Abstract: Waste problem is becoming a future problem all over the world. Magnesium wastes which can be used in recycling processes are produced by many industrial activities. Magnesium borates which have useful properties such as; high heat resistance, corrosion resistance, supermechanical strength, superinsulation, light weight, high coefficient of elasticity and so on. Addition, magnesium borates have great potential in the development of ceramic and detergents industry, whisker-reinforced composites, antiwear, and reducing friction additives.
In this study, using the starting materials of waste magnesium and H3BO3 the hydrothermal method was applied at a moderate temperature of 70oC with different reaction times. Several reaction times of waste magnesium to H3BO3 were selected as; 30, 60, 120, 240 minutes. After the synthesis, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) techniques were applied to products. As a result, the forms of Admontite [MgO(B2O3)3.7(H2O)] and Mcallisterite [Mg2(B6O7(OH)6)2.9(H2O)] were synthesized.
Abstract: This paper presents a new methodology to study power and energy consumption in mechatronic systems early in the development process. This new approach makes use of two modeling languages to represent and simulate embedded control software and electromechanical subsystems in the discrete event and continuous time domain respectively within a single co-model. This co-model enables an accurate representation of power and energy consumption and facilitates the analysis and development of both software and electro-mechanical subsystems in parallel. This makes the engineers aware of energy-wise implications of different design alternatives and enables early trade-off analysis from the beginning of the analysis and design activities.
Abstract: Knowledge is a key asset for any organisation to
sustain competitive advantages, but it is difficult to identify and
represent knowledge which is needed to perform activities in
business processes. The effective knowledge management and
support for relevant business activities definitely gives a huge impact
to the performance of the organisation as a whole. This is because
that knowledge have the functions of directing, coordinating and
controlling actions within business processes. The study has
introduced organisational morphology, a norm-based approach by
applying semiotic theories which emphasise on the representation of
knowledge in norms. This approach is concerned with the
identification of activities into three categories: substantive,
communication and control activities. All activities are directed by
norms; hence three types of norms exist; each is associated to a
category of activities. The paper describes the approach briefly and
illustrates the application of this approach through a case study of
academic activities in higher education institutions. The result of the
study shows that the approach provides an effective way to profile
business knowledge and the profile enables the understanding and
specification of business requirements of an organisation.
Abstract: This study aims to initiate sustainable water management for tourist accommodations in Amphawa, Samut Songkram Province, Thailand. Wastewater generated by tourist accommodation was conducted in 10 homestays and resorts in Amphawa during August – October, 2011. The prominent parameters which are of pH, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Fat Oil and Grease (FOG), Nitrate (No3-), and Phosphate (PO43-) were conducted monthly. The results revealed that some parameters were over national water quality standard (Class II). Especially, 90% of tourist accommodations have been recorded that FOG was over the standard of wastewater quality from accommodation (group I: total room of accommodation less than 200 rooms). Therefore, grease trap and natural treatment should be utilized in tourist accommodations in order to reduce the discharged of fat, oil, and grease from tourism activities. In addition, number of tourists also relate statistically with BOD and Nitrate at 0.05 level of significance.
Abstract: In order to characterize the soy protein hydrolysate obtained in this study, gel chromatography on Sephadex G-25 was used to perform the separation of the peptide mixture and electrophoresis in SDS-polyacrylamide gel has been employed. Protein hydrolysate gave high antioxidant activities, but didn't give any antimicrobial activities. The antioxidant activities of protein hydrolysate was in the same trend of peptide content which gave high antioxidant activities and high peptide content between fractions 15 to 50. With increasing peptide concentrations, the scavenging effect on DPPH radical increased until about 70%, thereafter reaching a plateau. In compare to different concentrations of BHA, which exhibited higher activity (90%), soybean protein hydrolysate exhibited high antioxidant activities (70%) at a concentration of 1.45 mg/ml at fraction 25. Electrophoresis analysis indicated that, low- MW hydrolysate fractions (F1) appeared, on average, to have higher DPPH scavenging activities than high-MW fractions. These results revealed that soybean peptides probably contain substances that were proton donors and could react with free radicals to convert them to stable diamagnetic molecules.
Abstract: The chemistry of sulphone hydrazide has gained increase interest in both synthetic organic chemistry and biological fields and has considerable value. The therapeutic importance of these compounds is the attractive force to continue research in such a point. The present review covers the literature up to date for the synthesis, reactions and applications of such compounds.
Abstract: Data mining, which is the exploration of
knowledge from the large set of data, generated as a result of
the various data processing activities. Frequent Pattern Mining
is a very important task in data mining. The previous
approaches applied to generate frequent set generally adopt
candidate generation and pruning techniques for the
satisfaction of the desired objective. This paper shows how
the different approaches achieve the objective of frequent
mining along with the complexities required to perform the
job. This paper will also look for hardware approach of cache
coherence to improve efficiency of the above process. The
process of data mining is helpful in generation of support
systems that can help in Management, Bioinformatics,
Biotechnology, Medical Science, Statistics, Mathematics,
Banking, Networking and other Computer related
applications. This paper proposes the use of both upward and
downward closure property for the extraction of frequent item
sets which reduces the total number of scans required for the
generation of Candidate Sets.
Abstract: Alpinia galanga is rhizome, generally known as
Greater galangal and is selected for isolation of newer constituents
accountable for various therapeutic activities. Present study is
intended to isolate glycoside from Alpinia galanga rhizomes. Alpinia
galanga methanolic extract was column chromatograph and eluted
with ethyl acetate-methanol (99:1) to isolate compound β-Sitosterol
Diarabinoside. Herein, the isolation and structural elucidation of new
compound is described. Chemical investigation of methanolic extract
of rhizomes of Alpinia galanga furnished a new compound β-
Sitosterol Diarabinoside. The IR, NMR and MASS investigations of
isolated compound confirmed its structure as β-Sitosterol
Diarabinoside, which is isolated for the first time from a medicinal
plant or any synthetic source.
Abstract: This paper covers various aspects of film piracy over the Internet. In order to successfully deal with this matter, it is needed to recognize motivational factors related to film piracy. Thus, this study discusses group factors that could motivate individuals to engage in pirate activities. Furthermore, the paper discusses the theoretical effect on box office revenues and explains it on a proposed scheme of solutions for decreasing revenues. The article also maps the scheme of incentive motivational anti-piracy campaigns. Moreover, the paper proposes the preliminary scheme for system dynamic modeling of the Internet film piracy. Scheme is developed as a model of behaviors, influences and relations among the elements pertaining to the Internet film piracy.
Abstract: Today, money laundering (ML) poses a serious threat
not only to financial institutions but also to the nation. This criminal
activity is becoming more and more sophisticated and seems to have
moved from the cliché of drug trafficking to financing terrorism and
surely not forgetting personal gain. Most international financial
institutions have been implementing anti-money laundering solutions
(AML) to fight investment fraud. However, traditional investigative
techniques consume numerous man-hours. Recently, data mining
approaches have been developed and are considered as well-suited
techniques for detecting ML activities. Within the scope of a
collaboration project for the purpose of developing a new solution for
the AML Units in an international investment bank, we proposed a
data mining-based solution for AML. In this paper, we present a
heuristics approach to improve the performance for this solution. We
also show some preliminary results associated with this method on
analysing transaction datasets.
Abstract: This research focuses on micro-enterprise of
Malaysian Malays that are involved in very small-scaled business
activities. Among them include food stall and burger stall operators,
night market hawkers, grocery store operators as well as construction
and small service activities works. The study seeks to explore why
some micro-entrepreneurs still lag in entrepreneurship and what
needs to be rectified. This quantitative study is conducted on 173
Malay micro-enterprise owners (MEOs) and 58 Malay failed microenterprise
owners (FMEOs) involved in all range of businesses
throughout the state of Perak, Malaysia. The main aims are to
identify the gaps between the failed micro-enterprise owners
(FMEOs) and existing micro-enterprise owners (MEOs) and the
problems faced among FMEOs. The results reveal that the MEOs had
strong motivations and better marketing approaches as compared to
FMEOs. Furthermore, the FMEOs failed in the business ventures
mainly due to lack of management, sales and marketing skills and
poor competitive abilities to keep up with rivals.
Abstract: Organizational communication is an administrative
function crucial especially for executives in the implementation of
organizational and administrative functions. Executives spend a
significant part of their time on communicative activities. Doing his or her daily routine, arranging meeting schedules, speaking on the telephone, reading or replying to business correspondence, or
fulfilling the control functions within the organization, an executive typically engages in communication processes.
Efficient communication is the principal device for the adequate implementation of administrative and organizational activities. For
this purpose, management needs to specify the kind of
communication system to be set up and the kind of communication
devices to be used. Communication is vital for any organization.
In conventional offices, communication takes place within the hierarchical pyramid called the organizational structure, and is known as formal or informal communication. Formal communication
is the type that works in specified structures within the organizational rules and towards the organizational goals. Informal communication, on the other hand, is the unofficial type taking place among staff as
face-to-face or telephone interaction.
Communication in virtual as well as conventional offices is
essential for obtaining the right information in administrative
activities and decision-making. Virtual communication technologies
increase the efficiency of communication especially in virtual teams.
Group communication is strengthened through an inter-group central
channel. Further, ease of information transmission makes it possible
to reach the information at the source, allowing efficient and correct decisions. Virtual offices can present as a whole the elements of information which conventional offices produce in different
environments.
At present, virtual work has become a reality with its pros and
cons, and will probably spread very rapidly in coming years, in line
with the growth in information technologies.
Abstract: Learning is the acquisition of new mental schemata, knowledge, abilities and skills which can be used to solve problems potentially more successfully. The learning process is optimum when it is assisted and personalized. Learning is not a single activity, but should involve many possible activities to make learning become meaningful. Many e-learning applications provide facilities to support teaching and learning activities. One way to identify whether the e-learning system is being used by the learners is through the number of hits that can be obtained from the e-learning system's log data. However, we cannot rely solely to the number of hits in order to determine whether learning had occurred meaningfully. This is due to the fact that meaningful learning should engage five characteristics namely active, constructive, intentional, authentic and cooperative. This paper aims to analyze the e-learning activities that is meaningful to learning. By focusing on the meaningful learning characteristics, we match it to the corresponding Moodle e-learning activities. This analysis discovers the activities that have high impact to meaningful learning, as well as activities that are less meaningful. The high impact activities is given high weights since it become important to meaningful learning, while the low impact has less weight and said to be supportive e-learning activities. The result of this analysis helps us categorize which e-learning activities that are meaningful to learning and guide us to measure the effectiveness of e-learning usage.
Abstract: In the present study, we aimed to design the
intrauterine and extrauterine exposure to 1800 MHz GSM-like RF
radiation and investigate its possible bio-effects on infant female
rabbits. Totally thirty-six New Zealand White female rabbits, onemonth
old, were randomly divided into four groups which are
composed of 9 rabbits; i. Group I [Intrauterine (IU) exposure(-);
Extrauterine (EU) exposure (-)], Group II [IU exposure (-); EU
exposure (+)], Group III [IU exposure(+);EU exposure(-)], Group IV
[IU exposure (+);EU exposure(+)]. The master regulatory enzymes
activities of pentose phosphate pathway (glucose-6-phosphate
dehydrogenase, G-6PD; 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, 6-
PGDH) and glutathione-dependent metabolism (glutathione
peroxidase, GSH-Px; glutathione reductase, GR; glutathione Stransferase,
GST, thioredoxin reductase, TRx) were analyzed in liver
tissues of young female rabbits. Decreased G-6PD, 6-PGD, GSH-Px,
GR activities were found in Group III compared to Group I (p
Abstract: With the rapid growth and development of information and communication technology, the Internet has played a definite and irreplaceable role in people-s social lives in Taiwan like in other countries. In July 2008, on a general social website, an unexpected phenomenon was noticed – that there were more than one hundred users who started forming clubs voluntarily and having face-to-face gatherings for specific purposes. In this study, it-s argued whether or not teenagers- social contact on the Internet is involved in their life context, and tried to reveal the teenagers- social preferences, values, and needs, which merge with and influence teenagers- social activities. Therefore, the study conducts multiple user experience research methods, which include practical observations and qualitative analysis by contextual inquiries and in-depth interviews. Based on the findings, several design implications for software related to social interactions and cultural inheritance are offered. It is concluded that the inherent values of a social behaviors might be a key issue in developing computer-mediated communication or interaction designs in the future.
Abstract: One of the basic concepts in marketing is the concept
of meeting customers- needs. Since customer satisfaction is essential
for lasting survival and development of a business, screening and
observing customer satisfaction and recognizing its underlying
factors must be one of the key activities of every business.
The purpose of this study is to recognize the drivers that effect
customer satisfaction in a business-to-business situation in order to
improve marketing activities. We conducted a survey in which 93
business customers of a manufacturer of Diesel Generator in Iran
participated and they talked about their ideas and satisfaction of
supplier-s services related to its products. We developed the measures
for drivers of satisfaction first by as investigative research (by means
of feedback from executives and customers of sponsoring firm). Then
based on these measures, we created a mail survey, and asked the
respondents to explain their opinion about the sponsoring firm which
was a supplier of diesel generator and similar products. Furthermore,
the survey required the participants to mention their functional areas
and their company features.
In Conclusion we found that there are three drivers for customer
satisfaction, which are reliability, information about product, and
commercial features. Buyers/users from different functional areas
attribute different degree of importance to the last two drivers. For
instance, people from buying and management areas believe that
commercial features are more important than information about
products. But people in engineering, maintenance and production
areas believe that having information about products is more
important than commercial aspects. Marketing experts should
consider the attribute of customers regarding information about the
product and commercial features to improve market share.
Abstract: Methods of clustering which were developed in the
data mining theory can be successfully applied to the investigation of
different kinds of dependencies between the conditions of
environment and human activities. It is known, that environmental
parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric
pressure and illumination have significant effects on the human
mental performance. To investigate these parameters effect, data
mining technique of clustering using entropy and Information Gain
Ratio (IGR) K(Y/X) = (H(X)–H(Y/X))/H(Y) is used, where
H(Y)=-ΣPi ln(Pi). This technique allows adjusting the boundaries of
clusters. It is shown that the information gain ratio (IGR) grows
monotonically and simultaneously with degree of connectivity
between two variables. This approach has some preferences if
compared, for example, with correlation analysis due to relatively
smaller sensitivity to shape of functional dependencies. Variant of an
algorithm to implement the proposed method with some analysis of
above problem of environmental effects is also presented. It was
shown that proposed method converges with finite number of steps.
Abstract: This article presents the implementation of several
different e/b-Learning collaborative activities, used to improve the
students learning process in an high school Polytechnic Institution. A
new learning model arises, based on a combination between face-toface
and distance leaning. Learning is now becoming centered with
the development of collaborative activities, and its actors (teachers
and students) have to be re-socialized to a new e/b-Learning
paradigm. Measuring approaches are proposed for this model and
results are presented, showing prospective correlation between
students learning success and the use of online collaborative
activities.
Abstract: A rare phenomenon of SDS-induced activation of a latent protease activity associated with the purified silkworm excretory red fluorescent protein (SE-RFP) was noticed. SE-RFP aliquots incubated with SDS for different time intervals indicated that the protein undergoes an obligatory breakdown into a number of subunits which exhibit autoproteolytic (acting upon themselves) and/or heteroproteolytic (acting on other proteins) activities. A strong serine protease activity of SE-RFP subunits on Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) polyhedral protein was detected by zymography technique. A complete inhibition of BmNPV infection to silkworms was observed by the oral administration assay of the SE-RFP. Here, it is proposed that the SE-RFP prevents the initial infection of BmNPV to silkworms by obliterating the polyhedral protein. This is the first report on a silkworm red fluorescent protein that exhibits a protease activity on exposure to SDS. The present studies would help in understanding the antiviral mechanism of silkworm red fluorescent proteins.
Abstract: This paper examines the role and the place of
transdisciplinarity in the urbanism of the 21st century, with the
emphasis on Montenegro urbanism. Global processes require a
systematic strategy and systemic synergistic engagement in the
development of cities in 21st centuries. Urbanism as a profession and
a discipline should be developed parallel and in correlation, based on
the principles of integrality and communication skills, in order to
enable development of the sustainable urban system. The importance
of integrated urbanism and other disciplines are also emphasized as
well as their synergies activities. The paper also presents the positive
examples of urban theory and practice in the world, which influenced
the direction of development of the modern urbanism.
Transdisciplinarity is a priority methodology for sustainable urban
development, which is insufficiently developed in Montenegro, but
there is a basis for its development. It is necessary to unite different
social sensibilities, academic and non-academic knowledge, as well
as the public and private sectors in order to develop holistic,
inclusive and sustainable urban spaces of the 21st centuries.