which divided to: industries,
cement, construction, petrochemicals and services), is found being
insignificantly association with the level of forward-looking
information disclosed in the annual reports for all the three years.
Abstract: Transesterified vegetable oils (biodiesel) are promising alternative fuel for diesel engines. Used vegetable oils are disposed from restaurants in large quantities. But higher viscosity restricts their direct use in diesel engines. In this study, used cooking oil was dehydrated and then transesterified using an alkaline catalyst. The combustion, performance and emission characteristics of Used Cooking oil Methyl Ester (UCME) and its blends with diesel oil are analysed in a direct injection C.I. engine. The fuel properties and the combustion characteristics of UCME are found to be similar to those of diesel. A minor decrease in thermal efficiency with significant improvement in reduction of particulates, carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons is observed compared to diesel. The use of transesterified used cooking oil and its blends as fuel for diesel engines will reduce dependence on fossil fuels and also decrease considerably the environmental pollution.
Abstract: The statistical process control (SPC) is one of the most powerful tools developed to assist ineffective control of quality, involves collecting, organizing and interpreting data during production. This article aims to show how the use of CEP industries can control and continuously improve product quality through monitoring of production that can detect deviations of parameters representing the process by reducing the amount of off-specification products and thus the costs of production. This study aimed to conduct a technological forecasting in order to characterize the research being done related to the CEP. The survey was conducted in the databases Spacenet, WIPO and the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI). Among the largest are the United States depositors and deposits via PCT, the classification section that was presented in greater abundance to F.
Abstract: The study of effect of laser scanning speed on
material efficiency in Ti6Al4V application is very important because unspent powder is not reusable because of high temperature oxygen
pick-up and contamination. This study carried out an extensive study
on the effect of scanning speed on material efficiency by varying the
speed between 0.01 to 0.1m/sec. The samples are wire brushed and
cleaned with acetone after each deposition to remove un-melted
particles from the surface of the deposit. The substrate is weighed before and after deposition. A formula was developed to calculate the
material efficiency and the scanning speed was compared with the
powder efficiency obtained. The results are presented and discussed.
The study revealed that the optimum scanning speed exists for this study at 0.01m/sec, above and below which the powder efficiency
will drop
Abstract: Eukaryotic protein-coding genes are interrupted by spliceosomal introns, which are removed from the RNA transcripts before translation into a protein. The exon-intron structures of different eukaryotic species are quite different from each other, and the evolution of such structures raises many questions. We try to address some of these questions using statistical analysis of whole genomes. We go through all the protein-coding genes in a genome and study correlations between the net length of all the exons in a gene, the number of the exons, and the average length of an exon. We also take average values of these features for each chromosome and study correlations between those averages on the chromosomal level. Our data show universal features of exon-intron structures common to animals, plants, and protists (specifically, Arabidopsis thaliana, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, Cryptococcus neoformans, Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, Oryza sativa, and Plasmodium falciparum). We have verified linear correlation between the number of exons in a gene and the length of a protein coded by the gene, while the protein length increases in proportion to the number of exons. On the other hand, the average length of an exon always decreases with the number of exons. Finally, chromosome clustering based on average chromosome properties and parameters of linear regression between the number of exons in a gene and the net length of those exons demonstrates that these average chromosome properties are genome-specific features.
Abstract: Coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG) are widely
studied with respect to hemodynamic conditions which play
important role in presence of a restenosis. However, papers which
concern with constitutive modeling of CABG are lacking in the
literature. The purpose of this study is to find a constitutive model for
CABG tissue. A sample of the CABG obtained within an autopsy
underwent an inflation–extension test. Displacements were
recoredered by CCD cameras and subsequently evaluated by digital
image correlation. Pressure – radius and axial force – elongation
data were used to fit material model. The tissue was modeled as onelayered
composite reinforced by two families of helical fibers. The
material is assumed to be locally orthotropic, nonlinear,
incompressible and hyperelastic. Material parameters are estimated
for two strain energy functions (SEF). The first is classical
exponential. The second SEF is logarithmic which allows
interpretation by means of limiting (finite) strain extensibility.
Presented material parameters are estimated by optimization based
on radial and axial equilibrium equation in a thick-walled tube. Both
material models fit experimental data successfully. The exponential
model fits significantly better relationship between axial force and
axial strain than logarithmic one.
Abstract: Statistics indicate that more than 1000 phishing attacks are launched every month. With 57 million people hit by the fraud so far in America alone, how do we combat phishing?This publication aims to discuss strategies in the war against Phishing. This study is an examination of the analysis and critique found in the ways adopted at various levels to counter the crescendo of phishing attacks and new techniques being adopted for the same. An analysis of the measures taken up by the varied popular Mail servers and popular browsers is done under this study. This work intends to increase the understanding and awareness of the internet user across the globe and even discusses plausible countermeasures at the users as well as the developers end. This conceptual paper will contribute to future research on similar topics.
Abstract: Main Memory Database systems (MMDB) store their
data in main physical memory and provide very high-speed access.
Conventional database systems are optimized for the particular
characteristics of disk storage mechanisms. Memory resident
systems, on the other hand, use different optimizations to structure
and organize data, as well as to make it reliable.
This paper provides a brief overview on MMDBs and one of the
memory resident systems named FastDB and compares the
processing time of this system with a typical disc resident database
based on the results of the implementation of TPC benchmarks
environment on both.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to understand the main
sources of copper (Cu) accumulation in target organs of tilapia
(Oreochromis mossambicus) and to investigate how the organism
mediate the process of Cu accumulation under prolonged conditions.
By measuring both dietary and waterborne Cu accumulation and total
concentrations in tilapia with biokinetic modeling approach, we were
able to clarify the biokinetic coping mechanisms for the long term Cu
accumulation. This study showed that water and food are both the
major source of Cu for the muscle and liver of tilapia. This implied
that control the Cu concentration in these two routes will be correlated
to the Cu bioavailability for tilapia. We found that exposure duration
and level of waterborne Cu drove the Cu accumulation in tilapia. The
ability for Cu biouptake and depuration in organs of tilapia were
actively mediated under prolonged exposure conditions. Generally,
the uptake rate, depuration rate and net bioaccumulation ability in all
selected organs decreased with the increasing level of waterborne Cu
and extension of exposure duration.Muscle tissues accounted for over
50%of the total accumulated Cu and played a key role in buffering the
Cu burden in the initial period of exposure, alternatively, the liver
acted a more important role in the storage of Cu with the extension of
exposures. We concluded that assumption of the constant biokinetic
rates could lead to incorrect predictions with overestimating the
long-term Cu accumulation in ecotoxicological risk assessments.
Abstract: Numerical study of a plane jet occurring in a vertical
heated channel is carried out. The aim is to explore the influence of
the forced flow, issued from a flat nozzle located in the entry section
of a channel, on the up-going fluid along the channel walls. The
Reynolds number based on the nozzle width and the jet velocity
ranges between 3 103 and 2.104; whereas, the Grashof number based
on the channel length and the wall temperature difference is 2.57
1010. Computations are established for a symmetrically heated
channel and various nozzle positions. The system of governing
equations is solved with a finite volumes method. The obtained
results show that the jet-wall interactions activate the heat transfer,
the position variation modifies the heat transfer especially for low
Reynolds numbers: the heat transfer is enhanced for the adjacent
wall; however it is decreased for the opposite one. The numerical
velocity and temperature fields are post-processed to compute the
quantities of engineering interest such as the induced mass flow rate,
and the Nusselt number along the plates.
Abstract: Dust storms are one of the most costly and destructive
events in many desert regions. They can cause massive damages both
in natural environments and human lives. This paper is aimed at
presenting a preliminary study on dust storms, as a major natural
hazard in arid and semi-arid regions. As a case study, dust storm
events occurred in Zabol city located in Sistan Region of Iran was
analyzed to diagnose and predict dust storms. The identification and
prediction of dust storm events could have significant impacts on
damages reduction. Present models for this purpose are complicated
and not appropriate for many areas with poor-data environments. The
present study explores Gamma test for identifying inputs of ANNs
model, for dust storm prediction. Results indicate that more attempts
must be carried out concerning dust storms identification and
segregate between various dust storm types.
Abstract: In the recent works related with mixture discriminant
analysis (MDA), expectation and maximization (EM) algorithm is
used to estimate parameters of Gaussian mixtures. But, initial values
of EM algorithm affect the final parameters- estimates. Also, when
EM algorithm is applied two times, for the same data set, it can be
give different results for the estimate of parameters and this affect the
classification accuracy of MDA. Forthcoming this problem, we use
Self Organizing Mixture Network (SOMN) algorithm to estimate
parameters of Gaussians mixtures in MDA that SOMN is more robust
when random the initial values of the parameters are used [5]. We
show effectiveness of this method on popular simulated waveform
datasets and real glass data set.
Abstract: The study deals with the modelling of the gas flow during heliox therapy. A special model has been developed to study the effect of the helium upon the gas flow in the airways during the spontaneous breathing. Lower density of helium compared with air decreases the Reynolds number and it allows improving the flow during the spontaneous breathing. In the cases, where the flow becomes turbulent while the patient inspires air the flow is still laminar when the patient inspires heliox. The use of heliox decreases the work of breathing and improves ventilation. It allows in some cases to prevent the intubation of the patients.
Abstract: The more recent satellite projects/programs makes
extensive usage of real – time embedded systems. 16 bit processors
which meet the Mil-Std-1750 standard architecture have been used in
on-board systems. Most of the Space Applications have been written
in ADA. From a futuristic point of view, 32 bit/ 64 bit processors are
needed in the area of spacecraft computing and therefore an effort is
desirable in the study and survey of 64 bit architectures for space
applications. This will also result in significant technology
development in terms of VLSI and software tools for ADA (as the
legacy code is in ADA).
There are several basic requirements for a special processor for
this purpose. They include Radiation Hardened (RadHard) devices,
very low power dissipation, compatibility with existing operational
systems, scalable architectures for higher computational needs,
reliability, higher memory and I/O bandwidth, predictability, realtime
operating system and manufacturability of such processors.
Further on, these may include selection of FPGA devices, selection
of EDA tool chains, design flow, partitioning of the design, pin
count, performance evaluation, timing analysis etc.
This project deals with a brief study of 32 and 64 bit processors
readily available in the market and designing/ fabricating a 64 bit
RISC processor named RISC MicroProcessor with added
functionalities of an extended double precision floating point unit
and a 32 bit signal processing unit acting as co-processors. In this
paper, we emphasize the ease and importance of using Open Core
(OpenSparc T1 Verilog RTL) and Open “Source" EDA tools such as
Icarus to develop FPGA based prototypes quickly. Commercial tools
such as Xilinx ISE for Synthesis are also used when appropriate.
Abstract: Some believe that stigma is the worst side effect of the
people who have mental illness. Mental illness researchers have
focused on the influence of mass media on the stigmatization of the
people with mental illness. However, no studies have investigated the
effects of the interactive media, such as blogs, on the stigmatization
of mentally ill people, even though the media have a significant
influence on people in all areas of life. The purpose of this study is to
investigate the use of interactivity in destigmatization of the mentally
ill and the moderating effect of self-construal (independent versus
interdependent self-construal) on the relation between interactivity
and destigmatization. The findings suggested that people in the
human-human interaction condition had less social distance toward
people with mental illness. Additionally, participants with higher
independence showed more favorable affection and less social
distance toward mentally ill people. Finally, direct contact with
mentally ill people increased a person-s positive affect toward people
with mental illness. The current study should provide insights for
mental health practitioners by suggesting how they can use
interactive media to approach the public that stigmatizes the mentally
ill.
Abstract: Effective evaluation of software development effort is an important aspect of successful project management. Based on a large database with 4106 projects ever developed, this study statistically examines the factors that influence development effort. The factors found to be significant for effort are project size, average number of developers that worked on the project, type of development, development language, development platform, and the use of rapid application development. Among these factors, project size is the most critical cost driver. Unsurprisingly, this study found that the use of CASE tools does not necessarily reduce development effort, which adds support to the claim that the use of tools is subtle. As many of the current estimation models are rarely or unsuccessfully used, this study proposes a parsimonious parametric model for the prediction of effort which is both simple and more accurate than previous models.
Abstract: Vertical ZnO nanowire array films were synthesized
based on aqueous method for sensing applications. ZnO nanowires
were investigated structurally using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and
scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The gas-sensing properties of
ZnO nanowires array films are studied. It is found that the ZnO
nanowires array film sensor exhibits excellent sensing properties
towards O2 and CO2 at 100 °C with the response time shorter than 5
s. High surface area / volume ratio of vertical ZnO nanowire and high
mobility accounts for the fast response and recovery. The sensor
response was measured in the range from 100 to 500 ppm O2 and CO2
in this study.
Abstract: The use of electronic sensors in the electronics
industry has become increasingly popular over the past few years,
and it has become a high competition product. The frequency
adjustment process is regarded as one of the most important process
in the electronic sensor manufacturing process. Due to inaccuracies
in the frequency adjustment process, up to 80% waste can be caused
due to rework processes; therefore, this study aims to provide a
preliminary understanding of the role of parameters used in the
frequency adjustment process, and also make suggestions in order to
further improve performance. Four parameters are considered in this
study: air pressure, dispensing time, vacuum force, and the distance
between the needle tip and the product. A full factorial design for
experiment 2k was considered to determine those parameters that
significantly affect the accuracy of the frequency adjustment process,
where a deviation in the frequency after adjustment and the target
frequency is expected to be 0 kHz. The experiment was conducted on
two levels, using two replications and with five center-points added.
In total, 37 experiments were carried out. The results reveal that air
pressure and dispensing time significantly affect the frequency
adjustment process. The mathematical relationship between these
two parameters was formulated, and the optimal parameters for air
pressure and dispensing time were found to be 0.45 MPa and 458 ms,
respectively. The optimal parameters were examined by carrying out
a confirmation experiment in which an average deviation of 0.082
kHz was achieved.
Abstract: The present work was conducted to find out the effect
of biofertilizer formulated with four species of bacteria (two species
of Azotobacter and two species of Lysobacter) and zinc sulphate.
Field experiments with mustard plant were conducted to study the
effectiveness of soil application of zinc sulphate and biofertilizer at
0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 days after sowing. Plant height and condition of
plant was found to be increased significantly using a mixture of
biofertilizer and zinc sulphate than other treatments after 40 days
sowing. Three treatments were also used in this field experiment such
as bacteria only, zinc sulphate only and mixture of biofertilizer and
zinc sulphate. The treatment using a mixture of zinc sulphate and
biofertilizer had the best yield (4688.008 kg/ha) within 50 days of
sowing and performed better than other treatments. Field experiment
using zinc sulphate only was second best yield (3380.75Kg/ha) and
biofertilizer only treatment gave (2639.04kg/ha).
Abstract: The research aims to study the quality of surface water
for consumer in Samut Songkram province. Water sample were
collected from 217 sampling sites conclude 72 sampling sites in
Amphawa, 67 sampling sites in Bangkhonthee and 65 sampling sites
in Muang. Water sample were collected in December 2011 for
winter, March 2012 for summer and August 2012 for rainy season.
From the investigation of surface water quality in Mae Klong
River, main and tributaries canals in Samut Songkram province, we
found that water quality meet the type III of surface water quality
standard issued by the National Environmental Quality Act B.E.
1992. Seasonal variations of pH, Temperature, nitrate, lead and
cadmium have statistical differences between 3 seasons.