Abstract: Contamination of heavy metals represents one of the
most pressing threats to water and soil resources as well as human
health. Phytoremediation can be potentially used to remediate metalcontaminated
sites. A major step towards the development of
phytoremediation of heavy metal impacted soils is the discovery of
the heavy metal hyperaccumulation in plants. In this study, the
several established criteria to define a hyperaccumulator plant were
applied. The case study was represented by a mining area in
Hamedan province in the central west part of Iran. Obtained results
showed that the most of sampled species were able to grow on
heavily metal-contaminated soils and also were able to accumulate
extraordinarily high concentrations of some metals such as Zn, Mn,
Cu, Pb and Fe. Using the most common criteria, Euphorbia
macroclada and Centaurea virgata can be classified as
hyperaccumulators of some measured heavy metals and, therefore,
they have suitable potential for phytoremediation of contaminated
soils.
Abstract: The ubiquitous payment problems within construction
industry of China are notoriously hard to be resolved, thus lead to a
series of impacts to the industry chain. Among of them, the most direct
result is affecting the normal operation of contractors negatively. A
wealth of research has already discussed reasons of the payment
problems by introducing a number of possible improvement strategies.
But the causalities of these problems are still far from harsh reality. In
this paper, the authors propose a model for cash flow system of
construction projects by introducing System Dynamics techniques to
explore causal facets of the payment problem. The effects of payment
arrears on both cash flow and profitability of project are simulated into
four scenarios by using data from real projects. Simulating results
show visible clues to help contractors quantitatively determining the
consequences for the construction project that arise from payment
delay.
Abstract: This article outlines a hybrid method, incorporating
multiple techniques into an evaluation process, in order to select
competitive suppliers in a supply chain. It enables a purchaser to do
single sourcing and multiple sourcing by calculating a combined
supplier score, which accounts for both qualitative and quantitative
factors that have impact on supply chain performance.
Abstract: The Malaysian government is promoting
entrepreneurship development skills amongst farmers through informal
courses. These courses will concentrate on teaching managerial skills as
inevitable means for small farms to succeed by making farmers more
creative and innovative. Therefore it is important to assess the effect of
informal agri-entrepreneurial training in developing entrepreneurship
among the farmers in Malaysia. Seven hundred and ninety six farmers
(796) farmers were interviewed via structured questionnaire to define
their opinion on whether the current informal educational and training
establishments are sufficient to teach and develop entrepreneurial
skills. Factor analysis and logic regression analysis were used to
determine the motivating factors and predict their impact on the
development of entrepreneurial skills. The result from the factor analysis
led us to investigate the association between these factors and farmers-
opinions about the development of entrepreneurial skills and traits
through participating in informal entrepreneurship training or education.
The outcome has shown us that the importance of informal training to
promote entrepreneurship among farmers is crucial. The training should
be intensified to encourage farmers to not only focus on the modern
technologies but also on the fundamental changes in their attitude towards
agriculture as a business.
DOA:
KMO: Kaiser- Meyer- Olkin Test
MOA: Ministry of Agriculture
NMP: Ninth Malaysia Plan
NAP: Third National Agricultural Policy (2000-2010)
Abstract: The Baltic States regained independence and started
the pathway from command economy to market economy and
entered European Union at the same time. Latter internationally
recognized evaluations for the countries are diverse. The present
diversity of the Baltic States -Economic Development is a subject of
interest because of the similarities – all three are small, open
economies, countries have similar geographic location and initially
likewise historical and political backgrounds. This article explains
relationship between social environment, business environment and
economic growth. It argues that the elements of social environment
underlie more successful economic development. It researches the
causes, why Estonia has performed better in economic outcomes and
development. The article analyses selection of socio-economic
indicators of all three Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia
for the time period of ten years to include the influence of economic
cycles.
Abstract: Silicon nanowire (SiNW) based thermoelectric device (TED) has potential applications in areas such as chip level cooling/ energy harvesting. It is a great challenge however, to assemble an efficient device with these SiNW. The presence of parasitic in the form of interfacial electrical resistance will have a significant impact on the performance of the TED. In this work, we explore the effect of the electrical contact resistance on the performance of a TED. Numerical simulations are performed on SiNW to investigate such effects on its cooling performance. Intrinsically, SiNW individually without the unwanted parasitic effect has excellent cooling power density. However, the cooling effect is undermined with the contribution of the electrical contact resistance.
Abstract: Nowadays companies in all sectors are looking for the
sources of competitive advantages. Holistic marketing approach
searches for their emergence based on the integration of all
components and elements across the organization. Modern marketing
sees the sources of competitive advantage in implementing the latest
managerial practices, motivation, intelligent project management,
knowledge management, collaborative marketing, CSR and, in the
recent years, also in the business process optimization. With the use
of modern tools including business process management and business
process modelling the company can markedly increase its internal
efficiency which can lead not only to lowering the costs but to
creating the environment for optimal customer care, positive
corporate culture and for origination of innovations as well. In the
article the authors analyze the recent trend in this area and introduce
suggestions to companies to identify and optimize the key processes
that have a significant impact of the company´s competitiveness.
Abstract: Distributed Power generation has gained a lot of
attention in recent times due to constraints associated with
conventional power generation and new advancements in DG
technologies .The need to operate the power system economically
and with optimum levels of reliability has further led to an increase
in interest in Distributed Generation. However it is important to place
Distributed Generator on an optimum location so that the purpose of
loss minimization and voltage regulation is dully served on the
feeder. This paper investigates the impact of DG units installation on
electric losses, reliability and voltage profile of distribution networks.
In this paper, our aim would be to find optimal distributed
generation allocation for loss reduction subjected to constraint of
voltage regulation in distribution network. The system is further
analyzed for increased levels of Reliability. Distributed Generator
offers the additional advantage of increase in reliability levels as
suggested by the improvements in various reliability indices such as
SAIDI, CAIDI and AENS. Comparative studies are performed and
related results are addressed. An analytical technique is used in order
to find the optimal location of Distributed Generator. The suggested
technique is programmed under MATLAB software. The results
clearly indicate that DG can reduce the electrical line loss while
simultaneously improving the reliability of the system.
Abstract: Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a procedure tool of environmental management for identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the adverse effects of development proposals. EIA reports usually analyze how the amounts or concentrations of pollutants obey the relevant standards. Actually, many analytical tools can deepen the analysis of environmental impacts in EIA reports, such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental risk assessment (ERA). Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is one of steps in LCA to introduce the causal relationships among environmental hazards and damage. Incorporating the LCIA concept into ERA as an integrated tool for EIA can extend the focus of the regulatory compliance of environmental impacts to determine of the significance of environmental impacts. Sometimes, when using integrated tools, it is necessary to consider fuzzy situations due to insufficient information; therefore, ERA should be generalized to fuzzy risk assessment (FRA). Finally, the use of the proposed methodology is demonstrated through the study case of the expansion plan of the world-s largest plastics processing factory.
Abstract: In this study, in order to clarify wind-induced
phenomena, especially vertical mixing of density stratification in a
closed water area with floating-leaved plants, we conducted hydraulic
experiments on wind flow characteristics, wind wave characteristics,
entrainment phenomena and turbulent structure by using a wind tunnel
test tank and simulated floating-leaved plants. From the experimental
results of wind flow and wind wave characteristics, we quantified the
impact of the occupancy rate of the plants on their resistance
characteristics. From the experimental results of entrainment
phenomena, we defined the parameter that could explain the
magnitude of mixing between the density stratifications, and
quantified the impact of the occupancy rate on vertical mixing
between stratifications. From the experimental results of the turbulent
structure of the upper layer, we clarified the differences in small-scale
turbulence components at each occupancy rate and quantified the
impact of the occupancy rate on the turbulence characteristics. For a
summary of this study, we theoretically quantified wind-induced
entrainment phenomena in a closed water area with luxuriant growth
of floating-leaved plants. The results indicated that the impact of
luxuriant growth of floating-leaved plants in a closed water body
could be seen in the difference in small-scale fluid characteristics, and
these characteristics could be expressed using the small-scale
turbulent components.
Abstract: Reasonably priced and well-constructed housing must
be an integral and element supporting a healthy society. The absence
of housing everyone in society can afford negatively affects the
people's health, education, ability to get jobs, develop their
community. Without access to decent housing, economic
development, integration of immigrants and inclusiveness, the society
is negatively impacted. Canada has a sterling record in creating
housing compared to many other nations around the globe. Canadian
housing gets support from a mature and responsive mortgage network
and a top-quality construction industry as well as safe and excellent
quality building materials that are readily available. Yet 1.7 million
Canadian households occupy substandard abodes. During the past
hundred years, Canada's government has made a wide variety of
attempts to provide decent residential facilities every Canadian can
afford. Despite these laudable efforts, today Canada is left with
housing that is inadequate for many Canadians. People who own their
housing are given all kinds of privileges and perks, while people with
relatively low incomes who rent their apartments or houses are
discriminated against.
To help solve these problems, zoning that is based on an
"inclusionary" philosophy is tool developed to help provide people
the affordable residences that they need. No, thirty years after its
introduction, this type of zoning has been shown effective in helping
build and provide Canadians with a houses or apartments they can
afford to pay for. Using this form of zoning can have different results
+depending on where and how it is used. After examining Canadian
affordable housing and four American cases where this type of
zoning was enforced in the USA, this makes various
recommendations for expanding Canadians' access to housing they
can afford.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to study the possible use of
stone cutting sludge waste in concrete production, which would
reduce both the environmental impact and the production cost .Slurry
sludge was used a source of water in concrete production, which was
obtained from Samara factory/Jordan, The physico-chemical and
mineralogical characterization of the sludge was carried out to
identify the major components and to compare it with the typical
sand used to produce concrete. Samples analysis showed that 96% of
slurry sludge volume is water, so it should be considered as an
important source of water. Results indicated that the use of slurry
sludge as water source in concrete production has insignificant effect
on compression strength, while it has a sharp effect on the slump
values. Using slurry sludge with a percentage of 25% of the total
water content obtained successful concrete samples regarding slump
and compression tests. To clarify slurry sludge, settling process can
be used to remove the suspended solid. A settling period of 30 min.
obtained 99% removal efficiency. The clarified water is suitable for
using in concrete mixes, which reduce water consumption, conserve
water recourses, increase the profit, reduce operation cost and save
the environment. Additionally, the dry sludge could be used in the
mix design instead of the fine materials with sizes < 160 um. This
application could conserve the natural materials and solve the
environmental and economical problem caused by sludge
accumulation.
Abstract: Space exploration is a highly visible endeavour of
humankind to seek profound answers to questions about the origins
of our solar system, whether life exists beyond Earth, and how we
could live on other worlds. Different platforms have been utilized in
planetary exploration missions, such as orbiters, landers, rovers, and
penetrators.
Having low mass, good mechanical contact with the surface,
ability to acquire high quality scientific subsurface data, and ability to
be deployed in areas that may not be conducive to landers or rovers,
Penetrators provide an alternative and complimentary solution that
makes possible scientific exploration of hardly accessible sites (icy
areas, gully sites, highlands etc.).
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has put space exploration as
one of the pillars of its space program, and established ExCo program
to prepare Canada for future international planetary exploration.
ExCo sets surface mobility as its focus and priority, and invests
mainly in the development of rovers because of Canada's niche space
robotics technology. Meanwhile, CSA is also investigating how
micro-penetrators can help Canada to fulfill its scientific objectives
for planetary exploration.
This paper presents a review of the micro-penetrator technologies,
past missions, and lessons learned. It gives a detailed analysis of the
technical challenges of micro-penetrators, such as high impact
survivability, high precision guidance navigation and control, thermal
protection, communications, and etc. Then, a Canadian perspective of
a possible micro-penetrator mission is given, including Canadian
scientific objectives and priorities, potential instruments, and flight
opportunities.
Abstract: Feature and model selection are in the center of
attention of many researches because of their impact on classifiers-
performance. Both selections are usually performed separately but
recent developments suggest using a combined GA-SVM approach to
perform them simultaneously. This approach improves the
performance of the classifier identifying the best subset of variables
and the optimal parameters- values. Although GA-SVM is an
effective method it is computationally expensive, thus a rough
method can be considered. The paper investigates a joined approach
of Genetic Algorithm and kernel matrix criteria to perform
simultaneously feature and model selection for SVM classification
problem. The purpose of this research is to improve the classification
performance of SVM through an efficient approach, the Kernel
Matrix Genetic Algorithm method (KMGA).
Abstract: The excessive consumption of fossil energies (electrical energy) during summer caused by the technological development involves more and more climate warming.
In order to reduce the worst impact of gas emissions produced from classical air conditioning, heat driven solar absorption chiller is pretty promising; it consists on using solar as motive energy which is clean and environmentally friendly to provide cold.
Solar absorption machine is composed by four components using Lithium Bromide /water as a refrigerating couple. LiBr- water is the most promising in chiller applications due to high safety, high volatility ratio, high affinity, high stability and its high latent heat. The lithium bromide solution is constitute by the salt lithium bromide which absorbs water under certain conditions of pressure and temperature however if the concentration of the solution is high in the absorption chillers; which exceed 70%, the solution will crystallize.
The main aim of this article is to study the phenomena of the crystallization and to evaluate how the dependence between the electric conductivity and the concentration which should be controlled.
Abstract: Mobile Ad hoc Networks is an autonomous system of
mobile nodes connected by multi-hop wireless links without
centralized infrastructure support. As mobile communication gains
popularity, the need for suitable ad hoc routing protocols will
continue to grow. Efficient dynamic routing is an important research
challenge in such a network. Bandwidth constrained mobile devices
use on-demand approach in their routing protocols because of its
effectiveness and efficiency. Many researchers have conducted
numerous simulations for comparing the performance of these
protocols under varying conditions and constraints. Most of them are
not aware of MAC Protocols, which will impact the relative
performance of routing protocols considered in different network
scenarios. In this paper we investigate the choice of MAC protocols
affects the relative performance of ad hoc routing protocols under
different scenarios. We have evaluated the performance of these
protocols using NS2 simulations. Our results show that the
performance of routing protocols of ad hoc networks will suffer when
run over different MAC Layer protocols.
Abstract: It has been always observed that the effectiveness of
MIS as a support tool for management decisions degenerate after
time of implementation, despite the substantial investments being
made. This is true for organizations at the initial stages of MIS
implementations, manual or computerized. A survey of a sample of
middle to top managers in business and government institutions was
made. A large ratio indicates that the MIS has lost its impact on the
day-to-day operations, and even the response lag time expands
sometimes indefinitely. The data indicates an infant mortality
phenomenon of the bathtub model. Reasons may be monotonous
nature of MIS delivery, irrelevance, irreverence, timeliness, and lack
of adequate detail. All those reasons collaborate to create a degree of
degeneracy. We investigate and model as a bathtub model the
phenomenon of MIS degeneracy that inflicts the MIS systems and
renders it ineffective. A degeneracy index is developed to identify
the status of the MIS system and possible remedies to prevent the
onset of total collapse of the system to the point of being useless.
Abstract: From year to year, the incidence of different diseases is increasing in humans, and the cause is inadequate intake of dietary fibre, vitamins, and minerals. One of the possibilities to take care of your health preventively is including in the diet products with increased dietary fibre, vitamin, and mineral content.Jerusalem artichoke powder (JAP) made from Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L) roots is a valuable product. By adding it to pastry goods, we can obtain a fibre-rich food that could be healthier and an excellent alternative to the classical pastry products of this kind.Experiments were carried out at the Faculty of Food Technology of Latvia University of Agriculture (LLU). Results of experiments showed that addition of Jerusalem artichoke powder has significant impact on all the studied pastry products nutritional value (p
Abstract: Polyurethane foam (PUF) is formed by a chemical
reaction of polyol and isocyanate. The aim is to understand the
impact of Silicone on synthesizing polyurethane in differentiate
volume of molding. The method used was one step process, which is
simultaneously caried out a blending polyol (petroleum polyol and
soybean polyol), a TDI (2,4):MDI (4,4-) (80:20), a distilled water,
and a silicone. The properties of the material were measured via a
number of parameters, which are polymer density, compressive
strength, and cellular structures. It is found that density of
polyurethane using silicone with volume of molding either 250 ml or
500 ml is lower than without using silicone.
Abstract: The influence of humidity and low temperature on the α- amylase activity and isoenzyme composition of grains of different wheat varieties have been studied. The identified samples of varieties have significant difference in the level of enzyme induction under the impact of high humidity and low temperature. It is proposed to use this methodological approach for testing genotypes and wheat breeding lines for resistance to pre-harvest sprouting (PHS).