Search results for: waste products

Authors: Robby Dwiko Juliardi, Queena K. Qian

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Economic, environmental, and human considerations, as sustainable building design principles, are to be balanced and integrated into building design strategy. Building codes often suggest the efficient and sustainable building products, such as energy-efficient fixtures. However, building departments sometimes fail to manage the full range of requirements in the building assessment, such as siting, neighborhood proximity, and public facility, etc. Hence, it shows roadmap develops the future, an extended look at the future of a chosen field of inquiry composed from the collective knowledge and imagination of the brightest drivers of change in that field. This paper is taken from the best practice of green building implementation in a few countries of Asia (China, Malaysia, and India). Sustainable development will be presented on developing the roadmap of sustainability development of a country. Findings on the similarities and dissimilarities of those countries will show: (1) A general knowledge development on the sustainable green roadmap in Asia, (2) What are the components of developing the roadmap, and (3) What affects the government regulation in a political ecology.

Keywords: developing roadmap, green building, political ecology, sustainable development

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Authors: Anusha Vaddiraj Pallapu

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Measuring urban sustainable development is at the forefront in contributing to overall sustainability, and it refers to attaining social equity, environmental protection and minimizing the impacts of urbanization. Assessing performance of urban issues ranging from larger consumption of natural resources by humans in terms of lifestyle to creating a polluted nearby environment, social and even economic dimensions of sustainability major issues observed such as water quality, transportation, management of solid waste and traffic pollution. However, relying on the framework of the project to do the goals of sustainable development or minimization of urban impacts through management practices is not enough to deal with the present urban issues. The aim of the sustainability is to know how severely the resources are depleted because of human consumption and how issues are characterized. The paper aims to assign benchmarks for the selected sustainability indicators for research, and analysis is done through multivariate analysis in Indian context a case of Nagpur city to identify the play role of each urban issues in the overall sustainability. The main objectives of this paper are to examine the indicators over by time basis on various scenarios and how benchmarking is used, what and which categories of values should be considered as the performance of indicators function.

Keywords: environmental sustainability indicators, principal component analysis, urban sustainability, urban clusters, benchmarking

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Authors: Komol Phaisarn, Anuphan Suttimarn, Vitchanan Keawtong, Kittisak Thongyoun, Chaiyos Jamsawang

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This article is intended to analyze insurance information which contains information on the customer decision when purchasing life insurance pay package. The data were analyzed in order to present new customers with Life Insurance Perfect Pay package to meet new customers’ needs as much as possible. The basic data of insurance pay package were collect to get data mining; thus, reducing the scattering of information. The data were then classified in order to get decision model or decision tree using Algorithm C4.5 (J-48). In the classification, WEKA tools are used to form the model and testing datasets are used to test the decision tree for the accurate decision. The validation of this model in classifying showed that the accurate prediction was 68.43% while 31.25% were errors. The same set of data were then tested with other models, i.e. Naive Bayes and Zero R. The results showed that J-48 method could predict more accurately. So, the researcher applied the decision tree in writing the program used to introduce the product to new customers to persuade customers’ decision making in purchasing the insurance package that meets the new customers’ needs as much as possible.

Keywords: decision tree, data mining, customers, life insurance pay package

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Authors: Mehrnoosh Askarizadeh

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People, process and IT are the most important assets of any organization. Optimal utilization of these resources has been the question of research in business for many decades. The business world have responded by inventing various methodologies that can be used for addressing problems of quality improvement, efficiency of processes, continuous improvement, reduction of waste, automation, strategy alignments etc. Some of these methodologies can be commonly called as Business Process Quality Management methodologies (BPQM). In essence, the first references to the process management can be traced back to Frederick Taylor and scientific management. Time and motion study was addressed to improvement of manufacturing process efficiency. The ideas of scientific management were in use for quite a long period until more advanced quality management techniques were developed in Japan and USA. One of the first prominent methods had been Total Quality Management (TQM) which evolved during 1980’s. About the same time, Six Sigma (SS) originated at Motorola as a separate method. SS spread and evolved; and later joined with ideas of Lean manufacturing to form Lean Six Sigma. In 1990’s due to emerging IT technologies, beginning of globalization, and strengthening of competition, companies recognized the need for better process and quality management. Business Process Management (BPM) emerged as a novel methodology that has taken all this into account and helped to align IT technologies with business processes and quality management. In this article we will study various aspects of above mentioned methods and identified their relations.

Keywords: e-process, quality, TQM, BPM, lean, six sigma, CPI, information technology, management

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Authors: Vara Prasad Vemu

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The aim of the present work is to investigate the mechanical properties and water absorption capacity of carbon and basalt fibers mixed with matrix epoxy. At present, there is demand for nature friendly products. Basalt reinforced composites developed recently, and these mineral amorphous fibres are a valid alternative to carbon fibres for their lower cost and to glass fibres for their strength. The present paper describes briefly on basalt and carbon fibres (uni-directional) which are used as reinforcement materials for composites. The matrix epoxy (LY 556-HY 951) is taken into account to assess its influence on the evaluated parameters. In order to use reinforced composites for structural applications, it is necessary to perform a mechanical characterization. With this aim experiments like tensile strength, flexural strength, hardness and water absorption are performed. Later the mechanical properties obtained from experiments are compared with ANSYS software results.

Keywords: carbon fibre, basalt fibre, uni-directional, reinforcement, mechanical tests, water absorption test, ANSYS

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Authors: J. Stejskal, P. Hajek

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The goal of this article is the analysis of knowledge transfer at the regional level of the Czech Republic. We show how goals of enterprises´ innovative activities are related to the rate of cooperation with different actors within regional innovative systems as well as in other world regions. The results show that the most important partners of enterprises are their suppliers and clients in most Czech regions. The cooperation rate of enterprises correlates significantly mainly with enterprises´ efforts to enter new markets and reduce labour costs per unit output. The meaning of this cooperation decreases with the increase of partner’s distance. Regarding the type of a cooperating partner, cooperation within an enterprise had to do with the increase of market share and decrease of labour costs. On the other hand, cooperation with clients had to do with efforts to replace outdated products or processes or enter new markets. We can pay less attention to the cooperation with government authorities and organizations. The reasons for marginalization of this cooperation should be submitted to further detailed investigation.

Keywords: knowledge, transfer, innovative process, Czech republic, region

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Authors: Burcu Oralhan, Zeki Oralhan, Nilsun Sariyer, Kumru Uyar

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Data mining has been becoming more and more important and a wide range of applications in recent years. Data mining is the process of find hidden and unknown patterns in big data. One of the applied fields of data mining is Customer Relationship Management. Understanding the relationships between products and customers is crucial for every business. Customer Relationship Management is an approach to focus on customer relationship development, retention and increase on customer satisfaction. In this study, we made an application of a data mining methods in telecommunication customer relationship management side. This study aims to determine the customers profile who likely to leave the system, develop marketing strategies, and customized campaigns for customers. Data are clustered by applying classification techniques for used to determine the churners. As a result of this study, we will obtain knowledge from international telecommunication industry. We will contribute to the understanding and development of this subject in Customer Relationship Management.

Keywords: customer churn analysis, customer relationship management, data mining, telecommunication industry

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Authors: Win Thandar Soe, Innocent Mpawenimana, Mathieu Di Fazio, Cécile Belleudy, Aung Ze Ya

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Intelligent electronic equipment and automation network is the brain of high-tech energy management systems in critical role of smart homes dominance. Smart home is a technology integration for greater comfort, autonomy, reduced cost, and energy saving as well. These services can be provided to home owners for managing their home appliances locally or remotely and consequently allow them to automate intelligently and responsibly their consumption by individual or collective control systems. In this study, three smart plugs are described and one of them tested on typical household appliances. This article proposes to collect the data from the wireless technology and to extract some smart data for energy management system. This smart data is to quantify for three kinds of load: intermittent load, phantom load and continuous load. Phantom load is a waste power that is one of unnoticed power of each appliance while connected or disconnected to the main. Intermittent load and continuous load take in to consideration the power and using time of home appliances. By analysing the classification of loads, this smart data will be provided to reduce the communication of wireless sensor network for energy management system.

Keywords: energy management, load profile, smart plug, wireless sensor network

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Authors: Hwei Voon Lee, N. Asikin-Mijana, Y. H. Taufiq-Yap, J. C. Juan, N. A. Rahman

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Cracking–Deoxygenation process is one of the important reaction pathways for the production of bio-fuel with desirable n-C17 hydrocarbon chain via removal of oxygen compounds. Calcium-based catalyst has attracted much attention in deoxygenation process due to its relatively high capacity in removing oxygenated compounds in the form of CO₂ and CO under decarboxylation and decarbonylation reaction, respectively. In the present study, deoxygenation of triolein was investigated using Ca(OH)₂ nanocatalyst derived from low cost natural waste shells. The Ca(OH)₂ nanocatalyst was prepared via integration techniques between surfactant treatment (anionic and non-ionic) and wet sonochemical effect. Results showed that sonochemically assisted surfactant treatment has successfully enhanced the physicochemical properties of Ca(OH)₂ nanocatalyst in terms of nanoparticle sizes (∼50 nm), high surface area(∼130 m²g⁻¹), large porosity (∼18.6 nm) and strong basic strength. The presence of superior properties from surfactant treated Ca(OH)₂ nanocatalysts rendered high deoxygenation degree, which is capable of producing high alkane and alkene selectivity in chain length of n-C17(high value of C17/(n-C17+ n-C18)ratio = 0.88). Furthermore, both Ca(OH)₂–EG and Ca(OH)₂–CTAB nanocatalysts showed high reactivity with 47.37% and 44.50%, respectively in total liquid hydrocarbon content of triolein conversion with high H/C and low O/C ratio.

Keywords: clamshell, cracking, decarboxylation-decarbonylation, hydrocarbon

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Authors: Leandro da S. Nascimento, Maristela J. Melo

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The increased competition in the globalization drives organizations to innovate in their products and services to remain competitive. Innovation and creativity are incorporated as key aspects to creating value for consumers and for the creation of competitive advantage in organizations. However, there are factors that contribute strong with development of innovation and creation in organizations. These factors are the intellectual capital and knowledge management, which together with sustainability, ensure the development of competitive strategies. However, it is understood that the role of the leader is essential to stimulate the development of human capital, because the human capital is essential for organizations of knowledge. It is the leader who drives the dissemination and sharing of knowledge, an essential aspect for the formation of intellectual capital and therefore should be managed. And it turns out that the management of knowledge through intellectual capital allows the development of environmental initiatives efficiently and effectively. Thus, the research demonstrates the importance of the role of leader / manager in organizations and seeks to analyze how managers can contribute to the adoption of sustainability through intellectual capital and knowledge management.

Keywords: intellectual capital, knowledge management, leadership role, sustainability

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Authors: J. H. O. Nascimento, F. R. Oliveira, K. K. O. S. Silva, J. Neves, V. Teixeira, J. Carneiro

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These the aliphatic polyesters such as Polylactic Acid (PLA) in the form of fibers, nanofibers or plastic films, generally possess chemically inert surfaces, free porosity, and surface free energy (ΔG) lesser than 32 mN/m. It is therefore considered a low surface energy material, consequently has a low work of adhesion. For this reason, the products manufactured using these polymers are often subjected to surface treatments in order to change its physic-chemical surface, improving their wettability and the Work of Adhesion (WA). Plasma Radio Frequency low pressure (RF) treatment was performed in order to improve the Work of Adhesion (WA) on PLA fibers. Different parameters, such as, power, ratio of working gas (Argon/Oxygen) and treatment time were used to optimize the plasma conditions to modify the PLA surface properties. With plasma treatment, a significant increase in the work of adhesion on PLA fiber surface was observed. The analysis performed by XPS showed an increase in polar functional groups and the SEM and AFM image revealed a considerable increase in roughness.

Keywords: RF plasma, surface modification, PLA fabric, atomic force macroscopic, Nanotechnology

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Authors: R. S. Fisca, Y. R. Elox, L. Umi, U. Z. Luttfia, Kun Harismah

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Petai (Parkia speciosa) is a plant indigenous to Southeast Asia. It is consumed either raw or cooked. It has been used in folk medicine to treat diabetes, hypertension, and kidney problems. It contains minerals and vitamins. Petai contains a lot of chemical compounds that are beneficial for health, including antioxidants, Vitamin B6 0,9mg, energy 142 g. cal, 10.4 g protein. 2 g fat, 22 g carbohydrates, 95 mg calcium, phosphorus 115 mg, 1 mg iron, 200 IU of vitamin A, vitamin B1 0.17 mg, 36 mg of vitamin C that can resolve various health problems. These chips are the result of innovation from petai packaged in such a way becomes a tasty snack chips and can be enjoyed by many people to relax and also nutritious for health. In the manufacture of petai chips require several steps of them start by boiling, flating, drying and the last frying. In introducing the products widely we sell petai chips with several methods. Some of these methods include direct sales, delivery order, online/social media, and open some booth at a few places and the car free day in Solo every sunday. Opportunity in selling petai chips is very wide because there is no competitors with similar business. With the innovation of petai chips become healthy snacks can be introduced to the public and can even be exported out of the country as one of the extraordinary snacks from Indonesia.

Keywords: antioxidants, chips, healty, petai

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Authors: R. Odoh, M. S. Dauda, E. A. Kamba, N. C. Igwemmar

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Honey and honey trade is an important economic activity for many tropical rural and urban areas worldwide. In West Africa and other part of the world, honey and honey products holds high socio–cultural, religious, medicinal, and traditional values. Therefore, to maximize benefits or to enhance profit, a variety of components are added to the raw, fresh and unprocessed honey, introducing the possibility of heavy metals contaminants. Therefore the honey sold in various places, markets and shops in some states in Northern Nigeria (Benue, Nassarawa and Taraba) including Abuja FCT, in Nigeria was analyzed to determine the level of heavy metals (Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn). All the honey samples contain heavy metals. The results ranged from 0.028–0.070, 0.023–0.058, 0.042–0.092, 4.231–8.589, 8.115–14.892, 0.078–0.922, 0.044–0.092, 0.041–0.087 and 18.234–28.654 μg/L for Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn respectively. The mean concentration (μg/L) of the heavy metals Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn of the regularly marketed honey is significantly higher than the mean concentration observed in raw, fresh and unprocessed honey. However, continued consumption of honey with high heavy metal content might lead to exposure to chronic heavy metal poisoning.

Keywords: honey, health, mineral profile adulteration, contamination

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Authors: Israel Becerril Rosales, Manuel González De La Rosa, Gerardo Villa Sánchez

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In this work, the effects that produce not having a good inventory management is analyzed, in addition of the way that how it affects the storage costs. The research began conducting the historical analysis about stored products, its storage capacity, and distribution. The results were not optimal, since in all its raw materials (RM) have overstocking, the warehouse capacity is only used by 61%, does not have a specific place for each of its RM, causing that the delivery times increases and makes difficult a cyclical inventory. These shortcomings allowed to view and select as design alternatives the inventory ABC, so that depending on the consumption of each RM would be redistributed by using economic amount requested. Also, the Delphi method to ensure the practical applicability of the proposed tool was used, taking in account comments and suggestions of the involved experts, as well as the compliance of NOM-059-SSA1-2015 good manufacturing practices of drug. With the actions implemented, the utilization rate drops of 61% to 32% capacity, it shows that the warehouse was not designed properly due to there is not an industrial engineering area.

Keywords: lead time, improve delivery, storage costs, inventory management

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Authors: Abid Fida Masih

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Forced degradation study of Rifaximin was conducted to determine the stability indicating potential of HPLC testing method for detection of Rifaximin in formulated tablets to be employed for quality control and stability testing. The questioned method applied with mobile phase methanol: water (70:30), 5µm, 250 x 4.6mm, C18 column, wavelength 293nm and flow rate of 1.0 ml/min. Forced degradation study was performed under oxidative, acidic, basic, thermal and photolytic conditions. The applied method successfully determined the degradation products after acidic and basic degradation without interfering with Rifaximin detection. Therefore, the method was said to be stability indicating and can be applied for quality control and stability testing of Rifaxmin tablets during its shelf life.

Keywords: forced degradation, high-performance liquid chromatography, method validation, rifaximin, stability indicating method

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Authors: Pervin Basaran Akocak

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Food antimicrobials are compounds that are incorporated into food matrixes in order to cause death or delay the growth of spoilage or pathogenic microorganisms. As a result, microbiological deterioration is prevented throughout storage and food distribution. In this study, the effect of natural antimycotic natamycin (C33H47NO13, with a molecular mass of 665.725), a GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) commercial compound produced by different strains of Streptomyces sp., was tested against various fermented food contamination fungi and yeast species. At the concentration of 100 µg/ml, natamycin exhibited stronger antifungal activity against fungi than yeast species tested. The exposure time of natamycin for complete inhibition of the species tested were found to be between 100-180 min at 300-750 µg/ml concentration. SEM observations of fungal species demonstrated that natamycin distorted and damaged the conidia and hyphae by inhibiting spore germination and mycelial growth. Natamycin can be considered as a potential candidate in hurdle food treatments for preventing fungal and yeast invasion and resulting deterioration of fermented products.

Keywords: natamycin, antifungal, fermented food, food spoilage fungi

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Authors: Clarinda Vitorino Nhangumbe, Ercília Sousa

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Weather derivatives are financial products used to cover non catastrophic weather events with a weather index as the underlying asset. The rainfall weather derivative pricing model is modeled based in the assumption that the rainfall dynamics follows Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, and the partial differential equation approach is used to derive the convection-diffusion two dimensional time dependent partial differential equation, where the spatial variables are the rainfall index and rainfall depth. To compute the approximation solutions of the partial differential equation, the appropriate boundary conditions are suggested, and an explicit numerical method is proposed in order to deal efficiently with the different choices of the coefficients involved in the equation. Being an explicit numerical method, it will be conditionally stable, then the stability region of the numerical method and the order of convergence are discussed. The model is tested for real precipitation data.

Keywords: finite differences method, ornstein-uhlenbeck process, partial differential equations approach, rainfall derivatives

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Authors: Ferhat Mohamed, Boukhatem Mohamed Nadjib, Chemat Farid

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Simultaneous distillation–extraction (SDE) is routinely used by analysts for sample preparation prior to gas chromatography analysis. In this work, a new process design and operation for microwave assisted simultaneous distillation – solvent extraction (MW-SDE) of volatile compounds was developed. Using the proposed method, isolation, extraction and concentration of volatile compounds can be carried out in a single step. To demonstrate its feasibility, MW-SDE was compared with the conventional technique, Simultaneous distillation–extraction (SDE), for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of volatile compounds in a fresh orange juice and a dry spice “carvi seeds”. SDE method required long time (3 h) to isolate the volatile compounds, and large amount of organic solvent (200 mL of hexane) for further extraction, while MW-SDE needed little time (only 30 min) to prepare sample, and less amount of organic solvent (10 mL of hexane). These results show that MW-SDE–GC-MS is a simple, rapid and solvent-less method for determination of volatile compounds from aromatic plants.

Keywords: essential oil, extraction, distillation, carvi seeds

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Authors: S. M. Ahuja

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A Rice Sheller is used for obtaining polished white rice from paddy. There are about 3000 Rice Shellers in Punjab and 50000 in India. During the process of shelling lot of dust is emitted from different unit operations like paddy silo, paddy shaker, bucket elevators, huskers, paddy separator etc. These dust emissions have adverse effect on the health of the workers and the wear and tear of the shelling machinery is also fast. All the dust emissions spewing out of these unit operations of a rice Sheller were contained by providing suitable hoods and enclosures while ensuring their workability. These were sucked by providing an induced draft fan followed by a high efficiency cyclone separator that has got an overall dust collection efficiency of more than 90 %. This cyclone separator replaced two cyclone separators and a filter bag house, which the Rice Sheller was already having. The dust concentration in the stack after the installation of cyclone separator is well within the stipulated standards. Besides controlling pollution there is improvement in the quality of products like bran and the life of shelling machinery has also enhanced. The payback period of this technology is less than four shelling months.

Keywords: air pollution, cyclone separator, pneumatic conveying, rice shellers

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Authors: Yapegue Bayogo, Ahmadou Halassi Dicko, Brahima Songore

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In developing countries, the road transportation system occupies an important place because of its flexibility and the low prices of infrastructure and rolling stock. While road transport is necessary for economic development, the movement of people and their goods, it is urgent to use transportation systems that minimize carbon emissions in order to ensure sustainable development. One of the main objectives of OEDC and the Word Bank is to ensure sustainable economic’ development. This paper aims to develop a road transport network taking into account environmental impacts. The methodology adopted consists of formulating a model optimizing the flow of goods and then collecting information relating to the transport of products. Our model was tested with data on product transport in CMDT areas in the Republic of Mali. The results of our study indicate that emissions from the transport sector can be significantly reduced by minimizing the traffic volume. According to our study, optimizing the transportation network, we benefit from a significant amount of tons of CO₂.

Keywords: road transport, transport sustainability, pollution, flexibility, optimized network

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Authors: Siri-Orn Champatong

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This research aimed to study the relationship between attitudes toward marketing mix and customers’ repurchase intention of Thai dessert in case of Ekachai Salee Suphan’s shop in Thailand. This study employed by survey and quantitative research and the questionnaire was used to collect the data from 385 sampled of customers who visited at Ekachai Salee Suphan's shop in Thailand. The descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis was used to analyze data. The research found that the customers’ perception on the overall and individual aspects of attitudes toward marketing mix include products, prices, promotions, and physical characteristics were at very good level, but distribution channels, staffs, and management process were at good level. Furthermore, the hypothesis tests found that attitudes toward overall marketing mix had relationship with individual aspects of intention that were the repurchase intention, willingness to recommend others to repurchase, and possibility to repurchase with statistical significance level of 0.01.

Keywords: intention, repurchase, service marketing mix, Thai dessert

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Authors: A. Aguezzoul

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The Logistics Services Providers (LSPs) selection and performance is a strategic decision that affects the overall performance of any company as well as its supply chain. It is a complex process, which takes into account various conflicting quantitative and qualitative factors, as well as outsourced logistics activities. This article focuses on the evolution of the weights associated to these factors over the last years in order to better understand the change in the importance that logistics professionals place on them criteria when choosing their LSPs. For that, an analysis of 17 main studies published during 2014-2017 period was carried out and the results are compared to those of a previous literature review on this subject. Our analysis allowed us to deduce the following observations: 1) the LSPs selection is a multi-criteria process; 2) the empirical character of the majority of studies, conducted particularly in Asian countries; 3) the criteria importance has undergone significant changes following the emergence of information technologies that have favored the work in close collaboration and in partnership between the LSPs and their customers, even on a worldwide scale; 4) the cost criterion is relatively less important than in the past; and finally 5) with the development of sustainable supply chains, the factors associated with the logistic activities of return and waste processing (reverse logistics) are becoming increasingly important in this multi-criteria process of selection and evaluation of LSPs performance.

Keywords: logistics outsourcing, logistics providers, multi-criteria decision making, performance

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Authors: Anucha Taiwong, Nirobol Kanogsunthornrat

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This predictive research aimed to investigate the symptom clusters that influence the quality of life among patients with chronic kidney disease, as indicated in the Theory of Unpleasant Symptoms. The purposive sample consisted of 150 patients with stage 3-4 chronic kidney disease who received care at an outpatient chronic kidney disease clinic of a tertiary hospital in Roi-Et province. Data were collected from January to March 2016 by using a patient general information form, unpleasant symptom form, and quality of life (SF-36) and were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and multiple regression analysis. Findings revealed six core symptom clusters including symptom cluster of the mental and emotional conditions, peripheral nerves abnormality, fatigue, gastro-intestinal tract, pain and, waste congestion. Significant predictors for quality of life were the two symptom clusters of pain (Beta = -.220; p < .05) and the mental and emotional conditions (Beta=-.204; p<.05) which had predictive value of 19.10% (R2=.191, p<.05). This study indicated that the symptom cluster of pain and the mental and emotional conditions would worsen the patients’ quality of life. Nurses should be attentive in managing the two symptom clusters to facilitate the quality of life among patients with chronic kidney disease.

Keywords: chronic kidney disease, symptom clusters, predictors of quality of life, pre-dialysis

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Authors: Haresh Sharma, Jaimini Luharia

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The ecology in the Western Himalayan region transforms with the change in altitude. This change is observed in terms of topography, species of flora and fauna and the quality of the soil. The current study focuses on women of indigenous communities of Pangi Valley, which is located in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. The valley is bifurcated into three different areas –Saichu, Hudan Bhatori, and Sural Bhatori valleys. It is one of the most remote, rugged and difficult to access tribal regions of Chamba district. The altitude of the valley ranges from 2,000 m to 6,000 m above sea level. The Pangi valley is inhabited by ‘Pangwals’ and ‘Bhots’ tribes of the Himalayas who speak their local tribal language called’ Pangwali’. The valley is cut-off from the mainland due to heavy snow and lack of proper roads during peak winters. Due to difficult geographical location, the daily lives of the people are constantly challenged, and they are most of the times deprived of benefits targeted through government programs. However, the indigenous communities earn their livelihood through livestock and forest-based produce while some of them migrate to nearby places for better work. The current study involves snowball sampling methodology for data collection along with in-depth interviews of women members of Self-Help Groups and women farmers. The findings reveal that the lives of these indigenous communities largely depend on forest-based products. So, it creates all the more significance of enhancing, maintaining, and consuming natural resources sustainably. Under such circumstances, the women of the community play a significant role of guardians in conservation and protection of the forests. They are the custodians of traditional knowledge of environment conservation practices that have been followed for many years in the region. The present study also sought to establish a relationship between some of the development initiatives undertaken by the women in the valley that stimulate sustainable mountain economy and conservation practices. These initiatives include cultivation of products like hazelnut, ‘Gucchi’ rare quality mushroom, medicinal plants exclusively found in the region, thereby promoting long term sustainable conservation of agro-biodiversity of the Western Himalayan region. The measures taken by the community women are commendable as they ensure access and distribution of natural resources as well as manage them for future generations. Apart from this, the tribal women have actively formed Self-Help Groups promoting financial inclusion through various activities that augment ownership and accountability towards the overall development of the communities. But, the results also suggest that there’s not enough recognition given to women’s role in forests conservation practices due to several local socio-political reasons. There are not enough research studies done on communities of Pangi Valley due to inaccessibility created out of lack of proper roads and other resources. Also, there emerged a need to concretize indigenous and traditional knowledge of conservation practices followed by women in the community.

Keywords: forest conservation, indigenous community women, sustainable livelihoods, sustainable development, poverty alleviation, Western Himalayas

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Authors: Camilo Perez Lee, Mark Lefsrud, Edris Madadian, Yves Roy

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Biomass availability is one of the most important aspects to consider when determining the proper location of potential bioenergy plants. Since this aspect has a direct impact on biomass transportation and storage, biomass availability greatly influences the operational cost. Biomass availability is more than the quantity available on a specific region; other elements such as biomass accessibility and potential play an important role. Accessibility establishes if the biomass could be extracted and conveyed easily considering factors such as biomass availability, infrastructure condition and other operational issues. On the other hand, biomass potential is defined as the capacity of a specific region to scale the usage of biomass as an energy source, move from another energy source or to switch the type of biomass to increase their biomass availability in the future. This paper defines methodologies and parameters in order to determine the biomass availability within the administrative regions of the province of Quebec; firstly by defining the forestry, agricultural, municipal solid waste and energy crop biomass availability per administrative region, next its infrastructure accessibility and lastly defining the region potential. Thus, these data are processed to create a biomass availability matrix allowing to define the overall biomass availability per region and to determine the most optional candidates for bioenergy plant location.

Keywords: biomass, availability, bioenergy, accessibility, biomass potential

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Authors: Abeer M. Algeblawi

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Fifteen isolates of Agrobacterium tumefaciens were obtained from crown gall samples collected from six locations (Tripoli, Alzahra, Ain-Zara, Alzawia, Alazezia in Libya) from Grape (Vitis vinifera L.), Pear (Pyrus communis L.), Peach (Prunus persica L.) and Alexandria in Egypt from Guava (Psidium guajava L.) trees, Artichoke (Cynara cardunculus L.) and Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.). Total DNA was extracted from the eight isolates as well as the identification of six isolates used into Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) analysis and Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique were used. High similarity (55.5%) was observed among the eight A. tumefaciens isolates (Agro1, Agro2, Agro3, Agro4, Agro5, Agro6, Agro7, and Agro8). The PCR amplification products were resulting from the use of two specific primers (virD2A-virD2C). Analysis induction six isolates of A. tumefaciens obtained from different hosts. A visible band was specific to A. tumefaciens of (220 bp, 224 bp) and 338 bp produced with total DNA extracted from bacterial cells.

Keywords: Agrobacterium tumefaciens, crown gall, identification, molecular characterization, PCR, RAPD

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Authors: Kars Beek, Remco Groeneveld, Sjaak Brinkkemper

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Although there is much literature available on requirement documentation in traditional software development, few studies have been conducted about this topic in open source software development. While open-source software development is becoming more important, the software development processes are often not as structured as corporate software development processes. Papers show that communities, creating open-source software, often lack structure and documentation. However, most recent studies about this topic are often ten or more years old. Therefore, this research has been conducted to determine if the lack of structure and documentation in requirement engineering is currently still the situation in these communities. Three open-source products have been chosen as subjects for conducting this research. The data for this research was gathered based on interviews, observations, and analyses of feature proposals and issue tracking tools. In this paper, we present a comparison and an analysis of the different methods used for requirements documentation to understand the current practices of requirements documentation in open source software development.

Keywords: case study, open source software, open source software development, requirement elicitation, requirement engineering

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Authors: Aedah Abd Rahman, Nurdatillah Hasim

Abstract:

Software quality issues require special attention especially in view of the demands of quality software product to meet customer satisfaction. Software development projects in most organisations need proper defect management process in order to produce high quality software product and reduce the number of defects. The research question of this study is how to produce high quality software and reducing the number of defects. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to provide a framework for managing software defects by following defined life cycle processes. The methodology starts by reviewing defects, defect models, best practices and standards. A framework for defect management life cycle is proposed. The major contribution of this study is to define a defect management road map in software development. The adoption of an effective defect management process helps to achieve the ultimate goal of producing high quality software products and contributes towards continuous software process improvement.

Keywords: defects, defect management, life cycle process, software quality

Procedia PDF Downloads 306

Authors: Cigdem Yangin-Gomec, Aigerim Jaxybayeva, Orhan Ince

Abstract:

In this study, the anaerobic treatability of chicken manure diluted with tap water (with an influent feed ratio of 1 kg of fresh chicken manure to 6 liter of tap water) was investigated in a lab-scale anaerobic sludge bed (ASB) reactor inoculated with the granular sludge already adapted to chicken manure. The raw waste digested in this study was the manure from laying-hens having average total solids (TS) of about 30% with ca. 60% volatile content. The ASB reactor was fed semi-continuously at ambient operating temperature range (17-23^◦C) at a HRT of 13 and 26 days for about 6 months, respectively. The respective average total and soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) removals were ca. 90% and 75%, whereas average biomethane production rate was calculated ca. 180 lt per kg of COD_removed from the ASB reactor at an average HRT of 13 days. Moreover, total suspended solids (TSS) and volatile suspended solids (VSS) in the influent were reduced more than 97%. Hence, high removals of the organic compounds with respective biogas production made anaerobic stabilization of the diluted chicken manure by ASB reactor at ambient operating temperatures viable. By this way, external heating up to 35^◦C (i.e. anaerobic processes have been traditionally operated at mesophilic conditions) could be avoided in the scope of this study.

Keywords: ambient anaerobic digestion, biogas recovery, poultry manure, renewable energy

Procedia PDF Downloads 420

Authors: A. Senthil Kumar, V. Murali Bhaskaran

Abstract:

In the information technology ground, people are using various tools and software for their official use and personal reasons. Nowadays, people are worrying to choose data accessing and extraction tools at the time of buying and selling their products. In addition, worry about various quality factors such as price, durability, color, size, and availability of the product. The main purpose of the research study is to find solutions to these unsolved existing problems. The proposed algorithm is a Multidirectional Rank Prediction (MDRP) decision making algorithm in order to take an effective strategic decision at all the levels of data extraction, uses a real time textile dataset and analyzes the results. Finally, the results are obtained and compared with the existing measurement methods such as PCC, SLCF, and VSS. The result accuracy is higher than the existing rank prediction methods.

Keywords: Knowledge Discovery in Database (KDD), Multidirectional Rank Prediction (MDRP), Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient (PCC), VSS (Vector Space Similarity)

Procedia PDF Downloads 286