Abstract: The aim of this paper is to know the sociodemographic
and operational-financial determinants of the services
quality perceived by users of the national health services. Through
the use of an inquiry conducted by the Ministry of Health,
comprehending 16.936 interviews in 2006, we intend to find out if
there is any characteristic that determines the 2006 inquiry results.
With the revision of the literature we also want to know if the
operational-financial results have implications in hospitals users-
perception on the quality of the received services. In order to achieve
our main goals we will make use of the regression analysis to find out
the possible dimensions that determine those results.
Abstract: In this paper, we address the problem of reducing the
switching activity (SA) in on-chip buses through the use of a bus
binding technique in high-level synthesis. While many binding
techniques to reduce the SA exist, we present yet another technique for
further reducing the switching activity. Our proposed method
combines bus binding and data sequence reordering to explore a wider
solution space. The problem is formulated as a multiple traveling
salesman problem and solved using simulated annealing technique.
The experimental results revealed that a binding solution obtained
with the proposed method reduces 5.6-27.2% (18.0% on average) and
2.6-12.7% (6.8% on average) of the switching activity when compared
with conventional binding-only and hybrid binding-encoding
methods, respectively.
Abstract: To determine the length of engagement threads of a bolt installed in a tapped part in order to avoid the threads stripping remains a very current problem in the design of the thread assemblies. It does not exist a calculation method formalized for the cases where the bolt is screwed directly in a ductile material. In this article, we study the behavior of the threads stripping of a loaded assembly by using a modelling by finite elements and a rupture criterion by damage. This modelling enables us to study the different parameters likely to influence the behavior of this bolted connection. We study in particular, the influence of couple of materials constituting the connection, of the bolt-s diameter and the geometrical characteristics of the tapped part, like the external diameter and the length of engagement threads. We established an experiments design to know the most significant parameters. That enables us to propose a simple expression making possible to calculate the resistance of the threads whatever the metallic materials of the bolt and the tapped part. We carried out stripping tests in order to validate our model. The estimated results are very close to those obtained by the tests.
Abstract: This paper presents a hybrid association control
scheme that can maintain load balancing among access points in the
wireless LANs and can satisfy the quality of service requirements of
the multimedia traffic applications. The proposed model is
mathematically described as a linear programming model. Simulation
study and analysis were conducted in order to demonstrate the
performance of the proposed hybrid load balancing and association
control scheme. Simulation results shows that the proposed scheme
outperforms the other schemes in term of the percentage of blocking
and the quality of the data transfer rate providing to the multimedia
and real-time applications.
Abstract: Decision support based upon risk analysis into
comparison of the electricity generation from different renewable
energy technologies can provide information about their effects on
the environment and society. The aim of this paper is to develop the
assessment framework regarding risks to health and environment,
and the society-s benefits of the electric power plant generation from
different renewable sources. The multicriteria framework to
multiattribute risk analysis technique and the decision analysis
interview technique are applied in order to support the decisionmaking
process for the implementing renewable energy projects to
the Bangkok case study. Having analyses the local conditions and
appropriate technologies, five renewable power plants are postulated
as options. As this work demonstrates, the analysis can provide a tool
to aid decision-makers for achieving targets related to promote
sustainable energy system.
Abstract: The ARMrayan Multimedia Mobile CMS (Content
Management System) is the first mobile CMS that gives the
opportunity to users for creating multimedia J2ME mobile
applications with their desired content, design and logo; simply,
without any need for writing even a line of code. The low-level
programming and compatibility problems of the J2ME, along with
UI designing difficulties, makes it hard for most people –even
programmers- to broadcast their content to the widespread mobile
phones used by nearly all people. This system provides user-friendly,
PC-based tools for creating a tree index of pages and inserting
multiple multimedia contents (e.g. sound, video and picture) in each
page for creating a J2ME mobile application. The output is a standalone
Java mobile application that has a user interface, shows texts
and pictures and plays music and videos regardless of the type of
devices used as long as the devices support the J2ME platform.
Bitmap fonts have also been used thus Middle Eastern languages can
be easily supported on all mobile phone devices. We omitted
programming concepts for users in order to simplify multimedia
content-oriented mobile applictaion designing for use in educational,
cultural or marketing centers. Ordinary operators can now create a
variety of multimedia mobile applications such as tutorials,
catalogues, books, and guides in minutes rather than months.
Simplicity and power has been the goal of this CMS. In this paper,
we present the software engineered-designed concepts of the
ARMrayan MCMS along with the implementation challenges faces
and solutions adapted.
Abstract: In order to increase in chickpea quality and
agroecosystem sustainability, field experiments were carried out in
2007 and 2008 growing seasons. In this research the effects of
different organic, chemical and biological fertilizers were
investigated on grain yield and quality of chickpea. Experimental
units were arranged in split-split plots based on randomized complete
blocks with three replications. The highest amounts of yield and yield
components were obtained in G1×N5 interaction. Significant
increasing of N, P, K, Fe and Mg content in leaves and grains
emphasized on superiority of mentioned treatment because each one
of these nutrients has an approved role in chlorophyll synthesis and
photosynthesis ability of the crop. The combined application of
compost, farmyard manure and chemical phosphorus (N5) had the
best grain quality due to high protein, starch and total sugar contents,
low crude fiber and reduced cooking time.
Abstract: Chemical and physical functionalization of multiwalled
carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) has been commonly practiced to
achieve better dispersion of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in polymer
matrix. This work describes various functionalization methods (acidtreatment,
non-ionic surfactant treatment with TritonX-100),
fabrication of MWCNT/PP nanocomposites via melt blending and
characterization of mechanical properties. Microscopy analysis
(FESEM, TEM, XPS) showed effective purification of MWCNTs
under acid treatment, and better dispersion under both chemical and
physical functionalization techniques combined, in their respective
order. Tensile tests showed increase in tensile strength for the
nanocomposites that contain MWCNTs up to 2 wt%. A decrease in
tensile strength was seen in samples that contain 4 wt% of MWCNTs
for both raw and Triton X-100 functionalized, signifying MWCNT
degradation/rebundling at composition with higher content of
MWCNTs. For the acid-treated MWCNTs, however, the tensile
results showed slight improvement even at 4wt%, indicating effective
dispersion of MWCNTs.
Abstract: Product Lead Time (PLT) is the period of time from
receiving a customer's order to delivering the final product. PLT is an
indicator of the manufacturing controllability, efficiency and
performance. Due to the explosion in the rate of technological
innovations and the rapid changes in the nature of manufacturing
processes, manufacturing firms can bring the new products to market
quicker only if they can reduce their PLT and speed up the rate at
which they can design, plan, control, and manufacture. Although
there is a substantial body of research on manufacturing relating to
cost and quality issues, there is no much specific research conducted
in relation to the formulation of PLT, despite its significance and
importance. This paper analyzes and formulates PLT which can be
used as a guideline for achieving the shorter PLT. Further more this
paper identifies the causes of delay and factors that contributes to the
increased product lead-time.
Abstract: We have developed a distributed asynchronous Web
based training system. In order to improve the scalability and robustness
of this system, all contents and functions are realized on mobile
agents. These agents are distributed to computers, and they can use
a Peer to Peer network that modified Content-Addressable Network.
In the proposed system, only text data can be included in a exercise.
To make our proposed system more useful, the mechanism that it not
only adapts to multimedia data but also it doesn-t influence the user-s
learning even if the size of exercise becomes large is necessary.
Abstract: Detecting protein-protein interactions is a central problem in computational biology and aberrant such interactions may have implicated in a number of neurological disorders. As a result, the prediction of protein-protein interactions has recently received considerable attention from biologist around the globe. Computational tools that are capable of effectively identifying protein-protein interactions are much needed. In this paper, we propose a method to detect protein-protein interaction based on substring similarity measure. Two protein sequences may interact by the mean of the similarities of the substrings they contain. When applied on the currently available protein-protein interaction data for the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the proposed method delivered reasonable improvement over the existing ones.
Abstract: The main purpose of this research paper was to study
the requirements for human capital development in order to be ready
for ASEAN Community. Thai education institutions are encountering
a challenging course of change to be effective members of ASEAN
Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. It was vital that everyone and
every organization participate in the process of becoming part of the
ASEAN community, a pluralistic society. Thai universities will be
required to partake in the human capital development in a variety of
fields. In order to assist the whole nation to enhance potential
development, there was a need to collaborate with other ASEAN
leading universities to do researches to ameliorate the qualifications
and capabilities of university management, administers, professors,
and staffs.
Abstract: In recent years demolished concrete waste handling and management is the new primary challenging issue faced by the countries all over the world. It is very challenging and hectic problem that has to be tackled in an indigenous manner, it is desirable to completely recycle demolished concrete waste in order to protect natural resources and reduce environmental pollution. In this research paper an experimental study is carried out to investigate the feasibility and recycling of demolished waste concrete for new construction. The present investigation to be focused on recycling demolished waste materials in order to reduce construction cost and resolving housing problems faced by the low income communities of the world. The crushed demolished concrete wastes is segregated by sieving to obtain required sizes of aggregate, several tests were conducted to determine the aggregate properties before recycling it into new concrete. This research shows that the recycled aggregate that are obtained from site make good quality concrete. The compressive strength test results of partial replacement and full recycled aggregate concrete and are found to be higher than the compressive strength of normal concrete with new aggregate.
Abstract: The elimimation of mefenamic acid has been carried
out by photolysis, ozonation, adsorption onto activated carbon (AC)
and combinations of the previous single systems (O3+AC and
O3+UV). The results obtained indicate that mefenamic acid is not
photo-reactive, showing a relatively low quantum yield of the order
of 6 x 10-4 mol Einstein-1. Application of ozone to mefenamic
aqueous solutions instantaneously eliminates the pharmaceutical,
achieving simultaneously a 40% of mineralization. Addition of AC to
the ozonation process does not enhance the process, moreover,
mineralization is completely inhibited if compared to results obtained
by single ozonation. The combination of ozone and UV radiation led
to the best results in terms of mineralization (60% after 120 min).
Abstract: Nagaland, the 16th state of India in order of
statehood, is situated between 25° 6' and 27° 4' latitude north and
between 93º 20' E and 95º 15' E longitude of equator in the North
Eastern part of the India. Endowed with varied topography, soil and
agro climatic conditions it is known for its potentiality to grow all
most all kinds of horticultural crops. Pineapple being grown since
long organically by default is one of the most promising crops of the
state with emphasis being laid for commercialization by the
government of Nagaland. In light of commercialization, globalization
and scope of setting small-scale industries, a research study was
undertaken to examine the socio-economic and personal
characteristics, entrepreneurial characteristics and attitude of the
pineapple growers towards improved package of practices of
pineapple cultivation. The study was conducted in Medziphema
block of Dimapur district of the Nagaland state of India following ex
post facto research design. Ninety pineapple growers were selected
from four different villages of Medziphema block based on
proportionate random selection procedure. Findings of the study
revealed that majority of the respondents had medium level of
entrepreneurial characteristics in terms of knowledge level, risk
orientation, self confidence, management orientation, farm decision
making ability and leadership ability and most of them had
favourable attitude towards improved package of practices of
pineapple cultivation. The variables age, education, farm size, risk
orientation, management orientation and sources of information
utilized were found important to influence the attitude of the
respondents. The study revealed that favourable attitude and
entrepreneurial characteristics of the pineapple cultivators might be
harnessed for increased production of pineapple in the state thereby
bringing socio economic upliftment of the marginal and small-scale
farmers.
Abstract: The association between emotional inhibition strategies linked to depression has been showed inconsistent among studies. Mild emotional inhibition maybe benefit for social interaction, especially for female among East Asian cultures. The present study aimed to examine whether the inhibition–depression relationship is dependent on level of emotion inhibition and gender context, given differing value of suppressing emotional displays. We hypothesized that the negative associations between inhibition and adolescent depression would not directly, in which affected by interaction between emotion inhibition and gender. To test this hypothesis, we asked 309 junior high school students which age range from 12 to14 years old to report on their use of emotion inhibition and depression syndrome. A multiple regressions analysis revealed that significant interaction that gender as a moderator to the relationships between emotion inhibition and adolescent depression. The group with the highest level of depression was girls with high levels of emotion inhibition, whose depression score was higher than that of boys with high levels of emotion inhibition. The result highlights that the importance of context in understanding the inhibition-depression relationship.
Abstract: The successful implementation of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is not confined to Information Technology systems and required changes of the whole enterprise. In order to adapt IT and business, the enterprise requires adequate and measurable methods. The adoption of SOA creates new problem with regard to measuring and analysis the performance. In fact the enterprise should investigate to what extent the development of services will increase the value of business. It is required for every business to measure the extent of SOA adaptation with the goals of enterprise. Moreover, precise performance metrics and their combination with the advanced evaluation methodologies as a solution should be defined. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic methodology for designing a measurement system at the technical and business levels, so that: (1) it will determine measurement metrics precisely (2) the results will be analysed by mapping identified metrics to the measurement tools.
Abstract: In general, small-scale vegetables farmers experience
problems in improving the safety and quality of vegetables supplied
to high-class consumers in modern retailers. They also lack of
information to access market. The farmers group and/or cooperative
(FGC) should be able to assist its members by providing training in
handling and packing vegetables and enhancing marketing
capabilities to sell commodities to the modern retailers. This study
proposes an agri-food supply chain (ASC) model that involves the
corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to cultivate the
capabilities of farmers to access market. Multi period ASC model is
formulated as Weighted Goal Programming (WGP) to analyze the
impacts of CSR programs to empower the FGCs in managing the
small-scale vegetables farmers. The results show that the proposed
model can be used to determine the priority of programs in order to
maximize the four goals to be achieved in the CSR programs.
Abstract: The objective of this research was to find the diffusion properties of vehicles on the road by using the V-Sphere Code. The diffusion coefficient and the size of the height of the wake were estimated with the LES option and the third order MUSCL scheme. We evaluated the code with the changes in the moments of Reynolds Stress along the mean streamline. The results show that at the leading part of a bluff body the LES has some advantages over the RNS since the changes in the strain rates are larger for the leading part. We estimated that the diffusion coefficient with the computed Reynolds stress (non-dimensional) was about 0.96 times the mean velocity.
Abstract: An automatic speech recognition system for the
formal Arabic language is needed. The Quran is the most formal
spoken book in Arabic, it is spoken all over the world. In this
research, an automatic speech recognizer for Quranic based speakerindependent
was developed and tested. The system was developed
based on the tri-phone Hidden Markov Model and Maximum
Likelihood Linear Regression (MLLR). The MLLR computes a set
of transformations which reduces the mismatch between an initial
model set and the adaptation data. It uses the regression class tree, as
well as, estimates a set of linear transformations for the mean and
variance parameters of a Gaussian mixture HMM system. The 30th
Chapter of the Quran, with five of the most famous readers of the
Quran, was used for the training and testing of the data. The chapter
includes about 2000 distinct words. The advantages of using the
Quranic verses as the database in this developed recognizer are the
uniqueness of the words and the high level of orderliness between
verses. The level of accuracy from the tested data ranged 68 to 85%.