Search results for: multistage cluster sampling

Authors: K. Prasanth, S. Hafeezullah Khan, B. Haribalakrishnan, D. Arun, S. Jayapriya, S. Dhivya, N. Vijayarangan

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The main goal of our approach is to find the optimum positions for the sensor nodes, reinforcing the communications in points where certain lack of connectivity is found. Routing is the major problem in sensor network’s data transfer between nodes. We are going to provide an efficient routing technique to make data signal transfer to reach the base station soon without any interruption. Clustering and routing are the two important key factors to be considered in case of WSN. To carry out the communication from the nodes to their cluster head, we propose a parameterizable protocol so that the developer can indicate if the routing has to be sensitive to either the link quality of the nodes or the their battery levels.

Keywords: clusters, routing, wireless sensor networks, three phases, sensor networks

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Authors: Tesfaldet Mekonnen Estifanos, Chen Hui, Afewerki Weldezgi

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Background: Intimate partner violence (hereafter IPV) is a major global public health challenge that tortures and disables women in the place where they are ought to be most secure within their own families. The fact that the family unit is commonly viewed as a private circle, violent acts towards women remains undermined. There are limited research and knowledge about the influencing factors linked to IPV in Sierra Leone. This study, therefore, estimates the prevalence rate and the predicting factors associated with IPV. Methods: Data were taken from Sierra-Leone Demographic and Health Survey (SDHS, 2013): the first in its form to incorporate information on domestic violence. Multistage cluster sampling research design was used, and information was gathered by a standard questionnaire. A total of 5185 respondents selected were interviewed, out of whom 870 were never been in union, thus excluded. To analyze the two dependent variables: experience of IPV, ‘ever’ and 'last 12 months prior to the survey', a total of 4315 (currently or formerly married) and 4029 women (currently in union) were included respectively. These dependent variables were constructed from the three forms of violence namely physical, emotional and sexual. Data analysis was applied using SPSS version 23, comprising three-step process. First, descriptive statistics were used to show the frequency distribution of both the outcome and explanatory variables. Second, bivariate analysis adopting chi-square test was applied to assess the individual relationship between the outcome and explanatory variables. Third, multivariate logistic regression analysis was undertaken using hierarchical modeling strategy to identify the influence of the explanatory variables on the outcome variables. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were utilized to examine the association of the variables considering p-values less than 0.05 statistically significant. Results: The prevalence of lifetime IPV among ever married women was 48.4%, while 39.8% of those currently married experienced IPV in the previous year preceding the survey. Women having 1 to 4 and more than 5 number of ever born babies were almost certain to encounter lifetime IPV. However, women who own a property, and those who referenced 3-5 reasons for which wife-beating is acceptable were less probably to experience lifetime IPV. Attesting parental violence, partner’s dominant marital behavior, and women afraid of their partner were the variables related to both experience of IPV ‘ever’ and ‘the previous year prior to the survey’. Respondents who concur that wife-beating is sensible in certain situations and occupations under the professional category had diminished chances of revealing IPV in the year prior to the data collection. Conclusion: This study indicated that factors significantly correlated with IPV in Sierra-Leone are mostly linked with husband related factors specifically, marital controlling behaviors. Addressing IPV in Sierra-Leone requires joint efforts that target men raise awareness to address controlling behavior and empower security in affiliations.

Keywords: husband behavior, married women, partner violence, Sierra Leone

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Authors: Ugbajah Maryjane

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The study examined the production of grass cutter and the constraints in Anambra state, Nigeria. Specifically, it described socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, determinants of net farm income and constraints to grass cutter production. Multistage and random sampling methods were used to select 50 respondents for this study. Primary data were collected by means of structured questionnaire. Non-parametric and parametric statistical tools including frequency percentage mean ranking counts, cost and returns and returns and multiple regression were deployed for data analysis. Majority 84% produce on small scale, 64 % had formal education 68% had 3-4 years of farming experience hence small scaled production were common. The income (returns) on investment was used as index of profitability, gross margin (#5,972,280), net farm income (#5,327,055.2) net return on investment (2.5) and return on investment 3.1. Net farm income was significantly influence by stock size and years of farming experience. Grass cutter farmers production problem would be ameliorated by the expression of extension education awareness campaigns to discourage unhealthy practices such as indiscriminant bush burning, use of toxic chemicals as baits, and provision of credits to the farmers.

Keywords: socio-economic factors, profitability, awareness, toxic chemicals, credits

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Authors: Nahid Salarkia, Nasrin Omidvar, Erfan Ghassemi, Vahideh Arab-Salari, Tirang Reza Neyestani

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Background: Household food insecurity has an adverse impact on the maternal mental health. This study was carried out to assess the relationship between household food insecurity, maternal depression and mother’s self-efficacy in Varamin, Iran, in 2014. Methods: In this cross-sectional study 423 mothers with children under 2 years old, with mean age 28.1±5.2 year; weight 66.3±13.4 kg; height 160.3± 5.7 cm and BMI 25.7±4.8 kg/m2 were selected by a multistage random sampling scheme. The instruments were: Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-III) and mother’s self-efficacy questionnaire. Data was analyzed using χ2 test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation. Results: Mildly, moderately and severely food insecure households were 39.5, 9.7 and 3.1%, respectively. Mild, moderate and sever depression was: 18.7, 13.9 and 5.7%. Mean score of depression in moderate and severe food insecure (8.6±5.3) was more than mild food insecure (4.8±4.7) and food secure (3.1±3.6) mothers. Frequency of very good, good and low mother’s self-efficacy were 62.8, 36.5, and 0.7%, respectively. Very good mother’s self-efficacy in food secure mothers (33.4%) was more than mild (25.4%) and moderate-sever food insecure groups (4%). There was a negative significant association between household food insecurity and mother’s self-efficacy (r= -0.297, p<0.01), and between mother’s depression and self-efficacy (r= -0.309, p=0.001). Conclusion: Empowerment of mothers with educational programs and social support can decrease mothers’ depression and increase self-efficacy that lead to improve maternal practices in food insecure households.

Keywords: Household food insecurity, Iran, mothers, physiological characteristics, self-efficacy

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Authors: Tesfaldet Mekonnen Estifanos, Chen Hui, Afewerki Weldezgi

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Background: Youth in general and young females in particular, remain at the center of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Sexual risk-taking among young unmarried women is relatively high and are the most vulnerable and highly exposed to HIV/AIDS. Improvements in the status of HIV/AIDS knowledge and acceptance attitude towards people living with HIV (PLWHIV) plays a great role in averting the incidence of HIV/AIDS. Thus, the aim of the study was to explore the level and correlates of HIV/AIDS knowledge and accepting attitude toward PLWHIV. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using data from the Uganda Demographic Health Survey 2016 (UDHS-2016). National level representative household surveys using a multistage cluster probability sampling method, face to face interviews with standard questionnaires were performed. Unmarried women aged 15-24 years with a sample size of 2019 were selected from the total sample of 8674 women aged 15-49 years and were analyzed using SPSS version 23. Independent variables such as age, religion, educational level, residence, and wealth index were included. Two binary outcome variables (comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge and acceptance attitude toward PLWHIV) were utilized. We used the chi-square test as well as multivariate regression analysis to explore correlations of explanatory variables with the outcome variables. The results were reported by odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI), taking a p-value less than 0.05 as significant. Results: Almost all (99.3%) of the unmarried women aged 15-24 years were aware of HIV/AIDS, but only 51.2% had adequate comprehensive knowledge on HIV/AIDS. Only 69.4% knew both methods: using a condom every time had sex, and having only one faithful uninfected partner can prevent HIV/AIDS transmission. About 66.6% of the unmarried women reject at least two common local misconceptions about HIV/AIDS. Moreover, an alarmingly few (20.3%) of the respondents had a positive acceptance attitude to PLWHIV. On multivariate analysis, age (20-24 years), living in urban, being educated and wealthier, were predictors of having adequate comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge. On the other hand, research participants with adequate comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS were highly likely (OR, 1.94 95% CI, 1.52-2.46) to have a positive acceptance attitude to PLWHIV than those with inadequate knowledge. Respondents with no education, Muslim, and Pentecostal religion were emerged less likely to have a positive acceptance attitude to PLWHIV. Conclusion: This study found out the highly accepted level of awareness, but the knowledge and positive acceptance attitude are not encouraging. Thus, expanding access to comprehensive sexuality and strengthening educational campaigns on HIV/AIDS in communities, health facilities, and schools is needed with a greater focus on disadvantaged women having low educational level, poor socioeconomic status, and those residing in rural areas. Sexual risk behaviors among the most affected people - young women have also a role in the spread of HIV/AIDS. Hence, further research assessing the significant contributing factors for sexual risk-taking might have a positive impact on the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Keywords: acceptance attitude, HIV/AIDS, knowledge, unmarried women

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Authors: Justin Orimisan Ijigbade

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The study was conducted to assess the effect of climate variability on honeybee’s production in Ondo State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was employed to collect the data from 60 beekeepers across six Local Government Areas in Ondo State. Data collected were subjected to descriptive statistics and multiple regression model analyses. The results showed that 93.33% of the respondents were male with 80% above 40 years of age. Majority of the respondents (96.67%) had formal education and 90% produced honey for commercial purpose. The result revealed that 90% of the respondents admitted that low temperature as a result of long hours/period of rainfall affected the foraging efficiency of the worker bees, 73.33% claimed that long period of low humidity resulted in low level of nectar flow, while 70% submitted that high temperature resulted in improper composition of workers, dunes and queen in the hive colony. The result of multiple regression showed that beekeepers’ experience, educational level, access to climate information, temperature and rainfall were the main factors affecting honey bees production in the study area. Therefore, beekeepers should be given more education on climate variability and its adaptive strategies towards ensuring better honeybees production in the study area.

Keywords: climate variability, honeybees production, humidity, rainfall and temperature

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Authors: K. G. R. M. Jayathilake, S. Rudra

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Wood degradation in hot compressed water is modeled with a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code using cellulose, xylan, and lignin as model compounds. Model compounds are reacted under catalyst-free conditions in a temperature range from 250 to 370 °C. Using a simplified reaction scheme where water soluble products, methanol soluble products, char like compounds and gas are generated through intermediates with each model compound. A modified multistage shrinking core model is developed to simulate particle degradation. In the modified shrinking core model, each model compound is hydrolyzed in separate stages. Cellulose is decomposed to glucose/oligomers before producing degradation products. Xylan is decomposed through xylose and then to degradation products where lignin is decomposed into soluble products before producing the total guaiacol, organic carbon (TOC) and then char and gas. Hydrolysis of each model compound is used as the main reaction of the process. Diffusion of water monomers to the particle surface to initiate hydrolysis and dissolution of the products in water is given importance during the modeling process. In the developed model the temperature variation depends on the Arrhenius relationship. Kinetic parameters from the literature are used for the mathematical model. Meanwhile, limited initial fast reaction kinetic data limit the development of more accurate CFD models. Liquefaction results of the CFD model are analyzed and validated using the experimental data available in the literature where it shows reasonable agreement.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics, liquefaction, shrinking-core, wood

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Authors: Mohammad Rahim Rahnama, Lia Shaddel

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Today, along with the development of urbanism, its negative consequences on the health of citizens are emerging. Mental disorders are common in the big cities, while mental health enables individuals to become active citizens. Meanwhile, women have a larger share of mental problems. Depression and anxiety disorders have a higher prevalence rate among women and these disorders affect the health of future generations, too. Therefore, improving women’s mental health through the potentials offered by urban spaces are of paramount importance. The present study aims to first, evaluate the spatial autocorrelation of women’s mental health and walkable spaces and then present solutions, based on the findings, to improve the walkability index. To determine the spatial distribution of women’s mental health in Mashhad, Moran's I was used and 1000 questionnaire were handed out in various sub-districts of Mashhad. Moran's I was calculated to be 0.18 which indicates a cluster distribution pattern. The walkability index was calculated using the four variables pertaining to the length of walkable routes, mixed land use, retail floor area ratio, and household density. To determine spatial autocorrelation of mental health and the walkability index, bivariate Moran’s I was calculated. Moran's I was determined to be 0.37 which shows a direct spatial relationship between variables; 4 clusters in 9 sub-districts of Mashhad were created. In High-Low cluster, there was a negative spatial relationship and hence, to identify factors affecting walkability in urban spaces semi-structures interviews were conducted with 21 women in this cluster. The findings revealed that security is the major factor influencing women’s walking behavior in this cluster. In accordance with the findings, some suggestions are offered to improve the presence of women in this sub-district.

Keywords: Mashhad, spatial autocorrelation, women’s mental health, walkability index

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Authors: Adewale Oladapo, Carolyn A. Afolami

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Agricultural production should be the major financial contributor to the Nigerian economy; however, the petroleum sector had taken the importance attached to this sector. The situation tends to be more worsening unless necessary attention is given to adequate credit supply among food crop farmers. This research analyses the effect of credit use on the technical efficiency of cassava farmers in Ondo State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected from two hundred randomly selected cassava farmers through a multistage sampling procedure in the study area. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Findings revealed that 95.0% of the farmers were male while 56.0% had no formal education and were married. The SFA showed that cassava farmer’s efficiency increased with farm size, herbicide and planting material at 5%,10% and 1% respectively but decreased with fertilizer application at 1% level while farmers’ age, education, household size, experience and access to credit increased technical inefficiency at 10%. The study concluded that cassava farmers are technically inefficient in the use of farm resources and recommended that adequate and workable agricultural policy measures that will ensure availability and efficient fertilizer distribution should be put in place to increase efficiency. Furthermore, the government should encourage youth participation in cassava production and ensure improvement in farmer’s access to credit to increase farmer’s technical efficiency.

Keywords: agriculture, access to credit, cassava farmers, technical efficiency

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Authors: Johannes J. Schneider, Mathias S. Weyland, Peter Eggenberger Hotz, William D. Jamieson, Oliver Castell, Alessia Faggian, Rudolf M. Füchslin

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Agglomerations of polydisperse systems of spherical particles are created in computer simulations using a simplified stochastic-hydrodynamic model: Particles sink to the bottom of the cylinder, taking into account gravity reduced by the buoyant force, the Stokes friction force, the added mass effect, and random velocity changes. Two types of particles are considered, with one of them being able to create connections to neighboring particles of the same type, thus forming a network within the agglomeration at the bottom of a cylinder. Decreasing the fraction of these particles, a percolation transition occurs. The critical regime is determined by investigating the maximum cluster size and the percolation susceptibility.

Keywords: binary system, maximum cluster size, percolation, polydisperse

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Authors: A. M. Omoare, E. O. Fakoya

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This study sought to determine the use of indigenous knowledge for selected arable crops production in Ondo Sate. A multistage sampling method was used and 112 arable crops farmers were systematically selected. Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that majority of the sampled farmers were male (75.90%). About 75% were married with children. Large proportion of them (62.61%) were within the ages of 30-49 years. Most of them have spent about 10 years in farming (58.92%). The highest raw scores of use of indigenous knowledge were found in planting on mound in yam production, use of native medicine and scare crow method in controlling birds in rice production, timely planting of locally developed resistant varieties in cassava production and soaking of maize seeds in water to determine their viability with raw scores of 313, 310, 305, 303, and 300 respectively, while the lowest raw scores was obtained in use of bell method in controlling birds in rice production with raw scores of 210. The findings established that proverbs (59.8%) and taboos (55.36%) were the most commonly used media in transmitting indigenous knowledge by arable crop farmers. The multiple regression analysis result revealed that age of the farmers and farming experience had a significant relationship with the use of indigenous knowledge of the farmers which gave R2 = 0.83 for semi log function form of equation which is the land equation. The policy implication is that indigenous knowledge should provide basis for designing modern technologies to enhance sustainable agricultural development.

Keywords: crop production, extent of use, indigenous knowledge, arable crops

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Authors: O. Poleshchuk, E. Komarov

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In this paper, semantic spaces with the properties of completeness and orthogonality (complete orthogonal semantic spaces) were chosen as models of expert evaluations. As the theoretical and practical studies have shown all the properties of complete orthogonal semantic spaces correspond to the thinking activity of experts that is why these semantic spaces were chosen for modeling. Two methods of construction such spaces were proposed. Models of comparative and fuzzy cluster analysis of expert evaluations were developed. The practical application of the developed methods has demonstrated their viability and validity.

Keywords: expert evaluation, comparative analysis, fuzzy cluster analysis, theoretical and practical studies

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Authors: Lillian Musila, Valerie Oundo, Daniel Erwin, Willie Sang

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Staphylococcus aureus infections are a major cause of nosocomial infections in Kenya. Methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) infections are a significant burden to public health and are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. At a hospital in Western Kenya two clusters of MRSA cases emerged within short periods of time. In this study we explored whether these clusters represented a nosocomial outbreak by characterizing the isolates using phenotypic and molecular assays and examining epidemiological data to identify possible transmission patterns. Specimens from the site of infection of the subjects were collected, cultured and S. aureus isolates identified phenotypically and confirmed by APIStaph™. MRSA were identified by cefoxitin disk screening per CLSI guidelines. MRSA were further characterized based on their antibiotic susceptibility patterns and spa gene typing. Characteristics of cases with MRSA isolates were compared with those with MSSA isolated around the same time period. Two cases of MRSA infection were identified in the two week period between 21 April and 4 May 2015. A further 2 MRSA isolates were identified on the same day on 7 September 2015. The antibiotic resistance patterns of the two MRSA isolates in the 1st cluster of cases were different suggesting that these were distinct isolates. One isolate had spa type t2029 and the other had a novel spa type. The 2 isolates were obtained from urine and an open skin wound. In the 2nd cluster of MRSA isolates, the antibiotic susceptibility patterns were similar but isolates had different spa types: one was t037 and the other a novel spa type different from the novel MRSA spa type in the first cluster. Both cases in the second cluster were admitted into the hospital but one infection was community- and the other hospital-acquired. Only one of the four MRSA cases was classified as an HAI from an infection acquired post-operatively. When compared to other S. aureus strains isolated within the same time period from the same hospital only one spa type t2029 was found in both MRSA and non-MRSA strains. None of the cases infected with MRSA in the two clusters shared any common epidemiological characteristic such as age, sex or known risk factors for MRSA such as prolonged hospitalization or institutionalization. These data suggest that the observed MRSA clusters were multi strain clusters and not an outbreak of a single strain. There was no clear relationship between the isolates by spa type suggesting that no transmission was occurring within the hospital between these cluster cases but rather that the majority of the MRSA strains were circulating in the community. There was high diversity of spa types among the MRSA strains with none of the isolates sharing spa types. Identification of disease clusters in space and time is critical for immediate infection control action and patient management. Spa gene typing is a rapid way of confirming or ruling out MRSA outbreaks so that costly interventions are applied only when necessary.

Keywords: cluster, Kenya, MRSA, spa typing

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Authors: Carol Anne Hargreaves

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A key issue in stock investment is how to select representative features for stock selection. The objective of this paper is to firstly determine whether an automated stock investment system, using machine learning techniques, may be used to identify a portfolio of growth stocks that are highly likely to provide returns better than the stock market index. The second objective is to identify the technical features that best characterize whether a stock’s price is likely to go up and to identify the most important factors and their contribution to predicting the likelihood of the stock price going up. Unsupervised machine learning techniques, such as cluster analysis, were applied to the stock data to identify a cluster of stocks that was likely to go up in price – portfolio 1. Next, the principal component analysis technique was used to select stocks that were rated high on component one and component two – portfolio 2. Thirdly, a supervised machine learning technique, the logistic regression method, was used to select stocks with a high probability of their price going up – portfolio 3. The predictive models were validated with metrics such as, sensitivity (recall), specificity and overall accuracy for all models. All accuracy measures were above 70%. All portfolios outperformed the market by more than eight times. The top three stocks were selected for each of the three stock portfolios and traded in the market for one month. After one month the return for each stock portfolio was computed and compared with the stock market index returns. The returns for all three stock portfolios was 23.87% for the principal component analysis stock portfolio, 11.65% for the logistic regression portfolio and 8.88% for the K-means cluster portfolio while the stock market performance was 0.38%. This study confirms that an automated stock investment system using machine learning techniques can identify top performing stock portfolios that outperform the stock market.

Keywords: machine learning, stock market trading, logistic regression, cluster analysis, factor analysis, decision trees, neural networks, automated stock investment system

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Authors: Farzaneh Golshekoh

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The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between religious beliefs, family responsibility and emotional atmosphere with a tendency to addiction in high school female students in Ahwaz. The sample consisted of 250 students who were selected by cluster random sampling from among all high school female students in Ahvaz. Measuring tools were Iranian tendency towards addiction (IAPS), responsibility California Psychological Inventory (CPI), emotional family atmosphere (AFC) and religious beliefs. The simple correlation coefficient at α=0/05 showed that there is a significant negative relationship between religious beliefs, family responsibility and emotional atmosphere with a tendency to abuse female students. The regression analysis showed that the variables of the emotional atmosphere of the family and religious beliefs as predictors of female students have a tendency to addiction.

Keywords: emotional atmosphere, family responsibility, religious beliefs, tendency to addiction

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Authors: Yayra Dzakadzie

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The descriptive cross-sectional survey study assessed dishonest academic intention, mediating academic goals, and attitude relationship with academic dishonesty among university undergraduate students in Ghana. The target population for this study was all the final-year undergraduate students enrolled full-time in Ghanaian public universities. One thousand two hundred (1,200) undergraduate students participated in the study. Multistage sampling was used to select the sample for the study. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the needed data to test hypotheses. Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used for the analyses. The results revealed that academic goals and attitudes had direct and indirect effects on academic dishonesty behaviour. Also, academic intention was statistically a significant mediator in the relationship that academic goals and attitude have with academic dishonesty. It was concluded that when academic goals are high, it compels individual students to try new strategies, and when academic goals are low, the students would like to “cut corners” to meet expectations. It was also concluded that when the attitude towards academic dishonesty is low, students are more unlikely to form an intention to be academically dishonest. It is recommended that lecturers should make their students aware of the goals that need to be attained in their courses and provide them with feedback on goal progress. Students should set their proximal goals and enhance their commitment so that they avoid putting things off. Enforcement of rules and regulations against academic dishonesty must be fully adhered to since students’ positive attitudes can result in high intention, which would lead to academic dishonesty behaviour.

Keywords: intention, academic goals, attitude, academic dishonesty, public university

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Authors: Fei Gao, Xinyang Dong, Yisu Ge, Shufang Lu, Libo Weng

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Vehicle color recognition plays an important role in traffic accident investigation. However, due to the influence of illumination, weather, and noise, vehicle color recognition still faces challenges. In this paper, a vehicle color classification network based on spatial cluster loss and channel attention mechanism (SCNet) is proposed for vehicle color recognition. A channel attention module is applied to extract the features of vehicle color representative regions and reduce the weight of nonrepresentative color regions in the channel. The proposed loss function, called spatial clustering loss (SC-loss), consists of two channel-specific components, such as a concentration component and a diversity component. The concentration component forces all feature channels belonging to the same class to be concentrated through the channel cluster. The diversity components impose additional constraints on the channels through the mean distance coefficient, making them mutually exclusive in spatial dimensions. In the comparison experiments, the proposed method can achieve state-of-the-art performance on the public datasets, VCD, and VeRi, which are 96.1% and 96.2%, respectively. In addition, the ablation experiment further proves that SC-loss can effectively improve the accuracy of vehicle color recognition.

Keywords: feature extraction, convolutional neural networks, intelligent transportation, vehicle color recognition

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Authors: Kalat P. Duniya

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A number of technologies expected to increase maize productivity have been introduced by several research programs at national and international level. To this end, the study sought to identify the factors influencing adoption intensity of certified maize varieties. The data used were obtained from a sample household survey of 406 maize farmers, conducted in the northern guinea savannah of Nigeria through multistage stratified sampling, structured questionnaire. A triple hurdle model was adopted to estimate the determinants of adoption intensity; considering awareness, adoption, and intensity as three separate stages. The result showed that the drivers of farmers’ awareness, adoption, and intensity of usage may not necessarily be the same, and where they are, not of the same magnitude and direction. However, factors which were found to be statistically significant were age, education, membership of association and frequency of extension advice. In addition, awareness and adoption of the technologies were likely to be increased with male respondents. Farmers that were members of either community organizations or cooperative organizations had a higher tendency of being aware and adopting certified maize seed varieties. It was also discovered that though some of the farmers were fully aware of the existence of some certified maize varieties, majority lacked detailed knowledge and technical know-how. There is a need for creation of awareness through an excellent trained extension and restructuring of the educational sector to improve on the adoption process as well as improve maize productivity in the country.

Keywords: adoption, awareness, maize farmers, Nigeria, regression

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Authors: Elham Taghizade Sigarodi, Ani Mirzakhanian

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Journalism atmosphere in present era is highly competitive so that what matters the most is “the speed of news broadcasting”. The first newspaper that lets out the news is therefore of higher validity. The value of the news is in fact in its truthfulness. Expressing the facts and reality is an accepted norm in professional media arena and it is as well considered the acceptable and trustworthy language for journalism. However, different conditions generate self-censorship. The present study seeks to explore the relationship between self-censorship and satisfaction of Iran newspaper’s readers. Thus, the statistical population including journalists of Iran newspaper for Tehran’s readers was estimated 384 persons based on Morgan table. Through cluster sampling, 50 journalists were selected so that totally the sample size was 434 persons and questionnaire was applied for data analysis and based on Alpha Chronbache, it was supported. Through Pierson correlation, the main and all subsidiary hypotheses were supported except the forth one.

Keywords: newspaper, satisfaction of audiences, self-censorship, journalists

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Authors: Tomas Menard

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The design of control-law for engineering systems has been investigated for many decades. While many results are concerned with continuous systems with continuous output, nowadays, many controlled systems have to transmit their output measurements through network, hence making it discrete-time. But it is well known that the sampling of a system whose control-law is based on the continuous output may render the system unstable, especially when this sampling period is long compared to the system dynamics. The control design then has to be adapted in order to cope with this issue. In this paper, we consider systems which can be modeled as double integrator with uncertainty on the input since many mechanical systems can be put under such form. We present a control scheme based on an observer using only discrete time measurement and which provides continuous time estimation of the state, combined with a continuous control law, which stabilized a system with second-order dynamics even in the presence of uncertainty. It is further shown that arbitrarily long sampling periods can be dealt with properly setting the control scheme parameters.

Keywords: dynamical system, control law design, sampled output, observer design

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Authors: Enrique Claver Cortés, Bartolomé Marco Lajara, Eduardo Sánchez García, Pedro Seva Larrosa, Encarnación Manresa Marhuenda, Lorena Ruiz Fernández, Esther Poveda Pareja

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In recent decades, the analysis of the effects of clustering as an essential factor for the development of innovations and the competitiveness of enterprises has raised great interest in different areas. Nowadays, companies have access to almost all tangible and intangible resources located and/or developed in any country in the world. However, despite the obvious advantages that this situation entails for companies, their geographical location has shown itself, increasingly clearly, to be a fundamental factor that positively influences their innovative performance and competitiveness. Industrial clusters could represent a unique level of analysis, positioned between the individual company and the industry, which makes them an ideal unit of analysis to determine the effects derived from company membership of a cluster. Also, the absorptive capacity (hereinafter 'AC') can mediate the process of innovation development by companies located in a cluster. The transformation and exploitation of knowledge could have a mediating effect between knowledge acquisition and innovative performance. The main objective of this work is to determine the key factors that affect the degree of generation and use of knowledge from the environment by companies and, consequently, their innovative performance and competitiveness. The elements analyzed are the companies' membership of a cluster and the AC. To this end, 30 most relevant papers published on this subject in the "Web of Science" database have been reviewed. Our findings show that, within a cluster, the knowledge coming from the companies' environment can significantly influence their innovative performance and competitiveness, although in this relationship, the degree of access and exploitation of the companies to this knowledge plays a fundamental role, which depends on a series of elements both internal and external to the company.

Keywords: absorptive capacity, clusters, innovation, knowledge

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Authors: A. M. Omoare, E. O. Fakoya

Abstract:

This study sought to determine the use of indigenous knowledge for selected arable crops production in Ondo Sate. A multistage sampling method was used and 112 arable crops farmers were systematically selected. Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that majority of the sampled farmers were male (75.90%) About 75% were married with children. Large proportion of them (62.61%) were within the ages of 30-49 years. Most of them have spent about 10 years in farming (58.92%). The highest raw scores of use of indigenous knowledge were found in planting on mound in yam production, use of native medicine and scare-crow method in controlling birds in rice production, timely planting of locally developed resistant varieties in cassava production and soaking of maize seeds in water to determine their viability with raw scores of 313, 310, 305, 303, and 300 respectively, while the lowest raw scores was obtained in use of bell method in controlling birds in rice production with raw scores of 210. The findings established that proverbs (59.8%) and taboos (55.36%) were the most commonly used media in transmitting indigenous knowledge by arable crop farmers. The multiple regression analysis result revealed that age of the farmers and farming experience had a significant relationship with the use of indigenous knowledge of the farmers which gave R2=0.83 for semi-log function form of equation which is the land equation. The policy implication is that indigenous knowledge should provide a basis for designing modern technologies to enhance sustainable agricultural development.

Keywords: Arable Crop Production, extent of use, indigenous knowledge, farming experience

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Authors: Sangeeta Yadav, Mantosh Biswas

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In this paper, we proposed an improved color based K-mean algorithm for clustering of satellite Image (SAR). Our method comprises of two stages. The first step is an interactive selection process where users are required to input the number of colors (ncolor), number of clusters, and then they are prompted to select the points in each color cluster. In the second step these points are given as input to K-mean clustering algorithm that clusters the image based on color and Minimum Square Euclidean distance. The proposed method reduces the mixed pixel problem to a great extent.

Keywords: cluster, ncolor method, K-mean method, interactive selection process

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Authors: Noimot A. Bakare, Rotimi S. Olaleye, Bolaji O. Adeniji

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The study examined the effectiveness of selected coping strategies for poverty alleviation among smallholder farmers in Niger State, Nigeria. Data were collected with the aid of interview schedule. A multistage random sampling technique was used to select 225 respondents from 3 geographical zones in the State. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that majority (83.1%) of the respondents were within the age of 21-50 years, mostly male (76.0%) and married (77.8%). The highest educational level attained was quranic education. Findings showed that coping strategies commonly adopted by the farmers were; use of food stuff (94.2%), money savings(76.6%), reduction in expenditure(74.2%) and food consumption (65.2%). Also, there was high awareness of primary healthcare and fadama development poverty alleviation programmes by Government and non-governmental organizations. Regression model indicated a significant and positive relationship between the educational level of farmers, farm size, contact with extension and effectiveness of poverty coping strategies. Pearson correlation coefficient shows a correlation between coping strategies adopted and their effectiveness(r = 0.599, P < 0.01). However, t- test shows a significant difference between coping strategies adopted by the male and female farmers (t= -2.63, P < 0.01). It is recommended that awareness on poverty alleviation programmes aimed at improving the productivity of farming activities should be intensified while farmers should be involved in the planning and implementation of these programmes.

Keywords: coping strategies, effectiveness, farmers, poverty alleviation.

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Authors: Ana Corberan-Vallet, Karen C. Florez, Ingrid C. Marino, Jose D. Bermudez

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In 2016, the Region of the Americas was declared free of measles, a viral disease that can cause severe health problems. However, since 2017, measles has reemerged in Venezuela and has subsequently reached neighboring countries. In 2018, twelve American countries reported confirmed cases of measles. Governmental and health authorities in Colombia, a country that shares the longest land boundary with Venezuela, are aware of the need for a strong response to restrict the expanse of the epidemic. In this work, we apply a Bayesian hierarchical Poisson model with an underlying cluster structure to describe disease incidence in Colombia. Concretely, the proposed methodology provides relative risk estimates at the department level and identifies clusters of disease, which facilitates the implementation of targeted public health interventions. Socio-demographic factors, such as the percentage of migrants, gross domestic product, and entry routes, are included in the model to better describe the incidence of disease. Since the model does not impose any spatial correlation at any level of the model hierarchy, it avoids the spatial confounding problem and provides a suitable framework to estimate the fixed-effect coefficients associated with spatially-structured covariates.

Keywords: Bayesian analysis, cluster identification, disease mapping, risk estimation

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Authors: Kreetha Thumcharoensathit

Abstract:

The purpose of the analysis of Thai Arts and Culture which concerning the formation of Thai identity letter font designed is to identify The Aumphawa local community identity so as to select the suitable letter font which can applicable to the computer software usage. The populated survey was from the group of local people who live in Aumphawa sub-district. The methodological is cluster sampling from 100 surveyed, those 50 were from people who have household registration done in Aumphawa sub-district and other from people who live outside. In order to analyze and design the Thai identity letter font computer software designed for both Thai and English language version, the analysis had been completed by compiling of document and field survey from local people’s opinion on their Arts and Culture identity. The out-put will be submitted to the experts for evaluation.

Keywords: Thai arts, design, font, identity

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Authors: Hasan Vural

Abstract:

Turkey is a favorable country to produce a great variety of agricultural products because of her different geographic and climatic conditions which have been used to divide the country into four main and seven sub regions. This classification into seven regions traditionally has been used in order to data collection and publication especially related with agricultural production. Afterwards, nine agricultural regions were considered. Recently, the governmental body which is responsible of data collection and dissemination (Turkish Institute of Statistics-TIS) has used 12 classes which include 11 sub regions and Istanbul province. This study aims to evaluate these classification efforts based on the acreage of ten main crops in a ten years time period (1996-2005). The panel data grouped in 11 subregions has been evaluated by cluster and multivariate statistical methods. It was concluded that from the agricultural production point of view, it will be rather meaningful to consider three main and eight sub-agricultural regions throughout the country.

Keywords: agricultural region, factorial analysis, cluster analysis,

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Authors: Mohammed Ibrahim Girei

Abstract:

Adamawa state is one the major producers of both crop and animals in Nigeria. Agricultural production serves as the major means livelihood of the people in the state. However, the agricultural activities of the farmers in the state are at subsistence level. However integration of these small scale farmers in local, national and international market is paramount importance. The paper was designed to categorize farmers based on market participation among the cattle farmers in Adamawa state, Nigeria. The multistage sampling procedure was employed. To achieve this procedure, structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 400 respondents. The data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics. The result revealed that the majority of market participants were net sellers (78.51 %) (Sales greater than purchase), net buyers were (purchase greater than sales) 12.95 % and only 9% were autarkic (sales equal purchase). The study recommends that Government should provide more effective security services in cattle farming communities, which is very important as the market participants in the study area were net sellers (producers), it will help in addressing the problem of cattle rustling and promote more investment in cattle industry. There is a need to establish a standard cattle market, veterinary services and grazing reserves in the area so that to facilitate the cattle production and marketing system in the area and to meet up with the challenging of livestock development as a result of rapid human population growth in developing countries like Nigeria.

Keywords: categories, cattle, farmers, market, participation

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Authors: Omer Livvarcin, Mary Kay Park, Michael Miles

Abstract:

The current literature includes a few studies that mention the impact of relations between teams, the business environment, and experiences from previous projects. There is, however, limited research that treats the phenomenon of project atmosphere (PA) as a whole. This is especially true of research identifying parameters and sub-parameters, which allow project management (PM) teams to build a project culture that ultimately imbues project success. This study’s findings identify a number of key project atmosphere parameters and sub-parameters that affect project management success. One key parameter identified in the study is a cluster related to cultural concurrence, including artifacts such as policies and mores, values, perceptions, and assumptions. A second cluster centers on motivational concurrence, including such elements as project goals and team-member expectations, moods, morale, motivation, and organizational support. A third parameter cluster relates to experiential concurrence, with a focus on project and organizational memory, previous internal PM experience, and external environmental PM history and experience). A final cluster of parameters is comprised of those falling in the area of relational concurrence, including inter/intragroup relationships, role conflicts, and trust. International and intercultural project management data was collected and analyzed from the following countries: Canada, China, Nigeria, South Korea and Turkey. The cross-cultural nature of the data set suggests increased confidence that the findings will be generalizable across cultures and thus applicable for future international project management success. The intent of the identification of project atmosphere as a critical project management element is that a clear understanding of the dynamics of its sub-parameters upon projects may significantly improve the odds of success of future international and intercultural projects.

Keywords: project management, project atmosphere, cultural concurrence, motivational concurrence, relational concurrence

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Authors: Prittesh Patel, Ramar Krishnamurthy

Abstract:

In the present study, nine strains of C. falcatum obtained from different places and cultivars were characterized for sporulation, growth rate, and 18S rRNA gene sequence. All isolates had characteristic fast-growing sparse and fleecy aerial mycelia on potato dextrose agar with sickle shape conidia (length x width: varied from 20.0 X 3.89 to 25.52 X 5.34 μm) and blackish to orange acervuli with setae (length x width: varied from 112.37X 2.78 to 167.66 X 6.73 μm). They could be divided into two groups on the base of morphology; P1, dense mycelia with concentric growth and P2, sparse mycelia with uneven growth. Genomic DNA isolation followed by PCR amplification with ITS1 and ITS4 primer produced ~550bp amplicons for all isolates. Phylogeny generated by 18S rRNA gene sequence confirmed the variation in isolates and mainly grouped into two clusters; cluster 1 contained CoC671 isolates (cfNAV and cfPAR) and Co86002 isolate (cfTIM). Other isolates cfMAD, cfKAM, and cfMAR were grouped into cluster 2. Remaining isolates did not fall into any cluster. Isolate cfGAN, collected from Co86032 was found highly diverse of all the nine isolates. In a nutshell, we found considerable genetic divergence and morphological variation within C. falcatum accessions collected from different areas of south Gujarat, India and these can be used for the breeding program.

Keywords: Colletotrichum falcatum, ITS, morphology, red rot, sugarcane

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