Search results for: Amman Stock Exchange

Authors: Eric S. Parilla, Marc Edward Abadilla

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The study aims to determine the effect of awareness of business students towards cryptocurrencies and the readiness of universities and colleges to accept cryptocurrencies as a medium of exchange, considering the mediation of business students’ attitudes. The research used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and deployed a questionnaire attuned to the awareness and attitudes of business students towards cryptocurrencies and readiness and compatibility of use in universities and colleges in Ilocos Norte. The output of the investigation revealed that awareness of business students is not correlated to the readiness of universities and colleges, which means that even though students understand cryptocurrencies, it is not an assurance that universities and colleges are ready to accept them as the medium of exchange. The study proposes that training and seminars for business students and professionals should be conducted to expand understanding and acceptance of cryptocurrencies.

Keywords: cryptocurrencies, awareness, readiness, attitudes

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Authors: Katarzyna Mleczko

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Processes of production of innovative medical tools have interdisciplinary character. They consist of direct and indirect close cooperation of specialists of different scientific branches. The Knowledge they have seems to be important for undertaken design, construction and manufacturing processes. The Knowledge exchange between participants of these processes is therefore crucial for the final result, which are innovative medical products. The paper draws attention to the necessity of feedback from the end user to the designer / manufacturer of medical tools which will allow for more accurate understanding of user needs. The study describes prerequisites of production processes of innovative medical (surgical) tools including participants and category of knowledge resources occurring in these processes. They are the result of research in selected Polish organizations involved in the production of medical instruments and are the basis for further work on the development of knowledge sharing model in interdisciplinary teams geographically dispersed.

Keywords: interdisciplinary production processes, knowledge exchange, knowledge sharing, medical tools

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Authors: Zeynep Aksoy

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Since global mobility of capital, information and people increase more and more, intercultural communication and management become a growing study field of investigating various aspects of the interaction between people from different cultural backgrounds. Human mobility, caused by several intentions from tourism to forced migration, often put people in facing communication barriers, issues or sometimes conflicts. This reality naturally enforces education institutions to develop international policies and programs for students in order to improve their intercultural experiences along with the educative objectives. Study-abroad programs, particularly the student exchanges in higher education provide an environment for participants to encounter with cultural differences. Therefore, international exchange programs (i.e. Erasmus Student Mobility, Global Exchange Program) are accepted to bring opportunities for intergroup contact, which may lead students to obtain new perspectives about the host culture, either in positive or negative ways, and new intercultural communication skills. This study aims to explore the role of short-term study abroad experience on intercultural communication competence with a qualitative approach. It attempts to reveal a comparative analysis, which is derived from two field studies conducted in Izmir (Turkey) and in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) in 2015 and 2016. They were both organized in two phases as pre-and-posttest to gain an insight into the changes (if any) in students’ attitudes and knowledge regarding the host culture, and their further motivations towards cross-cultural interactions. With this aim, focus group sessions and in-depth interviews have been taken place with participants at the beginning of their stay and at the end of the semester. The sample covers students mainly from Erasmus program (20 students in Izmir and 14 students in Amsterdam), and few from Global Exchange Program (5 students in Amsterdam). Data obtained from both studies were thematically analyzed and essential themes were identified within the framework of intercultural communication competence.

Keywords: Erasmus student mobility, intercultural communication competence, student exchange, short-term study abroad

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Authors: Ali Akber Jaffri, Asad Naseem, Javeria Khan

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The purpose of this study is to determine safety stock, maximum inventory level, reordering point, and reordering quantity by rearranging lot sizes for supplier and customer in MRO (maintenance repair operations) warehouse of Engro Polymers & Chemicals. To achieve the aim, physical analysis method and excel commands were carried out to elicit the customer and supplier data provided by the company. Initially, we rearranged the current lot sizes and MOUs (measure of units) in SAP software. Due to change in lot sizes we have to determine the new quantities for safety stock, maximum inventory, reordering point and reordering quantity as per company's demand. By proposed system, we saved extra cost in terms of reducing the time of receiving from vendor and in issuance to customer, ease of material handling in MRO warehouse and also reduce human efforts. The information requirements identified in this study can be utilized in calculating Economic Order Quantity.

Keywords: carrying cost, economic order quantity, fast moving, lead time, lot size, MRO, maximum inventory, ordering cost, physical inspection, reorder point

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Authors: H. Hammoudi, S. Bendenia, I. Batonneau-Gener, A. Khelifa

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Applying growing zeolites is due to their intrinsic physicochemical properties: a porous structure, regular, generating a large free volume, a high specific surface area, acidic properties of interest to the origin of their activity, selectivity energy and dimensional, leading to a screening phenomenon, hence the name of molecular sieves is generally attributed to them. Most of the special properties of zeolites have been valued as direct applications such as ion exchange, adsorption, separation and catalysis. Due to their crystalline structure stable, their large pore volume and their high content of cation X zeolites are widely used in the process of adsorption and separation. The acidic properties of zeolites X and interesting selectivity conferred on them their porous structure is also have potential catalysts. The study presented in this manuscript is devoted to the chemical modification of an X zeolite by cation exchange. Ion exchange of zeolite NaX by Zn 2 + cations and / or Cu 2 + is gradually conducted by following the evolution of some of its characteristics: crystallinity by XRD, micropore volume by nitrogen adsorption. Once characterized, the different samples will be used for the adsorption of propane and propylene. Particular attention is paid thereafter, on the modeling of adsorption isotherms. In this vein, various equations of adsorption isotherms and localized mobile, some taking into account the adsorbate-adsorbate interactions, are used to describe the experimental isotherms. We also used the Toth equation, a mathematical model with three parameters whose adjustment requires nonlinear regression. The last part is dedicated to the study of acid properties of Cu (x) X, Zn (x) X and CuZn (x) X, with the adsorption-desorption of pyridine followed by IR. The effect of substitution at different rates of Na + by Cu2 + cations and / or Zn 2 +, on the crystallinity and on the textural properties was treated. Some results on the morphology of the crystallites and the thermal effects during a temperature rise, obtained by scanning electron microscopy and DTA-TGA thermal analyzer, respectively, are also reported. The acidity of our different samples was also studied. Thus, the nature and strength of each type of acidity are estimated. The evaluation of these various features will provide a comparison between Cu (x) X, Zn (x) X and CuZn (x) X. One study on adsorption of C3H8 and C3H6 in NaX, Cu (x) X , Zn (x) x and CuZn (x) x has been undertaken.

Keywords: adsorption, acidity, ion exchange, zeolite

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Authors: Tippawan Nasawan

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The objective of this study is to find the replenishment policy in Assembly-to-Order manufacturing (ATO) which some of the major components have lead-time longer than customer lead-time. The variety of products, independent component demand, and long component lead-time are the difficulty that has resulted in the overstock problem. In addition, the ordering cost is trivial when compared to the cost of material of the major component. A conceptual design of the Decision Supporting System (DSS) has introduced to assist the replenishment policy. Component replenishment by using the variable which calls Available to Promise (ATP) for making the decision is one of the keys. The Poisson distribution is adopted to realize demand patterns in order to calculate Safety Stock (SS) at the specified Customer Service Level (CSL). When distribution cannot identify, nonparametric will be applied instead. The test result after comparing the ending inventory between the new policy and the old policy, the overstock has significantly reduced by 46.9 percent or about 469,891.51 US-Dollars for the cost of the major component (material cost only). Besides, the number of the major component inventory is also reduced by about 41 percent which helps to mitigate the chance of damage and keeping stock.

Keywords: Assembly-to-Order, Decision Supporting System, Component replenishment , Poisson distribution

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Authors: Faiza Mahi, Fatima Debbat, Mohamed Fayçal Khelfi

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This paper proposes a control approach using Fuzzy Lo system. More precisely, the study focuses on the improvement of users service in terms of analysis and control of a transportation system their waiting times in the exchange platforms of passengers. Many studies have been developed in the literature for such problematic, and many control tools are proposed. In this paper we focus on the use of fuzzy logic technique to control the system during its evolution in order to minimize the arrival gap of connected transportation means at the exchange points of passengers. An example of illustration is worked out and the obtained results are reported. an important area of research is the modeling and simulation ordering system. We describe an approach to analysis using Fuzzy Logic. The hybrid simulator developed in toolbox Matlab consists calculation of waiting time transportation mode.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic, Hybrid system, Waiting Time, Transportation system, Control

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Authors: Yuzhi Cai

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This talk presents a Bayesian approach to quantile autoregressive (QAR) time series model estimation and forecasting. We establish that the joint posterior distribution of the model parameters and future values is well defined. The associated MCMC algorithm for parameter estimation and forecasting converges to the posterior distribution quickly. We also present a combining forecasts technique to produce more accurate out-of-sample forecasts by using a weighted sequence of fitted QAR models. A moving window method to check the quality of the estimated conditional quantiles is developed. We verify our methodology using simulation studies and then apply it to currency exchange rate data. An application of the method to the USD to GBP daily currency exchange rates will also be discussed. The results obtained show that an unequally weighted combining method performs better than other forecasting methodology.

Keywords: combining forecasts, MCMC, quantile modelling, quantile forecasting, predictive density functions

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Authors: Nadine Wills

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The whole life thinking of buildings (independent if these are commercial properties or residential properties) will raise if incentive systems are provided to investors, planners and users. The Use of Building Information Modelling (BIM)-Systems offers planners the possibility to plan and re-plan buildings for decades after a period of utilization without spending many capacities. The strategy-incentive should be to plan the building in a way that makes rescheduling possible by changing just parameters in the system and not re-planning the whole building. If users receive the chance to patient incentive systems, the building stock will have a long life period. Business models of tenant electricity or self-controlled operating costs are incentive systems for building –users to let fixed running costs decline without producing damages due to wrong purposes. BIM is the controlling body to ensure that users do not abuse the incentive solution and take negative influence on the building stock. The investor benefits from the planner’s and user’s incentives: the fact that the building becomes useful for the whole life without making unnecessary investments provides possibilities to make investments in different assets. Moreover, the investor gains the facility to achieve higher rents by merchandise the property with low operating costs. To execute BIM offers whole property life cycles.

Keywords: BIM, incentives, life cycle, sustainability

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Authors: F. A. F. da Ponte, J. Q. Malveira, I. A. Maciel, M. C. G. Albuquerque

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In this work aviation, biofuel production was studied by fatty acids (C6 to C16) esterification. The process variables in heterogeneous catalysis were evaluated using an experimental design. Temperature and reaction time were the studied parameters, and the methyl esters content was the response of the experimental design. An ion exchange resin was used as a heterogeneous catalyst. The process optimization was carried out using response surface methodology (RSM) and polynomial model of second order. Results show that the most influential variables on the linear coefficient of each effect studied were temperature and reaction time. The best result of methyl esters conversion in the experimental design was under the conditions: 10% wt of catalyst; 100 °C and 4 hours of reaction. The best-achieved conversion was 96.5% wt of biofuel.

Keywords: esterification, ion-exchange resins, response surface methodology, biofuel

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Authors: Anupam Purwar

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In conventional consumer product industry, stockouts are taken care by carrying buffer stock to check underserving caused by changes in customer demand, incorrect forecast or variability in lead times. But, for food outlets, the alternate of carrying buffer stock is unviable because of indispensable need to serve freshly cooked meals. Besides, the food outlet being the sole provider has no incentives to reduce stockouts, as they have no fear of losing revenue, gross profit, customers and market share. Hence, innovative, easy to implement and practical ways of addressing the twin problem of long queues and poor customer experience needs to be investigated. Current work analyses the demand pattern of 11 different food items across a routine day. Based on this optimum resource allocation for all food items has been carried out by solving a linear programming problem with cost minimization as the objective. Concurrently, recommendations have been devised to address this demand and supply side problem keeping in mind their practicability. Currently, the recommendations are being discussed and implemented at ISB (Indian School of Business) Hyderabad campus.

Keywords: F&B industry, resource allocation, demand management, linear programming, LP, queuing analysis

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Authors: George Madalin Danila, Mihaiella Cretu, Cristian Puscasu

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The recycling of used antifreeze/coolant is a widely discussed and intricate issue. Complying with government regulations for the proper disposal of hazardous waste poses a significant challenge for today's automotive and industrial industries. In recent years, global focus has shifted toward Earth's fragile ecology, emphasizing the need to restore and preserve the natural environment. The business and industrial sectors have undergone substantial changes to adapt and offer products tailored to these evolving markets. The global antifreeze market size was evaluated at US 5.4 billion in 2020 to reach USD 5,9 billion by 2025 due to the increased number of vehicles worldwide, but also to the growth of HVAC systems. This study presents the evaluation of an ion exchange resin-based installation designed for the recycling of engine coolants, specifically ethylene glycol (EG) and propylene glycol (PG). The recycling process aims to restore the coolant to meet the stringent ASTM standards for both new and recycled coolants. A combination of physical-chemical methods, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was employed to analyze and validate the purity and performance of the recycled product. The experimental setup included performance tests, namely corrosion to glassware and the tendency to foaming of coolant, to assess the efficacy of the recycled coolants in comparison to new coolant standards. The results demonstrate that the recycled EG coolants exhibit comparable quality to new coolants, with all critical parameters falling within the acceptable ASTM limits. This indicates that the ion exchange resin method is a viable and efficient solution for the recycling of engine coolants, offering an environmentally friendly alternative to the disposal of used coolants while ensuring compliance with industry standards.

Keywords: engine coolant, glycols, recycling, ion exchange resin, circular economy

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Authors: Juan Antonio Mondragon Sanchez, Ruben Santamaria

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The DNA G-quadruplex is a four-stranded DNA structure conformed by stacked planes of four base paired guanines (G-quartet). The guanine rich DNA sequences are present in many sites of genomic DNA and can potentially lead to the formation of G-quadruplexes, especially at the 3'-terminus of the human telomeric DNA with many TTAGGG repeats. The formation and stabilization of a G-quadruplex by small ligands at the telomeric region can inhibit the telomerase activity. In turn, the ligands can be used to regulate oncogene expression making the G-quadruplex an attractive target for anticancer therapy. Clearly, the G-quadruplex structured in the telomeric DNA is of fundamental importance for rational drug design. In this context, we investigate two G-quadruplex structures, the first follows from the sequence TTAGGG(TTAGGG)3TT (HUT1), and the second from AAAGGG(TTAGGG)3AA (HUT2), both in a K+ solution. We determine the free energy surfaces of the HUT1 and HUT2 structures and investigate their conformations using replica-exchange metadynamics simulations. The carbonyl-carbonyl distances belonging to different guanines residues are selected as the main collective variables to determine the free energy surfaces. The surfaces exhibit two main local minima, compatible with experiments on the conformational transformations of HUT1 and HUT2 under substitution of the K+ ions by the Na+ ions. The conformational transitions are not observed in short MD simulations without the use of the metadynamics approach. The results of this work should be of help to understand the formation and stability of human telomeric G-quadruplex in environments including the presence of K+ and Na+ ions.

Keywords: g-quadruplex, metadynamics, molecular dynamics, replica-exchange

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Authors: Lajmi Azhaar, Yab Mdallelah

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This study examines the Tunisian market in which recent events, notably financial scandals, provide an appropriate framework for studying the impact of corporate governance on the audit report lag. Moreover, very little research has been done to examine this relationship in this context. The objective of this work is, therefore, to understand the factors influencing audit report lag, drawing primarily on agency theory (Jensen and Meckling, 1976), which shows that the characteristics of the board of directors have an impact on the report lag (independence, diligence, and size). In addition, the characteristics of the committee also have an impact on the audit report lag (size, independence, diligence, and expertise). Therefore, our research provides empirical evidence on the impact of governance mechanisms attributes on audit report lag. Using a sample of forty-seven (47) Tunisian companies listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange (BVMT) during the period from 2014 to 2019, and basing on the GMM method of the dynamic panel, multivariate analysis shows that most corporate governance attributes have a significant effect on audit report lag. Specifically, the audit committee diligence and the audit committee expertise have a significant and positive effect on audit report lag. But the diligence of the board has a significant and negative effect on audit report lag. However, this study finds no evidence that the audit committee independence, the size, independence, and diligence of the director’s board are associated with the audit report lag. In addition, the results of this study also show that there is a significant effect of some control variables. Finally, we are contributing to this study by using the GMM method of the dynamic panel. We are also using an emerging context that is very poorly developed and exploited by previous studies.

Keywords: governance mechanisms, audit committee, board of directors, audit report lag

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Authors: Abdel Rahman Altakhaineh, Mohamma Alaghawat, Hiba Alhendi

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This paper reports an investigation of the comprehension of English compound nouns by sixty Arabic-speaking English Foreign Language (EFL) learners majoring in English at the University of Jordan, Amman. The investigation focused on the problems that these learners may encounter in understanding certain types of compounds and their ability to use their L1 compound noun knowledge to produce the meaning of L2 compound nouns. Participants whose English proficiency level was advanced underwent a test to identify the meaning ofan underlined compound without using a dictionary. Theresponses to the three different types of compounds were analyzed usingTwo-Way repeated measures ANOVA, and the results showed that there were different endocentric and exocentric compound responses within subordinative compounds, with a statistically significant difference between the two in favor of endocentric compounds. We argue that the endocentric, especially subordinative endocentric compounds,weremore easily understood due to its representative nature, i.e., because the head represents the meaning of the whole compound. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for teaching compound nouns.

Keywords: morphology, compounding, SLA, arabic-speaking EFL learners

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Authors: C. C. Chima, C. J. M. Anumaka

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This study evaluates environmental disclosures on the financial performance of quoted industrial goods manufacturing sectors in Nigeria. The study employed a quasi-experimental research design to establish the relationship that exists between the environmental disclosure index and financial performance indices (return on assets - ROA, return on equity - ROE, and earnings per share - EPS). A purposeful sampling technique was employed to select five (5) industrial goods manufacturing sectors quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Secondary data covering 2011 to 2020 financial years were extracted from annual reports of the study sectors using a content analysis method. The data were analyzed using SPSS, Version 23. Panel Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression method was employed in estimating the unknown parameters in the study’s regression model after conducting diagnostic and preliminary tests to ascertain that the data set are reliable and not misleading. Empirical results show that there is an insignificant negative relationship between the environmental disclosure index (EDI) and the performance indices (ROA, ROE, and EPS) of the industrial goods manufacturing sectors in Nigeria. The study recommends that: only relevant information which increases the performance indices should appear on the disclosure checklist; environmental disclosure practices should be country-specific; and company executives in Nigeria should increase and monitor the level of investment (resources, time, and energy) in order to ensure that environmental disclosure has a significant impact on financial performance.

Keywords: earnings per share, environmental disclosures, return on assets, return on equity

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Authors: Maruska Vizek, Josip Glaurdic, Marina Tkalec, Goran Vuksic

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We empirically explore whether and how taxation affects bilateral real exchange rates in the euro area – relative unit labor costs and relative consumer price indices. We find that employers’ social security contributions and the value added tax changes have the expected effects put forward in the fiscal devaluation literature and simulations. Increases in employers’ contributions appreciate the relative unit labor costs in the short- and the long-run, while value added tax hike appreciates the relative consumer prices. Somewhat surprisingly, for personal income tax increases, we find a short-run depreciating impact on the relative unit labor costs, while increases in employees’ contributions depreciate both measures of real exchange rates in the short-run.

Keywords: sovereign bonds, European Union, developing countries, political determinants

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Authors: Abeer Ahmed Abdelhamed

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Introduction: Postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) are the most common complications observed and managed after abdominal or cardiothoracic surgery. Hypoxemia, atelectasis, pleural effusion, or diaphragmatic dysfunction, are often a source of morbidity in cardiac surgery patients, and are more common in patients receiving unilateral or bilateral internal mammary artery (IMT) grafts than patients receiving saphenous vein (SV) grafts alone. Purpose: The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of Threshold load inspiratory muscle training on pulmonary gas exchange and maximum inspiratory pressure (MIP) in patient undergoing coronary revascularization. Subject: Thirty three male patients eligible for coronary revascularization were selected to participate in the study. Method: They were divided into two groups(17 patients in the intervention group and 16 patients in the control group), the interventional group received inspiratory muscle training at 30% of their maximum inspiratory pressure throughout the hospitalization period in addition to routine post operative care. Result: The results of this study showed a significant improvement on maximum inspiratory pressure(MIP), Arterial-alveolar pressure gradient (A-a gradient) and oxygen saturation in the intervention group. Conclusion: Inspiratory muscle training using threshold mode significantly improves maximum inspiratory pressure, pulmonary gas exchange tested by alveolar-arterial gradient and oxygen saturation in Patients undergoing coronary revascularization.

Keywords: coronary revascularization, inspiratory muscle training, maximum inspiratory pressure, pulmonary gas exchange

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Authors: Balgaisha Mukanova, Natalya Glazyrina, Sergey Glazyrin

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The formulated problem of optimization of the technological process of water treatment for thermal power plants is considered in this article. The problem is of multiparametric nature. To optimize the process, namely, reduce the amount of waste water, a new technology was developed to reuse such water. A mathematical model of the technology of wastewater reuse was developed. Optimization parameters were determined. The model consists of a material balance equation, an equation describing the kinetics of ion exchange for the non-equilibrium case and an equation for the ion exchange isotherm. The material balance equation includes a nonlinear term that depends on the kinetics of ion exchange. A direct problem of calculating the impurity concentration at the outlet of the water treatment plant was numerically solved. The direct problem was approximated by an implicit point-to-point computation difference scheme. The inverse problem was formulated as relates to determination of the parameters of the mathematical model of the water treatment plant operating in non-equilibrium conditions. The formulated inverse problem was solved. Following the results of calculation the time of start of the filter regeneration process was determined, as well as the period of regeneration process and the amount of regeneration and wash water. Multi-parameter optimization of water treatment process for thermal power plants allowed decreasing the amount of wastewater by 15%.

Keywords: direct problem, multiparametric optimization, optimization parameters, water treatment

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Authors: Allaeddine Athmani, Abdelhacine Gouasmia, Tiago Ferreira, Romeu Vicente

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The seismic risk mitigation from the perspective of the old buildings stock is truly essential in Algerian urban areas, particularly those located in seismic prone regions, such as Annaba city, and which the old buildings present high levels of degradation associated with no seismic strengthening and/or rehabilitation concerns. In this sense, the present paper approaches the issue of the seismic vulnerability assessment of old masonry building stocks through the adaptation of a simplified methodology developed for a European context area similar to that of Annaba city, Algeria. Therefore, this method is used for the first level of seismic vulnerability assessment of the masonry buildings stock of the old city center of Annaba. This methodology is based on a vulnerability index that is suitable for the evaluation of damage and for the creation of large-scale loss scenarios. Over 380 buildings were evaluated in accordance with the referred methodology and the results obtained were then integrated into a Geographical Information System (GIS) tool. Such results can be used by the Annaba city council for supporting management decisions, based on a global view of the site under analysis, which led to more accurate and faster decisions for the risk mitigation strategies and rehabilitation plans.

Keywords: Damage scenarios, masonry buildings, old city center, seismic vulnerability, vulnerability index

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Authors: Malakeh Zuhdi Malak, Mahmoud Taher Kalaldeh

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In Jordan, no available data exists regarding violence and unintentional injuries among secondary school students aged 15-19 years. The purpose of this study was to assess the violence and unintentional injuries among those students, and to compare these two behaviors between male and female students. A descriptive cross-sectional design was carried out on randomly selected eight comprehensive secondary schools (four schools for females and four schools for males) from the public school educational directorate located in Amman. A modified Arabic version of the General School Health Survey questionnaire was used to measure violence and unintentional injuries. A sample of 750 secondary school students was studied. The findings showed that 26.8 % of students had been physically attacked. Overall, 43.3 % of students had been involved in a physical fight and 20.1% of them had been bullied. Overall, 45.3% of students were seriously injured. There was a difference between male and female students regarding to physical attack, physical fight, and serious injuries. In conclusion, it is necessary to develop effective training program in life skills for students that functions to reduce risk-taking behaviors that often leading to violence and unintentional injuries.

Keywords: secondary school students, violence, unintentional injuries, bullying

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Authors: Mohammad Salem Abdullah Alhwaiti

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This study was conducted to assess the physical, chemical, and radionuclide concentrations of pharmaceutical industrial wastewater effluents. Fourteen wastewater samples were collected from pharmaceutical industries. The results showed a marked reduction in the levels of TH, Mg, and Ca concentration in wastewater limit for properties and criteria for discharge of wastewater to streams or wadies or water bodies in the effluent, whereas TSS and TDS showed higher concentration allowable for discharge of wastewater to streams or wadies or water bodies. The gross α activity in all the wastewater samples ranged between (0.086-0.234 Bq/L) lowered the 0.1 Bq/L limit set by World Health Organization (WHO), whereas gross β activity in few samples ranged between (2.565-4.800 Bq/L), indicating the higher limit set by WHO. Gamma spectroscopy revealed that K-40, Cr-51, Co-60, I-131, Cs-137, and U-238 activity are ≤0.114 Bq/L, ≤0.062 Bq/L, ≤0.00815Bq/L, ≤0.00792Bq/L, ≤0.00956 Bq/L, and ≤0.151 Bq/L, respectively, indicating lowest concentrations of these radionuclides in the pharmaceutical industrial wastewater effluents.

Keywords: pharmaceutical wastewater, gross α/β activity, radionuclides, Jordan

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Authors: Nnadi Ezekiel Ejiofor

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The construction industry plays a decisive role in the healthy development of any nation. Not only large but even small construction projects contribute to a country’s economic growth. There is a need for good management to ensure successful delivery and sustainability because of the plethora of risks that have resulted in low-profit margins for contractors, cost and schedule overruns, poor quality delivery, and abandoned projects. This research reviewed Capitalization on Sustainable Risk Management. Questionnaires and oral interviews conducted were utilized as means of data collection. One hundred and ninety-eight (198) large construction firms in Nigeria form the population of this study. 15 (fifteen) companies that emanated from merger and acquisition were used for the study. The instruments used for data collection were a researcher-developed structured questionnaire based on a five-point rating scale, interviews, focus group discussion, and secondary sources (bill of quantities and stock and exchange commission). The instrument was validated by two experts in the field. The reliability of the instrument was established by applying the split-half method. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance was used to test the data, and a degree of agreement was obtained. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics and analyzed using analysis of variance, t-test, and SPSS. The identified impacts of capitalization were an increase in turnover (24.5%), improvement in the image (24.5%), risk reduction (20%), business expansion (17.3%), and geographical spread (13.6%). The study strongly advocates the inclusion of risk management evaluation as part of the construction procurement process.

Keywords: capitalization, project delivery, risks, risk management, sustainability

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Authors: Edoghogho Ogbeifun, Charles Mbohwa, J. H. C. Pretorius

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Effective infrastructure development scheme planned and executed has positive influence on the quantity of available stock of infrastructure to meet the immediate and expansion needs of an organization, as well as contribute to the overall economic development of a nation, community or the local entity where the infrastructure is hosted. It is noteworthy, however, that infrastructure development scheme spans a long time frame, usually longer than the political life of the administration that initiates the scheme. In the majority of circumstances, execution may start and achieve different levels of completion; at best, only limited numbers are completed and put into functional use during the life of the administration that initiated the infrastructure scheme. When there is a change in leadership, many of the uncompleted projects are usually abandoned. The new administration repeats the circle of its predecessors and develops another set of infrastructure scheme which will suffer similar fate as the ones developed by their predecessors; thus doting the landscape with many uncompleted projects, which leads to infrastructure deficit. These circle will continue unless each succeeding leader sees governance as single continuum. Therefore, infrastructure projects not completed by one administration should be continued by succeeding administration, in order to increase the stock of relevant infrastructure available for the smooth operations organization and enhance the needed developments, as well as reduce the negative effects of infrastructure deficit. The single case study of qualitative research method was adopted to investigate the actions of the administration of three successive Vice-Chancellors, in a higher education institution in Nigeria, over a longitudinal period of twelve years. This is with a view to exploring the effects of each administration on the development and execution of infrastructure projects, with particular interest on abandoned projects. The findings revealed that although two of Vice-Chancellors were committed to infrastructure upgrade, they executed more new projects than completing abandoned ones, while the current leader has shown more pragmatism in completing abandoned projects alongside constructing new ones; thus demonstrating the importance of the continuity of governance. In this regard, there is a steady increase in the stock of infrastructure to accommodate the expansion of existing academic programmes, host new ones as well as reduce the negative effects of infrastructure deficit caused by abandoned projects.

Keywords: abandoned projects, continuity of governance, infrastructure development scheme, long time frame

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Authors: Yingjeng James Li, Lung-Yu Sung, Huan-Jyun Ciou

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Durability of Membrane Electrode Assembly for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells was evaluated in both steady state and accelerated decay modes. Steady state mode was carried out at constant current of 800mA / cm2 for 2500 hours using air as cathode feed and pure hydrogen as anode feed. The degradation of the cell voltage was 0.015V after such 2500 hrs operation. The degradation rate was therefore calculated to be 6uV / hr. Accelerated mode was carried out by switching the voltage of the single cell between OCV and 0.2V. The durations held at OCV and 0.2V were 20 and 40 seconds, respectively, meaning one minute per cycle. No obvious change in performance of the MEA was observed after 10000 cycles of such operation.

Keywords: durability, lifetime, membrane electrode assembly, proton exchange membrane fuel cells

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Authors: Jingjing Huang, Nengwei Li, Guanghua Wei, Jiabin You, Chao Wang, Junliang Zhang

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In this work, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is applied to analyze the mass transport process in the cathode of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), of which all types of molecules situated in the cathode is considered. a reasonable and effective MD simulation process is provided, and models were built and compared using both Materials Studio and LAMMPS. The mass transport is one of the key issues in the study of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). In this report, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is applied to analyze the influence of Nafion ionomer distribution and Pt nano-particle size on mass transport process in the cathode. It is indicated by the diffusion coefficients calculation that a larger quantity of Nafion, as well as a higher equivalent weight (EW) value, will hinder the transport of oxygen. In addition, medium-sized Pt nano-particles (1.5~2nm) are more advantageous in terms of proton transport compared with other particle sizes (0.94~2.55nm) when the center-to-center distance between two Pt nano-particles is around 5 nm. Then mass transport channels are found to be formed between the hydrophobic backbone and the hydrophilic side chains of Nafion ionomer according to the radial distribution function (RDF) curves. And the morphology of these channels affected by the Pt size is believed to influence the transport of hydronium ions and, consequently the performance of PEMFC.

Keywords: cathode catalytic layer, mass transport, molecular dynamics, proton exchange membrane fuel cell

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Authors: Catherine Heyjung Sonu

Abstract:

This paper examines the effect of accounting quality on the process in which stock price is determined by focusing on contribution-in-kind valuations using Korean setting. In Korea, a number of chaebol firms have transformed into holding company system starting in 2003. With an attempt to gain as much voting right, management sold shares of subsidiaries to purchase shares of the holding company. In so doing, management of these firms received share issues for the contribution in kind that has been made to obtain additional shares of the holding company. The price of these share issues against contribution in kind is allowed to be discounted up to 30%. Using this interesting setting in Korea, this paper examines whether accounting quality affects the extent of the discount applied to the share issues. If the accounting quality of the firm for which the management is receiving share issues is poor, the extent of discount is likely to be high. The extent of discount is likely lower for firms with superior accounting quality. Using 24 cases, we find that, on average, the extent of discount is larger for share issues in which the accounting quality, proxied by the absolute value of discretionary accruals, is poor. This paper provides insight by examining the effect of accounting quality on the stock market. It sheds light on the intersection between finance and accounting research and should be of interest to researchers and practitioners.

Keywords: Accounting quality, Contribution-in-kind, discount, holding company

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Authors: H. Baltache, M. El Amine. Monir, R. Khenata, D. Rached, T. Seddik

Abstract:

The first principles calculations based on the density functional theory (DFT) by using the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) in order to investigate the structural and electronic properties of Cd1-xVxS alloy at x = 0.25 in zincblende structure. For the structural properties, we have calculated the equilibrium lattice parameters, such as lattice constant, bulk modulus and first pressure derivatives of the bulk modulus. From the electronic structure, we obtain that Cd0.75V0.25S alloy is nearly half-metallic. The analysis of the density of states (DOS) curves allow to evaluate the spin-exchange splitting energies Δx(d) and Δx(pd) that are generated by V-3d states, where the effective potential for spin-down case is attractive than for spin-up case. Calculations of the exchange constants N0α (valence band) and N0β (conduction band) are served to describe the magnetic behavior of the compounds.

Keywords: first-principles calculations, structural properties, electronic properties

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Authors: Nipun Manirajan, Heeralal Gargama, Sushil Guhe, Manoj Prabhakaran

Abstract:

In railway industry, train sets are designed based on contractual requirements (mission profile), where reliability targets are measured in terms of mean distance between failures (MDBF). However, during the beginning of revenue services, trains do not achieve the designed mission profile distance (mileage) within the timeframe due to infrastructure constraints, scarcity of commuters or other operational challenges thereby not respecting the original design inputs. Since trains do not run sufficiently and do not achieve the designed mileage within the specified time, car builder has a risk of not achieving the contractual MDBF target. This paper proposes a constant failure rate based model to deal with the situations where mileage accumulation is not a part of the design mission profile. The model provides appropriate MDBF target to be demonstrated based on actual accumulated mileage. A case study of rolling stock running in the field is undertaken to analyze the failure data and MDBF target demonstration during low mileage accumulation. The results of case study prove that with the proposed method, reliability targets are achieved under low mileage accumulation.

Keywords: mean distance between failures, mileage-based reliability, reliability target appropriations, rolling stock reliability

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Authors: Tiron-Tudor Adriana, Farcas Teodora Viorica, Ciolomic Ioana Andreea

Abstract:

The issue of human capital mobility inside Europe is still an open one. Even though there were created some tools in order to better move from one country to another to work and study the number of the people doing this is very low because of various factors presented in this paper. The "rethinking educational" agenda of the European Commission has open the floor for new projects which can create steps towards a European language for skills and competences, qualifications. One of these projects is the Partnership for Exchange of experience in Student on-the-job Training. As part of this project, we are interested to see the situation of the human capital inside EU and the elements that were created until now to support this mobility. Also, the main objective of the project is to make a comparison between the four countries involved in PEST project (Romania, Hungary, Finland, and Estonia), at the education and internship level. The results are helpful for the follow of the project, for identifying where changes can be done and need to be done.

Keywords: ECVET, human capital mobility, partnership exchange, students on the job mobility, vocational education and training

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