Abstract: The article presents the trends in Georgian wine
market development and evaluates the competitive advantages of
Georgia to enter the wine market based on its customs, traditions and
historical practices combined with modern technologies.
In order to analyze the supply of wine, dynamics of vineyard land
area and grape varieties are discussed, trends in wine production are
presented, trends in export and import are evaluated, local wine
market, its micro and macro environments are studied and analyzed
based on the interviews with experts and analysis of initial recording
materials.
For strengthening its position on the international market, the level
of competitiveness of Georgian wine is defined, which is evaluated
by “ex-ante” and “ex-post” methods, as well as by four basic and two
additional factors of the Porter’s diamond method; potential
advantages and disadvantages of Georgian wine are revealed.
Conclusions are made by identifying the factors that hinder the
development of Georgian wine market. Based on the conclusions,
relevant recommendations are developed.
Abstract: Boron-gypsum is a waste which occurs in the boric
acid production process. In this study, the boron content of this waste
is evaluated for the use in synthesis of magnesium borates and such
evaluation of this kind of waste is useful more than storage or
disposal. Magnesium borates, which are a sub-class of boron
minerals, are useful additive materials for the industries due to their
remarkable thermal and mechanical properties. Magnesium borates
were obtained hydrothermally at different temperatures. Novelty of
this study is the search of the solution density effects to magnesium
borate synthesis process for the increasing the possibility of borongypsum
usage as a raw material. After the synthesis process, products
are subjected to XRD and FT-IR to identify and characterize their
crystal structure, respectively.
Abstract: This paper clarifies the role of ICT capital in economic
growth. Albeit ICT remarkably contributes to economic growth, there
are few studies on ICT capital in ICT sector from theoretical point of
view. In this paper, production function of ICT which is used as input
of intermediate good in final good and ICT sectors is incorporated
into our model. In this setting, we analyze the role of ICT on balance
growth path and show the possibility of general equilibrium solutions
for this model. Through the simulation of the equilibrium solutions,
we find that when ICT impacts on economy and economic growth
increases, it is necessary that increases of efficiency at ICT sector and
of accumulation of non-ICT and ICT capitals occur simultaneously.
Abstract: This study aimed at designing and developing a
mechanical force gauge for the square watermelon mold for the first
time. It also tried to introduce the square watermelon characteristics
and its production limitations. The mechanical force gauge
performance and the product itself were also described. There are
three main designable gauge models: a. hydraulic gauge, b. strain
gauge, and c. mechanical gauge. The advantage of the hydraulic
model is that it instantly displays the pressure and thus the force
exerted by the melon. However, considering the inability to measure
forces at all directions, complicated development, high cost, possible
hydraulic fluid leak into the fruit chamber and the possible influence
of increased ambient temperature on the fluid pressure, the
development of this gauge was overruled. The second choice was to
calculate pressure using the direct force a strain gauge. The main
advantage of these strain gauges over spring types is their high
precision in measurements; but with regard to the lack of conformity
of strain gauge working range with water melon growth, calculations
were faced with problems. Finally the mechanical pressure gauge has
advantages, including the ability to measured forces and pressures on
the mold surface during melon growth; the ability to display the peak
forces; the ability to produce melon growth graph thanks to its
continuous force measurements; the conformity of its manufacturing
materials with the required physical conditions of melon growth; high
air conditioning capability; the ability to permit sunlight reaches the
melon rind (no yellowish skin and quality loss); fast and
straightforward calibration; no damages to the product during
assembling and disassembling; visual check capability of the product
within the mold; applicable to all growth environments (field,
greenhouses, etc.); simple process; low costs and so forth.
Abstract: Male factor infertility due to endocrine disturbances
such as abnormalities in prolactin levels are encountered in a
significant proportion. This case control study was carried out to
determine the effects of prolactin on the male reproductive tract,
using 200 male white rats. The rats were maintained as the control
group (G1), hypoprolactinaemic group (G2), 3 hyperprolactinaemic
groups induced using oral largactil (G3), low dose fluphenazine (G4)
and high dose fluphenazine (G5). After 100 days, rats were subjected
to serum prolactin (PRL) level measurements and for basic seminal
fluid analysis (BSA). The difference between serum PRL
concentrations of rats in G2, G3, G4 and G5 as compared to the
control group were highly significant by Student’s t-test (p
Abstract: The purposes of this research were to study concepts
and strategies of human resource development in the automotive
manufacturers and to articulate the proposals against the government
about the human resource development for automotive industry. In
the present study, qualitative study was an in-depth interview in
which the qualitative data were collected from the executive or the
executive of human resource division from five automotive
companies - Toyota Motor (Thailand) Co., Ltd., Nissan Motor
(Thailand) Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Motors (Thailand) Co., Ltd., Honda
Automobile (Thailand) Co., Ltd., and Suzuki Motor (Thailand) Co.,
Ltd. Qualitative data analysis was performed by using inter-coder
agreement technique. The research findings were as follows:
The external factors included the current conditions of the
automotive industry, government’s policy related to the automotive
industry, technology, labor market and human resource development
systems of the country. The internal factors included management,
productive management, organizational strategies, leadership,
organizational culture and philosophy of human resource
development. These factors were affected to the different concept of
human resources development -the traditional human resource
development and the strategies of human resource development. The
organization focuses on human resources as intellectual capital and
uses the strategies of human resource development in all
development processes. The strategies of human resource
development will enhance the ability of human resources in the
organization and the country.
Abstract: Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) E-commerce has been
growing at a very high speed in recent years. Since identical or
nearly-same kinds of products compete one another by relying on
keyword search in C2C E-commerce, some sellers describe their
products with spam keywords that are popular but are not related to
their products. Though such products get more chances to be retrieved
and selected by consumers than those without spam keywords,
the spam keywords mislead the consumers and waste their time.
This problem has been reported in many commercial services like
ebay and taobao, but there have been little research to solve this
problem. As a solution to this problem, this paper proposes a method
to classify whether keywords of a product are spam or not. The
proposed method assumes that a keyword for a given product is
more reliable if the keyword is observed commonly in specifications
of products which are the same or the same kind as the given
product. This is because that a hierarchical category of a product
in general determined precisely by a seller of the product and so is
the specification of the product. Since higher layers of the hierarchical
category represent more general kinds of products, a reliable degree
is differently determined according to the layers. Hence, reliable
degrees from different layers of a hierarchical category become
features for keywords and they are used together with features only
from specifications for classification of the keywords. Support Vector
Machines are adopted as a basic classifier using the features, since
it is powerful, and widely used in many classification tasks. In
the experiments, the proposed method is evaluated with a golden
standard dataset from Yi-han-wang, a Chinese C2C E-commerce,
and is compared with a baseline method that does not consider
the hierarchical category. The experimental results show that the
proposed method outperforms the baseline in F1-measure, which
proves that spam keywords are effectively identified by a hierarchical
category in C2C E-commerce.
Abstract: Multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs)
possess immunomodulatory properties. The effect of MSCs on the
crucial cellular immunity compartment – T-cells is of a special
interest. It is known that MSC tissue niche and expected milieu of
their interaction with T- cells are characterized by low oxygen
concentration, whereas the in vitro experiments usually are carried
out at a much higher ambient oxygen (20%). We firstly evaluated
immunomodulatory effects of MSCs on T-cells at tissue-related
oxygen (5%) after interaction implied cell-to-cell contacts and
paracrine factors only. It turned out that MSCs under reduced oxygen
can effectively suppress the activation and proliferation of PHAstimulated
T-cells and can provoke decrease in the production of
proinflammatory and increase in anti-inflammatory cytokines. In
hypoxia some effects were amplified (inhibition of proliferation, antiinflammatory
cytokine profile shift). This impact was more evident
after direct cell-to-cell interaction; lack of intercellular contacts could
revoke the potentiating effect of hypoxia.
Abstract: Biological conversion of biomass to methane has
received increasing attention in recent years. Grasses have been
explored for their potential anaerobic digestion to methane. In this
review, extensive literature data have been tabulated and classified.
The influences of several parameters on the potential of these
feedstocks to produce methane are presented. Lignocellulosic
biomass represents a mostly unused source for biogas and ethanol
production. Many factors, including lignin content, crystallinity of
cellulose, and particle size, limit the digestibility of the hemicellulose
and cellulose present in the lignocellulosic biomass. Pretreatments
have used to improve the digestibility of the lignocellulosic biomass.
Each pretreatment has its own effects on cellulose, hemicellulose and
lignin, the three main components of lignocellulosic biomass. Solidstate
anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) generally occurs at solid
concentrations higher than 15%. In contrast, liquid anaerobic
digestion (AD) handles feedstocks with solid concentrations between
0.5% and 15%. Animal manure, sewage sludge, and food waste are
generally treated by liquid AD, while organic fractions of municipal
solid waste (OFMSW) and lignocellulosic biomass such as crop
residues and energy crops can be processed through SS-AD. An
increase in operating temperature can improve both the biogas yield
and the production efficiency, other practices such as using AD
digestate or leachate as an inoculant or decreasing the solid content
may increase biogas yield but have negative impact on production
efficiency. Focus is placed on substrate pretreatment in anaerobic
digestion (AD) as a means of increasing biogas yields using today’s
diversified substrate sources.
Abstract: Application of hulls processing technologies, based on high-concentrated energy sources (laser and plasma technologies), allow improve shipbuilding production. It is typical for high-speed vessels construction using steel and aluminum alloys with high precision hulls required. Report describes high-performance technologies for plasma welding (using direct current of reversed polarity), laser, and hybrid laser-arc welding of hulls structures developed by JSC “SSTC”
Abstract: The fight against climate change and the replacement
of fossil energies nearing exhaustion gradually emerge as major
societal and economic challenges. It is possible to develop common
dates of low commercial value, and put on the local and international
market a new generation of products with high added values such as
bio ethanol. Besides its use in chemical synthesis, bio ethanol can be
blended with gasoline to produce a clean fuel while improving the
octane.
Abstract: Fibrin degradation is an important part in prevention
or treatment of intravascular thrombosis and cardiovascular diseases.
Plasmin like fibrinolytic enzymes has given new hope to patient with
cardiovascular diseases by treating fibrin aggregation related diseases
with traditional plasminogen activator which have many side effects.
Various researches involving wide range of sources for production of
fibrinolytic proteases, from bacteria, fungi, insects and fermented
foods. But few have looked into endophytic fungi as a potential
source. Sixteen (16) endophytic fungi were isolated from Hibiscus sp.
leaves from six different locations in Shah Alam, Selangor. Only two
endophytic fungi, FH3 and S13 showed positive fibrinolytic protease
activities. FH3 produced 5.78cm and S13 produced 4.48cm on Skim
Milk Agar after 4 days of incubation at 27°C. Fibrinolytic activity
was observed; 3.87cm and 1.82cm diameter clear zone on fibrin plate
of FH3 and S13 respectively. 18srRNA was done for identification of
the isolated fungi with positive fibrinolytic protease. S13 had the
highest similarity (100%) to that of Penicillium citrinum strain TG2
and FH3 had the highest similarity (99%) to that of Fusarium sp.
FW2PhC1, Fusarium sp. 13002, Fusarium sp. 08006, Fusarium
equiseti strain Salicorn 8 and Fungal sp. FCASAn-2. Media
composition variation showed the effects of carbon nitrogen on
protein concentration, where the decrement of 50% of media
composition caused drastic decrease in protease of FH3 from 1.081 to
0.056 and also S13 from 2.946 to 0.198.
Abstract: The study examines the influence of marital status on
consumers of products and services using blogs as a source of
information. A pre-designed questionnaire was used to collect the
primary data from the respondents (experiences). Data were collected
from one hundred and eighty seven respondents residing in and
around the Emirates of Sharjah and Dubai of the United Arab
Emirates. The collected data was analyzed with the help of statistical
tools such as averages, percentages, factor analysis, Student’s t-test
and Structural Equation Modelling Technique.
Objectives of the study are to know the reasons how married and
unmarried or single consumers of products and services are
motivated to use blogs as a source of information, to know whether
the consumers of products and services irrespective of their marital
status share their views and experiences with other bloggers and to
know the respondents’ future intentions towards blogging.
The study revealed the following: Majority of the respondents
have the motivation to blog because they are willing to receive
comments on what they post about services, convenience of blogs to
search for information about services and products, by blogging
respondents share information on the symptoms of a disease/ disorder
that may be experienced by someone, helps to share information
about ready to cook mix products and are keen to spend more time
blogging in the future.
Abstract: The biomass-based fuels have become great concern in order to replace the petroleum-based fuels. Biofuels are a wide range of fuels referred to liquid, gas and solid fuels produced from biomass. Recently, higher chain alcohols such as 3-methyl-1-butanol and isobutanol have become a better candidate compared to bioethanol in order to replace gasoline as transportation fuel. Therefore, in this study, 3-methyl-1-butanol was produced through a fermentation process by yeast. Several types of yeast involved in this research including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Kluyveromyces lactis GG799 and Pichia pastoris (KM71H, GS115 and X33). The result obtained showed that K. lactis GG799 gave the highest concentration of 3-methyl-1-butanol at 274 mg/l followed by S. cerevisiae, P. pastoris GS115, P. pastoris KM71H and P. pastoris X33 at 265 mg/l, 190 mg/l, 182 mg/l and 174 mg/l respectively. Based on the result, it proved that yeast have a potential in producing 3-methyl-1-butanol naturally.
Abstract: Abundant and cheap agricultural waste of oil palm trunk (OPT) juice was used to produce bioethanol. Two strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and a strain of Pichia stipitis were used to produce bioethanol from the OPT juice. Fermentation was conducted at previously optimized condition at 30oC and without shaking. The kinetic parameters were estimated and calculated. Monod equation and Hinshelwood model is used to relate the specific growth to the concentration of the limiting substrate and also to simulate bioethanol production rate. Among the three strains, single S. cerevisiae Kyokai no. 7 produce the highest ethanol yield of 0.477 g/l.h within the shortest time (12 h). This yeast also produces more than 20 g/l ethanol concentration within 10 h of fermentation.
Abstract: This article deals with the perceived quality of regional products in the Moravian-Silesian region in the Czech Republic. Research was focused on finding out what do consumers perceive as a quality product and what characteristics make a quality product. The data were obtained by questionnaire survey andanalysed by IBM SPSS. From the thousands of respondents the representative sample of 719 for MS region was created based on demographic factors of gender, age, education and income. The research analysis disclosed that consumers in MS region are still price oriented and that the preference of quality over price does not depend on regional brand knowledge.
Abstract: Strontium hexaferrite (SrFe12O19; Sr-ferrite) is one of
the well-known materials for permanent magnets. In this study, Mtype
strontium ferrite was prepared by following the conventional
ceramic method from steelmaking by-product. Initial materials;
SrCO3 and by-product, were mixed together in the composition of
SrFe12O19 in different Sr/Fe ratios. The mixtures of these raw
materials were dry-milled for 6h. The blended powder was presintered
(i.e. calcination) at 1000°C for different times periods, then
cooled down to room temperature. These pre-sintered samples were
re-milled in a dry atmosphere for 1h and then fired at different
temperatures in atmospheric conditions, and cooled down to room
temperature. The produced magnetic powder has a dense hexagonal
grain shape structure. The calculated energy product values for the
produced samples ranged from 0.3 to 2.4 MGOe.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to create a proposal for determining the costs of logistics processes by using process-oriented calculation methods. The traditional approach is that logistics costs are part of manufacturing overhead which is usually calculated as a percentage surcharge. Therefore in the traditional approach it is not obvious where and in which activities costs were incurred. So it is impossible to trace logistics costs to products. Our point of view is trying to fix or at least improve this issue. Another benefit of applying the process approach is identification of logistics processes which are otherwise part of manufacturing overhead. In the first part this paper describes the development of process-oriented methods over time. The next part shows the possibility of implementing the process-oriented method called Prozesskostenrechnung to logistics processes. The conclusion summarizes advantages and disadvantages of using this method in logistics.
Abstract: Developing a reliable and sustainable software products is today a big challenge among up–coming software developers in Nigeria. The inability to develop a comprehensive problem statement needed to execute proper requirements engineering process is missing. The need to describe the ‘what’ of a system in one document, written in a natural language is a major step in the overall process of Software Engineering. Requirements Engineering is a process use to discover, analyze and validate system requirements. This process is needed in reducing software errors at the early stage of the development of software. The importance of each of the steps in Requirements Engineering is clearly explained in the context of using detailed problem statement from client/customer to get an overview of an existing system along with expectations from the new system. This paper elicits inadequate Requirements Engineering principle as the major cause of poor software development in developing nations using a case study of final year computer science students of a tertiary-education institution in Nigeria.
Abstract: Among agricultural residues, sugarcane bagasse is one of the most convincing raw materials for the production of bioethanol due to its availability, and low cost through enzymatic hydrolysis and yeast fermentation. A pretreatment step is needed to enhance the enzymatic step. In this study, sugarcane bagasse (SCB), one of the most abundant agricultural residues in Thailand, was pretreated biologically with various microorganisms of white-rot fungus—Phanerochaete sordid (SK 7), Cellulomonas sp. (TISTR 784), and strain A 002 (Bacillus subtilis isolated from Thai higher termites). All samples with various microbial pretreatments were further hydrolyzed enzymatically by a commercial enzyme obtained from Aspergillus niger. The results showed that the pretreatment with the white-rot fungus gave the highest glucose concentration around two-fold higher when compared with the others.