Search results for: MS share point

Authors: Raisibe V. Mathabatha, Phatu W. Mashela, Nehemiah M. Mokgalong

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Occasional incidence of phytotoxicity in Nemarioc-BL and Nemafric-AL phytonematicides to crops raises credibility challenges that could negate their registration as commercial products. Responses of plants to phytonematicides are characterized by the existence of stimulation, neutral and inhibition phases, with the mid-point of the former being referred to as the Mean Concentration Stimulation Point (MSCP = Dm + Rh/2). The objective of this study was to determine the MCSP and the overall sensitivity (∑k) of Nemarioc-AL and Nemafric-BL phytonematicides to rough lemon seedling rootstocks using the Curve-fitting Allelochemical Response Dosage (CARD) computer-based model. Two parallel greenhouse experiments were initiated, with seven dilutions of each phytonematicide arranged in a randomised complete block design, replicated nine times. Six-month-old rough lemon seedlings were transplanted into 20-cm-diameter plastic pots, filled with steam-pasteurised river sand (300°C for 3 h) and Hygromix-T growing mixture. Treatments at 0, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 164% dilutions were applied weekly at 300 ml/plant. At 84 days after the treatments, analysis of variance-significant plant variables was subjected to the CARD model to generate appropriate biological indices. Computed MCSP values for Nemarioc-AL and Nemafric-BL phytonematicides on rough lemon were 29 and 38%, respectively, whereas ∑k values were 1 and 0, respectively. At the applied concentrations, rough lemon seedlings were highly sensitive to Nemarioc-AL and Nemafric-BL phytonematicides.

Keywords: crude extracts, cucurbitacins, effective microbes, fruit extracts

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Authors: P. C. Ihenacho, M. Burby, G. G. Nasr, G. C. Enyi

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Formulation of a low oil-water ratio drilling mud with vegetable oil continuous phase without adversely affecting the mud rheology and stability has been a major challenge. A low oil-water ratio is beneficial in producing low fluid loss which is essential for wellbore stability. This study examined the possibility of 50/50 oil-water ratio invert emulsion drilling mud using a vegetable oil continuous phase. Jatropha oil was used as continuous phase. 12 ml of egg yolk which was separated from the albumen was added as the primary emulsifier additive. The rheological, stability and filtration properties were examined. The plastic viscosity and yield point were found to be 36cp and 17 Ib/100 ft2 respectively. The electrical stability at 48.9ºC was 353v and the 30 minutes fluid loss was 6ml. The results compared favourably with a similar formulation using 70/30 oil - water ratio giving plastic viscosity of 31cp, yield point of 17 Ib/100 ft2, electrical stability value of 480v and 12ml for the 30 minutes fluid loss. This study indicates that with a good mud composition using guided empiricism, 50/50 oil-water ratio invert emulsion drilling mud is feasible with a vegetable oil continuous phase. The choice of egg yolk as emulsifier additive is for compatibility with the vegetable oil and environmental concern. The high water content with no fluid loss additive will also minimise the cost of mud formulation.

Keywords: environmental compatibility, low cost of mud formulation, low fluid loss, wellbore stability

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Authors: Arpit Sachan, Nilanshu Kumar

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This paper tries to understand the nuances of feminisation of agriculture in the Indian context and how that is associated with better intrahousehold bargaining power for women. The economic survey of India indicates a constant increase in the share of the female workforce in Indian agriculture in the past few decades. This can be accounted for by many factors like the migration of male workers to urban areas and, therefore, the complete burden of agriculture shifting on the female counterparts. Therefore this study is an attempt to study that how this increase in the female workforce corresponds to a better decision-making ability for women in rural farm households. This paper is an attempt to carefully evaluate this aspect of the feminisation of Indian agriculture. The paper tries to study how various factors that improve the status of women in agriculture change with things like resource ownership. This paper uses both the macro-level and micro-level data to study the dynamics of the proportion of the workforce in agriculture across different states in India and how that has translated into better indicators for women in rural areas. The fall in India’s rank in the global gender wage gap index is alarming in such a context, and this creates a puzzle with increasing female workforce participation. The paper will consider if the condition of women improved over time with the increased share of employment or not? Using field survey data, this paper tries to understand if there exists any digression for some of the indicators both at the macro and micro level. The paper also tries to integrate the economic understanding of gender aspects of the workforce and the sociological stance prevailing in the existing literature. Therefore, this paper takes a mixed-method approach to better understand the role that social structure plays in the improved status of women within and across various households. Therefore, this paper will finally help us understanding if at all there is a feminisation of Indian agriculture or it's just exploitation of a different kind. This study intends to create a distinction between the gendered labour force in Indian agriculture and the complete democratization of Indian agriculture. The study is primarily focused on areas where the exodus of male migrants pushes women to work on agricultural farms. The question posits is whether it is the willingness of women to work in agriculture or is it urbanisation and development-induced conditions that make women work in agriculture as farm labourers? The motive is to understand if factors like resource ownership and the ability to autonomous decision-making are interlinked with an increased proportion of the female workforce or not? Based on this framework, we finally provide a brief comment on policy implications of government intervention in improving Indian agriculture and the gender aspects associated with it.

Keywords: feminisation, intrahousehold bargaining, farm households, migration, agriculture, decision-making

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Authors: Pooja Ichplani, Archna Kumar, Jessica Mayberry

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Community Video (CV) is a participatory medium that has immense potential to strengthen community communications and amplify the voice of people for their empowerment. By building capacities especially of marginalized community groups and providing a platform to freely voice their ideas, CV endeavours to bring about shifts towards more participatory, bottom up development processes and greater power in the hands of the people, especially the disadvantaged. In various parts of the world, among marginalized community groups, community video initiatives have become instrumental in facilitating micro-level, yet significant changes in communities. Video Volunteers (VV) is an organization that promotes community media and works towards providing disadvantaged communities with journalistic, critical thinking and creative skills they need for catalysing change in their communities. Working since 2002, VV has evolved a unique community media model fostering locally-owned and managed media production, as well as building people’s capacities to articulate and share their perspectives on the issues that matter to them – on a local and a global scale. Further, by integrating a livelihood aspect within its model, VV has actively involved people from poor marginalized communities and provided them a new tool for serving their communities whilst keeping their identities intact. This paper, based on a qualitative research, seeks to map the range of VV impacts in communities and provide an in-depth analysis of factors contributing to VV impacting change in communities. Study tools included content analysis of a longitudinal sample of impact videos produced, narratives of community correspondents using the Most Significant Change Technique (MSCT) and interviews with key informants. Using a multi-fold analysis, the paper seeks to gain holistic insights. At the first level, the paper profiles the Community Correspondents (CCs), spearheading change, and maps their personal and social context and their perceptions about VV in their personal lives. Secondly, at an organizational level, the paper maps the significance of impacts brought about in the CCs communities and their association, challenges and achievements while working with VV. Lastly, at the community level, it consists of analysis of the nature of impacts achieved and aspects influencing the same. Finally, the study critiques the functioning of Video Volunteers as a community media initiative using the tipping point theory emphasizing on the power of context that is constituted by their socio-cultural environment. It concludes how empowerment of its Community Correspondents, multifarious activities during pre and post video production, and other innovative mechanisms have enabled in center staging issues of marginalized communities and snowballing processes of change in communities.

Keywords: community media, empowerment, participatory communication, social change

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Authors: Marcel Randermann, Roland Jochem

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Research activities are mostly conducted in form of projects. In fact, research projects take the highest share of all project forms combined. However, project management is very rarely applied purposefully by researchers and scientists. More specifically no project management frameworks, methods or tools are not being used to plan, execute or control research project to ensure research success or improve project quality. In this qualitative study, several interviews were conducted with scientists and research managers from German institutions to gain insights into project management activities, to determine challenges and barriers, and to evaluate premises for successful project management. The analyses show that conventional project management is not easily applicable in scientific environments and researchers’ mindsets prevent a reasonable application.

Keywords: academics, project management methods, research and science projects, scientist's mindset

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Authors: Trevor Toy, Josef Langerman

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Around a quarter of the world’s data is generated by financial with an estimated 708.5 billion global non-cash transactions reached between 2018 and. And with Open Banking still a rapidly developing concept within the financial industry, there is an opportunity to create a secure mechanism for connecting its stakeholders to openly, legitimately and consensually share the data required to enable it. Integration and data sharing of anonymised transactional data are still operated in silos and centralised between the large corporate entities in the ecosystem that have the resources to do so. Smaller fintechs generating data and businesses looking to consume data are largely excluded from the process. Therefore there is a growing demand for accessible transactional data for analytical purposes and also to support the rapid global adoption of Open Banking. The following research has provided a solution framework that aims to provide a secure decentralised marketplace for 1.) data providers to list their transactional data, 2.) data consumers to find and access that data, and 3.) data subjects (the individuals making the transactions that generate the data) to manage and sell the data that relates to themselves. The platform also provides an integrated system for downstream transactional-related data from merchants, enriching the data product available to build a comprehensive view of a data subject’s spending habits. A robust and sustainable data market can be developed by providing a more accessible mechanism for data producers to monetise their data investments and encouraging data subjects to share their data through the same financial incentives. At the centre of the platform is the market mechanism that connects the data providers and their data subjects to the data consumers. This core component of the platform is developed on a decentralised blockchain contract with a market layer that manages transaction, user, pricing, payment, tagging, contract, control, and lineage features that pertain to the user interactions on the platform. One of the platform’s key features is enabling the participation and management of personal data by the individuals from whom the data is being generated. This framework developed a proof-of-concept on the Etheruem blockchain base where an individual can securely manage access to their own personal data and that individual’s identifiable relationship to the card-based transaction data provided by financial institutions. This gives data consumers access to a complete view of transactional spending behaviour in correlation to key demographic information. This platform solution can ultimately support the growth, prosperity, and development of economies, businesses, communities, and individuals by providing accessible and relevant transactional data for big data analytics and open banking.

Keywords: big data markets, open banking, blockchain, personal data management

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Authors: Dudam Bharath Kumar, Harsh Kumar, Naveed Ahmed

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Vehicular traffic on the road-side plays a significant role in affecting the noise pollution in most of the cities over the world. To assess the correlation of the road-traffic on noise pollution in the city environment, continuous measurements were carried out in an entire daytime starting from 8:00 AM IST to 6:00 PM IST at a single point for each 5 minutes (8:00-8:05, 9:00-9:05, 10:00-10:05 AM, ...) near the KIIT University campus road. Noise levels were observed using a mobile operated app of android cell phone and a handheld noise meter. Calibration analysis shows high correlation about 0.89 for the study location for the day time period. Results show diurnal variability of atmospheric noise pollution levels go hand-in and with the vehicular number which pass through a point of observation. The range of noise pollution levels in the daytime period is observed as 55 to 75 dB(A). As a day starts, sudden upsurge of noise levels is observed from 65 to 71 dB(A) in the early morning, 64 dB(A) in late morning, regains the same quantity 68-71 dB(A) in the afternoon, and rises 70 dB(A) in the early evening. Vehicular number of the corresponding noise levels exhibits 115-120, 150-160, and 140-160, respectively. However, this preliminary study suggests the importance of vehicular traffic on noise pollution levels in the urban environment and further to study population exposed to noise levels. Innovative approaches help curb the noise pollution through modelling the traffic noise pollution spatially and temporally over the city environments.

Keywords: noise pollution, vehicular traffic, urban environment, noise meter

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Authors: Seulbi Choi, Hyunchul Ahn

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Collaborative filtering (CF) algorithm has been popularly used for recommender systems in both academic and practical applications. It basically generates recommendation results using users’ numeric ratings. However, the additional use of the information other than user ratings may lead to better accuracy of CF. Considering that a lot of people are likely to share their honest opinion on the items they purchased recently due to the advent of the Web 2.0, user's review can be regarded as the new informative source for identifying user's preference with accuracy. Under this background, this study presents a hybrid recommender system that fuses CF and user's review mining. Our system adopts conventional memory-based CF, but it is designed to use both user’s numeric ratings and his/her text reviews on the items when calculating similarities between users.

Keywords: Recommender system, Collaborative filtering, Text mining, Review mining

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Authors: Sean Hall

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Prior to COVID-19, the world was preoccupied with opioids, effectiveness versus risk, and specifically toxicity versus abuse. Historically underpinning opioid use was a concept of safety. As use over time and real-world data evolved, a pursuit for efficacy associated with non-opioid alternatives became mainstream. On January 8, 2021, the US signed back into the opioid problem, with these two fundamental questions still unresolved. The author will share the current progression of a lead non-opioid cancer bone pain candidate, NanaBis™. NanaBis™ represents two innovative factors: The active ingredients are from cannabinoids; these ingredients are in a proprietary sub-micron delivery platform, NanoCelle®. The author will offer an opinion piece, potentiating the future role of delivery platforms in medicine to increase both patient safety and compliance.

Keywords: NanaBis, nanoCelle, opioids, toxicity

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Authors: Samuel I. Becher, Tal Z. Zarsky

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The digital world becomes part of our DNA now. The way e-commerce, human behavior, and law interact and affect one another is rapidly and significantly changing. Among others things, the internet equips consumers with a variety of platforms to share information in a volume we could not imagine before. As part of this development, online information flows allow consumers to learn about businesses and their contracts in an efficient and quick manner. Consumers can become informed by the impressions that other, experienced consumers share and spread. In other words, consumers may familiarize themselves with the contents of contracts through the experiences that other consumers had. Online and offline, the relationship between consumers and businesses are most frequently governed by consumer standard form contracts. For decades, such contracts are assumed to be one-sided and biased against consumers. Consumer Law seeks to alleviate this bias and empower consumers. Legislatures, consumer organizations, scholars, and judges are constantly looking for clever ways to protect consumers from unscrupulous firms and unfair behaviors. While consumers-businesses relationships are theoretically administered by standardized contracts, firms do not always follow these contracts in practice. At times, there is a significant disparity between what the written contract stipulates and what consumers experience de facto. That is, there is a crucial gap (“the Gap”) between how firms draft their contracts on the one hand, and how firms actually treat consumers on the other. Interestingly, the Gap is frequently manifested by deviation from the written contract in favor of consumers. In other words, firms often exercise lenient approach in spite of the stringent written contracts they draft. This essay examines whether, counter-intuitively, policy makers should add firms’ leniency to the growing list of firms suspicious behaviors. At first glance, firms should be allowed, if not encouraged, to exercise leniency. Many legal regimes are looking for ways to cope with unfair contract terms in consumer contracts. Naturally, therefore, consumer law should enable, if not encourage, firms’ lenient practices. Firms’ willingness to deviate from their strict contracts in order to benefit consumers seems like a sensible approach. Apparently, such behavior should not be second guessed. However, at times online tools, firm’s behaviors and human psychology result in a toxic mix. Beneficial and helpful online information should be treated with due respect as it may occasionally have surprising and harmful qualities. In this essay, we illustrate that technological changes turn the Gap into a key component in consumers' understanding, or misunderstanding, of consumer contracts. In short, a Gap may distort consumers’ perception and undermine rational decision-making. Consequently, this essay explores whether, counter-intuitively, consumer law should sanction firms that create a Gap and use it. It examines when firms’ leniency should be considered as manipulative or exercised in bad faith. It then investigates whether firms should be allowed to enforce the written contract even if the firms deliberately and consistently deviated from it.

Keywords: consumer contracts, consumer protection, information flow, law and economics, law and technology, paper deal v firms' behavior

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Authors: Rameshaiah Gowdara Narayanappa, Manikonda Prithvi, Manoj Kumar, Suraj Bhavani, Vikram Singh

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Long ago heating of food was only related to fire or electricity. Heating and storage of consumer foods were satisfied by the use of vacuum thermo flaks, electric heating cans and DC powered heating cans. But many of which did not sustain the heat for a long period of time and were impractical for remote areas. The use of chemical energy for heating foods directed us to think about the applications of exothermic reactions as a source of heat. Initial studies of calcium oxide showed desirability but not feasible because the reaction was uncontrollable and irreversible. In this research work we viewed at crystallization of super saturated sodium acetate trihydrate solution. Supersaturated sodium acetate trihydrate has a freezing point of 540 C (1300 F), but it observed to be stable as a liquid at much lower temperatures. Mechanical work is performed to create an active chemical energy zone within the working fluid, when crystallization process is initiated. Due to this the temperature rises to its freezing point which in turn heats the contents in the storage container. Present work endeavor to design a self-heating storage container is suitable for consumer dedications.

Keywords: crystallization, exothermic reactions, self-heating container, super saturation, vacuum thermo flask

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Authors: Ashok E. Kalange

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Diagnosis according to Ayurveda is to find the root cause of a disease. Out of the eight different kinds of examinations, Nadi-Pariksha (pulse examination) is important. Nadi-Pariksha is done at the root of the thumb by examining the radial artery using three fingers. Ancient Ayurveda identifies the health status by observing the wrist pulses in terms of 'Vata', 'Pitta' and 'Kapha', collectively called as tridosha, as the basic elements of human body and in their combinations. Diagnosis by traditional pulse analysis – NadiPariksha - requires a long experience in pulse examination and a high level of skill. The interpretation tends to be subjective, depending on the expertise of the practitioner. Present work is part of the efforts carried out in making Nadi-Parikshan objective. Nadi Parikshan Yantra (three point pulse examination system) is developed in our laboratory by using three pressure sensors (one each for the Vata, Pitta and Kapha points on radial artery). The radial pulse data was collected of a large number of subjects. The radial pulse data collected is analyzed on the basis of relative amplitudes of the three point pulses as well as in frequency and time domains. The same subjects were examined by Ayurvedic physician (Nadi Vaidya) and the dominant Dosha - Vata, Pitta or Kapha - was identified. The results are discussed in details in the paper.

Keywords: Nadi Parikshan Yantra, Tridosha, Nadi Pariksha, human pulse data analysis

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Authors: Maria Amaia Iza Padilla, Ibai Ostolozaga

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The objective of this paper is to analyze how transportation costs between regions within a country can affect not only domestic trade but also the allocation of resources in a given region, aggregate productivity, and relative domestic prices (tradable versus non-tradable). On the one hand, there is a vast literature that analyzes the transportation costs faced by countries when trading with the rest of the world. However, this paper focuses on the effect of transportation costs on domestic trade. Countries differ in their domestic road infrastructure and transport quality. There is also some literature that focuses on the effect of road infrastructure on the price difference between regions but not on relative prices at the aggregate level. On the other hand, this work is also related to the literature on resource misallocation. Finally, the paper is also related to the literature analyzing the effect of trade on the development of the manufacturing sector. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey database, it is observed cross-country differences in the proportion of firms that consider transportation as an obstacle. From the International Comparison Program, we obtain a significant negative correlation between GDP per worker and relative prices (manufacturing sector prices relative to the service sector). Furthermore, there is a significant negative correlation between a country’s transportation quality and the relative price of manufactured goods with respect to the price of services in that country. This is consistent with the empirical evidence of a negative correlation between transportation quality and GDP per worker, on the one hand, and the negative correlation between GDP per worker and domestic relative prices, on the other. It is also shown that in a country, the share of manufacturing firms whose main market is at the local (regional) level is negatively related to the quality of the transportation infrastructure within the country. Similarly, this index is positively related to the share of manufacturing firms whose main market is national or international. The data also shows that those countries with a higher proportion of manufacturing firms operating locally have higher relative prices. With this information in hand, the paper attempts to quantify the effects of the allocation of resources between and within sectors. The higher the trade barriers caused by transportation costs, the less efficient allocation, which causes lower aggregate productivity. Second, it is built a two-sector model where regions within a country trade with each other. On the one hand, it is found that with respect to the manufacturing sector, those countries with less trade between their regions will be characterized by a smaller variety of goods, less productive manufacturing firms on average, and higher relative prices for manufactured goods relative to service sector prices. Thus, the decline in the relative price of manufactured goods in more advanced countries could also be explained by the degree of trade between regions. This trade allows for efficient intra-industry allocation (traders are more productive, and resources are allocated more efficiently)).

Keywords: misallocation, relative prices, TFP, transportation cost

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Authors: Rakesh Mishra, Rajni Singh, Mukunda Upadhyay

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Since the last few decades, the prima facie of development has shifted towards the working population in India. There has been a paradigm shift in the development approach with the realization that the present demographic dividend has to be harnessed for sustainable development. Rapid urbanization and improved socioeconomic characteristics experienced within its territory has catalyzed various forms of migration into it, resulting in massive transference of workforce between its states. Workforce in any country plays a very crucial role in deciding development of both the places, from where they have out-migrated and the place they are residing currently. In India, people are found to be migrating from relatively less developed states to a well urbanized and developed state for satisfying their neediness. Linking migration to HDI at place of destination, the regression coefficient (β ̂) shows affirmative association between them, because higher the HDI of the place would be, higher would be chance of earning and hence likeliness of the migrants would be more to choose that place as a new destination and vice versa. So the push factor is compromised by the cost of rearing and provides negative impulse on the in migrants letting down their numbers to metro cities or megacities of the states but increasing their mobility to the suburban areas and vice versa. The main objective of the study is to check the role of migration in deciding the dividend of the place of destination as well as people at the place of their usual residence with special focus to highly urban states in India. Idealized scenario of Indian migrants refers to some new theories in making. On analyzing the demographic dividend of the places we got to know that Uttar Pradesh provides maximum dividend to Maharashtra, West Bengal and Delhi, and the demographic divided of migrants are quite comparable to the native’s shares in the demographic dividend in these places. On analyzing the data from National Sample Survey 64th round and Census of India-2001, we have observed that for males in rural areas, the share of unemployed person declined by 9 percentage points (from 45% before migration to 36 % after migration) and for females in rural areas the decline was nearly 12 percentage points (from 79% before migration to 67% after migration. It has been observed that the shares of unemployed males in both rural and urban areas, which were significant before migration, got reduced after migration while the share of unemployed females in the rural as well as in the urban areas remained almost negligible both for before and after migration. So increase in the number of employed after migration provides an indication of changes in the associated cofactors like health and education of the place of destination and arithmetically to the place from where they have migrated out. This paper presents the evidence on the patterns of prevailing migration dynamics and corresponding demographic benefits in India and its states, examines trends and effects, and discusses plausible explanations.

Keywords: migration, demographic shift, human development index, multilevel analysis

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Authors: Ashkan Ebadi, Andrea Schiffauerova

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In spite of the global efforts toward gender equality, female researchers are still underrepresented in professional scientific activities. The gender gap is more seen in engineering and math-intensive technological scientific fields thus calling for a specific attention. This paper focuses on the Canadian funded researchers who are active in natural sciences and engineering, and analyses the gender aspects of researchers’ performance, their scientific collaboration patterns as well as their share of the federal funding within the period of 2000 to 2010. Our results confirm the existence of gender disparity among the examined Canadian researchers. Although it was observed that male researchers have been performing better in terms of number of publications, the impact of the research was almost the same for both genders. In addition, it was observed that research funding is more biased towards male researchers and they have more control over their scientific community as well.

Keywords: bibliometrics, collaboration, funding, gender differences, research output

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Authors: M. Marchewka

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The article is devoted to the possible optical transitions in double quantum wells system based on HgTe/HgCd(Mn)Te heterostructures. Such structures can find applications as detectors and sources of radiation in the terahertz range. The Double Quantum Wells (DQW) systems consist of two QWs separated by the transparent for electrons barrier. Such systems look promising from the point of view of the additional degrees of freedom. In the case of the topological insulator in about 6.4nm wide HgTe QW or strained 3D HgTe films at the interfaces, the topologically protected surface states appear at the interfaces/surfaces. Electrons in those edge states move along the interfaces/surfaces without backscattering due to time-reversal symmetry. Combination of the topological properties, which was already verified by the experimental way, together with the very well know properties of the DQWs, can be very interesting from the applications point of view, especially in the THz area. It is important that at the present stage, the technology makes it possible to create high-quality structures of this type, and intensive experimental and theoretical studies of their properties are already underway. The idea presented in this paper is based on the eight-band KP model, including the additional terms related to the structural inversion asymmetry, interfaces inversion asymmetry, the influence of the magnetically content, and the uniaxial strain describe the full pictures of the possible real structure. All of this term, together with the external electric field, can be sources of breaking symmetry in investigated materials. Using the 8 band KP model, we investigated the electronic shape structure with and without magnetic field from the application point of view as a THz detector in a small magnetic field (below 2T). We believe that such structures are the way to get the tunable topological insulators and the multilayer topological insulator. Using the one-dimensional electrons at the topologically protected interface states as fast and collision-free signal carriers as charge and signal carriers, the detection of the optical signal should be fast, which is very important in the high-resolution detection of signals in the THz range. The proposed engineering of the investigated structures is now one of the important steps on the way to get the proper structures with predicted properties.

Keywords: topological insulator, THz spectroscopy, KP model, II-VI compounds

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Authors: Noor-ul-Ain, Muhammad Thair Khan, Adeela Ajmal, Hamid Mustafa

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Pakistan is an agricultural country and livestock only share 11.8 percent to national GDP during 2015-16. Pakistan is a 3rd largest milk producing country having 41.2, 35.6, 29.4, 68.4 and 1.0 million head cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat and camel, respectively. Modern urbanization and shortage of feed resources for livestock species in a country is an alarming threat. The introduction of new technology and advanced techniques solve this issue. This includes drought feeding, increase production, aid to crop management, balance nutrition and easily storaged of wet feed products. It is therefore clear that silage has important role in animal feed and feeding. Financial model of this study clear the effectiveness of silage. Therefore, it is revealed from this study that silage is a cost-effective option for a profitable dairy farming in Pakistan.

Keywords: feed, silage, dairy, production, Pakistan

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Authors: Negar Ghotbeddin, Izadpanah Zeinab, Tooraj Valinassab, Mohammad Azhir

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It is reported on results of a trawls survey in 2011 to assess the amount of biomass and Catch Per Unit of Area (CPUA) and also to determine the distribution pattern of Synodonidae family of demersal fishes (with emphasize on great lizardfish, Saurida tumbil) as one the most important and commercial fish species in the northwest of Persian Gulf. Samples were collected at a total 65 trawl stations selected a stratified random procedure. The study area was stratified to five strata (A to E) covering the depth layers of 10-20, 20-30 and 30-50 m. The catch rates of CPUA and biomass of lizardfishes were estimated to be approximately 316.20 kg/nm2, and 2902.1 tons, respectively. The highest value of biomass of Synodontids was recorded in the east of the study area, Bordkhoon to Dayer (stratum D & E, approximately 1310.6 tonnes) and in depth layer of 30-50 m; and the lowest value was estimated for stratum A (West of Khuzestan Province) and in depth layer of 10-20 m. On the other hand, the highest CPUA was recorded in stratum D and depth layer of 20-30 m; and the lowest value for stratum A and 10-20 m depth. It was concluded that stratum D (namely from Bordkhoon to Dayer) contains the best fishing area from the point of higher density and distribution of Synodontidae in the covering area, and from the point of depth distribution, they are found in depths more than 30 m.

Keywords: Saurida tumbil, CPUA, biomass, distribution, fishing area, Persian gulf

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Authors: Alexis Polanco Jr, Tsai Lu Liu

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Research on digital assessment for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students is negligible. Part of this stems from the DHH assessment design existing at the intersection of the emergent disciplines of usability, accessibility, and child-computer interaction (CCI). While these disciplines have some prevailing guidelines —e.g. in user experience design (UXD), there is Jacob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics (Nielsen-10); for accessibility, there are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) & the Principles of Universal Design (PUD)— this research was unable to uncover a unified set of guidelines. Given that digital assessments have lasting implications for the funding and shaping of U.S. school districts, it is vital that cross-disciplinary guidelines emerge. As a result, this research seeks to provide a framework by which these disciplines can share knowledge. The framework entails a process of asking subject-matter experts (SMEs) and design & development professionals to self-describe their fields of expertise, how their work might serve DHH students, and to expose any incongruence between their ideal process and what is permissible at their workplace. This research used two rounds of mixed methods. The first round consisted of structured interviews with SMEs in usability, accessibility, CCI, and DHH education. These practitioners were not designers by trade but were revealed to use designerly work processes. In addition to asking these SMEs about their field of expertise, work process, etc., these SMEs were asked to comment about whether they believed Nielsen-10 and/or PUD were sufficient for designing products for middle-school DHH students. This first round of interviews revealed that Nielsen-10 and PUD were, at best, a starting point for creating middle-school DHH design guidelines or, at worst insufficient. The second round of interviews followed a semi-structured interview methodology. The SMEs who were interviewed in the first round were asked open-ended follow-up questions about their semantic understanding of guidelines— going from the most general sense down to the level of design guidelines for DHH middle school students. Designers and developers who were never interviewed previously were asked the same questions that the SMEs had been asked across both rounds of interviews. In terms of the research goals: it was confirmed that the design of digital assessments for DHH students is inherently cross-disciplinary. Unexpectedly, 1) guidelines did not emerge from the interviews conducted in this study, and 2) the principles of Nielsen-10 and PUD were deemed to be less relevant than expected. Given the prevalence of Nielsen-10 in UXD curricula across academia and certificate programs, this poses a risk to the efficacy of DHH assessments designed by UX designers. Furthermore, the following findings emerged: A) deep collaboration between the disciplines of usability, accessibility, and CCI is low to non-existent; B) there are no universally agreed-upon guidelines for designing digital assessments for DHH middle school students; C) these disciplines are structured academically and professionally in such a way that practitioners may not know to reach out to other disciplines. For example, accessibility teams at large organizations do not have designers and accessibility specialists on the same team.

Keywords: deaf, hard of hearing, design, guidelines, education, assessment

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Authors: Ahmet Diken, Meral Erdirençelebi

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Similar to economies in many countries; family-owned enterprises have a significant role in the development of Turkish economy. Although they have a large share in economic terms, their lifetime is limited to working life of their founders. Failure in achieving their sustainability deeply affects not only these businesses but also the economy. Therefore, two basic elements of family owned enterprises, family and organizational culture and especially entrepreneurship culture, should be examined closely. The degree of effectiveness of parents in instilling their children with entrepreneurship culture and their effects on children's profession choices are examined through face-to-face surveys with the managers owning family businesses randomly chosen among family-owned enterprises registered in Konya Chamber of Industry, which are active in specific sectors and which had different generations in their management.

Keywords: family businesses, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial culture, family culture

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Authors: M. Firoz Kalam, Wilfried Schuetz, Jan Hendrik Bredehoeft

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In this research, diesel oil properties, such as aniline point, density, diesel index, cetane index and cetane number before and after treatment were studied. The investigation was considered for diesel oil samples after batch adsorption process using powdered activated carbon. Batch distillation process was applied to all treated diesel oil samples for separation of the solid-liquid mixture. The diesel oil properties were studied to observe the impact of adsorptive desulfurization process on fuel quality. Results showed that the best cetane number for desulfurized diesel oil was found at the best-operating conditions 60℃, 10g activated carbon and 180 minute contact time. The best-desulfurized diesel oil cetane number was obtained around 51 while the cetane number of untreated diesel oil was 34. Results also showed that the calculated cetane number increases as the operating temperature and amounts of adsorbent increases. This behavior was same for other diesel oil properties such as aniline point, diesel index, cetane index and density. The best value for all the fuel properties was found at same operating conditions mentioned above. Thus, it can be concluded that adsorptive desulfurization using powdered activated carbon as adsorbent had significantly improved the fuel quality of diesel oil by reducing aromatic contents of diesel oil.

Keywords: activated carbon, adsorption, desulfurization, diesel oil, fuel quality

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Authors: Xhaklina Cani, Ilirjan Malollari, Ismet Beqiraj, Lorina Lici

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Oil characterization is an essential step in the design, simulation, and optimization of refining facilities. To achieve optimal crude selection and processing decisions, a refiner must have exact information refer to crude oil quality. This includes crude oil TBP-curve as the main data for correct operation of refinery crude oil atmospheric distillation plants. Crude oil is typically characterized based on a distillation assay. This procedure is reasonably well-defined and is based on the representation of the mixture of actual components that boil within a boiling point interval by hypothetical components that boil at the average boiling temperature of the interval. The crude oil assay typically includes TBP distillation according to ASTM D-2892, which can characterize this part of oil that boils up to 400 C atmospheric equivalent boiling point. To model the yield curves obtained by physical distillation is necessary to compare the differences between the modelling and the experimental data. Most commercial use a different number of components and pseudo-components to represent crude oil. Laboratory tests include distillations, vapor pressures, flash points, pour points, cetane numbers, octane numbers, densities, and viscosities. The aim of the study is the drawing of true boiling curves for different crude oil resources in Albania and to compare the differences between the modeling and the experimental data for optimal characterization of crude oil.

Keywords: TBP distillation curves, crude oil, optimization, simulation

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Authors: Kuldeep Singh

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The present paper is an attempt for tracing the changes in the welfare state in Indian democracy from the starting point till now and aims to critical analyse the social-welfare programmes in India with respect to welfare state. After getting independence from Britishers, India became a welfare state and is aiming towards the upliftment of its citizens. Indian democracy is considered to be the largest amongst democratic countries, instead of this after forty-five years of independence, Panchayati Raj Institution became one of the branches of democratic decentralization institutions in India by 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment in 1992. Unfortunately, desired purpose of introducing Panchayati Raj Institution is not achieved after all these delayed efforts. The basic problem regarding achievement of welfare state in India in true sense is unawareness and non-implementation of these social-welfare programmes. Presently, Indian government is only focusing on economic growth of the country but lacking from the social point. The doctrinal method of research is used in this research paper. In the concluding remarks, researcher is partly favoring the government in introducing welfare programmes as there are abundant of welfare schemes and programmes, but majority are facing implementation problem. In last, researcher has suggested regarding programmes and schemes that these should be qualitative in nature and power would be given to effective machinery for further check upon their proper implementation and aware the citizens regarding their rights so that welfare state would be achieved.

Keywords: democratic decentralization, Indian democracy, Panchayati Raj institution, social-welfare programmes, welfare state

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Authors: Mariam Begadze

Abstract:

Separation of Powers (SOP) has often been the most frequently posed objection against the judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights. Although a lot has been written to refute those, very rarely has it been assessed what effect the current practice of social rights adjudication has had on the construction of SOP doctrine in specific jurisdictions. Colombia is an appropriate case-study on this question. The notion of collaborative SOP in the 1991 Constitution has affected the court’s conception of its role. On the other hand, the trends in the jurisprudence have further shaped the collaborative notion of SOP. Other institutional characteristics of the Colombian constitutional law have played its share role as well. Tutela action, particularly flexible and fast judicial action for individuals has placed the judiciary in a more confrontational relation vis-à-vis the political branches. Later interventions through abstract review of austerity measures further contributed to that development. Logically, the court’s activism in this sphere has attracted attacks from political branches, which have turned out to be unsuccessful precisely due to court’s outreach to the middle-class, whose direct reliance on the court has turned into its direct democratic legitimacy. Only later have the structural judgments attempted to revive the collaborative notion behind SOP doctrine. However, the court-supervised monitoring process of implementation has itself manifested fluctuations in the mode of collaboration, moving into more managerial supervision recently. This is not surprising considering the highly dysfunctional political system in Colombia, where distrust seems to be the default starting point in the interaction of the branches. The paper aims to answer the question, what the appropriate judicial tools are to realize the collaborative notion of SOP in a context where the court has to strike a balance between the strong executive and the weak and largely dysfunctional legislative branch. If the recurrent abuse lies in the indifference and inaction of legislative branches to engage with political issues seriously, what are the tools in the court’s hands to activate the political process? The answer to this question partly lies in the court’s other strand of jurisprudence, in which it combines substantive objections with procedural ones concerning the operation of the legislative branch. The primary example is the decision on value-added tax on basic goods, in which the court invalidated the law based on the absence of sufficient deliberation in Congress on the question of the bills’ implications on the equity and progressiveness of the entire taxing system. The decision led to Congressional rejection of an identical bill based on the arguments put forward by the court. The case perhaps is the best illustration of the collaborative notion of SOP, in which the court refrains from categorical pronouncements, while does its bit for activating political process. This also legitimizes the court’s activism based on its role to counter the most perilous abuse in the Colombian context – failure of the political system to seriously engage with serious political questions.

Keywords: Colombian constitutional court, judicial review, separation of powers, social rights

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Authors: Mitsuyoshi Tomiya, Kentaro Kawamura, Shoichi Sakamoto

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In chaotic billiard systems, scar-like localization has been found on time-evolving wave packet. We may call it the “dynamical scar” to separate it to the original scar in stationary states. It also comes out along the vicinity of classical unstable periodic orbits, when the wave packets are launched along the orbits, against the hypothesis that the waves become homogenous all around the billiard. Then time-evolving wave packets are investigated numerically in phase space. The Wigner function is adopted to detect the wave packets in phase space. The 2-dimensional Poincaré sections of the 4-dimensional phase space are introduced to clarify the dynamical behavior of the wave packets. The Poincaré sections of the coordinate (x or y) and the momentum (Px or Py) can visualize the dynamical behavior of the wave packets, including the behavior in the momentum degree also. For example, in “dynamical scar” states, a bit larger momentum component comes first, and then the a bit smaller and smaller components follow next. The sections made in the momentum space (Px or Py) elucidates specific trajectories that have larger contribution to the “dynamical scar” states. It is the fixed point observation of the momentum degrees at a specific fixed point(x0, y0) in the phase space. The accumulation are also calculated to search the “dynamical scar” in the Poincare sections. It is found the scars as bright spots in momentum degrees of the phase space.

Keywords: chaotic billiard, Poincaré section, scar, wave packet

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Authors: J. Bastos, P. Marques, S. Batterman, F. Freire

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Due to demands of a growing urban population, it is crucial to manage urban development and its associated environmental impacts. While most of the environmental analyses have addressed buildings and transportation separately, both the design and location of a building affect environmental performance and focusing on one or the other can shift impacts and overlook improvement opportunities for more sustainable urban development. Recently, several life-cycle (LC) studies of residential buildings have integrated user transportation, focusing exclusively on primary energy demand and/or greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, most papers considered only private transportation (mainly car). Although it is likely to have the largest share both in terms of use and associated impacts, exploring the variability associated with mode choice is relevant for comprehensive assessments and, eventually, for supporting decision-makers. This paper presents a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of a residential building in Lisbon (Portugal), addressing building construction, use and user transportation (commuting with private and public transportation). Five environmental indicators or categories are considered: (i) non-renewable primary energy (NRE), (ii) greenhouse gas intensity (GHG), (iii) eutrophication (EUT), (iv) acidification (ACID), and (v) ozone layer depletion (OLD). In a first stage, the analysis addresses the overall life-cycle considering the statistical model mix for commuting in the residence location. Then, a comparative analysis compares different available transportation modes to address the influence mode choice variability has on the results. The results highlight the large contribution of transportation to the overall LC results in all categories. NRE and GHG show strong correlation, as the three LC phases contribute with similar shares to both of them: building construction accounts for 6-9%, building use for 44-45%, and user transportation for 48% of the overall results. However, for other impact categories there is a large variation in the relative contribution of each phase. Transport is the most significant phase in OLD (60%); however, in EUT and ACID building use has the largest contribution to the overall LC (55% and 64%, respectively). In these categories, transportation accounts for 31-38%. A comparative analysis was also performed for four alternative transport modes for the household commuting: car, bus, motorcycle, and company/school collective transport. The car has the largest results in all impact categories. When compared to the overall LC with commuting by car, mode choice accounts for a variability of about 35% in NRE, GHG and OLD (the categories where transportation accounted for the largest share of the LC), 24% in EUT and 16% in ACID. NRE and GHG show a strong correlation because all modes have internal combustion engines. The second largest results for NRE, GHG and OLD are associated with commuting by motorcycle; however, for ACID and EUT this mode has better performance than bus and company/school transport. No single transportation mode performed best in all impact categories. Integrated assessments of buildings are needed to avoid shifts of impacts between life-cycle phases and environmental categories, and ultimately to support decision-makers.

Keywords: environmental impacts, LCA, Lisbon, transport

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Authors: Ming Luo

Abstract:

In this real world, a manufacturer may produce more than one product. The products produced by the same manufacturer may share the same type of parts, similar design, and be produced in the same factory, i.e. some common causes. From the perspective of warranty management, the frequencies of those products’ warranty claims may have statistical dependence caused by the common causes. Warranty policy optimisation in the existing research, majorly, has not considered such dependence, which may increase bias in decision making. In the market, renewing warranty policies are provided to some unrepairable products and consumer electronic products. This paper optimises the renewing warranty policy collectively in a multi-product scenario with a consideration of the dependence among the warranty claims of the products produced by the same manufacturer. The existence of the optimal solution is proved. Numerical examples are used to validate the applicability of the proposed methods.

Keywords: mean-risk framework, modern portfolio theory, renewing warranty policy, warranty policy optimisation

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Authors: Motwkel M. Alhaj, Bashir M. Elhassan

Abstract:

The East Nile area is located in Khartoum state. The main source of drinking water in the East Nile Area (Sudan) is groundwater. However, fluoride concentration in the water is more than the maximum allowable dose, which is 1.5 mg/l. This study aims to demonstrate and innovative, affordable, and efficient filter to remove fluoride from drinking water. Many researchers have found that aluminum oxide-coated adsorbent is the most affordable technology for fluoride removal. However, adsorption is pH-dependent, and the water pH in the East Nile area is relatively high (around 8), which is hindering the adsorption process. Locally available charcoal was crushed, sieved, and coated with aluminum oxide. Then, different coating configurations were tested in order to produce an adsorbent with a high pH point of zero charge pH PZC in order to overcome the effect of high pH of water. Moreover, different methods were used to characterize the adsorbent, including: Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDX), Brunauer - Emmett - Teller (BET) method, and pH point of zero charge pH PZC. The produced adsorbent has pH PZC of 8.5, which is essential in enhancing the fluoride adsorption process. A pilot household fluoride filter was also designed and installed in a house that has water with 4.34 mg/l F- and pH of 8.4. The filter was operated at a flow rate 250 cm³/min. The total cost of treating one cubic meter was about 0.63$, while the cost for the same water before adsorbent coating modification was 2.33$⁄cm³.

Keywords: water treatment, fluoride, adsorption, charcoal, Sudan

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Authors: Jiameng Wang, Yunfei Yin, Xiyu Deng

Abstract:

Parallel optimization is one of the important research topics of data mining at this stage. Taking Classification and Regression Tree (CART) parallelization as an example, this paper proposes a parallel data mining algorithm based on SSP-OGini-PCCP. Aiming at the problem of choosing the best CART segmentation point, this paper designs an S-SP model without data association; and in order to calculate the Gini index efficiently, a parallel OGini calculation method is designed. In addition, in order to improve the efficiency of the pruning algorithm, a synchronous PCCP pruning strategy is proposed in this paper. In this paper, the optimal segmentation calculation, Gini index calculation, and pruning algorithm are studied in depth. These are important components of parallel data mining. By constructing a distributed cluster simulation system based on SPARK, data mining methods based on SSP-OGini-PCCP are tested. Experimental results show that this method can increase the search efficiency of the best segmentation point by an average of 89%, increase the search efficiency of the Gini segmentation index by 3853%, and increase the pruning efficiency by 146% on average; and as the size of the data set increases, the performance of the algorithm remains stable, which meets the requirements of contemporary massive data processing.

Keywords: classification, Gini index, parallel data mining, pruning ahead

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Authors: Yansong Gao, Damith C.Ranasinghe, Siad F. Al-Sarawi, Omid Kavehei, Derek Abbott

Abstract:

Passive crossbar arrays is in principle the simplest functional electrical circuit, together with memristive device in cross-point, holding great promise in future high-density, non-volatile memories. However, the greatest problem of crossbar array is the sneak path current. In this paper, we investigate one type of memristive device with intrinsic rectification behavior to address the sneak path currents. Firstly, a SPICE behavior model written in Verilog-A language of the memristive device is presented to fit experimental data published in literature. Next, systematic performance simulations including read margin and power consumption of crossbar array, which uses the self-rectifying memristive device as storage element at cross-point, with respect to different crossbar sizes, interconnect resistance, ratio of HRS/LRS (High Resistance State/ Low Resistance State), rectification ratio and different read schemes are conducted. Subsequently, Trade-offs among reading margin, power consumption, and reading schemes are analyzed to provide guidelines for circuit design. Finally, performance comparison between the memristive device with/without intrinsic rectification behavior is given to show the worthiness of this intrinsic rectification behavior.

Keywords: memristive device, memristor, crossbar, RRAM, read margin, power consumption

Procedia PDF Downloads 434