Abstract: This paper proposes an efficient lattice-reduction-aided
detection (LRD) scheme to improve the detection performance of
MIMO-OFDM system. In this proposed scheme, V candidate symbols
are considered at the first layer, and V probable streams are
detected with LRD scheme according to the first detected V candidate
symbols. Then, the most probable stream is selected through a ML
test. Since the proposed scheme can more accurately detect initial
symbol and can reduce transmission of error to rest symbols, the
proposed scheme shows more improved performance than conventional
LRD with very low complexity.
Abstract: The recurring decimal of rural and urban poverty in
Nigeria, resulting from lack of sustainable livelihood activities by
the people due to non-diversification of the economy, necessitated
this study. One hundred snail farmers were randomly selected in
Akure North and Akure South Local Government areas of Ondo
State, Southwest Nigeria where snail farming is widely practised.
Data collection was through questionnaires administration and onsite
observation of farms. Data obtained were subjected to
descriptive statistics, Student-s t-test and regression analysis. Cost
benefit ratio (CBR) and rate of return on investment (RORI) were
calculated in order to determine the poverty alleviation potentials of
snail farming in the study areas. Although snail farming was
profitable and viable, it was below poverty line. With time and more
knowledge in its farming activities, and with more people taking to
snail production, its poverty alleviation and reduction potentials will
increase.
Abstract: In this study the effect of incorporation of recycled
glass-fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) waste materials, obtained by
means of milling processes, on mechanical behaviour of polyester
polymer mortars was assessed. For this purpose, different contents of
recycled GFRP waste powder and fibres, with distinct size gradings,
were incorporated into polyester based mortars as sand aggregates
and filler replacements. Flexural and compressive loading capacities
were evaluated and found better than unmodified polymer mortars.
GFRP modified polyester based mortars also show a less brittle
behaviour, with retention of some loading capacity after peak load.
Obtained results highlight the high potential of recycled GFRP waste
materials as efficient and sustainable reinforcement and admixture for
polymer concrete and mortars composites, constituting an emergent
waste management solution.
Abstract: Multicarrier code-division multiple-access is one of the
effective techniques to gain its multiple access capability, robustness
against fading, and to mitigate the ISI. In this paper, we propose an
improved mulcarrier CDMA system with adaptive subchannel
allocation. We analyzed the performance of our proposed system in
frequency selective fading environment with narrowband interference
existing and compared it with that of parallel transmission over many
subchannels (namely, conventional MC-CDMA scheme) and
DS-CDMA system. Simulation results show that adaptive subchannel
allocation scheme, when used in conventional multicarrier CDMA
system, the performance will be greatly improved.
Abstract: The paper presents an analysis of linkages and
structures of co-operation and their intensity like the potential for the
establishment of clusters in the Central and Eastern (Pannonian)
Croatian. Starting from the theoretical elaboration of the need for
entrepreneurs to organize through the cluster model and the terms of
their self-actualization, related to the importance of traditional values
in terms of benefits, social capital and assess where the company now
is, in order to prove the need to create their own identity in terms of
clustering. The institutional dimensions of social capital where the
public sector has the best role in creating the social structure of
clusters, and social dimensions of social capital in terms of trust,
cooperation and networking will be analyzed to what extent the trust
and coherency are present between companies in the Brod posavina
and Pozega slavonia County, expressed through the readiness of
inclusion in clusters in the NUTS II region - Central and Eastern
(Pannonian) Croatia, as a homogeneous economic entity, with
emphasis on limiting factors that stand in the way of greater
competitiveness.
Abstract: In this study, we investigated the effects of ginger and
L-carnitine on the reproductive performance of male rats with respect
to semen parameters, male sex hormones and the testicular
antioxidant system. A total of sixty mature male albino rats were
divided into four groups of fifteen rats. The control group received
saline, whereas the other three groups received ginger (100 mg kg-1 d-
1.), L-carnitine (150 mg kg-1 d-1.) or a combination of both ginger
(100 mg kg-1 d-1.) and L-carnitine (150 mg kg-1 d-1.) via a stomach
tube daily for one month. At the end of the treatment period, the rats
were sacrificed, and their sperm characteristics (count, motility and
viability), antioxidant enzyme factors levels (reduced glutathione,
catalase, superoxide dismutase and total antioxidant capacity) and sex
hormone levels (testosterone, Follicle stimulating hormone(FSH) and
luteinizing hormone (LH) were analysed. Our results showed that the
three experimental treatments improved sperm parameters,
antioxidant enzyme activity and testosterone hormone levels; the
most pronounced positive effects were observed in the group that
received a combination of both ginger and L-carnitine. Therefore, the
administration of a combination of ginger and L-carnitine may be
beneficial for improving male sexual performance.
Abstract: A Personal Distributed Environment (PDE) is an
example of an IP-based system architecture designed for future
mobile communications. In a single PDE, there exist several Subnetworks
hosting devices located across the infrastructure, which will
inter-work with one another through the coordination of a Device
Management Entity (DME). Some of these Sub-networks are fixed
and some are mobile. In order to support Mobile Sub-networks
mobility in the PDE, the PDE-NEMO protocol was proposed. This
paper discussed the signalling cost analysis of PDE-NEMO by use of
a detailed simulation model. The paper started with the introduction
of the protocol, followed by the experiments and results and then
followed by discussions.
Abstract: Temperature dependence of force of gravitation is one
of the fundamental problems of physics. This problem has got special
value in connection with that the general theory of relativity,
supposing the weakest positive influence of a body temperature on its
weight, actually rejects an opportunity of measurement of negative
influence of temperature on gravity in laboratory conditions. Really,
the recognition of negative temperature dependence of gravitation,
for example, means basic impossibility of achievement of a
singularity («a black hole») at a gravitational collapse. Laboratory
experiments with exact weighing the heated up metal samples,
indicating negative influence temperatures of bodies on their physical
weight are described. Influence of mistakes of measurements is
analyzed. Calculations of distribution of temperature in volume of the
bar, agreed with experimental data of time dependence of weight of
samples are executed. The physical substantiation of negative
temperature dependence of weight of the bodies, based on correlation
of acceleration at thermal movement of micro-particles of a body and
its absolute temperature, are given.
Abstract: In this paper, we address the problem of adaptive radio
resource allocation (RRA) and packet scheduling in the downlink of a
cellular OFDMA system, and propose a downlink multi-carrier
proportional fair (MPF) scheduler and its joint with adaptive RRA
algorithm to distribute radio resources among multiple users according
to their individual QoS requirements. The allocation and scheduling
objective is to maximize the total throughput, while at the same time
maintaining the fairness among users. The simulation results
demonstrate that the methods presented provide for user more explicit
fairness relative to RRA algorithm, but the joint scheme achieves the
higher sum-rate capacity with flexible parameters setting compared
with MPF scheduler.
Abstract: Considering toxicity of heavy metals and their
accumulation in domestic wastes, immobilization of lead and
cadmium is envisaged inside glass-ceramics. We particularly
focused this work on calcium-rich phases embedded in a
glassy matrix.
Glass-ceramics were synthesized from glasses doped with
12 wt% and 16 wt% of PbO or CdO. They were observed and
analyzed by Electron MicroProbe Analysis (EMPA) and
Analytical Scanning Electron Microscopy (ASEM). Structural
characterization of the samples was performed by powder XRay
Diffraction.
Diopside crystals of CaMgSi2O6 composition are shown to
incorporate significant amounts of cadmium (up to 9 wt% of
CdO). Two new crystalline phases are observed with very
high Cd or Pb contents: about 40 wt% CdO for the cadmiumrich
phase and near 60 wt% PbO for the lead-rich phase. We
present complete chemical and structural characterization of
these phases. They represent a promising way for the
immobilization of toxic elements like Cd or Pb since glass
ceramics are known to propose a “double barrier" protection
(metal-rich crystals embedded in a glass matrix) against metal
release in the environment.
Abstract: Chemical industry project management involves
complex decision making situations that require discerning abilities
and methods to make sound decisions. Project managers are faced
with decision environments and problems in projects that are
complex. In this work, case study is Research and Development
(R&D) project selection. R&D is an ongoing process for forward
thinking technology-based chemical industries. R&D project
selection is an important task for organizations with R&D project
management. It is a multi-criteria problem which includes both
tangible and intangible factors. The ability to make sound decisions
is very important to success of R&D projects. Multiple-criteria
decision making (MCDM) approaches are major parts of decision
theory and analysis. This paper presents all of MCDM approaches
for use in R&D project selection. It is hoped that this work will
provide a ready reference on MCDM and this will encourage the
application of the MCDM by chemical engineering management.
Abstract: Palm shell obtained from coastal part of southern
India was studied for the removal for the adsorption of Hg (II) ions.
Batch adsorption experiments were carried out as a function of pH,
concentration of Hg (II) ions, time, temperature and adsorbent dose.
Maximum removal was seen in the range pH 4.0- pH 7.0. The palm
shell powder used as adsorbent was characterized for its surface area,
SEM, PXRD, FTIR, ion exchange capacity, moisture content, and
bulk density, soluble content in water and acid and pH. The
experimental results were analyzed using Langmuir I, II, III, IV and
Freundlich adsorption isotherms. The batch sorption kinetics was
studied for the first order reversible reaction, pseudo first order;
pseudo second order reaction and the intra-particle diffusion reaction.
The biomass was successfully used for removal Hg (II) from
synthetic and industrial effluents and the technique appears
industrially applicable and viable.
Abstract: Despite of many scholars and practitioners recognize
the knowledge management implementation in an organizations but
insufficient attention has been paid by researchers to select suitable
knowledge portal system (KPS) selection. This study develops a
Multi Criteria Decision making model based on the fuzzy VIKOR
approach to help organizations in selecting KPS. The suitable portal
is the critical influential factors on the success of knowledge
management (KM) implementation in an organization.
Abstract: In this paper, the effect of atmospheric turbulence on
bit error probability in free-space optical CDMA scheme with
Sequence Inverse Keyed (SIK) optical correlator receiver is analyzed.
Here Intensity Modulation scheme is considered for transmission.
The turbulence induced fading is described by the newly introduced
gamma-gamma pdf[1] as a tractable mathematical model for
atmospheric turbulence. Results are evaluated with Gold and Kasami
code & it is shown that Gold sequence can be used for more
efficient transmission than Kasami sequence in an atmospheric
turbulence channel.
Abstract: Trust management and Reputation models are
becoming integral part of Internet based applications such as CSCW,
E-commerce and Grid Computing. Also the trust dimension is a
significant social structure and key to social relations within a
collaborative community. Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is
a difficult task in the context of distributed environment (information
across different geographical locations) and multidisciplinary
decisions are involved such as Virtual Organization (VO). To aid
team decision making in VO, Decision Support System and social
network analysis approaches are integrated. In such situations social
learning helps an organization in terms of relationship, team
formation, partner selection etc. In this paper we focus on trust
learning. Trust learning is an important activity in terms of
information exchange, negotiation, collaboration and trust
assessment for cooperation among virtual team members. In this
paper we have proposed a reinforcement learning which enhances the
trust decision making capability of interacting agents during
collaboration in problem solving activity. Trust computational model
with learning that we present is adapted for best alternate selection of
new project in the organization. We verify our model in a multi-agent
simulation where the agents in the community learn to identify
trustworthy members, inconsistent behavior and conflicting behavior
of agents.
Abstract: This study examines the possibility to apply the theory of multidimensional accounting (momentum accounting) in a Brazilian Navy-s Services Provider Military Organization (Organização Militar Prestadora de Serviços - OMPS). In general, the core of the said theory is the fact that Accounting does not recognize the inertia of transactions occurring in an entity, and that occur repeatedly in some cases, regardless of the implementation of new actions by its managers. The study evaluates the possibility of greater use of information recorded in the financial statements of the unit of analysis, within the strategic decisions of the organization. As a research strategy, we adopted the case study. The results infer that it is possible to use the theory in the context of a multidimensional OMPS, promoting useful information for decision-making and thereby contributing to the strengthening of the necessary alignment of its administration with the current desires of the Brazilian society.
Abstract: The contamination of 15 ground water resources
of a selected region earmarked for the emergency supply
of population has been monitored. The resources have been selected
on the basis of previous assessment of natural conditions
and the exploitation of territory in their surroundings and infiltration
area. Two resources out of 15 have been excluded from further
exploitation, because they have not met some of the 72 assessed
hygienic indicators of extended analysis. The remaining 13 resources
have been the subject of health risk analysis in relation
to the contamination by arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel and
manganese. The risk analysis proved that all 13 resources meet
health standards with regard to the above mentioned purposefully
selected elements and may thus be included into crisis plans. Water
quality of ground resources may be assessed in the same way
with regard to other contaminants.
Abstract: This research deals with techno economic analysis to select the most economic desalination method for Asalouyeh combined cycle power plant . Due to lack of fresh water, desalination of sea water is necessary to provide required DM water of Power Plant. The most common desalination methods are RO, MSF, MED, and MED–TVC. In this research, methods of RO, MED, and MED– TVC have been compared. Simulation results show that recovery of heat of exhaust gas of main stack is optimum case for providing DM water required for injected steam of MED desalination. This subject is very important because of improving thermal efficiency of power plant using extra heat recovery. Also, it has been shown that by adding 3 rows of finned tube to de-aerator evaporator, which is very simple and low cost, required steam for generating 5200 m3/day of desalinated water is obtainable.
Abstract: The group mutual exclusion (GME) problem is a
variant of the mutual exclusion problem. In the present paper a
token-based group mutual exclusion algorithm, capable of handling
transient faults, is proposed. The algorithm uses the concept of
dynamic request sets. A time out mechanism is used to detect the
token loss; also, a distributed scheme is used to regenerate the token.
The worst case message complexity of the algorithm is n+1. The
maximum concurrency and forum switch complexity of the
algorithm are n and min (n, m) respectively, where n is the number of
processes and m is the number of groups. The algorithm also satisfies
another desirable property called smooth admission. The scheme can
also be adapted to handle the extended group mutual exclusion
problem.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation
between Facebook involvement and internet addiction. We sampled
577 university students in Taiwan and administered a survey of
Facebook usage, Facebook involvement scale (FIS), and internet
addiction scale. The FIS comprises three factors (salience, emotional
support, and amusement). Results showed that the Facebook
involvement scale had good reliability and validity. The correlation
between Facebook involvement and internet addiction was measured
at .395. This means that a higher degree of Facebook involvement
indicates a greater degree of psychological dependency on the internet,
and a greater propensity towards social withdrawal and other negative
psychological consequences associated with internet addiction.
Besides, the correlations between three factors of FIS (salience,
emotional support, and amusement) and internet addiction ranged
from .313-372, indicating that these neither of these factors (salience,
emotional support, and amusement) is more effective than the others in
predicting internet dependency.