Search results for: TQM (total quality management)

Authors: Nadia R. A. Nassar, Yehia A. Heikal, Mahmoud A. M. Abou Donia, Mohamed Fadel, Gomaa N. Abdel-Rahman

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The aim of this study was to select the best strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae able to resist lead and cadmium. Ten strains were screened on the basis of their resistance at different concentrations of 0, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24 ppm for Pb and 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 ppm for Cd. The properties of baker's yeast quality were decreased by the increase of Pb or Cd in growth medium. The slope values of yield, total viable cells and gassing power of produced baker's yeast were investigated as an indicator of metal resistant. In addition, concentrations of Pb and Cd in produced baker's yeast were determined. The strain of S. cerevisiae FH-620 had the highest resistance against Pb and Cd and had the minimum levels of both two investigated metals in produced baker's yeast.

Keywords: Cadmium, lead, S. cerevisiae, tolerant.

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Authors: Gnanaprakash K, Madhusudhana Chetty C, Ramkanth S, Alagusundaram M, Tiruvengadarajan VS, Angala Parameswari S, Mohamed Saleem TS

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Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) is a well-known hepatotoxin and exposure to this chemical is known to induce oxidative stress and causes liver injury by the formation of free radicals. Flacourtia indica commonly known as 'Baichi' has been reported as an effective remedy for the treatment of a variety of diseases. The objective of this study was to investigate the hepatoprotective activity of aqueous extract of leaves of Flacourtia indica against CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity. Animals were pretreated with the aqueous extract of Flacourtia indica (250 & 500 mg/kg body weight) for one week and then challenged with CCl4 (1.5 ml/kg bw) in olive oil (1:1, v/v) on 7th day. Serum marker enzymes (ALP, AST, ALT, Total Protein & Total Bilirubin) and TBARS level (Marker for oxidative stress) were estimated in all the study groups. Alteration in the levels of biochemical markers of hepatic damage like AST, ALT, ALP, Total Protein, Total Bilirubin and lipid peroxides (TBARS) were tested in both CCl4 treated and extract treated groups. CCl4 has enhanced the AST, ALT, ALP and the Lipid peroxides (TBARS) in liver. Treatment of aqueous extract of Flacourtia indica leaves (250 & 500 mg/kg) exhibited a significant protective effect by altering the serum levels of AST, ALT, ALP, Total Protein, Total Bilirubin and liver TBARS. These biochemical observations were supported by histopathological study of liver sections. From this preliminary study it has been concluded that the aqueous extract of the leaves of Flacourtia indica protects liver against oxidative damages and could be used as an effective protector against CCl4 induced hepatic damage. Our findings suggested that Flacourtia indica possessed good hepatoprotective activity

Keywords: Carbon Tetrachloride, Flacourtia indica, Hepatoprotective activity, Oxidative stress

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Authors: Raja Suzana Raja Kasim

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This paper attempts to highlight the significant role of knowledge management practices (KMP) and competencies in improving the performance and efficiency of public sector organizations. It appears that public sector organizations in developing countries have not received much attention in the research literature of knowledge management and competencies. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore the role of KMP and competencies in achieving superior performance among public sector organizations in Malaysia in the broader perspective. Survey questionnaires were distributed to all Administrative and Diplomatic Officers (ADS) from 28 ministries located in Putrajaya, Malaysia. This paper also examines preliminary empirical results on the relationship between support for knowledge management practices, competencies, and orientation in Malaysia-s public organizations. This paper supports the notion that the practices of knowledge management at the organizational level are a prerequisite for successful organizational performance. In conclusion, the results not only have the potential to contribute theoretically to both management strategy and knowledge management field literature but also to the area of organizational performance.

Keywords: knowledge, knowledge management practices, competencies, organizational performance

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Authors: Andrea Zielke-Nadkarni

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Pain management is a question of quality of life and an indicator for nursing quality. Chronic pain which is predominant in oncology and palliative nursing situations is perceived today as a multifactorial, individual emotional experience with specific characteristics including the sociocultural dimension when dealing with migrant patients. This dimension of chronic pain is of major importance in professional nursing of migrant patients in hospices or palliative care units. Objectives of the study are: 1. To find out more about the sociocultural views on pain and nursing care, on customs and nursing practices connected with pain of both Turkish Muslim and German Christian women, 2. To improve individual and family oriented nursing practice with view to sociocultural needs of patients in severe pain in palliative care. In a qualitative-explorative comparative study 4 groups of women, Turkish Muslims immigrants (4 from the first generation, 5 from the second generation) and German Christian women of two generations (5 of each age group) of the same age groups as the Turkish women and with similar educational backgrounds were interviewed (semistructured ethnographic interviews using Spradley, 1979) on their perceptions and experiences of pain and nursing care within their families. For both target groups the presentation will demonstrate the following results in detail: Utterance of pain as well as “private” and “public” pain vary within different societies and cultures. Permitted forms of pain utterance are learned in childhood and determine attitudes and expectations in adulthood. Language, especially when metaphors and symbols are used, plays a major role for misunderstandings. The sociocultural context of illness may include specific beliefs that are important to the patients and yet seem more than far-fetched from a biomedical perspective. Pain can be an influential factor in family relationships where respect or hierarchies do not allow the direct utterance of individual needs. Specific resources are often, although not exclusively, linked to religious convictions and are significantly helpful in reducing pain. The discussion will evaluate the results of the study with view to the relevant literature and present nursing interventions and instruments beyond medication that are helpful when dealing with patients from various socio-cultural backgrounds in painful end-oflife situations.

Keywords: Pain management, migrants, sociocultural context, palliative care.

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Authors: Bahareh Hajirostamloo

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Cow milk, is a product of the mammary gland and soymilk is a beverage made from soybeans; it is the liquid that remains after soybeans are soaked. In this research effort, we compared nutritional parameters of this two kind milk such as total fat, fiber, protein, minerals (Ca, Fe and P), fatty acids, carbohydrate, lactose, water, total solids, ash, pH, acidity and calories content in one cup (245 g). Results showed soymilk contains 4.67 grams of fat, 0.52 of fatty acids, 3.18 of fiber, 6.73 of protein, 4.43 of carbohydrate, 0.00 of lactose, 228.51 of water, 10.40 of total solids and 0.66 of ash, also 9.80 milligrams of Ca, 1.42 of Fe, and 120.05 of P, 79 Kcal of calories, pH=6.74 and acidity was 0.24%. Cow milk contains 8.15 grams of fat, 5.07 of fatty acids, 0.00 of fiber, 8.02 of protein, 11.37 of carbohydrate, ´Çá4.27 of lactose, 214.69 of water, 12.90 of total solids, 1.75 of ash, 290.36 milligrams of Ca, 0.12 of Fe, and 226.92 of P, 150 Kcal of calories, pH=6.90 and acidity was 0.21% . Soy milk is one of plant-based complete proteins and cow milk is a rich source of nutrients as well. Cow milk is containing near twice as much fat as and ten times more fatty acids do soymilk. Cow milk contains greater amounts of mineral (except Fe) it contain more than three hundred times the amount of Ca and nearly twice the amount of P as does soymilk but soymilk contains more Fe (ten time more) than does cow milk. Cow milk and soy milk contain nearly identical amounts of protein and water and fiber is a big plus, dairy has none. Although what we choose to drink is really a mater of personal preference and our health objectives but looking at the comparison, soy looks like healthier choices.

Keywords: Soymilk, cow milk, nutritional, comparison.

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Authors: Jisun Song

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This study starts with the review on the role of external assistance to fragile states where the state lacks the capacity to provide better quality lives for its people. One of the tools being the Official Development Assistance, this paper focuses on the its disbursement patterns to fragile states that targets women's empowerment and gender equality to verify where donors stand on their actions on fragile states. The findings show that whereas donors have increased their aid volume with gender equality objectives in absolute terms, it is still lacking when compared to total amount. Hence, donors need to further strengthen their commitment to promoting gender equality in its aid activities as well as to allocate more assistance with significant and principal objectives on gender.

Keywords: Fragile states, gender equality, Official Development Assistance (ODA), women's empowerment.

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Authors: Sandra Muizniece-Brasava, Aija Ruzaike, Lija Dukalska, Ilze Stokmane, Liene Strauta

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Experiments have been carried out at the Latvia University of Agriculture Department of Food Technology. The aim of this work was to assess the effect of thermal treatment in flexible retort pouch packaging on the quality of potatoes’ produce during the storage time. Samples were evaluated immediately after retort thermal treatment; and following 1; 2; 3 and 4 storage months at the ambient temperature of +18±2ºC in vacuum packaging from polyamide/polyethylene (PA/PE) and aluminum/polyethylene (Al/PE) film pouches with barrier properties. Experimentally the quality of the potatoes’ produce in dry butter and mushroom dressings was characterized by measuring pH, hardness, color, microbiological properties and sensory evaluation. The sterilization was effective in protecting the produce from physical, chemical, and microbial quality degradation. According to the study of obtained data, it can be argued that the selected product processing technology and packaging materials could be applied to provide the safety and security during four-month storage period.

Keywords: Potatoes’ produce, shelf life, retort thermal treatment and packaging.

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Authors: Shinpei Ogata, Yoshitaka Aoki, Hirotaka Okuda, Saeko Matsuura

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A key to success of high quality software development is to define valid and feasible requirements specification. We have proposed a method of model-driven requirements analysis using Unified Modeling Language (UML). The main feature of our method is to automatically generate a Web user interface mock-up from UML requirements analysis model so that we can confirm validity of input/output data for each page and page transition on the system by directly operating the mock-up. This paper proposes a support method to check the validity of a data life cycle by using a model checking tool “UPPAAL" focusing on CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete). Exhaustive checking improves the quality of requirements analysis model which are validated by the customers through automatically generated mock-up. The effectiveness of our method is discussed by a case study of requirements modeling of two small projects which are a library management system and a supportive sales system for text books in a university.

Keywords: CRUD, Model Checking, Model Driven Development, Requirements Analysis, Unified Modeling Language, UPPAAL.

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Authors: Youngseok Lee, Dongjin Chung, Youngjin Kim

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R&D risk management has been suggested as one of the management approaches for accomplishing the goals of public R&D investment. The investment in basic science and core technology development is the essential roles of government for securing the social base needed for continuous economic growth. And, it is also an important role of the science and technology policy sectors to generate a positive environment in which the outcomes of public R&D can be diffused in a stable fashion by controlling the uncertainties and risk factors in advance that may arise during the application of such achievements to society and industry. Various policies have already been implemented to manage uncertainties and variables that may have negative impact on accomplishing public R& investment goals. But we may derive new policy measures for complementing the existing policies and for exploring progress direction by analyzing them in a policy package from the viewpoint of R&D risk management.

Keywords: Risk management, Public R&D policy, Science andtechnology policy, Performance management.

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Authors: A. Bajit, M. Nahid, A. Tamtaoui, E. H. Bouyakhf

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In this paper, we propose a Perceptually Optimized Foveation based Embedded ZeroTree Image Coder (POEFIC) that introduces a perceptual weighting to wavelet coefficients prior to control SPIHT encoding algorithm in order to reach a targeted bit rate with a perceptual quality improvement with respect to a given bit rate a fixation point which determines the region of interest ROI. The paper also, introduces a new objective quality metric based on a Psychovisual model that integrates the properties of the HVS that plays an important role in our POEFIC quality assessment. Our POEFIC coder is based on a vision model that incorporates various masking effects of human visual system HVS perception. Thus, our coder weights the wavelet coefficients based on that model and attempts to increase the perceptual quality for a given bit rate and observation distance. The perceptual weights for all wavelet subbands are computed based on 1) foveation masking to remove or reduce considerable high frequencies from peripheral regions 2) luminance and Contrast masking, 3) the contrast sensitivity function CSF to achieve the perceptual decomposition weighting. The new perceptually optimized codec has the same complexity as the original SPIHT techniques. However, the experiments results show that our coder demonstrates very good performance in terms of quality measurement.

Keywords: DWT, linear-phase 9/7 filter, Foveation Filtering, CSF implementation approaches, 9/7 Wavelet JND Thresholds and Wavelet Error Sensitivity WES, Luminance and Contrast masking, standard SPIHT, Objective Quality Measure, Probability Score PS.

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Authors: Yamamah Abdulrazaq, Lahieb A. Abrahim, Samuel E. Davies, Iain Shewring

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Electric water heater (EWH) is a powerful appliance that uses electricity in residential, commercial, and industrial settings, and the ability to control them properly will result in cost savings and the prevention of blackouts on the national grid. This article discusses the usage of timers in EWH control strategies for demand-side management (DSM). To the authors' knowledge, there is no systematic mapping review focusing on the utilization of EWH control strategies in DSM has yet been conducted. Consequently, the purpose of this research is to identify and examine main papers exploring EWH procedures in DSM by quantifying and categorizing information with regard to publication year and source, kind of methods, and source of data for monitoring control techniques. In order to answer the research questions, a total of 31 publications published between 1999 and 2023 were selected depending on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data indicate that direct load control (DLC) has been somewhat more prevalent than indirect load control (ILC). Additionally, the mix method is much lower than the other techniques, and the proportion of real-time data (RTD) to non-real-time data (NRTD) is about equal.

Keywords: Demand side management, direct load control, electric water heater, indirect load control, non-real-time data, real time data.

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Authors: Souleymane Oumtanaga, Falilu Abudul Kadiri

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Internet is without any doubt the fastest and effective mean of communication making it possible to reach a great number of people in the world. It draws its base from exchange points. Indeed exchange points are used to inter-connect various Internet suppliers and operators in order to allow them to exchange traffic and it is with these interconnections that Internet made its great strides. They thus make it possible to limit the traffic delivered via the operators of transits. This limitation allows a significant improvement of the quality of service, a reduction in the latency time just as a reduction of the cost of connection for the final subscriber. Through this article we will show how the installation of an IXP allows an improvement and a diversification of the services just as a reduction of the Internet connection costs.

Keywords: Quality of service, Exchange point, interconnection, Service providers, bandwidth, traffic, routers, routing table.

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Authors: B. Sudhakar, K. A. Ponnusamy

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In India cotton was the major commercial crop and cultivating all the states. In recent years, area of cotton declined due to pest and disease attack, drought, lower price for the produces etc. The first reason as pest and disease attack will be the challenges and it is of utmost importance that in future the insect problems would have to be tackled through Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The present study deals with principle knowledge of IPM adopting cotton cultivators in irrigated and rainfed conditions. Under irrigated conditions, among cultural practices, all respondents had principle knowledge about growing high yielding and pest resistant hybrids, sowing quality and certified seeds and avoiding cotton ratoon cropping. Regarding mechanical practices all respondents had principle knowledge about collecting and destroying egg, larvae and pupae of pests and removing and destroying pest and disease infected cotton squares, flowers and other shed materials. With regard to biological practices, 93% of them had principle knowledge about spraying neem oil, followed by 82% about tying Trichogramma eggcard. Among chemical practices, more than 90% of the respondents had principle knowledge about of spraying herbicide (96%), identifying ETL (Economic Threshold Level) for cotton pests (94%), and applying safe insecticides (90%). Under rainfed condition, among cultural practices, all respondents had principle knowledge about sowing quality and certified seeds and growing high yielding and pest resistant hybrids seeds. Regarding mechanical practices hundred percentage of the respondents had principle knowledge on the mechanical practices viz., collecting and destroying egg, larvae and pupae of pests and removing and destroying pest and disease infected cotton squares, flowers and other shed materials. With regard to biological practices, 96% of the respondents had correct in principle knowledge about spraying neem oil, followed by 89% about tying Trichogramma eggcard. With regard to chemical practices, more than 90% of the respondents had principle knowledge of applying safe insecticides (95%), avoiding repeated use of the same insecticides (95%), identifying ETL for cotton pests (94%) and applying granular insecticides (90%).

Keywords: Biological practices, chemical practices, cultural practices, mechanical practices, integrated pest management.

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Authors: H. M. Behairy, M. S. Khorsheed

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Among other factors that characterize satellite communication channels is their high bit error rate. We present a system for still image transmission over noisy satellite channels. The system couples image compression together with error control codes to improve the received image quality while maintaining its bandwidth requirements. The proposed system is tested using a high resolution satellite imagery simulated over the Rician fading channel. Evaluation results show improvement in overall system including image quality and bandwidth requirements compared to similar systems with different coding schemes.

Keywords: Image Transmission, Image Compression, Channel Coding, Error-Control Coding, DCT, Convolution Codes, Viterbi Algorithm, PCGC.

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Authors: Andrey V. Timofeev, Dmitry V. Egorov

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This paper introduces an original method of parametric optimization of the structure for multimodal decisionlevel fusion scheme which combines the results of the partial solution of the classification task obtained from assembly of the mono-modal classifiers. As a result, a multimodal fusion classifier which has the minimum value of the total error rate has been obtained.

Keywords: Сlassification accuracy, fusion solution, total error rate.

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Authors: A.L. Seetharam, B.L. Udaya Simha

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The Bangalore City is facing the acute problem of pollution in the atmosphere due to the heavy increase in the traffic and developmental activities in recent years. The present study is an attempt in the direction to assess trend of the ambient air quality status of three stations, viz., AMCO Batteries Factory, Mysore Road, GRAPHITE INDIA FACTORY, KHB Industrial Area, Whitefield and Ananda Rao Circle, Gandhinagar with respect to some of the major criteria pollutants such as Total Suspended particular matter (SPM), Oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and Oxides of sulphur (SO2). The sites are representative of various kinds of growths viz., commercial, residential and industrial, prevailing in Bangalore, which are contributing to air pollution. The concentration of Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) at all locations showed a falling trend due to use of refined petrol and diesel in the recent years. The concentration of Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) showed an increasing trend but was within the permissible limits. The concentration of the Suspended particular matter (SPM) showed the mixed trend. The correlation between model and observed values is found to vary from 0.4 to 0.7 for SO2, 0.45 to 0.65 for NOx and 0.4 to 0.6 for SPM. About 80% of data is observed to fall within the error band of ±50%. Forecast test for the best fit models showed the same trend as actual values in most of the cases. However, the deviation observed in few cases could be attributed to change in quality of petro products, increase in the volume of traffic, introduction of LPG as fuel in many types of automobiles, poor condition of roads, prevailing meteorological conditions, etc.

Keywords: Bangalore, urban air pollution, time series analysis.

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Authors: Veni.S , K.A.Narayanankutty

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For about two decades scientists have been developing techniques for enhancing the quality of medical images using Fourier transform, DWT (Discrete wavelet transform),PDE model etc., Gabor wavelet on hexagonal sampled grid of the images is proposed in this work. This method has optimal approximation theoretic performances, for a good quality image. The computational cost is considerably low when compared to similar processing in the rectangular domain. As X-ray images contain light scattered pixels, instead of unique sigma, the parameter sigma of 0.5 to 3 is found to satisfy most of the image interpolation requirements in terms of high Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) , lower Mean Squared Error (MSE) and better image quality by adopting windowing technique.

Keywords: Hexagonal lattices, Gabor filter, Interpolation, imageprocessing.

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Authors: B. Alamsari, S. Torii, A. Trianto, Y. Bindar

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Isobaric and cooling zone of iron ore reactor have been simulated. In this paper, heat and mass transfer equation are formulated to perform the temperature and concentration of gas and solid phase respectively. Temperature profile for isobaric zone is simulated on the range temperature of 873-1163K while cooling zone is simulated on the range temperature of 733-1139K. The simulation results have a good agreement with the plant data. Total carbon formation in the isobaric zone is only 30% of total carbon contained in the sponge iron product. The formation of Fe3C in isobaric zone reduces metallization degree up to 0.58% whereas reduction of metallization degree in cooling zone up to 1.139%. The decreasing of sponge iron temperature in the isobaric and cooling zone is around 300 K and 600 K respectively.

Keywords: Mathematical Model, Iron Ore Reactor, Cooling Zone, Isobaric zone.

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Authors: Nedeljko Cvejic, Artur Łoza, David Bull, Nishan Canagarajah

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In this paper, we present a novel objective nonreference performance assessment algorithm for image fusion. It takes into account local measurements to estimate how well the important information in the source images is represented by the fused image. The metric is based on the Universal Image Quality Index and uses the similarity between blocks of pixels in the input images and the fused image as the weighting factors for the metrics. Experimental results confirm that the values of the proposed metrics correlate well with the subjective quality of the fused images, giving a significant improvement over standard measures based on mean squared error and mutual information.

Keywords: Fusion performance measures, image fusion, nonreferencequality measures, objective quality measures.

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Authors: Ek-Uma Imkome, Jintana Yunibhand, Waraporn Chaiyawat

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Background: Persons with schizophrenia patient and misusing methamphetamines suffering from social dysfunction that impact on their quality of life. Knowledge of factors related to social dysfunction will guide the effective intervention. Objectives: To determine the direct effect, indirect effect and total effect of an acerbate Psychotics’ Symptoms, Social Support, Stressful life events, Medication use self-efficacy impact on social dysfunction in Thai schizophrenic patient and methamphetamine misuse. Methods: Data were collected from schizophrenic and methamphetamine misuse patient by self report. A linear structural relationship was used to test the hypothesized path model. Results: The hypothesized model was found to fit the empirical data and explained 54% of the variance of the psychotic symptoms (X² = 114.35, df = 92, p-value = 0.05, X² /df = 1.24, GFI = 0.96, AGFI = 0.92, CFI = 1.00, NFI = 0.99, NNFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.02). The highest total effect on social dysfunction was psychotic symptoms (0.67, p<0.05). Medication use self-efficacy had a direct effect on psychotic symptoms (-0.25, p<0.01), and social support had direct effect on medication use self efficacy (0.36, p <0.01). Conclusions: Psychotic symptoms and stressful life events were the significance factors that influenced direct on social dysfunctioning. Therefore, interventions that are designed to manage these factors are crucial in order to enhance social functioning in this population.

Keywords: Psychotic symptoms, methamphetamine, schizophrenia, stressful life events, social dysfunction, social support, medication use self-efficacy.

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Authors: Deng Shiwei

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The users are now expecting higher level of DSP(Digital Signal Processing) software quality than ever before. Prevention and detection of defect are critical elements of software quality assurance. In this paper, principles and rules for prevention and detection of defect are suggested, which are not universal guidelines, but are useful for both novice and experienced DSP software developers.

Keywords: defect detection, defect prevention, DSP-software, software development, software testing.

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Authors: Chia-Hung Lin, Mei-Sung Kang, Cong-Hui Huang, Chao-Lin Kuo

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This paper proposes fractal patterns for power quality (PQ) detection using color relational analysis (CRA) based classifier. Iterated function system (IFS) uses the non-linear interpolation in the map and uses similarity maps to construct various fractal patterns of power quality disturbances, including harmonics, voltage sag, voltage swell, voltage sag involving harmonics, voltage swell involving harmonics, and voltage interruption. The non-linear interpolation functions (NIFs) with fractal dimension (FD) make fractal patterns more distinguishing between normal and abnormal voltage signals. The classifier based on CRA discriminates the disturbance events in a power system. Compared with the wavelet neural networks, the test results will show accurate discrimination, good robustness, and faster processing time for detecting disturbing events.

Keywords: Power Quality (PQ), Color Relational Analysis(CRA), Iterated Function System (IFS), Non-linear InterpolationFunction (NIF), Fractal Dimension (FD).

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Authors: Arturo Aquino, Manuel Emilio Gegundez, Jose Manuel Bravo, Diego Marin

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Retinal vascularity assessment plays an important role in diagnosis of ophthalmic pathologies. The employment of digital images for this purpose makes possible a computerized approach and has motivated development of many methods for automated vascular tree segmentation. Metrics based on contingency tables for binary classification have been widely used for evaluating performance of these algorithms and, concretely, the accuracy has been mostly used as measure of global performance in this topic. However, this metric shows very poor matching with human perception as well as other notable deficiencies. Here, a new similarity function for measuring quality of retinal vessel segmentations is proposed. This similarity function is based on characterizing the vascular tree as a connected structure with a measurable area and length. Tests made indicate that this new approach shows better behaviour than the current one does. Generalizing, this concept of measuring descriptive properties may be used for designing functions for measuring more successfully segmentation quality of other complex structures.

Keywords: Retinal vessel segmentation, quality assessment, performanceevaluation, similarity function.

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Authors: S. H. R. Sadeghi, A. Sadoddin, A. Najafinejad

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Expansionism and ever-increasing population menace all different resources worldwide. The issue, hence, is critical in developing countries like Iran where new technologies are rapidly luxuriated and unguardedly applied, resulting in unexpected outcomes. However, uncommon and comprehensive approaches are introduced to take all the different aspects involved into consideration. In the last decade, few approaches such as community-based, stakeholders-oriented, adaptive and ultimately integrated management, have emerged and are developing for efficient, Co-management or best management, economic and sustainable development and management of watershed resources in Iran. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to focus on state-of-the-art approaches for the management of watershed resources applied in Iran. The study has been then supported by reports of some case studies conducted throughout the country involving previously mentioned approaches. Scrutinizing results of the researches verified a progressive tendency of the managerial approaches in watershed management strategies leading to a general approaching balance situation. The approaches are firmly rooted in educational, research, executive, legal and policy-making sectors leading to some recuperation at different levels. However, there is a long way ahead to naturalize detrimental effects of unscientific, illegal and over exploitation of the watershed resources in Iran.

Keywords: Comprehensive management, ecosystem balance, integrated watershed management, land resources optimization.

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Authors: Olaniyi O. Omoyajowo

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To be successful in today’s competitive global environment, manufacturing industry must be able to respond quickly to changes in technology. These changes in technology introduce new risks and hazards. The management of risk/hazard in a manufacturing process recommends method through which the success rate of an organization can be increased. Thus, there is a continual need for manufacturing industries to invest significant amount of resources in risk management, which in turn optimizes the production output and profitability of any manufacturing industry (if implemented properly). To help improve the existing risk prevention and mitigation practices in Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) in Nigeria Manufacturing Industries (NMI), the researcher embarks on this research to develop a systematic Risk Management process.

Keywords: Manufacturing industries, production output, risk, risk management, SMEs.

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Authors: Gi-Ryun Park, Gye-Wan Moon, Dong-Hoon Yang

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This study aims to explore the positive effects of self-leadership and innovative behavior that'd been proven in the existing researches proactively and understand the regulation effects of smartphone addiction which has recently become an issue in Korea. This study conducted a convenient sampling of college students attending the four colleges located at Daegu. A total of 210 questionnaires in 5-point Likert scale were distributed to college students. Among which, a total of 200 questionnaires were collected for our final analysis data. Both correlation analysis and regression analysis were carried out to verify those questionnaires through SPSS 20.0. As a result, college students' self-leadership had a significantly positive impact on innovative behavior (B= .210, P= .003). In addition, it is found that the relationship between self-leadership and innovative behavior can be adjusted depending on the degree of smartphone addiction in college students (B= .264, P= .000). This study could first understand the negative effects of smartphone addiction and find that if students' self-leadership is improved in terms of self-management and unnecessary use of smartphone is controlled properly, innovative behavior can be improved. In addition, this study is significant in that it attempts to identify a new impact of smartphone addiction with the recent environmental changes, unlike the existing researches that'd been carried out from the perspective of organizational behavior theory.

Keywords: Innovative Behavior, Revolutionary Behavior, Self-leadership, Smartphone Addiction.

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Authors: Carmen E. Zapata, José F. Jiménez, Mauricio Ramiréz, Natalia A. Cano

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The majority of the urban areas in Latin America face the challenges associated with city planning and development problems, attributed to human, technical, and economical factors; therefore, we cannot ignore the issues related to climate change because the city modifies the natural landscape in a significant way transforming the radiation balance and heat content in the urbanized areas. These modifications provoke changes in the temperature distribution known as “the heat island effect”. According to this phenomenon, we have the need to conceive the urban planning based on climatological patterns that will assure its sustainable functioning, including the particularities of the climate variability. In the present study, it is identified the Local Climate Zones (LCZ) in the Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley (Colombia) with the objective of relocate the air quality monitoring stations as a partial solution to the problem of how to measure representative air quality levels in a city for a local scale, but with instruments that measure in the microscale.

Keywords: Air quality, monitoring, local climatic zones, valley, monitoring stations.

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Authors: Abimbola M. Enitan, Josiah Adeyemo

Abstract:

Anaerobic modeling is a useful tool to describe and simulate the condition and behaviour of anaerobic treatment units for better effluent quality and biogas generation. The present investigation deals with the anaerobic treatment of brewery wastewater with varying organic loads. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total suspended solids (TSS) of the influent and effluent of the bioreactor were determined at various retention times to generate data for kinetic coefficients. The bio-kinetic coefficients in the modified Stover–Kincannon kinetic and methane generation models were determined to study the performance of anaerobic digestion process. At steady-state, the determination of the kinetic coefficient (K), the endogenous decay coefficient (Kd), the maximum growth rate of microorganisms (μmax), the growth yield coefficient (Y), ultimate methane yield (Bo), maximum utilization rate constant Umax and the saturation constant (KB) in the model were calculated to be 0.046 g/g COD, 0.083 (d¯¹), 0.117 (d-¹), 0.357 g/g, 0.516 (L CH4/gCODadded), 18.51 (g/L/day) and 13.64 (g/L/day) respectively. The outcome of this study will help in simulation of anaerobic model to predict usable methane and good effluent quality during the treatment of industrial wastewater. Thus, this will protect the environment, conserve natural resources, saves time and reduce cost incur by the industries for the discharge of untreated or partially treated wastewater. It will also contribute to a sustainable long-term clean development mechanism for the optimization of the methane produced from anaerobic degradation of waste in a close system.

Keywords: Brewery wastewater, methane generation model, environment, anaerobic modeling.

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Authors: Correa Arias, César

Abstract:

Today, Higher Education in a global scope is subordinated to the greater institutional controls through the policies of the Quality of Education. These include processes of over evaluation of all the academic activities: students- and professors- performance, educational logistics, managerial standards for the administration of institutions of higher education, as well as the establishment of the imaginaries of excellence and prestige as the foundations on which universities of the XXI century will focus their present and future goals and interests. But at the same time higher education systems worldwide are facing the most profound crisis of sense and meaning and attending enormous mutations in their identity. Based in a qualitative research approach, this paper shows the social configurations that the scholars at the Universities in Mexico build around the discourse of the Quality of Education, and how these policies put in risk the social recognition of these individuals.

Keywords: Higher education, quality of education, social recognition, social configurations.

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Authors: Renata Martins Pacheco, João Claro

Abstract:

Wildfires are becoming an increasing concern worldwide, causing substantial social, economic, and environmental disruptions. This situation is especially relevant in Mediterranean-climate regions, present in all the five continents of the world, in which fire is not only a natural component of the environment but also perhaps one of the most important evolutionary forces. The rise in wildfire occurrences and their associated impacts suggests the need for identifying knowledge gaps and enhancing the basis of scientific evidence on how managers and policymakers may act effectively to address them. Considering that the main goal of a systematic map is to collate and catalog a body of evidence to describe the state of knowledge for a specific topic, it is a suitable approach to be used for this purpose. In this context, the aim of this study is to systematically map the research trends in wildfire management practices in Mediterranean-climate regions. A total of 201 wildfire management studies were analyzed and systematically mapped in terms of their: Year of publication; Place of study; Scientific outlet; Research area (Web of Science) or Research field (Scopus); Wildfire phase; Central research topic; Main objective of the study; Research methods; and Main conclusions or contributions. The results indicate that there is an increasing number of studies being developed on the topic (most from the last 10 years), but more than half of them are conducted in few Mediterranean countries (60% of the analyzed studies were conducted in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy or France), and more than 50% are focused on pre-fire issues, such as prevention and fuel management. In contrast, only 12% of the studies focused on “Economic modeling” or “Human factors and issues,” which suggests that the triple bottom line of the sustainability argument (social, environmental, and economic) is not being fully addressed by fire management research. More than one-fourth of the studies had their objective related to testing new approaches in fire or forest management, suggesting that new knowledge is being produced on the field. Nevertheless, the results indicate that most studies (about 84%) employed quantitative research methods, and only 3% of the studies used research methods that tackled social issues or addressed expert and practitioner’s knowledge. Perhaps this lack of multidisciplinary studies is one of the factors hindering more progress from being made in terms of reducing wildfire occurrences and their impacts.

Keywords: Management Mediterranean-climate regions, policy, wildfire.

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