Abstract: Diagnostic enzymes like aspartate aminotransferase
(AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase
(ALP) were determined as indices of heavy metal pollution in Tilapia
guinensis. Three different sets of fishes treated with lead (Pb), iron
(Fe) and copper (Cu) were used for the study while a fourth group
with no heavy metal served as a control. Fishes in each of the groups
were exposed to 2.65mg/l of Pb, 0.85mg/l of Fe and 0.35 mg/l of Cu
in aerated aquaria for 96 hours. Tissue fractionation of the liver
tissues was carried out and the three diagnostic enzymes (AST, ALT,
and ALP) were estimated. Serum levels of the same diagnostic
enzymes were also measured. The mean values of the serum enzyme
activity for ALP in each experimental group were 19.5±1.62,
29.67±2.17 and 1.15±0.27 IU/L for Pb, Fe and Cu groups compared
with 9.99±1.34 IU/L enzyme activity in the control. This result
showed that Pb and Fe caused increased release of the enzyme into
the blood circulation indicating increased tissue damage while Cu
caused a reduction in the serum level as compared with the level in
the control group. The mean values of enzyme activity obtained in
the liver were 102.14±6.12, 140.17±2.06 and 168.23±3.52 IU/L for
Pb, Fe and Cu groups, respectively compared to 91.20±9.42 IU/L
enzyme activity for the control group. The serum and liver AST and
ALT activities obtained in Pb, Fe, Cu and control groups are
reported. It was generally noted that the presence of the heavy metal
caused liver tissues damage and consequent increased level of the
diagnostic enzymes in the serum.
Abstract: Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies enable physical
parts to be produced from various materials without depending on the
conventional tooling. Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is one of
the famous RP processes used at present. Tensile strength and
compressive strength resistance will be identified for different sample
structures and different layer orientations of ABS rapid prototype
solid models. The samples will be fabricated by a FDM rapid
prototyping machine in different layer orientations with variations in
internal geometrical structure. The 0° orientation where layers were
deposited along the length of the samples displayed superior strength
and impact resistance over all the other orientations. The anisotropic
properties were probably caused by weak interlayer bonding and
interlayer porosity.
Abstract: Socio-economic development, which is seen around
the world today, has contributed to the emergence of new problems
of a social nature. Different political, historical, geographical or
economic conditions cause that, in addition to global issues of social
policy such as an aging population, unemployment, migration,
countries, regions, there are also specific new problems that require
diagnosis, individualized approach and efficient, planned solutions.
These should include, among others, digital addiction, peer violence,
obesity among children, the problem of ‘legal highs’, stress,
depression, diseases associated with environmental pollution etc. The
central authorities, selected most often with the tools specific to
representative democracy, that is, the general election, for many
reasons, inter alia, organizational, communication, are not able to
effectively diagnose their intensity, territorial distribution, and thus to
effectively fight them. This article aims to show how in Poland,
citizens influence solving problems related to the broader social
policy implemented at the local government level and indicates the
possibilities of improving those solutions. The conclusions of
theoretical analysis have been supported by empirical studies, which
tested the use of instruments of participatory democracy in the
planning and creation of communal strategies for solving social
problems in one of the Polish voivodeships.
Abstract: The degradation of concrete due to various hygrochemo-
mechanical actions is inevitable for the structures particularly
built to store water. Therefore, it is essential to determine the material
properties of dam-like structures due to ageing to predict the behavior
of such structures after a certain age. The degraded material
properties are calculated by introducing isotropic degradation index.
The predicted material properties are used to study the behavior of
aged dam at different ages. The dam is modeled by finite elements
and displacement and is considered as an unknown variable. The
parametric study reveals that the displacement is quite larger for
comparatively lower design life of the structure because the
degradation of elastic properties depends on the design life of the
dam. The stresses in dam cam be unexpectedly large at any age with
in the design life. The outcomes of the present study indicate the
importance of the consideration ageing effect of concrete exposed to
water for the safe design of dam throughout its life time.
Abstract: Construction and reconstruction of settlements and
individual municipalities, environmental management and the
creation, deployment of the forces of production and building
transport and technical equipment requires a large expenditure of
material and human resources. That is why the economic aspects of
the majority decision in these planes built in the foreground and are
often decisive. Thereby but more serious is that the economic aspects
of the settlement, the creation and function remain in their whole,
unprocessed, and cannot speak of a set of individual techniques and
methods traditional indicators and experiments with new approaches.
This is true both at the level of the national economy, and in their
own urban designs. Still a few remain identified specific economic
shaping patterns of settlement and the less it is possible to speak of
their control. Also practical assessing economics of specific solutions
are often used non-apt indicators in addition to economics usually
identifies with the lowest acquisition cost or high-intensity land use
with little regard for functional efficiency and little studied much
higher operating and maintenance costs".
Abstract: Biodiesel, as an alternative renewable fuel, has been
receiving increasing attention due to the limited supply of fossil fuels
and the increasing need for energy. Microalgae are promising source
for lipids, which can be converted to biodiesel. The biodiesel
production from microalgae lipids using lipase catalyzed reaction in
supercritical CO2 medium has several advantages over conventional
production processes. However, identifying the optimum microalgae
lipid extraction and transesterification conditions is still a challenge.
In this study, the quality of biodiesel produced from lipids extracted
from Scenedesmus sp. and their enzymatic transesterification using
supercritical carbon dioxide have been investigated. At the optimum
conditions, the highest biodiesel production yield was found to be
82%. The fuel properties of the produced biodiesel, without any
separation step, at optimum reaction condition, were determined and
compared to ASTM standards. The properties were found to comply
with the limits, and showed a low glycerol content, without any
separation step.
Abstract: The legality of some countries or agencies’ acts to spy
on personal phone calls of the public became a hot topic to many
social groups’ talks. It is believed that this act is considered an
invasion to someone’s privacy. Such act may be justified if it is
singling out specific cases but to spy without limits is very
unacceptable. This paper discusses the needs for not only a simple
and light weight technique to secure mobile voice calls but also a
technique that is independent from any encryption standard or library.
It then presents and tests one encrypting algorithm that is based of
Frequency scrambling technique to show fair and delay-free process
that can be used to protect phone calls from such spying acts.
Abstract: Adopting Most Advantageous Tender (MAT) for the
government procurement projects has become popular in Taiwan. As
time pass by, the problems of MAT has appeared gradually. People
condemn two points that are the result might be manipulated by a
single committee member’s partiality and how to make a fair decision
when the winner has two or more. Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem
proposed that the best scoring method should meet the four reasonable
criteria. According to these four criteria this paper constructed an
“Illegitimate Scores Checking Scheme” for a scoring method and used
the scheme to find out the illegitimate of the current evaluation method
of MAT. This paper also proposed a new scoring method that is called
the “Standardizing Overall Evaluated Score Method”. This method
makes each committee member’s influence tend to be identical. Thus,
the committee members can scoring freely according to their partiality
without losing the fairness. Finally, it was examined by a large-scale
simulation, and the experiment revealed that the it improved the
problem of dictatorship and perfectly avoided the situation of cyclical
majorities, simultaneously. This result verified that the Standardizing
Overall Evaluated Score Method is better than any current evaluation
method of MAT.
Abstract: Radial profiles of particle velocities were investigated
in a 6.1m high methanol-to-olefins cold model experimental device
using a TSI laser Doppler velocimeter. The effect of axial height on
flow development was not obvious in fully developed region under the
same operating condition. Superficial gas velocity and solid
circulating rate had significant influence on particle velocity in the
center region of the riser. Besides, comparisons among rising,
descending and average particle velocity were conducted. The particle
average velocity was similar to the rising particle velocity and higher
than the descending particle velocity in radial locations except the wall
region of riser.
Abstract: The notion of power and gender domination is one of
the inseparable aspects of themes in postmodern literature. The
reason of its importance has been discussed frequently since the rise
of Michel Foucault and his insight into the circulation of power and
the transgression of forces. Language and society operate as the basic
grounds for the study, as all human beings are bound to the set of
rules and norms which shape them in the acceptable way in the
macrocosm. How different genders in different positions behave and
show reactions to the provocation of social forces and superiority of
one another is of great interest to writers and literary critics. Mamet’s
works are noticeable for their controversial but timely themes which
illustrate human conflicts with the society and greed for power. Many
critics like Christopher Bigsby and Harold Bloom have discussed
Mamet and his ideas in recent years. This paper is the study of
Oleanna, Mamet’s masterpiece about the teacher-student relationship
and the circulation of power between a man and woman. He shows
the very breakable boundaries in the domination of a gender and the
downfall of speech as the consequence of transgression and freedom.
The failure of the language the teacher uses and the abuse of his own
words by a student who seeks superiority and knowledge are the
main subjects of the discussion. Supported by the ideas of Foucault,
the language Mamet uses to present his characters becomes the
fundamental premise in this study. As a result, language becomes
both the means of achievement and downfall.
Abstract: This paper presents an application of a “Systematic
Soft Domain Driven Design Framework” as a soft systems approach
to domain-driven design of information systems development. The
framework use SSM as a guiding methodology within which we have
embedded a sequence of design tasks based on the UML leading to
the implementation of a software system using the Naked Objects
framework. This framework have been used in action research
projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of
business processes using object-oriented domain models and the
implementation of software systems based on those domain models.
Within this framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as
a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to
develop the domain model using UML for the given business
domain. The framework is proposed and evaluated in our previous
works, and a real case study “Information Retrieval System for
academic research” is used, in this paper, to show further practice and
evaluation of the framework in different business domain. We argue
that there are advantages from combining and using techniques from
different methodologies in this way for business domain modelling.
The framework is overviewed and justified as multimethodology
using Mingers multimethodology ideas.
Abstract: In this paper, we investigated the athermal pressure
behavior of the structural and elastic properties of scheelite BaWO4
phase up to 7 GPa using the ab initio pseudo-potential method. The
calculated lattice parameters pressure relation have been compared
with the experimental values and found to be in good agreement with
these results. Moreover, we present for the first time the investigation
of the elastic properties of this compound using the density functional
perturbation theory (DFPT). It is shown that this phase is
mechanically stable up to 7 GPa after analyzing the calculated elastic
constants. Other relevant quantities such as bulk modulus, pressure
derivative of bulk modulus, shear modulus; Young’s modulus,
Poisson’s ratio, anisotropy factors, Debye temperature and sound
velocity have been calculated. The obtained results, which are
reported for the first time to the best of the author’s knowledge, can
facilitate assessment of possible applications of the title material.
Abstract: In this study free vibration analysis of aluminum
honeycomb sandwich structures were carried out experimentally and
numerically. The natural frequencies and mode shapes of sandwich
structures fabricated with different configurations for clamped-free
boundary condition were determined. The effects of lower and upper
face sheet thickness, the core material thickness, cell diameter, cell
angle and foil thickness on the vibration characteristics were
examined. The numerical studies were performed with ANSYS
package. While the sandwich structures were modeled in ANSYS the
continuum model was used. Later, the numerical results were
compared with the experimental findings.
Abstract: Hemoglobin (HB) indicates anemia level and by
extension may reflect the nutritional level and perhaps the immunity
of an individual. Some antiretroviral drugs like Zidovudine are
known to cause anemia in people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).
A cross sectional study using demographic data and blood specimen
from 218 female commercial sex workers attending antiretroviral
therapy (ART) clinics was conducted between December, 2009 and
July, 2011 to assess the effect of zidovudine on hematologic, and
RNA viral load of female sex workers receiving antiretroviral
treatment in north western Nigeria. Anemia is a common and serious
complication of both HIV infection and its treatment. In the setting of
HIV infection, anemia has been associated with decreased quality of
life, functional status, and survival. Antiretroviral therapy,
particularly the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), has
been associated with a decrease in the incidence and severity of
anemia in HIV-infected patients who have received a HAART
regimen for at least 1 year. In this study, result has shown that of the
218 patients, 26 with hemoglobin count between 5.1 – 10g/dl were
observed to have the highest viral load count of 300,000 –
350,000copies/ml. It was also observed that most patients (190) with
HB of 10.1 – 15.0g/dl had viral load count of 200,000 – 250,000
copies /ml. An inverse relationship therefore exists i.e. the lower the
hemoglobin level, the higher the viral load count even though the test
statistics did not show any significance between the two (P = 0.206).
This shows that multivariate logistic regression analysis
demonstrated that anemia was associated with a CD4 + cell count
below 50/μL, female sex workers with a viral load above 100,000
copies/mL, who use zidovudine.
Severe anemia was less prevalent in this study population than in
historical comparators; however, mild to moderate anemia rates
remain high. The study therefore recommends that hematological and
virologic parameters be monitored closely in patients receiving first
line ART regimen.
Abstract: Out-migration is an important issue for Georgia as
well as since independence has loosed due to emigration one fifth of
its population. During Soviet time out-migration from USSR was
almost impossible and one of the most important instruments in
regulating population movement within the Soviet Union was the
system of compulsory residential registrations, so-called “propiska”.
Since independent here was not any regulation for migration from
Georgia. The majorities of Georgian migrants go abroad by tourist
visa and then overstay, becoming the irregular labor migrants. The
official statistics on migration published for this period was based on
the administrative system of population registration, were
insignificant in terms of numbers and did not represent the real scope
of these migration movements. This paper discusses the data quality
and methodology of migration statistics in Georgia and we are going
to answer the questions: what is the real reason of increasing
immigration flows according to the official numbers since 2000s?
Abstract: The numerical simulation has made tremendous
advances in investigating the blood flow phenomenon through elastic
arteries. Such study can be useful in demonstrating the disease
progression and hemodynamics of cardiovascular diseases such as
atherosclerosis. In the present study, patient specific case diagnosed
with partially stenosed complete right ICA and normal left carotid
bifurcation without any atherosclerotic plaque formation is
considered. 3D patient specific carotid bifurcation model is generated
based on CT scan data using MIMICS-4.0 and numerical analysis is
performed using FSI solver in ANSYS-14.5. The blood flow is
assumed to be incompressible, homogenous and Newtonian, while
the artery wall is assumed to be linearly elastic. The two-way
sequentially coupled transient FSI analysis is performed using FSI
solver for three pulse cycles. The hemodynamic parameters such as
flow pattern, Wall Shear Stress, pressure contours and arterial wall
deformation are studied at the bifurcation and critical zones such as
stenosis. The variation in flow behavior is studied throughout the
pulse cycle. Also, the simulation results reveal that there is a
considerable increase in the flow behavior in stenosed carotid in
contrast to the normal carotid bifurcation system. The investigation
also demonstrates the disturbed flow pattern especially at the
bifurcation and stenosed zone elevating the hemodynamics,
particularly during peak systole and later part of the pulse cycle. The
results obtained agree well with the clinical observation and
demonstrates the potential of patient specific numerical studies in
prognosis of disease progression and plaque rupture.
Abstract: This paper represents the results of experimental work to investigate the suitability of a waste material (WM) for soft soil stabilisation. In addition, the effect of particle size distribution (PSD) of the waste material on its performance as a soil stabiliser was investigated. The WM used in this study is produced from the incineration processes in domestic energy power plant and it is available in two different grades of fineness (coarse waste material (CWM) and fine waste material (FWM)). An intermediate plasticity silty clayey soil with medium organic matter content has been used in this study. The suitability of the CWM and FWM to improve the physical and engineering properties of the selected soil was evaluated dependant on the results obtained from the consistency limits, compaction characteristics (optimum moisture content (OMC) and maximum dry density (MDD)); along with the unconfined compressive strength test (UCS). Different percentages of CWM were added to the soft soil (3, 6, 9, 12 and 15%) to produce various admixtures. Then the UCS test was carried out on specimens under different curing periods (zero, 7, 14, and 28 days) to find the optimum percentage of CWM. The optimum and other two percentages (either side of the optimum content) were used for FWM to evaluate the effect of the fineness of the WM on UCS of the stabilised soil. Results indicated that both types of the WM used in this study improved the physical properties of the soft soil where the index of plasticity (IP) was decreased significantly. IP was decreased from 21 to 13.64 and 13.10 with 12% of CWM and 15% of FWM respectively. The results of the unconfined compressive strength test indicated that 12% of CWM was the optimum and this percentage developed the UCS value from 202kPa to 500kPa for 28 days cured samples, which is equal, approximately 2.5 times the UCS value for untreated soil. Moreover, this percentage provided 1.4 times the value of UCS for stabilized soil-CWA by using FWM which recorded just under 700kPa after 28 days curing.
Abstract: We report herein the development and preliminary mechanical characterization of fully-dense multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-reinforced ceramics and glasses based on a completely new methodology termed High Shear Compaction (HSC). The tubes are introduced and bound to the matrix grains by aid of polymeric binders to form flexible green bodies which are sintered and densified by spark plasma sintering to unprecedentedly high densities of 100% of the pure-matrix value. The strategy was validated across a PyrexTM glass / MWCNT composite while no identifiable factors limit application to other types of matrices. Nondestructive evaluation, based on ultrasonics, of the dynamic mechanical properties of the materials including elastic, shear and bulk modulus as well as Poisson’s ratio showed optimum property improvement at 0.5 %wt tube loading while evidence of nanoscalespecific energy dissipative characteristics acting complementary to nanotube bridging and pull-out indicate a high potential in a wide range of reinforcing and multifunctional applications.
Abstract: In this paper, we introduce an NLG application for the automatic creation of ready-to-publish texts from big data. The resulting fully automatic generated news stories have a high resemblance to the style in which the human writer would draw up such a story. Topics include soccer games, stock exchange market reports, and weather forecasts. Each generated text is unique. Readyto-publish stories written by a computer application can help humans to quickly grasp the outcomes of big data analyses, save timeconsuming pre-formulations for journalists and cater to rather small audiences by offering stories that would otherwise not exist.
Abstract: Given the limited research on Small and Mediumsized
Enterprises’ (SMEs) contribution to Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) and even scarcer research on Swiss SMEs, this
paper helps to fill these gaps by enabling the identification of supranational
SME parameters. Thus, the paper investigates the current
state of SME practices in Switzerland and across 15 other countries.
Combining the degree to which SMEs demonstrate an explicit (or
business case) approach or see CSR as an implicit moral activity with
the assessment of their attributes for “variety of capitalism” defines
the framework of this comparative analysis. To outline Swiss small
business CSR patterns in particular, 40 SME owner-managers were
interviewed. A secondary data analysis of studies from different
countries laid groundwork for this comparative overview of small
business CSR. The paper identifies Swiss small business CSR as
driven by norms, values, and by the aspiration to contribute to
society, thus, as an implicit part of the day-to-day business. Similar to
most Central European, Mediterranean, Nordic, and Asian countries,
explicit CSR is still very rare in Swiss SMEs. Astonishingly, also
British and American SMEs follow this pattern in spite of their strong
and distinctly liberal market economies. Though other findings show
that nationality matters this research concludes that SME culture and
an informal CSR agenda are strongly formative and superseding even
forces of market economies, nationally cultural patterns, and
language. Hence, classifications of countries by their market system,
as found in the comparative capitalism literature, do not match the
CSR practices in SMEs as they do not mirror the peculiarities of their
business. This raises questions on the universality and
generalisability of unmediated, explicit management concepts,
especially in the context of small firms.