Search results for: Tukey honest significant differences

Authors: Yen-Ting Wang, Pao-Cheng Lin, Chen-Fu Huang, Lung-Ching Liang, Alex J.Y. Lee

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This study examined the effects of 8-week Pilates training program on limits of stability (LOS) and abdominal muscle strength in young dancers. Twenty-four female volunteered and randomly assigned as experimental group (EG) or control group (CG). All subjects received the same dance lessons but the EG underwent an extra Pilates mat exercises for 40 minutes, three times a week, for 8 weeks. LOS was evaluated by the Biodex Balance System and the abdominal strength was measured by 30/60 seconds sit-ups test. One factor ANCOVA was used to examine the differences between groups after training. The results showed that the overall LOS scores at levels 2/8 and the 30/60 seconds sit-ups for the EG group pre- and post-training were changed from 22/38 % to 31/51 % and 20/33 times to 24/42 times, respectively. The study demonstrated that 8-week Pilates training can improve the LOS performance and abdominal strength in young dancers.

Keywords: Balance, Core Strength Exercise Training, and Posture Stability.

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Authors: Seyed Azizollah Ghotb, Mohammad Chamani, Elmira Abdollahzadeh Esmaeili, Farhad Foroudi

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the objective of this study is to measure the levels of cellulas activity of ostrich GI microorganisms, and comparing it with the levels of cellulas activity of rumen-s microorganisms, and also to estimate the probability of increasing enzyme activity with injecting different dosages (30%, 50% and 70%) of pure anaerobic goat rumen fungi. The experiment was conducted in laboratory and under a complete anaerobic condition (in vitro condition). 40 ml of “CaldWell" medium and 1.4g wheat straw were placed in incubator for an hour. The cellulase activity of ostrich microorganisms was compared with other treatments, and then different dosages (30%, 50% and 70%) of pure anaerobic goat rumen fungi were injected to ostrich microorganism-s media. Due to the results, cattle and goat with 2.13 and 2.08 I.U (international units) respectively showed the highest activity and ostrich with 0.91 (I.U) had the lowest cellulose activity (p < 0.05). Injecting 30% and 50% of anaerobic fungi had no significant incensement in enzyme activity, but with injecting 70% of rumen fungi to ostrich microorganisms culture a significant increase was observed 1.48 I.U. (p < 0.05).

Keywords: Cellulase enzyme, Microorganisms, Ostrich, Ruminants

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Authors: Khalid A. Al-Afandy, El-Sayyed El-Rabaie, Osama Salah, Ahmed El-Mhalaway

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This paper presents a high secure data hiding technique using image cropping and Least Significant Bit (LSB) steganography. The predefined certain secret coordinate crops will be extracted from the cover image. The secret text message will be divided into sections. These sections quantity is equal the image crops quantity. Each section from the secret text message will embed into an image crop with a secret sequence using LSB technique. The embedding is done using the cover image color channels. Stego image is given by reassembling the image and the stego crops. The results of the technique will be compared to the other state of art techniques. Evaluation is based on visualization to detect any degradation of stego image, the difficulty of extracting the embedded data by any unauthorized viewer, Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio of stego image (PSNR), and the embedding algorithm CPU time. Experimental results ensure that the proposed technique is more secure compared with the other traditional techniques.

Keywords: Steganography, stego, LSB, crop.

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Authors: Fakhruddin Esa, Yusri Yusof

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The confirmatory of Total Quality Management (TQM) implementation is most vital in quality management. This paper focuses on employees' perceptions towards TQM implementation in a local automotive company supplier. The objectives of this study are first and foremost to determine the perception of TQM implementation among the staff, and secondly to ascertain the correlation between the variables, and lastly to identify the relative influence of the 10 TQM variables on the cost of poor quality (COPQ). The TQM implementation is perceived to be moderate. All correlation is found to be significant and five variables having positively moderate to high correlation. Out of 10 variables, quality system improvement, reward and recognition and customer focus influence the perceived COPQ. This study extended a discussion on these three variables contribution to TQM in general and the human resource development in the organization. A significant recommendation to lowering costs of internal error, such as trouble shooting and scraps are also discussed. Certain components of further research that would add value to this study have also been suggested and perhaps could be implemented at policy-level initiatives.

Keywords: Cost of poor quality, correlation, total quality management, variables.

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Authors: Ugur Akyol, Dinçer Akal, Ahmet Cihan, Kamil Kahveci

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This study is concerned with the investigation of the suitability of several empirical and semi-empirical drying models available in the literature to define drying behavior of viscose yarn bobbins. For this purpose, firstly, experimental drying behaviour of viscose bobbins was determined on an experimental dryer setup which was designed and manufactured based on hot-air bobbin dryers used in textile industry. Afterwards, drying models considered were fitted to the experimentally obtained moisture ratios. Drying parameters were drying temperature and bobbin diameter. The fit was performed by selecting the values for constants in the models in such a way that these values make the sum of the squared differences between the experimental and the model results for moisture ratio minimum. Suitability of fitting was specified as comparing the correlation coefficient, standard error and mean square deviation. The results show that the most appropriate model in describing the drying curves of viscose bobbins is the Page model.

Keywords: Drying, moisture ratio, Page model, viscose

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Authors: Natta Changchutoe

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This research aimed to study employees- perceptions and expectations toward their organization-s corporate social responsibility (CSR), to study the differences between employees- personal factors and level of perceptions and expectations toward CSR, and to study the relationship between employees- perceptions and expectations toward CSR. Purposive sampling and questionnaire were applied to collect information from 400 private company employees in Bangkok metropolitan area. The results revealed that employees had “high" level of perceptions and expectations toward CSR, of which the highest level were given on the area of “corporate governance and transparency". It was found that there was different level of expectations of employees with different period of employment, position and employment (by listed and non-listed companies). Employees of different age and period of employment also had different level of expectations. Employees- perceptions were correlated with their expectations toward CSR.

Keywords: Employees, Perceptions, Expectations, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

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Authors: Qin Wei

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There has been an increased number of immigrants arriving in Canada and a concurrent rise in the number of immigrant youth suffering from drug abuse. Immigrant youths’ drug abuse has become a significant social and public health concern for researchers. This paper explores the nature of immigrant youths’ drug abuse by examining the factors influencing the onset of substance misuse, the barriers that discourage youth to seek out treatment, and how to resolve addictions amidst immigrant youth. Findings demonstrate that diminished parental supervision, acculturation challenges, peer conformity, discrimination, and ethnic marginalization are all significant factors influencing youth to use drugs as an outlet for their pain, while culturally incompetent care and fear of family and culture-based addiction stigma act as barriers discouraging youth from seeking out addiction support. To resolve addiction challenges amidst immigrant youth, future research should focus on promoting and implementing culturally sensitive practices and psychoeducational initiatives into immigrant communities and within public health policies.

Keywords: Approaches, barriers, drug abuse, Canada, immigrant youth.

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Authors: Jamal A. Gledan, Akrm H. Algnin

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The Global Positioning System (GPS), satellite-based technology, has been utilized extensively in the last few years in a wide range of Geometrics and Geographic Information Systems’ (GIS) applications. One of the main challenges dealing with GPS-based heights consists of converting them into Mean Sea Level (MSL) heights, which is used in surveys and mapping.

In this research’s work, differences in heights of 50 points, in northern part of Libya has been carried out by using both ordinary leveling (in which Geoid is the reference datum) and GPS techniques (in which Ellipsoid is the reference datum). In addition, this study utilized the EGM2008 model to obtain the undulation values between the ellipsoidal and orthometric heights. From these values of ellipsoidal heights can be obtained from GPS observations to compute the orthomteric heights. This research presents a suitable alternative, from an economical point of view, to substitute the expensive traditional leveling technique, particularly, for topographic mapping.

Keywords: Geoid undulation, GPS, ordinary and geodetic leveling, orthometric height.

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Authors: Vladyslav Povoroznyuk, Nataliia Dzerovych, Larysa Martynyuk, Tetiana Kovtun

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Obesity and osteoporosis are the two diseases whose increasing prevalence and high impact on the global morbidity and mortality, during the two recent decades, have gained a status of major health threats worldwide. Obesity purports to affect the bone metabolism through complex mechanisms. Debated data on the connection between the bone mineral density and fracture prevalence in the obese patients are widely presented in literature. There is evidence that the correlation of weight and fracture risk is sitespecific. This study is aimed at determining the connection between the bone mineral density (BMD) and trabecular bone score (TBS) parameters in Ukrainian women suffering from obesity. We examined 1025 40-89-year-old women, divided them into the groups according to their body mass index: Group A included 360 women with obesity whose BMI was ≥30 kg/m2, and Group B – 665 women with no obesity and BMI of <30 kg/m2. The BMD of total body, lumbar spine at the site L1-L4, femur and forearm were measured by DXA (Prodigy, GEHC Lunar, Madison, WI, USA). The TBS of L1- L4 was assessed by means of TBS iNsight® software installed on our DXA machine (product of Med-Imaps, Pessac, France). In general, obese women had a significantly higher BMD of lumbar spine, femoral neck, proximal femur, total body and ultradistal forearm (p<0.001) in comparison with women without obesity. The TBS of L1-L4 was significantly lower in obese women compared to nonobese women (p<0.001). The BMD of lumbar spine, femoral neck and total body differed to a significant extent in women of 40-49, 50- 59, 60-69 and 70-79 years (p<0.05). At same time, in women aged 80-89 years the BMD of lumbar spine (p=0.09), femoral neck (p=0.22) and total body (p=0.06) barely differed. The BMD of ultradistal forearm was significantly higher in women of all age groups (p<0.05). The TBS of L1-L4 in all the age groups tended to reveal the lower parameters in obese women compared with the nonobese; however, those data were not statistically significant. By contrast, a significant positive correlation was observed between the fat mass and the BMD at different sites. The correlation between the fat mass and TBS of L1-L4 was also significant, although negative. Women with vertebral fractures had a significantly lower body weight, body mass index and total body fat mass in comparison with women without vertebral fractures in their anamnesis. In obese women the frequency of vertebral fractures was 27%, while in women without obesity – 57%.

Keywords: Bone mineral density, trabecular bone score, obesity, women.

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Authors: M. Kasusse, M. Rosette, E. Burke, C. Mwangi, R. Batamwita, N. Tumwesigye, S. Aisu

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A cross-sectional survey to ascertain the capacity of laboratory persons in using ICTs was conducted in 15 Ugandan districts (July-August 2013). A self-administered questionnaire served as data collection tool, interview guide and observation checklist. 69 questionnaires were filled, 12 interviews conducted, 45 HC observed. SPSS statistics 17.0 and SAS 9.2 software were used for entry and analyses. 69.35% of participants find it difficult to access a computer at work. Of the 30.65% who find it easy to access a computer at work, a significant 21.05% spend 0 hours on a computer daily. 60% of the participants cannot access internet at work. Of the 40% who have internet at work, a significant 20% lack email address but 20% weekly read emails weekly and 48% daily. It is viable/feasible to pilot informatics projects as strategies to build bridges develop skills for e-health landscape in laboratory services with a bigger financial muscle.

Keywords: ICT Behavior, Clinical Laboratory persons, Sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda.

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Authors: H. R. Khodaei, M. Moradi, A. H. Tajik

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The type of foundation commonly used today for berthing dolphins is a set of tubular steel piles with large diameters, which are known as monopiles. The design of these monopiles is based on the theories related with laterally loaded piles. One of the most common methods to analyze and design the piles subjected to lateral loads is the p-y curves. In the present study, centrifuge tests are conducted in order to obtain the p-y curves. Series of tests were designed in order to investigate the scaling laws in the centrifuge for monotonic loading. Also, two important parameters, the embedded depth L of the pile in the soil and free length e of the pile, as well as their ratios were studied via five experimental tests. Finally, the p-y curves of API are presented to be compared with the curves obtained from the tests so that the differences could be demonstrated. The results show that the p-y curves proposed by API highly overestimate the lateral load bearing capacity. It suggests that these curves need correction and modification for each site as the soil conditions change.

Keywords: Centrifuge modeling, monopile, lateral loading, p-y curves.

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Authors: Pamela L. Knox, Linda R. Guthrie

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Trauma in early life is widely regarded as a cause for adult mental health problems. This study explores the role of secondary trauma on later functioning in a sample of 359 university students enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes in the United States. Participants were initially divided into four groups based on 1) having directly experienced trauma (assaultive violence), 2) having directly experienced trauma and secondary traumatization through the unanticipated death of a close friend or family member or witnessing of an injury or shocking even), 3) having no experience of direct trauma but having experienced indirect trauma (secondary trauma), or 4) reporting no exposure. Participants completed a battery of measures on concepts associated with psychological functioning which included measures of psychological well-being, problem solving, coping and resiliency. Findings discuss differences in psychological functioning and resilience based on participants who experienced secondary traumatization and assaultive violence versus secondary traumatization alone.

Keywords: Psychological Functioning, Resiliency, Trauma, Abuse

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Authors: Mohamed Saladin Abdul Rasool, Arifin Md Salleh, Mohd Fauzi Mohd Harun

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Islamic institutions in Malaysia play a variety of socioeconomic roles such as poverty alleviation. To perform this role, these institutions face a major task in identifying the poverty group. Most of these institutions measure and operationalize poverty from the monetary perspective using variables such as income, expenditure or consumption. In practice, most Islamic institutions in Malaysia use the monetary approach in measuring poverty through the conventional Poverty Line Income (PLI) method and recently, the had al kifayah (HAK) method using total necessities of a household from an Islamic perspective. The objective of this paper is to present the PLI and also the HAK method. This micro-data study would highlight the similarities and differences of both the methods.A survey aided by a structured questionnaire was carried out on 260 selected head of households in the state of Selangor. The paper highlights several demographic factors that are associated with the three monetary indicators in the study, namely income, PLI and HAK. In addition, the study found that these monetary variables are significantly related with each other.

Keywords: Poverty line, multidimensional, necessities, monetary

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Authors: Chien-Hui Yang, Che-Yang Lin, Ya-Chen Hsu

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Gold passbook is an investing tool that is especially suitable for investors to do small investment in the solid gold. The gold passbook has the lower risk than other ways investing in gold, but its price is still affected by gold price. However, there are many factors can cause influences on gold price. Therefore, building a model to predict the price of gold passbook can both reduce the risk of investment and increase the benefits. This study investigates the important factors that influence the gold passbook price, and utilize the Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) to build the predictive model. This method can not only obtain the significant variables but also perform well in prediction. Finally, the significant variables of gold passbook price, which can be predicted by GMDH, are US dollar exchange rate, international petroleum price, unemployment rate, whole sale price index, rediscount rate, foreign exchange reserves, misery index, prosperity coincident index and industrial index.

Keywords: Gold price, Gold passbook price, Group Method ofData Handling (GMDH), Regression.

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Authors: Adnan Mazari, Engin Akcagun, Antonin Havelka, Funda Buyuk Mazari, Pavel Kejzlar

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This article experimentally investigates various physical properties of special fire retardant sewing threads under different sewing speeds. The aramid threads are common for sewing the fire-fighter clothing due to high strength and high melting temperature. 3 types of aramid threads with different linear densities are used for sewing at different speed of 2000 to 4000 r/min. The needle temperature is measured at different speeds of sewing and tensile properties of threads are measured before and after the sewing process respectively. The results shows that the friction and abrasion during the sewing process causes a significant loss to the tensile properties of the threads and needle temperature rises to nearly 300^oC at 4000 r/min of machine speed. The Scanning electron microscope images are taken before and after the sewing process and shows no melting spots but significant damage to the yarn. It is also found that machine speed of 2000r/min is ideal for sewing firefighter clothing for higher tensile properties and production.

Keywords: Kevlar, needle temperature, Nomex, sewing.

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Authors: Sharan Badiger, Prema T. Akkasaligar, Sandeep HM, Biradar MS

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Essential hypertension (HTN) usually clusters with other cardiovascular risk factors such as age, overweight, diabetes, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. The target organ damage (TOD) such as left ventricular hypertrophy, microalbuminuria (MA), acute coronary syndrome (ACS), stroke and cognitive dysfunction takes place early in course of hypertension. Though the prevalence of hypertension is high in India, the relationship between microalbuminuria and target organ damage in hypertension is not well studied. This study aim at detecting MA in essential hypertension and its relation to severity of HTN, duration of HTN, body mass index (BMI), age and TOD such as HTN retinopathy and acute coronary syndrome The present study was done in 100 patients of essential hypertension non diabetics admitted to B.L.D.E.University-s Sri B.M.Patil Medical College, Bijapur, from October 2008 to April 2011. The patients underwent detailed history and clinical examination. Early morning 5 ml of urine sample was collected & MA was estimated by immunoturbidometry method. The relationship of MA with the duration & severity of HTN, BMI, age, sex and TOD's like hypertensive retinopathy, ACS was assessed by univariate analysis. The prevalence of MA in this study was found to be 63 %. In that 42% were male & 21% were female. In this study a significant association between MA and the duration of hypertension (p = 0.036) & (OR =0.438). Longer the duration of hypertension, more possibility of microalbumin in urine. Also there was a significant association between severity of hypertension and MA (p=0.045) and (OR=0.093). MA was positive in 50 (79.4%) patients out of 63, whose blood pressure was >160/100 mm Hg. In this study a significant association between MA and the grades of hypertensive retinopathy (p =0.011) and acute coronary syndrome (p = 0.041) (OR =2.805). Gender and BMI did not pose high risk for MA in this study.The prevalence of MA in essential hypertension is high in this part of the community and MA will increase the risk of developing target organ damage.Early screening of patients with essential hypertension for MA and aggressive management of positive cases might reduce the burden of chronic kidney diseases and cardiovascular diseases in the community.

Keywords: Acute coronary syndrome, Essential hypertension, Microalbuminuria, Target organ damage

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Authors: Maruful H. Mazumder, Raymond I. Gilbert, Zhen- T. Chang

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A reliable estimate of the average bond stress within the anchorage of steel reinforcing bars in tension is critically important for the design of reinforced concrete member. This paper describes part of a recently completed experimental research program in the Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety (CIES) at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia aimed at assessing the effects of different factors on the anchorage requirements of modern high strength steel reinforcing bars. The study found that an increase in the anchorage length and bar diameter generally leads to a reduction of the average ultimate bond stress. By the extension of a well established analytical model of bond and anchorage, it is shown here that the differences in the average ultimate bond stress for different anchorage lengths is associated with the variable degree of plastic deformation in the tensile zone of the concrete surrounding the bar.

Keywords: Anchorage, Bond stress, Development length, Reinforced concrete.

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Authors: Michal Christina Steven, Mohd. Yusof Hj Ibrahim, Haryati Abdul Karim, Prabakaran Dhanaraj, Kelly Alexius Mansin

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After 27 years, Malaysia reported polio cases in 2019 involving the children of the undocumented migrants living in Sabah. These undocumented migrants present a significant challenge in achieving the elimination of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD). Due to the recent polio outbreak among the undocumented migrant children in Sabah, an in-depth interview was conducted among the caregivers of undocumented migrant children to identify the barriers and drivers towards vaccinating their children. Financial barriers, legal citizenship status, language barrier, the COVID-19 pandemic, and physical barriers have been the barriers to access vaccination services by undocumented migrants. Five significant drivers for undocumented migrants to vaccinate their children are social influence, fear of disease, parental trust in healthcare providers, good support, and vaccine availability. Necessary action should be taken immediately to address the problems of vaccinating the children of undocumented migrants to prevent the re-emergence of VPD.

Keywords: Malaysia, polio, Sabah, undocumented migrants.

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Authors: Toshihiko Takemura, Atsushi Umino

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In this paper, the authors examine whether or not there Institute for Information and Communications Policy shows are differences of Japanese Internet users awareness to information security based on individual attributes by using analysis of variance based on non-parametric method. As a result, generally speaking, it is found that Japanese Internet users' awareness to information security is different by individual attributes. Especially, the authors verify that the users who received the information security education would have rather higher recognition concerning countermeasures than other users including self-educated users. It is suggested that the information security education should be enhanced so that the users may appropriately take the information security countermeasures. In addition, the information security policy such as carrying out "e- net caravan" and "information security seminars" are effective in improving the users' awareness on the information security in Japan.

Keywords: Information security education, variance of analysis, Internet users, information security policy, Web-based survey.

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Authors: Hyu Sang Jo, Gyo Woo Lee

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In this study, the evaluation of thermal stability of the micrometer-sized silica particle reinforced epoxy composite was carried out through the measurement of thermal expansion coefficient and Young’s modulus of the specimens. For all the specimens in this study from the baseline to those containing 50 wt% silica filler, the thermal expansion coefficients and the Young’s moduli were gradually decreased down to 20% and increased up to 41%, respectively. The experimental results were compared with fillervolume- based simple empirical relations. The experimental results of thermal expansion coefficients correspond with those of Thomas’s model which is modified from the rule of mixture. However, the measured result for Young’s modulus tends to be increased slightly. The differences in increments of the moduli between experimental and numerical model data are quite large.

Keywords: Thermal Stability, Silica-Reinforced, Epoxy Composite, Coefficient of Thermal Expansion, Empirical Model.

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Authors: Fatanah M. Suhaimi, J. Geoffrey Chase, Christopher G. Pretty, Rodney Elliott, Geoffrey M. Shaw

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Microcirculatory dysfunction is very common in sepsis and may results in organ failure and increased risk of death. Analyzing oxygen utilization can potentially assess microcirculation function of an individual. In this study, a modified pulse oximeter is used to extract information signals due to absorption of red (R) and infrared (IR) light. IR and R signal are related to the overall blood volume and reduced hemoglobin, respectively. Differences between these two signals thus represent the amount of oxygenated hemoglobin. Avascular occlusion test has been conducted on healthy individuals to validate the pulse oximeter concept. In this test, both R and IR signals rapidly changed according to the occlusion process. The pulse oximeter concept presented is capable of extracting valuable information to assess microcirculation condition. Implementing this concept on ICU patients has the potential to aid sepsis diagnosis and provide more accurate tracking of patient state and sepsis status.

Keywords: Microcirculation, sepsis, sepsis diagnosis, oxygen extraction.

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Authors: Revanth Sai Kosaraju, Michael Ramscar, Melody Dye

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Accounts of language acquisition differ significantly in their treatment of the role of prediction in language learning. In particular, nativist accounts posit that probabilistic learning about words and word sequences has little to do with how children come to use language. The accuracy of this claim was examined by testing whether distributional probabilities and frequency contributed to how well 3-4 year olds repeat simple word chunks. Corresponding chunks were the same length, expressed similar content, and were all grammatically acceptable, yet the results of the study showed marked differences in performance when overall distributional frequency varied. It was found that a distributional model of language predicted the empirical findings better than a number of other models, replicating earlier findings and showing that children attend to distributional probabilities in an adult corpus. This suggested that language is more prediction-and-error based, rather than on abstract rules which nativist camps suggest.

Keywords: Abstractness, child psychology, language acquisition, prediction and error.

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Authors: Mazila Md-Yusuf, Fauziah Mohamad Yunus, Nur Zahraatul Lail Md Supaat

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Capital structure is one of the most important financial decisions in corporate financing strategy. It involves the choice of debt and equity level in financing a company-s operations. This study aims to investigate whether the capital structure choice of Malaysian electrical and electronic manufacturing companies that are listed in the Bursa Malaysia can be explained by factors that have been found by most studies as dominant determinants of capital structure (company size, profitability, asset tangibility, liquidity and growth). Using debt ratio as the proxy for capital structure and applying pooled ordinary least square multiple regression estimation, the results showed that on average, Malaysian electrical and electronic manufacturing companies used less debt in funding their business operations. The findings also showed that size and asset tangibility has a significant positive relationship with debt level, while liquidity has a negative significant relationship with leverage.

Keywords: Capital structure, capital structure theories, leverage, manufacturing companies.

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Authors: Zine-Eddine Bouras, Abdelouaheb Talai

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The need to merge software artifacts seems inherent to modern software development. Distribution of development over several teams and breaking tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces are an effective means to deal with the kind of complexity. In each case, the separately developed artifacts need to be assembled as efficiently as possible into a consistent whole in which the parts still function as described. In addition, earlier changes are introduced into the life cycle and easier is their management by designers. Interaction-based specifications such as UML sequence diagrams have been found effective in this regard. As a result, sequence diagrams can be used not only for capturing system behaviors but also for merging changes in order to create a new version. The objective of this paper is to suggest a new approach to deal with the problem of software merging at the level of sequence diagrams by using the concept of dependence analysis that captures, formally, all mapping, and differences between elements of sequence diagrams and serves as a key concept to create a new version of sequence diagram.

Keywords: System behaviors, sequence diagram merging, dependence analysis, sequence diagram slicing.

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Authors: N. Chegeni, M. J. Tahmasebi Birgani

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Equivalent fields are frequently used for central axis depth-dose calculations of rectangular and irregular shaped photon beam. Since most of the proposed models to calculate the equivalent square field, are dosimetry-based, a simple physical-based method to calculate the equivalent square field size was used as the basis of this study. The table of the sides of the equivalent square for rectangular fields was constructed and then compared with the well-known tables of BJR and Venselaar with the average relative error percentage of 2.5±2.5 % and 1.5±1.5 % respectively. To evaluate the accuracy of this method, the PDDs were measured for some special irregular symmetric and asymmetric treatment fields and their equivalent squares for Siemens Primus Plus linear accelerator for both energies 6 and 18MV. The mean relative differences of PDDs measurement for these fields and their equivalent square was approximately 1% or less. As a result, this method can be employed to calculate equivalent field not only for rectangular fields but also for any irregular symmetric or asymmetric field.

Keywords: Equivalent field, asymmetric field, irregular field, multi leaf collimators.

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Authors: Cheng Fang Hsu, Shinn-Jong Lin

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This research is to explore the satisfaction for senior citizens on continuing education in Taiwan. The purpose of this research aims at the difference on teacher-s teaching, personal relationship, learning result, materials and environment. Through different sexual and living area as the background variables, a questionnaire is adopted as the methodology in this research. Three results are found in this research. In overall, senior citizens taking continuing education put the most important attention on personal relationship but materials and leaning environment put the least. There is a significant difference on personal relationship, teacher-s teaching and research result between different sexes. Female senior citizens attach more importance to teacher-s teaching and learning results but male senior citizens value on personal relationship. Another significant difference is shown on teacher-s teaching and personal relationship because of senior citizens living area. Urban senior citizens put importance on personal relationship and rural senior citizens respect teacher-s teaching more.

Keywords: Learning satisfaction, continuing education, seniorcitizens.

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Authors: Mitansha, Suzanne Wilkinson, Regan Potangaroa

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The built environment is designed, maintained, operated, and decommissioned by construction organisations, which play a significant role in providing physical resources and rebuilding infrastructures during major crises and disasters. It is evident that enhancing the resilience of construction organisations allows better responding ability and speedy recovery from disasters and acts as a boon for the nation in the face of significant disruptions. As individuals are the integral component of any organisation, hence, individual resilience is considered a critical aspect, which may boost organisational resilience of construction sector. It has been observed that individual resilience is indirectly supported by organisation’s citizenship behaviour, job performance, and career success. Not only this, it also tends to hold a directly proportional relation with job satisfaction, physical and emotional well-being affected by organisation’s work culture, whereas the resilience of organisation increases as a result of positive adaption, growth and collective learning of the employees as an entity. Moreover, indicators like situation awareness in staff and crisis related issues, effective vulnerability management, organisational leadership and culture ensured by approachable, encouraging and people-oriented leaders, are prominent for achieving organisational resilience. It, thus, becomes perceptible that both, organisational and individual resiliencies, have the potential to influence each other. Consequently, it arises a major question that how these characteristics are associated and tend to behave with respect to each other. The study, thus, aims to explore the overlapping dimensions of organisational and individual resilience to determine the impact boundaries. The research methodology of the paper would be based on systematic literature review specifically focused on the resilience of construction industry. This would provide a direct comparison of characteristics influencing individual and organisational resilience and will present the most significant indicators of individual resilience that can eventually help to enhance the resilience of construction organisations amidst any disaster or crisis.

Keywords: Construction industry, individual resilience, organisational resilience, overlapping dimension.

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Authors: P. Deepak Kumar, Aishwarya Alok, P. R. Maiti

Abstract:

Liquid storage tanks have become widespread during the recent decades due to their extensive usage. Analysis of liquid containing tanks is known to be complex due to hydrodynamic force exerted on tank which makes the analysis a complex one. The objective of this research is to carry out analysis of liquid domain along with structural interaction for various geometries of circular tanks considering seismic effects. An attempt has been made to determine hydrodynamic pressure distribution on the tank wall considering impulsive and convective components of liquid mass. To get a better picture, a comparative study of Draft IS 1893 Part 2, ACI 350.3 and Eurocode 8 for Circular Shaped Tank has been performed. Further, the differences in the magnitude of shear and moment at base as obtained from static (IS 3370 IV) and dynamic (Draft IS 1892 Part 2) analysis of ground supported circular tank highlight the need for us to mature from the old code to a newer code, which is more accurate and reliable.

Keywords: Liquid filled containers, Circular Tanks, IS 1893 (Part 2), Seismic analysis, Sloshing.

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Authors: Ioannis N. Koukoulis, Clio G. Vossou, Christopher G. Provatidis

Abstract:

The aim of the current work is to present a comparison among three popular optimization methods in the inverse elastostatics problem (IESP) of flaw detection within a solid. In more details, the performance of a simulated annealing, a Hooke & Jeeves and a sequential quadratic programming algorithm was studied in the test case of one circular flaw in a plate solved by both the boundary element (BEM) and the finite element method (FEM). The proposed optimization methods use a cost function that utilizes the displacements of the static response. The methods were ranked according to the required number of iterations to converge and to their ability to locate the global optimum. Hence, a clear impression regarding the performance of the aforementioned algorithms in flaw identification problems was obtained. Furthermore, the coupling of BEM or FEM with these optimization methods was investigated in order to track differences in their performance.

Keywords: Elastostatic, inverse problem, optimization.

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Authors: Crystal X. Jiang, Tess Han, George J. Titus, Matthew J. Liberatore

Abstract:

Information is a critical asset and an important source for gaining competitive advantage in firms. The effective maintenance of IT becomes an important task. In order to better understand the determinants of IT effectiveness, this study employs the Industrial Organization (I/O) and Resource Based View (RBV) theories and investigates the industry effect and several major firmspecific factors in relation to their impact on firms- IT effectiveness. The data consist of a panel data of ten-year observations of firms whose IT excellence had been recognized by the CIO Magazine. The non-profit organizations were deliberately excluded, as explained later. The results showed that the effectiveness of IT management varied significantly across industries. Industry also moderated the effects of firm demographic factors such as size and age on IT effectiveness. Surprisingly, R & D investment intensity had negative correlation to IT effectiveness. For managers and practitioners, this study offers some insights for evaluation criteria and expectation for IT project success. Finally, the empirical results indicate that the sustainability of IT effectiveness appears to be short in duration.

Keywords: Firm effect, industry effect, IT effectiveness, sustained IT effectiveness.

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