Abstract: Supercritical carbon dioxide extracts of Cinnamomum tamala (bay) leaves obtained at 55°C, 512 bar was found to have appreciable nutraceutical properties and was successfully employed as value-added ingredients in preparation of tofu. The bay leaf formulated tofu sample was evaluated for physicochemical properties (pH, texture analysis and lipid peroxidation), proximate analysis, phytochemical properties (total phenol content, antioxidant properties and total reducing sugar), microbial load and sensory profile analysis for a storage period of ten days, vis-à-vis an experimental control sample. These assays established the superiority of the tofu sample formulated with supercritical carbon dioxide extract of bay leaf over the control sample. Bay leaf extract formulated tofu is a new green functional food with promising nutraceutical benefits.
Abstract: The purposes of the research were to develop online lessons to strengthen the learning process of Master's degree students majoring in Curriculum and Instruction at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University; to achieve the efficiency criteria of 80/80; and to study the satisfaction of students who use online lessons to strengthen the learning process of Master’s degree students majoring in Curriculum and Instruction at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The sample consisted of 40 university students studying in semester 1, academic year 2012. The sample was determined by Purposive Sampling. Selected students were from the class which the researcher was the homeroom tutor. The tutor was responsible for the teaching of learning process. Tools used in the study were online lessons, 60-point performance test, and evaluation test of satisfaction of students on online lessons. Data analysis yielded the following results; 83.66/88.29 efficiency of online lessons measured against the criteria; the comparison of performance before and after taking online lessons using t-test yielded 29.67. The statistical significance was at 0.05; the average satisfaction level of forty students on online lessons was 4.46 with standard deviation of 0.68.
Abstract: Around the world, there are frequent incidents of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and snowstorms, as well as manmade disasters such as fires, arsons, and acts of terror. These diverse and unpredictable adversities have resulted in a number of fatalities and injuries. If disaster occurrence can be assessed quickly and information such as the exact location of the disaster and evacuation routes can be provided, victims can promptly move to safe locations, minimizing losses. This paper proposes a behavior analysis method based on a nine degrees-of-freedom (9-DOF) sensor that is effective for the emergency rescue evacuation support system (ERESS), which is being researched with an objective of providing evacuation support during disasters. Based on experiments performed using the acceleration sensor and the gyroscope sensor in the 9-DOF sensor, data are analyzed for human behavior regarding stationary position, walking, running, and during emergency situation to suggest guidelines for system judgment. Using the results of the experiments performed to determine disaster occurrence, it was confirmed that the proposed method quickly determines whether a disaster has occurred.
Abstract: The general solution of the equations for a homogeneous isotropic microstretch thermo elastic medium with mass diffusion for two dimensional problems is obtained due to normal and tangential forces. The Integral transform technique is used to obtain the components of displacements, microrotation, stress and mass concentration, temperature change and mass concentration. A particular case of interest is deduced from the present investigation.
Abstract: This paper explores the use of project work in a content-based instruction in a Rajabhat University, Thailand. The use of project is to promote kinds of learning expected of student teachers as stated by Thailand Quality Framework: TQF. The kinds of learning are grouped into five domains: Ethical and moral development, knowledge, cognitive skill, interpersonal skills and responsibility, and analytical and communication skills. The content taught in class is used to lead the student teachers to relate their previously-acquired linguistic knowledge to meaningful realizations of the language system in passages of immediate relevance to their professional interests, teaching methods in particular. Two research questions are formulate to guide this study: 1) To what degree are the five domains of learning expected of student teachers after the use of project in a content class?, and 2) What is the academic achievement of the students’ writing skills, as part of the learning domains stated by TQF, against the 70% attainment target after the use of project to enhance the skill? The sample of the study comprised of 38 fourth-year English major students. The data was collected by means of a summative achievement test, student writing works, an observation checklist, and project diary. The scores in the summative achievement test were analyzed by mean score, standard deviation, and t-test. Project diary serves as students’ record of the language acquired during the project. List of structures and vocabulary noted in the diary has shown students’ ability to attend to, recognize, and focus on meaningful patterns of language forms.
Abstract: The import value of Antimicrobial drugs reached approximately fifteen million Baht in 2010, considered as the highest import value of all modern drugs, and this value is rising every year. Antimicrobials are considered the hazardous drugs by the Ministry of Public Health (No. 10). This research was conducted in order to investigate the past knowledge of drug use and Antimicrobial drug use behavior. A total of 757 students were selected as the samples out of a population of 1,800 students. This selected students had the experience of Antimicrobial drugs use a year ago. A questionnaire was utilized in this research. The findings put on the view that knowledge gained by the students about proper use of Antimicrobials drugs was not brought into practice. This suggests that the education procedure regarding drug use needs adjustment. And therefore the findings of this research are expected to be utilized as guidelines for educating people about the proper use of Antimicrobials drugs. At a broader perspective, correct drug use behavior of the public may potentially reduce drug cost of the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand.
Abstract: This study aimed to evaluated the surface water quality for agriculture and consumption in the Amphawa District. The surface water quality parameters in this study included water temperature, turbidity, conductivity, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, BOD, nitrate, suspended solids, phosphorus, total dissolved solids (TDS), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd). The water samples were collected from small excavation, Lychee, Pomelo and Coconut orchards for 3 seasons from January to December 2011.
The surface water quality from small excavation, Lychee, pomelo and coconut orchards were met the type III of surface water quality standard. The concentration of heavy metal and did not differ significantly at 0.05 level, except dissolved oxygen.
The surface water was suitable for consumption by the usual sterile and generally improving water quality through the process before and was suitable for agriculture.
Abstract: This paper presents a weighted approach to unconstrained iris recognition. In nowadays, commercial systems are usually characterized by strong acquisition constraints based on the subject’s cooperation. However, it is not always achievable for real scenarios in our daily life. Researchers have been focused on reducing these constraints and maintaining the performance of the system by new techniques at the same time. With large variation in the environment, there are two main improvements to develop the proposed iris recognition system. For solving extremely uneven lighting condition, statistic based illumination normalization is first used on eye region to increase the accuracy of iris feature. The detection of the iris image is based on Adaboost algorithm. Secondly, the weighted approach is designed by Gaussian functions according to the distance to the center of the iris. Furthermore, local binary pattern (LBP) histogram is then applied to texture classification with the weight. Experiment showed that the proposed system provided users a more flexible and feasible way to interact with the verification system through iris recognition.
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to analyze the marketing strategies of Thai Halal products which related to the way of life for Thai Muslims. The expected benefit is the marketing strategy for brand building process for Halal products in Thailand. 4 elements of marketing strategies which necessary for the brand identity creation is the research framework: consists of Attributes, Benefits, Values and Personality. The research methodology was applied using qualitative and quantitative; 19 marketing experts with dynamic roles in Thai consumer products were interviewed. In addition, a field survey of 122 Thai Muslims selected from 175 Muslim communities in Bangkok was studied. Data analysis will be according to 5 categories of Thai Halal product: 1) Meat 2) Vegetable and Fruits 3) Instant foods and Garnishing ingredient 4) Beverages, Desserts and Snacks 5) Hygienic daily products; such as soap, shampoo and body lotion. The results will explain some suitable representation in the marketing strategies of Thai Halal products as are: 1) Benefit; the characteristics of the product with its benefit. Consumers will purchase this product with the reason of; it is beneficial nutrients product, there are no toxic or chemical residues. Fresh and clean materials 2) Attribute; the exterior images that attract to consumer. Consumers will purchase this product with the reason of; there is a standard proof mark, food and drug secure proof mark and Halal products mark. Packaging and its materials should be draw attention. Use an attractive graphic. Use outstanding images of product, material or ingredients. 3) Value; the value of products that affect to consumers perception; it is healthy products. Accumulate quality of life. It is a product of expertise, manufacturing of research result. Consumers are important. It’s sincere, honest and reliable to all. 4) Personality; reflection of consumers thought. The Personality feedback to them after they were consumes this product; they are health care persons. They are the rational person, moral person, justice person and thoughtful person like a progressive thinking.
Abstract: Ultrafine grained (UFG) and nanostructured (NS) materials have experienced a rapid development during the last decade and made profound impact on every field of materials science and engineering. The present work has been undertaken to develop ultrafine grained pure copper by severe plastic deformation method and to examine the impact property by different characterizing tools.
For this aim, equal channel angular pressing die with the channel angle, outer corner angle and channel diameter of 90°, 17° and 20mm had been designed and manufactured. Commercial pure copper billets were ECAPed up to four passes by route BC at the ambient temperature. The results indicated that there is a great improvement at the hardness measurement, yield strength and ultimate tensile strength after ECAP process. It is found that the magnitudes of HV reach 136HV from 52HV after the final pass. Also, about 285% and 125% enhancement at the YS and UTS values have been obtained after the fourth pass as compared to the as-received conditions, respectively. On the other hand, the elongation to failure and impact energy have been reduced by imposing ECAP process and pass numbers. It is needed to say that about 56% reduction in the impact energy have been attained for the samples as contrasted to annealed specimens.
Abstract: The study aims to determine which factors account for customer satisfaction and to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business success, in particular, context of the information understanding of hostel business in Pranakorn district, Bangkok and the significant element of entrepreneurship in tourism industry. This study covers 352 hostels customers and 61 hostel owners/managers nearby Khao San road. Data collection methods were used by survey questionnaire and a series of hypotheses were developed from services marketing literature. The findings suggest the customer satisfaction most influenced by image, service quality, room quality and price accordingly. Furthermore the findings revealed that significant relationships exist between entrepreneurial orientation and business success; while competitive aggressiveness was found unrelated. The ECSI model’s generic measuring customer satisfaction was found partially mediate the business success. A reconsideration of other variables applicable should be supported with the model of hostel business. The study provides context and overall view of hostel business while discussing from the entrepreneurial orientation to customer satisfaction, thereby reducing decision risk on hostel investment.
Abstract: The effect of carbon materials on TiO2 for the photocatalytic hydrogen gas production from water / alcohol mixtures was investigated. Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), carbon nanofiber (CNF), fullerene (FLN), graphite (GP), and graphite silica (GS) were used as co-catalysts by directly mixing with TiO2. Drastic synergy effects were found with increase in the amount of hydrogen gas by a factor of ca. 150 and 100 for SWNTs and GS with TiO2, respectively. Moreover, the increment factor of hydrogen production reached to 180, when the mixture of SWNTs and TiO2 were smashed in an agate mortar before photocatalytic reactions. The order of H2 gas production for these carbon materials was SWNTs > GS >> MWNTs > FLN > CNF > GP. To maximize the hydrogen production from SWNTs/TiO2, various parameters of experimental condition were changed. Also, a comparison between Pt/TiO2, SWNTs/TiO2 and GS/TiO2 was made for the amount of H2 gas production. Finally, the recyclability of SWNTs/TiO2or GS/TiO2 was tested.
Abstract: Because of the increasing multidisciplinarity and multilinguality, communication problems in different technical fields grow more and more. Therefore, each technical field has its own specific language, terminology which is characterized by the different definition of terms. In addition to definition problems, there are also relation problems between terms. Among these problems of relation, there are the synonymy, antonymy, hypernymy/hyponymy, ambiguity, risk of confusion and translation problems etc.
Thus, the terminology management system iglos of the Institute for Traffic Safety and Automation Engineering of the Technische Universität Braunschweig has the target to solve these problems by a methodological standardisation of term definitions with the aid of the iglos sign model and iglos relation types. The focus of this paper should be on solving definition and relation problems between terms in English navigation terminology.
Abstract: In this study sugarcane field soils with a long history of atrazine application in Chachoengsao and Chonburi provinces have been explored for their potential of atrazine biodegradation. For the atrazine degrading bacteria isolation, the soils used in this study named ACS and ACB were inoculated in MS-medium containing atrazine. Six short rod and gram-negative bacterial isolates, which were able to use this herbicide as a sole source of nitrogen, were isolated and named as ACS1, ACB1, ACB3, ACB4, ACB5 and ACB6. From the 16S rDNA nucleotide sequence analysis, the isolated bacteria ACS1 and ACB4 were identified as Rhizobium sp. with 89.1-98.7% nucleotide identity, ACB1 and ACB5 were identified as Stenotrophomonas sp. with 91.0-92.8% nucleotide identity, whereas ACB3 and ACB6 were Klebsiella sp. with 97.4-97.8% nucleotide identity.
Abstract: Considerable focus in the world of insurance risk quantification is placed on modeling loss values from lines of business (LOBs) that possess upper tail dependence. Copulas such as the Joe, Gumbel and Student-t copula may be used for this purpose. The copula structure imparts a desired level of tail dependence on the joint distribution of claims from the different LOBs. Alternatively, practitioners may possess historical or simulated data that already exhibit upper tail dependence, through the impact of catastrophe events such as hurricanes or earthquakes. In these circumstances, it is not desirable to induce additional upper tail dependence when modeling the joint distribution of the loss values from the individual LOBs. Instead, it is of interest to accurately assess the degree of tail dependence already present in the data. The empirical copula and its associated upper tail dependence coefficient are presented in this paper as robust, efficient means of achieving this goal.
Abstract: A salinity gradient solar pond is a free energy source system for collecting, convertingand storing solar energy as heat. In thispaper, the principles of solar pond are explained. A mathematical model is developed to describe and simulate heat and mass transferbehaviour of salinity gradient solar pond. MATLAB codes are programmed to solve the one dimensional finite difference method for heat and mass transfer equations. Temperature profiles and concentration distributions are calculated. The numerical results are validated with experimental data and the results arefound to be in good agreement.
Abstract: A commercially-supported social network has become an emerging channel for an organization to communicate with and provide services to customers. The success of the commercially-supported social network depends on the ability of the organization to keep the customers in participating in the network. Drawing from the theories of information adoption, information systems continuance, and web usability, the author develops a model to explore how a commercially-supported social network can encourage customers to continue participating and using the information in the network. The theoretical model will be proved through an online survey of customers using the commercially-supported social networking sites of several high technology companies operating in the same sector. The result will be compared with previous studies to learn about the explanatory power of the research model, and to identify the main factors determining users’ intention to continue using a commercially-supported social network. Theoretical and practical implications and limitations are discussed.
Abstract: The use of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) has become an important tool among commercial banks, customers of banks have come to depend on and trust the ATM conveniently meet their banking needs. Although the overwhelming advantages of ATM cannot be over-emphasized, its alarming fraud rate has become a bottleneck in it’s full adoption in Nigeria. This study examined the menace of ATM in the society another cost of running ATM services by banks in the country. The researcher developed a prototype of an enhanced Automated Teller Machine Authentication using Short Message Service (SMS) Verification. The developed prototype was tested by Ten (10) respondents who are users of ATM cards in the country and the data collected was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Based on the results of the analysis, it is being envisaged that the developed prototype will go a long way in reducing the alarming rate of ATM fraud in Nigeria.
Abstract: This study investigated published financial statement as correlate of investment decision among commercial bank stakeholders in Nigeria. A correlation research design was used in the study. 180 users of published financial statement were purposively sampled from Lagos and Ibadan. Data generated were analyzed using Pearson correlation and regression. The findings of the study revealed that, balance sheet is negatively related with investment decision (r= -.483; p
Abstract: The numerical simulation of the crack welding process is reported in this paper. The thermo-electro-structural coupled-field finite element analysis is adopted to investigate the welding process of crack surfaces. In the simulation, the pressure-dependent and temperature-dependent electrical contact conditions are considered. From the results, the crack surfaces can melt and weld together under the compressive load and electric current. The contact pressure effect must be considered in the finite element analysis to obtain more practical results.