Search results for: opportunity for development

Authors: Indu Elizabeth

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Antimony/Multi Walled Carbon nano tube nanocomposite (Sb/MWCNT) is synthesized using ethylene glycol mediated reduction process. Binder free, self-supporting and flexible Sb/MWCNT nanocomposite paper has been prepared by employing the vacuum filtration technique. The samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy (RS), and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) to evaluate the structure of anode and tested for its performance in a Lithium rechargeable cell. Electrochemical measurements demonstrate that the Sb/MWCNT composite paper anode delivers a specific discharge capacity of ~400 mAh g-1 up to a current density of 100 mA g-1.

Keywords: antimony, lithium ion battery, multiwalled carbon nanotube, specific capacity

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Authors: N. Mahon, I. Crute, M. Di Bonito, E. Simmons, M. M. Islam

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Growing interest in the concept of the sustainable intensification (SI) of agriculture has been shown by, national governments, transnational agribusinesses, intergovernmental organizations and research institutes, amongst others. This interest may be because SI is seen as a ‘third way’ for agricultural development, between the seemingly disparate paradigms of ‘intensive’ agriculture and more ‘sustainable’ forms of agriculture. However, there is a lack of consensus as to what SI means in practice and how it should be measured using indicators of change. This has led to growing confusion, disagreement and skepticism regarding the concept, especially amongst civil society organizations, both in the UK and other countries. This has prompted the need for bottom-up, participatory approaches to identify indicators of SI. Our aim is to identify the views of British stakeholders regarding the areas of agreement and disagreement as to what SI is and how it should be measured in the UK using indicators of change. Data for this investigation came from 32 semi-structured interviews, conducted between 2015 and 2016, with stakeholders from throughout the UK food system. In total 110 indicators of SI were identified. These indicators covered a wide variety of subjects including biophysical, social and political considerations. A number of indicators appeared to be widely applicable and were similar to those suggested in the global literature. These include indicators related to the management of the natural resources on which agriculture relies e.g., ‘Soil organic matter’, ‘Number of pollinators per hectare’ and ‘Depth of water table’. As well as those related to agricultural externalities, e.g., ‘Greenhouse gas emissions’ and ‘Concentrations of agro-chemicals in waterways’. However, many of the indicators were much more specific to the context of the UK. These included, ‘Areas of high nature value farmland’, ‘Length of hedgerows per hectare’ and ‘Age of farmers’. Furthermore, tensions could be seen when participants considered the relative importance of agricultural mechanization versus levels of agricultural employment, the pros and cons of intensive, housed livestock systems and value of wild biodiversity versus the desire to increase agricultural yields. These areas of disagreement suggest the need to carefully consider the trade-offs inherent in the concept. Our findings indicate that in order to begin to resolve the confusions surrounding SI it needs to be considered in a context specific manner, rather than as a single uniform concept. Furthermore, both the environmental and the social parameters in which agriculture operates need to be considered in order to operationalize SI in a meaningful way. We suggest that participatory approaches are key to this process, facilitating dialogue and collaborative-learning between all the stakeholders, allowing them to reach a shared vision for the future of agricultural development.

Keywords: agriculture, indicators, participatory approach, sustainable intensification

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Authors: Marzena Tomaszewska, Beata Bilska, Danuta Kolozyn-Krajewska

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Food loss and food waste are a global problem of the modern economy. The research undertaken aimed to analyze how food is handled in catering establishments when it comes to food waste and to demonstrate main ways of management with foods/dishes not served to consumers. A survey study was conducted from January to June 2019. The selection of catering establishments participating in the study was deliberate. The study included establishments located only in Mazowieckie Voivodeship (Poland). 42 completed questionnaires were collected. In some questions, answers were based on a 5-point scale of 1 to 5 (from 'always'/'every day' to 'never'). The survey also included closed questions with a suggested cafeteria of answers. The respondents stated that in their workplaces, dishes served cold and hot ready meals are discarded every day or almost every day (23.7% and 20.5% of answers respectively). A procedure most frequently used for dealing with dishes not served to consumers on a given day is their storage at a cool temperature until the following day. In the research, 1/5 of respondents admitted that consumers 'always' or 'usually' leave uneaten meals on their plates, and over 41% 'sometimes' do so. It was found additionally that food not used in food service sector is most often thrown into a public container for rubbish. Most often thrown into the public container (with communal trash) were: expired products (80.0%), plate waste (80.0%), and inedible products (fruit and vegetable peels, egg shells) (77.5%). Most frequently into the container dedicated only for food waste were thrown out used deep-frying oil (62.5%). 10% of respondents indicated that inedible products in their workplaces is allocate for animal feeds. Food waste in the food service sector still remains an insufficiently studied issue, as owners of these objects are often unwilling to disclose data pertaining to the subject. Incorrect ways of management with foods not served to consumers were observed. There is the need to develop the educational activities for employees and management in the context of food waste management in the food service sector. This publication has been developed under the contract with the National Center for Research and Development No Gospostrateg1/385753/1/NCBR/2018 for carrying out and funding of a project implemented as part of the 'The social and economic development of Poland in the conditions of globalizing markets - GOSPOSTRATEG' program entitled 'Developing a system for monitoring wasted food and an effective program to rationalize losses and reduce food wastage' (acronym PROM).

Keywords: food waste, inedible products, plate waste, used deep-frying oil

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Authors: Felippe Clemente, Evaldo Henrique da Silva

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The need to adopt some type of industrial policy and innovation in Brazil is a recurring theme in the discussion of public interventions aimed at boosting economic growth. For many years, the country has adopted various policies to change its productive structure in order to increase the participation of sectors that would have the greatest potential to generate innovation and economic growth. Only in the 2000s, tax incentives as a policy to support industrial and technological innovation are being adopted in Brazil as a phenomenon associated with rates of productivity growth and economic development. In this context, in late 2004 and 2005, Brazil reformulated its institutional apparatus for innovation in order to approach the OECD conventions and the Frascati Manual. The Innovation Law (2004) and the 'Lei do Bem' (2005) reduced some institutional barriers to innovation, provided incentives for university-business cooperation, and modified access to tax incentives for innovation. Chapter III of the 'Lei do Bem' (no. 11,196/05) is currently the most comprehensive fiscal incentive to stimulate innovation. It complies with the requirements, which stipulates that the Union should encourage innovation in the company or industry by granting tax incentives. With its introduction, the bureaucratic procedure was simplified by not requiring pre-approval of projects or participation in bidding documents. However, preliminary analysis suggests that this instrument has not yet been able to stimulate the sector diversification of these investments in Brazil, since its benefits are mostly captured by sectors that already developed this activity, thus showing problems with moral hazard. It is necessary, then, to analyze the 'Lei do Bem' to know if there is indeed the need for some change, investigating what changes should be implanted in the Brazilian innovation policy. This work, therefore, shows itself as a first effort to analyze a current national problem, evaluating the effectiveness of the 'Lei do Bem' and suggesting public policies that help and direct the State to the elaboration of legislative laws capable of encouraging agents to follow what they describes. As a preliminary result, it is known that 130 firms used fiscal incentives for innovation in 2006, 320 in 2007 and 552 in 2008. Although this number is on the rise, it is still small, if it is considered that there are around 6 thousand firms that perform Research and Development (R&D) activities in Brazil. Moreover, another obstacle to the 'Lei do Bem' is the percentages of tax incentives provided to companies. These percentages reveal a significant sectoral correlation between R&D expenditures of large companies and R&D expenses of companies that accessed the 'Lei do Bem', reaching a correlation of 95.8% in 2008. With these results, it becomes relevant to investigate the law's ability to stimulate private investments in R&D.

Keywords: brazilian innovation system, moral hazard, R&D, Lei do Bem

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Authors: J. Otegui, M. Agirre, M. A. Cestau, H. Erauskin

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The increasing accessibility of mid-priced additive manufacturing (AM) systems offers a chance to incorporate this technology into engineering instruction. Furthermore, AM facilitates the creation of manufacturing designs, enhancing the efficiency of various machines. One example of these machines is the Stirling cycle engine. It encompasses complex thermodynamic machinery, revealing various aspects of mechanical engineering expertise upon closer inspection. In this publication, the application of Stirling Engines fabricated via additive manufacturing techniques will be showcased for the purpose of instructive design and product enhancement. The performance of a Stirling engine's conventional displacer and piston is contrasted. The outcomes of utilizing this instructional tool in teaching are demonstrated.

Keywords: 3D printing, additive manufacturing, mechanical design, stirling engine.

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Authors: Mochammad Thalut

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This essay discusses how educational leadership response the Muslims pupils’ problems and their expectation about education in the UK. As we know, the Muslims community in the country is increasing. However, the debate about educational leadership is still limited to the separation between religion and academic by westerns approach. It is found that there are four major problems of Muslims pupils that need to solve by the educational leader to provide social justice in education. Leader-teacher as an Islamic concept of the educational leader is an alternative approach that can be used by the educational leader to overcome the problems. In the end, it is strongly recommended to bring this issue to the leadership development program in the UK to give all aspiring heads understanding about Muslims expectation about education.

Keywords: Muslim, education, leadership, identity

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Authors: Akbarova Gulnozakhon

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Relevance. Physical exercises can prolong the function of the growth zones of long tubular bones, delay the fusion of the epiphyses and diaphyses of bones and, thus, increase the growth of the body. At the same time, intensive strength exercises can accelerate the process of ossification of bone growth zones and slow down their growth in length. The influence of physical exercises on the process of biological maturation is noted. Gymnastics, which requires intense speed and strength loads, delays puberty. On the other hand, it is indicated that the relatively slow puberty of gymnasts is associated with the selection of girls with a special somatotype in this sport. It was found that the later onset of menstruation in female athletes does not have a negative effect on the maturation process and fertility (the ability to procreate). Observations are made about the normalizing influence of sports on the puberty of girls. The purpose of the study. Our goal is to study physical activity of varying intensity on the formation of secondary sexual characteristics and hormonal status of girls in adolescence. Each biological process peculiar to a given organism is not in a stationary state, but fluctuates with a certain frequency. According to the duration, there are, for example, circadian cycles, and infradian cycles, a typical example of which is the menstrual cycle. Materials and methods, results. Violations of menstrual function in athletes were detected by applying a questionnaire survey that contains several paragraphs and sub-paragraphs where passport data, anthropometric indicators, taking into account anthropometric indices, information about the menstrual cycle are indicated. Of 135 female athletes aged 1-3 to 16 years engaged in various sports - gymnasts, menstrual function disorders were noted in 86.7% (primary or secondary amenorrhea, irregular MC), in swimming-in 57.1%. The general condition also changes during the menstrual cycle. In a large percentage of cases, athletes indicate an increase in irritability in the premenstrual (45%) and menstrual (36%) phases. During these phases, girls note an increase in fatigue of 46.5% and 58% (respectively). In girls, secondary sexual characteristics continue to form during puberty and the clearest indicator of the onset of puberty is the age of the onset of the first menstruation - menarche. Conclusions. 1. Physical exercise has a positive effect on all major systems of the body and thus promotes health.2. Along with a beneficial effect on human health, physical exercise, if the requirements of sports are not observed, can be harmful.

Keywords: girls health, anthropometric, physical development, reproductive health

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Authors: Samira Baghbanbari, A. B. P. Lever, Payam S. Shabestari, Donald Weaver

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Existing signal transmission models, although undoubtedly useful, have proven insufficient to explain the full complexity of information transfer within the central nervous system. The development of transformative models will necessitate a more comprehensive understanding of neuronal lipid membrane electrophysiology. Pursuant to this goal, the role of highly organized interfacial phospholipid-water layers emerges as a promising case study. A series of phospholipids in neural-glial gap junction interfaces as well as cholesterol molecules have been computationally modelled using high-performance density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Subsequent 'charge decomposition analysis' calculations have revealed a net transfer of charge from phospholipid orbitals through the organized interfacial water layer before ultimately finding its way to cholesterol acceptor molecules. The specific pathway of charge transfer from phospholipid via water layers towards cholesterol has been mapped in detail. Cholesterol is an essential membrane component that is overrepresented in neuronal membranes as compared to other mammalian cells; given this relative abundance, its apparent role as an electronic acceptor may prove to be a relevant factor in further signal transmission studies of the central nervous system. The timescales over which this electronic charge transfer occurs have also been evaluated by utilizing a system design that systematically increases the number of water molecules separating lipids and cholesterol. Memory loss through hydrogen-bonded networks in water can occur at femtosecond timescales, whereas existing action potential-based models are limited to micro or nanosecond scales. As such, the development of future models that attempt to explain faster timescale signal transmission in the central nervous system may benefit from our work, which provides additional information regarding fast timescale energy transfer mechanisms occurring through interfacial water. The study possesses a dataset that includes six distinct phospholipids and a collection of cholesterol. Ten optimized geometric characteristics (features) were employed to conduct binary classification through an artificial neural network (ANN), differentiating cholesterol from the various phospholipids. This stems from our understanding that all lipids within the first group function as electronic charge donors, while cholesterol serves as an electronic charge acceptor.

Keywords: charge transfer, signal transmission, phospholipids, water layers, ANN

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Authors: Martina Katalin Szabó, Bernadett Lipóczi, Csenge Guba, István Uveges

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In this study, an exhaustive analysis was carried out about the historical development of negative emotive intensifiers in the Hungarian language via NLP methods. Intensifiers are linguistic elements which modify or reinforce a variable character in the lexical unit they apply to. Therefore, intensifiers appear with other lexical items, such as adverbs, adjectives, verbs, infrequently with nouns. Due to the complexity of this phenomenon (set of sociolinguistic, semantic, and historical aspects), there are many lexical items which can operate as intensifiers. The group of intensifiers are admittedly one of the most rapidly changing elements in the language. From a linguistic point of view, particularly interesting are a special group of intensifiers, the so-called negative emotive intensifiers, that, on their own, without context, have semantic content that can be associated with negative emotion, but in particular cases, they may function as intensifiers (e.g.borzasztóanjó ’awfully good’, which means ’excellent’). Despite their special semantic features, negative emotive intensifiers are scarcely examined in literature based on large Historical corpora via NLP methods. In order to become better acquainted with trends over time concerning the intensifiers, The exhaustively analysed a specific historical corpus, namely the Magyar TörténetiSzövegtár (Hungarian Historical Corpus). This corpus (containing 3 millions text words) is a collection of texts of various genres and styles, produced between 1772 and 2010. Since the corpus consists of raw texts and does not contain any additional information about the language features of the data (such as stemming or morphological analysis), a large amount of manual work was required to process the data. Thus, based on a lexicon of negative emotive intensifiers compiled in a previous phase of the research, every occurrence of each intensifier was queried, and the results were stored in a separate data frame. Then, basic linguistic processing (POS-tagging, lemmatization etc.) was carried out automatically with the ‘magyarlanc’ NLP-toolkit. Finally, the frequency and collocation features of all the negative emotive words were automatically analyzed in the corpus. Outcomes of the research revealed in detail how these words have proceeded through grammaticalization over time, i.e., they change from lexical elements to grammatical ones, and they slowly go through a delexicalization process (their negative content diminishes over time). What is more, it was also pointed out which negative emotive intensifiers are at the same stage in this process in the same time period. Giving a closer look to the different domains of the analysed corpus, it also became certain that during this process, the pragmatic role’s importance increases: the newer use expresses the speaker's subjective, evaluative opinion at a certain level.

Keywords: historical corpus analysis, historical linguistics, negative emotive intensifiers, semantic changes over time

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Authors: Yufeng Wu, Yifan Gu, Bin Li, Wei Wang

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Resource recycling process contains a subsystem with interactions of three dimensions including coupling allocation of primary and secondary resources, responsibility coordination of stakeholders in forward and reverse supply chains, and trans-boundary transfer of hidden resource and environmental responsibilities between regions. Overlap or lack of responsibilities is easy to appear at the intersection of the three management dimensions. It is urgent to make an overall design of the policy system for recycling resources. From theoretical perspective, this paper analyzes the unique external differences of resource and environment in various dimensions and explores the reason why the effects of trans-dimensional policies are strongly correlated. Taking the example of the copper resources contained in the waste electrical and electronic equipment, this paper constructs reduction effect accounting model of resources recycling and set four trans-dimensional policy scenarios including resources tax and environmental tax reform of the raw and secondary resources, application of extended producer responsibility system, promotion of clean development mechanism, and strict entry barriers of imported wastes. In these ways, the paper simulates the impact effect of resources recycling process on resource deduction and emission reduction of waste water and gas, and constructs trans-dimensional policy mix scenario through integrating dominant strategy. The results show that combined application of various dimensional policies can achieve incentive compatibility and the trans-dimensional policy mix scenario can reach a better effect. Compared with baseline scenario, this scenario will increase 91.06% copper resources reduction effect and improve emission reduction of waste water and gas by eight times from 2010 to 2030. This paper further analyzes the development orientation of policies in various dimension. In resource dimension, the combined application of compulsory, market and authentication methods should be promoted to improve the use ratio of secondary resources. In supply chain dimension, resource value, residual functional value and potential information value contained in waste products should be fully excavated to construct a circular business system. In regional dimension, it should give full play to the comparative advantages of manufacturing power to improve China’s voice in resource recycling in the world.

Keywords: resource recycling, trans-dimension, policy design, incentive compatibility, life cycle

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Authors: Tomáš Melichar, Jiří Bydžovský, Vít Černý

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In this article our research focused on study of basic physical and mechanical parameters of polymer-cement repair materials is presented. Namely the influence of applied aggregates in combination with active admixture is specially considered. New formulas which were exposed in ambient with temperature even to 1000°C were suggested. Subsequently densities and strength characteristics including their changes were evaluated. Selected samples were analyzed using electron microscope. The positive influence of porous aggregates based on sintered ash was definitely demonstrated. Further it was found than in terms of thermal resistance the effective micro silica amount represents 5% to 7.5% of cement weight.

Keywords: aggregate, ash, high, lightweight, microsilica, mortar, polymer-cement, repair, temperature

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Authors: Myriam Rudaz, Thomas Ledermann, Frank D. Fincham

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We provide initial findings on the development and validation of the Genuine Happiness Scale (GHS). Based on the Buddhist view of happiness, genuine happiness can be described as an unlimited, everlasting inner joy and peace that gives a person the inner resources to deal with whatever comes his or her way in life. The sample consisted of 678 young adults, with 432 adults participating twice, approximately six weeks apart. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a unidimensional factor structure of the GHS. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that caring for bliss, mindfulness, and compassion predicted genuine happiness longitudinally above and beyond genuine happiness at baseline. We discuss the usefulness of the GHS as an outcome measure for evaluating mindfulness- and compassion-based intervention programs.

Keywords: happiness, bliss, well-being, caring for bliss, mindfulness, compassion

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Authors: Almas Mukhametov, Dina Dautkanova, Moldir Yerbulekova, Gulim Tuyakova, Raziya Zhakudaeva, Makpal Seisenaly, Asemay Kazhymurat

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The composition of samples of mixtures of vegetable oils of Kazakhstan origin, consisting of sunflower, safflower and linseed oils, has been experimentally substantiated. With an approximate optimal ratio of w-6:w-3 fatty acids in 80:15:05 triacylglycerols, providing its therapeutic and prophylactic properties. The resulting mixture can be used in the development of functional products. The result was also identified and evaluated by physical and chemical quality indicators, the content of vitamin E, and the concentration of ions of copper (Cu), iron (Fe), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), nickel (Ni), as well as mercury (Hg).

Keywords: vegetable oil, sunflower, safflower, linseed, mixture, fatty acid composition, heavy metals

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Authors: Tefera Kebede Leyu

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The purpose of this study was to estimate the impact of LIVES project participation on the level of technical efficiency of farm households in three regions of Ethiopia. We used household-level data gathered by IRLI between February and April 2014 for the year 2013(retroactive). Data on 1,905 (754 intervention and 1, 151 control groups) sample households were analyzed using STATA software package version 14. Efforts were made to combine stochastic frontier modeling with impact evaluation methodology using the Heckman (1979) two-stage model to deal with possible selectivity bias arising from unobservable characteristics in the stochastic frontier model. Results indicate that farmers in the two groups are not efficient and operate below their potential frontiers i.e., there is a potential to increase crop productivity through efficiency improvements in both groups. In addition, the empirical results revealed selection bias in both groups of farmers confirming the justification for the use of selection bias corrected stochastic frontier model. It was also found that intervention farmers achieved higher technical efficiency scores than the control group of farmers. Furthermore, the selectivity bias-corrected model showed a different technical efficiency score for the intervention farmers while it more or less remained the same for that of control group farmers. However, the control group of farmers shows a higher dispersion as measured by the coefficient of variation compared to the intervention counterparts. Among the explanatory variables, the study found that farmer’s age (proxy to farm experience), land certification, frequency of visit to improved seed center, farmer’s education and row planting are important contributing factors for participation decisions and hence technical efficiency of farmers in the study areas. We recommend that policies targeting the design of development intervention programs in the agricultural sector focus more on providing farmers with on-farm visits by extension workers, provision of credit services, establishment of farmers’ training centers and adoption of modern farm technologies. Finally, we recommend further research to deal with this kind of methodological framework using a panel data set to test whether technical efficiency starts to increase or decrease with the length of time that farmers participate in development programs.

Keywords: impact evaluation, efficiency analysis and selection bias, stochastic frontier model, Heckman-two step

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Authors: M. G. Talasbayen, N. N. Dyussenbayev, Y. D. Kali, R. A. Zholbarysov, Y. N. Duissenbayev, I. Z. Mammadinova, S. M. Nuradilov

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Background. Hemorrhagic stroke is an acute cerebrovascular accident resulting from rupture of a cerebral vessel or increased permeability of the wall and imbibition of blood into the brain parenchyma. Arterial hypertension is a common cause of hemorrhagic stroke. Male gender and age over 55 years is a risk factor for intracerebral hemorrhage. Treatment of intracerebral hemorrhage is aimed at the primary pathophysiological link: the relief of coagulopathy and the control of arterial hypertension. Early surgical treatment can limit cerebral compression; prevent toxic effects of blood to the brain parenchyma. Despite progress in the development of neuroimaging data, the use of minimally invasive techniques, and navigation system, mortality from intracerebral hemorrhage remains high. Materials and methods. The study included 78 patients (62.82% male and 37.18% female) with a verified diagnosis of hemorrhagic stroke in the period from 2019 to 2021. The age of patients ranged from 25 to 80 years, the average age was 54.66±11.9 years. Demographic, brain CT data (localization, volume of hematomas), methods of treatment, and disease outcome were analyzed. Results. The retrospective analyze demonstrate that 78.2% of all patients underwent surgical treatment: decompressive craniectomy in 37.7%, craniotomy with hematoma evacuation in 29.5%, and hematoma draining in 24.59% cases. The study of the proportion of deaths, depending on the volume of intracerebral hemorrhage, shows that the number of deaths was higher in the group with a hematoma volume of more than 60 ml. Evaluation of the relationship between the time before surgery and mortality demonstrates that the most favorable outcome is observed during surgical treatment in the interval from 3 to 24 hours. Mortality depending on age did not reveal a significant difference between age groups. An analysis of the impact of the surgery type on mortality reveals that decompressive craniectomy with or without hematoma evacuation led to an unfavorable outcome in 73.9% of cases, while craniotomy with hematoma evacuation and drainage led to mortality only in 28.82% cases. Conclusion. Even though the multimodal approaches, the development of surgical techniques and equipment, and the selection of optimal conservative therapy, the question of determining the tactics of managing and treating hemorrhagic strokes is still controversial. Nevertheless, our experience shows that surgical intervention within 24 hours from the moment of admission and craniotomy with hematoma evacuation improves the prognosis of treatment outcomes.

Keywords: hemorragic stroke, Intracerebral hemorrhage, surgical treatment, stroke mortality

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Authors: Sajjad Baghernezhad, Saeideh Baghernezhad

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Nowadays considering human involved in increasing data development some methods such as data mining to extract science are unavoidable. One of the discussions of data mining is inherent distribution of the data usually the bases creating or receiving such data belong to corporate or non-corporate persons and do not give their information freely to others. Yet there is no guarantee to enable someone to mine special data without entering in the owner’s privacy. Sending data and then gathering them by each vertical or horizontal software depends on the type of their preserving type and also executed to improve data privacy. In this study it was attempted to compare comprehensively preserving data methods; also general methods such as random data, coding and strong and weak points of each one are examined.

Keywords: data mining, distributed data mining, privacy protection, privacy preserving

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Authors: An-Shik Yang, Chin-Ting Kuo, Yung-Chun Yang, Wen-Hsin Hsieh, Chiang-Ho Cheng

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Optical biosensors have become a powerful detection and analysis tool for wide-ranging applications in biomedical research, pharmaceuticals and environmental monitoring. This study carried out the computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based simulations to explore the dispersion phenomenon in the microchannel of a optical biosensor. The predicted time sequences of concentration contours were utilized to better understand the dispersion development occurred in different geometric shapes of microchannels. The simulation results showed the surface concentrations at the sensing probe (with the best performance of a grating coupler) in respect of time to appraise the dispersion effect and therefore identify the design configurations resulting in minimum dispersion.

Keywords: CFD simulations, dispersion, microfluidic, optical waveguide sensors

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Authors: Hussaini Tunde Subairu

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Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sectors serve as catalyst for employment generation, national growth, poverty reduction and economic development in developing and developed countries. However, in Nigeria despite copious and plethora of government policies and stimulus schemes directed at SMEs, the sector is still characterized by high rate of failure and discontinuities. This study therefore investigated owners/managers profile, firms characteristics and external factors as possible determinants of SMEs growth from selected SMEs in Kwara State. Primary data were sourced from 200 SMEs respondents registered with the National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASMES) in Kwara State Central Senatorial District. Multiple Regressions Analysis (MRA) was used to analyze the relationship between dependent and independent variables, and pair wise correlation was employed to examine the relationship among independent variables. The Analysis of Variable (ANOVA) was employed to indicate the overall significant of the model The findings revealed that Analysis of variance (ANOVA) put the value of F-statistics at 420.45 and p-value at 0.000 was significant. The values of R2 and Adjusted R2 of 0.9643 and 0.9620 respectively suggested that 96 percent of variations in employment growth were explained by the explanatory variables. The level of technical and managerial education has t- value of 24.14 and p-value of 0.001, length of managers/owners experience in similar trade with t- value of 21.37 and p-value of 0.001, age of managers/owners with t- value of 42.98 and p-value of 0.001, firm age with t- value of 25.91 and p-value of 0.001, numbers of firms in a cluster with t- value of 7.20 and p-value of 0.001, access to formal finance with t-value of 5.56 and p-value of 0.001, firm technology innovation with t- value of 25.32 and p-value of 0.01, institutional support with t- value of 18.89 and p-value of 0.01, globalization with t- value of 9.78 and p-value of 0.01, and infrastructure with t-value of 10.75 and p-value of 0.01. The result also indicated that initial size has t-value of -1.71 and p-value of 0.090 which is consistent with Gibrat’s Law. The study concluded that owners/managers profile, firm specific characteristics and external factors substantially influenced employment growths of SMEs in the study area. Therefore, policy implication should enhance human capital development of SMEs owners/managers, and strengthen fiscal policy thrust through imposition on tariff regime to minimize effect of globalization. Governments at all level must support SMEs growth radically and enhance institutional support for SMEs growth and radically and significantly upgrading key infrastructure as rail/roads, rail, telecommunications, water and power.

Keywords: external factors, firm specific characteristics, owners / manager profile, small and medium enterprises

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Authors: Mkhize Xolile, Davies Theopheluis

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The purpose of the study was to develop a variety of fruit, vegetable and indigenous wild herb (amaranth) based juices, which can increase mineral consumption (of Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Zn). Ten samples of juice varieties were developed. The concentration range for the standards was between 10 and 150 ppm. Standards and samples were analysed using Perkin Elmer Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer and the AAnalyst 400 model was used. The indigenous herb based juice was the most nutritious than all the other varieties developed. Mg and Fe could contribute significantly in improving cardio vascular health, bone functionality and immunity of elderly.

Keywords: minerals, elderly, juice, hypertension, intervention

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Authors: Okorowo Cyril Agochi

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The main challenge of present world is to harness the energy source which is environment friendly and ecologically balanced. This need has forced to search for other alternate source of energy. But unfortunately the new alternative energy sources like the solar, hydro, wind etc. require huge economical value and technical power to operate, which seem to be very difficult for the developing countries like Nigeria. In the present moment biogas energy can be one and only reliable, easily available and economically feasible source of alternative and renewable source which can be managed by locally available sources and simple technology for secondary schools, tertiary institution and rural villages. This paper is aimed at boosting the energy generation for developing of rural Nigeria, through Biogas.

Keywords: bio-gas, energy, environment, nigeria, technology

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Authors: Thanutch Sukwimolseree, Preeyaphorn Kosa

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Many problems are occurred in watershed due to human activity and economic development. The purpose is to determine the effects of the land use change on surface runoff using land use map on 1980, 2001 and 2008 and daily weather data during January 1, 1979 to September 30, 2010 applied to SWAT. The results can be presented that the polynomial equation is suitable to display that relationship. These equations for land use in 1980, 2001 and 2008 are consisted of y = -0.0076x5 + 0.1914x4–1.6386x3 + 6.6324x2–8.736x + 7.8023(R2 = 0.9255), y = -0.0298x5 + 0.8794x4 - 9.8056x3 + 51.99x2 - 117.04x + 96.797; (R2 = 0.9186) and y = -0.0277x5 + 0.8132x4 - 8.9598x3 + 46.498x2–101.83x +81.108 (R2 = 0.9006), respectively. Moreover, if the agricultural area is the largest area, it is a sensitive parameter to concern surface runoff.

Keywords: land use, runoff, SWAT, upper Mun River basin

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Authors: Y.Galerkin, O. Solovieva

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Flow parameters are calculated in vaneless diffusers with relative width 0,014 – 0,10 constant along radii. Inlet flow angles and similarity criteria were varied. Information about flow structure is presented – meridian streamlines configuration, information on flow full development, flow separation. Polytrophic efficiency, loss and recovery coefficient are used to compare diffusers’ effectiveness. The sample of narrow diffuser optimization by conical walls application is presented. Three tampered variants of a wide diffuser are compared too. The work is made in the R&D laboratory “Gas dynamics of turbo machines” of the TU SPb.

Keywords: vaneless diffuser, relative width, flow angle, flow separation, loss coefficient, similarity criteria

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Authors: Dwi Yulian Fahruddin Shah, Salman Al Farizi, Elyada Ahastari Liunome

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Indonesia is a multicultural society. A wide variety of arts and culture spread throughout in all of part of Indonesia with natural appearance will cause the social behavior differentiation. Similarly, with Tengger people's lives also have different social behaviors that distinguish them from other ethnic groups spread across the Indonesian archipelago. Tengger tribe has an appropriate ethic to build nation character. If all the people of Indonesia who heterogeneous and multicultural can understand, and follow the example of ethical behavior of Tengger tribe, it will be a force in the development of the character of the nation in this modern and globalization era.

Keywords: Tengger tribe, national character, ethics society, Indonesia

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Authors: A. V. Shashkova

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The aim of the present article is to analyze the position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on the matter of restricting the constitutional rights of citizens to inviolability of professional and banking secrecy in effecting controlling activities. The methodological ground of the present Article represents the dialectic scientific method of the socio-political, legal and organizational processes with the principles of development, integrity, and consistency, etc. The consistency analysis method is used while researching the object of the analysis. Some public-private research methods are also used: the formally-logical method or the comparative legal method, are used to compare the understanding of the ‘secrecy’ concept. The aim of the present article is to find the root of the problem and to give recommendations for the solution of the problem. The result of the present research is the author’s conclusion on the necessity of the political will to improve Russian legislation with the aim of compliance with the provisions of the Constitution. It is also necessary to establish a clear balance between the constitutional rights of the individual and the limit of these rights when carrying out various control activities by public authorities. Attempts by the banks to "overdo" an anti-money laundering law under threat of severe sanctions by the regulators actually led to failures in the execution of normal economic activity. Therefore, individuals face huge problems with payments on the basis of clearing, in addition to problems with cash withdrawals. The Bank of Russia sets requirements for banks to execute Federal Law No. 115-FZ too high. It is high place to attract political will here. As well, recent changes in Russian legislation, e.g. allowing banks to refuse opening of accounts unilaterally, simplified banking activities in the country. The article focuses on different theoretical approaches towards the concept of “secrecy”. The author gives an overview of the practices of Spain, Switzerland and the United States of America on the matter of restricting the constitutional rights of citizens to inviolability of professional and banking secrecy in effecting controlling activities. The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation basing on the Constitution of the Russian Federation has its special understanding of the issue, which should be supported by further legislative development in the Russian Federation.

Keywords: constitutional court, restriction of constitutional rights, bank secrecy, control measures, money laundering, financial control, banking information

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Authors: Celina Nowak

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The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) and a consequent growth of cyberspace have become a reality of modern societies. The newest addition to this complex structure has been Internet of Things which is due to the appearance of smart devices. IoT creates a new dimension of the network, as the communication is no longer the domain of just humans, but has also become possible between devices themselves. The possibility of communication between devices, devoid of human intervention and real-time supervision, generated new societal and legal challenges. Some of them may and certainly will eventually be connected to criminal law. Legislators both on national and international level have been struggling to cope with this technologically evolving environment in order to address new threats created by the ICT. There are legal instruments on cybercrime, however imperfect and not of universal scope, sometimes referring to specific types of prohibited behaviors undertaken by criminals, such as money laundering, sex offences. However, the criminal law seems largely not prepared to the challenges which may arise because of the development of IoT. This is largely due to the fact that criminal law, both on national and international level, is still based on the concept of perpetration of an offence by a human being. This is a traditional approach, historically and factually justified. Over time, some legal systems have developed or accepted the possibility of commission of an offence by a corporation, a legal person. This is in fact a legal fiction, as a legal person cannot commit an offence as such, it needs humans to actually behave in a certain way on its behalf. Yet, the legislators have come to understand that corporations have their own interests and may benefit from crime – and therefore need to be penalized. This realization however has not been welcome by all states and still give rise to doubts of ontological and theoretical nature in many legal systems. For this reason, in many legislations the liability of legal persons for commission of an offence has not been recognized as criminal responsibility. With the technological progress and the growing use of IoT the discussions referring to criminal responsibility of corporations seem rather inadequate. The world is now facing new challenges and new threats related to the ‘smart’ things. They will have to be eventually addressed by legislators if they want to, as they should, to keep up with the pace of technological and societal evolution. This will however require a reevaluation and possibly restructuring of the most fundamental notions of modern criminal law, such as perpetration, guilt, participation in crime. It remains unclear at this point what norms and legal concepts will be and may be established. The main goal of the research is to point out to the challenges ahead of the national and international legislators in the said context and to attempt to formulate some indications as to the directions of changes, having in mind serious threats related to privacy and security related to the use of IoT.

Keywords: criminal law, internet of things, privacy, security threats

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Authors: Khalifa Al Baloushi, Hongwei Zhang, Terrence Perera

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Over the last few decades, the government of the UAE has been taking actions to consolidate defense manufacturing entities with the view to build a coherent and modern defense manufacturing base. Whilst these actions have significantly improved the overall capabilities of defense manufacturing; further opportunities exist to radically transform the sector. A comprehensive literature review and data collected from a survey identified three potential areas of improvements, (a) integration of Industry 4.0 technologies and other smart technologies, (b) stronger engagement of small and Medium-sized defense manufacturing companies and (c) Enhancing the national defense policies by embedding best practices from other nations. This research paper presents the design and development of a conceptual framework for the UAE defense industrial ecosystem.

Keywords: industry 4.0, defense manufacturing, eco-systems, integration

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Authors: Oluwaseun Ijiwade, Chris Davison, Kelvin Gregory

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In Australia, like other parts of the world, the debate on how to enhance teachers using assessment data to inform teaching and learning of English as an Additional Language (EAL, Australia) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL, United States) have occupied the centre of academic scholarship. Traditionally, this approach was conceptualised as ‘Formative Assessment’ and, in recent times, ‘Assessment for Learning (AfL)’. The central problem is that teacher-made tests are limited in providing data that can inform teaching and learning due to variability of classroom assessments, which are hindered by teachers’ characteristics and assessment literacy. To address this concern, scholars in language education and testing have proposed a uniformed large-scale computer-based assessment program to meet the needs of teachers and promote AfL in language education. In Australia, for instance, the Victoria state government commissioned a large-scale project called 'Tools to Enhance Assessment Literacy (TEAL) for Teachers of English as an additional language'. As part of the TEAL project, a tool called ‘Reading and Vocabulary assessment for English as an Additional Language (RVEAL)’, as a diagnostic language assessment (DLA), was developed by language experts at the University of New South Wales for teachers in Victorian schools to guide EAL pedagogy in the classroom. Therefore, this study aims to provide qualitative evidence for understanding beliefs about the diagnostic language assessment (DLA) among EAL teachers in primary and secondary schools in Victoria, Australia. To realize this goal, this study raises the following questions: (a) How do teachers use large-scale assessment data for diagnostic purposes? (b) What skills do language teachers think are necessary for using assessment data for instruction in the classroom? and (c) What factors, if any, contribute to teachers’ beliefs about diagnostic assessment in a large-scale assessment? Semi-structured interview method was used to collect data from at least 15 professional teachers who were selected through a purposeful sampling. The findings from the resulting data analysis (thematic analysis) provide an understanding of teachers’ beliefs about DLA in a classroom context and identify how these beliefs are crystallised in language teachers. The discussion shows how the findings can be used to inform professional development processes for language teachers as well as informing important factor of teacher cognition in the pedagogic processes of language assessment. This, hopefully, will help test developers and testing organisations to align the outcome of this study with their test development processes to design assessment that can enhance AfL in language education.

Keywords: beliefs, diagnostic language assessment, English as an additional language, teacher cognition

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Authors: Janine Just, Kerstin Meints

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The research aims to compare vocabulary size and grammatical development between US American English- and British English-speaking children at age 2;0. As there is evidence that precocious children with large vocabularies develop grammar skills earlier than their typically developing peers, it was investigated if this also holds true across varieties of English. Thus, if US American children start to produce words earlier than their British counterparts, this could mean that US children are also at an advantage in the early developmental stages of acquiring grammar. This research employs a British English adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates CDI Words and Sentences (Lincoln Toddler CDI) to compare vocabulary and also grammar scores with the updated US Toddler CDI norms. At first, the Lincoln TCDI was assessed for its concurrent validity with the Preschool Language Scale (PLS-5 UK). This showed high correlations for the vocabulary and grammar subscales between the tests. In addition, the frequency of the Toddler CDI’s words was also compared using American and British English corpora of adult spoken and written language. A paired-samples t-test found a significant difference in word frequency between the British and the American CDI demonstrating that the TCDI’s words were indeed of higher frequency in British English. We then compared language and grammar scores between US (N = 135) and British children (N = 96). A two-way between groups ANOVA examined if the two samples differed in terms of SES (i.e. maternal education) by investigating the impact of SES and country on vocabulary and sentence complexity. The two samples did not differ in terms of maternal education as the interaction effects between SES and country were not significant. In most cases, scores were not significantly different between US and British children, for example, for overall word production and most grammatical subscales (i.e. use of words, over- regularizations, complex sentences, word combinations). However, in-depth analysis showed that US children were significantly better than British children at using some noun categories (i.e. people, objects, places) and several categories marking early grammatical development (i.e. pronouns, prepositions, quantifiers, helping words). However, the effect sizes were small. Significant differences for grammar were found for irregular word forms and progressive tense suffixes. US children were more advanced in their use of these grammatical categories, but the effect sizes were small. In sum, while differences exist in terms of vocabulary and grammar ability, favouring US children, effect sizes were small. It can be concluded that most British children are ‘catching up’ with their US American peers at age 2;0. Implications of this research will be discussed.

Keywords: first language acquisition, grammar, parent report instrument, vocabulary

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Authors: Renata Hrecska

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This research seeks to fully examine the internal employment law of international organizations by comparing it with the characteristics of the national civil service. The aim of the research is to compare the legal system that has developed over many centuries and the relatively new internal staffing regulations to find out what solution schemes can help each other through mutual legal development in order to respond effectively to the social challenges of everyday life. Generally, the rules of civil service of any country or international entity have in common that they have, in their pragmatics inherently, the characteristic that makes them serving public interests. Though behind the common base there are many differences: there is the clear fragmentation of state regulation and the unity of organizational regulation. On the other hand, however, this difference disappears to some extent: the public service regulation of international organizations can be considered uniform until we examine it within, but not outside an organization. As soon as we compare the different organizations we may find many different solutions for staffing regulations. It is clear that the national civil service is a strong model for international organizations, but the question may be whether the staffing policy of international organizations can serve the national civil service as an example, too. In this respect, the easiest way to imagine a legislative environment would be to have a single comprehensive code, the general part of which is the Civil Service Act itself, and the specific part containing specific, necessarily differentiating rules for each layer of the civil service. Would it be advantageous to follow the footsteps of the leading international organizations, or is there any speciality in national level civil service that we cannot avoid during regulating processes? In addition to the above, the personal competencies of officials working in international organizations and public administrations also show a high degree of similarity, regardless of the type of employment. Thus, the whole public service system is characterized by the fundamental and special values that a person capable of holding a public office must be able to demonstrate, in some cases, even without special qualifications. It is also interesting how we can compare the two spheres of employment in light of the theory of Lawyer Louis Brandeis, a judge at the US Supreme Court, who formulated a complex theory of profession as distinguished from other occupations. From this point of view we can examine the continuous development of research and specialized knowledge at work; the community recognition and social status; that to what extent we can see a close-knit professional organization of altruistic philosophy; that how stability grows in the working conditions due to the stability of the profession; and that how the autonomy of the profession can prevail.

Keywords: civil service, comparative law, international organizations, regulatory systems

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Authors: Piyanut Suchit

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The purposes of this study was to investigate students’ satisfaction learning with the web based instruction on the puppet show. The population of this study includes 53 students in the Program of Library and Information Sciences who registered in the subject of Puppet for Assisting Learning Development in semester 2/2011, Suansunandha Rajabhat University, Bangkok, Thailand. The research instruments consist of web based instruction on the puppet show, and questionnaires for students’ satisfaction. The research statistics includes arithmetic mean, and standard deviation. The results revealed that the students reported very high satisfaction with mean = 4.63, SD = 0.52, on the web based instruction.

Keywords: puppet show, web based instruction, satisfaction, Suansunandha Rajabhat University

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