Abstract: The notions of prime(semiprime) fuzzy h-ideal(h-biideal,
h-quasi-ideal) in Γ-hemiring are introduced and some of their
characterizations are obtained by using "belongingness(∈)" and
"quasi - coincidence(q)". Cartesian product of prime(semiprime)
fuzzy h-ideals of Γ-hemirings are also investigated.
Abstract: The objective of this research was to study the
influence of marketing mix on customers purchasing behavior. A
total of 397 respondents were collected from customers who were the
patronages of the Chatuchak Plaza market. A questionnaire was
utilized as a tool to collect data. Statistics utilized in this research
included frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and
multiple regression analysis. Data were analyzed by using Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences. The findings revealed that the
majority of respondents were male with the age between 25-34 years
old, hold undergraduate degree, married and stay together. The
average income of respondents was between 10,001-20,000 baht. In
terms of occupation, the majority worked for private companies. The
research analysis disclosed that there were three variables of
marketing mix which included price (X2), place (X3), and product
(X1) which had an influence on the frequency of customer
purchasing. These three variables can predict a purchase about 30
percent of the time by using the equation; Y1 = 6.851 + .921(X2) +
.949(X3) + .591(X1). It also found that in terms of marketing mixed,
there were two variables had an influence on the amount of customer
purchasing which were physical characteristic (X6), and the process
(X7). These two variables are 17 percent predictive of a purchasing
by using the equation: Y2 = 2276.88 + 2980.97(X6) + 2188.09(X7).
Abstract: This study aims to identify cellular phone users- shopping motivating factors towards online shopping. 100 university students located in Klang Valley, Malaysia were involved as the respondents. They were required to complete a set of questionnaire and had to own a cellular phone in order to be selected as sample in this study. Three from five proposed hypotheses were supported: purchasing information, shopping utilities and service quality. As a result, marketers and retailers should concentrate more on the less important factors in order to encourage and create willingness of the consumers to purchase online. Recommendation for future research is also presented.
Abstract: The in vitro culture procedure of purple nutsedge
(Cyperus rotundus L.) for multiple shoot induction and tuber
formation was established. Multiple shoots were significantly
induced from a single shoot of about 0.5 – 0.8 cm long, on Murashige
and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 4.44 μM 6-
benzyladinine (BA) alone or in combination with 2.85 μM 1-
indoleacetic acid (IAA), providing 17.6 and 15.3 shoots per explant
with 31.2 and 27.5 leaves per explant, respectively, within 6 weeks of
culturing. Moreover, MS medium supplemented with 4.44 μM BA
and 2.85 μM IAA was suitable for tuber induction, obtaining 5.9
tubers with 3.4 rhizomes per explant. In combination with ancymidol
and higher concentration of sucrose, 11.1 μM BA and 60 g/L sucrose
or 11.1 μM BA, 7.8 μM ancymidol and 60 g/L sucrose induced 3.5
tubers with 1.6 rhizomes or 3.5 tubers without rhizome, respectively.
However, MS medium containing 3.9 or 7.8 μM ancymidol in
combination with either 60 or 80 g/L sucrose enchanced significant
root formation at 20.9 – 23.6 roots per explant.
Abstract: This work was conducted to improve the level of
resistant starch (RS) in a rice noodle using unripe banana flour and to
investigate the effect of substitution of unripe banana flour for rice
flour on the physical properties of rice noodle. In order to prepare
rice noodles, the unripe banana flour were replaced the rice flour
with different degrees of substitutions including 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and
100%. The results indicated that substitution of unripe banana flour
was significantly affected the viscosity properties of noodle flour,
color, cooking loss, RS and total starch content of noodle. It was
found that the noodle prepared from 100% unripe banana indicated
the greatest changes on the viscosity properties and color profiles. It
also showed the highest values of cooking loss (2.53%), tensile
strength (129.03%), and RS content (13.15%).
Abstract: WikID is a wiki for industrial design engineers. An
important aspect for the viability of a wiki is the loyalty of the user
community to share their information and knowledge by adding this
knowledge to the wiki. For the initiators of a wiki it is therefore
important to use every aspect to stimulate the user community to
actively participate. In this study the focus is on the styling of the
website. The central question is: How could the WikID website be
visually designed to achieve a user experience which will incite the
user to actively participate in the WikID community? After a
literature study on the influencing factors of a website, a new
interface has been designed by applying the rules found, in order to
expand this website-s active user community. An online
questionnaire regarding the old or the new website gave insights in
the opinions of users. As expected, the new website was rated more
positively than the old website. However, the differences are limited.
Abstract: Association rules are an important problem in data
mining. Massively increasing volume of data in real life databases
has motivated researchers to design novel and incremental algorithms
for association rules mining. In this paper, we propose an incremental
association rules mining algorithm that integrates shocking
interestingness criterion during the process of building the model. A
new interesting measure called shocking measure is introduced. One
of the main features of the proposed approach is to capture the user
background knowledge, which is monotonically augmented. The
incremental model that reflects the changing data and the user beliefs
is attractive in order to make the over all KDD process more
effective and efficient. We implemented the proposed approach and
experiment it with some public datasets and found the results quite
promising.
Abstract: Classes on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship
are becoming quite popular at universities throughout the world.
However, it is not easy for business students to get involved to
innovative activities, especially patent application. The present study
investigated how to enhance business students- intention to participate
in innovative activities and which incentives universities should
consider. A 22-item research scale was used, and confirmatory factor
analysis was conducted to verify its reliability and validity. Multiple
regression and discriminant analyses were also conducted. The results
demonstrate the effect of growth-need strength on innovative behavior
and indicate that the theory of planned behavior can explain and
predict business students- intention to participate in innovative
activities. Additionally, the results suggest that applying our proposed
model in practice would effectively strengthen business students-
intentions to engage in innovative activities.
Abstract: Rule Discovery is an important technique for mining
knowledge from large databases. Use of objective measures for
discovering interesting rules leads to another data mining problem,
although of reduced complexity. Data mining researchers have
studied subjective measures of interestingness to reduce the volume
of discovered rules to ultimately improve the overall efficiency of
KDD process.
In this paper we study novelty of the discovered rules as a
subjective measure of interestingness. We propose a hybrid approach
based on both objective and subjective measures to quantify novelty
of the discovered rules in terms of their deviations from the known
rules (knowledge). We analyze the types of deviation that can arise
between two rules and categorize the discovered rules according to
the user specified threshold. We implement the proposed framework
and experiment with some public datasets. The experimental results
are promising.
Abstract: Pretreatment is an essential step in the conversion of
lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugar that used for biobutanol
production. Among pretreatment processes, microwave is considered
to improve pretreatment efficiency due to its high heating efficiency,
easy operation, and easily to combine with chemical reaction. The
main objectives of this work are to investigate the feasibility of
microwave pretreatment to enhance enzymatic hydrolysis of
corncobs and to determine the optimal conditions using response
surface methodology. Corncobs were pretreated via two-stage
pretreatment in dilute sodium hydroxide (2 %) followed by dilute
sulfuric acid 1 %. Pretreated corncobs were subjected to enzymatic
hydrolysis to produce reducing sugar. Statistical experimental design
was used to optimize pretreatment parameters including temperature,
residence time and solid-to-liquid ratio to achieve the highest amount
of glucose. The results revealed that solid-to-liquid ratio and
temperature had a significant effect on the amount of glucose.
Abstract: In the self-stabilizing algorithmic paradigm, each node has a local view of the system, in a finite amount of time the system converges to a global state with desired property. In a graph G =
(V, E), a subset S C V is a 2-packing if Vi c V: IN[i] n SI
Abstract: Four different colors of cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata)
(black, white, red and black/white speckled) and red kidney bean
(Phaseolus vulgaris) were used to evaluate proximate compositions,
starch content, and pasting properties. There were no significant
differences of moisture, protein, ash, fat, and carbohydrate contents
of all bean types. The kidney bean had significantly lower amounts of
total starch and solubilized starch compared to those of other
cowpeas (p ≤ 0.05), whereas the red cowpea and red kidney bean had
highest content of resistant starch (9-10%). Decortication indicated
no significant effect on the proximate compositions of all samples,
but it significantly decreased the resistant starch content in cowpeas
and increased the solubilized starch and total starch content in all
types of cowpeas. The highest values of pasting properties, generally
observed in flours obtained from black and black/white speckled
cowpea.
Abstract: This study investigated the effect of germination on chemical compositions, physio-chemical properties of malted (germinated) red sorghum flours and evaluated characteristics of gluten free breads from sorghum flour. Results showed that germinated sorghum flour had higher amylase activity, swelling power and solubility at 95°C, but lower in the peak, break down, final and set back viscosities than ungerminated sample (p≤0.05). Five gluten free breads made from sorghum flour blends, with different ratios of ungerminated and germinated sorghum flour, were compared for the physical properties with those made from wheat flour. Crumb hardness, cohesiveness, gumminess and chewiness of sorghum breads were found significantly higher than those of wheat bread. With increasing of ungerminated flour proportion, the bread hardness increased while the cohesiveness declined. Sorghum breads appeared red to human eyes with a*values of 10.41-15.77.Their crust and crumb colors differed significantly from those of wheat bread.
Abstract: The study aimed to investigate the effect of rice types on chewing behaviours (chewing time, number of chews, and portion size) and bolus properties (bolus moisture content, solid loss, and particle size distribution (PSD)) in human subjects. Five cooked rice types including brown rice (BR), white rice (WR), parboiled white rice (PR), high amylose white rice (HR) and waxy white rice (WXR) were chewed by six subjects. The chewing behaviours were recorded and the food boluses were collected during mastication. Rice typeswere found to significantly influence all chewing parameters evaluated. The WXR and BR showed the most pronounced differences compared with other rice types. The initial moisture content of un-chewed WXR was lowest (43.39%) whereas those of other rice types were ranged from 66.86 to 70.33%. The bolus obtained from chewing the WXR contained lowest moisture content (56.43%) whilst its solid loss (22.03%) was not significant different from those of all rice types. In PSD evaluation using Mastersizer S, the diameter of particles measured was ranged between 4 to 3500 μm. The particle size of food bolus from BR, HR, and WXR contained much finer particles than those of WR and PR.
Abstract: In this paper, we consider the problem of Popular Matching of strictly ordered preference lists. A Popular Matching is not guaranteed to exist in any network. We propose an IDbased, constant space, self-stabilizing algorithm that converges to a Maximum Popular Matching an optimum solution, if one exist. We show that the algorithm stabilizes in O(n5) moves under any scheduler (daemon).
Abstract: Development of levels of service in municipal context
is a flexible vehicle to assist in performing quality-cost trade-off
analysis for municipal services. This trade-off depends on the
willingness of a community to pay as well as on the condition of the
assets. Community perspective of the performance of an asset from
service point of view may be quite different from the municipality
perspective of the performance of the same asset from condition
point of view. This paper presents a three phased level of service
based methodology for water mains that consists of :1)development
of an Analytical Hierarchy model of level of service 2) development
of Fuzzy Weighted Sum model of water main condition index and 3)
deriving a Fuzzy logic based function that maps level of service to
asset condition index. This mapping will assist asset managers in
quantifying condition improvement requirement to meet service
goals and to make more informed decisions on interventions and
relayed priorities.
Abstract: Mathematical models can be used to describe the
dynamics of the spread of infectious disease between susceptibles
and infectious populations. Dengue fever is a re-emerging disease in
the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Its incidence has
increased fourfold since 1970 and outbreaks are now reported quite
frequently from many parts of the world. In dengue endemic regions,
more cases of dengue infection in pregnancy and infancy are being
found due to the increasing incidence. It has been reported that
dengue infection was vertically transmitted to the infants. Primary
dengue infection is associated with mild to high fever, headache,
muscle pain and skin rash. Immune response includes IgM antibodies
produced by the 5th day of symptoms and persist for 30-60 days. IgG
antibodies appear on the 14th day and persist for life. Secondary
infections often result in high fever and in many cases with
hemorrhagic events and circulatory failure. In the present paper, a
mathematical model is proposed to simulate the succession of dengue
disease transmission in pregnancy and infancy. Stability analysis of
the equilibrium points is carried out and a simulation is given for the
different sets of parameter. Moreover, the bifurcation diagrams of our
model are discussed. The controlling of this disease in infant cases is
introduced in the term of the threshold condition.
Abstract: This contribution aims to outline some topics around the process of introduction of compulsory electronic exchange of documents (so called e-Boxes) in public administration. The research was conducted in order to gauge the difference between the expectation of those using internal email and their experience in reality. Both qualitative and quantitative research is employed to lead also to an estimation of the willingness and readiness of government bodies, business units and citizens to adopt new technologies. At the same time the most potent barriers to successful e-communication through the e-Boxes are identified.
Abstract: Market segmentation is one of the most
fundamental strategic marketing concepts. The better the
segment which is chosen for targeting by a particular
organisation, the more successful the organisation is assumed to
be in the marketplace. Also higher education institutions have to
improve their marketing tools for attracting foreign students,
particularly when demanding tuition fees. This contribution
aims at demonstrating the proper usage of the cluster analysis
for segmentation (represented by students' willingness to study
abroad) and also, based on large international survey, offers
some practical marketing implications.
Abstract: In this paper, a strategy for long-span bridge disaster response was developed, divided into risk analysis, business impact analysis, and emergency response plan. At the risk analysis stage, the critical risk was estimated. The critical risk was “car accident."The critical process by critical-risk classification was assessed at the business impact analysis stage. The critical process was the task related to the road conditions and traffic safety. Based on the results of the precedent analysis, an emergency response plan was established. By making the order of the standard operating procedures clear, an effective plan for dealing with disaster was formulated. Finally, a prototype software was developed based on the research findings. This study laid the foundation of an information-technology-based disaster response guideline and is significant in that it computerized the disaster response plan to improve the plan-s accessibility.