Abstract: In this paper, Tobephobia (TBP) alludes to the fear of
failure experienced by teachers to manage curriculum change. TBP is
an emerging concept and it extends the boundaries of research in
terms of how we view achievement and failure in education.
Outcomes-based education (OBE) was introduced fifteen years ago
in South African schools without simultaneously upgrading teachers-
professional competencies. This exploratory research, therefore
examines a simple question: What is the impact of TBP and OBE on
teachers? Teacher ineptitude to cope with the OBE curriculum in the
classroom is a serious problem affecting large numbers of South
African teachers. This exploratory study sought to determine the
perceived negative impact of OBE and TBP on teachers. A survey
was conducted amongst 311 teachers in Port Elizabeth and Durban,
South Africa. The results confirm the very negative impact of TBP
and OBE on teachers. This exploratory study authenticates the
existence of TBP.
Abstract: Fructooligosaccharides derived from microbial enzyme especially from fungal sources has been received particular attention due to its beneficial effects as prebiotics and mass production. However, fungal fermentation is always cumbersome due to its broth rheology problem that will eventually affect the production of FOS. This study investigated the efficiency of immobilized cell system using rotating fibrous bed bioreactor (RFBB) in producing fructooligosaccharides (FOS). A comparative picture with respect to conventional stirred tank bioreactor (CSTB) and RFBB has been presented. To demonstrate the effect of agitation intensity and aeration rate, a laboratory-scale bioreactor 2.5 L was operated in three phases (high, medium, low) for 48 hours. Agitation speed has a great influence on P. simplicissimum fermentation for FOS production, where the volumetric FOS productivity using RFBB is increased with almost 4 fold compared to the FOS productivity in CSTB that only 0.319 g/L/h. Rate of FOS production increased up to 1.2 fold when immobilized cells system was employed at aeration rate similar to the freely suspended cells at 2.0 vvm.
Abstract: One problem of synthetic sunflower cultivation is an
erratic germination of the seeds. To improve the germination, presowing
seed treatment with an ultrasound was tested. All treatments
were carried out at 40 kHz frequency with the intensities of 40, 60,
80 and 100% of the ultrasonic generator total power (250 W) for the
durations of 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes. Data on seed germination
percentage, seed vigor index (SVI), root and shoot lengths of
seedlings were collected. The results showed that germination, SVI,
root and shoot lengths of ultrasonic treated seedlings were different
from the control, depending on intensity of the ultrasound. The
effects of ultrasonic treatment were significant on germination,
resulting in a maximum increase of 43% at 40 and 60% intensities
compared to that of the control seeds. In addition, seedlings of these 2
treatments had higher SVI and longer root and shoot lengths than that
of the control seedlings. All treatment durations resulted in higher
germination and SVI, longer root and higher shoot lenghts of
seedlings than the control. Among the duration treatments, only SVI
and seedling root length were significantly different.
Abstract: The number of framework conceived for e-learning
constantly increase, unfortunately the creators of learning materials
and educational institutions engaged in e-formation adopt a
“proprietor" approach, where the developed products (courses,
activities, exercises, etc.) can be exploited only in the framework
where they were conceived, their uses in the other learning
environments requires a greedy adaptation in terms of time and
effort. Each one proposes courses whose organization, contents,
modes of interaction and presentations are unique for all learners,
unfortunately the latter are heterogeneous and are not interested by
the same information, but only by services or documents adapted to
their needs. Currently the new tendency for the framework
conceived for e-learning, is the interoperability of learning materials,
several standards exist (DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative)[2],
LOM (Learning Objects Meta data)[1], SCORM (Shareable Content
Object Reference Model)[6][7][8], ARIADNE (Alliance of Remote
Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for Europe)[9],
CANCORE (Canadian Core Learning Resource Metadata
Application Profiles)[3]), they converge all to the idea of learning
objects. They are also interested in the adaptation of the learning
materials according to the learners- profile. This article proposes an
approach for the composition of courses adapted to the various
profiles (knowledge, preferences, objectives) of learners, based on
two ontologies (domain to teach and educational) and the learning
objects.
Abstract: The effects of down slope steepness on soil splash distribution under a water drop impact have been investigated in this study. The equipment used are the burette to simulate a water drop, a splash cup filled with sandy soil which forms the source area and a splash board to collect the ejected particles. The results found in this study have shown that the apparent mass increased with increasing downslope angle following a linear regression equation with high coefficient of determination. In the same way, the radial soil splash distribution over the distance has been analyzed statistically, and an exponential function was the best fit of the relationship for the different slope angles. The curves and the regressions equations validate the well known FSDF and extend the theory of Van Dijk.
Abstract: As nanotechnology advances, the use of nanotechnology for medical purposes in the field of nanomedicine seems more promising; the rise of nanorobots for medical diagnostics and treatments could be arriving in the near future. This study proposes a swarm intelligence based control mechanism for swarm nanorobots that operate as artificial platelets to search for wounds. The canonical particle swarm optimization algorithm is employed in this study. A simulation in the circulatory system is constructed and used for demonstrating the movement of nanorobots with essential characteristics to examine the performance of proposed control mechanism. The effects of three nanorobot capabilities including their perception range, maximum velocity and respond time are investigated. The results show that canonical particle swarm optimization can be used to control the early version nanorobots with simple behaviors and actions.
Abstract: Text-based game is supposed to be a low resource
consumption application that delivers good performances when
compared to graphical-intensive type of games. But, nowadays, some
of the online text-based games are not offering performances that are
acceptable to the users. Therefore, an online text-based game called
Star_Quest has been developed in order to analyze its behavior under
different performance measurements. Performance metrics such as
throughput, scalability, response time and page loading time are
captured to yield the performance of the game. The techniques in
performing the load testing are also disclosed to exhibit the viability
of our work. The comparative assessment between the results
obtained and the accepted level of performances are conducted as to
determine the performance level of the game. The study reveals that
the developed game managed to meet all the performance objectives
set forth.
Abstract: In this study thermodynamic performance analysis of a
combined organic Rankine cycle and ejector refrigeration cycle is
carried out for use of low-grade heat source in the form of sensible
energy. Special attention is paid to the effects of system parameters
including the turbine inlet temperature and turbine inlet pressure on the
characteristics of the system such as ratios of mass flow rate, net work
production, and refrigeration capacity as well as the coefficient of
performance and exergy efficiency of the system. Results show that
for a given source the coefficient of performance increases with
increasing of the turbine inlet pressure. However, the exergy
efficiency has an optimal condition with respect to the turbine inlet
pressure.
Abstract: Many footbridges have natural frequencies that
coincide with the dominant frequencies of the pedestrian-induced
load and therefore they have a potential to suffer excessive vibrations
under dynamic loads induced by pedestrians. Some of the design
standards introduce load models for pedestrian loads applicable for
simple structures. Load modeling for more complex structures, on the
other hand, is most often left to the designer. The main focus of this
paper is on the human induced forces transmitted to a footbridge and
on the ways these loads can be modeled to be used in the dynamic
design of footbridges. Also design criteria and load models proposed
by widely used standards were introduced and a comparison was
made. The dynamic analysis of the suspension bridge in Kolin in the
Czech Republic was performed on detailed FEM model using the
ANSYS program system. An attempt to model the load imposed by a
single person and a crowd of pedestrians resulted in displacements
and accelerations that are compared with serviceability criteria.
Abstract: Business process model describes process flow of a
business and can be seen as the requirement for developing a
software application. This paper discusses a BPM2CD guideline
which complements the Model Driven Architecture concept by
suggesting how to create a platform-independent software model in
the form of a UML class diagram from a business process model. An
important step is the identification of UML classes from the business
process model. A technique for object-oriented analysis called
domain analysis is borrowed and key concepts in the business
process model will be discovered and proposed as candidate classes
for the class diagram. The paper enhances this step by using ontology
search to help identify important classes for the business domain. As
ontology is a source of knowledge for a particular domain which
itself can link to ontologies of related domains, the search can give a
refined set of candidate classes for the resulting class diagram.
Abstract: Sputum smear conversion after one month of antituberculosis
therapy in new smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis
patients (PTB+) is a vital indicator towards treatment success. The
objective of this study is to determine the rate of sputum smear
conversion in new PTB+ patients after one month under treatment of
National Institute of Diseases of the Chest and Hospital (NIDCH).
Analysis of sputum smear conversion was done by re-clinical
examination with sputum smear microscopic test after one month.
Socio-demographic and hematological parameters were evaluated to
perceive the correlation with the disease status. Among all enrolled
patients only 33.33% were available for follow up diagnosis and of
them only 42.86% patients turned to smear negative. Probably this
consequence is due to non-coherence to the proper disease
management. 66.67% and 78.78% patients reported low haemoglobin
and packed cell volume level respectively whereas 80% and 93.33%
patients accounted accelerated platelet count and erythrocyte
sedimentation rate correspondingly.
Abstract: Chemically defined Schlegel-s medium was modified
to improve production of cell growth and other metabolites that are
produced by fluorescent pseudomonad R62 strain. The modified
medium does not require pH control as pH changes are kept within ±
0.2 units of the initial pH 7.1 during fermentation. The siderophore
production was optimized for the fluorescent pseudomonad strain in
the modified medium containing 1% glycerol as a major carbon
source supplemented with 0.05% succinic acid and 0.5% Ltryptophan.
Indole-3 acetic acid (IAA) production was higher when
L-tryptophan was used at 0.5%. The 2,4- diacetylphloroglucinol
(DAPG) was higher with amended three trace elements in medium.
The optimized medium produced 2.28 g/l of dry cell mass and 900
mg/l of siderophore at the end of 36 h cultivation, while the
production levels of IAA and DAPG were 65 mg/l and 81 mg/l
respectively at the end of 48 h cultivation.
Abstract: The conjugate gradient optimization algorithm
usually used for nonlinear least squares is presented and is
combined with the modified back propagation algorithm yielding
a new fast training multilayer perceptron (MLP) algorithm
(CGFR/AG). The approaches presented in the paper consist of
three steps: (1) Modification on standard back propagation
algorithm by introducing gain variation term of the activation
function, (2) Calculating the gradient descent on error with
respect to the weights and gains values and (3) the determination
of the new search direction by exploiting the information
calculated by gradient descent in step (2) as well as the previous
search direction. The proposed method improved the training
efficiency of back propagation algorithm by adaptively modifying
the initial search direction. Performance of the proposed method
is demonstrated by comparing to the conjugate gradient algorithm
from neural network toolbox for the chosen benchmark. The
results show that the number of iterations required by the
proposed method to converge is less than 20% of what is required
by the standard conjugate gradient and neural network toolbox
algorithm.
Abstract: This paper investigated the organizational
innovativeness of public listed housing developers in Malaysia. We
conceptualized organizational innovativeness as a multi-dimensional
construct consisting of 5 dimensions: market innovativeness, product
innovativeness, process innovativeness, behavior innovativeness and
strategic innovativeness. We carried out questionnaire survey with all
accessible public listed developers in Malaysia and received a 56
percent response. We found that the innovativeness of public listed
housing developers is low. The paper ends by providing some
explanations for the results.
Abstract: This paper begins with formal defining of human rights and freedoms, and the basic document regarding the said subject is undoubtedly French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 789. This paper furthermore parses legal sources relevant for the workers' rights in legal system of the Republic of Croatia, international contracts and the Labour Act, which is also a master bill regarding workers' rights The authors are also dealing with issues of Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia and its' position in judicial system of the Republic of Croatia, as well as with the specifics of Constitutional Complaint, and the crucial part of the paper is based on the research conducted with an aim to determine implementation of rights and liberties guaranteed by the articles 54. and 55. of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia by means of Constitutional Complaint.
Abstract: This research sought to discover the forms of
promotion and dissemination of traditional local wisdom that are
used to create occupations among the elderly at Noanmueng
Community, Muang Sub-District, Baan Doong District, Udornthani
Province. The criteria used to select the research sample group were:
having a role involved in the promotion and dissemination of
traditional local wisdom to create occupations among the elderly;
being an experienced person who the residents of Noanmueng
Community find trustworthy; and having lived in Noanmueng
Community for a long time so as to be able to see the development
and change that occurs. A total of 16 persons were thus selected. Data
was gathered through a qualitative study, using semi-structured indepth
interviews. The collected data was then summarized and
discussed according to the research objectives. Finally, the data was
presented in narrative format. Results found that the identifying
traditional local wisdom of the community (which grew from the
residents’ experience and beneficial usage in daily life, passed down
from generation to generation) was the weaving of cloth and
basketry. As for the manner of promotion and dissemination of
traditional local wisdom, these skills were passed down through
teaching by example to family members, relatives and others in the
community. This was largely the initiative of the elders or elderly
members of the community. In order for the promotion and
dissemination of traditional local wisdom to create occupations
among the elderly, the traditional local wisdom should be supported
in every way through participation of the community members. For
example, establish a museum of traditional local wisdom for the
collection of traditional local wisdom in various fields, both from the
past and present innovations. This would be a source of pride for the
community, simultaneously helping traditional local wisdom to
become widely known and to create income for the community’s
elderly. Additional ways include organizing exhibitions of products
made by traditional local wisdom, finding both domestic and
international markets, as well as building both domestic and
international networks aiming to find opportunities to market
products made by traditional local wisdom.
Abstract: Studies in neuroscience suggest that both global and
local feature information are crucial for perception and recognition of
faces. It is widely believed that local feature is less sensitive to
variations caused by illumination, expression and illumination. In
this paper, we target at designing and learning local features for face
recognition. We designed three types of local features. They are
semi-global feature, local patch feature and tangent shape feature.
The designing of semi-global feature aims at taking advantage of
global-like feature and meanwhile avoiding suppressing AdaBoost
algorithm in boosting weak classifies established from small local
patches. The designing of local patch feature targets at automatically
selecting discriminative features, and is thus different with traditional
ways, in which local patches are usually selected manually to cover
the salient facial components. Also, shape feature is considered in
this paper for frontal view face recognition. These features are
selected and combined under the framework of boosting algorithm
and cascade structure. The experimental results demonstrate that the
proposed approach outperforms the standard eigenface method and
Bayesian method. Moreover, the selected local features and
observations in the experiments are enlightening to researches in
local feature design in face recognition.
Abstract: Heat powered solid sorption is a feasible alternative to
electrical vapor compression refrigeration systems. In this paper,
activated carbon (powder type Maxsorb and fiber type ACF-A10)-
CO2 based adsorption cooling cycles are studied using the pressuretemperature-
concentration (P-T-W) diagram. The specific cooling
effect (SCE) and the coefficient of performance (COP) of these two
cooling systems are simulated for the driving heat source
temperatures ranging from 30 ºC to 90 ºC in terms of different
cooling load temperatures with a cooling source temperature of 25
ºC. It is found from the present analysis that Maxsorb-CO2 couple
shows higher cooling capacity and COP. The maximum COPs of
Maxsorb-CO2 and ACF(A10)-CO2 based cooling systems are found
to be 0.15 and 0.083, respectively. The main innovative feature of
this cooling cycle is the ability to utilize low temperature waste heat
or solar energy using CO2 as the refrigerant, which is one of the best
alternative for applications where flammability and toxicity are not
allowed.
Abstract: The wind resource in the Italian site of Lendinara
(RO) is analyzed through a systematic anemometric campaign
performed on the top of the bell tower, at an altitude of over 100 m
above the ground. Both the average wind speed and the Weibull
distribution are computed. The resulting average wind velocity is in
accordance with the numerical predictions of the Italian Wind Atlas,
confirming the accuracy of the extrapolation of wind data adopted for
the evaluation of wind potential at higher altitudes with respect to the
commonly placed measurement stations.
Abstract: In this article, a method has been offered to classify
normal and defective tiles using wavelet transform and artificial
neural networks. The proposed algorithm calculates max and min
medians as well as the standard deviation and average of detail
images obtained from wavelet filters, then comes by feature vectors
and attempts to classify the given tile using a Perceptron neural
network with a single hidden layer. In this study along with the
proposal of using median of optimum points as the basic feature and
its comparison with the rest of the statistical features in the wavelet
field, the relational advantages of Haar wavelet is investigated. This
method has been experimented on a number of various tile designs
and in average, it has been valid for over 90% of the cases. Amongst
the other advantages, high speed and low calculating load are
prominent.