Search results for: fish market
732 Comparative Emission Analysis of Gasoline/LPG Automotive Bifuel Engine
Authors: R.R. Saraf, S.S.Thipse, P.K.Saxena
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This paper presents comparative emission study of newly introduced gasoline/LPG bifuel automotive engine in Indian market. Emissions were tested as per LPG-Bharat stage III driving cycle. Emission tests were carried out for urban cycle and extra urban cycle. Total time for urban and extra urban cycle was 1180 sec. Engine was run in LPG mode by using conversion system. Emissions were tested as per standard procedure and were compared. Corrected emissions were computed by deducting ambient reading from sample reading. Paper describes detail emission test procedure and results obtained. CO emissions were in the range of38.9 to 111.3 ppm. HC emissions were in the range of 18.2 to 62.6 ppm. Nox emissions were 08 to 3.9 ppm and CO2 emissions were from 6719.2 to 8051 ppm. Paper throws light on emission results of LPG vehicles recently introduced in Indian automobile market. Objectives of this experimental study were to measure emissions of engines in gasoline & LPG mode and compare them.Keywords: Gasoline, LPG, Emission, Bifuel, Engine.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3404731 Security Enhanced RFID Middleware System
Authors: Jieun Song, Taesung Kim, Sokjoon Lee, Howon Kim
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Recently, the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology attracts the world market attention as essential technology for ubiquitous environment. The RFID market has focused on transponders and reader development. But that concern has shifted to RFID software like as high-valued e-business applications, RFID middleware and related development tools. However, due to the high sensitivity of data and service transaction within the RFID network, security consideration must be addressed. In order to guarantee trusted e-business based on RFID technology, we propose a security enhanced RFID middleware system. Our proposal is compliant with EPCglobal ALE (Application Level Events), which is standard interface for middleware and its clients. We show how to provide strengthened security and trust by protecting transported data between middleware and its client, and stored data in middleware. Moreover, we achieve the identification and service access control against illegal service abuse. Our system enables secure RFID middleware service and trusted e-business service.Keywords: RFID Middleware, ALE (Application Level Events), Security.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2067730 The Determinants of Voluntary Disclosure in Croatia
Authors: Zeljana Aljinovic Barac, Marina Granic, Tina Vuko
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Study investigates the level and extent of voluntary disclosure practice in Croatia. The research was conducted on the sample of 130 medium and large companies. Findings indicate that two thirds of the companies analyzed disclose below-average number of additional information. The explanatory analyses has shown that firm size, listing status and industrial sector significantly and positively affect the level and extent of voluntary disclosure in the annual report of Croatian companies. On the other hand, profitability and ownership structure were found statistically insignificant. Unlike previous studies, this paper deals with level of voluntary disclosure of medium and large companies, as well as companies whose shares are not listed on the organized capital market, which can be found as our contribution. Also, the research makes contribution by providing the insights into voluntary disclosure practices in Croatia, as a case of macro-oriented accounting system economy, i.e. bank oriented economy with an emerging capital market.
Keywords: Annual report, Croatian companies, Disclosure index, Voluntary disclosure.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2525729 The Key Challenges of the New Bank Regulations
Authors: Petr Teply
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The New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II) influences how financial institutions around the world, and especially European Union institutions, determine the amount of capital to reserve. However, as the recent global crisis has shown, the revision of Basel II is needed to reflect current trends, such as increased volatility and correlation, in the world financial markets. The overall objective of Basel II is to increase the safety and soundness of the international financial system. Basel II builds on three main pillars: Pillar I deals with the minimum capital requirements for credit, market and operational risk, Pillar II focuses on the supervisory review process and finally Pillar III promotes market discipline through enhanced disclosure requirements for banks. The aim of this paper is to provide the historical background, key features and impact of Basel II on financial markets. Moreover, we discuss new proposals for international bank regulation (sometimes referred to as Basel III) which include requirements for higher quality, constituency and transparency of banks' capital and risk management, regulation of OTC markets and introduction of new liquidity standards for internationally active banks.
Keywords: Basel II, Basel III, risk management, bank regulation
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2074728 Exploration of Sweet Potato Cultivar Markets Availability in North West Province, South Africa
Authors: V. M. Mmbengwa, J. R. M. Mabuso, C. P. Du Plooy, S. Laurrie, H. D. van Schalkwyk
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Sweet potato products are necessary for the provision of essential nutrients in every household, regardless of their poverty status. Their consumption appears to be highly influenced by socioeconomic factors, such as malnutrition, food insecurity and unemployment. Therefore, market availability is crucial for these cultivars to resolve some of the socio-economic factors. The aim of the study was to investigate market availability of sweet potato cultivars in the North West Province. In this study, both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were used. Qualitative methodology was used to explain the quantitative outcomes of the variables. On the other hand, quantitative results were used to test the hypothesis. The study used SPSS software to analyse the data. Crosstabulation and Chi-square statistics were used to obtain the descriptive and inferential analyses, respectively. The study found that the Blesbok cultivar is dominating the markets of the North West Province, with the Monate cultivar dominating in the Bojanala Platinum (75%) and Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati (25%) districts. It is also found that a unit increase in the supply of sweet potato cultivars in both local and district municipal markets is accompanied by a reduced demand of 28% and 33% at district and local markets, respectively. All these results were found to be significant at p<0.05. The results further revealed that in four out of nine local municipality markets, the Blesbok cultivar seems to be solely available in those four local municipal markets of North West Province. It can be concluded that Blesbok, relative to other cultivars, is the most commercialised sweet potato variety and that consumers across this Province are highly aware of it. For other cultivars to assume market prominence in this Province, a well-designed marketing campaign for creating awareness may be required. This campaign may be based on nutritional advantages of different cultivars, of which Blesbok is relatively inferior, compared to orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties.
Keywords: Cultivar, malnutrition, markets, sweet potato.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2310727 Information Technology Governance Implementation and Its Determinants in the Egyptian Market
Authors: Nariman O. Kandil, Ehab K. Abou-Elkheir, Amr M. Kotb
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Effective IT governance guarantees the strategic alignment of IT and business goals, risk mitigation control, and better IT and business performance. This study seeks to examine empirically the extent of IT governance implementation within the firms listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX30) and its determinants. Accordingly, 18 semi-structured interviews, face to face, phone, and video-conferencing, using various tools (e.g., WebEx, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams) were undertaken at the interviewees’ offices in Egypt between the end of November 2019 and the end of August 2020. Results suggest that there are variances in the extent of IT Governance (ITG) implementation within the firms listed on the EGX30, mainly caused by the industry type and internal and external triggers. The results also suggest that the organization size, the type of auditor, the criticality of the industry, the effective processes & key performance indicators (KPIs), and the information intensity expertise of the chief information officers (CIOs) have a significant impact on ITG implementation within the firms.
Keywords: Effective IT governance, Egyptian Market, information security, risk controls.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 191726 Impact of Brand Origin on Brand Loyalty: A Case of Personal Care Products in Pakistan
Authors: Aimen Batool Bint-E-Rashid, Syed Muhammad Dawood Ali Shah, Muhammad Usman Farooq, Mahgul Anwar
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As the world is progressing, the needs and demands of the consumer market are also changing. Nowadays the trends of consumer purchase decisions are dependent upon multiple factors. This study aims to identify the influential impact of country of origin over the perception and devotion towards daily personal care products specifically in reference to the knowledge and awareness regarding that particular brand in Pakistan. To corroborate this study, a 30-item brand origin questionnaire has been used with 300 purchase decision makers belonging to different age groups. To illustrate this study, a model has been developed based on brand origin, brand awareness and brand loyalty. Correlation and regression analysis have been used to find out the results which conclude the findings on the perspective of Pakistan’s consumer market as that brand origin has a direct relationship with brand loyalty provided that the consumer has a positive brand awareness. Support for the fact that brand origin impacts brand loyalty through brand awareness has been presented in this study.
Keywords: Brand awareness, brand loyalty, brand origin, personal care products, P&G, Unilever.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1103725 CRYPTO COPYCAT: A Fashion Centric Blockchain Framework for Eliminating Fashion Infringement
Authors: Magdi Elmessiry, Adel Elmessiry
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The fashion industry represents a significant portion of the global gross domestic product, however, it is plagued by cheap imitators that infringe on the trademarks which destroys the fashion industry's hard work and investment. While eventually the copycats would be found and stopped, the damage has already been done, sales are missed and direct and indirect jobs are lost. The infringer thrives on two main facts: the time it takes to discover them and the lack of tracking technologies that can help the consumer distinguish them. Blockchain technology is a new emerging technology that provides a distributed encrypted immutable and fault resistant ledger. Blockchain presents a ripe technology to resolve the infringement epidemic facing the fashion industry. The significance of the study is that a new approach leveraging the state of the art blockchain technology coupled with artificial intelligence is used to create a framework addressing the fashion infringement problem. It transforms the current focus on legal enforcement, which is difficult at best, to consumer awareness that is far more effective. The framework, Crypto CopyCat, creates an immutable digital asset representing the actual product to empower the customer with a near real time query system. This combination emphasizes the consumer's awareness and appreciation of the product's authenticity, while provides real time feedback to the producer regarding the fake replicas. The main findings of this study are that implementing this approach can delay the fake product penetration of the original product market, thus allowing the original product the time to take advantage of the market. The shift in the fake adoption results in reduced returns, which impedes the copycat market and moves the emphasis to the original product innovation.Keywords: Fashion, infringement, Blockchain, artificial intelligence, textiles supply.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1234724 Analysing the Renewable Energy Integration Paradigm in the Post-COVID-19 Era: An Examination of the Upcoming Energy Law of China
Authors: Lan Wu
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China’s declared transformation towards a ‘new electricity system dominated by renewable energy’ requires a cleaner electricity consumption mix with high shares of renewable energy sourced-electricity (RES-E). Unfortunately, integration of RES-E into Chinese electricity markets remains a problem pending more robust legal support, evidenced by the curtailment of wind and solar power due to integration constraints. The upcoming Energy Law of the PRC (Energy Law) is expected to provide such long-awaiting support and coordinate the existing diverse sector-specific laws to deal with the weak implementation that dampening the delivery of their desired regulatory effects. However, in the shadow of the COVID-19 crisis, it remains uncertain how this new Energy Law brings synergies to RES-E integration, mindful of the significant impacts of the pandemic. Through the theoretical lens of the interplay between China’s electricity market reform and legislative development, this paper investigates whether there is a paradigm shift in Energy Law regarding renewable energy integration compared with the existing sector-specific energy laws. It examines the 2020 Draft for Comments on the Energy Law and analyses its relationship with sector-specific energy laws focusing on RES-E integration. The comparison is drawn upon five critical aspects of the RES-E integration issue, including the status of renewables, marketisation, incentive schemes, consumption mechanisms, access to power grids and dispatching. The analysis shows that it is reasonable to expect a more open and well-organised electricity market, enabling the absorption of high shares of RES-E. The present paper concludes that a period of prosperous development of RES-E in the post-COVID-19 era can be anticipated with the legal support by the upcoming Energy Law. It contributes to understanding the signals China is sending regarding the transition towards a cleaner energy future.
Keywords: energy law, energy transition, electricity market reform, renewable energy integration
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 692723 Board Members' Financial Education and Firms' Performance: Empirical Evidence for Bucharest Stock Exchange Companies
Authors: Mădălina Maria Gîrbină, Cătălin Nicolae Albu, Nadia Albu
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After the accounting scandals and the financial crisis, regulators have stressed the need for more financial experts on boards. Several studies conducted in countries with developed capital markets report positive effects of board financial competencies. As each country offers a different context and specific institutional factors this paper addresses the subject in the context of Romania. The Romanian capital market offers an interesting research field because of the heterogeneity of listed firms. After analyzing board members education based on public information posted on listed companies websites and their annual reports we found a positive association between the proportion of board members holding a postgraduate degree in financial fields and market based performance measured by Tobin q. We found also that the proportion of Board members holding degrees in financial fields is higher in bigger firms and firms with more concentrated ownership.
Keywords: financial education, corporate governance, board
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3890722 Temperature-dependent Structural Perturbation of Tuna Myoglobin
Authors: Yoshihiro Ochiai
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To unveil the mechanism of fast autooxidation of fish myoglobins, the effect of temperature on the structural change of tuna myoglobin was investigated. Purified myoglobin was subjected to preincubation at 5, 20, 50 and 40oC. Overall helical structural decay through thermal treatment up to 95oC was monitored by circular dichroism spectrometry, while the structural changes around the heme pocket was measured by ultraviolet/visible absorption spectrophotometry. As a result, no essential structural change of myoglobin was observed under 30oC, roughly equivalent to their body temperature, but the structure was clearly damaged at 40oC. The Soret band absorption hardly differed irrespective of preincubation temperature, suggesting that the structure around the heme pocket was not perturbed even after thermal treatment.Keywords: denaturation, myoglobin, stability, tuna.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1985721 Variation of Spot Price and Profits of Andhra Pradesh State Grid in Deregulated Environment
Authors: Chava Sunil Kumar, P.S. Subrahmanyan, J. Amarnath
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In this paper variation of spot price and total profits of the generating companies- through wholesale electricity trading are discussed with and without Central Generating Stations (CGS) share and seasonal variations are also considered. It demonstrates how proper analysis of generators- efficiencies and capabilities, types of generators owned, fuel costs, transmission losses and settling price variation using the solutions of Optimal Power Flow (OPF), can allow companies to maximize overall revenue. It illustrates how solutions of OPF can be used to maximize companies- revenue under different scenarios. And is also extended to computation of Available Transfer Capability (ATC) is very important to the transmission system security and market forecasting. From these results it is observed that how crucial it is for companies to plan their daily operations and is certainly useful in an online environment of deregulated power system. In this paper above tasks are demonstrated on 124 bus real-life Indian utility power system of Andhra Pradesh State Grid and results have been presented and analyzed.Keywords: OPF, ATC, Electricity Market, Bid, Spot Price
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1813720 Procurement for Management Services in Delivery of Public Construction Projects in Poland
Authors: A. Leśniak, E. Plebankiewicz, K. Zima
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Construction projects can be implemented under various contractual and organizational systems. They can be divided into two groups: systems without the managing company where the Client manages the process, and systems with the managing company, where management is entrusted to an external company. In the public sector of the Polish market there are two ways of delivery of construction projects with the participation of the manager: one is to assign operations to another party, the so called Project Supervisor, whilst the other results from the application of FIDIC conditions of contract, which entail appointment of the Engineer. The decision is to be made by the Client and depends on various factors. On the public procurement market in Poland the selection of construction project manager boils down to awarding the contract for such a service. The selection can be done by one of eight public procurement procedures identified by the procurement law. The paper provides the analysis of 96 contracts for services awarded in 2011, which employed construction management. The study aimed to investigate the methods and criteria for selecting managers, applied in practice by the Polish public Clients.
Keywords: construction management, construction services, methods and criteria of tender selection, public procurement
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1788719 DEMO Based Optimal Power Purchase Planning Under Electricity Price Uncertainty
Authors: Tulika Bhattacharjee, A. K.Chakraborty
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Due to the deregulation of the Electric Supply Industry and the resulting emergence of electricity market, the volumes of power purchases are on the rise all over the world. In a bid to meet the customer-s demand in a reliable and yet economic manner, utilities purchase power from the energy market over and above its own production. This paper aims at developing an optimal power purchase model with two objectives viz economy and environment ,taking various functional operating constraints such as branch flow limits, load bus voltage magnitudes limits, unit capacity constraints and security constraints into consideration.The price of purchased power being an uncertain variable is modeled using fuzzy logic. DEMO (Differential Evolution For Multi-objective Optimization) is used to obtain the pareto-optimal solution set of the multi-objective problem formulated. Fuzzy set theory has been employed to extract the best compromise non-dominated solution. The results obtained on IEEE 30 bus system are presented and compared with that of NSGAII.Keywords: Deregulation, Differential Evolution, Multi objective Optimization, Pareto Optimal Set, Optimal Power Flow
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1506718 Technological Environment - International Marketing Strategy Relationship
Authors: Suthawan Chirapanda
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International trade involves both large and small firms engaged in business overseas. Possible drivers that force companies to enter international markets include increasing competition at the domestic market, maturing domestic markets, and limited domestic market opportunities. Technology is an important driving factor in shaping international marketing strategy as well as in driving force towards a more global marketplace, especially technology in communication. It includes telephones, the internet, computer systems and e-mail. There are three main marketing strategy choices, namely standardization approach, adaptation approach and middleof- the-road approach that companies implement to overseas markets. The decision depends on situations and factors facing the companies in the international markets. In this paper, the contingency concept is considered that no single strategy can be effective in all contexts. The effect of strategy on performance depends on specific situational variables. Strategic fit is employed to investigate export marketing strategy adaptation under certain environmental conditions, which in turn can lead to superior performance.Keywords: Contingency approach, international marketing strategy, strategic fit, technological environment
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6782717 Destination of the Solid Waste Generated at the Agricultural Products Wholesale Market in Brazil
Authors: C de Almeida, I. M. Dal Fabbro
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The Brazilian Agricultural Products Wholesale Market fits well as example of residues generating system, reaching 750 metric tons per month of total residues, from which 600 metric tons are organic material and 150 metric tons are recyclable materials. Organic material is basically composed of fruit, vegetables and flowers leftovers from the products commercialization. The recyclable compounds are generate from packing material employed in the commercialization process. This research work devoted efforts in carrying quantitative analysis of the residues generated in the agricultural enterprise at its final destination. Data survey followed the directions implemented by the Residues Management Program issued by the agricultural enterprise. It was noticed from that analysis the necessity of changing the logistics applied to the recyclable material collecting process. However, composting process was elected as the organic compounds destination which is considered adequate for a material composed of significant percentage of organic matter far higher than wood, cardboard and plastics contents.
Keywords: Composting, environment, recycling, solid waste.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2020716 Product Features Extraction from Opinions According to Time
Authors: Kamal Amarouche, Houda Benbrahim, Ismail Kassou
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Nowadays, e-commerce shopping websites have experienced noticeable growth. These websites have gained consumers’ trust. After purchasing a product, many consumers share comments where opinions are usually embedded about the given product. Research on the automatic management of opinions that gives suggestions to potential consumers and portrays an image of the product to manufactures has been growing recently. After launching the product in the market, the reviews generated around it do not usually contain helpful information or generic opinions about this product (e.g. telephone: great phone...); in the sense that the product is still in the launching phase in the market. Within time, the product becomes old. Therefore, consumers perceive the advantages/ disadvantages about each specific product feature. Therefore, they will generate comments that contain their sentiments about these features. In this paper, we present an unsupervised method to extract different product features hidden in the opinions which influence its purchase, and that combines Time Weighting (TW) which depends on the time opinions were expressed with Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF). We conduct several experiments using two different datasets about cell phones and hotels. The results show the effectiveness of our automatic feature extraction, as well as its domain independent characteristic.
Keywords: Opinion mining, product feature extraction, sentiment analysis, SentiWordNet.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1300715 Morphometric Analysis of Tor tambroides by Stepwise Discriminant and Neural Network Analysis
Authors: M. Pollar, M. Jaroensutasinee, K. Jaroensutasinee
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The population structure of the Tor tambroides was investigated with morphometric data (i.e. morphormetric measurement and truss measurement). A morphometric analysis was conducted to compare specimens from three waterfalls: Sunanta, Nan Chong Fa and Wang Muang waterfalls at Khao Nan National Park, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Southern Thailand. The results of stepwise discriminant analysis on seven morphometric variables and 21 truss variables per individual were the same as from a neural network. Fish from three waterfalls were separated into three groups based on their morphometric measurements. The morphometric data shows that the nerual network model performed better than the stepwise discriminant analysis.Keywords: Morphometric, Tor tambroides, Stepwise Discriminant Analysis , Neural Network Analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2150714 Investigating the UAE Residential Valuation System: A Framework for Analysis
Authors: Simon Huston, Ebraheim Lahbash, Ali Parsa
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The development of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) into a regional trade, tourism, finance and logistics hub has transformed its real estate markets. However, speculative activity and price volatility remain concerns. UAE residential market values (MV) are exposed to fluctuations in capital flows and migration which, in turn, are affected by geopolitical uncertainty, oil price volatility and global investment market sentiment. Internally, a complex interplay between administrative boundaries, land tenure, building quality and evolving location characteristics fragments UAE residential property markets. In short, the UAE Residential Valuation System (UAE-RVS) confronts multiple challenges to collect, filter and analyze relevant information in complex and dynamic spatial and capital markets. A robust (RVS) can mitigate the risk of unhelpful volatility, speculative excess or investment mistakes. The research outlines the institutional, ontological, dynamic and epistemological issues at play. We highlight the importance of system capabilities, valuation standard salience and stakeholders trust.
Keywords: Valuation, property rights, information, institutions, trust, salience.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2373713 Bioprophylaxis of Saprolegniasis in Incubated Clarias gariepinus Eggs Using Pyocyanin Extracted from Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Authors: G. A. Oladosu, P. O. Ogbodogbo, C. I. Makinde, M. O. Tijani, O. A. Adegboyega
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Saprolegniasis is a major pathogenic infection that contributes significantly to poor hatching rates in incubated fish eggs in the African catfish hatchery in Nigeria. Malachite green, known to be very effective against this condition, has been banned because it is carcinogenic. There is therefore the need for other effective, yet safer method of controlling saprolegniasis in incubated fish eggs. A total of 50 ml crude, chloroform extract of pyocyanin from which solvent was removed to attain 30 ml, having a concentration of 12.16 ug/ml was produced from 700 ml broth culture of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from a previous study. In vitro susceptibility of the fungus was investigated by exposing fungal infected eggs to two different time-concentration ratios of pyocyanin; 0.275 ug/ml and 2.75 ug/ml for 1 and 24 h, and 5 mg/L malachite green as positive control while normal saline was the control. Efficacy of pyocyanin was evaluated using the degree of mycelial growth inhibition in the different treatments. Fertilized Clarias gariepinus eggs (between 45 to 64 eggs) were then incubated in 20 ml of medium containing the similar concentrations of pyocyanin and malachite green, with freshwater as control for 24 hours. Hatching rates of the incubated eggs were observed. Three samples of un-hatched eggs were taken from each medium and observed for the presence of fungal pathogens using microscopy. Another batch of three samples of un-hatched eggs from each treatment was also inoculated on Sabourand dextrose agar (SDA) using Egg-Agar Transfer technique to observe for fungal growth. Mycelial growth was inhibited in fungal infected eggs treated with 2.75 ug/ml for 24 h and the 5 mg/L malachite green for both 1 h and 24 h. The mortality rate was 100% in fertilized C. gariepinus eggs exposed for 24 h to 0.275 and 2.75 ug/ml of pyocyanin. The mortality rate was least in the malachite green followed by the control treatment. Embryonic development was observed to be arrested in the eggs treated with the two pyocyanin concentrations as they maintain their color but showed no development beyond the gastrula stage, whereas viable eggs in the control and malachite green treatments developed fully into healthy hatchlings. Furthermore, microscopy of the un-hatched eggs revealed the presence of a protozoan ciliate; Colpidium sp. (Tetrahymenidae), as well as a pathogenic fungus; Saprolegnia sp. in the control, but not in the malachite green and pyocyanin treatments. Growth of Saprolegnia sp. was also observed in SDA culture of un-hatched eggs from the control, but not from pyocyanin and malachite green treated eggs. Pyocyanin treatment of incubated eggs of Clarias gariepinus effectively prevented fungal infection in the eggs, but also arrested the development of the embryo. Therefore, crude chloroform extract of pyocyanin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa cannot be used in the control of Saprolegniasis in incubated Clarias gariepinus eggs at the concentration and duration tested in this study.
Keywords: African catfish, bioprophylaxis, embryo, saprolegniasis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 427712 Changes to Oxidative Stress Levels Following Exposure to Formaldehyde in Lymphocytes
Authors: Malinee Pongsavee
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Formaldehyde is the illegal chemical substance used for food preservation in fish and vegetable. It can promote carcinogenesis. Superoxide dismutases are the important antioxidative enzymes that catalyze the dismutation of superoxide anion into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. The resultant level of oxidative stress in formaldehyde-treated lymphocytes was investigated. The formaldehyde concentrations of 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 120μmol/L were treated in human lymphocytes for 12 hours. After 12 treated hours, the superoxide dismutase activity change was measured in formaldehyde-treated lymphocytes. The results showed that the formaldehyde concentrations of 60, 80 and 120μmol/L significantly decreased superoxide dismutase activities in lymphocytes (P < 0.05). The change of superoxide dismutase activity in formaldehyde-treated lymphocytes may be the biomarker for detect cellular injury, such as damage to DNA, due to formaldehyde exposure.
Keywords: Formaldehyde, lymphocytes, superoxide dismutase activity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2231711 Environmental Capacity and Sustainability of European Regional Airports: A Case Study
Authors: Nicola Gualandi, Luca Mantecchini, Davide Serrau
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Airport capacity has always been perceived in the traditional sense as the number of aircraft operations during a specified time corresponding to a tolerable level of average delay and it mostly depends on the airside characteristics, on the fleet mix variability and on the ATM. The adoption of the Directive 2002/30/EC in the EU countries drives the stakeholders to conceive airport capacity in a different way though. Airport capacity in this sense is fundamentally driven by environmental criteria, and since acoustical externalities represent the most important factors, those are the ones that could pose a serious threat to the growth of airports and to aviation market itself in the short-medium term. The importance of the regional airports in the deregulated market grew fast during the last decade since they represent spokes for network carriers and a preferential destination for low-fares carriers. Not only regional airports have witnessed a fast and unexpected growth in traffic but also a fast growth in the complaints for the nuisance by the people living near those airports. In this paper the results of a study conducted in cooperation with the airport of Bologna G. Marconi are presented in order to investigate airport acoustical capacity as a defacto constraint of airport growth.Keywords: Airport acoustical capacity, airport noise, air traffic noise, sustainability of regional airports.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1657710 Bridging the Green-Value-Gap: A South African Approach
Authors: E.J. Cilliers
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Green- spaces might be very attractive, but where are the economic benefits? What value do nature and landscape have for us? What difference will it make to jobs, health and the economic strength of areas struggling with deprivation and social problems? [1].There is a need to consider green spaces from a different perspective. Green planning is not just about flora and fauna, but also about planning for economic benefits [2]. It is worth trying to quantify the value of green spaces since nature and landscape are crucially important to our quality of life and sustainable development. The reality, however, is that urban development often takes place at the expense of green spaces. Urbanization is an ongoing process throughout the world; however, hyper-urbanization without environmental planning is destructive, not constructive [3]. Urban spaces are believed to be more valuable than other land uses, particular green areas, simply because of the market value connected to urban spaces. However, attractive landscapes can help raise the quality and value of the urban market even more. In order to reach these objectives of integrated planning, the Green-Value-Gap needs to be bridged. Economists have to understand the concept of Green-Planning and the spinoffs, and Environmentalists have to understand the importance of urban economic development and the benefits thereof to green planning. An interface between Environmental Management, Economic Development and sustainable Spatial Planning are needed to bridge the Green-Value-Gap.Keywords: Spatial Planning, Environmental Management, Green-Value-Gap, Compensation, Participation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2640709 The Ability of Forecasting the Term Structure of Interest Rates Based On Nelson-Siegel and Svensson Model
Authors: Tea Poklepović, Zdravka Aljinović, Branka Marasović
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Due to the importance of yield curve and its estimation it is inevitable to have valid methods for yield curve forecasting in cases when there are scarce issues of securities and/or week trade on a secondary market. Therefore in this paper, after the estimation of weekly yield curves on Croatian financial market from October 2011 to August 2012 using Nelson-Siegel and Svensson models, yield curves are forecasted using Vector autoregressive model and Neural networks. In general, it can be concluded that both forecasting methods have good prediction abilities where forecasting of yield curves based on Nelson Siegel estimation model give better results in sense of lower Mean Squared Error than forecasting based on Svensson model Also, in this case Neural networks provide slightly better results. Finally, it can be concluded that most appropriate way of yield curve prediction is Neural networks using Nelson-Siegel estimation of yield curves.
Keywords: Nelson-Siegel model, Neural networks, Svensson model, Vector autoregressive model, Yield curve.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3248708 On the Transition of Europe’s Power Sector: Economic Consequences of National Targets
Authors: Geoffrey J. Blanford, Christoph Weissbart
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The prospects for the European power sector indicate that it has to almost fully decarbonize in order to reach the economy-wide target of CO2-emission reduction. We apply the EU-REGEN model to explain the penetration of RES from an economic perspective, their spatial distribution, and the complementary role of conventional generation technologies. Furthermore, we identify economic consequences of national energy and climate targets. Our study shows that onshore wind power will be the most crucial generation technology for the future European power sector. Its geographic distribution is driven by resource quality. Gas power will be the major conventional generation technology for backing-up wind power. Moreover, a complete phase out of coal power proves to be not economically optimal. The paper demonstrates that existing national targets have a negative impact, especially on the German region with higher prices and lower revenues. The remaining regions profit are hardly affected. We encourage an EU-wide coordination on the expansion of wind power with harmonized policies. Yet, this requires profitable market structures for both, RES and conventional generation technologies.
Keywords: European decarbonization pathway, power market investment, public policies, technology choice.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 923707 The Influences of Marketing Mix on Customer Purchasing Behavior at Chatuchak Plaza Market
Authors: Bundit Pungnirund
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The objective of this research was to study the influence of marketing mix on customers purchasing behavior. A total of 397 respondents were collected from customers who were the patronages of the Chatuchak Plaza market. A questionnaire was utilized as a tool to collect data. Statistics utilized in this research included frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and multiple regression analysis. Data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents were male with the age between 25-34 years old, hold undergraduate degree, married and stay together. The average income of respondents was between 10,001-20,000 baht. In terms of occupation, the majority worked for private companies. The research analysis disclosed that there were three variables of marketing mix which included price (X2), place (X3), and product (X1) which had an influence on the frequency of customer purchasing. These three variables can predict a purchase about 30 percent of the time by using the equation; Y1 = 6.851 + .921(X2) + .949(X3) + .591(X1). It also found that in terms of marketing mixed, there were two variables had an influence on the amount of customer purchasing which were physical characteristic (X6), and the process (X7). These two variables are 17 percent predictive of a purchasing by using the equation: Y2 = 2276.88 + 2980.97(X6) + 2188.09(X7).
Keywords: Influences, Marketing Mixed, Purchasing Behavior.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11538706 Metaverse as a Form of Reality and the Impact of Metaverse in Higher Education
Authors: Josefina Bengoechea, Alex Bell
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In the metaverse, the characters were avatars working in a 3-dimensional virtual reality. This virtual reality existed beyond reality. The metaverse is a “the post-reality universe”; a perpetual and persistent multiuser environment in which physical reality and digital virtuality are merged. The virtual infrastructure needed to build a metaverse (which is in the process of being created), are: web3 technologies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain, smart contracts, and cryptocurrencies. Web3 refers to a new iteration of the actual web2. The actual web2 is dominated by powerful providers like Google, Apple, Amazon, and other corporate tech companies. The vision for web3 is a decentralized, and thus more equitable version of the web. The aim of this paper is, first, to present the Metaverse as a form of reality in which physical reality and digital virtuality combined to provide new experiences to users; second, to discuss the implications for education, specifically for higher education, and how programs will have to be modified so that the skills obtained by graduates match those demanded by the virtual labour market. This paper builds upon a constructivist approach, combining a literature review and research on key publications.
Keywords: Ethics in technology, cross realities, cryptocurrencies, labour market, metaverse, technology in higher education.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 704705 Marketing Strategy Analysis of Thai Asia Pacific Brewery Company
Authors: Sinee Sankrusme
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The study was a case study analysis about Thai Asia Pacific Brewery Company. The purpose was to analyze the company’s marketing objective, marketing strategy at company level, and marketing mix before liquor liberalization in 2000. Methods used in this study were qualitative and descriptive research approach which demonstrated the following results of the study demonstrated as follows: (1) Marketing objective was to increase market share of Heineken and Amtel, (2) the company’s marketing strategies were brand building strategy and distribution strategy. Additionally, the company also conducted marketing mix strategy as follows. Product strategy: The company added more beer brands namely Amstel and Tiger to provide additional choice to consumers, product and marketing research, and product development. Price strategy: the company had taken the following into consideration: cost, competitor, market, economic situation and tax. Promotion strategy: the company conducted sales promotion and advertising. Distribution strategy: the company extended channels its channels of distribution into food shops, pubs and various entertainment places. This strategy benefited interested persons and people who were engaged in the beer business.
Keywords: Marketing Strategy, Beer, Thai Asia Pacific Brewery Company.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6237704 Object-Oriented Programming Strategies in C# for Power Conscious System
Authors: Kayun Chantarasathaporn, Chonawat Srisa-an
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Low power consumption is a major constraint for battery-powered system like computer notebook or PDA. In the past, specialists usually designed both specific optimized equipments and codes to relief this concern. Doing like this could work for quite a long time, however, in this era, there is another significant restraint, the time to market. To be able to serve along the power constraint while can launch products in shorter production period, objectoriented programming (OOP) has stepped in to this field. Though everyone knows that OOP has quite much more overhead than assembly and procedural languages, development trend still heads to this new world, which contradicts with the target of low power consumption. Most of the prior power related software researches reported that OOP consumed much resource, however, as industry had to accept it due to business reasons, up to now, no papers yet had mentioned about how to choose the best OOP practice in this power limited boundary. This article is the pioneer that tries to specify and propose the optimized strategy in writing OOP software under energy concerned environment, based on quantitative real results. The language chosen for studying is C# based on .NET Framework 2.0 which is one of the trendy OOP development environments. The recommendation gotten from this research would be a good roadmap that can help developers in coding that well balances between time to market and time of battery.
Keywords: Low power consumption, object oriented programming, power conscious system, software.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1914703 Basic Business-Forces behind the Surviving and Sustainable Organizations: The Case of Medium Scale Contractors in South Africa
Authors: Iruka C. Anugwo, Winston M. Shakantu
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The objective of this study is to uncover the basic business-forces that necessitated the survival and sustainable performance of the medium scale contractors in the South African construction market. This study is essential as it set to contribute towards long-term strategic solutions for combating the incessant failure of start-ups construction organizations within South African. The study used a qualitative research methodology; as the most appropriate approach to elicit and understand, and uncover the phenomena that are basic business-forces for the active contractors in the market. The study also adopted a phenomenological study approach; and in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 medium scale contractors in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, between months of August to October 2015. This allowed for an in-depth understanding of the critical and basic business-forces that influenced their survival and performance beyond the first five years of business operation. Findings of the study showed that for potential contractors (startups), to survival in the competitive business environment such as construction industry, they must possess the basic business-forces. These forces are educational knowledge in construction and business management related disciplines, adequate industrial experiences, competencies and capabilities to delivery excellent services and products as well as embracing the spirit of entrepreneurship. Convincingly, it can be concluded that the strategic approach to minimize the endless failure of startups construction businesses; the potential construction contractors must endeavoring to access and acquire the basic educationally knowledge, training and qualification; need to acquire industrial experiences in collaboration with required competencies, capabilities and entrepreneurship acumen. Without these basic business-forces as been discovered in this study, the majority of the contractors gaining entrance in the market will find it difficult to develop and grow a competitive and sustainable construction organization in South Africa.Keywords: Basic business-forces, medium scale contractors, South Africa, sustainable organisations.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1551