Search results for: knowledge; Sustainability management; Top management leadership; Wine industry

Authors: Mallikarjun B. Channappagoudar, Pallapa Venkataram

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As a node monitoring protocol, which is a part of network management, operates in distributed manner, conformance testing of such protocols is more tedious than testing a peer-to-peer protocol. Various works carried out to give the methodology to do conformance testing of distributed protocol. In this paper, we have presented a formal approach for conformance testing of a Node Monitoring Protocol, which uses both static and mobile agents, for MANETs. First, we use SDL to obtain MSCs, which represent the scenario descriptions by sequence diagrams, which in turn generate test sequences and test cases. Later, Testing and Test Control Notation Version-3 (TTCN-3) is used to execute test cases with respect to generated test sequences to know the conformance of protocol against the given specification. This approach shows, the effective conformance testing of the distributed protocols for the network with varying node density and complex behavior. Experimental results for the protocol scenario represent the effectiveness of the method used.

Keywords: Conformance Testing, FSM, Mobile agent, TTCN, Test sequence.

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Authors: Javad Elkaie Behjati, Mehrzad Minouei

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The present study aimed to assess the cost of money based on separating deposits and identifying actions and costs affecting in the process of cost of money in EN Bank of Iran (also known as Eghtesad Novin Bank). The method to calculate the cost of money is based on Activity-Based Costing (ABC). To conduct the study, the required data including deposits in banks and absorbed costs related to the same deposits were extracted from the financial statements of the bank. In order to cost the bank services properly as well as determining the commercial strategies required by commercial units, the data are precisely studied and the cost of each deposit is calculated according to the ABC. Eventually, the factors helping to improve the cost management and also a new model to calculate the cost of money in the bank are presented by some applicable formulas. Furthermore, some offers have been provided for users of both sections, in the practical section in commercial units and the theoretical one in universities.

Keywords: The cost of money, activity-based costing, banking, bank deposits, bank fees, services bank.

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Authors: Supriyono, Sumardiyono

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Biodiesel is one of the alternative fuels that promising for substituting petro diesel as energy source which is advantage on sustainability and ecofriendly. Due to the raw material that tend to decompose during storage, biodiesel also have the same characteristic that tend to decompose and formed higher acid value which is the result of oxidation to double bond on a chain of ester. Decomposition of biodiesel due to oxidation reaction could prevent by introduce a small amount of antioxidant. The origin of raw materials and the process for producing biodiesel will determine the effectiveness of antioxidant. The quality degradation on biodiesel could evaluate by measuring iodine value and acid number of biodiesel. Biodiesel made from high fatty acid Jatropha curcas oil by using esterification and transesterification process will stand on the quality by introduce 90 ppm pyrogallol powder on the biodiesel, which could increase Induction period time from 2 hours to more than 6 hours in rancimat test evaluation.

Keywords: Acid value, antioxidant, biodiesel, iodine value.

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Authors: Armando Calabrese, Roberta Costa, Tamara Menichini, Francesco Rosati

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As a company competitiveness depends more and more on the relationship with its stakeholders, the topic of companystakeholder fit is becoming increasingly important. This fit affects the extent to which a stakeholder perceives CSR company commitment, values and behaviors and, therefore, stakeholder identification in a company and his/her loyalty to it. Consequently, it is important to measure the alignment or the gap between stakeholder CSR demands, values, preferences and perceptions, and the company CSR disclosed commitment, values and policies. In this paper, in order to assess the company-stakeholder fit about corporate responsibility, an innovative CSR fit positioning matrix is proposed. This matrix is based on the measurement of a company CSR disclosed commitment and stakeholder perceived and required commitment. The matrix is part of a more complex methodology based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators, content analysis and stakeholder questionnaires. This methodology provides appropriate indications for helping companies to achieve CSR company-stakeholder fit, by leveraging both CSR commitment and communication. Moreover, it could be used by top management for comparing different companies and stakeholders, and for planning specific CSR strategies, policies and activities.

Keywords: Company-Stakeholder fit, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), CSR Positioning Matrix, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Stakeholder Orientation.

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Authors: Heru Nurwarsito, R. Arief Setyawan, Rakhmadhany Primananda

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Voice Over IP (VoIP) is a technology that could pass the voice traffic and data packet form over an IP network. Network can be used for intranet or Internet. Phone calls using VoIP has advantages in terms of cheaper cost of PSTN phone to more than half, because the cost is calculated by the cost of the global nature of the Internet. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol at the application layer which serves to establish, modify, and terminate a multimedia session involving one or more users. This SIP signaling has SIP message in text form that is used for session management by the SIP components, such as User Agent, Registrar, Redirect Server, and Proxy Server. To build a SIP communication is required SIP Express Router (SER) to be able to receive SIP messages, for handling the basic functions of SIP messages. Problems occur when the NAT through which affects the voice communication will be blocked starting from the sound that is not sent or one side of the sound are sent (half duplex). How that could be used to penetrate NAT is to use a given mediaproxy random RTP port to penetrate NAT.

Keywords: VoIP, SIP, SIP Express Router, NAT, Mediaproxy.

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Authors: Meryem Elif Çelebi Yakartepe, Ayşe Betül Gökarslan

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Sustainable architecture is an approach which accepts the climatic and tomographic data as a necessary preliminary data package by favoring the relationship between human and nature and which strives to use the sources economically. The reflection of sustainable architecture approach to preservation - restoration discipline is including the architectural inheritance to daily life with its unique or new function by restoring it.

The restoration decisions of Yılan Kırkan Fountain in Isparta province of Turkey is a good example of the works of sustainable architecture and the preservation of architectural inheritance. It is aimed that Yılan Kırkan Fountain, which is desolate nowadays with no function, to be restored by the local authorities and university, included in the daily life and continue its function.

Keywords: Conservation and Restoration, Sustainable Architecture, Movement Technique, Isparta Yılan Kırkan Fountain.

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Authors: Kashif Kamran, Farooque Azam

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The policies governing the business of any organization are well reflected in her business rules. The business rules are implemented by data validation techniques, coded during the software development process. Any change in business policies results in change in the code written for data validation used to enforce the business policies. Implementing the change in business rules without changing the code is the objective of this paper. The proposed approach enables users to create rule sets at run time once the software has been developed. The newly defined rule sets by end users are associated with the data variables for which the validation is required. The proposed approach facilitates the users to define business rules using all the comparison operators and Boolean operators. Multithreading is used to validate the data entered by end user against the business rules applied. The evaluation of the data is performed by a newly created thread using an enhanced form of the RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) algorithm.

Keywords: Business Rules, data validation, multithreading, Reverse Polish Notation

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Authors: A. Chaouachi, R.M. Kamel, R. Ichikawa, H. Hayashi, K. Nagasaka

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This paper presents the applicability of artificial neural networks for 24 hour ahead solar power generation forecasting of a 20 kW photovoltaic system, the developed forecasting is suitable for a reliable Microgrid energy management. In total four neural networks were proposed, namely: multi-layred perceptron, radial basis function, recurrent and a neural network ensemble consisting in ensemble of bagged networks. Forecasting reliability of the proposed neural networks was carried out in terms forecasting error performance basing on statistical and graphical methods. The experimental results showed that all the proposed networks achieved an acceptable forecasting accuracy. In term of comparison the neural network ensemble gives the highest precision forecasting comparing to the conventional networks. In fact, each network of the ensemble over-fits to some extent and leads to a diversity which enhances the noise tolerance and the forecasting generalization performance comparing to the conventional networks.

Keywords: Neural network ensemble, Solar power generation, 24 hour forecasting, Comparative study

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Authors: Sylvie Ratté, Wilfried Njomgue, Pierre-André Ménard

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In this paper, we present symbolic recognition models to extract knowledge characterized by document structures. Focussing on the extraction and the meticulous exploitation of the semantic structure of documents, we obtain a meaningful contextual tagging corresponding to different unit types (title, chapter, section, enumeration, etc.).

Keywords: Information retrieval, document structures, symbolic grammars.

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Authors: Manel Mosbahi

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The risk of water erosion is one of the main environmental concerns in the southern Mediterranean regions. Thus, quantification of soil loss is an important issue for soil and water conservation managers. The objective of this paper is to examine the applicability of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model in The Sarrath river catchment, North of Tunisia, and to identify the most vulnerable areas in order to help manager implement an effective management program. The spatial analysis of the results shows that 7 % of the catchment experiences very high erosion risk, in need for suitable conservation measures to be adopted on a priority basis. The spatial distribution of erosion risk classes estimated 3% high, 5,4% tolerable, and 84,6% low. Among the 27 delineated subcatchments only 4 sub-catchments are found to be under high and very high soil loss group, two sub-catchments fell under moderate soil loss group, whereas other sub-catchments are under low soil loss group.

Keywords: Critical source areas, Erosion risk, SWAT model.

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Authors: Abdulkadir Abu Lawal

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For the dearth of reliable cardinal numerical data, the linked phenomena in productivity indices such as operational costs and company turnovers, etc. could not be investigated. This would not give us insight to the root of productivity problems at unique sites. So, ordinal ranking by professionals who were most directly involved with construction sites was applied for Kendall’s concordance. Responses gathered from independent architects, builders/engineers, and quantity surveyors were herein analyzed. They were responses based on factors that affect sites productivity, and these factors were categorized as head office factors, resource management effectiveness factors, motivational factors, and training/skill development factors. It was found that productivity is low and has to be improved in order to facilitate Nigerian efforts in bridging its infrastructure deficit. The significance of this work is underlined with the Kendall’s coefficient of concordance of 0.78, while remedial measures must be emphasized to stimulate better productivity. Further detailed study can be undertaken by using Fuzzy logic analysis on wider Delphi survey.

Keywords: Factors, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, magnitude of agreement, percentage magnitude of dichotomy, ranking variables.

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Authors: F. S. Eguakun, T. C. Nkwor

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Trees in the university environment are uniquely position; however, they can also present a millstone to the infrastructure and humans they coexist with. The numerous benefits of trees can be negated due to poor tree health and anthropogenic activities and as such can become hazardous. The study aims at evaluating the hazardous status of avenue trees in University of Port Harcourt. Data were collected from all the avenue trees within the selected major roads in the University. Tree growth variables were measured and health condition of the avenue trees were assessed as an indicator of some structural defects. The hazard status of the avenue trees was determined. Several tree species were used as avenue trees in the University however, Azadirachta indica (81%) was found to be most abundant. The result shows that only 0.3% avenue tree species was found to pose severe harzard in Abuja part of the University. Most avenue trees (55.2%) were rated as medium hazard status. Due to the danger and risk associated with hazardous trees, the study recommends that good and effective management strategies be implemented so as to prevent future damages from trees with small or medium hazard status.

Keywords: Avenue tree, hazard status, inventory, urban.

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Authors: Ping Du, Masaki Sagehashi, Akihiko Terada, Masaaki Hosomi

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Prediction of benzene transport in soil and volatilization from soil to the atmosphere is important for the preservation of human health and management of contaminated soils. The adequacy of a simple numerical model, assuming two-phase diffusion and equilibrium of liquid/solid adsorption, was investigated by experimental data of benzene concentration in a flux chamber (with headspace) where Andosol and sand were filled. Adsorption experiment for liquid phase was performed to determine an adsorption coefficient. Furthermore, adequacy of vapor phase adsorption was also studied through two runs of experiment using sand with different water content. The results show that the model adequately predicted benzene transport and volatilization from Andosol and sand with water content of 14.0%. In addition, the experiment additionally revealed that vapor phase adsorption should be considered in diffusion model for sand with very low water content.

Keywords: Benzene; Transport Model, Adsorption, Soil Contaminant.

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Authors: M. Lesage, G. Raîche, M. Riopel, F. Fortin, D. Sebkhi

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This paper describes a Web server implementation of the hierarchical aggregate assessment process in the field of education. This process describes itself as a field of teamwork assessment where teams can have multiple levels of hierarchy and supervision. This process is applied everywhere and is part of the management, education, assessment and computer science fields. The E-Assessment website named “Cluster” records in its database the students, the course material, the teams and the hierarchical relationships between the students. For the present research, the hierarchical relationships are team member, team leader and group administrator appointments. The group administrators have the responsibility to supervise team leaders. The experimentation of the application has been performed by high school students in geology courses and Canadian army cadets for navigation patrols in teams. This research extends the work of Nance that uses a hierarchical aggregation process similar as the one implemented in the “Cluster” application. 

Keywords: E-Learning, E-Assessment, Teamwork Assessment, Hierarchical Aggregate Assessment.

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Authors: Kang Won Lee, Jung Won Lee

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Characterizing the network flow is of fundamental importance to understand the complex dynamics of networks. And passenger flow characteristics of the subway network are very relevant for an effective transportation management in urban cities. In this study, passenger flow of Seoul metropolitan subway network is investigated and characterized through statistical analysis. Traditional betweenness centrality measure considers only topological structure of the network and ignores the transportation factors. This paper proposes a weighted betweenness centrality measure that incorporates monthly passenger flow volume. We apply the proposed measure on the Seoul metropolitan subway network involving 493 stations and 16 lines. Several interesting insights about the network are derived from the new measures. Using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, we also find out that monthly passenger flow between any two stations follows a power-law distribution and other traffic characteristics such as congestion level and throughflow traffic follow exponential distribution.

Keywords: Betweenness centrality, correlation coefficient, power-law distribution, Korea traffic data base.

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Authors: Hideki.Kobayashi, Hiroshi.Osada

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The service industry accounts for about 70% of GDP of Japan, and the importance of the service innovation is pointed out. The importance of the system use and the support service increases in the information system that is one of the service industries. However, because the system is not used enough, the purpose for which it was originally intended cannot often be achieved in the CRM system. To promote the use of the system, the effective service method is needed. It is thought that the service model's making and the clarification of the success factors are necessary to improve the operation service of the CRM system. In this research the model of the operation service in the CRM system is made.

Keywords: Information system, Operation service, Serviceinnovation, Solution

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Authors: Milad Eghtedari Naeini, Gholamreza Heravi

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In this paper, based on the past project cost and time performance, a model for forecasting project cost performance is developed. This study presents a probabilistic project control concept to assure an acceptable forecast of project cost performance. In this concept project activities are classified into sub-groups entitled control accounts. Then obtain the Stochastic S-Curve (SS-Curve), for each sub-group and the project SS-Curve is obtained by summing sub-groups- SS-Curves. In this model, project cost uncertainties are considered through Beta distribution functions of the project activities costs required to complete the project at every selected time sections through project accomplishment, which are extracted from a variety of sources. Based on this model, after a percentage of the project progress, the project performance is measured via Earned Value Management to adjust the primary cost probability distribution functions. Then, accordingly the future project cost performance is predicted by using the Monte-Carlo simulation method.

Keywords: Monte Carlo method, Probabilistic model, Project forecasting, Stochastic S-curve

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Authors: Kamal K. Bharadwaj, Basheer M. Al-Maqaleh

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In the recent past, there has been an increasing interest in applying evolutionary methods to Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and a number of successful applications of Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Genetic Programming (GP) to KDD have been demonstrated. The most predominant representation of the discovered knowledge is the standard Production Rules (PRs) in the form If P Then D. The PRs, however, are unable to handle exceptions and do not exhibit variable precision. The Censored Production Rules (CPRs), an extension of PRs, were proposed by Michalski & Winston that exhibit variable precision and supports an efficient mechanism for handling exceptions. A CPR is an augmented production rule of the form: If P Then D Unless C, where C (Censor) is an exception to the rule. Such rules are employed in situations, in which the conditional statement 'If P Then D' holds frequently and the assertion C holds rarely. By using a rule of this type we are free to ignore the exception conditions, when the resources needed to establish its presence are tight or there is simply no information available as to whether it holds or not. Thus, the 'If P Then D' part of the CPR expresses important information, while the Unless C part acts only as a switch and changes the polarity of D to ~D. This paper presents a classification algorithm based on evolutionary approach that discovers comprehensible rules with exceptions in the form of CPRs. The proposed approach has flexible chromosome encoding, where each chromosome corresponds to a CPR. Appropriate genetic operators are suggested and a fitness function is proposed that incorporates the basic constraints on CPRs. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Censored Production Rule, Data Mining, MachineLearning, Evolutionary Algorithms.

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Authors: Sehijpal Singh Khangura, Jai Inder Preet Singh, Vikas Dhawan

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Global warming, growing awareness of the environment, waste management issues, dwindling fossil resources, and rising oil prices resulted to increase the research in the materials that are friendly to our health and environment. Due to these reasons, green products are increasingly being promoted for sustainable development. In this work, fully biodegradable green composites have been developed using jute fibers as reinforcement and poly lactic acid as matrix material by film stacking technique. The effect of curing temperature during development of composites ranging from 160 °C, 170 °C, 180 °C and 190 °C was investigated for various mechanical properties. Results obtained from various tests indicate that impact strength decreases with an increase in curing temperature, but tensile and flexural strength increases till 180 °C, thereafter both the properties decrease. This study gives an optimum curing temperature for the development of jute/PLA composites.

Keywords: Natural fibers, polymer matrix composites, jute, compression molding, biodegradation.

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Authors: A. Knezović

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21st century has transformed the labor market landscape in a way of posing new and different demands on university graduates as well as university lecturers, which means that the knowledge and academic skills students acquire in the course of their studies should be applicable and transferable from the higher education context to their future professional careers. Given the context of the Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) classroom, the teachers’ objective is not only to teach the language itself, but also to prepare students to use that language as a medium to develop generic skills and competences. These include media and information literacy, critical and creative thinking, problem-solving and analytical skills, effective written and oral communication, as well as collaborative work and social skills, all of which are necessary to make university graduates more competitive in everyday professional environments. On the other hand, due to limitations of time and large numbers of students in classes, the frequently topic-centered syllabus of LSP courses places considerable focus on acquiring the subject matter and specialist vocabulary instead of sufficient development of skills and competences required by students’ prospective employers. This paper intends to explore some of those issues as viewed both by LSP lecturers and by business professionals in their respective surveys. The surveys were conducted among more than 50 LSP lecturers at higher education institutions in Croatia, more than 40 HR professionals and more than 60 university graduates with degrees in economics and/or business working in management positions in mainly large and medium-sized companies in Croatia. Various elements of LSP course content have been taken into consideration in this research, including reading and listening comprehension of specialist texts, acquisition of specialist vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as presentation and negotiation skills. The ability to hold meetings, conduct business correspondence, write reports, academic texts, case studies and take part in debates were also taken into consideration, as well as informal business communication, business etiquette and core courses delivered in a foreign language. The results of the surveys conducted among LSP lecturers will be analyzed with reference to what extent those elements are included in their courses and how consistently and thoroughly they are evaluated according to their course requirements. Their opinions will be compared to the results of the surveys conducted among professionals from a range of industries in Croatia so as to examine how useful and important they perceive the same elements of the LSP course content in their working environments. Such comparative analysis will thus show to what extent the syllabi of LSP courses meet the demands of the employment market when it comes to the students’ language skills and competences, as well as transferable skills. Finally, the findings will also be compared to the observations based on practical teaching experience and the relevant sources that have been used in this research. In conclusion, the ideas and observations in this paper are merely open-ended questions that do not have conclusive answers, but might prompt LSP lecturers to re-evaluate the content and objectives of their course syllabi.

Keywords: Languages for specific purposes (LSP), language skills, topic-centered syllabus, transferable skills.

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Authors: D. Mojo, Y. Todo, P. Matous

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In this paper, perceptions of actors on changes in crop productivity, quantity and quality of water, and determinants of their perception are analyzed using descriptive statistics and ordered logit model. Data collected from 297 Ethiopian farmers and 103 agricultural professionals from December 2009 to January 2010 are employed. Results show that the majority of the farmers and professionals recognized decline in water resources, reasoning climate changes and soil erosion as some of the causes. However, there is a variation in views on changes in productivity. The household asset, education level, age and geographical positions are found to affect farmers- perception on changes in crop productivity. But, the study underlines that there is no evidence that farmers- economic status, age, or education level affects recognition of degradation of water resources. Thus, more focus shall be given on providing them different coping mechanisms and alternative resource conserving technologies than educating about the problems.

Keywords: Agricultural Sustainability, Ethiopia, Perception, Productivity, Water Resources

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Authors: Marco A. S. González, Marlova P. Kulakowski, Luciano G. Breitenbach, Felipe Kirch

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The AEC sector has an expressive environmental responsibility. Actually, most building materials have severe environmental impacts along their production cycle. Professionals enrolled in building design may choice the materials and techniques with less impact among the viable options. This work presents a study about embodied energy in materials of two typical Brazilian constructive alternatives. The construction options considered are reinforced concrete structure and structural masonry. The study was developed for the region of São Leopoldo, southern Brazil. Results indicated that the energy embodied in these two constructive systems is approximately 1.72 GJ·m^-2 and 1.26 GJ·m^-2, respectively. It may be concluded that the embodied energy is lower in the structural masonry system, with a reduction around to 1/4 in relation to the traditional option. The results can be used to help design decisions.

Keywords: Civil construction, sustainability, embodied energy.

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Authors: A. Saghaei, R. Ghasemi

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Through 1980s, management accounting researchers described the increasing irrelevance of traditional control and performance measurement systems. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a critical business tool for a lot of organizations. It is a performance measurement system which translates mission and strategy into objectives. Strategy map approach is a development variant of BSC in which some necessary causal relations must be established. To recognize these relations, experts usually use experience. It is also possible to utilize regression for the same purpose. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), which is one of the most powerful methods of multivariate data analysis, obtains more appropriate results than traditional methods such as regression. In the present paper, we propose SEM for the first time to identify the relations between objectives in the strategy map, and a test to measure the importance of relations. In SEM, factor analysis and test of hypotheses are done in the same analysis. SEM is known to be better than other techniques at supporting analysis and reporting. Our approach provides a framework which permits the experts to design the strategy map by applying a comprehensive and scientific method together with their experience. Therefore this scheme is a more reliable method in comparison with the previously established methods.

Keywords: BSC, SEM, Strategy map.

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Authors: María Teresa García-Álvarez, Isabel Soares, Rosa María Mariz-Pérez

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Directive 2009/28/CE establishes, as obligatory objective, a share of renewable energies on energetic consumption of 20%, in European Union, in 2020 However, such European normative gives freedom to member states in the selection of the renewable promotion mechanism that allows them to obtain that objective. In this paper, we analyze the main characteristics of the promotion mechanisms of renewable energy used in the countries that shape the Electricity Iberian Market (Spain and Portugal) and the results in employment. The importance of these countries is given by the great increasing of the renewable energies which suppose a share higher than 30% of the overall generation in 2010. Therefore, this research paper can serve as the basis for the learning of other countries with regard to the main advantages that entail the use of a feed-in tariff system.

Keywords: Employment, Energy policy, Professional profiles, Renewable energies, Professional profiles.

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Authors: Salahaldein Alsadey, Issa Amaish

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Recycled aggregates (RA) have the potential to compromise concrete performance, contributing to issues such as reduced strength and increased susceptibility to cracking. This study investigates the impact of sisal fiber (SF) on the mechanical properties of concrete, with the objective of utilizing SFs as a reinforcing element in concrete compositions containing natural aggregate and varying percentages (25%, 50%, and 75%) of coarse RA replacement. The investigation aims to discern the positive and negative effects on compressive and flexural strength, thereby assessing the viability of SF-reinforced recycled concrete in comparison to conventional concrete composed of natural aggregate without SF. Test results revealed that concrete samples incorporating SF exhibited elevated compressive and flexural strength. Comparative analysis of these strength values was conducted with reference to samples devoid of SF.

Keywords: Sustainable construction, construction materials, recycled aggregate, sisal fibers, compressive strength, flexural strength, eco-friendly concrete, natural fiber composites, recycled materials, construction waste management.

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Authors: José Paulo Leal, Ricardo Queirós

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Standards for learning objects focus primarily on content presentation. They were already extended to support automatic evaluation but it is limited to exercises with a predefined set of answers. The existing standards lack the metadata required by specialized evaluators to handle types of exercises with an indefinite set of solutions. To address this issue existing learning object standards were extended to the particular requirements of a specialized domain. A definition of programming problems as learning objects, compatible both with Learning Management Systems and with systems performing automatic evaluation of programs, is presented in this paper. The proposed definition includes metadata that cannot be conveniently represented using existing standards, such as: the type of automatic evaluation; the requirements of the evaluation engine; and the roles of different assets - tests cases, program solutions, etc. The EduJudge project and its main services are also presented as a case study on the use of the proposed definition of programming problems as learning objects.

Keywords: Content Packaging, eLearning Services, Interoperability, Learning Objects.

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Authors: Jawairia Umar, Tanveer Hussain, Zulfiqar Ali, Muhammad Maqsood

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Different knitted structures and knitted parameters play a vital role in the stretch and recovery management of compression sportswear in addition to the materials use to generate this stretch and recovery behavior of the fabric. The present work was planned to predict the different performance indicators of a compression sportswear fabric with some ground parameters i.e. base yarn stitch length (polyester as base yarn and spandex as plating yarn involve to make a compression fabric) and linear density of the spandex which is a key material of any sportswear fabric. The prediction models were generated by response surface method for performance indicators such as stretch & recovery percentage, compression generated by the garment on body, total elongation on application of high power force and load generated on certain percentage extension in fabric. Certain physical properties of the fabric were also modeled using these two parameters.

Keywords: Compression, sportswear, stretch and recovery, statistical model, kikuhime.

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Authors: Naser Ahmadi Sani, Karim Solaimani, Lida Razaghnia, Jalal Zandi

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In recent decades, rapid and incorrect changes in land-use have been associated with consequences such as natural resources degradation and environmental pollution. Detecting changes in land-use is one of the tools for natural resource management and assessment of changes in ecosystems. The target of this research is studying the land-use changes in Haraz basin with an area of 677000 hectares in a 15 years period (1996 to 2011) using LANDSAT data. Therefore, the quality of the images was first evaluated. Various enhancement methods for creating synthetic bonds were used in the analysis. Separate training sites were selected for each image. Then the images of each period were classified in 9 classes using supervised classification method and the maximum likelihood algorithm. Finally, the changes were extracted in GIS environment. The results showed that these changes are an alarm for the HARAZ basin status in future. The reason is that 27% of the area has been changed, which is related to changing the range lands to bare land and dry farming and also changing the dense forest to sparse forest, horticulture, farming land and residential area.

Keywords: HARAZ Basin, Change Detection, Land-use, Satellite Data.

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Authors: Odenigbo Veronica Ngozi, Lorreta Chika Ukwuaba

Abstract:

This study focuses on how the strengthening adult literacy programs can help accelerate transformative strategies to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Nigeria, specifically in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State. The research delved into the definition of FGM, adult literacy programs, and how to achieve ending FGM in order to attain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2030. It further discussed the practice of FGM in Nigeria and emphasized the statement of the problem. Main purpose of the study was to investigate how strengthening adult literacy programs can help accelerate transformative strategies to end FGM in Nigeria and achieve SDGs in 2030. A survey research design was used to conduct the study in Nsukka L.G.A. The population was composed of 26 facilitators and adult learners in five adult learning centres in the area. The entire population was used as a sample. Structured questionnaires were employed to elicit information from the respondents. The items on the questionnaire were face-validated by three experts while the reliability of the instrument was verified using Cronbach Alpha Reliability Technique. The research questions were analysed using means and standard deviation while the hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of degree of significance using a t-test statistics. The result of the findings shows that the practices of FGM can end through strengthening adult literacy programs. Strengthening adult literacy programs is a good channel to end or stop FGM through the knowledge and skill acquired from the learning centres. The theoretical importance of the study lies in the fact that it highlights the role of adult literacy programs in accelerating transformative strategies to combat harmful cultural practices such as FGM. It further supports the importance of education and knowledge in achieving SDGs by 2030. The study addressed the question of how strengthening adult literacy programs can help accelerate transformative strategies which can end FGM in Nigeria and achieve SDGs by 2030. In conclusion, the study revealed that adult literacy is a good tool to end FGM in Nigeria. The recommendation was that (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), and individuals should support the funding and establishment of adult literacy centres in communities so as to reach all illiterate parents or individuals so that they can acquire the knowledge and skill needed to understand the negative effect of FGM in the life of a girl child.

Keywords: Adult literacy, female genital mutilation, learning centres, Sustainable Development Goals.

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Authors: Abdolsalam Ghaderi

Abstract:

In this paper, the single-depot capacitated location-routing problem under uncertainty is presented. The problem aims to find the optimal location of a single depot and the routing of vehicles to serve the customers when the parameters may change under different circumstances. This problem has many applications, especially in the area of supply chain management and distribution systems. To get closer to real-world situations, travel time of vehicles, the fixed cost of vehicles usage and customers’ demand are considered as a source of uncertainty. A combined approach including robust optimization and stochastic programming was presented to deal with the uncertainty in the problem at hand. For this purpose, a mixed integer programming model is developed and a heuristic algorithm based on Variable Neighborhood Search(VNS) is presented to solve the model. Finally, the computational results are presented and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: Location-routing problem, robust optimization, Stochastic Programming, variable neighborhood search.

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