Abstract: In order to study of hydropriming and halopriming on
germination and early growth stage of wheat (Triticum aestivum) an
experiment was carried out in laboratory of the Department of
Agronomy and Plant breeding, Shahrood University of Technology.
Seed treatments consisted of T1: control (untreated seeds), T2:
soaking in distilled water for 18 h (hydropriming). T3: soaking in -
1.2 MPa solution of CaSO4 for 36 h (halopriming). Germination and
early seedling growth were studied using distilled water (control) and
under osmotic potentials of -0.4, -0.8 and -1.2 MPa for NaCl and
polyethylene glycol (PEG 6000), respectively. Results showed that
Hydroprimed seeds achieved maximum germination seedling dry
weight, especially during the higher osmotic potentials. Minimum
germination was recorded at untreated seeds (control) followed by
osmopriming. Under high osmotic potentials, hydroprimed seeds had
higher GI (germination index) as compared to haloprimed or
untreated seeds. Interaction effect of seed treatment and osmotic
potential significantly affected the seedling vigour index (SVI).
Abstract: Intrapreneurship, a term used to describe
entrepreneurship within existing organizations, has been
acknowledged in international literature and practice as a vital
element of economic and organizational growth, success and
competitiveness and can be considered as a unique competitive
advantage. The purpose of the paper is, first, to provide a
comprehensive analysis of the concept of intrapreneurship, and,
second, to highlight the need for a different approach in the research
on the field of intrapreneurship. Concluding, the paper suggests
directions for future research.
Abstract: This research aims to study the preferable tourism and
the elements of choosing tourist destination from domestic tourist in
Bangkok and the nearby areas in Thailand.The data were collected by
using 1249 set of questionnaires, in mid-August 2012. The result
illustrates that religious destinations are the most preferable places
for the tourist. The average expense per travel is approximately 47
USD a time. Travellers travel based on the advertisement in the
television and internet and their decisions is based on the reputation
of the destinations.
The result on a place dimension demonstrates the neatness and
well managed location play a crucial role on tourist destination.
Gender, age, marriage status and their origins are affecting their
spending and travelling behaviour. The researcher reckon that
providing the area of arcade, selling the souvenir and promoting
tourism among a young professional group would be an important
key follow the income distribution policy, including managing the
destination to welcome the family group, which the result is to
identified as the highest spending.
Abstract: Composite steel-concrete slabs using thin-walled
corrugated steel sheets with embossments represent a modern and
effective combination of steel and concrete. However, the design
of new types of sheeting is conditional on the execution of expensive
and time-consuming laboratory testing. The effort to develop
a cheaper and faster method has lead to many investigations all over
the world. In our paper we compare the results from our experiments
involving vacuum loading, four-point bending and small-scale shear
tests.
Abstract: In this paper, a novel method using Bees Algorithm is proposed to determine the optimal allocation of FACTS devices for maximizing the Available Transfer Capability (ATC) of power transactions between source and sink areas in the deregulated power system. The algorithm simultaneously searches the FACTS location, FACTS parameters and FACTS types. Two types of FACTS are simulated in this study namely Thyristor Controlled Series Compensator (TCSC) and Static Var Compensator (SVC). A Repeated Power Flow with FACTS devices including ATC is used to evaluate the feasible ATC value within real and reactive power generation limits, line thermal limits, voltage limits and FACTS operation limits. An IEEE30 bus system is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm as an optimization tool to enhance ATC. A Genetic Algorithm technique is used for validation purposes. The results clearly indicate that the introduction of FACTS devices in a right combination of location and parameters could enhance ATC and Bees Algorithm can be efficiently used for this kind of nonlinear integer optimization.
Abstract: Low oxygen content vanadium powder was
prepared by hydrogenation dehydrogenization (HDH). The
effect of purification treatment on hydrogen absorption kinetics
of dendritic vanadium was tested, and the effects of milling
technique on powder yield and grain size were studied. The
crystal phase, oxygen and nitrgen content, and grain size of
prepared powder were characterized and analyzed by X-ray
diffraction (XRD), oxygen and nitrogen analyzer and grain size
analyzer. The results show that the alkaline cleaning can
improve the hydrogen absorption of vanadium. The yield of
vanadium hydride powder can reach as high as 90% by 4h
ball-milling, The resultant product also have an oxygen content
less than 600μg/g, and the grain size is smaller than 37μm.
Meanwhile, the XRD results show that the phase of hydride
vanadium powder is mainly VH0.81. After a hydrogen
desorption treatment in vacuum at 700Ôäâ, the phase of the
powder converts into V and a little of V2H.
Abstract: Routing in MANET is extremely challenging because
of MANETs dynamic features, its limited bandwidth, frequent
topology changes caused by node mobility and power energy
consumption. In order to efficiently transmit data to destinations, the
applicable routing algorithms must be implemented in mobile ad-hoc
networks. Thus we can increase the efficiency of the routing by
satisfying the Quality of Service (QoS) parameters by developing
routing algorithms for MANETs. The algorithms that are inspired by
the principles of natural biological evolution and distributed
collective behavior of social colonies have shown excellence in
dealing with complex optimization problems and are becoming more
popular. This paper presents a survey on few meta-heuristic
algorithms and naturally-inspired algorithms.
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: Municipal solid waste (MSW) comprises of a wide
range of heterogeneous materials generated by individual, household
or organization and may include food waste, garden wastes, papers,
textiles, rubbers, plastics, glass, ceramics, metals, wood wastes,
construction wastes but it is not limited to the above mentioned
fractions. The most common Municipal Solid Waste pretreatment
method in use is thermal pretreatment (incineration) and Mechanical
Biological pretreatment. This paper presents an overview of these
two pretreatment methods describing their benefits and laboratory
scale reactors that simulate landfill conditions were constructed in
order to compare emissions in terms of biogas production and
leachate contamination between untreated Municipal Solid Waste and
Mechanical Biological Pretreated waste. The findings of this study
showed that Mechanical Biological pretreatment of waste reduces the
emission level of waste and the benefit over the landfilling of
untreated waste is significant.
Abstract: Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) is a method of determining
the most efficient, low-cost and reliable operation of a power
system by dispatching available electricity generation resources to
supply load on the system. The primary objective of economic
dispatch is to minimize total cost of generation while honoring
operational constraints of available generation resources. In this paper
an intelligent water drop (IWD) algorithm has been proposed to
solve ELD problem with an objective of minimizing the total cost of
generation. Intelligent water drop algorithm is a swarm-based natureinspired
optimization algorithm, which has been inspired from natural
rivers. A natural river often finds good paths among lots of possible
paths in its ways from source to destination and finally find almost
optimal path to their destination. These ideas are embedded into
the proposed algorithm for solving economic load dispatch problem.
The main advantage of the proposed technique is easy is implement
and capable of finding feasible near global optimal solution with
less computational effort. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of
the proposed method, it has been tested on 6-unit and 20-unit test
systems with incremental fuel cost functions taking into account the
valve point-point loading effects. Numerical results shows that the
proposed method has good convergence property and better in quality
of solution than other algorithms reported in recent literature.
Abstract: Many studies have shown that Artificial Neural
Networks (ANN) have been widely used for forecasting financial
markets, because of many financial and economic variables are nonlinear,
and an ANN can model flexible linear or non-linear
relationship among variables.
The purpose of the study was to employ an ANN models to
predict the direction of the Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100
Indices (ISE National-100).
As a result of this study, the model forecast the direction of the
ISE National-100 to an accuracy of 74, 51%.
Abstract: This study proposes and tests a rescapturing elements of perceived gain and loss that, by perceived value of medical tourism products, influencintention of potential customers. Data from 301 usable qwere tested against the research model using the structmodeling approach. The results indicated that perceivedkey predictor of customer intentions. As for benefimedical quality, service quality and enjoyment wcomponents that significantly influenced the perceptiRegarding sacrifice, the effects of perceived risk on pewere significant. The findings can provide insights intohow destination countries can make medical tourism a wfor themselves and international patients.KeywordsMedical tourism, perceived valueintention.
Abstract: The effect of dry milling on the carbothermic
reduction of celestite was investigated. Mixtures of celestite
concentrate (98% SrSO4) and activated carbon (99% carbon) was
milled for 1 and 24 hours in a planetary ball mill. Un-milled and
milled mixtures and their products after carbothermic reduction were
studied by a combination of XRD and TGA/DTA experiments. The
thermogravimetric analyses and XRD results showed that by milling
celestite-carbon mixtures for one hour, the formation temperature of
strontium sulfide decreased from about 720°C (in un-milled sample)
to about 600°C, after 24 hours milling it decreased to 530°C. It was
concluded that milling induces increasingly thorough mixing of the
reactants to reduction occurring at lower temperatures
Abstract: Key management is a vital component in any modern security protocol. Due to scalability and practical implementation considerations automatic key management seems a natural choice in significantly large virtual private networks (VPNs). In this context IETF Internet Key Exchange (IKE) is the most promising protocol under permanent review. We have made a humble effort to pinpoint IKEv2 net gain over IKEv1 due to recent modifications in its original structure, along with a brief overview of salient improvements between the two versions. We have used US National Institute of Technology NIIST VPN simulator to get some comparisons of important performance metrics.
Abstract: Tomato powder has good potential as substitute of tomato paste and other tomato products. In order to protect physicochemical properties and nutritional quality of tomato during dehydration process, investigation was carried out using different drying methods and pretreatments. Solar drier and continuous conveyor (tunnel) drier were used for dehydration where as calcium chloride (CaCl2), potassium metabisulphite (KMS), calcium chloride and potassium metabisulphite (CaCl2 +KMS), and sodium chloride (NaCl) selected for treatment.. lycopene content, dehydration ratio, rehydration ratio and non-enzymatic browning in addition to moisture, sugar and titrable acidity were studied. Results show that pre-treatment with CaCl2 and NaCl increased water removal and moisture mobility in tomato slices during drying of tomatoes. Where CaCl2 used along with KMS the NEB was recorded the least compared to other treatments and the best results were obtained while using the two chemicals in combination form. Storage studies in LDPE polymeric and metalized polyesters films showed less changes in the products packed in metallized polyester pouches and even after 6 months lycopene content did not decrease more than 20% as compared to the control sample and provide extension of shelf life in acceptable condition for 6 months. In most of the quality characteristics tunnel drier samples presented better values in comparison to solar drier.
Abstract: Wimax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access)
is a promising technology which can offer high speed data,
voice and video service to the customer end, which is presently, dominated
by the cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies.
The performance assessment of Wimax systems is dealt with. The
biggest advantage of Broadband wireless application (BWA) over its
wired competitors is its increased capacity and ease of deployment.
The aims of this paper are to model and simulate the fixed OFDM
IEEE 802.16d physical layer under variant combinations of digital
modulation (BPSK, QPSK, and 16-QAM) over diverse combination
of fading channels (AWGN, SUIs). Stanford University Interim (SUI)
Channel serial was proposed to simulate the fixed broadband wireless
access channel environments where IEEE 802.16d is to be deployed.
It has six channel models that are grouped into three categories
according to three typical different outdoor Terrains, in order to give
a comprehensive effect of fading channels on the overall performance
of the system.
Abstract: The Bulgarian natural expanded mineral obtained from Bentonite AD perlite (A deposit of "The Broken Mountain" for perlite mining, near by the village of Vodenicharsko, in the municipality of Djebel), was loaded with silver (as ion form - Ag+ 2 and 5 wt% by the incipient wetness impregnation method), and as atomic silver - Ag0 using Tollen-s reagent (silver mirror reaction). Some physicochemical characterization of the samples are provided via: DC arc-AES, XRD, DR-IR and UV-VIS. The aim of this work was to obtain and test the silver-loaded catalyst for ozone decomposition. So the samples loaded with atomic silver show ca. 80% conversion of ozone 20 minutes after the reaction start. Then conversion decreases to ca. 20 % but stay stable during the prolongation of time.
Abstract: This article refers to the action of Kazakh
intelligentsia towards the formation of national state and their
attempt for reconstruction of national independence and building the
way to nowadays- independence through reviewing the history of our
national ideology.
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: This paper presents an alternate approach that uses
artificial neural network to simulate the flood level dynamics in a
river basin. The algorithm was developed in a decision support
system environment in order to enable users to process the data. The
decision support system is found to be useful due to its interactive
nature, flexibility in approach and evolving graphical feature and can
be adopted for any similar situation to predict the flood level. The
main data processing includes the gauging station selection, input
generation, lead-time selection/generation, and length of prediction.
This program enables users to process the flood level data, to
train/test the model using various inputs and to visualize results. The
program code consists of a set of files, which can as well be modified
to match other purposes. This program may also serve as a tool for
real-time flood monitoring and process control. The running results
indicate that the decision support system applied to the flood level
seems to have reached encouraging results for the river basin under
examination. The comparison of the model predictions with the
observed data was satisfactory, where the model is able to forecast
the flood level up to 5 hours in advance with reasonable prediction
accuracy. Finally, this program may also serve as a tool for real-time
flood monitoring and process control.