Search results for: sustainable quality of life

Authors: Rosaline Govender

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This research study is an exploration of the self-directed professional development of teachers who teach in public schools in an era of democracy and educational change in South Africa. Amidst an ever-changing educational system, the teachers in this study position themselves as self-directed teacher-learners where they adopt particular learning practices which enable change within the broader discourses of public schooling. Life-story interviews were used to enter into the private and public spaces of five teachers which offer glimpses of how particular systems shaped their identities, and how the meanings of self-directed teacher-learner shaped their learning practices. Through the Multidimensional framework of analysis and interpretation the teachers’ stories were analysed through three lenses: restorying the field texts - the self through story; the teacher-learner in relation to social contexts, and practices of self-directed learning.This study shows that as teacher-learners learn for change through self-directed learning practices, they develop their agency as transformative intellectuals, which is necessary for the reworking of South African public schools.

Keywords: professional development, professionality, professionalism, self-directed learning

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Authors: Fekkak Bouazza, Menaa Mohamed, Loukriz Abdelhamid, Krim Mohamed L.

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This paper presents modeling and control strategy for the grid connected wind turbine system based on Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG). The considered system is based on back-to-back converter topology. The Grid Side Converter (GSC) achieves the DC bus voltage control and unity power factor. The Machine Side Converter (MSC) assures the PMSG speed control. The PMSG is used as a variable speed generator and connected directly to the turbine without gearbox. The pitch angle control is not either considered in this study. Further, Optimal Tip Speed Ratio (OTSR) based MPPT control strategy is used to ensure the most energy efficiency whatever the wind speed variations. A filter (L) is put between the GSC and the grid to reduce current ripple and to improve the injected power quality. The proposed grid connected wind system is built under MATLAB/Simulink environment. The simulation results show the feasibility of the proposed topology and performance of its control strategies.

Keywords: wind, grid, PMSG, MPPT, OTSR

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Authors: Muhittin Fatih Demirhan, Sibel Alapala Demirhan

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Agriculture, is also regarded as the primary activity area in all economies. When international comparisons are made Turkey has comparative advantages in agricultural potential. However, it is diffi cult to say that Turkey's agricultural productivity and use of technology is well developed in terms of sufficieny. Turkey, in terms of agricultural production, is one of the rare self-sufficient countries, but for supplying excessive demand of its domesticproduction to foreign markets to obtain the necessary income it is rather insufficient. On the basis of wrong policies implemented during the crisis and found that bottlenecks in agriculture and animal husbandry or agriculture policies of the IMF and World Bank are imposed on countries like Turkey. The IMF and the World Bank, the reduction of support in the agricultural and livestock Turkey, is known to put pressure for the abolition. Under these circumstances, our farmers, livestock producers and breeders of, not a chance to compete in the same market with EU producers. Animal products that capture the productivity levels of developed countries, seems to be our chance to compete with the quality and hygiene criteria. Thus, the discussion of the issue must be raised as for the sector's contribution to the economy in terms of further increasing production of the existing potential in mobilization.

Keywords: agricultural development, animal production, competition, economic crisis, food supply

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Authors: Abhinav Srivastava, Hima Harode, Chandan Kumar Saha

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The principal ingredient of an optical fiber is quartz glass. The quality of the optical fiber decreases if impure foreign substances are attached to its preform surface. If residual strain inside a preform is significant, it cracks with a small impact during drawing or transporting. Furthermore, damages and unevenness on the surface of an optical fiber base material break the fiber during drawing. The present work signifies that chlorine pre-treatment enhances mechanical properties of the optical fiber glass. FTIR (Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) results show that chlorine gas chemically modifies the structure of silica clad; chlorine is known to soften glass. Metallic impurities on the preform surface likely formed volatile metal chlorides due to chlorine pretreatment at elevated temperature. The chlorine also acts as a drying agent, and therefore the preform surface is anticipated to be water deficient and supposedly avoids particle adhesion on the glass surface. The Weibull analysis of long length tensile strength demarcates a substantial shift in its knee. The higher dynamic fatigue n-value also indicated surface crack healing.

Keywords: mechanical strength, optical fiber glass, FTIR, Weibull analysis

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Authors: Marlen Acosta Alamo, Lisa Manne, Richard Veit

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Habitat loss due to land use change is one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss worldwide. This form of habitat loss is a non-random phenomenon since the same environmental factors that make an area suitable for supporting high local biodiversity overlap with those that make it attractive for urban development. We aimed to compare the effect of two non-random habitat loss predictors on the richness, abundance, and rarity of nature-affiliated and human-affiliated North American breeding birds. For each group of birds, we simulated the non-random habitat loss using two predictors: the House Price Index as a measure of the attractiveness of an area for humans and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index as a proxy for primary productivity. We compared the results of the two non-random simulation sets and one set of random habitat loss simulations using an analysis of variance and followed up with a Tukey-Kramer test when appropriate. The attractiveness of an area for humans predicted estimates of richness loss and increase of rarity higher than primary productivity and random habitat loss for nature-affiliated and human-affiliated birds. For example, at 50% of habitat loss, the attractiveness of an area for humans produced estimates of richness at least 5% lower and of a rarity at least 40% higher than primary productivity and random habitat loss for both groups of birds. Only for the species abundance of nature-affiliated birds, the attractiveness of an area for humans did not outperform primary productivity as a predictor of biodiversity following habitat loss. We demonstrated the value of the House Price Index, which can be used in conservation assessments as an index of the risks of habitat loss for natural communities. Thus, our results have relevant implications for sustainable urban land-use planning practices and can guide stakeholders and developers in their efforts to conserve local biodiversity.

Keywords: biodiversity loss, bird biodiversity, house price index, non-random habitat loss

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Authors: Murat Çolak, Elifnaz Tanyıldızı

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Today, human mobility with globalization has increased the interaction between countries significantly; although this contact has advanced societies in terms of civilization, it has also increased the likelihood of pandemics. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which caused the most loss of life among them, turned into a global epidemic by covering the whole world in a short time. While there was an explosion in demand in some businesses around the world, some businesses temporarily stopped or had to stop their activities. The businesses affected by the crisis had to adapt to the new legal regulations but had to make changes in matters such as their working styles, human resources practices, and policies. One of the measures taken into account is the reduction of the workforce. The current COVID-19 crisis has posed serious challenges for many organizations and has generated an unprecedented wave of termination notices. This study examined examples of companies affected by the pandemic process and changed their working policies after the pandemic. This study aims to reveal the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on human resources policies and employees and how these situations will affect businesses in the future.

Keywords: human resource management, crisis management, COVID-19, business function

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Authors: Remember Samu, Kathy Kiema, Murat Fahrioglu

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This present study is aimed at minimizing the dependence on fossil fuels thus reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and also to curb for the rising energy demands in Kenya. In this analysis, 35 locations were each considered for their techno-economic potential of installation of a 10MW grid-connected PV plant. The sites are scattered across the country but are mostly concentrated in the eastern region and were selected based on their accessibility to the national grid and availability of their meteorological parameters from NASA Solar Energy Dataset. RETScreen software 4.0 version will be employed for the analysis in this present paper. The capacity factor, simple payback, equity payback, the net present value (NPV), annual life cycle savings, energy production cost, net annual greenhouse gas emission reduction and the equivalent barrels of crude oil not consumed are outlined. Energy accounting is performed and compared to the existing grid tariff for an effective feasibility argument of this 10MW grid-connected PV power system.

Keywords: photovoltaics, project viability analysis, PV module, renewable energy

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Authors: Manuela Nayantara Jeyaraj

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PostgreSQL is an Object-Relational Database Management System (ORDBMS) with an architecture that ensures optimal quality data management. But due to the shading growth of similar ORDBMS, PostgreSQL has not been renowned among the database user community. Despite having its features and in-built functionalities shadowed, PostgreSQL renders a vast range of utilities for data manipulation and hence calling for it to be upheld more among users. But introducing PostgreSQL in order to stimulate its advantageous features among users, mandates endorsing learn-ability as an add-on as the target groups considered consist of both amateur as well as professional PostgreSQL users. The scope of this paper deliberates providing easy contemplation of query formulations and flows through a visual editor designed according to user interface principles that standby to support every aspect of making PostgreSQL learn-able by self-operation and creation of queries within the visual editor. This paper tends to scrutinize the importance of choosing PostgreSQL as the working database environment, the visual perspectives that influence human behaviour and ultimately learning, the modes in which learn-ability can be provided via visualization and the advantages reaped by the implementation of the proposed system features.

Keywords: database, learn-ability, PostgreSQL, query, visual-editor

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Authors: Nam Kyu Kim, Hee Jun Cha, Jae Jin Seo, Dong Jun Won

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Output power of a photovoltaic (PV) generator depends on incident solar irradiance. If the clouds pass or the climate condition is bad, the PV output fluctuates frequently. When PV generator is connected to the grid, these fluctuations adversely affect power quality. Thus, ramp rate control with battery energy storage system (BESS) is needed to reduce PV output fluctuations. At the same time, for effective BESS operation and sizing the optimal BESS capacity, managing state of charge (SOC) is the most important part. In addition, managing SOC helps to avoid violating the SOC operating range of BESS when performing renewable integration (RI) continuously. As PV and BESS increase, the SOC management of BESS will become more important in the future. This paper presents the SOC management algorithm which helps to operate effectively BESS, and has focused on method to manage SOC while reducing PV output fluctuations. A simulation model is developed in PSCAD/EMTDC software. The simulation results show that the SOC is maintained within the operating range by adjusting the output distribution according to the SOC of the BESS.

Keywords: battery energy storage system, ramp rate control, renewable integration, SOC management

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Authors: Sophie Huck, Knut Linke

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This study will examine how IT practitioners can be motivated for IT studies and which kind of support they need during their occupational studies. Within this research project, the challenge of supporting students being engaged in business for several years arose. Here, it is especially important to successfully guide them through their studies. The problem of this group is that they finished their school education years ago. In order to gather first experiences, preliminary e-learning courses were introduced and tested with a group of users studying General Management. They had to work with these courses and have been questioned later on about their approach to the different methods. Moreover, a second group of potential students was interviewed with the help of online questionnaires to give information about their expectations regarding extra occupational studies. We also want to present best practices and cases in e-education in the subarea of mathematics and distance learning. Within these cases and practices, we use state of the art systems and technologies in e-education to find a way to increase teaching quality and the success of students. Our research indicated that the first group of enrolled students appreciated the new preliminary e-learning courses. The second group of potential students was convinced of this way of learning as a significant component of extra occupational studies. It can be concluded that this part of the project clarified the acceptance of the e-learning strategy by both groups and led to satisfactory results with the enrolled students.

Keywords: e-learning evaluation, self-learning, virtual classroom, virtual learning environments

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Authors: A. Ballard

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The ability to track goods and products en route in the delivery system, in the warehouse, and on the top floor is a huge advantage to shippers and retailers. Recently the emergence of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has enabled this better than ever before. However, a significant problem exists in that RFID technology depends on the quality of the information stored for each tagged product. Because of the profusion of names for colours, it is very difficult to ascertain that stored values are recognised by all users who view the product visually. This paper reports the findings of a study in which 50 consumers and 50 logistics workers were shown colour swatches and asked to choose the name of the colour from a multiple choice list. They were then asked to match consumer products, including toasters, jumpers, and toothbrushes, with the identifying inventory information available for each one. The findings show that the ability to match colours was significantly stronger with the color swatches than with the consumer products and that while logistics professionals made more frequent correct identification than the consumers, their results were still unsatisfactorily low. Based on these findings, a proposed universal model of colour identification numbers has been developed.

Keywords: consumer preferences, supply chain logistics, radio frequency identification, RFID, colour preference

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Authors: Charintorn Suwannawong, Tananpon Yavilas, Sopida Boonaneksap, Chotika Viriyarattanasak, Chairath Tangduangdee

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With increasing aging population and health conscious consumers, the demand for health promoting products such as functional foods, dietary supplements, and nutraceutical products has continuously increased in Thailand. Nevertheless, the strategic framework for regulatory functional food developments in Thailand is still unclear. The objective of this study was to survey stakeholders’ perspectives on three scopes, consisting of 1) the current status 2) obstacles, and 3) future trend for the development and production of functional foods in Thailand. A survey was conducted by interviewing ten experts from governmental organization, industrial sector and academic institute. The obtained results show that there is no established definition for functional foods in Thailand. There is a variety of raw materials that are capable to be potential ingredients for functional food production in Thailand and exported to global market. However, the scaling up technology into a commercial production is limited. Moreover, there is a need to establish the infrastructures, such as testing laboratory, and regulatory standards for quality control and ensuring product safety. This information is useful for government in the development of the strategic framework and policy statement on improvement of functional food industry in Thailand.

Keywords: functional foods, interview, perspective, Thailand

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Authors: Aboul-Nasr Amal, Sabry Soraya, Sabra Mayada

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The effects of phosphorus amendments and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi Glomus intraradices on the sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.), chemical composition and percent of volatile oil, and metal accumulation in plants and its availability in soil were investigated in field experiment at two seasons 2012 and 2013 under contaminated soil with Pb and Cu. The content of essential oil and shoot and root dry weights of sweet basil was increased by the application of mineral phosphorus as compared to control. Inoculation with AM fungi reduced the metal concentration in shoot, recording a lowest value of (33.24, 18.60 mg/kg) compared to the control (46.49, 23.46 mg/kg) for Pb and Cu, respectively. Availability of Pb and Cu in soil were decreased after cultivation in all treatments compared to control. However, metal root concentration increased with the inoculation, with highest values of (30.15, 39.25 mg/kg)compared to control (22.01, 33.57mg/kg) for Pb and Cu, respectively. The content of linalool and methyl chavicol in basil oil was significantly increased in all treatments compared to control. We can thus conclude that the AM-sweet basil symbiosis could be employed as an approach to bioremediate polluted soils and enhance the yield and maintain the quality of volatile oil of sweet basil plants.

Keywords: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus, heavy metals, sweet basil, oil composition

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Authors: Qudsiya Baig

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Empathy yields an unparalleled therapeutic value within patient physician interactions. Medical research is inundated with evidence to support that a physician’s ability to empathise with patients leads to a greater willingness to report symptoms, an improvement in diagnostic accuracy and safety, and a better adherence and satisfaction with treatment plans. Furthermore, the Institute of Medicine states that empathy leads to a more patient-centred care, which is one of the six main goals of a 21st century health system. However, there is a paradox between the theoretical significance of empathy and its presence, or lack thereof, in clinical practice. Recent studies have reported that empathy declines amongst students and physicians over time. The three most impactful contributors to this decline are: (1) disagreements over the definitions of empathy making it difficult to implement it into practice (2) poor consideration or regulation of empathy leading to burnout and thus, abandonment altogether, and (3) the lack of diversity in the curriculum and the influence of medical culture, which prioritises science over patient experience, limiting some physicians from using ‘too much’ empathy in the fear of losing clinical objectivity. These issues were investigated by conducting a fully inductive thematic narrative analysis of patient narratives in the UK to evaluate the behaviours and attitudes that patients associate with empathy. The principal enquiries underpinning this study included uncovering the factors that affected experience of empathy within provider-patient interactions and to analyse their effects on patient care. This research contributes uniquely to this discourse by examining the phenomenon of empathy directly from patients’ experiences, which were systematically extracted from a repository of online patient narratives of care titled ‘CareOpinion UK’. Narrative analysis was specifically chosen as the methodology to examine narratives from a phenomenological lens to focus on the particularity and context of each story. By enquiring beyond the superficial who-whatwhere, the study of narratives prescribed meaning to illness by highlighting the everyday reality of patients who face the exigent life circumstances created by suffering, disability, and the threat of life. The following six themes were found to be the most impactful in influencing the experience of empathy: dismissive behaviours, judgmental attitudes, undermining patients’ pain or concerns, holistic care and failures and successes of communication or language. For each theme there were overarching themes relating to either a failure to understand the patient’s perspective or a success in taking a person-centred approach. An in-depth analysis revealed that a lack of empathy was greatly associated with an emotive-cognitive imbalance, which disengaged physicians with their patients’ emotions. This study hereby concludes that competent providers require a combination of knowledge, skills, and more importantly empathic attitudes to help create a context for effective care. The crucial elements of that context involve (a) identifying empathy clues within interactions to engage with patients’ situations, (b) attributing a perspective to the patient through perspective-taking and (c) adapting behaviour and communication according to patient’s individual needs. Empathy underpins that context, as does an appreciation of narrative, and the two are interrelated.

Keywords: empathy, narratives, person-centred, perspective, perspective-taking

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Authors: M. Van Zyl, M. H. A. Combrinck, E. J. Spamer

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Due to the need for higher education in South Africa, the country experiences a rapid growth in open distance learning, especially in rural areas. It is difficult for people to enrol fulltime at contact universities, owing to work and financial constraints. The Unit for Open Distance Learning (UODL) at the North-West University (NWU), Potchefstroom campus, South Africa was established in 2013 with its main function to deliver open distance learning programmes to 30 000 students from the Faculties of Education Sciences, Theology and Health Sciences. With the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs), the NWU and UODL are now able to deliver lectures to students concurrently at 60 regional open learning centres across Southern Africa as well as to an unlimited number of individuals with Internet access worldwide. Although IWBs are not new, our initiative is to use them more extensively in order to create more contact between lecturers and students. To be able to ensure and enhance quality education it is vital to determine students’ perceptions on the delivery of programmes by means of IWBs. Therefore, the aim of the study is to explore students’ perceptions for the use of IWBs in the delivery of programmes in terms of Moore’s Theory of Transactional Distance.

Keywords: interactive white board, open distance learning, technology, transactional learning

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Authors: Virender Ranga, Mayank Dave, Anil Kumar Verma

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Recently wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used in many real life applications like environmental monitoring, habitat monitoring, health monitoring etc. Due to power constraint cheaper devices used in these applications, the energy consumption of each device should be kept as low as possible such that network operates for longer period of time. One of the techniques to prolong the network lifetime is an intelligent grouping of sensor nodes such that they can perform their operation in cooperative and energy efficient manner. With this motivation, we propose a novel approach by organize the sensor nodes in cooperative multihop mini-groups so that the total global energy consumption of the network can be reduced and network lifetime can be improved. Our proposed approach also reduces the number of transmitted messages inside the WSNs, which further minimizes the energy consumption of the whole network. The experimental simulations show that our proposed approach outperforms over the state-of-the-art approach in terms of stability period and aggregated data.

Keywords: clustering, cluster-head, mini-group, stability period

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Authors: Salah Eddine Ben Fadhel

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Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) was one of the most significant psychologists of the twentieth century despite his short life. His cultural-historical theory is still inspiring many researchers today. At the same time, we observe in many studies a lack of understanding of his thoughts. Vygotsky poses in this theory the contribution of society to individual development and learning. Thus, it suggests that human learning is largely a social and cultural process, further mentioning the influence of interactions between people and the culture in which they live. In this presentation, we highlight, on the one hand, the strong points of the theory by highlighting the major questions it raises and its contribution to developmental psychology in general. On the other hand, we will demonstrate what Vygotsky's theory brings today to the understanding of the cognitive development of children and adolescents. The major objective is to better understand the cognitive mechanisms involved in the learning process in children and adolescents and, therefore, demonstrate the complex nature of psychological development. The main contribution is to provide conceptual insight, which allows us to better understand the importance of the theory and its major pedagogical implications.

Keywords: vygotsky, society, culture, history

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Authors: Nadia Allouache

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Solar radiation is by far the largest and the most world’s abundant, clean and permanent energy source. The amount of solar radiation intercepted by the Earth is much higher than annual global energy use. The energy available from the sun is greater than about 5200 times the global world’s need in 2006. In recent years, many promising technologies have been developed to harness the sun's energy. These technologies help in environmental protection, economizing energy, and sustainable development, which are the major issues of the world in the 21st century. One of these important technologies is the solar cooling systems that make use of either absorption or adsorption technologies. The solar adsorption cooling systems are good alternative since they operate with environmentally benign refrigerants that are natural, free from CFCs, and therefore they have a zero ozone depleting potential (ODP). A numerical analysis of thermal and solar performances of an adsorption solar refrigerating system using different adsorbent/adsorbate pairs such as activated carbon AC35 and activated carbon BPL/Ammoniac; is undertaken in this study. The modeling of the adsorption cooling machine requires the resolution of the equation describing the energy and mass transfer in the tubular adsorber that is the most important component of the machine. The Wilson and Dubinin- Astakhov models of the solid-adsorbat equilibrium are used to calculate the adsorbed quantity. The porous medium is contained in the annular space and the adsorber is heated by solar energy. Effect of key parameters on the adsorbed quantity and on the thermal and solar performances are analysed and discussed. The performances of the system that depends on the incident global irradiance during a whole day depends on the weather conditions: the condenser temperature and the evaporator temperature. The AC35/methanol pair is the best pair comparing to the BPL/Ammoniac in terms of system performances.

Keywords: activated carbon-methanol pair, activated carbon-ammoniac pair, adsorption, performance coefficients, numerical analysis, solar cooling system

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Authors: Sufia Maroof

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This empirical study investigated the web-translations of five Pakistani public offices (FPSC, FIA, HEC, USB, and Ministry of Finance) offering Urdu tab as an option to access information on their official websites. Triangulation of quantitative and qualitative research design informed the researcher of the semantic, lexical and syntactic caveats in these translations. The study hypothesized that majority of the Pakistani population is oblivious of the Supreme Court’s amendments in language policy concerning national and official language; hence, Urdu web-translations of the public departments have not been accessed effectively. Firstly, the researcher conducted an online survey, comprising of two sections, close ended and short answer based questions. Secondly, the researcher compiled corpus of the five selected websites in a tabular form to compare the data. Thirdly, the administrators of the departments had been contacted regarding the methods of translation and the expertise of the personnel involved. The corpus was assessed for TQA after examining the lexical, semantic, syntactical and technical alignment inaccuracies and imperfections. The study suggests the public offices to invest in their Urdu webs by either hiring expert translators or engaging expertise of a translation agency for this project to offer quality translation to public.

Keywords: machine translations, public offices, Urdu translations, websites

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Authors: Maria Luisa T. Uayan

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The global need for qualified nurses to take care of the clients with various health needs is an incessant occurrence that persistently cause migration of nurses from developing to developed countries. The pull-push theory of migration greatly affects health care delivery systems of sending countries which is the same way affects nursing management. The exodus of nurses prepared to provide the much needed leadership at the bedside leaves the country in clusters giving health care institutions limited time to develop the next front-line managers that will assure quality patient care. This paper focuses on the extent and consequences of the massive recurring migration phenomena that is felt ONLY IN THE PHILIPPINE health care arena. It deals with the causes, problems, and effects of the cyclical loss of competent Filipina nurses in terms of emigration. Also, it will highlights the difficulties confronted by nursing service departments and health care teams when more experienced nurses set out for the “greener pastures” and patients are placed under the care of novice nurses. Fundamentally, it will emphasize the impact of suffering the loss of competent nurse managers in the Philippine health care institutions and provide contemporary recommendations on how to responsd accordingly to this very timely issue.

Keywords: Migration, Nurse Manager, Philippines

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Authors: Elena Krutskikh, Elena Khvatova

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In tertiary settings expanding students’ vocabulary and teaching discursive competence is seen as one of the chief goals of a professional development course. However, such a focus often is detrimental to students’ cognitive competences, such as analysis, synthesis, and creative processing of information, and deprives students of motivation for self-improvement and self-development of language skills. The presentation is going to argue that in an ESP course special attention should be paid to reading/listening which can promote understanding and using the language as a tool for solving significant real world problems, including professional ones. It is claimed that in the learning process it is necessary to maintain a balance between the content and the linguistic aspect of the educational process as language acquisition is inextricably linked with mental activity and the need to express oneself is a primary stimulus for using a language. A study conducted among undergraduates indicates that they place a premium on quality materials that motivate them and stimulate their further linguistic and professional development. Thus, more demands are placed on study materials that should contain new information for students and serve not only as a source of new vocabulary but also prepare them for real tasks related to professional activities.

Keywords: critical reading, english for professional development, english for specific purposes, high order thinking skills, lexical approach, vocabulary acquisition

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Authors: Pedro Maldonado-Alvarado

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An important cassava quality production was detected in Ecuador. However, in this country, few products with low adding-value are produced from the tuber and none from cassava by-products. To our best knowledge, lactic acid was produced from Ecuadorian cassava bagasse starch in a biotechnological way. The objective of this contribution was to study the influence of the fermentation variables (pH and agitation) on the lactic acid production of Ecuadorian cassava varieties from bagasse starch. Enzymatic hydrolysis of cassava bagasse starch for INIAP 650 and INIAP 651 varieties spread in Ecuador was performed using α-amylase and amyloglucosidase. Then, glucose was fermented by Lactobacillus leichmannii strains in different conditions of agitation (0 and 150 rpm) and pH (4.5, 5.0, and 5.5). Significant differences in ash, fibre, protein, lipids, and amylose were found in cassava bagasse starch of INIAP 650 and INIAP 651 with 1.4 and 1.3%, 4.3 and 6%, 1.2 and 2.1%, 1.9 and 1.5%, and 24.3 and 26.5%, respectively. The determination of lactic acid was performed by potentiometric and FTIR analysis. Conversions of cassava bagasse to reduced sugars were 71.7 and 85.1% for INIAP 650 and INIAP 651, respectively. The best lactic acid concentrations were 27.6 and 33.5 g/L, obtained at agitation 150 rpm and pH 5.5 for INIAP 650 and INIAP 651. Qualitative analysis conducted by FTIR spectrophotometry confirmed the presence of lactic acid in the reacted products. This investigation could contribute to the valorisation of residues from promising cassava varieties in Ecuador and hence to increase the development of this country.

Keywords: bagasse starch, cassava, Ecuador, fermentation, lactic acid

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Authors: Zainal Abu Zarim, Hafizah Omar Zaki

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The objective of this study is to analyse the success factors of entrepreneurs in the Malaysian SMEs in the urge to discover their entrepreneurial leadership characteristics. Data has been collected from top 50 SME award winning companies. The study has used the qualitative approach to data collection, where interviews are dispersed on these selected companies. From these 50 SMEs, only 25 accepted the interview request where one entrepreneur from each SME answered the questions. To successfully run this study, we administered some questions based on Hornaday 42 characteristics of an entrepreneurs, as well some structured questions to determine a successful of a company. The result shows that, entrepreneurs are confident, determine, diligent, flexible, responsive to challenges, responsible, foresight, courageous, aggressive, and committed. Consistent to this, several elements that makes the company successful includes (1) strong financial control, (2) continuous improvement, (3) product quality and product safety as top priority, (4) hard work and team work, and (5) eagerness in taking challenges. These results has deemed that entrepreneurs in many aspects are also leaders that are risk averse and determine, and are eager to work on continuous improvement in a financially strong company.

Keywords: characteristics of entrepreneurs, success of a company, key success factors, Malaysian SMEs

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Authors: Wan Noorul Hafilah Binti Wan Ariffin

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Dam safety management is the crucial infrastructure as dam failure has a catastrophic effect on the community. Dam safety management is the effective framework of key actions and activities for the dam owner to manage the safety of the dam for its entire life cycle. However, maintaining dam safety is a challenging task as there are changes in current dam states. These changes introduce new risks to the dam's safety, which had not been considered when the dam was designed. A new framework has to be developed to adapt to the changes in the dam risk and make the dams resilient. This study proposes a risk-based decision-making adaptation framework for dam safety management. The research focuses on climate change's impact on hydrological situations as it causes floods and damages the dam structure. The risk analysis framework is adopted to improve the dam management strategies. The proposed study encompasses four phases. To start with, measuring the effect by assessing the impact of climate change on embankment dam, the second phase is to analyze the potential embankment dam failures. The third is analyzing the different components of risks related to the dam and, finally, developing a robust decision-making framework.

Keywords: climate change, embankment dam, failure, risk-informed decision making

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Authors: Bekim Avdiaj

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The transition period of Kosovo society brought fundamental changes in all the spheres of organizing life. This was the period when also in the cultural tradition the biggest movement and an emerging from ‘isolation’ or from the ‘shell’ occurred. Transformation of the traditional and embracing of the modern began here. The same was experienced and is currently being experienced also by Gjakova and its surrounding which is historically renowned for its great tradition and culture. The population of this region is actually facing a transition from the traditional system into the modern one and quite often with huge leaps. These ‘movements’ or ‘evolutions’ of the society of this region, besides the numerous positive things it ‘harvested’, also brought things that do not at all correspond with their tradition as well as new criminal occurrences which in the past were not present in this area. Furthermore, some of the ‘new’ behaviours that are embraced from other ‘cultures’ and ‘civilizations’, and which are often exceeded, are quite perturbing. The security situation is also worrying, particularly following the appearance of some new criminal occurrences. Therefore, with this research paper we will strive to analyse the new cultural “intersections” as well as the nature of the origin of some new very worrying criminal occurrences. We will present there also some factors inciting into these occurrences, which were confessed by the persons involved in these criminal occurrences and who come from this very region.

Keywords: crime, occurrence, culture, Gjakova Region

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Authors: E. S. Umdu, Ilker Kahraman, Nurdan Yildirim, Levent Bilir

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Algae-culture offers new applications in sustainable architecture with its continuous productive cycle, and a potential for high carbon dioxide capture. Microalgae itself has multiple functions such as carbon dioxide fixation, biomass production, oxygen generation and waste water treatment. Incorporating microalgae cultivation processes and systems to building design to utilize this potential is promising. Microalgae cultivation systems, especially closed photo bioreactors can be implemented as components in buildings. And these systems be accommodated in the façade of a building, or in other urban infrastructure in the future. Application microalgae bio-reactors of on building’s façade has the added benefit of acting as an effective insulation system, keeping out the heat of the summer and the chill of the winter. Furthermore, microalgae can give a dynamic appearance with a liquid façade that also works as an adaptive sunshade. Recently, potential of microalgae to use as a building component to reduce net energy demand in buildings becomes a popular topic and innovative design proposals and a handful of pilot applications appeared. Yet there is only a handful of examples in application and even less information on how these systems affect building energy behavior. Further studies on microalgae mostly focused on single application approach targeting either carbon dioxide utilization through biomass production or biofuel production. The main objective of this study is to investigate effects of design parameters of microalgae panel bio-reactors on light transmission characteristics and CO2 capture potential during growth of Nannochloropsis occulata sp. A maximum reduction of 18 ppm in CO2 levels of input air during the experiments with a % light transmission of 14.10, was achieved in 6 day growth cycles. Heat transfer behavior during these cycles was also inspected for possible façade applications.

Keywords: building façade, CO2 capture, light transmittance, microalgae

Procedia PDF Downloads 172

Authors: D. Kumar, S. Kumar, A. G. Memon, R. A. Memon, K. Harijan

Abstract:

A considerable amount of energy is usually lost due to compression of insulation in Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) duct. In this paper, the economic impact of compression of insulation is estimated. Relevant mathematical models were used to estimate the optimal thickness at the points of compression. Furthermore, the payback period is calculated for the optimal thickness at the critical parts of supply air duct (SAD) and return air duct (RAD) considering natural gas (NG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as fuels for chillier operation. The mathematical model is developed using preliminary data obtained for an HVAC system of a pharmaceutical company. The higher heat gain and cooling loss, due to compression of thermal insulation, is estimated using relevant heat transfer equations. The results reveal that maximum energy savings (ES) in SAD is 34.5 and 40%, while in RAD is 22.9% and 29% for NG and LPG, respectively. Moreover, the minimum payback period (PP) for SAD is 2 and 1.6years, while in RAD is 4.3 and 2.7years for NG and LPG, respectively. The optimum insulation thickness (OIT) corresponding to maximum ES and minimum PP is estimated to be 35 and 42mm for SAD, while 30 and 38mm for RAD in case of NG and LPG, respectively.

Keywords: optimum insulation thickness, life cycle cost analysis, payback period, HVAC system

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Authors: Sylwia Wiewiorowska, Zbigniew Muskalski

Abstract:

The article presents part of research on the development of nickel plated welding wire production technology, whose application will enable the elimination of the flaws of currently manufactured welding wires. The nickel plated welding wire will be distinguished by high quality, because the Ni layer which is deposited electrochemically onto it from acid baths is characterized by very good adhesion to the steel wire surface, while the ductile nickel well deforms plastically in the drawing process and the adhesion of the Ni layer increases in the drawing process due to the occurring process of diffusion between the Ni and the steel. The Ni layer obtained in the proposed technology, despite a smaller thickness than when the wire is coated with copper, is continuous and tight, thus ensuring high corrosion resistance, as well as unsusceptible to scaling, which should provide a product that meets requirements imposed by the market. The product will also reduce, to some extent, the amount of copper brought in to steel through recycling, while the wire coating nickel introduced to the weld in the welding process is expected, to a degree, to favorably influence its mechanical properties. The paper describes the tests of the process of nickel plating of f1.96 mm-diameter wires using various nickel plating baths with different process parameters.

Keywords: steel wire, properties, welding process, Ni layer

Procedia PDF Downloads 132

Authors: Muhammad Nur Haniff Mohd Noor, Rokiah Kadir, Suriyani Muhamad

Abstract:

Sustainable forest management and forest protection can be hampered by illegal logging. Illegal logging is not uncommon in many wood-producing countries. Hence, law enforcement, especially in timber-producing countries, is crucial in ensuring compliance with forestry related regulations, as well as confirming that all parties obey the rules and regulations prescribed by the authorities. However, enforcement officers are encountering various challenges and difficulties which have undermined the enforcement capacity and efficiency. The appropriate policy responses for these issues are important to resolve the problems in the long term and empowering enforcement capacity to meet future challenges of forest law enforcement. This paper is written according to extensive review of the articles and publications by The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), Chatham House and The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Subsequently, various books and journal articles are reviewed to gain further insight towards enforcement issues and challenges. This paper identifies several issues which consist of (1) insufficient enforcement capacity and resources (2) lack of coordination between various enforcement agencies, (3) corruption in the government and private sectors and (4) unclear legal frameworks related to the forestry sector. Next, this paper discusses appropriate policy responses to address each enforcement challenges according to various publications. This includes specific reports concerning forest law enforcement published by international forestry-related organizations. Therefore, lack of resources, inadequate synchronization between agencies, corruption, and legal issues present challenges to enforcement officers in their daily routines. Recommendations regarding proper policy responses to overcome the issues are of great importance in assisting forest authorities in prioritizing their resources appropriately.

Keywords: corruption, enforcement challenges, enforcement capacity, forest law enforcement, insufficient agency coordination, legislative ambiguity

Procedia PDF Downloads 170

Authors: Varun Singh, Mainak Bandyopadhyay, Maharana Pratap Singh

Abstract:

The shortest path (SP) problem concerns with finding the shortest path from a specific origin to a specified destination in a given network while minimizing the total cost associated with the path. This problem has widespread applications. Important applications of the SP problem include vehicle routing in transportation systems particularly in the field of in-vehicle Route Guidance System (RGS) and traffic assignment problem (in transportation planning). Well known applications of evolutionary methods like Genetic Algorithms (GA), Ant Colony Optimization, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) have come up to solve complex optimization problems to overcome the shortcomings of existing shortest path analysis methods. It has been reported by various researchers that PSO performs better than other evolutionary optimization algorithms in terms of success rate and solution quality. Further Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have emerged as key information systems for geospatial data analysis and visualization. This research paper is focused towards the application of PSO for solving the shortest path problem between multiple points of interest (POI) based on spatial data of Allahabad City and traffic speed data collected using GPS. Geovisualization of results of analysis is carried out in GIS.

Keywords: particle swarm optimization, GIS, traffic data, outliers

Procedia PDF Downloads 463