Abstract: Floods play a key role in landform evolution of an
area. This process is likely to alter the topography of the earth’s
surface. The present study area, Kota Bharu is very prone to floods
extends from upstream of Kelantan River near Kemubu to the
downstream area near Kuala Besar. These flood events which occur
every year in the study area exhibit a strong bearing on river
morphological set-up. In the present study, three satellite imageries of
different time periods have been used to manifest the post-flood
landform changes. The pre-processing of the images such as subset,
geometric corrections and atmospheric corrections were carried-out
using ENVI 4.5 followed by the analysis processes. Twenty sets of
cross sections were plotted using software Erdas 9.2, ERDAS and
ArcGis 10 for the all three images. The results show a significant
change in the length of the cross section which suggest that the
geomorphological processes play a key role in carving and shaping
the river banks during the floods.
Abstract: Animal fats (camel, sheep, goat, rabbit and chicken)
and vegetable oils (corn, sunflower, palm oil and olive oil) were
substituted with different proportions (1, 5, 10 and 20%) of lard.
Fatty acid composition in TG and 2-MG were determined using
lipase hydrolysis and gas chromatography before and after
adulteration. Results indicated that, genuine lard had a high
proportion (60.97%) of the total palmitic acid at 2-MG. However, it
was 8.70%, 16.40%, 11.38%, 10.57%, 29.97 and 8.97% for camel,
beef, sheep, goat, rabbit and chicken, respectively. It could be noticed
also the position-2-MG is mostly occupied by unsaturated fatty acids
among all tested fats except lard. Vegetable oils (corn, sunflower,
palm oil and olive oil) revealed that the levels of palmitic acid
esterifies at 2-MG position was 6.84, 1.43, 9.86 and 1.70%,
respectively. It could be observed also the studied oils had a higher
level of unsaturated fatty acids in the same position, compared with
animal fats under investigation. Moreover, palmitic acid esterifies at
2-MG and PAEF increased gradually as the substituted levels
increased among all tested fat and oil samples. Statistical analysis
showed that the PAEF correlated well with lard level. The detection
of lard in some commercial processed foods (5 French fries, 4 Butter
fats, 5 processed meat and 6 candy samples) was carried out. Results
revealed that 2 samples of French fries and 4 samples of processed
meat contained lard due to their higher PAEF, while butter fat and
candy were free of lard.
Abstract: In this paper, we study the rainfall using a time series
for weather stations in Nakhon Ratchasima province in Thailand by
various statistical methods to enable us to analyse the behaviour of
rainfall in the study areas. Time-series analysis is an important tool in
modelling and forecasting rainfall. The ARIMA and Holt-Winter
models were built on the basis of exponential smoothing. All the
models proved to be adequate. Therefore it is possible to give
information that can help decision makers establish strategies for the
proper planning of agriculture, drainage systems and other water
resource applications in Nakhon Ratchasima province. We obtained
the best performance from forecasting with the ARIMA
Model(1,0,1)(1,0,1)12.
Abstract: The extermination and proper disposal of
pharmaceutical wastes from expired and unused medications remains
a disputable issue due to their specific nature and characteristics.
Even though the hazards from these wastes are already well known in
terms of environment and human health, people still treat them as
usual wastes. At a national level, in many countries the management
of pharmaceutical and medical wastes has been one of the main
objectives in order to protect people’s health and the environment.
Even though many legal regulations exist in this respect, there has not
been a single law that would clearly explain the procedures of
returning medicines, ways of selection, treatment and extermination
of pharmaceutical wastes. This paper aims at analyzing the practices
of pharmaceutical waste management and treatment in some
European countries as well as a review of the legislation and official
guidelines in managing these kinds of wastes and protecting the
environment and human health. A suitable treatment and
management of expired medications and other similar wastes would
be in the interest of public health in the first place, as well as in the
interest of healthcare institutions and other bodies engaged in
environment protection.
Abstract: Corrosion inhibitors are widely used in concrete
industry to reduce the corrosion rate of steel rebar which is present in
contact with aggressive environments. The present work aims to
using Zamzam water from well located within the Masjid al-Haram
in Mecca, Saudi Arabia 20 m (66 ft) east of the Kaaba, the holiest
place in Islam as corrosion inhibitor for steel in rain water and
simulated acid rain. The effect of Zamzam water was investigated by
electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and Potentiodynamic
polarization techniques in Department of Civil Engineering - IUT
Saint-Nazaire, Nantes University, France. Zamzam water is
considered to be one of the most important steel corrosion inhibitor
which is frequently used in different industrial applications. Results
showed that zamzam water gave a very good inhibition for steel
corrosion in rain water and simulated acid rain.
Abstract: An algorithm is a well-defined procedure that takes
some input in the form of some values, processes them and gives the
desired output. It forms the basis of many other algorithms such as
searching, pattern matching, digital filters etc., and other applications
have been found in database systems, data statistics and processing,
data communications and pattern matching. This paper introduces
algorithmic “Enhanced Bidirectional Selection” sort which is
bidirectional, stable. It is said to be bidirectional as it selects two
values smallest from the front and largest from the rear and assigns
them to their appropriate locations thus reducing the number of
passes by half the total number of elements as compared to selection
sort.
Abstract: Learner motivation is considered to be an important
component for the Blended e-Learning (BL) Method. BL is an
effective learning method in multiple domains, which opens several
opportunities for its participants to engage in the learning
environment. This research explores the learners’ perspective of BL
according to the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It identifies the
opportunities and challenges for using the BL in Logistics Education
(LE) in Egyptian Higher Education (HE). SDT is approached from
different perspectives within the relationship between Intrinsic
Motivation (IM), Extrinsic Motivation (EM) and Amotivation (AM).
A self-administered face-to-face questionnaire was used to collect
data from learners who were geographically widely spread around
three colleges of International Transport and Logistics (CILTs) at the
Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport
(AAST&MT) in Egypt. Six hundred and sixteen undergraduates
responded to a questionnaire survey. Respondents were drawn from
three branches in Greater Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said. The data
analysis used was SPSS 22 and AMOS 18.
Abstract: Ontologies provide a common understanding of a
specific domain of interest that can be communicated between people
and used as background knowledge for automated reasoning in a
wide range of applications. In this paper, we address the design of
multilingual ontologies following well-defined knowledge
engineering methodologies with the support of novel collaborative
development approaches. In particular, we present a collaborative
platform which allows ontologies to be developed incrementally in
multiple languages. This is made possible via an appropriate mapping
between language independent concepts and one lexicalization per
language (or a lexical gap in case such lexicalization does not exist).
The collaborative platform has been designed to support the
development of the Universal Knowledge Core, a multilingual
ontology currently in English, Italian, Chinese, Mongolian, Hindi and
Bangladeshi. Its design follows a workflow-based development
methodology that models resources as a set of collaborative objects
and assigns customizable workflows to build and maintain each
collaborative object in a community driven manner, with extensive
support of modern web 2.0 social and collaborative features.
Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the role of natural
language processing (NLP). The paper will discuss the role in the
context of automated data retrieval, automated question answer, and
text structuring. NLP techniques are gaining wider acceptance in real
life applications and industrial concerns. There are various
complexities involved in processing the text of natural language that
could satisfy the need of decision makers. This paper begins with the
description of the qualities of NLP practices. The paper then focuses
on the challenges in natural language processing. The paper also
discusses major techniques of NLP. The last section describes
opportunities and challenges for future research.
Abstract: The financial crises caused a collapse in prices of
most asset classes, raising the attention on alternative investments
such as sukuk, a smaller, fast growing but often misunderstood
market. We study diversification benefits of sukuk, their correlation
with other asset classes and the effects of their inclusion in
investment portfolios of institutional and retail investors, through a
comprehensive comparison of their risk/return profiles during and
after the financial crisis.
We find a beneficial performance adjusted for the specific
volatility together with a lower correlation especially during the
financial crisis. The distribution of sukuk returns is positively skewed
and leptokurtic, with a risk/return profile similarly to high yield
bonds. Overall, our results suggest that sukuk present diversification
opportunities, a significant volatility-adjusted performance and lower
correlations especially during the financial crisis.
Our findings are relevant for a number of institutional investors.
Long term investors, such as life insurers would benefit from sukuk’s
protective features during financial crisis yet keeping return and
growth opportunities, whereas banks would gain due to their role of
placers, advisors, market makers or underwriters.
Abstract: Regardless of the manufacturing process used,
subtractive or additive, material, purpose and application, produced
components are conventionally solid mass with more or less complex
shape depending on the production technology selected. Aspects
such as reducing the weight of components, associated with the low
volume of material required and the almost non-existent material
waste, speed and flexibility of production and, primarily, a high
mechanical strength combined with high structural performance, are
competitive advantages in any industrial sector, from automotive,
molds, aviation, aerospace, construction, pharmaceuticals, medicine
and more recently in human tissue engineering. Such features,
properties and functionalities are attained in metal components
produced using the additive technique of Rapid Prototyping from
metal powders commonly known as Selective Laser Melting (SLM),
with optimized internal topologies and varying densities. In order to
produce components with high strength and high structural and
functional performance, regardless of the type of application, three
different internal topologies were developed and analyzed using
numerical computational tools. The developed topologies were
numerically submitted to mechanical compression and four point
bending testing. Finite Element Analysis results demonstrate how
different internal topologies can contribute to improve mechanical
properties, even with a high degree of porosity relatively to fully
dense components. Results are very promising not only from the
point of view of mechanical resistance, but especially through the
achievement of considerable variation in density without loss of
structural and functional high performance.
Abstract: In this paper, the formulation of a new group explicit
method with a fourth order accuracy is described in solving the two
dimensional Helmholtz equation. The formulation is based on the
nine-point fourth order compact finite difference approximation
formula. The complexity analysis of the developed scheme is also
presented. Several numerical experiments were conducted to test the
feasibility of the developed scheme. Comparisons with other existing
schemes will be reported and discussed. Preliminary results indicate
that this method is a viable alternative high accuracy solver to the
Helmholtz equation.
Abstract: The paper follows a discourse on computer-assisted
language learning. We examine problems of foreign language
teaching and learning and introduce a metamodel that can be used to
define learning models of language grammar structures in order to
support teacher/student interaction. Special attention is paid to the
concept of a virtual language lab. Our approach to language
education assumes to encourage learners to experiment with a
language and to learn by discovering patterns of grammatically
correct structures created and managed by a language expert.
Abstract: This paper reviews the internal use of blogs and their
potential effectiveness as organisational learning tools. Since the
emergence of the concept of ‘Enterprise 2.0’ there remains a lack of
empirical evidence associated with how organisations are applying
social media tools and whether they are effective towards supporting
organisational learning. Surprisingly, blogs, one of the more
traditional social media tools, still remains under-researched in the
context of ‘Enterprise 2.0’ and organisational learning. The aim of
this paper is to identify the theoretical linkage between blogs and
organisational learning in addition to reviewing prior research on
organisational blogging exploring why this area remains underresearched.
Through a literature review, one of the principal findings
of this paper is that organisational blogs have a mutual compatibility
with the interpretivist aspect of organisational learning. This paper
further advocates that further empirical work in this subject area is
required to substantiate this theoretical assumption.
Abstract: Underwater acoustic network is one of the rapidly
growing areas of research and finds different applications for
monitoring and collecting various data for environmental studies. The
communication among dynamic nodes and high error probability in
an acoustic medium forced to maximize energy consumption in
Underwater Sensor Networks (USN) than in traditional sensor
networks. Developing energy-efficient routing protocol is the
fundamental and a curb challenge because all the sensor nodes are
powered by batteries, and they cannot be easily replaced in UWSNs.
This paper surveys the various recent routing techniques that mainly
focus on energy efficiency.
Abstract: The fuzzy composition of objects depicted in images
acquired through MR imaging or the use of bio-scanners has often
been a point of controversy for field experts attempting to effectively
delineate between the visualized objects. Modern approaches in
medical image segmentation tend to consider fuzziness as a
characteristic and inherent feature of the depicted object, instead of
an undesirable trait. In this paper, a novel technique for efficient
image retrieval in the context of images in which segmented objects
are either crisp or fuzzily bounded is presented. Moreover, the
proposed method is applied in the case of multiple, even conflicting,
segmentations from field experts. Experimental results demonstrate
the efficiency of the suggested method in retrieving similar objects
from the aforementioned categories while taking into account the
fuzzy nature of the depicted data.
Abstract: An active slat is developed to increase the lift and delay
the separation for a DU96-W180 airfoil. The active slat is a fixed slat
that can be closed, fully opened or intermittently opened by a rotating
vane depending on the need. Experimental results show that the active
slat has reduced the mean pressure and increased the mean velocity
on the suction side of the airfoil for all positive angles of attack,
indicating an increase of lift. The experimental data and numerical
simulations also show that the direction of actuator vane rotation can
influence the mixing of the flow streams on the suction side and
hence influence the aerodynamic performance.
Abstract: A cleaner production project was implemented in a
bakery. The project is based on the substitution of the best available
technique for an obsolete leaven production technology. The new
technology enables production of durable, high-quality leavens.
Moreover, 25% of flour as the original raw material can be replaced
by pastry from the previous day production which has not been sold.
That pastry was previously disposed in a waste incineration plant.
Besides the environmental benefits resulting from less waste, lower
consumption of energy, reduction of sewage waters quantity and
floury dustiness there are also significant economic benefits. Payback
period of investment was calculated with help of static method of
financial analysis about 2.6 years, using dynamic method 3.5 years
and an internal rate of return more than 29%. The supposed annual
average profit after taxationin the second year of operation was
incompliance with the real profit.
Abstract: E-business technologies, whereby business
transactions are conducted remotely using the Internet, present
unique opportunities and challenges for business. E-business
technologies are applicable to a wide range of organizations and
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are no exception. There
is an established body of literature about e-business, looking at
definitions, concepts, benefits and challenges. In general, however,
the research focus has been on larger organizations, not SMEs. In an
attempt to redress the balance of research, this paper looks at ebusiness
technologies specifically from a small business perspective.
It seeks to identify the possible barriers that SMEs might face when
considering adoption of the e-business concept and practice as part of
their business process change initiatives and implementation. To
facilitate analysis of these barriers a conceptual framework has been
developed which outlines the key conceptual and practical challenges
of e-business implementation in SMEs. This is developed following a
literature survey comprised of three categories: characteristics of
SMEs, issues of IS/IT use in SMEs and general e-business adoption
and implementation issues. The framework is then empirically
assessed against 7 SMEs who have yet to implement e-business or
whose e-business efforts have been unsatisfactory. Conclusions from
the case studies can be used to verify the framework, and set
parameters for further larger scale empirical investigation.
Abstract: Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a strategy that is
employed by enterprises in order to align their business and
Information Technology (IT). EA is managed, developed, and
maintained through Enterprise Architecture Implementation
Methodology (EAIM). Effectiveness of EA implementation is the
degree in which EA helps to achieve the collective goals of the
organization. This paper analyzes the results of a survey that aims to
explore the factors that affect the effectiveness of EAIM and
specifically the relationship between factors and effectiveness of the
output and functionality of EA project. The exploratory factor
analysis highlights a specific set of five factors: alignment,
adaptiveness, support, binding, and innovation. The regression
analysis shows that there is a statistically significant and positive
relationship between each of the five factors and the effectiveness of
EAIM. Consistent with theory and practice, the most prominent
factor for developing an effective EAIM is innovation. The findings
contribute to the measuring the effectiveness of EA implementation
project by providing an indication of the measurement
implementation approaches which is used by the Enterprise
Architects, and developing an effective EAIM.