Search results for: small group

Authors: A. Elbyed

Abstract:

Nowadays, ontologies are used for achieving a common understanding within a user community and for sharing domain knowledge. However, the de-centralized nature of the web makes indeed inevitable that small communities will use their own ontologies to describe their data and to index their own resources. Certainly, accessing to resources from various ontologies created independently is an important challenge for answering end user queries. Ontology mapping is thus required for combining ontologies. However, mapping complete ontologies at run time is a computationally expensive task. This paper proposes a system in which mappings between concepts may be generated dynamically as the concepts are encountered during user queries. In this way, the interaction itself defines the context in which small and relevant portions of ontologies are mapped. We illustrate application of the proposed system in the context of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) where learners need to access to learning resources covering specific concepts.

Keywords: Resources query, ontologies, ontology mapping, similarity measures, semantic web, e-learning.

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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: Michael Netzer, Michael Seger, Mahesh Visvanathan, Bernhard Pfeifer, Gerald H. Lushington, Christian Baumgartner

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Lung cancer accounts for the most cancer related deaths for men as well as for women. The identification of cancer associated genes and the related pathways are essential to provide an important possibility in the prevention of many types of cancer. In this work two filter approaches, namely the information gain and the biomarker identifier (BMI) are used for the identification of different types of small-cell and non-small-cell lung cancer. A new method to determine the BMI thresholds is proposed to prioritize genes (i.e., primary, secondary and tertiary) using a k-means clustering approach. Sets of key genes were identified that can be found in several pathways. It turned out that the modified BMI is well suited for microarray data and therefore BMI is proposed as a powerful tool for the search for new and so far undiscovered genes related to cancer.

Keywords: lung cancer, micro arrays, data mining, feature selection.

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Authors: Rowland R. Ogunrinde, Yusmadi Y. Jusoh, Noraini Che Pa, Wan Nurhayati W. Rahman, Azizol B. Abdullah

Abstract:

Enterprise Applications (EAs) aid the organizations achieve operational excellence and competitive advantage. Over time, most Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which are known to be the major drivers of most thriving global economies, use the costly on-premise versions of these applications thereby making business difficult to competitively thrive in the same market environment with their large enterprise counterparts. The advent of cloud computing presents the SMEs an affordable offer and great opportunities as such EAs can be cloud-hosted and rented on a pay-per-use basis which does not require huge initial capital. However, as there are numerous Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) offering EAs as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), there is a challenge of choosing a suitable provider with Quality of Service (QoS) that meet the organizations’ customized requirements. The proposed model takes care of that and goes a step further to select the most affordable among a selected few of the CSPs. In the earlier stage, before developing the instrument and conducting the pilot test, the researchers conducted a structured interview with three experts to validate the proposed model. In conclusion, the validity and reliability of the instrument were tested through experts, typical respondents, and analyzed with SPSS 22. Results confirmed the validity of the proposed model and the validity and reliability of the instrument.

Keywords: Cloud service provider, enterprise applications, quality of service, selection criteria, small and medium enterprise.

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Authors: Liping Li, Ke Li, Changchun Liu, Chengyu Liu, Yuanyang Li

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A five-class density histogram with an index named cumulative density was proposed to analyze the short-term HRV. 150 subjects participated in the test, falling into three groups with equal numbers -- the healthy young group (Young), the healthy old group (Old), and the group of patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). Results of multiple comparisons showed a significant differences of the cumulative density in the three groups, with values 0.0238 for Young, 0.0406 for Old and 0.0732 for CHF (p<0.001). After 7 days and 14 days, 46 subjects from the Young and Old groups were retested twice following the same test protocol. Results showed good-to-excellent interclass correlations (ICC=0.783, 95% confidence interval 0.676-0.864). The Bland-Altman plots were used to reexamine the test-retest reliability. In conclusion, the method proposed could be a valid and reliable method to the short-term HRV assessment.

Keywords: Autonomic nervous system, congestive heart failure, heart rate variability, histogram.

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Authors: Ruma Bhattacharyya

Abstract:

The basic objective of this paper is to measure and compare the profitability of investments made by the small and marginal farmers of the state of West Bengal in floriculture shifting from the traditional cultivation of paddy. A comparison of IRR is made to establish the fact that cultivation of flowers yield higher returns farmers whose land size is so small that viability of paddy cultivation is raising a question mark. A detailed study of the price behavior of the flower crop has been carried out in which the factors leading to the volatility of the price and the dispersion of the range have also been discussed. Finally the incremental incomes of the farmers have been calculated with the help of imputed income from paddy cultivation and the reported income from the selected flowers. The study shows that the farmers stand gainers if they opt for flower cultivation.

Keywords: Bazar Samity, Floriculture, Marginal Farmers.

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Authors: L. R. Ferreira, R. C. G. Bianchi, L. C.R. Ferreira, C. M. Galhardi, E. P. Baciuk, L. H. Oliveira

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Inhalation hazards are associated with potentially injurious exposure and increased risk for lung diseases, within the bauxite mining industry, especially for the smelter workers. Smoking is related to decreased lung function and leads to chronic lung diseases. This study had the objective to evaluate whether smoking is related to functional and radiographic respiratory changes in retired bauxite mining workers. Methods: This was a retrospective and cross-sectional study involving the analysis of database information of 140 retired bauxite mining workers from Poços de Caldas-MG evaluated at Worker’s Health Reference Center and at the Social Security Brazilian National Institute, from July 1^st, 2015 until June 30^th, 2016. The workers were divided into three groups: non-smokers (n = 47), ex-smokers (n = 46), and smokers (n = 47). The data included: age, gender, spirometry results, and the presence or not of pulmonary pleural and/or parenchymal changes in chest radiographs. Chi-Squared test was used (p < 0,05). Results: In the smokers’ group, 83% of spirometry tests and 64% of chest x-rays were altered. In the non-smokers’ group, 19% of spirometry tests and 13% of chest x-rays were altered. In the ex-smokers’ group, 35% of spirometry tests and 30% of chest x-rays were altered. Most of the results were statistically significant. Results demonstrated a significant difference between smokers’ and non-smokers’ groups in regard to spirometric and radiographic pulmonary alterations. Ex-smokers’ and non-smokers’ group demonstrated better results when compared to the smokers’ group in relation to altered spirometry and radiograph findings. These data may contribute to planning strategies to enhance smoking cessation programs within the bauxite mining industry.

Keywords: Bauxite mining, spirometry, chest radiography, smoking.

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Authors: Mehtap Dursun, E. Ertugrul Karsak, Melis Almula Karadayi

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Disposal of health-care waste (HCW) is considered as an important environmental problem especially in large cities. Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques are apt to deal with quantitative and qualitative considerations of the health-care waste management (HCWM) problems. This research proposes a fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making approach with a multilevel hierarchical structure including qualitative as well as quantitative performance attributes for evaluating HCW disposal alternatives for Istanbul. Using the entropy weighting method, objective weights as well as subjective weights are taken into account to determine the importance weighting of quantitative performance attributes. The results obtained using the proposed methodology are thoroughly analyzed.

Keywords: Entropy weighting method, group decision making, health-care waste management, hierarchical fuzzy multi-criteriadecision making

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Authors: M. Mahdavi, M. Ismail, K. Jumari, Z. M. Hanapi

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For the sensor network to operate successfully, the active nodes should maintain both sensing coverage and network connectivity. Furthermore, scheduling sleep intervals plays critical role for energy efficiency of wireless sensor networks. Traditional methods for sensor scheduling use either sensing coverage or network connectivity, but rarely both. In this paper, we use random scheduling for sensing coverage and then turn on extra sensor nodes, if necessary, for network connectivity. Simulation results have demonstrated that the number of extra nodes that is on with upper bound of around 9%, is small compared to the total number of deployed sensor nodes. Thus energy consumption for switching on extra sensor node is small.

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, energy efficient network, performance analysis, network coverage.

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Authors: Hirofumi Taki, Takuya Sakamoto, Makoto Yamakawa, Tsuyoshi Shiina, Toru Sato

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For the improvement of the ability in detecting small calcifications using Ultrasonography (US) we propose a novel indicator of calcifications in an ultrasound B-mode image without decrease in frame rate. Since the waveform of an ultrasound pulse changes at a calcification position, the decorrelation of adjacent scan lines occurs behind a calcification. Therefore, we employ the decorrelation of adjacent scan lines as an indicator of a calcification. The proposed indicator depicted wires 0.05 mm in diameter at 2 cm depth with a sensitivity of 86.7% and a specificity of 100%, which were hardly detected in ultrasound B-mode images. This study shows the potential of the proposed indicator to approximate the detectable calcification size using an US device to that of an X-ray imager, implying the possibility that an US device will become a convenient, safe, and principal clinical tool for the screening of breast cancer.

Keywords: Ultrasonography, Calcification, Decorrelation, Forward scattered wave

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Authors: Mohie Eldin Mohamed Afifiy Elmashad

Abstract:

Day by day technology increases and problems associated with this technology also increase. Several researches were carried out to investigate the deployment of such material safely in geotechnical engineering in particular and civil engineering in general. However, different types of waste material have such as cement duct, fly ash and slag been proven to be suitable in several applications. In this research cement dust mixed with different percentages of sand will be used in some civil engineering application as will be explained later in this paper throughout filed and laboratory test. The used mixer (waste material with sand) prove high performance, durability to environmental condition, low cost and high benefits. At higher cement dust ratio, small cement ratio is valuable for compressive strength and permeability. Also at small cement dust ratio higher cement ratio is valuable for compressive strength.

Keywords: cement dust, cement, soil improvement, permeability

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Authors: C. Garcia, C. Andreasen

Abstract:

Sugarcane is an important resource for bioenergy. Fields are usually established by using 15-20 cm pieces of sugarcane stalks as propagation material. An alternative method is to use small chips with nodes from sugarcane stalks. Plants from nodes are often established in plastic pots, but plastic pots could be replaced with biodegradable paper pots. This would be a more sustainable solution, reducing labor costs and avoiding pollution with plastic. We compared the establishment of plants from nodes taken from three different part of the sugarcane plant. The nodes were planted in plastic and paper pots. There was no significant difference between plants established in the two pot types. Nodes from different part of the stalk had different sprouting capacity. Nodes from the top parts sprouted significantly better than nodes taken from the middle or nodes taken closed to the ground in two experiments. Nodes with a length of 3 cm performed better than nodes with a length of 2 cm.

Keywords: Nodes, paper pots, propagation, sugarcane.

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Authors: Somayeh Negahdari, Mohsen Ghanbarzadeh, Masoud Nikbakht, Heshmatolah Tavakol

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Asthma, obesity and overweight are the main factors causing change within the heart and respiratory airways. Asthma symptoms are normally observed during exercising. Epidemiological studies have indicated asthma symptoms occurring due to certain lifestyle habits; for example, a sedentary lifestyle. In this study, eight weeks of aerobic exercises resulted in a positive effect overall in overweight women experiencing mild chronic asthma. The quasi-experimental applied research has been done based on experimental and control groups. The experimental group (seven patients) and control group (n = 7) were graded before and after the test. According to the Borg dyspnea and fatigue Perception Index, the training intensity has determined. Participants in the study performed a sub-maximal aerobic activity schedule (45% to 80% of maximum heart rate) for two months, while the control group (n = 7) stayed away from aerobic exercise. Data evaluation and analysis of covariance compared both the pre-test and post-test with paired t-test at significance level of P≤ 0.05. After eight weeks of exercise, the results of the experimental group show a significant decrease in resting heart rate, systolic blood pressure, minute ventilation, while a significant increase in maximal oxygen uptake and tolerance activity (P ≤ 0.05). In the control group, there was no significant difference in these parameters ((P ≤ 0.05). The results indicate the aerobic activity can strengthen the respiratory muscles, while other physiological factors could result in breathing and heart recovery. Aerobic activity also resulted in favorable changes in cardiovascular parameters, and exercise tolerance of overweight women with chronic asthma.

Keywords: Asthma, respiratory cardiac index, exercise tolerance, aerobic, overweight.

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Authors: Szilvia Gergely Seuss, Mihaela Nistor, Lilla Csáky, Péter Molnár

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In the frame of the European Union project entitled EU-Families and Adolescents Quit Tobacco (www.eufaqt.eu) focus group analysis has been carried out in Hungary to acquire qualitative information on attitudes towards smoking in groups of adolescents, parents and educators, respectively. It rendered to identify methods for smoking prevention/ intervention with family approach. The results explored the role of the family in smoking behaviour. Teachers do not feel responsibility in prevention or cessation of smoking. Adolescents are not aware of the addictive effect of the cigarette. Water pipe is popular among adolescent, therefore spreading of more information needed on the harmful effects of water pipe. We outlined the requirement for professionals to provide interventions. Partnership of EU-FAQT project has worked out antismoking interventions for adolescents and their families conducted by psychologists to ensure skill development to prevent and quit tobacco.

Keywords: Smoking of adolescents, family approach, focus group analysis, water pipe.

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Authors: R. Alias, A. Kasa, M. R. Taha

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The effect of particle size on shear strength of granular materials are investigated using direct shear tests. Small direct shear test (60 mm by 60 mm by 24 mm deep) were conducted for particles passing the sieves with opening size of 2.36 mm. Meanwhile, particles passing the standard 20 mm sieves were tested using large direct shear test (300 mm by 300 mm by 200 mm deep). The large direct shear tests and the small direct shear tests carried out using the same shearing rate of 0.09 mm/min and similar normal stresses of 100, 200 and 300 kPa. The results show that the peak and residual shear strength increases as particle size increases.

Keywords: Particle size, shear strength, granular material, direct shear test.

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Authors: Ayat Bani Rashaid, Zain Khasawneh, Mazin Alqhazo, Shreen Nusair, Mohammad El-Khateeb, Mahmoud Bashtawi

Abstract:

Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) is a psychiatric disorder with unknown etiology that mainly affects children in the first three years of life. Alterations of amino acid levels are believed to contribute to ASD. The levels of six essential amino acids (methionine, histidine, valine, leucine, threonine, and phenylalanine), five conditional amino acids (proline, tyrosine, glutamine, cysteine, and cystine), and five non-essential amino acids (asparagine, aspartic acid, alanine, serine, and glutamic acid) in hair samples of children with ASD (n = 25) were analyzed and compared to corresponding levels in healthy age-matched controls (n = 25). The results showed that the levels of methionine, alanine, and asparagine were significantly lower in the hair samples of ASD group compared to those of the control group (p ≤ 0.05). However, the levels of glutamic acid were significantly higher in the ASD group than the control group (p ≤ 0.05). The current findings could contribute towards further understanding of ASD etiology and provide specialists with a hair amino acid profile utilized as a biomarker for early diagnosis of ASD. Such biomarkers could participate in future developments of therapies that reduce ASD-related symptoms.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder, amino acids, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, human hair.

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Authors: Abdelatief S. H. El-Jasser

Abstract:

The aim of the present study was to investigate the chemical and biological properties of local cowpea seed protein cultivated in Gizan region. The results showed that the cowpea and its products contain high level of protein (22.9-77.6%), high carbohydrates (9.4-64.3%) and low fats (0.1-0.3%). The trypsin and chymotrypsin activities were found to be 32.2 and 15.2 units, respectively. These activities were not affected in both defatted and protein concentrate whereas they were significantly reduced in isolated protein and cooked samples. The phytate content of cooked and concentrated cowpea samples varied from 0.25% -0.32%, respectively. Tannin content was found to be 0.4% and 0.23% for cooked and raw samples, respectively. The in vitro protein digestibility was very high in cowpea seeds (75.04-78.76%). The biological evaluation using rats showed that the group fed with animal feed containing casein gain more weight than those fed with that containing cowpea. However, the group fed with cooked cowpea gain more weight than those fed with uncooked cowpea. On the other hand, in vivo digestion showed high value (98.33%) among the group consumed casein compared to other groups those consumed cowpea contains feed. This could be attributed to low antinutritional factors in casein contains feed compared to those of cowpea contains feed because cooking significantly increased the digestion rate (80.8% to 83.5%) of cowpea contains feed. Furthermore, the biological evaluation was high (91.67%) of casein containing feed compared to that of cowpea containing feed (80.83%-87.5%). The net protein utilization (NPU) was higher (89.67%) in the group fed with casein containing feed than that of cowpea containing feed (56.33%-69.67%).

Keywords: Biological properties, Cowpea seed protein, Antinutritional factors, In vitro digestibility

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Authors: T. P. Lu, B. N. Hwang, T. Z. Liou, Y. L. Lin

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Developing a supply chain management (SCM) system is costly, but important. However, because of its complicated nature, not many of such projects are considered successful. Few research publications directly relate to key success factors (KSFs) for implementing a SCM system. Motivated by the above, this research proposes a hierarchy of KSFs for SCM system implementation in the semiconductor industry by using a two-step approach. First, the literature review indicates the initial hierarchy. The second step includes a focus group approach to finalize the proposed KSF hierarchy by extracting valuable experiences from executives and managers that actively participated in a project, which successfully establish a seamless SCM integration between the world's largest semiconductor foundry manufacturing company and the world's largest assembly and testing company. Future project executives may refer the resulting KSF hierarchy as a checklist for SCM system implementation in semiconductor or related industries.

Keywords: Focus group, key success factors, supply chain management, semiconductor industry.

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Authors: Méryl Brothier, Dominique Moulinier, Christophe Bertaux

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The gel-supported precipitation (GSP) process can be used to make spherical particles (spherules) of nuclear fuel, particularly for very high temperature reactors (VHTR) and even for implementing the process called SPHEREPAC. In these different cases, the main characteristics are the sphericity of the particles to be manufactured and the control over their grain size. Nonetheless, depending on the specifications defined for these spherical particles, the GSP process has intrinsic limits, particularly when fabricating very small particles. This paper describes the use of secondary fragmentation (water, water/PVA and uranyl nitrate) on solid surfaces under varying temperature and vibration conditions to assess the relevance of using this new technique to manufacture very small spherical particles by means of a modified GSP process. The fragmentation mechanisms are monitored and analysed, before the trends for its subsequent optimised application are described.

Keywords: Microsphere elaboration, nuclear fuel, droplet impact , gel-supported precipitation process.

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Authors: Haoyu Ma, Bin Hu, Mike Jackson, Jingzhi Yan, Wen Zhao

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In this paper we propose a new classification method for automatic sleep scoring using an artificial neural network based decision tree. It attempts to treat sleep scoring progress as a series of two-class problems and solves them with a decision tree made up of a group of neural network classifiers, each of which uses a special feature set and is aimed at only one specific sleep stage in order to maximize the classification effect. A single electroencephalogram (EEG) signal is used for our analysis rather than depending on multiple biological signals, which makes greatly simplifies the data acquisition process. Experimental results demonstrate that the average epoch by epoch agreement between the visual and the proposed method in separating 30s wakefulness+S1, REM, S2 and SWS epochs was 88.83%. This study shows that the proposed method performed well in all the four stages, and can effectively limit error propagation at the same time. It could, therefore, be an efficient method for automatic sleep scoring. Additionally, since it requires only a small volume of data it could be suited to pervasive applications.

Keywords: Sleep, Sleep stage, Automatic sleep scoring, Electroencephalography, Decision tree, Artificial neural network

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Authors: Ahmed R. Z. Baghdadi, Mona H. Gamal Eldein

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Background: With the perceived pain and poor function experienced following knee arthroplasty, patients usually feel un-satisfied. Yet, a controversy still persists on the appropriate operative technique that doesn’t affect proprioception much. Purpose: This study compared the effects of Cruciate Retaining (CR) and Posterior Stabilized (PS) total knee arthroplasty (TKA on dynamic balance, pain and functional performance following rehabilitation. Methods: Thirty patients with CRTKA (group I), thirty with PSTKA (group II) and fifteen indicated for arthroplasty but weren’t operated on yet (group III) participated in the study. The mean age was 54.53±3.44, 55.13±3.48 and 55.33±2.32 years and BMI 35.7±3.03, 35.7±1.99 and 35.73±1.03 kg/m2 for groups I, II and III respectively. The Berg Balance Scale (BBS), WOMAC pain subscale and Timed Up-and-Go (TUG) and Stair-Climbing (SC) tests were used for assessment. Assessments were conducted four weeks preand post-operatively, three, six and twelve months post-operatively with the control group being assessed at the same time intervals. The post-operative rehabilitation involved hospitalization (1st week), home-based (2nd-4th weeks), and outpatient clinic (5th-12th weeks) programs, follow-up to all groups for twelve months. Results: The Mixed design MANOVA revealed that group I had significantly lower pain scores and SC time compared with group II three, six and twelve months post-operatively. Moreover, the BBS scores increased significantly and the pain scores and TUG and SC time decreased significantly six months post-operatively compared with four weeks pre- and post-operatively and three months postoperatively in groups I and II with the opposite being true four weeks post-operatively. But no significant differences in BBS scores, pain scores and TUG and SC time between six and twelve months postoperatively in groups I and II. Interpretation/Conclusion: CRTKA is preferable to PSTKA, possibly due to the preserved human proprioceptors in the un-excised PCL.

Keywords: Dynamic Balance, Functional Performance, Knee Arthroplasty, Long-Term.

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Authors: Celso L. Fernando, Toshio Yoshii, Takahiro Tsubota

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Understanding the causes of a road accident and predicting their occurrence is key to prevent deaths and serious injuries from road accident events. Traditional statistical methods such as the Poisson and the Logistics regressions have been used to find the association of the traffic environmental factors with the accident occurred; recently, an artificial neural network, ANN, a computational technique that learns from historical data to make a more accurate prediction, has emerged. Although the ability to make accurate predictions, the ANN has difficulty dealing with highly unbalanced attribute patterns distribution in the training dataset; in such circumstances, the ANN treats the minority group as noise. However, in the real world data, the minority group is often the group of interest; e.g., in the road traffic accident data, the events of the accident are the group of interest. This study proposes a combination of the k-means with the ANN to improve the predictive ability of the neural network model by alleviating the effect of the unbalanced distribution of the attribute patterns in the training dataset. The results show that the proposed method improves the ability of the neural network to make a prediction on a highly unbalanced distributed attribute patterns dataset; however, on an even distributed attribute patterns dataset, the proposed method performs almost like a standard neural network. 

Keywords: Accident risks estimation, artificial neural network, deep learning, K-mean, road safety.

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Authors: Young-San Shin, Seongsoo Lee

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Hall sensor is widely used to measure rotation angle. When the Hall voltage is measured for linear displacement, it is converted to angular displacement using arctangent function, which requires a large lookup table. In this paper, a lookup table reduction technique is presented for angle measurement. When the input of the lookup table is small within a certain threshold, the change of the outputs with respect to the change of the inputs is relatively small. Thus, several inputs can share same output, which significantly reduce the lookup table size. Its error analysis was also performed, and the threshold was determined so as to maintain the error less than 1°. When the Hall voltage has 11-bit resolution, the lookup table size is reduced from 1,024 samples to 279 samples.

Keywords: Hall sensor, angle measurement, lookup table, arctangent.

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Authors: Hidefumi Kawakatsu, Dong Li, Kosuke Kato

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In Japan, meat-type chickens are mainly classified into three categories: (1) Broilers, (2) Branded chickens, and (3) Jidori (Free-range local traditional pedigree chickens). The Jidori chickens are certified by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, whilst, for the Branded chickens, there is no regulation with respect to their breed (genotype) or methods for rearing them. It is, therefore, relatively easy for poultry farmers to introduce Branded than Jidori chickens. The Branded chickens are normally fed a low-calorie diet with ingredients such as herbs, which lengthens their breeding period (compared with that of the Broilers) and increases their market value. In the field of inventory management, fast-growing animals such as broilers are categorised as ameliorating items. To the best of our knowledge, there are no previous studies that have explicitly considered smaller sized poultry farmers with limited breeding areas. This study develops an inventory model for a small sized poultry farmer that produces both the Broilers (Product 1) and the Branded chickens (Product 2) with different amelioration rates. The poultry farmer’s total profit per unit of time is formulated as a function of selling prices by using a price-dependent demand function. The existence of a unique optimal selling price for each product, which maximises the total profit, established. It has also been confirmed through numerical examples that, when the breeding area is fixed, the total profit could increase if the poultry farmer reduced the product quantity of Product 1 to introduce Product 2.

Keywords: Amelioration, deterioration, small sized poultry farmers, optimal price.

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Authors: Dhananjoy Shaw, Seema Sharma (Kaushik)

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Anthropometry helps in associating the physical properties of an individual with their racial, cultural, and psychological attributes. Numerous research studies have included different skeletal diameters as a variable. However, most of the studies suggest their inclusion describing specific characteristics/traits of the body. However, there seems to be a scarcity of literature related to the effect of any kind of longitudinal physical training on human skeletal diameters. Hence, the present investigation was conducted to study the variability of covariance of selected skeletal diameters of females in a longitudinal physical training programme. The sample for the study was 78 college going students of the University of Delhi, classified equally in three groups, i.e. viz. (a) Progressive load of training or conditioning group coded as PLT; (b) Constant load of training or non-conditioning group coded as CLT; and (c) No-load or control or sedentary group coded as NL. Collectively, mean age of the sample was 19.54±1.79 years. The randomly selected samples were given maximum consideration to maintain their homogeneity. The variables included biacromial diameter, biiliocristal diameter, bitrochantaerion diameter, humeral bicondylar, femoral bicondylar, wrist diameter, ankle diameter, and foot breadth. Multi-group repeated measure design was adopted for the experimentation. Each group was measured four times after completion of each of the three meso-cycles of six-weeks duration. The measurements were taken following the standard landmarks and procedures. Mean, standard deviation, analysis of co-variance and its post-hoc analysis were computed to analyze the data statistically. The study concluded that both the progressive and constant load of physical training bring changes in the selected skeletal diameters of females. It also reflected the increase due to growth also along with training.

Keywords: Longitudinal, physical training, skeletal diameters, step progression load.

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Authors: T. Ahilan, V. Aswin Adityan, S. Kailash

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UAV’s are small remote operated or automated aerial surveillance systems without a human pilot aboard. UAV’s generally finds its use in military and special operation application, a recent growing trend in UAV’s finds its application in several civil and nonmilitary works such as inspection of power or pipelines. The objective of this paper is the augmentation of a UAV in order to replace the existing expensive sonar (Sound Navigation And Ranging) based equipment amongst small scale fisherman, for whom access to sonar equipment are restricted due to limited economic resources. The surveillance equipment’s present in the UAV will relay data and GPS (Global Positioning System) location onto a receiver on the fishing boat using RF signals, using which the location of the schools of fishes can be found. In addition to this, an emergency beacon system is present for rescue operations and drone recovery.

Keywords: GPS, RF signals, School of fish, Sonar, Surveillance UAV, Video stream.

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Authors: Vilasinee Jintalikhitdee, Saowapa Phaithayawat

Abstract:

The research on “The Way of Life of the Civil Servant Community under the Bureau of the Royal Household” aims to study 1) the way of life of the people who live in the civil servant community in Tha Wasukri, and 2) the model of community administration of civil servants under the Bureau of the Royal Household. This research is conducted qualitatively and quantitatively by collecting data from interviews, focus group discussion, participant and non-participant observation along with the data from questionnaire based on age groups which include elder group, working age group and youth group. The result of the research shows that the origin of this community is related to the history during the Rama V’s reign. It has been a harbor for the king to boat in any royal ceremonies; this custom is still maintained until today. The status or position of person who serves the king in terms of working is often inherited from the bureau of the Royal Household based on his/her consanguinity and, hence, further receives the rights to live in the Tha Wasukri area. Therefore, this community has some special characteristics demonstrating the way of living influenced by the regulation of the Bureau of the Royal Household such as respecting elders and interdependence in which there is internal social organization with the practice of bureaucracy in going in and out the community. The person who has rights to live here must be friendly to everybody so that this community will be a safe place for lives and property. The administration based on the model of Bangkok for local administration was used as an external structure only, but the way of living still follows the practice of the Bureau of the Royal Household.

Keywords: The way of life, Community, Tha Wasukri.

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Authors: H. M. A. Asghar, S. N. Hussain, E. P. L. Roberts, N. W. Brown, H. Sattar

Abstract:

A unique combination of adsorption and electrochemical regeneration with a proprietary adsorbent material called Nyex 100 was introduced at the University of Manchester for waste water treatment applications. Nyex 100 is based on graphite intercalation compound. It is non porous and electrically conducing adsorbent material. This material exhibited very small BET surface area i.e. 2.75 m2g-1, in consequence, small adsorptive capacities for the adsorption of various organic pollutants were obtained. This work aims to develop composite adsorbent material essentially capable of electrochemical regeneration coupled with improved adsorption characteristics. An organic dye, acid violet 17 was used as standard organic pollutant. The developed composite material was successfully electrochemically regenerated using a DC current of 1 A for 60 minutes. Regeneration efficiency was maintained at around 100% for five adsorption-regeneration cycles.

Keywords: Adsorption, electrically conducting adsorbent material, electrochemical regeneration, waste water.

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Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

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Pediatric overweight and obesity need attention because they may cause morbid obesity, which may develop metabolic syndrome (MetS). Criteria used for the definition of adult MetS cannot be applied for pediatric MetS. Dynamic physiological changes that occur during childhood and adolescence require the evaluation of each parameter based upon age intervals. The aim of this study is to investigate the distribution of blood pressure (BP) values within diverse pediatric age intervals and the possible use and clinical utility of a recently introduced Diagnostic Obesity Notation Model Assessment Tension (DONMA tense) Index derived from systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) [SBP+DBP/200]. Such a formula may enable a more integrative picture for the assessment of pediatric obesity and MetS due to the use of both SBP and DBP. 554 children, whose ages were between 6-16 years participated in the study; the study population was divided into two groups based upon their ages. The first group comprises 280 cases aged 6-10 years (72-120 months), while those aged 10-16 years (121-192 months) constituted the second group. The values of SBP, DBP and the formula (SBP+DBP/200) covering both were evaluated. Each group was divided into seven subgroups with varying degrees of obesity and MetS criteria. Two clinical definitions of MetS have been described. These groups were MetS3 (children with three major components), and MetS2 (children with two major components). The other groups were morbid obese (MO), obese (OB), overweight (OW), normal (N) and underweight (UW). The children were included into the groups according to the age- and sex-based body mass index (BMI) percentile values tabulated by WHO. Data were evaluated by SPSS version 16 with p < 0.05 as the statistical significance degree. Tension index was evaluated in the groups above and below 10 years of age. This index differed significantly between N and MetS as well as OW and MetS groups (p = 0.001) above 120 months. However, below 120 months, significant differences existed between MetS3 and MetS2 (p = 0.003) as well as MetS3 and MO (p = 0.001). In comparison with the SBP and DBP values, tension index values have enabled more clear-cut separation between the groups. It has been detected that the tension index was capable of discriminating MetS3 from MetS2 in the group, which was composed of children aged 6-10 years. This was not possible in the older group of children. This index was more informative for the first group. This study also confirmed that 130 mm Hg and 85 mm Hg cut-off points for SBP and DBP, respectively, are too high for serving as MetS criteria in children because the mean value for tension index was calculated as 1.00 among MetS children. This finding has shown that much lower cut-off points must be set for SBP and DBP for the diagnosis of pediatric MetS, especially for children under-10 years of age. This index may be recommended to discriminate MO, MetS2 and MetS3 among the 6-10 years of age group, whose MetS diagnosis is problematic.

Keywords: Blood pressure, children, index, metabolic syndrome, obesity.

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Authors: Pauliasi Tony Fakahau

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This paper provides an overview of the impact of the revenue reform programme on vulnerable communities in the Kingdom of Tonga. Economic turmoil and mismanagement during the late 1990s forced the government to seek technical and financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank to undertake a comprehensive Economic and Public Sector Reform (EPSR) programme. The EPSR is a Western model recommended by donor agencies as the solution to Tonga’s economic challenges. The EPSR programme included public sector reform, private sector growth, and revenue generation. Tax reform was the main tool for revenue generation, which set out to strengthen tax compliance and administration as well as implement a value-added consumption tax. The EPSR is based on Western values and ideology but failed to recognise that Tongan cultural values are important to the local community. Two participant groups were interviewed. Participant group one consisted of 51 people representing vulnerable communities. Participant group two consisted of six people from the government and business sector who were from the elite of Tongan society. The Kakala Research Methodology provided the framework for the research, and the Talanoa Research Method was used to conduct semi-structured interviews in the homes of the first group and in the workplaces of the second group. The research found a heavy burden of the consumption tax on the purchasing power of participant group one (vulnerable participants), having an impact on nearly every financial transaction they made. Participant group one’s main financial priorities were kavenga fakalotu (obligations to the church), kavenga fakafāmili (obligations to the family) and kavenga fakafonua (obligations to cultural events for the village, nobility, and royalty). The findings identified inequalities of the revenue reform, especially from consumption tax, for vulnerable people and communities compared to the elite of society. The research concluded that government and donor agencies need ameliorating policies to reduce the burden of tax on vulnerable groups more susceptible to the impact of revenue reform.

Keywords: Tax reform, Tonga vulnerable community revenue, revenue reform, public sector reform.

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