Search results for: Forest soil.

Authors: A. Kistaubayeva, I. Savitskaya, D. Ibrayeva, M. Abdulzhanova, N. Voronova

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36 strains of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria were isolated in Southern Kazakhstan soda-saline soils and identified. Screening of strains according bio-oxidation (destruction thiosulfate to sulfate) and enzymatic (Thiosulfate dehydrogenises and thiosulfate reductase) activity was conducted. There were selected modes of aeration and culture conditions (pH, temperature), which provide optimum harvest cells. These strains can be used in bio-melioration technology.

Keywords: Elemental sulfur, oxidation activity, Тhiobacilli, fertilizers, heterotrophic S-oxidizers.

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Authors: Dubbale Daniel A., Tsutsumi J., Michael J. Bendewald

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Addis Ababa is a seat of African Union (AU), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA) and hundreds of embassies and consular representatives. Addis Ababa is one of the highest capitals in the world with an average 2400 meters above sea level. It is dichotomous city with a blend of modern high-rise and deteriorating slum quarters. Water supply and sanitation, waste management and housing are continuing to be serious problems. Forest wood based domestic energy use as well as uncontrolled emissions from mobile and fixed sources has endangered the state of the urban environment. Analysis based on satellite imagery has revealed the deteriorating urban environment within the last three decades. The recently restructured city administration has brought improvements in the condition of the urban environment. However, the overwhelming size of the challenges faced by the city dwarfed their fairly good results.

Keywords: Addis Ababa, Urban environment, Slum, Housing, Relocation

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Authors: I. Alhassan, A. M. Saddiq, A. G. Gashua, K. K. Gwio-Kura

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The main objective of any irrigation program is the development of an efficient water management system to sustain crop growth and development and avoid physiological water stress in the growing plants. Field experiment to evaluate the effects of some soil moisture conservation practices on yield and water use efficiency (WUE) of maize was carried out in three locations (i.e. Mubi and Yola in the northern Guinea Savannah and Ganye in the southern Guinea Savannah of Adamawa State, Nigeria) during the dry seasons of 2013 and 2014. The experiment consisted of three different irrigation levels (7, 10 and 12 day irrigation intervals), two levels of mulch (mulch and un-mulched) and two tillage practices (no tillage and minimum tillage) arranged in a randomized complete block design with split-split plot arrangement and replicated three times. The Blaney-Criddle method was used for measuring crop evapotranspiration. The results indicated that seven-day irrigation intervals and mulched treatment were found to have significant effect (P>0.05) on grain yield and water use efficiency in all the locations. The main effect of tillage was non-significant (P<0.05) on grain yield and WUE. The interaction effects of irrigation and mulch were significant (P>0.05) on grain yield and WUE at Mubi and Yola. Generally, higher grain yield and WUE were recorded on mulched and seven-day irrigation intervals, whereas lower values were recorded on un-mulched with 12-day irrigation intervals. Tillage exerts little influence on the yield and WUE. Results from Ganye were found to be generally higher than those recorded in Mubi and Yola; it also showed that an irrigation interval of 10 days with mulching could be adopted for the Ganye area, while seven days interval is more appropriate for Mubi and Yola.

Keywords: Irrigation, maize, mulching, tillage, guinea savannah.

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Authors: Shen Weishou, Ji Di, Zhang Hui, Yan Shouguang, Li Haidong, Lin Naifeng

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Based on a long-term vegetation index dataset of NDVI and meteorological data from 68 meteorological stations in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and their relations with major climate factors were analyzed. The results show the following: 1) The linear trends of temperature in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau indicate that the temperature in the plateau generally increased, but it rose faster in the last 20 years. 2) The most significant NDVI increase occurred in the eastern and southern plateau. However, the western and northern plateau demonstrate a decreasing trend. 3) There is a significant positive linear correlation between NDVI and temperature and a negative correlation between NDVI and mean wind speed. However, no significant statistical relationship was found between NDVI and relative humidity, precipitation or sunshine duration.4) The changes in NDVI for the plateau are driven by temperature-precipitation, but for the desert and forest areas, the relation changes to precipitation-temperature-wind velocity and wind velocity-temperature-precipitation.

Keywords: Qinghai-Tibet plateau, NDVI, climate warming.

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Authors: Mahmoud Roushdy, Mohamed El Naggar, Ahmed Yehia Abdelaziz

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Anchored sheet pile has been used worldwide as front quay walls for decades. With the increase in vessel drafts and weights, those sheet pile walls need to be upgraded by increasing the depth of the dredging line in front of the wall. One of the upgrades for the sheet pile wall is to add a separated platform to the system, where the platform is structurally separated from the front wall. The platform is structurally separated from the front wall. This paper presents a numerical investigation utilizing finite element analysis on the behavior of separated relieve platforms installed within existing anchored sheet pile quay walls. The investigation was done in two steps: a verification step followed by a parametric study. In the verification step, the numerical model was verified based on field measurements performed by others. The validated model was extended within the parametric study to a series of models with different backfill soils, separation gap width, and number of pile rows supporting the platform. The results of the numerical investigation show that using stiff clay as backfill soil (neglecting consolidation) gives better performance for the front wall and the first pile row adjacent to sandy backfills. The degree of compaction of the sandy backfill slightly increases lateral deformations but reduces bending moment acting on pile rows, while the effect is minor on the front wall. In addition, the increase in the separation gap width gradually increases bending moments on the front wall regardless of the backfill soil type, while this effect is reversed on pile rows (gradually decrease). Finally, the paper studies the possibility of deepening the basin along with the separation to take advantage of the positive separation effect on piles, and front wall.

Keywords: Anchored sheet pile, relieving platform, separation gap, upgrade quay wall.

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Authors: A. Appe, B. Poluparthi, L. Kasivajjula, U. Mv, S. Bagadi, P. Modi, A. Singh, H. Gunupudi, S. Troiano, J. Paul, J. Stovall, J. Yamamoto

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The necessity of data-driven decisions in healthcare strategy formulation is rapidly increasing. A reliable framework which helps identify factors impacting a healthcare provider facility or a hospital (from here on termed as facility) market share is of key importance. This pilot study aims at developing a data-driven machine learning-regression framework which aids strategists in formulating key decisions to improve the facility’s market share which in turn impacts in improving the quality of healthcare services. The US (United States) healthcare business is chosen for the study, and the data spanning 60 key facilities in Washington State and about 3 years of historical data are considered. In the current analysis, market share is termed as the ratio of the facility’s encounters to the total encounters among the group of potential competitor facilities. The current study proposes a two-pronged approach of competitor identification and regression approach to evaluate and predict market share, respectively. Leveraged model agnostic technique, SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations), to quantify the relative importance of features impacting the market share. Typical techniques in literature to quantify the degree of competitiveness among facilities use an empirical method to calculate a competitive factor to interpret the severity of competition. The proposed method identifies a pool of competitors, develops Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) and feature level word vectors, and evaluates the key connected components at the facility level. This technique is robust since it is data-driven, which minimizes the bias from empirical techniques. The DAGs factor in partial correlations at various segregations and key demographics of facilities along with a placeholder to factor in various business rules (for e.g., quantifying the patient exchanges, provider references, and sister facilities). Identified are the multiple groups of competitors among facilities. Leveraging the competitors' identified developed and fine-tuned Random Forest Regression model to predict the market share. To identify key drivers of market share at an overall level, permutation feature importance of the attributes was calculated. For relative quantification of features at a facility level, incorporated SHAP, a model agnostic explainer. This helped to identify and rank the attributes at each facility which impacts the market share. This approach proposes an amalgamation of the two popular and efficient modeling practices, viz., machine learning with graphs and tree-based regression techniques to reduce the bias. With these, we helped to drive strategic business decisions.

Keywords: Competition, DAGs, hospital, healthcare, machine learning, market share, random forest, SHAP.

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Authors: Norah Alshahrani, Abdulaziz Almaleh

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition related to issues with brain development that affects how a person recognises and communicates with others which results in difficulties with interaction and communication socially and it is constantly growing. Early recognition of ASD allows children to lead safe and healthy lives and helps doctors with accurate diagnoses and management of conditions. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a method that will achieve good results and with high accuracy for the measurement of ASD in children. In this paper, ASD datasets of toddlers and children have been analyzed. We employed the following machine learning techniques to attempt to explore ASD: Random Forest (RF), Decision Tree (DT), Na¨ıve Bayes (NB) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Then feature selection was used to provide fewer attributes from ASD datasets while preserving model performance. As a result, we found that the best result has been provided by SVM, achieving 0.98% in the toddler dataset and 0.99% in the children dataset.

Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD, Machine Learning, ML, Feature Selection, Support Vector Machine, SVM.

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Authors: F. S. Al-Anzi, M. Sarfraz, A. Elmi, A. R. Khan

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Researchers are responding to the environmental challenges of Kuwait in localized, innovative, effective and economic ways. One of the vital and significant examples of the natural challenges is lack or water and desertification. In this research, the project team focuses on redesigning a prototype, using Value Engineering Methodology, which would provide similar functionalities to the well-known technology of Waterboxx kits while reducing the capital and operational costs and simplifying the process of manufacturing and usability by regular farmers. The design employs used tires and recycled plastic sheets as raw materials. Hence, this approach is going to help not just fighting desertification but also helping in getting rid of ever growing huge tire dumpsters in Kuwait, as well as helping in avoiding hazards of tire fires yielding in a safer and friendlier environment. Several alternatives for implementing the prototype have been considered. The best alternative in terms of value has been selected after thorough Function Analysis System Technique (FAST) exercise has been developed. A prototype has been fabricated and tested in a controlled simulated lab environment that is being followed by real environment field testing. Water and soil analysis conducted on the site of the experiment to cross compare between the composition of the soil before and after the experiment to insure that the prototype being tested is actually going to be environment safe. Experimentation shows that the design was equally as effective as, and may exceed, the original design with significant savings in cost. An estimated total cost reduction using the VE approach of 43.84% over the original design. This cost reduction does not consider the intangible costs of environmental issue of waste recycling which many further intensify the total savings of using the alternative VE design. This case study shows that Value Engineering Methodology can be an important tool in innovating new designs for reducing costs.

Keywords: Desertification, functional analysis, scrap tires, value engineering, waste recycling, water irrigation rationing.

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Authors: Muhammad Hazwan H., Azlina M.F., Hasfalina C.M., Zurina Z.A., Hishamuddin J

Abstract:

Gaharu that produced by Aquilaria spp. is classified as one of the most valuable forest products traded internationally as it is very resinous, fragrant and highly valuable heartwood. Gaharu has been widely used in aromatheraphy, medicine, perfume and religious practices. This work aimed to determine the factors affecting solid liquid extraction of gaharu oil using hexane as solvent under experimental condition. The kinetics of extraction was assumed and verified based on a second-order mechanism. The effect of three main factors, which were temperature, reaction time and solvent to solid ratio were investigated to achieve maximum oil yield. The optimum condition were found at temperature 65°C, 9 hours reaction time and solvent to solid ratio of 12:1 with 14.5% oil yield. The kinetics experimental data agrees and well fitted with the second order extraction model. The initial extraction rate (h) was 0.0115 gmL-1min-1; the extraction capacity (Cs) was 1.282gmL-1; the second order extraction constant (k) was 0.007 mLg-1min-1 and coefficient of determination, R2 was 0.945.

Keywords: Gaharu, solid liquid extraction, optimization, kinetics.

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Authors: Hemant Kumar, R. N. K. Sharma, A. P. Krishna

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The study has been carried out on the Saranda in Jharkhand and a part of Odisha state. Geospatial data of Hyperion, a remote sensing satellite, have been used. This study has used a wide variety of patterns related to image processing to enhance and extract the mining class of Fe and Mn ores.Landsat-8, OLI sensor data have also been used to correctly explore related minerals. In this way, various processes have been applied to increase the mineralogy class and comparative evaluation with related frequency done. The Hyperion dataset for hyperspectral remote sensing has been specifically verified as an effective tool for mineral or rock information extraction within the band range of shortwave infrared used. The abundant spatial and spectral information contained in hyperspectral images enables the differentiation of different objects of any object into targeted applications for exploration such as exploration detection, mining.

Keywords: Hyperion, hyperspectral, sensor, Landsat-8.

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Authors: T. Santiboon

Abstract:

This research were investigated, determined, and analyzed of the climate characteristically change in the provincial Udon Thani in the period of 60 surrounding years from 1951 to 2010 A.D. that it-s transferred to effects of climatologically data for determining global warming. Statistically significant were not found for the 60 years- data (R2<0.81). Statistically significant were found after adapted data followed as the Sun Spot cycle in 11 year periods, at the level 0.001 (R2= 1.00). These results indicate the Udon Thani-s weather are affected change; temperatures and evaporation were increased, but rainfall and number days of rainfall, cyclone storm, wind speed, and humidity, forest assessment were decreased. The effects of thermal energy from the sun radiation energy and human activities that they-re followed as the sunspot cycle are able to be predicted from the last to the future of the uniformitarian-s the climate change and global warming effect of the world.

Keywords: Climate Change, Global Warming, Udon Thani Province Weather

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Authors: Avita K. Marihal, K.S. Jagadeesh, Sarita Sinha

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Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is a polychlorinated aromatic compound that is widespread in industrial effluents and is considered to be a serious pollutant. Among the variety of industrial effluents encountered, effluents from tanning industry are very important and have a serious pollution potential. PCP is also formed unintentionally in effluents of paper and pulp industries. It is highly persistent in soils and is lethal to a wide variety of beneficial microorganisms and insects, human beings and animals. The natural processes that breakdown toxic chemicals in the environment have become the focus of much attention to develop safe and environmentfriendly deactivation technologies. Microbes and plants are among the most important biological agents that remove and degrade waste materials to enable their recycling in the environment. The present investigation was carried out with the aim of developing a microbial system for bioremediation of PCP polluted soils. A number of plant species were evaluated for their ability to tolerate different concentrations of pentachlorophenol (PCP) in the soil. The experiment was conducted for 30 days under pot culture conditions. The toxic effect of PCP on plants was studied by monitoring seed germination, plant growth and biomass. As the concentration of PCP was increased to 50 ppm, the inhibition of seed germination, plant growth and biomass was also increased. Although PCP had a negative effect on all plant species tested, maize and groundnut showed the maximum tolerance to PCP. Other tolerating crops included wheat, safflower, sunflower, and soybean. From the rhizosphere soil of the tolerant seedlings, as many as twenty seven PCP tolerant bacteria were isolated. From soybean, 8; sunflower, 3; safflower 8; maize 2; groundnut and wheat, 3 each isolates were made. They were screened for their PCP degradation potentials. HPLC analyses of PCP degradation revealed that the isolate MAZ-2 degraded PCP completely. The isolate MAZ-1 was the next best isolate with 90 per cent PCP degradation. These strains hold promise to be used in the bioremediation of PCP polluted soils.

Keywords: Biodegradation, pentachlorophenol, rhizobacteria.

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Authors: E. Marei, A. Hammad, S. Ismail, A. El-Gindy

Abstract:

This study aims to investigate the ability of different formula of mixed bacteria as a biological treatments of wastewater after primary treatment as a bio-treatment and bio-removal and bio-adsorbent of different heavy metals in natural circumstances. The wastewater was collected from Sarpium forest site-Ismailia Governorate, Egypt. These treatments were mixture of free cells and mixture of immobilized cells of different bacteria. These different formulas of mixed bacteria were prepared under Lab. condition. The obtained data indicated that, as a result of wastewater bio-treatment, the removal rate was found to be 76.92 and 76.70% for biological oxygen demand, 79.78 and 71.07% for chemical oxygen demand, 32.45 and 36.84 % for ammonia nitrogen as well as 91.67 and 50.0% for phosphate after 24 and 28 hrs with mixed free cells and mixed immobilized cells, respectively. Moreover, the bio-removals of different heavy metals were found to reach 90.0 and 50. 0% for Cu ion, 98.0 and 98.5% for Fe ion, 97.0 and 99.3% for Mn ion, 90.0 and 90.0% Pb, 80.0% and 75.0% for Zn ion after 24 and 28 hrs with mixed free cells and mixed immobilized cells, respectively. The results indicated that 13.86 and 17.43% of removal efficiency and reduction of total dissolved solids were achieved after 24 and 28 hrs with mixed free cells and mixed immobilized cells, respectively.

Keywords: Biological desalination, bio-sorption heavy metals, free cell bacteria, immobilized bacteria, wastewater bio-treatment.

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Authors: Boregowda S.B., Hemanth Kumar A.R. Babu N.V, Puttamadappa C., And H.S Mruthyunjaya

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In the past few years, the use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) potentially increased in applications such as intrusion detection, forest fire detection, disaster management and battle field. Sensor nodes are generally battery operated low cost devices. The key challenge in the design and operation of WSNs is to prolong the network life time by reducing the energy consumption among sensor nodes. Node clustering is one of the most promising techniques for energy conservation. This paper presents a novel clustering algorithm which maximizes the network lifetime by reducing the number of communication among sensor nodes. This approach also includes new distributed cluster formation technique that enables self-organization of large number of nodes, algorithm for maintaining constant number of clusters by prior selection of cluster head and rotating the role of cluster head to evenly distribute the energy load among all sensor nodes.

Keywords: Clustering algorithms, Cluster head, Energy consumption, Sensor nodes, and Wireless sensor networks.

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Authors: Mária Stachová, Lukáš Sobíšek

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Data mining incorporates a group of statistical methods used to analyze a set of information, or a data set. It operates with models and algorithms, which are powerful tools with the great potential. They can help people to understand the patterns in certain chunk of information so it is obvious that the data mining tools have a wide area of applications. For example in the theoretical chemistry data mining tools can be used to predict moleculeproperties or improve computer-assisted drug design. Classification analysis is one of the major data mining methodologies. The aim of thecontribution is to create a classification model, which would be able to deal with a huge data set with high accuracy. For this purpose logistic regression, Bayesian logistic regression and random forest models were built using R software. TheBayesian logistic regression in Latent GOLD software was created as well. These classification methods belong to supervised learning methods. It was necessary to reduce data matrix dimension before construct models and thus the factor analysis (FA) was used. Those models were applied to predict the biological activity of molecules, potential new drug candidates.

Keywords: data mining, classification, drug design, QSAR

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Authors: Disciglio G., Lops F., Carlucci A., Gatta G., Tarantino A., Frabboni L., Carriero F., Cibelli F., Raimondo M. L., Tarantino E.

Abstract:

The tomato is a very important crop, whose cultivation in the Mediterranean basin is severely affected by the phytoparasitic weed Phelipanche ramosa. The semiarid regions of the world are considered the main areas where this parasitic weed is established causing heavy infestation as it is able to produce high numbers of seeds (up to 500,000 per plant), which remain viable for extended period (more than 20 years). In this paper the results obtained from eleven treatments in order to control this parasitic weed including chemical, agronomic, biological and biotechnological methods compared with the untreated test under two plowing depths (30 and 50 cm) are reported. The split-plot design with 3 replicates was adopted. In 2014 a trial was performed in Foggia province (southern Italy) on processing tomato (cv Docet) grown in the field infested by Phelipanche ramosa. Tomato seedlings were transplant on May 5, on a clay-loam soil. During the growing cycle of the tomato crop, at 56-78 and 92 days after transplantation, the number of parasitic shoots emerged in each plot was detected. At tomato harvesting, on August 18, the major quantity-quality yield parameters were determined (marketable yield, mean weight, dry matter, pH, soluble solids and color of fruits). All data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the means were compared by Tukey's test. Each treatment studied did not provide complete control against Phelipanche ramosa. However, among the different methods tested, some of them which Fusarium, gliphosate, radicon biostimulant and Red Setter tomato cv (improved genotypes obtained by Tilling technology) under deeper plowing (50 cm depth) proved to mitigate the virulence of the Phelipanche ramose attacks. It is assumed that these effects can be improved combining some of these treatments each other, especially for a gradual and continuing reduction of the “seed bank” of the parasite in the soil.

Keywords: Control methods, Phelipanche ramosa, tomato crop.

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Authors: Mukesh Singh Boori, Vít Voženílek

Abstract:

Olomouc is a unique and complex landmark with widespread forestation and land use. This research work was conducted to assess important and complex land use change trajectories in Olomouc region. Multi-temporal satellite data from 1991, 2001 and 2013 were used to extract land use/cover types by object oriented classification method. To achieve the objectives, three different aspects were used: (1) Calculate the quantity of each transition; (2) Allocate location based landscape pattern (3) Compare land use/cover evaluation procedure. Land cover change trajectories shows that 16.69% agriculture, 54.33% forest and 21.98% other areas (settlement, pasture and water-body) were stable in all three decade. Approximately 30% of the study area maintained as a same land cove type from 1991 to 2013. Here broad scale of political and socioeconomic factors was also affect the rate and direction of landscape changes. Distance from the settlements was the most important predictor of land cover change trajectories. This showed that most of landscape trajectories were caused by socio-economic activities and mainly led to virtuous change on the ecological environment.

Keywords: Remote Sensing, land use/cover, Change trajectories, Image classification.

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Authors: Chu-Chu Liao, Ying-Xing Lin

Abstract:

The purpose of the study is to analyze the main tourism attraction in indigenous tribes, as well as for the development of tribal aboriginal tourism brings positive and negative impacts. This study used qualitative research methods, and Lilang, Tbulan, and Hrung three tribes as the object of investigation. The results showed that: 1. Because three tribes geographical proximity, but have their own development characteristics, not conflict situations. 2. Three tribes are located in National Scenic Area and National Forest Recreation Area near, so driven tribal tourism development. 3 In addition Hrung three tribal tribal no major attraction, mainly located in the provision of accommodation; another Lilang and Tbulan tribe has natural resources and cultural resources attraction. 4 in the tourism brings positive and negative impacts, respondents expressed positive than residents of negative impacts. Based on the above findings, this study not only provides advice for tribal tourism operators, but also for future research to provide specific directions.

Keywords: Indigenous tourism, tribes tourism, tourism developing, impact, attraction.

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Authors: Sunil M. Gaikwad, Yogesh J. Koli, Gopal A. Raut, Ganesh P. Bhawane

Abstract:

The present investigation was directed to study the diversity of short-horned grasshoppers from a forested area of Kolhapur district, Maharashtra, India, which is spread along the hilly terrain of the Northern Western Ghats. The collection was made during 2013 to 2015, and identified with the help of a reference collection of ZSI, Kolkata, and recent literature and dry preserved. The study resulted in the enumeration of 40 species of short-horned grasshoppers belonging to four families of suborder: Caelifera. The family Acrididae was dominant (27 species) followed by Tetrigidae (eight species), Pyrgomorphidae (four species) and Chorotypidae (one species). The report of 40 species from the forest habitat of the study region highlights the significance of the Western Ghats. Ecologically, short-horned grasshoppers are integral to food chains, being consumed by a wide variety of animals. The observations of the present investigation may prove useful for conservation of the Diversity in Northern Western Ghats.

Keywords: Diversity, Kolhapur, Northern Western Ghats, Short-horned grasshoppers.

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Authors: Jozef Šesták, Zbyněk Večeřa, Vladislav Kahle, Dana Moravcová, Pavel Mikuška, Josef Kellner, František Božek

Abstract:

Construction of portable device for fast analysis of energetic materials is described in this paper. The developed analytical system consists of two main parts: a miniaturized microcolumn liquid chromatograph of unique construction and original chemiluminescence detector. This novel portable device is able to determine selectively most of nitramine- and nitroester-based explosives as well as inorganic nitrates at trace concentrations in water or soil extracts in less than 8 minutes.

Keywords: Portable device, uLC, chemiluminescence, nitramines, nitroesters.

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Authors: Khosro Mohammadi, Amir Ghalavand, Majid Aghaalikhani

Abstract:

In order to evaluation the effects of soil organic matter and biofertilizer on chickpea quality and biological nitrogen fixation, field experiments were carried out in 2007 and 2008 growing seasons. In this research the effects of different strategies for soil fertilization were investigated on grain yield and yield component, minerals, organic compounds and cooking time of chickpea. Experimental units were arranged in split-split plots based on randomized complete blocks with three replications. Main plots consisted of (G1): establishing a mixed vegetation of Vicia panunica and Hordeum vulgare and (G2): control, as green manure levels. Also, five strategies for obtaining the base fertilizer requirement including (N1): 20 t.ha-1 farmyard manure; (N2): 10 t.ha-1 compost; (N3): 75 kg.ha-1 triple super phosphate; (N4): 10 t.ha-1 farmyard manure + 5 t.ha-1 compost and (N5): 10 t.ha-1 farmyard manure + 5 t.ha-1 compost + 50 kg.ha-1 triple super phosphate were considered in sub plots. Furthermoree four levels of biofertilizers consisted of (B1): Bacillus lentus + Pseudomonas putida; (B2): Trichoderma harzianum; (B3): Bacillus lentus + Pseudomonas putida + Trichoderma harzianum; and (B4): control (without biofertilizers) were arranged in sub-sub plots. Results showed that integrating biofertilizers (B3) and green manure (G1) produced the highest grain yield. The highest amounts of yield were obtained in G1×N5 interaction. Comparison of all 2-way and 3-way interactions showed that G1N5B3 was determined as the superior treatment. Significant increasing of N, P2O5, K2O, Fe and Mg content in leaves and grains emphasized on superiority of mentioned treatment because each one of these nutrients has an approved role in chlorophyll synthesis and photosynthesis abilities of the crops. The combined application of compost, farmyard manure and chemical phosphorus (N5) in addition to having the highest yield, had the best grain quality due to high protein, starch and total sugar contents, low crude fiber and reduced cooking time.

Keywords: chickpea, biofertilizer, nitrogen fixation.

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Authors: Angela Unna Chukwu, Samuel Oluwafemi Oyamakin

Abstract:

We proposed a Hyperbolic Gompertz Growth Model (HGGM), which was developed by introducing a shape parameter (allometric). This was achieved by convoluting hyperbolic sine function on the intrinsic rate of growth in the classical gompertz growth equation. The resulting integral solution obtained deterministically was reprogrammed into a statistical model and used in modeling the height and diameter of Pines (Pinus caribaea). Its ability in model prediction was compared with the classical gompertz growth model, an approach which mimicked the natural variability of height/diameter increment with respect to age and therefore provides a more realistic height/diameter predictions using goodness of fit tests and model selection criteria. The Kolmogorov Smirnov test and Shapiro-Wilk test was also used to test the compliance of the error term to normality assumptions while the independence of the error term was confirmed using the runs test. The mean function of top height/Dbh over age using the two models under study predicted closely the observed values of top height/Dbh in the hyperbolic gompertz growth models better than the source model (classical gompertz growth model) while the results of R2, Adj. R2, MSE and AIC confirmed the predictive power of the Hyperbolic Gompertz growth models over its source model.

Keywords: Height, Dbh, forest, Pinus caribaea, hyperbolic, gompertz.

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Authors: Maher J. Tadros, Naji K. Al-Mefleh

Abstract:

The evaluation of non-conventional water resources on seed germination and seedling growth performance at early growth stages is still in progress especially in forage crops. This study was designed to test the effect of four types of water qualities (treated wastewater (TWW), industrial water (IW), grey water (GW), and Distilled water (DW)) on germination and early seedling vigor of Leucaena leucocephala. The results showed that the germination was not significantly affected by the different water qualities. Seed germination reached maximum after 17, 14, 14, and 21 days under GW, IW, TWW, and DW treatments, respectively. The highest mean of shoot length was scored under the GW treatment. And, the highest mean of root length was scored under DW which was not significant from GW treatment. The means of shoot fresh was the highest under the TWW. The means of root fresh weight was not significantly different from each other's under different treatments. The growth performance was in progress with no mortality during 21 days of growth. Thus, the best non-conventional water qualities alternatives based on the cleanness, nutrients, and toxicity are the GW, TWW and IW, respectively.

Keywords: Seed germination, Growth performance, Leucaena, Multipurpose forest trees, Waste water, Grey water

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Authors: Monapat Sasingha, Suttisak Soralump

Abstract:

This research presents the behavior of slope of the road along the canal stabilized by short piles. In this investigation, the centrifuge machine was used, modelling the condition of the water levels in the canal. The centrifuge tests were performed at 35 g. To observe the movement of the soil, visual analysis was performed to evaluate the failure behavior. Conclusively, the use of short piles to stabilize the canal slope proved to be an effective solution. However, the certain amount of settlement was found behind the short pile rows.

Keywords: Centrifuge test, slope failure, embankment, stability of slope.

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Authors: S. M. Kazerouni Sangi, Y. Gholipour

Abstract:

Steel made pipelines with different diameters are used for transmitting oil and gas which in many cases are buried in soil under the sea bed or immersed in sea water. External corrosion of pipes is an important form of deterioration due to the aggressive environment of sea water. Corrosion normally results in pits. Hence, using the finite element method, namely ABAQUS software, this paper estimates the amount of pressure capacity reduction of a pipecontaining a semi-elliptical pitting corrosion and the rate of corrosion during the pipeline life of 25 years.

Keywords: Petroleum Transmission, Pipeline, PressureCapacity, Semi-Elliptical Pitting Corrosion.

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Authors: Saima Ali, Pathamanathan Rajeev, Imteaz A. Monzur

Abstract:

In this paper, a brief review of the corrosion mechanism in buried pipe and modes of failure is provided together with the available corrosion models. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis is performed to understand the influence of corrosion model parameters on the remaining life estimation. Further, the probabilistic analysis is performed to propagate the uncertainty in the corrosion model on the estimation of the renaming life of the pipe. Finally, the comparison among the corrosion models on the basis of the remaining life estimation will be provided to improve the renewal plan.

Keywords: Corrosion, pit depth, sensitivity analysis, exposure period.

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Authors: Juliana C. Alencar, Monica Ferreira do Amaral Porto

Abstract:

Watercourses in Brazilian urban areas are constantly being degraded due to the unplanned use of the urban space; however, due to the different contexts of land use and occupation in the river watersheds, different intervention strategies are required to requalify them. When it comes to requalifying watercourses, we can list three main techniques to fulfill this purpose: restoration, revitalization and recovery; each one being indicated for specific contexts of land use and occupation in the basin. In this study, it was demonstrated that the application of these three techniques to three small basins in São Paulo city, listing the aspects involved in each of the contexts and techniques of requalification. For a protected watercourse within a forest park, renaturalization was proposed, where the watercourse is preserved in a state closer to the natural one. For a watercourse in an urban context that still preserves open spaces for its maintenance as a landscape element, an intervention was proposed following the principles of revitalization, integrating the watercourse with the landscape and the population. In the case of a watercourse in a harder context, only recovery was proposed, since the watercourse is found under the road system, which makes it difficult to integrate it into the landscape.

Keywords: Sustainable drainage, river restoration, river revitalization, river recovery.

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Authors: Subir Kundu, Sukhendra Singh, Sumedha Ojha, Kanika Kundu

Abstract:

The continuous decline of petroleum and natural gas reserves and non linear rise of oil price has brought about a realisation of the need for a change in our perpetual dependence on the fossil fuel. A day to day increased consumption of crude and petroleum products has made a considerable impact on our foreign exchange reserves. Hence, an alternate resource for the conversion of energy (both liquid and gas) is essential for the substitution of conventional fuels. Biomass is the alternate solution for the present scenario. Biomass can be converted into both liquid as well as gaseous fuels and other feedstocks for the industries.

Keywords: Bioenergy, Biomass conversion, Biorefining, Efficient utilisation of night soil.

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Authors: Teklu Urgessa, Wookjae Maeng, Joong Seek Lee

Abstract:

Application of five implementations of three data mining classification techniques was experimented for extracting important insights from tourism data. The aim was to find out the best performing algorithm among the compared ones for tourism knowledge discovery. Knowledge discovery process from data was used as a process model. 10-fold cross validation method is used for testing purpose. Various data preprocessing activities were performed to get the final dataset for model building. Classification models of the selected algorithms were built with different scenarios on the preprocessed dataset. The outperformed algorithm tourism dataset was Random Forest (76%) before applying information gain based attribute selection and J48 (C4.5) (75%) after selection of top relevant attributes to the class (target) attribute. In terms of time for model building, attribute selection improves the efficiency of all algorithms. Artificial Neural Network (multilayer perceptron) showed the highest improvement (90%). The rules extracted from the decision tree model are presented, which showed intricate, non-trivial knowledge/insight that would otherwise not be discovered by simple statistical analysis with mediocre accuracy of the machine using classification algorithms.

Keywords: Classification algorithms; data mining; tourism; knowledge discovery.

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Authors: M. Sitoe, O. Zacarias

Abstract:

University education is influenced by several factors that range from the adoption of strategies to strengthen the whole process to the academic performance improvement of the students themselves. This work uses data mining techniques to develop a predictive model to identify students with a tendency to evasion and retention. To this end, a database of real students’ data from the Department of University Admission (DAU) and the Department of Mathematics and Informatics (DMI) was used. The data comprised 388 undergraduate students admitted in the years 2009 to 2014. The Weka tool was used for model building, using three different techniques, namely: K-nearest neighbor, random forest, and logistic regression. To allow for training on multiple train-test splits, a cross-validation approach was employed with a varying number of folds. To reduce bias variance and improve the performance of the models, ensemble methods of Bagging and Stacking were used. After comparing the results obtained by the three classifiers, Logistic Regression using Bagging with seven folds obtained the best performance, showing results above 90% in all evaluated metrics: accuracy, rate of true positives, and precision. Retention is the most common tendency.

Keywords: Evasion and retention, cross validation, bagging, stacking.

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