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: This paper observed the interhemispheric conjugate
auroral activity occurred on 21 September 2009. The GPS derived
ionospheric total electron content (TEC) during a weak substorm
interval recorded at interhemispheric conjugate points at Husafell in
Iceland and Syowa in Antarctica is investigated to look at their
signatures on the auroral features. Selection of all-sky camera (ASC)
images and keogram at Tjörnes and Syowa during the interval
00:47:54 – 00:50:14 UT on 21 September 2009 found that the auroral
activity had exerted their influence on the GPS TEC as a
consequence of varying interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) By
polarity.
Abstract: Spare parts inventory management is one of the major
areas of inventory research. Analysis of recent literature showed that
an approach integrating spare parts classification, demand
forecasting, and stock control policies is essential; however, adapting
this integrated approach is limited. This work presents an integrated
framework for spare part inventory management and an Excel based
application developed for the implementation of the proposed
framework. A multi-criteria analysis has been used for spare
classification. Forecasting of spare parts- intermittent demand has
been incorporated into the application using three different
forecasting models; namely, normal distribution, exponential
smoothing, and Croston method. The application is also capable of
running with different inventory control policies. To illustrate the
performance of the proposed framework and the developed
application; the framework is applied to different items at a service
organization. The results achieved are presented and possible areas
for future work are highlighted.
Abstract: A new, rapidly convergent, numerical procedure for
internal loading distribution computation in statically loaded, singlerow,
angular-contact ball bearings, subjected to a known combined
radial and thrust load, which must be applied so that to avoid tilting
between inner and outer rings, is used to find the load distribution
differences between a loaded unfitted bearing at room temperature,
and the same loaded bearing with interference fits that might
experience radial temperature gradients between inner and outer
rings. For each step of the procedure it is required the iterative
solution of Z + 2 simultaneous nonlinear equations – where Z is the
number of the balls – to yield exact solution for axial and radial
deflections, and contact angles.
Abstract: Current OCR technology does not allow to
accurately recognizing small text images, such as those found
in web images. Our goal is to investigate new approaches to
recognize very low resolution text images containing antialiased
character shapes.
This paper presents a preliminary study on the variability of
such characters and the feasibility to discriminate them by
using geometrical features. In a first stage we analyze the
distribution of these features. In a second stage we present a
study on the discriminative power for recognizing isolated
characters, using various rendering methods and font
properties. Finally we present interesting results of our
evaluation tests leading to our conclusion and future focus.
Abstract: The ability of the brain to organize information and generate the functional structures we use to act, think and communicate, is a common and easily observable natural phenomenon. In object-oriented analysis, these structures are represented by objects. Objects have been extensively studied and documented, but the process that creates them is not understood. In this work, a new class of discrete, deterministic, dissipative, host-guest dynamical systems is introduced. The new systems have extraordinary self-organizing properties. They can host information representing other physical systems and generate the same functional structures as the brain does. A simple mathematical model is proposed. The new systems are easy to simulate by computer, and measurements needed to confirm the assumptions are abundant and readily available. Experimental results presented here confirm the findings. Applications are many, but among the most immediate are object-oriented engineering, image and voice recognition, search engines, and Neuroscience.
Abstract: Five crystal modifications of water insoluble
artesunate were generated by recrystallizing it from various solvents
with improved physicochemical properties. These generated crystal
forms were characterized to select the most potent and soluble form.
SEM of all the forms showed changes in external shape leading them
to be different morphologically. DSC thermograms of Form III and
Form V showed broad endotherm peaks at 83.04oC and 76.96oC prior
to melting fusion of drug respectively. Calculated weight loss in TGA
revealed that Form III and Form V are methanol and acetone solvates
respectively. However, few additional peaks were appeared in XRPD
pattern in these two solvate forms. All forms exhibit exothermic
behavior in buffer and two solvates display maximum ease of
molecular release from the lattice. Methanol and acetone solvates
were found to be most soluble forms and exhibited higher
antimalarial efficacy showing higher survival rate (83.3%) after 30
days.
Abstract: Food safety is an important concern for holiday
makers in foreign and unfamiliar tourist destinations. In fact, risk
from food in these tourist destinations has an influence on tourist
perception. This risk can potentially affect physical health and lead to
an inability to pursue planned activities. The objective of this paper
was to compare foreign tourists- demographics including gender, age
and education level, with the level of perceived risk towards food
safety. A total of 222 foreign tourists during their stay at Khao San
Road in Bangkok were used as the sample. Independent- samples ttest,
analysis of variance, and Least Significant Difference or LSD
post hoc test were utilized. The findings revealed that there were few
demographic differences in level of perceived risk among the foreign
tourists. The post hoc test indicated a significant difference among
the old and the young tourists, and between the higher and lower
level of education. Ranks of tourists- perceived risk towards food
safety unveiled some interesting results. Tourists- perceived risk of
food safety in established restaurants can be ranked as i) cleanliness
of dining utensils, ii) sanitation of food preparation area, and iii)
cleanliness of food seasoning and ingredients. Whereas, the tourists-
perceived risk of food safety in street food and drink can be ranked
as i) cleanliness of stalls and pushcarts, ii) cleanliness of food sold,
and iii) personal hygiene of street food hawkers or vendors.
Abstract: The available data on the cross sections of electronimpact
excitation of krypton 5s and 5p configuration levels out of the
ground state are represented in convenient and compact form. The
results are obtained by regression through all known published data
related to this process.
Abstract: The study was performed to evaluate the effect of Sgirdling,
fruit thinning plus bagging with 2,4-D application, fruit
thinning plus bagging on growth and quality of wax apple fruit.
Girdling was applied three week before flowering. The 2,4-D was
sprayed at the small bud and petal fall stage. The effect of all
treatments on fruit growth was measured weekly. The physical and
biochemical quality characteristics of the fruits were recorded. The
results showed that no significant effect on number of bud among
treatments. S-girdling, 2,4-D application produced the lowest bud
drop, fruit drop compared to untreated control. Moreover, S-girdling
enhanced faster fruit growth producing the best final fruit length and
diameter than the control treatment. It was also observed that Sgirdling
greatly increased fruit set, fruit weight as well as total
soluble solid, reduced fruit crack, and titratable acidity. In
conclusion, S-girdling had a distinctive and significant effect on most
of the fruit quality characteristics assessed. Application 2,4-D was
also recommended as the industry norm to increase fruit set, and fruit
quality in wax apple.
Abstract: The eco-efficient use of “waste" makes sense from
economic, social, and environmental perspectives. By efficiency diverting “waste" products back into useful and/or profitable inputs,
industries and entire societies can reap the benefits of improved financial profit, decreased environmental degradation, and overall
well-being of humanity.
In this project, several material flows at
Company Limited were investigated. Principles of "industrial ecology" were applied to improve the management of waste rubbers that are used in the jewelry manufacturing process. complete this project, a brief engineering analysis stream, and investigated eco-efficient principles for more efficient
handling of the materials and wastes were conducted, and the result were used to propose implementation strategies.
Abstract: This paper focuses on developing an integrated
reliable and sophisticated model for ultra large wind turbines And to
study the performance and analysis of vector control on large wind
turbines. With the advance of power electronics technology, direct
driven multi-pole radial flux PMSG (Permanent Magnet Synchronous
Generator) has proven to be a good choice for wind turbines
manufacturers. To study the wind energy conversion systems, it is
important to develop a wind turbine simulator that is able to produce
realistic and validated conditions that occur in real ultra MW wind
turbines. Three different packages are used to simulate this model,
namely, Turbsim, FAST and Simulink. Turbsim is a Full field wind
simulator developed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL). The wind turbine mechanical parts are modeled by FAST
(Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures and Turbulence) code which is
also developed by NREL. Simulink is used to model the PMSG, full
scale back to back IGBT converters, and the grid.
Abstract: The photocatalytic activity efficiency of TiO2 for the degradation of Toluene in photoreactor can be enhanced by nano- TiO2/LDPE composite film. Since the amount of TiO2 affected the efficiency of the photocatalytic activity, this work was mainly concentrated on the effort to embed the high amount of TiO2 in the Polyethylene matrix. The developed photocatalyst was characterized by XRD, UV-Vis spectrophotometer and SEM. The SEM images revealed the high homogeneity of the deposition of TiO2 on the polyethylene matrix. The XRD patterns interpreted that TiO2 embedded in the PE matrix exhibited mainly in anatase form. In addition, the photocatalytic results show that the toluene removal efficiencies of 30±5%, 49±4%, 68±5%, 42±6% and 33±5% were obtained when using the catalyst loading at 0%, 10%, 15%, 25% and 50% (wt. cat./wt. film), respectively.
Abstract: Let n ≥ 3 be an integer and G2(n) be the subgroup
of square roots of 1 in (Z/nZ)*. In this paper, we give an algorithm
that computes a generating set of this subgroup.
Abstract: Describes the current situation of educational Robotics
"the State of the art" its concept, its evolution their niches of
opportunity, academic and business and the importance of education
and academic outreach. It shows that the development of high-tech
automated educational materials influence the teaching-learning
process and that communication between machines and humans is a
reality.
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: The impact of noise upon live quality has become an
important aspect to make both urban and environmental policythroughout
Europe and in Turkey. Concern over the quality of urban
environments, including noise levels and declining quality of green
space, is over the past decade with increasing emphasis on designing
livable and sustainable communities. According to the World Health
Organization, noise pollution is the third most hazardous
environmental type of pollution which proceeded by only air (gas
emission) and water pollution. The research carried out in two
phases, the first stage of the research noise and plant types providing
the suction of noise was evaluated through literature study and at the
second stage, definite types (Juniperus horizontalis L., Spirea
vanhouetti Briot., Cotoneaster dammerii C.K., Berberis thunbergii
D.C., Pyracantha coccinea M. etc.) were selected for the city of
Konya. Trials were conducted on the highway of Konya. The biggest
value of noise reduction was 6.3 dB(A), 4.9 dB(A), 6.2 dB(A) value
with compared to the control which includes the group that formed
by the bushes at the distance of 7m, 11m, 20m from the source and
5m, 9m, 20m of plant width, respectively. In this paper, definitions
regarding to noise and its sources were made and the precautions
were taken against to noise that mentioned earlier with the adverse
effects of noise. Plantation design approaches and suggestions
concerning to the diversity to be used, which are peculiar to roadside,
were developed to discuss the role and the function of plant material
to reduce the noise of the traffic.
Abstract: Electro Chemical Discharge Machining (ECDM) is an
emerging hybrid machining process used in precision machining of hard and brittle non-conducting materials. The present paper gives a
critical review on materials machined by ECDM under the prevailing machining conditions; capability indicators of the process are
reported. Some results obtained while performing experiments in micro-channeling on soda lime glass using ECDM are also presented. In these experiments, Tool Wear (TW) and Material Removal (MR)
were studied using design of experiments and L–4 orthogonal array. Experimental results showed that the applied voltage was the most influencing parameter in both MR and TW studies. Field
emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) results obtained on the microchannels confirmed the presence of micro-cracks, primarily responsible for MR. Chemical etching was also seen along the edges.
The Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) results were used to detect the elements present in the debris and specimens.
Abstract: In this study, the Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP)with Back-Propagation learning algorithm are used to classify to effective diagnosis Parkinsons disease(PD).It-s a challenging problem for medical community.Typically characterized by tremor, PD occurs due to the loss of dopamine in the brains thalamic region that results in involuntary or oscillatory movement in the body. A feature selection algorithm along with biomedical test values to diagnose Parkinson disease.Clinical diagnosis is done mostly by doctor-s expertise and experience.But still cases are reported of wrong diagnosis and treatment. Patients are asked to take number of tests for diagnosis.In many cases,not all the tests contribute towards effective diagnosis of a disease.Our work is to classify the presence of Parkinson disease with reduced number of attributes.Original,22 attributes are involved in classify.We use Information Gain to determine the attributes which reduced the number of attributes which is need to be taken from patients.The Artificial neural networks is used to classify the diagnosis of patients.Twenty-Two attributes are reduced to sixteen attributes.The accuracy is in training data set is 82.051% and in the validation data set is 83.333%.
Abstract: In the paper it is questioned whether effective state
social policy provides happiness and social progress. For this purpose
selected correlations between Human Development Index (HDI),
share of public social expenditures in GDP, the Happy Planet Index
(HPI), GDP per capita, and Government Effectiveness are examined
and the results are graphically presented. It is shown how a
government can affect well-being and happiness in different countries
of modern world. Also, it is tested the hypothesis about existence of a
certain optimum of well-being and public social expenditures, which
affect direction of social progress. It is concluded that efficient social
policy and wealth are not the only factors determining human
happiness.