Abstract: The purpose of this research is to study motivation
factors and also to study factors relation to job performance to
compare motivation factors under the personal factor classification
such as gender, age, income, educational level, marital status, and
working duration; and to study the relationship between Motivation
Factors and Job Performance with job satisfactions. The sample
groups utilized in this research were 400 Suan Sunandha Rajabhat
University employees. This research is a quantitative research using
questionnaires as research instrument. The statistics applied for data
analysis including percentage, mean, and standard deviation. In
addition, the difference analysis was conducted by t value computing,
one-way analysis of variance and Pearson’s correlation coefficient
computing. The findings of the study results were as follows the
findings showed that the aspects of job promotion and salary were at
the moderate levels. Additionally, the findings also showed that the
motivations that affected the revenue branch chiefs’ job performance
were job security, job accomplishment, policy and management, job
promotion, and interpersonal relation.
Abstract: The simulation of external aerodynamics is one of the most challenging and important automotive CFD applications. With the rapid developments of digital computers, CFD is used as a practical tool in modern fluid dynamics research. It integrates fluid mechanics disciplines, mathematics and computer science. In this study, two different types of simulations were made, one for the flow around a simplified high speed passenger car with a rear-spoiler and the other for the flow without a rear-spoiler. The standard k-ε model is selected to numerically simulate the external flow field of the simplified Camry model with or without a rear-spoiler. Through an analysis of the simulation results, a new rear spoiler is designed and it shows a mild reduction of the vehicle aerodynamics drag. This leads to less vehicle fuel consumption on the road.
Abstract: Software and applications are subjected to serious and damaging security threats, these threats are increasing as a result of increased number of potential vulnerabilities. Security testing is an indispensable process to validate software security requirements and to identify security related vulnerabilities. In this paper we analyze and compare different available vulnerabilities testing techniques based on a pre defined criteria using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). We have selected five testing techniques which includes Source code analysis, Fault code injection, Robustness, Stress and Penetration testing techniques. These testing techniques have been evaluated against five criteria which include cost, thoroughness, Ease of use, effectiveness and efficiency. The outcome of the study is helpful for researchers, testers and developers to understand effectiveness of each technique in its respective domain. Also the study helps to compare the inner working of testing techniques against a selected criterion to achieve optimum testing results.
Abstract: Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) hold much promise as a basis for disease-gene association. However, research is limited by the cost of genotyping the tremendous number of SNPs. Therefore, it is important to identify a small subset of informative SNPs, the so-called tag SNPs. This subset consists of selected SNPs of the genotypes, and accurately represents the rest of the SNPs. Furthermore, an effective evaluation method is needed to evaluate prediction accuracy of a set of tag SNPs. In this paper, a genetic algorithm (GA) is applied to tag SNP problems, and the K-nearest neighbor (K-NN) serves as a prediction method of tag SNP selection. The experimental data used was taken from the HapMap project; it consists of genotype data rather than haplotype data. The proposed method consistently identified tag SNPs with considerably better prediction accuracy than methods from the literature. At the same time, the number of tag SNPs identified was smaller than the number of tag SNPs in the other methods. The run time of the proposed method was much shorter than the run time of the SVM/STSA method when the same accuracy was reached.
Abstract: Not many studies have been undertaken on shareholder activism in emerging economies, including Malaysia. Shareholder activism in emerging economies is on the rise. This paper seeks to comprehend the elements of this activism that are unique to Malaysia, specifically with respect to how the agency problem is controlled through shareholder activism in improving corporate governance practices within target companies. Through shareholder activism, shareholders make contact with a target company to voice their dissatisfaction, suggestions, or recommendations. This paper utilises agency theory to explain institutional shareholder activism. This theory has been extensively used within literature on corporate governance with regards to shareholder activism. The effectiveness of shareholder activism in improving corporate governance will be examined as well. This research provides a further understanding of shareholder activism in emerging economies, such as Malaysia; this research also has the potential to enhance shareholder activism and corporate governance practices in general.
Abstract: Twenty seven tektites from the Wenchang area, Hainan
province (south China) and five tektites from the Khon Kaen area
(northeast Thailand) were analyzed for major and trace element
contents and Rb-Sr isotopic compositions. All the samples studied are
splash-form tektites. Tektites of this study are characterized by high
SiO2 contents ranging from 71.95 to 74.07 wt% which is consistent
with previously published analyses of Australasian tektites. The trace
element ratios Ba/Rb (avg. 3.89), Th/Sm (avg. 2.40), Sm/Sc (avg.
0.45), Th/Sc (avg. 0.99) and the rare earth elements (REE) contents of
tektites of this study are similar to the average upper continental crust.
Based on the chemical composition, it is suggested that tektites in this
study are derived from similar parental material and are similar to the
post-Archean upper crustal rocks. The major and trace element
abundances of tektites analyzed indicate that the parental material of
tektites may be a terrestrial sedimentary deposit. The tektites from the
Wenchang area, Hainan Island have high positive εSr(0)
values-ranging from 184.5~196.5 which indicate that the parental
material for these tektites have similar Sr isotopic compositions to old
terrestrial sedimentary rocks and they were not dominantly derived
from recent young sediments (such as soil or loess). Based on Rb-Sr
isotopic data, it has been suggested by Blum (1992) [1]that the
depositional age of sedimentary target materials is close to 170Ma
(Jurassic). According to the model suggested by Ho and Chen
(1996)[2], mixing calculations for various amounts and combinations
of target rocks have been carried out. We consider that the best fit for
tektites from the Wenchang area is a mixture of 47% shale, 23%
sandstone, 25% greywacke and 5% quartzite, and the other tektites
from Khon Kaen area is a mixture of 46% shale, 2% sandstone, 20%
greywacke and 32% quartzite.
Abstract: Understanding how precipitation inter-annually
changes and its implication in agricultural drought and production change in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) growth season is critical for crop production in China. MODIS Temperature-Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI) and daily mean precipitation time series for the main growth season(Feb. to May) of winter wheat from 2000 to 2010
were used to analyze the distribution of trends of precipitation,
agricultural drought and winter wheat yield change respectively, and
relationships between them in North China region(Huang-huai-hai
region, HHH region), China. The results indicated that the trend of
precipitation in HHH region past 11 years was increasing, which had
induced generally corresponding decreasing trend of agricultural
drought and increasing trend of wheat yield, while the trend of drought
was spatially diverse. The study could provide a basis for agricultural
drought research during winter wheat season in HHH region under the
ground of climate change.
Abstract: This research work proposes a model of network security systems aiming to prevent production system in a data center from being attacked by intrusions. Conceptually, we introduce a decoy system as a part of the security system for luring intrusions, and apply network intrusion detection (NIDS), coupled with the decoy system to perform intrusion prevention. When NIDS detects an activity of intrusions, it will signal a redirection module to redirect all malicious traffics to attack the decoy system instead, and hence the production system is protected and safe. However, in a normal situation, traffic will be simply forwarded to the production system as usual. Furthermore, we assess the performance of the model with various bandwidths, packet sizes and inter-attack intervals (attacking frequencies).
Abstract: Service identification is one of the main activities in
the modeling of a service-oriented solution, and therefore errors
made during identification can flow down through detailed design
and implementation activities that may necessitate multiple
iterations, especially in building composite applications. Different
strategies exist for how to identify candidate services that each of
them has its own benefits and trade offs. The approach presented in
this paper proposes a selective identification of services approach,
based on in depth business process analysis coupled with use cases
and existing assets analysis and goal service modeling. This article
clearly emphasizes the key activities need for the analysis and
service identification to build a optimized service oriented
architecture. In contrast to other approaches this article mentions
some best practices and steps, wherever appropriate, to point out the
vagueness involved in service identification.
Abstract: This paper proposes an auto-classification algorithm
of Web pages using Data mining techniques. We consider the
problem of discovering association rules between terms in a set of
Web pages belonging to a category in a search engine database, and
present an auto-classification algorithm for solving this problem that
are fundamentally based on Apriori algorithm. The proposed
technique has two phases. The first phase is a training phase where
human experts determines the categories of different Web pages, and
the supervised Data mining algorithm will combine these categories
with appropriate weighted index terms according to the highest
supported rules among the most frequent words. The second phase is
the categorization phase where a web crawler will crawl through the
World Wide Web to build a database categorized according to the
result of the data mining approach. This database contains URLs and
their categories.
Abstract: Apparel product development is an important stage in the life cycle of a product. Shortening this stage will help to reduce the costs of a garment. The aim of this study is to examine the production parameters in knitwear apparel companies by defining the unit costs, and developing a software to calculate the unit costs of garments and make the cost estimates. In this study, with the help of a questionnaire, different companies- systems of unit cost estimating and cost calculating were tried to be analyzed. Within the scope of the questionnaire, the importance of cost estimating process for apparel companies and the expectations from a new cost estimating program were investigated. According to the results of the questionnaire, it was seen that the majority of companies which participated to the questionnaire use manual cost calculating methods or simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to make cost estimates. Furthermore, it was discovered that many companies meet with difficulties in archiving the cost data for future use and as a solution to that problem, it is thought that prior to making a cost estimate, sub units of garment costs which are fabric, accessory and the labor costs should be analyzed and added to the database of the programme beforehand. Another specification of the cost estimating unit prepared in this study is that the programme was designed to consist of two main units, one of which makes the product specification and the other makes the cost calculation. The programme is prepared as a web-based application in order that the supplier, the manufacturer and the customer can have the opportunity to communicate through the same platform.
Abstract: QoS Routing aims to find paths between senders and
receivers satisfying the QoS requirements of the application which
efficiently using the network resources and underlying routing
algorithm to be able to find low-cost paths that satisfy given QoS
constraints. The problem of finding least-cost routing is known to be
NP-hard or complete and some algorithms have been proposed to
find a near optimal solution. But these heuristics or algorithms either
impose relationships among the link metrics to reduce the complexity
of the problem which may limit the general applicability of the
heuristic, or are too costly in terms of execution time to be applicable
to large networks. In this paper, we concentrate an algorithm that
finds a near-optimal solution fast and we named this algorithm as
optimized Delay Constrained Routing (ODCR), which uses an
adaptive path weight function together with an additional constraint
imposed on the path cost, to restrict search space and hence ODCR
finds near optimal solution in much quicker time.
Abstract: This research aimed to study employees- perceptions and expectations toward their organization-s corporate social responsibility (CSR), to study the differences between employees- personal factors and level of perceptions and expectations toward CSR, and to study the relationship between employees- perceptions and expectations toward CSR. Purposive sampling and questionnaire were applied to collect information from 400 private company employees in Bangkok metropolitan area. The results revealed that employees had “high" level of perceptions and expectations toward CSR, of which the highest level were given on the area of “corporate governance and transparency". It was found that there was different level of expectations of employees with different period of employment, position and employment (by listed and non-listed companies). Employees of different age and period of employment also had different level of expectations. Employees- perceptions were correlated with their expectations toward CSR.
Abstract: Over the past few years, a number of efforts have
been exerted to build parallel processing systems that utilize the idle
power of LAN-s and PC-s available in many homes and corporations.
The main advantage of these approaches is that they provide cheap
parallel processing environments for those who cannot afford the
expenses of supercomputers and parallel processing hardware.
However, most of the solutions provided are not very flexible in the
use of available resources and very difficult to install and setup.
In this paper, a multi-level web-based parallel processing system
(MWPS) is designed (appendix). MWPS is based on the idea of
volunteer computing, very flexible, easy to setup and easy to use.
MWPS allows three types of subscribers: simple volunteers (single
computers), super volunteers (full networks) and end users. All of
these entities are coordinated transparently through a secure web site.
Volunteer nodes provide the required processing power needed by
the system end users. There is no limit on the number of volunteer
nodes, and accordingly the system can grow indefinitely. Both
volunteer and system users must register and subscribe. Once, they
subscribe, each entity is provided with the appropriate MWPS
components. These components are very easy to install.
Super volunteer nodes are provided with special components that
make it possible to delegate some of the load to their inner nodes.
These inner nodes may also delegate some of the load to some other
lower level inner nodes .... and so on. It is the responsibility of the
parent super nodes to coordinate the delegation process and deliver
the results back to the user.
MWPS uses a simple behavior-based scheduler that takes into
consideration the current load and previous behavior of processing
nodes. Nodes that fulfill their contracts within the expected time get a
high degree of trust. Nodes that fail to satisfy their contract get a
lower degree of trust.
MWPS is based on the .NET framework and provides the minimal
level of security expected in distributed processing environments.
Users and processing nodes are fully authenticated. Communications
and messages between nodes are very secure. The system has been
implemented using C#.
MWPS may be used by any group of people or companies to
establish a parallel processing or grid environment.
Abstract: This paper sets forth the possibility and importance about applying Data Mining in Web logs mining and shows some problems in the conventional searching engines. Then it offers an improved algorithm based on the original AprioriAll algorithm which has been used in Web logs mining widely. The new algorithm adds the property of the User ID during the every step of producing the candidate set and every step of scanning the database by which to decide whether an item in the candidate set should be put into the large set which will be used to produce next candidate set. At the meantime, in order to reduce the number of the database scanning, the new algorithm, by using the property of the Apriori algorithm, limits the size of the candidate set in time whenever it is produced. Test results show the improved algorithm has a more lower complexity of time and space, better restrain noise and fit the capacity of memory.
Abstract: The latest Geographic Information System (GIS)
technology makes it possible to administer the spatial components of
daily “business object," in the corporate database, and apply suitable
geographic analysis efficiently in a desktop-focused application. We
can use wireless internet technology for transfer process in spatial
data from server to client or vice versa. However, the problem in
wireless Internet is system bottlenecks that can make the process of
transferring data not efficient. The reason is large amount of spatial
data. Optimization in the process of transferring and retrieving data,
however, is an essential issue that must be considered. Appropriate
decision to choose between R-tree and Quadtree spatial data indexing
method can optimize the process. With the rapid proliferation of
these databases in the past decade, extensive research has been
conducted on the design of efficient data structures to enable fast
spatial searching. Commercial database vendors like Oracle have also
started implementing these spatial indexing to cater to the large and
diverse GIS. This paper focuses on the decisions to choose R-tree
and quadtree spatial indexing using Oracle spatial database in mobile
GIS application. From our research condition, the result of using
Quadtree and R-tree spatial data indexing method in one single
spatial database can save the time until 42.5%.
Abstract: Typical Intelligent Decision Support System is 4-based, its design composes of Data Warehouse, Online Analytical Processing, Data Mining and Decision Supporting based on models, which is called Decision Support System Based on Data Warehouse (DSSBDW). This way takes ETL,OLAP and DM as its implementing means, and integrates traditional model-driving DSS and data-driving DSS into a whole. For this kind of problem, this paper analyzes the DSSBDW architecture and DW model, and discusses the following key issues: ETL designing and Realization; metadata managing technology using XML; SQL implementing, optimizing performance, data mapping in OLAP; lastly, it illustrates the designing principle and method of DW in DSSBDW.
Abstract: The focus of the study is to understand the factors of
curriculum innovation from the perspective of Language teacher
education. The overall aim of the study is to investigate Language
educators- perceptions of factors of curriculum innovation. In the
theoretical framework the main focus is on discussion about different
curriculum approaches for language teacher education and limiting
and facilitating factors of innovation. In order to achieve the aim of
the study, an observational research is employed. The empirical basis
of the study consists of questionnaire with sixty-three language
teachers from eight Romanian higher education institutions. The
findings reveal variation in Language teachers- conceptions of the
dominant factors of curricular innovation.
Abstract: The brain MR imaging-based clinical research and analysis system were specifically built and the development for a large-scale data was targeted. We used the general clinical data available for building large-scale data. Registration period for the selection of the lesion ROI and the region growing algorithm was used and the Mesh-warp algorithm for matching was implemented. The accuracy of the matching errors was modified individually. Also, the large ROI research data can accumulate by our developed compression method. In this way, the correctly decision criteria to the research result was suggested. The experimental groups were age, sex, MR type, patient ID and smoking which can easily be queries. The result data was visualized of the overlapped images by a color table. Its data was calculated by the statistical package. The evaluation for the utilization of this system in the chronic ischemic damage in the area has done from patients with the acute cerebral infarction. This is the cause of neurologic disability index location in the center portion of the lateral ventricle facing. The corona radiate was found in the position. Finally, the system reliability was measured both inter-user and intra-user registering correlation.
Abstract: The evolutionary design of electronic circuits, or
evolvable hardware, is a discipline that allows the user to
automatically obtain the desired circuit design. The circuit
configuration is under the control of evolutionary algorithms. Several
researchers have used evolvable hardware to design electrical
circuits. Every time that one particular algorithm is selected to carry
out the evolution, it is necessary that all its parameters, such as
mutation rate, population size, selection mechanisms etc. are tuned in
order to achieve the best results during the evolution process. This
paper investigates the abilities of evolution strategy to evolve digital
logic circuits based on programmable logic array structures when
different mutation rates are used. Several mutation rates (fixed and
variable) are analyzed and compared with each other to outline the
most appropriate choice to be used during the evolution of
combinational logic circuits. The experimental results outlined in this
paper are important as they could be used by every researcher who
might need to use the evolutionary algorithm to design digital logic
circuits.