Search results for: Corpus-assisted discourse studies

Authors: Malkhaz Jokhadze, Vakhtang Mshvildadze, Levan Makaradze, Ekaterine Mosidze, Salome Barbaqadze, Mariam Murtazashvili, Dali Berashvili, Koba sivsivadze, Lasha Bakuridze, Aliosha Bakuridze

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Essential oils are one of the most important groups of biologically active substances present in plants. Due to the chemical diversity of components, essential oils and their preparations have a wide spectrum of pharmacological action. They have bactericidal, antiviral, fungicidal, antiprotozoal, anti-inflammatory, spasmolytic, sedative and other activities. They are expectorant, spasmolytic, sedative, hypotensive, secretion enhancing, antioxidant remedies. Based on preliminary pharmacological studies, we have developed a formulation called “Phytobiotic” containing essential oils, a feed additive for poultry as an alternative to antibiotics. Phytobiotic is a water-soluble powder containing a composition of essential oils of thyme, clary, monarda and auxiliary substances: dry extract of liquorice and inhalation lactose. On this stage of research, the goal was to study the chemical composition of provided phytobiotic, identify the main substances and determine their quantity, investigate the biological activity of phytobiotic through in vitro and in vivo studies. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, 38 components were identified in phytobiotic, representing acyclic-, monocyclic-, bicyclic-, and sesquiterpenes. Together with identification of main active substances, their quantitative content was determined, including acyclic terpene alcohol β-linalool, acyclic terpene ketone linalyl acetate, monocyclic terpenes: D-limonene and γ-terpinene, monocyclic aromatic terpene thymol. Provided phytobiotic has pronounced and at the same time broad spectrum of antibacterial activity. In the cell model, phytobiotic showed weak antioxidant activity, and it was stronger in the ORAC (chemical model) tests. Meanwhile anti-inflammatory activity was also observed. When fowls were supplied feed enriched with phytobiotic, it was observed that gained weight of the chickens in the experimental group exceeded the same data for the control group during the entire period of the experiment. The survival rate of broilers in the experimental group during the growth period was 98% compared to -94% in the control group. As a result of conducted researches probable four different mechanisms which are important for the action of phytobiotics were identified: sensory, metabolic, antioxidant and antibacterial action. General toxic, possible local irritant and allergenic effects of phytobiotic were also investigated. Performed assays proved that formulation is safe.

Keywords: Clary, essential oils, monarda, phytobiotics, poultry, thyme.

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Authors: K. Ben Khalifa, M.H. Bédoui, M. Dogui, F. Alexandre

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Several studies have been carried out, using various techniques, including neural networks, to discriminate vigilance states in humans from electroencephalographic (EEG) signals, but we are still far from results satisfactorily useable results. The work presented in this paper aims at improving this status with regards to 2 aspects. Firstly, we introduce an original procedure made of the association of two neural networks, a self organizing map (SOM) and a learning vector quantization (LVQ), that allows to automatically detect artefacted states and to separate the different levels of vigilance which is a major breakthrough in the field of vigilance. Lastly and more importantly, our study has been oriented toward real-worked situation and the resulting model can be easily implemented as a wearable device. It benefits from restricted computational and memory requirements and data access is very limited in time. Furthermore, some ongoing works demonstrate that this work should shortly results in the design and conception of a non invasive electronic wearable device.

Keywords: Electroencephalogram interpretation, artificialneural networks, vigilance states, hardware implementation

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Authors: Stephen V. Crowder, Jonathan W. Lane

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With short production development times, there is an increased need to demonstrate product reliability relatively quickly with minimal testing. In such cases there may be few if any observed failures. Thus it may be difficult to assess reliability using the traditional reliability test plans that measure only time (or cycles) to failure. For many components, degradation measures will contain important information about performance and reliability. These measures can be used to design a minimal test plan, in terms of number of units placed on test and duration of the test, necessary to demonstrate a reliability goal. In this work we present a case study involving an electronic component subject to degradation. The data, consisting of 42 degradation paths of cycles to failure, are first used to estimate a reliability function. Bootstrapping techniques are then used to perform power studies and develop a minimal reliability test plan for future production of this component. 

Keywords: Degradation Measure, Time to Failure Distribution, Bootstrap.

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Authors: A. Chennaf, M. Yahia, W. Bouafia, S. Benbia, D. Khellaf

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Our study was designed to highlight changes in  certain biochemical parameters (CH, TG, HDL, GOT, GPT, LDL and  CRP), obese women infertile fertile witnesses and research potential  pathophysiological link between obesity and infertility in this  population of women. This practical work was focused on a  population of 24 obese women infertile, compared to controls,  subjects without any pathology causing disruption of parameters to  be studied to determine the contribution of obesity in the etiology of  infertility. The assay results revealed a highly significant difference  between the two groups in serum CH, TG, HDL, TGO and TGP (P  <0.0001) and in the rate of LDL (p = 0.0017) and CRP (p = 0.02).  The present study indicates that obesity is associated with infertility,  but no direct pathophysiological link between obesity and infertility  has been determined. Further in-depth studies are needed to  determine the exact mechanism by which overweight leads to female  infertility.

 

Keywords: Obesity, fertility, infertility, biochemical, women.

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Authors: S. A. Sadegh Zadeh, C. Kambhampati

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Mathematical and computational modellings are the necessary tools for reviewing, analysing, and predicting processes and events in the wide spectrum range of scientific fields. Therefore, in a field as rapidly developing as neuroscience, the combination of these two modellings can have a significant role in helping to guide the direction the field takes. The paper combined mathematical and computational modelling to prove a weakness in a very precious model in neuroscience. This paper is intended to analyse all-or-none principle in Hodgkin-Huxley mathematical model. By implementation the computational model of Hodgkin-Huxley model and applying the concept of all-or-none principle, an investigation on this mathematical model has been performed. The results clearly showed that the mathematical model of Hodgkin-Huxley does not observe this fundamental law in neurophysiology to generating action potentials. This study shows that further mathematical studies on the Hodgkin-Huxley model are needed in order to create a model without this weakness.

Keywords: All-or-none, computational modelling, mathematical model, transmembrane voltage, action potential.

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Authors: Muhammad M. A. S. Mahmoud

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Natural gas sweetening process is a controlled process that must be done at maximum efficiency and with the highest quality. In this work, due to complexity and non-linearity of the process, the H2S gas separation and the intelligent fuzzy controller, which is used to enhance the process, are simulated in MATLAB – Simulink. New design of fuzzy control for Gas Separator is discussed in this paper. The design is based on the utilization of linear state-estimation to generate the internal knowledge-base that stores input-output pairs. The obtained input/output pairs are then used to design a feedback fuzzy controller. The proposed closed-loop fuzzy control system maintains the system asymptotically-stability while it enhances the system time response to achieve better control of the concentration of the output gas from the tower. Simulation studies are carried out to illustrate the Gas Separator system performance.

Keywords: Gas separator, gas sweetening, intelligent controller, fuzzy control.

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Authors: G. Erkomaishvili, E. Kharaishvili, M. Chavleishvili, N. Sagareishvili

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This paper discusses the current condition of tourism and its economic policy in Georgia. It analyzes and studies wellness tourism, as one of the directions of tourism; the newest niche in the wellness industry – triggering wellness resorts with medical ideology. The paper discusses the development tendencies of medical wellness resorts in Georgia and its main economic preferences. The main finding of the research is that Georgia is a unique place in the world according to the variety of medical recourses. This makes the opportunity to create and successfully operate medical wellness resorts, as well as develop it as a brand for Georgia in the world. The research represents the development strategies of tourism and its medical wellness resorts in Georgia, and offers recommendations based on the relevant conclusions.

Keywords: Economic policy of tourism, medical wellness resorts, tourism, wellness industry.

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Authors: T. S. Chou, K. K. Yen, J. Luo

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The network traffic data provided for the design of intrusion detection always are large with ineffective information and enclose limited and ambiguous information about users- activities. We study the problems and propose a two phases approach in our intrusion detection design. In the first phase, we develop a correlation-based feature selection algorithm to remove the worthless information from the original high dimensional database. Next, we design an intrusion detection method to solve the problems of uncertainty caused by limited and ambiguous information. In the experiments, we choose six UCI databases and DARPA KDD99 intrusion detection data set as our evaluation tools. Empirical studies indicate that our feature selection algorithm is capable of reducing the size of data set. Our intrusion detection method achieves a better performance than those of participating intrusion detectors.

Keywords: Intrusion detection, feature selection, k-nearest neighbors, fuzzy clustering, Dempster-Shafer theory

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Authors: Vesna Vulić

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Croatia has made large steps forward in the development of higher education over the past 10 years. Purposes and objectives of the tertiary education system are focused on the personal development of young people so that they obtain competences for employment on a flexible labour market. The most frequent tensions between the tertiary institutions and employers are complaints that the current tertiary education system still supplies students with an abundance of theoretical knowledge and not enough practical skills. Polytechnics and schools of professional higher education should deliver professional education and training that will satisfy the needs of their local communities. The 21^st century sets demand on undergraduates as well as their lecturers to strive for the highest standards. The skills students acquire during their studies should serve the needs of their future professional careers. In this context, teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) presents an enormous challenge for teachers. They have to cope with teaching the language in classes with a large number of students, limitations of time, inadequate equipment and teaching material; most frequently, this leads to focusing on specialist vocabulary neglecting the development of skills and competences required for future employment. Globalization has transformed the labour market and set new standards a perspective employee should meet. When knowledge of languages is considered, new generic skills and competences are required. Not only skillful written and oral communication is needed, but also information, media, and technology literacy, learning skills which include critical and creative thinking, collaborating and communicating, as well as social skills. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the needs of two groups of ESP first year Undergraduate Professional Administrative Study students taking ESP as a mandatory course: 47 first-year Undergraduate Professional Administrative Study students, 21 first-year employed part-time Undergraduate Professional Administrative Study students and 30 graduates with a degree in Undergraduate Professional Administrative Study with various amounts of work experience. The survey adopted a quantitative approach with the aim to determine the differences between the groups in their perception of the four language skills and different areas of law, as well as getting the insight into students' satisfaction with the current course and their motivation for studying ESP. Their perceptions will be compared to the results of the questionnaire conducted among sector professionals in order to examine how they perceive the same elements of the ESP course content and to what extent it fits into their working environment. The results of the survey indicated that there is a strong correlation between acquiring work experience and the level of importance given to particular areas of law studied in an ESP course which is in line with our initial hypothesis. In conclusion, the results of the survey should help lecturers in re-evaluating and updating their ESP course syllabi.

Keywords: English for Specific Purposes, ESP, language skills, motivation, needs analysis.

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Authors: A. Eman Mohammed

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Algae-based fuel are considered a promising sources of clean energy, and because it has many advantages over traditional biofuel, research and business ventures have driven into developing and producing Algal-biofuel. But its production stages create a cost structure that it is not competitive with traditional fuels. Therefore, cost becomes the main obstacle in commercial production purpose. However, the present research which aims at using cost structure model, and designed MS-Dose program, to investigate the a mount of production cost and determined the parameter had great effect on it, second to measured the amount of contribution rate of algae in process the pollution by capturing Co2 from air . The result generated from the model shows that the production cost of biomass is between $0.137 /kg for 100 ha and $0.132 /kg for 500 ha which was less than cost of other studies, while gallon costs between $3.4 - 3.5, more than traditional sources of oil about $1 ,which regarded as a rate of contribution of algal in capturing CO2 from air.

Keywords: Cost Structure Model, Operation Costs(Production Cost), Capital Costs, Algae.

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Authors: K. Hardy, A. Maurushat

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Policy makers are increasingly looking to make evidence-based decisions. Evidence-based decisions have historically used rigorous methodologies of empirical studies by research institutes, as well as less reliable immediate survey/polls often with limited sample sizes. As we move into the era of Big Data analytics, policy makers are looking to different methodologies to deliver reliable empirics in real-time. The question is not why did these people do this for the last 10 years, but why are these people doing this now, and if the this is undesirable, and how can we have an impact to promote change immediately. Big data analytics rely heavily on government data that has been released in to the public domain. The open data movement promises greater productivity and more efficient delivery of services; however, Australian government agencies remain reluctant to release their data to the general public. This paper considers the barriers to releasing government data as open data, and how these barriers might be overcome.

Keywords: Big data, open data, productivity, transparency.

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Authors: M. Arun, A. Kannan

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Textile industries cater to varied customer preferences and contribute substantially to the economy. However, these textile industries also produce a considerable amount of effluents. Prominent among these are the azo dyes which impart considerable color and toxicity even at low concentrations. Azo dyes are also used as coloring agents in food and pharmaceutical industry. Despite their applications, azo dyes are also notorious pollutants and carcinogens. Popular techniques like photo-degradation, biodegradation and the use of oxidizing agents are not applicable for all kinds of dyes, as most of them are stable to these techniques. Chemical coagulation produces a large amount of toxic sludge which is undesirable and is also ineffective towards a number of dyes. Most of the azo dyes are stable to UV-visible light irradiation and may even resist aerobic degradation. Adsorption has been the most preferred technique owing to its less cost, high capacity and process efficiency and the possibility of regenerating and recycling the adsorbent. Adsorption is also most preferred because it may produce high quality of the treated effluent and it is able to remove different kinds of dyes. However, the adsorption process is influenced by many variables whose inter-dependence makes it difficult to identify optimum conditions. The variables include stirring speed, temperature, initial concentration and adsorbent dosage. Further, the internal diffusional resistance inside the adsorbent particle leads to slow uptake of the solute within the adsorbent. Hence, it is necessary to identify optimum conditions that lead to high capacity and uptake rate of these pollutants. In this work, commercially available activated carbon was chosen as the adsorbent owing to its high surface area. A typical azo dye found in textile effluent waters, viz. the monoazo Acid Orange 10 dye (CAS: 1936-15-8) has been chosen as the representative pollutant. Adsorption studies were mainly focused at obtaining equilibrium and kinetic data for the batch adsorption process at different process conditions. Studies were conducted at different stirring speed, temperature, adsorbent dosage and initial dye concentration settings. The Full Factorial Design was the chosen statistical design framework for carrying out the experiments and identifying the important factors and their interactions. The optimum conditions identified from the experimental model were validated with actual experiments at the recommended settings. The equilibrium and kinetic data obtained were fitted to different models and the model parameters were estimated. This gives more details about the nature of adsorption taking place. Critical data required to design batch adsorption systems for removal of Acid Orange 10 dye and identification of factors that critically influence the separation efficiency are the key outcomes from this research.

Keywords: Acid Orange 10, Activated carbon, Optimum conditions, Statistical design.

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Authors: Jing-Gang Xie

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As the continuation to the previous studies of gravitational frequency shift, gravitational time dilation, gravitational light bending, gravitational waves, dark matter, and dark energy are explained in the context of Newtonian mechanics. The photon is treated as the particle with mass of hν/C² under the gravitational field of much larger mass of M. Hence the quantum mechanics theory could be applied to gravitational field on cosmology scale. The obtained results are the same as those obtained by general relativity considering weak gravitational field approximation; however, the results are different when the gravitational field is substantially strong.

Keywords: Gravitational time dilation, gravitational light bending, gravitational waves, dark matter, dark energy, General Relativity, gravitational frequency shift.

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Authors: Abdal-Kader Saeed Latif, Reyam Naji Ajmi, Huda Farooq Zeki, Wathiq Abaas Hatit

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These studies have been carried out on the behavior of pesticides in aquatic environments of marshes to monitoring water and sediment. A total of 25 water and 25 sediment samples were collected at five sampling station during April, June and September. 2013 the levels of organochlorine (OCP) pesticide as a case study to find out the extent of pesticide contamination and accumulation, in water was the concentration of OCPs (0.02, 0.066, 0.7, 0.8, 0.072, 0.058) ppb. In sediment was the concentration of OCPs (5.897, 10.987, 0.089, 0.096, 7.897, and 12.389) ppb respectively in DDT, DDE, Chlordane, Heptachlor, Lindane, and Endosulfan. There is a relationship between pesticides and sediment and water with physical properties because the concentrations of pesticide in water and sediment are not always in equilibrium Furthermore, when sediments are smaller, the rate of deposition is slower. There the wetlands of pesticides due to factors of high temperature and evaporation but used in the control of pesticides in water and sediment also there still exist a variety of organochlorine pesticide residues in water and sediments of wetlands.

Keywords: Bioindicators, Iraqi marshes, Pesticides, Sediment, Water.

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Authors: Quratulain N. Rajput, Sajjad Haider, Nasir Touheed

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The internet has become an attractive avenue for global e-business, e-learning, knowledge sharing, etc. Due to continuous increase in the volume of web content, it is not practically possible for a user to extract information by browsing and integrating data from a huge amount of web sources retrieved by the existing search engines. The semantic web technology enables advancement in information extraction by providing a suite of tools to integrate data from different sources. To take full advantage of semantic web, it is necessary to annotate existing web pages into semantic web pages. This research develops a tool, named OWIE (Ontology-based Web Information Extraction), for semantic web annotation using domain specific ontologies. The tool automatically extracts information from html pages with the help of pre-defined ontologies and gives them semantic representation. Two case studies have been conducted to analyze the accuracy of OWIE.

Keywords: Ontology, Semantic Annotation, Wrapper, Information Extraction.

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Authors: H.R.Goshayeshi, M.Fahim inia, M.M.Naserian

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In this research, the laminar heat transfer of natural convection on vertical surfaces has been investigated. Most of the studies on natural convection have been considered constantly whereas velocity and temperature domain, do not change with time, transient one are used a lot. Governing equations are solved using a finite volume approach. The convective terms are discretized using the power-law scheme, whereas for diffusive terms the central difference is employed. Coupling between the velocity and pressure is made with SIMPLE algorithm. The resultant system of discretized linear algebraic equations is solved with an alternating direction implicit scheme. Then a configuration of rectangular fins is put in different ways on the surface and heat transfer of natural convection on these surfaces without sliding is studied and finally optimization is done.

Keywords: Natural convection, vertical surfaces, SIMPLE algorithm, Rectangular fins.

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Authors: Serdar Öge, Alpay Karasoy, Özlem Kara

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Although women have merit in their jobs, they still are located very few in the top management in many sectors. There are many causes of such situation. Such a situation creates obstacles; especially invisible ones are called “glass ceiling syndrome”. Also, studies which handle this subject in academic community are very few. The aim of this research is to reach the results about glass ceiling obstacles in terms of female teaching staff (academics) working in higher education institutions. To this end, our study was performed on female academics working at Selcuk University, Konya / Turkey. Our study's main aim can be expressed as to determine whether there are glass ceiling obstacles for female academics working at the higher education institution in question, to measure their glass ceiling perceptions and, thus, to identify what the glass ceiling barrier components for them to promotion to senior management positions are.

Keywords: Career, Career Barriers, Glass ceiling syndrome.

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Authors: Ladan Tajaddini

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Iranians- imagination of heaven, which is the reward of a person-s good deeds during their life, has shown itself in pleasant and green gardens where earthly gardens were made as representations of paradise. Iranians are also quite interested in making their earthly gardens and plantations around their buildings. With Iran-s hot and dry climate with a lack of sufficient water for plantation coverage, it becomes noticeable how important it is to Iranians- art in making gardens. This study, with regard to examples, documents and library studies, investigates the characteristics of Persian gardens. The result shows that elements such as soil, water, plants and layout have been used in forming a unique style of Persian gardens. Bagh-e Shah Zadeh Mahan (Mahan prince garden) is a typical example and has been carefully studied. In this paper I try to investigate and evaluate the characteristics of a Persian garden by means of a descriptive approach.

Keywords: environmental planning, Persian garden, landscape, shah zadeh garden, soil and water, gardening.

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Authors: B. Alajmi, L. Marouf, A. S. Chaudhry

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Knowledge management is considered as an important factor in improving health care services. KM facilitates the transfer of existing knowledge and the development of new knowledge in hospitals. This paper reviews practices adopted by doctors in Kuwait for capturing, sharing, and generating knowledge. It also discusses the perceived impact of KM practices on performance of hospitals. Based on a survey of 277 doctors, the study found that KM practices among doctors in the sampled hospitals were not very effective. Little attention was paid to the main activities that support the transfer of expertise among doctors in hospitals. However, as predicted by previous studies, good km practices were perceived by doctors to have a positive impact on performance of hospitals. It was concluded that through effective KM practices hospitals could improve the services they provide. Documentation of best practices and capturing of lessons learnt for re-use of knowledge could help transform the hospitals into learning organizations.

Keywords: Health Sector, Hospitals, Knowledge Management, Kuwait, Tools and Practices.

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Authors: Michael G. Danikas, Ramanujam Sarathi, Pavlos Ramnalis, Stefanos L. Nalmpantis

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This paper investigates the influence of various parameters on the behaviour of water droplets on polymeric surfaces under high electric fields. An inclined plane test was carried out to understand the droplet behaviour in strong electric field. Parameters such as water droplet conductivity, droplet volume, polymeric surface roughness and droplet positioning with respect to the electrodes were studied. The flashover voltage is affected by all aforementioned parameters. The droplet positioning is in some cases more vital than the droplet volume. Surface damages were analysed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) studies and by Energy dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDAX). It is observes that magnitude of discharge have direct influence on amount of surface da

Keywords: Water droplet, polymeric surface, hydrophobicity, partial discharges, SEM, EDAX.

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Authors: Mohamed A. Alsharif, Peter A. Wallace, Donald M. Hepburn, Chengke Zhou

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Worldwide, most PILC MV underground cables in use are approaching the end of their design life; hence, failures are likely to increase. This paper studies the electric field and potential distributions within the PILC insulted cable containing common void-defect. The finite element model of the performance of the belted PILC MV underground cable is presented. The variation of the electric field stress within the cable using the Finite Element Method (FEM) is concentrated. The effects of the void-defect within the insulation are given. Outcomes will lead to deeper understanding of the modeling of Paper Insulated Lead Covered (PILC) and electric field response of belted PILC insulted cable containing void defect.

Keywords: MV PILC cables, Finite Element Method /COMSOL Multiphysics, Electric Field Stress, Partial Discharge Degradation.

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Authors: Amr A. El Hanafy, Yasir Anwar, Saleh A. Mohamed, Saleh Mohamed Saleh Al-Garni, Jamal S. M. Sabir, Osama A. H. Abu Zinadah, Mohamed Morsi Ahmed

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In the vicinity of red sea about 15 fungi species were isolated from oil contaminated sites. On the basis of aptitude to degrade the crude oil and DCPIP assay, two fungal isolates were selected amongst 15 oil degrading strains. Analysis of ITS-1, ITS-2 and amplicon pyrosequencing studies of fungal diversity revealed that these strains belong to Penicillium and Aspergillus species. Two strains that proved to be the most efficient in degrading crude oil was Aspergillus niger (54%) and Penicillium commune (48%) Subsequent to two weeks of cultivation in BHS medium the degradation rate were recorded by using spectrophotometer and GC-MS. Hence, it is cleared that these fungal strains has capability of degradation and can be utilize for cleaning the Saudi Arabian environment.

Keywords: Fungal strains, hydrocarbon contaminants, molecular identification, biodegradation, GC-MS.

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Authors: G. Schirripa Spagnolo, M. De Santis

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The protection of the contents of digital products is referred to as content authentication. In some applications, to be able to authenticate a digital product could be extremely essential. For example, if a digital product is used as a piece of evidence in the court, its integrity could mean life or death of the accused. Generally, the problem of content authentication can be solved using semifragile digital watermarking techniques. Recently many authors have proposed Computer Generated Hologram Watermarking (CGHWatermarking) techniques. Starting from these studies, in this paper a semi-fragile Computer Generated Hologram coding technique is proposed, which is able to detect malicious tampering while tolerating some incidental distortions. The proposed technique uses as watermark an encrypted image, and it is well suitable for digital image authentication.

Keywords: Asymmetric cryptography, Semi-Fragile watermarking, Image authentication, Hologram watermark, Public- Key Cryptography, RSA.

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Authors: S.C. Chin, N. Shafiq, M.F. Nuruddin

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To date, theoretical studies concerning the Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) strengthening of RC beams with openings have been rather limited. In addition, various numerical analyses presented so far have effectively simulated the behaviour of solid beam strengthened by FRP material. In this paper, a two dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis is presented to validate against the laboratory test results of six RC beams. All beams had the same rectangular cross-section geometry and were loaded under four point bending. The crack pattern results of the finite element model show good agreement with the crack pattern of the experimental beams. The load midspan deflection curves of the finite element models exhibited a stiffer result compared to the experimental beams. The possible reason may be due to the perfect bond assumption used between the concrete and steel reinforcement.

Keywords: CFRP, large opening, RC beam, strengthening

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Authors: Kartini, K., Rohaidah, M.N., Zuraini, ZA.

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Demolitions of buildings have created a lot of waste and one of it is clay bricks. The waste clay bricks were ground to roughly cement fineness and used to partially replaced cement at 10%, 20% and 30% with w/b ratio of 0.6 and tested at 7, 28, 60, 90 and 120 days. The result shows that the compressive strength of GCB concrete increases over age however, decreases as the level of replacements increases. It was also found that 10% replacement of GCB gave the highest compressive strength, however for optimum replacement, 30% was chosen as it still attained strength of grade 30 concrete. In terms of durability performances, results show that GCB replacement up to 30% was found to be efficient in reducing water absorption as well as water permeability. These studies show that GCB has the potential to be used as partial cement replacement in making concrete.

Keywords: Compressive Strength, Ground Clay Bricks, Partial Cement Replacement, Water Absorption and Permeability

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Authors: Abolhassan Razminia, Mohammad-Ali Sadrnia

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Chua’s circuit is one of the most important electronic devices that are used for Chaos and Bifurcation studies. A central role of secure communication is devoted to it. Since the adaptive control is used vastly in the linear systems control, here we introduce a new trend of application of adaptive method in the chaos controlling field. In this paper, we try to derive a new adaptive control scheme for Chua’s circuit controlling because control of chaos is often very important in practical operations. The novelty of this approach is for sake of its robustness against the external perturbations which is simulated as an additive noise in all measured states and can be generalized to other chaotic systems. Our approach is based on Lyapunov analysis and the adaptation law is considered for the feedback gain. Because of this, we have named it NAFT (Nonlinear Adaptive Feedback Technique). At last, simulations show the capability of the presented technique for Chua’s circuit.

Keywords: Chaos, adaptive control, nonlinear control, Chua's circuit.

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Authors: Emma Dwi Ariyani, Dini Hadiani

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This article reports the descriptive analysis of self-compassion in polytechnic students. It has been long believed that self-compassion can improve students’ motivation in completing their studies. This research was conducted with the aim to see the degree of self-compassion in polytechnic students in Indonesia by using Neff's Self-Compassion Scale (short form) measurement tool consisting of 12 items. The research method used was descriptive study with survey technique on 255 students. The results showed that 78% of students had low self-compassion and 22% had high self-compassion. This revealed that polytechnic students still criticize themselves harshly, make a poor judgment and bad self-appraisal, and they also cannot accept their imperfection and consider it as a self-judgment. The students also tend to think that they are the only ones that experience failure and suffering. This can lead to a sense of isolation (self-isolation). Furthermore, the students are often too concerned with aspects that are not liked both in themselves and in life (over-identification). Improving the students’ level of self-compassion can be done by building an educational climate that not only criticizes the students but provides feedback as well. This should focus on the students’ real behavior rather than the students’ general character.

Keywords: Descriptive study, polytechnic students, Indonesia, self-compassion.

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Authors: Wan Norhayate Wan Daud, Fakhrul Anwar Zainol, Maslina Mansor

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The study was conducted to produce case studies from the Malaysian public universities stands point East Coast of Malaysia. The aim of this study is to analyze the effects of knowledge management on human capital toward organizational innovation. The focus point of this study is on the management member in the faculties of these three Malaysian Public Universities in the East Coast state of Peninsular Malaysia. In this case, respondents who agreed to further participate in the research will be invited to a one-hour face-to-face semi-structured, in-depth interview. As a result, the sample size for this study was 3 deans of Faculty of Management. Lastly, this study tries to recommend the framework of organizational innovation in Malaysian Public Universities.

Keywords: Human Capital, Knowledge Management, Organizational Innovation, Public University.

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Authors: Zeshan Ahmad, Matteo Zoppi, Rezia Molfino

Abstract:

The objective of positioning the fixture elements in the fixture is to make the workpiece stiff, so that geometric errors in the manufacturing process can be reduced. Most of the work for optimal fixture layout used the minimization of the sum of the nodal deflection normal to the surface as objective function. All deflections in other direction have been neglected. We propose a new method for fixture layout optimization in this paper, which uses the element strain energy. The deformations in all the directions have been considered in this way. The objective function in this method is to minimize the sum of square of element strain energy. Strain energy and stiffness are inversely proportional to each other. The optimization problem is solved by the sequential quadratic programming method. Three different kinds of case studies are presented, and results are compared with the method using nodal deflections as objective function to verify the propose method.

Keywords: Fixture layout, optimization, strain energy, quadratic programming.

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Authors: M. Ghazy, T. Dockhorn, N. Dichtl

Abstract:

The present disposal routes of sewage sludge represent a critical environmental issue in Egypt. Recently, there has been an increasing concern about sewage sludge management due to the environmental risks, which resulted from the fast expansion of wastewater treatment plants without equal attention in dealing with the produced sludge. This paper discusses the current situation of sewage sludge management in Egypt presenting a brief overview of the existing wastewater treatment plants, sludge production and characteristics as well as options of beneficial use and potential demand of sewage sludge under Egyptian conditions. The characteristics of sewage sludge are discussed considering the results of own sampling and analysis as well as previous studies. Furthermore, alternative treatment scenarios for sewage sludge, which have been recently developed in Egypt, are discussed and perspectives for a sustainable agricultural use are outlined.

Keywords: Beneficial use, Egypt, Monetary value, Stabilization processes, Sewage sludge, Sludge management

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