Search results for: Cultural factors

Authors: Kutub Uddin Chisty, Md. Ashraful Islam, Shahjalal Misuk

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Chittagong is the commercial capital of Bangladesh. Here Agrabad is one of the most commercial activity centers of Chittagong. Due to many light industry and commercial land use, Agrabad to CEPZ road at Agrabad is the only major road of Chittagong port city which encompasses a huge number of vehicles every day. It has many junctions which distribute traffic flow in different roads. In these junctions vehicles gather at some conflict point to create traffic jam and make the performance of the road downward. This study is parallel focused on the existing level of service with traffic volume, capacity, and speed by traffic survey. After all of these analyses the performance of the road is determined with finding the factors that influences the performance.

Keywords: Level of service, Traffic volume, Speed, Influences factors.

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Authors: Bagher Rahimpour Cami, Hamid Hassanpour, Hoda Mashayekhi

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Nowadays websites provide a vast number of resources for users. Recommender systems have been developed as an essential element of these websites to provide a personalized environment for users. They help users to retrieve interested resources from large sets of available resources. Due to the dynamic feature of user preference, constructing an appropriate model to estimate the user preference is the major task of recommender systems. Profile matching and latent factors are two main approaches to identify user preference. In this paper, we employed the latent factor and profile matching to cluster the user profile and identify user preference, respectively. The method uses the Distance Dependent Chines Restaurant Process as a Bayesian nonparametric framework to extract the latent factors from the user profile. These latent factors are mapped to user interests and a weighted distribution is used to identify user preferences. We evaluate the proposed method using a real-world data-set that contains news tweets of a news agency (BBC). The experimental results and comparisons show the superior recommendation accuracy of the proposed approach related to existing methods, and its ability to effectively evolve over time.

Keywords: Content-based recommender systems, dynamic user modeling, extracting user interests, predicting user preference.

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Authors: Irina S. Savitskaya, Aida S. Kistaubayeva, Nuraly S. Akimbekov, Ilya E. Digel, Azhar A. Zhubanova

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A new composite sorbent based on carbonized rice husk (CRH) and immobilized on it living cells and inactivated cultural liquid containing antimicrobials metabolites of Bacillus subtilis CK-245 is developed. The sorption and antimicrobic activity of CRH concerning five species of Enterobacteriaceae is studied. Prospects of use of developed sorbent in medicine and veterinary science is shown.

Keywords: CRH, probiotic, concentrated fugate, sorption and antimicrobial activity.

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Authors: Zh.Mingaleva, K.Balkova

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Innovations and innovative activity get the increasing value for successful financial and economic activity of the countries and regions. The level of innovative sphere development determines place of a country or a region in world economy and forms a basis of steady economic growth. This article is devoted to different aspects of organization of the national economic safety in the conditions of innovative development, its problems, risks and threats. Economy can be considered as aspiring for transition to innovative way only with finding of economic safety: financial independence, power stability and technological progress. There are statistical indicators, defining the level of economic security and factors, threatening economic safety of the state. The research is based on the analysis of factors and indicators in conditions of innovative development. The paper is illustrated by the examples of possible estimated system of the economic safety level.

Keywords: Economic safety, innovative activity, innovative development, innovative economy

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Authors: Mirza Munir Ahmed, S.R.M. Kutty, Mohd Faris Khamidi, Idris Othman, Azmi Mohd Shariff

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Petrol Fuel Station (PFS) has potential hazards to the people, asset, environment and reputation of an operating company. Fire hazards, static electricity air pollution evoked by aliphatic and aromatic organic compounds are major causes of accident/incident occurrence at fuel station. Activities such as carelessness, maintenance, housekeeping, slips trips and falls, transportation hazard, major and minor injuries, robbery and snake bites has a potential to create unsafe conditions. The level of risk of these hazards varies according to location and country. The emphasis on safety considerations by the government is variable all around the world. Developed countries safety records are much better as compared to developing countries safety statistics. There is no significant approach available to highlight the unsafe acts and unsafe conditions during operation and maintenance of fuel station. Fuel station is the most commonly available facilities that contain flammable and hazardous materials. Due to continuous operation of fuel station they pose various hazards to people, environment and assets of an organization. To control these hazards, there is a need for specific approach. PFS operation is unique as compared to other businesses. For smooth operations it demands an involvement of operating company, contractor and operator group. This study will focus to address hazard contributing factors that have a potential to make PFS operation risky. One year data collected, 902 activities analyzed, comparisons were made to highlight significant contributing factors. The study will provide help and assistance to PFS outlet marketing companies to make their fuel station operation safer. It will help health safety and environment (HSE) professionals to arrest the gap available related to safety matters at PFS.

Keywords: Accident, Contributing factors, carelessness, fire, explosion, injuries.

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Authors: F. Bakiri, T. Rexha, A. Mitre

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The aim of our study was to compare knowledge of regarding HPV and cervical cancer in female student of 18 to 26 years old, with or without sexual intercourse. We conducted a questionnaire survey of the students (N=568), in Faculty of Natural Sciences, Tirana, Albania. Sexually experienced students were more likely to have heard of risk factors such as multiple sex partners, sexual intercourse before age 18, having contracted any sexually transmitted diseases, having genital warts, smoking cigarettes, use of oral contraceptive, poor diet or nutrition and using tampons. No significant sexually experience differences were observed in knowledge of the way of transmission of the virus associated with cervical cancer knowledge, the virus associated with cervical cancer knowledge, the prevention of cervical cancer knowledge. On the other hand strong significant sexually experience differences were observed in knowledge of the diagnostic way of cervical cancer and what HPV can cause knowledge.

Keywords: Risk factors, HPV, Cervical cancer, Albanian students.

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Authors: Nik Kamariah Nik-Mat, Noor Hasmini Abd-Ghani, Jamal Mohammed Esmail Al-Ekam

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The Malaysian government had consistently revived its campaign for “Buy Malaysian Goods” from time to time. The purpose of the campaign is to remind consumers to be ethnocentric and patriotic when purchasing product and services. This is necessary to ensure high demand for local products and services compared to foreign products. However, the decline of domestic investment in 2012 has triggered concern for the Malaysian economy. Hence, this study attempts to determine the drivers of actual purchasing behavior, intention to purchase domestic products and ethnocentrism. The study employs the cross-sectional primary data, self-administered on household, selected using stratified random sampling in four Malaysian regions. A nine factor driver of actual domestic purchasing behavior (culture openness, conservatism, collectivism, patriotism, control belief, interest in foreign travel, attitude, ethnocentrism and intention) were measured utilizing 60 items, using 7-point Likertscale. From 1000 questionnaires distributed, a sample of 486 were returned representing 48.6 percent response rate. From the fit generated structural model (SEM analysis), it was found that the drivers of actual purchase behavior are collectivism, cultural openness and patriotism; the drivers of intention to purchase domestic product are attitude, control belief, collectivism and conservatism; and drivers of ethnocentrism are cultural openness, control belief, foreign travel and patriotism. It also shows that Malaysian consumers scored high in ethnocentrism and patriotism. The findings are discussed in the perspective of its implication to Malaysian National Agenda.

Keywords: Actual purchase, ethnocentrism, culture openness, conservatism, collectivism, patriotism.

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Authors: Frida C. Jaime Franco, C. Paulina Navarro Núñez, R. Jacob Sánchez Nájera

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The importance of developing multi-language abilities in our global society is noteworthy. However, the necessity, interest, and consciousness of the significance that the development of another language represents, apart from the mother tongue, is not always the same in all contexts as it is in multicultural communities, especially in rural higher education institutions immersed in small communities. Leading opportunities for digital interaction among learners from Mexico and abroad partners represents scaffolding towards, not only language skills development but also intercultural communicative competences (ICC). This study leads us to consider what should be the best approach to work while applying a program of ICC integrated into the practice of EFL. While analyzing the roots of the language, it is possible to obtain the main objective of learning another language, to communicate with a functional purpose, as well as attaching social practices to the learning process, giving a result of functionality and significance to the target language. Hence, the collateral impact that collaborative learning leads to, aims to contribute to a better global understanding as well as a means of self and other cultural awareness through intercultural communication. While communicating through the target language by online collaboration among students in platforms of long-distance communication, language is used as a tool of interaction to broaden students’ perspectives reaching a substantial improvement with the help of their differences. This process should consider the application of the target language in the inquiry of sociocultural information, expecting the learners to integrate communicative skills to handle cultural differentiation at the same time they apply the knowledge of their target language in a real scenario of communication, despite being through virtual resources.

Keywords: Collaborative learning, English as a Foreign language, intercultural communication, intercultural communicative competences, virtual partnership.

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Authors: I. Severin, M. Caramihai, R. El Abdi, M. Poulain, A. Avadanii

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In order to assess optical fiber reliability in different environmental and stress conditions series of testing are performed simulating overlapping of chemical and mechanical controlled varying factors. Each series of testing may be compared using statistical processing: i.e. Weibull plots. Due to the numerous data to treat, a software application has appeared useful to interpret selected series of experiments in function of envisaged factors. The current paper presents a software application used in the storage, modelling and interpretation of experimental data gathered from optical fibre testing. The present paper strictly deals with the software part of the project (regarding the modelling, storage and processing of user supplied data).

Keywords: Optical fibres, computer aided analysis, data models, data processing, graphical user interfaces.

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Authors: Yogesh C. Sharma, A. Seetharaman

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The decision-making process in humans is a complicated system influenced by a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Human decisions have a ripple effect on subsequent decisions. In this study, the scope of human decision making is limited to employees. In an organisation, a person makes a variety of decisions from the time they are hired to the time they retire. The goal of this research is to identify various elements that influence decision making. In addition, the environment in which a decision is made is a significant aspect of the decision-making process. Employees in today's workplace use artificial intelligence (AI) systems for automation and decision augmentation. The impact of AI systems on the decision-making process is examined in this study. This research is designed based on a systematic literature review. Based on gaps in the literature, limitations and the scope of future research have been identified. Based on these findings, a research framework has been designed to identify various factors affecting employee decision making. Employee decision making is influenced by technological advancement, data-driven culture, human trust, decision automation-augmentation and workplace motivation. Hybrid human-AI systems require development of new skill sets and organisational design. Employee psychological safety and supportive leadership influences overall job satisfaction.

Keywords: Employee decision making, artificial intelligence, environment, human trust, technology innovation, psychological safety.

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Authors: Dmitry V. Fomichev, Vladimir I. Solonin

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This paper presents the findings from a numerical simulation of the flow in 37-rod fuel assembly models spaced by a double-wire trapezoidal wrapping as applied to the BREST-OD-300 experimental nuclear reactor. Data on a high static pressure distribution within the models, and equations for determining the fuel bundle flow friction factors have been obtained. Recommendations are provided on using the closing turbulence models available in the ANSYS Fluent. A comparative analysis has been performed against the existing empirical equations for determining the flow friction factors. The calculated and experimental data fit has been shown.

An analysis into the experimental data and results of the numerical simulation of the BREST-OD-300 fuel rod assembly hydrodynamic performance are presented.

Keywords: BREST-OD-300, ware-spaces, fuel assembly, computation fluid dynamics.

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Authors: Saleh Dabil

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The study will search the level of existence of the sweethearting in Saudi Arabia's Supermarkets in Riyadh. Sweethearting occurs when frontline workers give unauthorized free or uncounted goods and services to customer-s conspirators. The store managers and /or security managers were asked about the sweethearting that occurs in the supermarkets. The characteristics of sweethearting in Riyadh stores were investigated. Two independent variables were related to the report of sweethearting. These independent variables are: The effect of store environment on sweethearting and the security techniques and loss prevention electronics techniques used. This study expected to shed the light about the level of sweethearting in Saudi Arabia and the factors behind it. This study will serve as an exploratory study for such phenomenon in Saudi Arabia as well as both descriptive for the characteristics of sweethearting and explanatory study to link between the environmental and security systems factors to sweethearting.

Keywords: supermarket, stealing, sweethearting, theft.

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Authors: Ashish Saini, A.K. Saxena

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The genetic algorithm (GA) based solution techniques are found suitable for optimization because of their ability of simultaneous multidimensional search. Many GA-variants have been tried in the past to solve optimal power flow (OPF), one of the nonlinear problems of electric power system. The issues like convergence speed and accuracy of the optimal solution obtained after number of generations using GA techniques and handling system constraints in OPF are subjects of discussion. The results obtained for GA-Fuzzy OPF on various power systems have shown faster convergence and lesser generation costs as compared to other approaches. This paper presents an enhanced GA-Fuzzy OPF (EGAOPF) using penalty factors to handle line flow constraints and load bus voltage limits for both normal network and contingency case with congestion. In addition to crossover and mutation rate adaptation scheme that adapts crossover and mutation probabilities for each generation based on fitness values of previous generations, a block swap operator is also incorporated in proposed EGA-OPF. The line flow limits and load bus voltage magnitude limits are handled by incorporating line overflow and load voltage penalty factors respectively in each chromosome fitness function. The effects of different penalty factors settings are also analyzed under contingent state.

Keywords: Contingent operation state, Fuzzy rule base, Genetic Algorithms, Optimal Power Flow.

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Authors: Paulo Gomes, Adelaide Figueiredo

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We consider n individuals described by p standardized variables, represented by points of the surface of the unit hypersphere S_n-1. For a previous choice of n individuals we suppose that the set of observables variables comes from a mixture of bipolar Watson distribution defined on the hypersphere. EM and Dynamic Clusters algorithms are used for identification of such mixture. We obtain estimates of parameters for each Watson component and then a partition of the set of variables into homogeneous groups of variables. Additionally we will present a factor analysis model where unobservable factors are just the maximum likelihood estimators of Watson directional parameters, exactly the first principal component of data matrix associated to each group previously identified. Such alternative model it will yield us to directly interpretable solutions (simple structure), avoiding factors rotations.

Keywords: Dynamic Clusters algorithm, EM algorithm, Factor analysis model, Hierarchical Clustering, Watson distribution.

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Authors: Panprae Bunyapukkna

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The aim of this study is to: (1) measure the overall attitudes of Thai mobile phone users toward SMS advertisements, and (2) identify demographic factors that affect the overall attitudes toward SMS advertisements of Thai mobile phone users. The sample in this study consists of 100 individuals who possess at least one mobile phone and who either live, work or study in Bangkok. Thirty-three respondents are male, while the other 67 respondents are female. The respondents are aged between 21 years and 45 years old. Convenient sampling technique was used in this study. The results of this study indicate that Thai mobile phone users in general hold negative attitudes toward SMS advertisements, and that negative attitudes prevailed in nearly all different demographic groups. The results also suggest that Thai mobile phone users find SMS advertisements irritating, but are indifferent as to whether SMS ads are informative, credible and entertaining as well.

Keywords: Credibility, consumer attitudes, SMS advertising, Thai mobile phone users.

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Authors: Linda, Sau-ling Lai

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This paper explored the use of Importance- Performance Analysis in assessing the competitiveness of China-s Macao Special Administrative Region as a city for international conventions. Determinants of destination choice for convention tourists are grouped under three factors, namely the convention factor, the city factor and the tourism factor. Attributes of these three factors were studied through a survey with the convention participants and exhibitors of Macao SAR. Results indicate that the city boasts of strong traditional tourist attractions and infrastructure, but is deficient in specialized convention experts and promotion mechanisms. A reflection on the findings suggests that an urban city such as the Macao SAR can co-develop its the convention and the traditional tourism for a synergistic effect. With proper planning and co-ordination, both areas of the city-s tourism industry will grow as they feed off each other.

Keywords: Convention Tourism, Importance-Performance Analysis, Destination Selection, Competitiveness

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Authors: S. Alotaibi, D. Roussinov

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Mobile government services implementation faces several challenges in developing countries. This paper studies some of those challenges in the context of Saudi Arabia. The study aims to investigate factors affecting m-government acceptance in Saudi Arabia, including ease of use, usefulness, service quality, trust, intention to use and users’ satisfaction. Our investigation will help in integrating the m-government services in citizens’ everyday life. We collected and analyzed our data from focus groups. These focus groups are from King Saud University and Imam Muhammed Bin Saud University, so the samples size are five and seven participants, respectively. We found that there are some factors to identifying citizen requirements to Saudi mobile government services. These services should be easy to use and not require too much effort. Also, these services must be fully trusted.

Keywords: E-government, M-government, focus group, Saudi mobile government services.

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Authors: F. Esfandyari Darabad, Z. Samadi

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Natural environments have always been affected by one of the most important natural hazards, which is called, the mass movements that cause instability. Identifying the unstable regions and separating them so as to detect and determine the risk of environmental factors is one of the important issues in mountainous areas development. In this study, the northwest of Sabalan hillsides overlooking the Meshkin city and the surrounding area of that have been delimitated, in order to analyze the range processes such as landslides and debris flows based on structural and geomorphological conditions, by means of using GIS. This area due to the high slope of the hillsides and height of the region and the poor localization of roads and so because of them destabilizing the ranges own an inappropriate situation. This study is done with the purpose of identifying the effective factors in the range motion and determining the areas with high potential for zoning these movements by using GIS. The results showed that the most common range movements in the area, are debris flows, rocks falling and landslides. The effective factors in each one of the mass movements, considering a small amount of weight for each factor, the weight map of each factor and finally, the map of risk zoning for the range movements were provided. Based on the zoning map resulted in the study area, the risking level of damaging has specified into the four zones of very high risk, high risk, medium risk, low risk, in which areas with very high and high risk are settled near the road and along the Khyav river and in the  mountainous district.

Keywords: Debris flow, environmental hazards, GIS, landslide.

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Authors: Mahendran Samykano, Ram Mohan, Shyam Aravamudhan

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The objective of this work is to study the effect of two key factors - external magnetic field and applied current density during template-based electrodeposition of nickel nanowires using an electrode distance of 20 mm. Morphology, length, crystallite size and crystallographic characterization of the grown nickel nanowires at an electrode distance of 20mm are presented. For this electrode distance of 20 mm, these two key electrodeposition factors when coupled was found to reduce crystallite size with a higher growth length and preferred orientation of Ni crystals. These observed changes can be inferred to be due to coupled interaction forces induced by the intensity of applied electric field (current density) and external magnetic field known as magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect during the electrodeposition process.

Keywords: Anodic alumina oxide, electrodeposition, nanowires, nickel.

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Authors: Maria E. Manioudaki, Panayiota Poirazi

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Yeast cells live in a constantly changing environment that requires the continuous adaptation of their genomic program in order to sustain their homeostasis, survive and proliferate. Due to the advancement of high throughput technologies, there is currently a large amount of data such as gene expression, gene deletion and protein-protein interactions for S. Cerevisiae under various environmental conditions. Mining these datasets requires efficient computational methods capable of integrating different types of data, identifying inter-relations between different components and inferring functional groups or 'modules' that shape intracellular processes. This study uses computational methods to delineate some of the mechanisms used by yeast cells to respond to environmental changes. The GRAM algorithm is first used to integrate gene expression data and ChIP-chip data in order to find modules of coexpressed and co-regulated genes as well as the transcription factors (TFs) that regulate these modules. Since transcription factors are themselves transcriptionally regulated, a three-layer regulatory cascade consisting of the TF-regulators, the TFs and the regulated modules is subsequently considered. This three-layer cascade is then modeled quantitatively using artificial neural networks (ANNs) where the input layer corresponds to the expression of the up-stream transcription factors (TF-regulators) and the output layer corresponds to the expression of genes within each module. This work shows that (a) the expression of at least 33 genes over time and for different stress conditions is well predicted by the expression of the top layer transcription factors, including cases in which the effect of up-stream regulators is shifted in time and (b) identifies at least 6 novel regulatory interactions that were not previously associated with stress-induced changes in gene expression. These findings suggest that the combination of gene expression and protein-DNA interaction data with artificial neural networks can successfully model biological pathways and capture quantitative dependencies between distant regulators and downstream genes.

Keywords: gene modules, artificial neural networks, yeast, stress

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Authors: Justin D. Olmanson, Fitsum F. Abebe, Valerie Jones, Eric Kyle, Lyrica Lucas, Katherine Robbins, Guieswende Rouamba, Xianquan Liu

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While emerging technologies continue to emerge, research into their use in learning contexts often focuses on a subset of educational practices and ways of using technologies. In this study we begin to explore the extent to which educational designs are influenced by larger societal and education-related factors not usually explicitly considered when designing or identifying technology-supported education experiences for research study. We examine patterns within and between factors via a content analysis across ten years and 19 different journals of published peer-reviewed research on technology-supported writing. Our findings have implications for how researchers, designers, and educators approach technology-supported educational design within and beyond the field of writing and literacy.

Keywords: Writing, emerging technology, learning, curriculum, pedagogy.

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Authors: Sevilay Konya, Sadife Güngör, Zeynep Karaçor

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Turkish economy is occurred depending on different factors from time to time and the banking crises of different magnitudes. Foremost among the factors which hinder the development of countries and societies- crises in the country's economy. Countries' economic growth rates affect inflation, unemployment and external trade. In this study, effect of November 2000, February 2001 and 2008 banking crisis on Turkey's economy and banking crisis will be examined and announced as conceptual. In this context, this study is investigates Turkey's GDP, inflation, unemployment and foreign trade figures. Turkey's economy affected have been identified from 2000 November 2001 February and 2008 banking crisis.

Keywords: Banking crises, Turkey’s economy, economic effects, Turkey.

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Authors: Huseyin Cetin, Halil Akmese, Sercan Aras, Vahit Aytekin

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Economic crisis, terrorism, global crisis and the relations between countries are the factors affecting tourism industry and tourism industry is vulnerable against these factors. In our study, there are two dimensions about Russian crisis. The crisis between Russia and Ukraine and decreased oil prices in global market have been entailed Russian economic crisis. This crisis has induced that the ruble, Russian currency, has depreciated against American dollars and consequently the purchasing power of Russian has weakened. This is the first dimension of our study. Second dimension is a political crisis between Turkey and Russia owing to the fact that the Russian Warcraft was brought down by Turkish army. The aim of this study is to explain the impact of the consequences of Russian crisis on Turkish tourism industry. The study has been limited only Antalya province.

Keywords: Economic crisis, Turkey-Russian crisis, Turkey's tourism industry, tourism in Turkey.

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Authors: Magdi M. E. Zumrawi

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It is quite essential to investigate the causes of pavement deterioration in order to select the proper maintenance technique. The objective of this study was to identify factors cause deterioration of recently constructed roads in Khartoum state. A comprehensive literature concerning the factors of road deterioration, common road defects and their causes were reviewed. Three major road projects with different deterioration reasons were selected for this study. The investigation involved field survey and laboratory testing on those projects to examine the existing pavement conditions. The results revealed that the roads investigated experienced severe failures in the forms of cracks, potholes, and rutting in the wheel path. The causes of those failures were found mainly linked to poor drainage, traffic overloading, expansive subgrade soils, and the use of low quality materials in construction. Based on the results, recommendations were provided to help highway engineers in selecting the most effective repair techniques for specific kinds of distresses.

Keywords: Pavement, deterioration, causes, failures.

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Authors: S.M.Hosseinalipour, H.Aghakhani

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Considering the numerous applications of the study of the flow due to leakage in a buried pipe in unsaturated porous media, finding a proper model to explain the influence of the effective factors is of great importance.There are various important factors involved in this type of flow such as: pipe leakage size and location, burial depth, the degree of the saturation of the surrounding porous medium, characteristics of the porous medium, fluid type and pressure of the upstream.In this study, the flow through unsaturated porous media due to leakage of a buried pipe for up and down leakage location is studied experimentally and numerically and their results are compared. Study results show that Darcy equation together with BCM method (for calculating the relative permeability) have suitable ability for predicting the flow due to leakage of buried pipes in unsaturated porous media.

Keywords: Buried, Leaking pipe, Porous media, Unsaturated

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Authors: Saratu Yusuf Ilu, Mumtaz B. Mustafa, Siti Salwah Salim, Mehdi Malekzadeh

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Children today use computer based application in various activities especially for learning and education. Many of these tools and application such as the Computer Aided Pronunciation Training (CAPT) systems enable children to explore and experience them with little supervision from the adults. In order for these tools and application to have maximum effect on the children’s learning and education, it must be attractive to the children to use them. This could be achieved with the proper user interface (UI) design. As children grow, so do their ability, taste and preferences. They interact differently with these applications as they grow older. This study reviews several articles on how age factors influence the UI design. The review focuses on age related abilities such as cognitive, literacy, concentration and feedback requirement. We have also evaluated few of existing CAPT systems and determine the influence of age-based factors on the interface design.

Keywords: Children, age-based interaction, learning application, age-based UI.

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Authors: A. R. Ommani, M. Chizari

Abstract:

The purpose of the study reported here was designing Information Dissemination System (IDS) based E-learning in agricultural of Iran. A questionnaire was developed to designing Information Dissemination System. The questionnaire was distributed to 96 extension agents who work for Management of Extension and Farming System of Khuzestan province of Iran. Data collected were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Appropriate statistical procedures for description (frequencies, percent, means, and standard deviations) were used. In this study there was a significant relationship between the age , IT skill and knowledge, years of extension work, the extend of information seeking motivation, level of job satisfaction and level of education with use of information technology by extension agent. According to extension agents five factors were ranked respectively as five top essential items to designing Information Dissemination System (IDS) based E-learning in agricultural of Iran. These factors include: 1) Establish communication between farmers, coordinators (extension agents), agricultural experts, research centers, and community by information technology. 2) The communication between all should be mutual. 3) The information must be based farmers need. 4) Internet used as a facility to transfer the advanced agricultural information to the farming community. 5) Farmers can be illiterate and speak a local and they are not expected to use the system directly. Knowledge produced by the agricultural scientist must be transformed in to computer understandable presentation. To designing Information Dissemination System, electronic communication, in the agricultural society and rural areas must be developed. This communication must be mutual between all factors.

Keywords: E-learning, information dissemination system, information technology.

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Authors: S. Behnam Asl, H. Sadeghi Naeini, L. Sadat Ensaniat, R. Khorshidian, S. Alipour, S. Behnam Asl

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Nowadays the construction industry is growing specially among developing counties. Iran also has a critical role in these industries in terms of workers disorders. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) assign 7% of the whole diseases in the society, which make some limitations. One of the main factors, which are ended to WMSDs, is awkward posture. Steel bar bending is considered as one of the prominent performance among construction workers. In this case study we conducted to find the major tasks of bar benders and the most important related risk factors. This study was carried out among twenty workers (18-45 years) as our volunteer samples in some construction sites with less than 6 floors in two regions of Tehran municipality. The data was gathered through in depth observation, interview and questionnaire. Also postural analysis was done by OWAS. In another part of study we used NMQ for gathering some data about psychosocial effects of work related disorders. Our findings show that 64% of workers were not aware of work risks, also about 59% of workers had troubles in their wrists, hands, and especially among workers who worked in steel bar bending. In 46% cases low back pain were prevalence. Considering with gathered data and results, awkward postures and long term tasks and its duration are known as the main risk factors in WMSDs among construction workers, so work-rest schedule and also tools design should be considered to make an ergonomic condition for the mentioned workers.

Keywords: Bar benders, construction workers, musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs), OWAS method.

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Authors: Fathi Taibi

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The abnormal increase in the number of applications available for download in Android markets is a good indication that they are being reused. However, little is known about their real reusability potential. A considerable amount of these applications is reported as having a poor quality or being malicious. Hence, in this paper, an approach to measure the reusability potential of classes in Android applications is proposed. The approach is not meant specifically for this particular type of applications. Rather, it is intended for Object-Oriented (OO) software systems in general and aims also to provide means to discard the classes of low quality and defect prone applications from being reused directly through inheritance and instantiation. An empirical investigation is conducted to measure and rank the reusability potential of the classes of randomly selected Android applications. The results obtained are thoroughly analyzed in order to understand the extent of this potential and the factors influencing it.

Keywords: Reusability, Software Quality Factors, Software Metrics, Empirical Investigation, Object-Oriented Software, Android Applications.

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Authors: R. Ferdous

Abstract:

Power, responsibility sharing, and democratic decision-making are the central ethos to co-management. It is assumed that involving local community in the decision-making process can create a sense of ownership and responsibility of that community and motivate the community towards collective action. But this paper demonstrated that the process to involve local community is not simple and straightforward as it is influenced by structural aspects, power relations among the actors, and social embedded institutions. These factors shape the process in that way who will participate, how they will participate and how the local community maneuvers their agency in the decision-making process. To grasp the complexities that materialize in the process of participation and to understand the inclusionary and exclusionary nature of participation, this paper examines the subjective understanding of different stakeholders concerning participation and furthermore observes the enabling or constraining factors that affect the community to exercise their agency.

Keywords: Participation, social embeddedness, power, structure.

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