Search results for: electronic content management

Authors: Dalia Suša Vugec

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In recent few decades, business process management (BPM) has been in focus of a great number of researchers and organizations. There are many benefits derived from the implementation of BPM in organizations. However, there has been also noticed that lately traditional BPM faces some difficulties in terms of the divide between models and their execution, lost innovations, lack of information fusioning and so on. As a result, there has been a new discipline, called social BPM, which incorporates principles of social software into the BPM. On the other hand, many researchers indicate organizational culture as a vital part of the BPM success and maturity. Therefore, the goal of this study is to investigate the current state of BPM maturity and the usage of social BPM among the organizations from Croatia, Slovenia and Austria, with the regards to the organizational culture as well. The paper presents the results of a survey conducted as part of the PROSPER project (IP-2014-09-3729), financed by Croatian Science Foundation. The results indicate differences in the level of BPM maturity, the usage of social BPM and the dominant organizational culture in the observed organizations from different countries. These differences are further discussed in the paper.

Keywords: Business process management, BPM maturity, organizational culture, social BPM.

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Authors: Marwa H. Mahmoud, Ferial M. Abu-Salem

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Soy protein is a common ingredient added to processed meats to enhance its functional characteristics. In our study, soybean products (fermented soy Natto and protein hydrolysate) containing hydrolyzed peptides and amino acids, with or without ascorbic acid were added to burger in order to improve its quality characteristics. Results showed that soy additives significantly increased moisture and protein content and reduced (P < 0.05) fat values. Ash content did not affect with Natto additive. Color tools, lightness and yellowness were higher (P<0.05) for the samples with added soybean products (with or without ascorbic acid), while redness decreased. Both of protein hydrolysate and ascorbic acid increased the softiness while, Natto additive increased the hardness of samples. Natto & protein hydrolysate additives increased the total volatile basic nitrogen while, samples with ascorbic acid decreased TVBN values at significant levels. Also, soy additives were improved both of cooking quality and sensory evaluation of the burger in order to prove that soy products actually affect the quality characteristics of meat products.

Keywords: Burger, protein hydrolysate, fermented soy Natto, quality characterization.

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Authors: Dalia Suša Vugec, Vesna Bosilj Vukšić, Ljubica Milanović Glavan

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Business process management (BPM) is a well-known holistic discipline focused on managing business processes with the intention of achieving higher level of BPM maturity and better organizational performance. In recent period, traditional BPM faced some of its limitations like model-reality divide and lost innovation. Following latest trends, as an attempt to overcome the issues of traditional BPM, there has been an introduction of applying the principles of social software in managing business processes which led to the development of social BPM. However, there are not many authors or studies dealing with this topic so this study aims to contribute to that literature gap and to examine the link between the level of BPM maturity and the usage of social BPM. To meet these objectives, a survey within the companies with more than 50 employees has been conducted. The results reveal that the usage of social BPM is higher within the companies which achieved higher level of BPM maturity. This paper provides an overview, analysis and discussion of collected data regarding BPM maturity and social BPM within the observed companies and identifies the main social BPM principles.

Keywords: Business process management, BPM maturity, process performance index, social BPM.

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Authors: Xiaohui Zhao, Shahan Mafuz

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Context-aware technologies provide system applications with the awareness of environmental conditions, customer behaviours, object movements, etc. Further, with such capability system applications can be smart to intelligently adapt their responses to the changing conditions. In regard to business operations, this promises businesses that their business processes can run more intelligently, adaptively and flexibly, and thereby either improve customer experience, enhance reliability of service delivery, or lower operational cost, to make the business more competitive and sustainable. Aiming at realising such context-aware business process management, this paper firstly explores its potential benefit, and then identifies some gaps between the current business process management support and the expected. In addition, some preliminary solutions are also discussed in regard to context definition, rule-based process execution, run-time process evolution, etc. A framework is also presented to give a conceptual architecture of context-aware business process management system to guide system implementation.

Keywords: Business process adaptation, business process evolution, business process modelling, and context awareness.

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Authors: Figen Eraslan, Abdel Karim Hassan Awad Elkarim, Aydın Gunes, Ali Inal

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A greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different types of nutrients induced salinity on the growth, membrane permeability, nitrate reductase activity, proline content and macronutrient concentrations of tomato plants. The plants were subjected to six different treatments: 1 (control) containing basic solution, 2 basic solution+40mM of NaCl, 3 basic solution+40 mM of KNO3, 4 basic solution+20 mM of Ca(NO3)2.4H2O, 5 basic solution+20 mM of Mg(NO3)2.6H2O and 6 basic solution+20 mM of KNO3+5 mM of Ca(NO3)2.4H2O+5 mM of Mg(NO3)2.6H2O. Membrane permeability was increased significantly only with addition of NaCl, and then decreased to its lower level with addition of Ca(NO3)2.4H2O and Mg(NO3)2.6H2O. Proline accumulation were followed the same trend of results when they had been exposed to NaCl salinity. Nitrate reductase activity (NRA) was significantly affected by addition of different types of nutrient induced salinity.

Keywords: Membrane Permeability, Nitrate Reductase Activity, Nutrient induced salinity, Proline.

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Authors: Jochen Edmund Kerschenbauer, Roman Salinger, Daniel Strametz

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Insufficient informal communication systems can lead to the first crisis (‘Crisis of Leadership’) for start-ups. Management Control Systems (MCS) are one way for high-technology start-ups to successfully overcome these problems. So far the literature has investigated the incubation of a start-up, but focused less on the post-incubation stage. This paper focuses on the use of MCS in post-incubation and, if failed start-ups agree, on how MCS are used. We conducted 14 semi-structured interviews for this purpose, to obtain our results. The overall conclusion is that the majority of the companies were closed down due to a combination of strategic, operative and financial reasons.

Keywords: Closed down, high-technology, incubation, Levers of Control, management control systems, post-incubation, start-ups.

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Authors: Safdar Muhammad Usman, Youji Kohda, Katsuhiro Umemoto

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Electronic market place plays an important intermediary role for connecting dealers and retail customers. The main aim of this paper is to design a value co-creation model in used-car auctions. More specifically, the study has been designed in order to describe the process of value co-creation in used-car auctions, to explore the co-created values in used-car auctions, and finally conclude the paper indicating the future research directions. Our analysis shows that economic values as well as non-economic values are co-created in used-car auctions. In addition, this paper contributes to the academic society broadening the view of value co-creation in service science.

Keywords: Value co-creation, Used-car auctions, Non-economic values, Service science.

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Authors: Kalthoum Riahi, Max T. Rietberg, Javier Perez y Perez, Corné Dijkstra, Bennie ten Haken, Lejla Alic

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Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are widely used to facilitate magnetic particle imaging (MPI) which has the potential to become the leading diagnostic instrument for biomedical imaging. This comparative study assesses the effects of changing iron content and excitation frequency on point-spread function (PSF) representing the effect of magnetization reversal. PSF is quantified by features of interest for MPI: i.e., drive field amplitude and full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM). A superparamagnetic quantifier (SPaQ) is used to assess differential magnetic susceptibility of two commercially available MNPs: Synomag®-D50 and Synomag®-D70. For both MNPs, the signal output depends on increase in drive field frequency and amount of iron-oxide, which might be hampering the sensitivity of MPI systems that perform on higher frequencies. Nevertheless, there is a clear potential of Synomag®-D for a stable MPI resolution, especially in case of 70 nm version, that is independent of either drive field frequency or amount of iron-oxide.

Keywords: Magnetic nanoparticles, MNPs, Differential magnetic susceptibility, DMS, Magnetic particle imaging, MPI, magnetic relaxation, Synomag®-D.

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Authors: Alexey P. Antropov, Alexander V. Ragutkin, Nicolay A. Yashtulov

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The original controlled technology for power active nanocomposite membrane-electrode assembly engineering on the basis of porous silicon is presented. The functional nanocomposites were studied by electron microscopy and cyclic voltammetry methods. The application possibility of the obtained nanocomposites as high performance renewable energy sources for micro-power electronic devices is demonstrated.

Keywords: Cyclic voltammetry, electron microscopy, nanotechnology, platinum-palladium nanocomposites, porous silicon, power activity, renewable energy sources.

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Authors: G. Sekeroglu, M. Altan

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Working capital is identified as firm’s all current assets. Inventories which are one of the working capital elements are very important among current assets for firms. Because, profitability is an indicator for firms’ financial success is provided with minimum cost and optimum inventory quantity. So in this study, it is investigated as comparatively that the effect of inventory management on the profitability of Turkish firms which operated in weaving industry, eatables industry, wholesale and retail industry in between 2003 – 2012 years. Research data consist of profitability ratios and inventory turnovers ratio calculated by using balance sheets and income statements of firms which operated in Borsa Istanbul (BIST). In this research, the relationship between inventories and profitability is investigated by using SPSS-20 software with regression and correlation analysis. The results achieved from three industry departments which exist in study interpreted as comparatively. Accordingly, it is determined that there is a positive relationship between inventory management and profitability in eatables industry. However, it was founded that there is no relationship between inventory management and profitability in weaving industry and wholesale and retail industry.

Keywords: Profitability, regression analysis, inventory management, working capital.

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Authors: H. Silvestre

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The aim of this paper is to know the sociodemographic and operational-financial determinants of the services quality perceived by users of the national health services. Through the use of an inquiry conducted by the Ministry of Health, comprehending 16.936 interviews in 2006, we intend to find out if there is any characteristic that determines the 2006 inquiry results. With the revision of the literature we also want to know if the operational-financial results have implications in hospitals users- perception on the quality of the received services. In order to achieve our main goals we will make use of the regression analysis to find out the possible dimensions that determine those results.

Keywords: Management by Results, Quality Approach, Tableau de Bord, Total Quality Management, Services quality.

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Authors: Ayman El Sabagh, Sobhy Sorour, Abd Elhamid Omar, Adel Ragab, Mohammad Sohidul Islam, Celaleddin Barutçular, Akihiro Ueda, Hirofumi Saneoka

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Salinity is one of the major factors limiting crop production in an arid environment. Despite its global importance soybean production suffer the problems of salinity stress causing damages at plant development. So it is implacable to either search for salinity enhancement of soybean plants. Therefore, in the current study we try to clarify the mechanism that might be involved in the ameliorating effects of osmo-protectants such as proline and glycine betaine as well as, compost application on soybean plants grown under salinity stress. The experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions at the Graduate School of Biosphere Science Laboratory of Hiroshima University, Japan in 2011. The experiment was designed as a spilt-split plot based on randomized complete block design with four replications. The treatments could be summarized as follows; (i) salinity concentrations (0 and 15 mM), (ii) compost treatments (0 and 24 t ha-1) and (iii) the exogenous, proline and glycine betaine concentrations (0 mM and 25 mM) for each. Results indicated that salinity stress induced reduction in growth and physiological aspects (dry weight per plant, chlorophyll content, N and K+ content) of soybean plant compared with those of the unstressed plants. On the other hand, salinity stress led to increases in the electrolyte leakage ratio, Na and proline contents. Special attention was paid to, the tolerance against salt stress was observed, the improvement of salt tolerance resulted from proline, glycine betaine and compost were accompanied with improved K+, and proline accumulation. While, significantly decreased electrolyte leakage ratio and Na+ content. These results clearly demonstrate that harmful effect of salinity could reduce on growth aspects of soybean. Consequently, exogenous osmoprotectants combine with compost will effectively solve seasonal salinity stress problem and are a good strategy to increase salinity resistance of soybean in the drylands.

Keywords: Compost, glycine betaine, growth, proline, salinity tolerance, soybean.

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Authors: P. Parthiban, J. Karthikeyan

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This paper deals with the performance of semi-light weight concrete, prepared by using wood ash pellets as coarse aggregates which were improved by partial replacement of cement with alccofine. Alccofine is a mineral admixture which contains high glass content obtained through the process of controlled granulation. This is finer than cement which carries its own pozzolanic property. Therefore, cement could be replaced by alccofine as 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, 50%, 55%, 60%, 65%, and 70% to enhance the strength and durability properties of concrete. High range water reducing admixtures (HRWA) were used in these mixes which were dosed up to 1.5% weight of the total cementitious content (alccofine & cement). It also develops the weaker transition zone into more impermeable layer. Specimens were subjected in both the accelerated curing method as well as conventional curing method. Experimental results were compared and reported, in that the maximum compressive strength of 32.6 MPa was achieved on 28^th day with 30% replacement level in a density of 2200 kg/m³ to a conventional curing, while in the accelerated curing, maximum compressive strength was achieved at 40% replacement level. Rapid chloride penetration test (RCPT) output results for the conventional curing method at 0% and 70% give 3296.7 and 545.6 coulombs.

Keywords: Alccofine, compressive strength, RCPT, wood ash pellets.

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Authors: Eftah Bte. Moh Hj Abdullah, Izazol Binti Idris, Abd Aziz Bin Abd Shukor

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This study aims to identify the understanding expectations of school administrators concerning school assessment. The researcher utilized a qualitative descriptive study on 19 administrators from three secondary schools in the North Kinta district. The respondents had been interviewed on their understanding expectations of school assessment using the focus group discussion method. Overall findings showed that the administrators’ understanding expectations of school assessment was weak; especially in terms of content focus, articulation across age and grade, transparency and fairness, as well as the pedagogical implications. Findings from interviews indicated that administrators explained their understanding expectations of school assessment from the aspect of school management, and not from the aspect of instructional leadership or specifically as assessment leaders. The study implications from the administrators’ understanding expectations may hint at the difficulty of the administrators to function as assessment leaders, in order to reduce their focus as manager, and move towards their primary role in the process of teaching and learning. The administrator, as assessment leaders, would be able to reach assessment goals via collaboration in identifying and listing teacher assessment competencies, how to construct assessment capacity, how to interpret assessment correctly, the use of assessment and how to use assessment information to communicate confidently and effectively to the public.

Keywords: Assessment leaders, assessment goals, instructional leadership, understanding expectation of assessment.

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Authors: Abdelsalam Omran Gebril Ali

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Pollution and solid waste are the most important environmental problems plaguing the city of Benghazi as well as other cities and towns in Libya. These problems are caused by the lack of environmental planning and sound environmental management. Environmental planning is very important at present for the development of projects that preserve the environment; therefore, the planning process should be prioritized over the management process. Pollution caused by poor planning and environmental management exists not only in Benghazi but also in all other Libyan cities. This study was conducted through various field visits to several neighborhoods and areas within Benghazi as well as its neighboring regions. Follow-ups in these areas were conducted from March 2013 to October 2013 as documented by photographs. The existing methods of waste collection and means of transportation were investigated. Interviews were conducted with relevant authorities, including the Environment Public Authority in Benghazi and the Public Service Company of Benghazi. The objective of this study is to determine the causes of solid waste pollution in Benghazi City and its surrounding areas. Results show that solid waste pollution in Benghazi and its surrounding areas is the result of poor planning and environmental management, population growth, and the lack of hardware and equipment for the collection and transport of waste from the city to the landfill site. One of the most important recommendations in this study is the development of a complete and comprehensive plan that includes environmental planning and environmental management to reduce solid waste pollution.

Keywords: Solid waste, pollution, environmental planning, management, Benghazi, Libya.

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Authors: Kgabo H. Badimo, Sheryl Buckley

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Knowledge is increasingly recognised in this, the knowledge era, as a strategic resource, by public sector organisations, in view of the public sector reform initiatives. People and knowledge play a vital role in attaining improved organisational performance and high service quality. Many government departments in the public sector have started to realise the importance of knowledge management in streamlining their operations and processes. This study focused on knowledge management in the public healthcare service organisations, where the concept of service provider competitiveness pales to insignificance, considering the huge challenges emanating from the healthcare and public sector reforms. Many government departments are faced with challenges of improving organisational performance and service delivery, improving accountability, making informed decisions, capturing the knowledge of the aging workforce, and enhancing partnerships with stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to examine the knowledge management practices of the Gauteng Department of Health in South Africa, in order to understand how knowledge management practices influence improvement in organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. This issue is explored through a review of literature on dominant views on knowledge management and healthcare service delivery, as well as results of interviews with, and questionnaire responses from, the general staff of the Gauteng Department of Health. Web-based questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and organisational documents were used to collect data. The data were analysed using both the quantitative and qualitative methods. The central question investigated was: To what extent can the conditions required for successful knowledge management be observed, in order to improve organisational performance and healthcare service delivery in the Gauteng Department of Health. The findings showed that the elements of knowledge management capabilities investigated in this study, namely knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge application, have a positive, significant relationship with all measures of organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. These findings thus indicate that by employing knowledge management principles, the Gauteng Department of Health could improve its ability to achieve its operational goals and objectives, and solve organisational and healthcare challenges, thereby improving organisational performance and enhancing healthcare service delivery in Gauteng.

Keywords: Knowledge Management, Healthcare Service Delivery, Public Healthcare, Public Sector.

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Authors: P. Ninduangdee, V. I. Kuprianov

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Palm kernel shell is an important bioenergy resource in Thailand. However, due to elevated alkali content in biomass ash, this oil palm residue shows high tendency to bed agglomeration in a fluidized-bed combustion system using conventional bed material (silica sand). In this study, palm kernel shell was burned in the conical fluidized-bed combustor (FBC) using alumina and dolomite as alternative bed materials to prevent bed agglomeration. For each bed material, the combustion tests were performed at 45kg/h fuel feed rate with excess air within 20–80%. Experimental results revealed rather weak effects of the bed material type but substantial influence of excess air on the behavior of temperature, O2, CO, CxHy, and NO inside the reactor, as well as on the combustion efficiency and major gaseous emissions of the conical FBC. The optimal level of excess air ensuring high combustion efficiency (about 98.5%) and acceptable level of the emissions was found to be about 40% when using alumina and 60% with dolomite. By using these alternative bed materials, bed agglomeration can be prevented when burning the shell in the proposed conical FBC. However, both bed materials exhibited significant changes in their morphological, physical and chemical properties in the course of the time.

Keywords: Palm kernel shell, fluidized-bed combustion, alternative bed materials, combustion and emission performance, bed agglomeration prevention.

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Authors: Haidar Safa, Hassan Artail, Ahmad Mehio, Hicham Zahr, Ziad Matragi

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The Mobile IP Standard has been developed to support mobility over the Internet. This standard contains several drawbacks as in the cases where packets are routed via sub-optimal paths and significant amount of signaling messages is generated due to the home registration procedure which keeps the network aware of the current location of the mobile nodes. Recently, a dynamic hierarchical mobility management strategy for mobile IP networks (DHMIP) has been proposed to reduce home registrations costs. However, this strategy induces a packet delivery delay and increases the risk of packet loss. In this paper, we propose an enhanced version of the dynamic hierarchical strategy that reduces the packet delivery delay and minimizes the risk of packet loss. Preliminary results obtained from simulations are promising. They show that the enhanced version outperforms the original dynamic hierarchical mobility management strategy version.

Keywords: Location management, Mobile IP (MIP), Home Agent, Foreign Agent.

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Authors: Florian Pfeffel, Christoph A. Kexel, Peter Kexel, Maria Ratz

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The parallel usage of different media channels has increased recently owing to technological advances. Second Screen describes the use of a second device by television viewers to consume further content which is related to the program they are watching. This study analysed the characteristics of football spectators regarding their media consumption in relation to Second Screen usage while watching a football match on TV. The existing literature on Second Screen usage is still very limited, especially in the context of particular broadcasting settings such as sport or even more specific such as football matches. Therefore, the primary research objective was to reveal first insights into the user behaviour of football spectators regarding Second Screen services. The survey, which was conducted among German football supporters in 2015, revealed some characteristics such as the identification and involvement into the sports which are related to an increased use of Second Screen services. One important finding for football supporters was that at the time of a match they have a lower parallel media usage compared to other TV broadcastings. Nevertheless, if supporters used a second device while watching a match on TV, then they were using specific Second Screen services. This means they searched for more content related information. The findings on the habits and characteristics of people who are using Second Screen services are relevant for future developments in that area as well as for marketing decisions.

Keywords: Media consumption, second screen, sport marketing, user behaviour.

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Authors: A.Ö. İlkay, C.O. Zeynep

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Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has changed our life and learn. ICT bares doors to new innovative methods to deliver education. E-learning is a part of ICT and has been endorsed as a tool for developing “21st century skills” in higher education. The aim of this review is to establish the impacts of e-learning in undergraduate nursing education. A systematic literature review was conducted to assess the impacts of e-learning in nursing education by using Akdeniz University electronic databases. According to results, we can decelerate that the nursing faculties cannot treat e-learning methods as a single tool. E-learning should be used with a good understanding of learners’ needs.

Keywords: E-learning, nursing education, systematic literature review.

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Authors: M. Mohammadi

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In order to evaluate the effect of phosphate and Zn bio-fertilizers on the yield, phytic acid (PA), Zn concentration and PA/Zn molar ratio in bean, a field experiment was carried out for two years. The treatments included two cultivars of bean (Talash and Sadri), four levels of P (P₀, P₁: 100 kg ha^-1 triple super phosphate (TSP), P2: 50 kg ha^-1 TSP + phosphate bio-fertilizer, P₃: phosphate bio-fertilizer), three levels of Zn (Zn₀, Zn₁: 50 kg ha^-1 ZnSO4, Zn₂: Zn bio-fertilizer). Phosphate bio-fertilizer consisted of inoculum of mycorrhizal fungus and Azotobacter and Zn bio-fertilizer consisted of Pseudomonas bacteria. The results revealed that there was significant difference between yield and Zn concentration between years. The effect of cultivar was significant on studied parameters. The lowest content of PA and PA/Zn were obtained from Talash. P treatment caused to significant difference on parameters in which P₂ caused to increase yield, P and Zn concentration, and decrease PA and PA/Zn by 21.8%, 38.2%, 33.4%, 17.4% and 38.6% respectively. Zn treatment caused to significant difference on studied parameters. The maximum number of parameters were obtained from Zn₁ and Zn₂. The higher Zn concentration led to lower content of PA and PA/Zn. Using of P and Zn bio–fertilizers were caused to increasing nutrient uptake, improving growth condition and reducing PA and PA/Zn molar ratio.

Keywords: Mycorrhizae, phosphorus, pseudomonas, zinc.

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Authors: Lee Ock-Sun

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The effective development of a geoscience education and training program takes account of the rapidly changing environment in the geoscience market, includes information about resource-rich countries which have international education demands. In this paper, we introduce the geoscience program run by the International School for Geoscience Resources at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (IS-Geo of KIGAM), and show its remarkable performance. To further effective geoscience program planning and operation, we present recommendations for strategic management for customer-oriented operation with a more favorable program format and advanced training aids. Above all, the IS-Geo of KIGAM should continue improve through ‘plan-do-see-feedback’ activities based on the recommendations.

Keywords: Demand survey, geoscience program, program performance, strategic management.

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Authors: Sadi Vural, Hiromi Tomii, Hironori Yamauchi

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With the advent of digital cinema and digital broadcasting, copyright protection of video data has been one of the most important issues. We present a novel method of watermarking for video image data based on the hardware and digital wavelet transform techniques and name it as “traceable watermarking" because the watermarked data is constructed before the transmission process and traced after it has been received by an authorized user. In our method, we embed the watermark to the lowest part of each image frame in decoded video by using a hardware LSI. Digital Cinema is an important application for traceable watermarking since digital cinema system makes use of watermarking technology during content encoding, encryption, transmission, decoding and all the intermediate process to be done in digital cinema systems. The watermark is embedded into the randomly selected movie frames using hash functions. Embedded watermark information can be extracted from the decoded video data. For that, there is no need to access original movie data. Our experimental results show that proposed traceable watermarking method for digital cinema system is much better than the convenient watermarking techniques in terms of robustness, image quality, speed, simplicity and robust structure.

Keywords: Decoder, Digital content, JPEG2000 Frame, System-On-Chip, traceable watermark, Hash Function, CRC-32.

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Authors: B. Dahiya, K.Batra, V.Prasad

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Artificial atoms are growing fields of interest due to their physical and optoelectronicapplications. The absorption spectra of the proposed artificial atom inpresence of Tera-Hertz field is investigated theoretically. We use the non-perturbativeFloquet theory and finite difference method to study the electronic structure of ArtificialAtom. The effect of static electric field on the energy levels of artificial atom is studied.The effect of orientation of static electric field on energy levels and diploe matrix elementsis also highlighted.

Keywords: Absorption spectra, Artificial atom, Floquet Theory, THz fields

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Authors: Anindya Roy, Goutam Saha

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Rapid progress in audio compression technology has contributed to the explosive growth of music available in digital form today. In a reversal of ideas, this work makes use of a recently proposed efficient audio compression scheme to develop three important applications in the context of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) for the effective manipulation of large music databases, namely automatic music recommendation (AMR), digital rights management (DRM) and audio finger-printing for song identification. The performance of these three applications has been evaluated with respect to a database of songs collected from a diverse set of genres.

Keywords: Audio compression, Music Information Retrieval, Digital Rights Management, Audio Fingerprinting.

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Authors: A. S. Soğancı

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Expansive soils are often encountered in many parts of the world, especially in arid and semi-arid fields. Such kind of soils, generally including active clay minerals in low water content, enlarge in volume by absorbing the water through the surface and cause a great harm to the light structures such as channel coating, roads and airports. The expansive soils were encountered on the path of Apa-Hotamış conveyance channel belonging to the State Hydraulic Works in the region of Konya. In the research done in this area, it is predicted that the soil has a swollen nature and the soil should be filled with proper granular equipments by digging the ground to 50-60 cm. In this study, for purpose of helping the other research to be done in the same area, it is thought that instead of replacing swollen soil with the granular soil, by stabilizing it with polypropylene fiber and using it its original place decreases effect of swelling percent, in this way the cost will be decreased. Therefore, laboratory tests were conducted to study the effects of polypropylene fiber on swelling characteristics of expansive soil. Test results indicated that inclusion of fiber reduced swell percent of expansive soil. As the fiber content increased, the unconfined compressive strength was increased. Finally, it can be said that stabilization of expansive soils with polypropylene fiber is an effective method.

Keywords: Expansive soils, polypropylene fiber, stabilization, swelling percent.

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Authors: Abd Mutalib Embong, Azelin M Noor, Razol Mahari M Ali, Zulqarnain Abu Bakar, Abdur- Rahman Mohamed Amin

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At the time where electronic books, or e-Books, offer students a fun way of learning , teachers who are used to the paper text books may find it as a new challenge to use it as a part of learning process. Precisely, there are various types of e-Books available to suit students- knowledge, characteristics, abilities, and interests. The paper discusses teachers- perceptions on the use of ebooks as a paper text book in the classroom. A survey was conducted on 72 teachers who use e-books as textbooks. It was discovered that a majority of these teachers had good perceptions on the use of ebooks. However, they had little problems using the devices. It can be overcome with some strategies and a suggested framework.

Keywords: Classroom, E-books, perception, teacher.

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Authors: Kung-Jen Tu

Abstract:

Many public housing properties developed by local governments in Taiwan in the 1980s have deteriorated severely as these rental apartment buildings aged. The lack of building maintainability considerations during project design phase as well as insufficient maintenance funds have made it difficult and costly for local governments to maintain and keep public housing properties in good shape. In order to assist the local governments in achieving and delivering sustainable public housing, this paper intends to present a developed design evaluation method to be used to evaluate the presented design schemes from property management and financial feasibility perspectives during project design phase of public housing projects. The design evaluation results, i.e. the property management and financial implications of presented design schemes that could occur later during the building operation and maintenance phase, will be reported to the client (the government) and design schemes revised consequently. It is proposed that the design evaluation be performed from two main perspectives: (1) Operation and property management perspective: Three criteria such as spatial appropriateness, people and vehicle circulation and control, property management working spaces are used to evaluate the ‘operation and PM effectiveness’ of a design scheme. (2) Financial feasibility perspective: Four types of financial analyses are performed to assess the long term financial feasibility of a presented design scheme, such as operational and rental income analysis, management fund analysis, regular operational and property management service expense analysis, capital expense analysis. The ongoing Chung-Li Public Housing Project developed by the Taoyuan City Government will be used as a case to demonstrate how the presented design evaluation method is implemented. The results of property management assessment as well as the annual operational and capital expenses of a proposed design scheme are presented.

Keywords: Design evaluation method, management fund, operational and capital expenses, rental apartment buildings.

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Authors: Saumyaranjan Sahoo, Sudhir Yadav

Abstract:

Indian manufacturing firms operating in rapidly changing and highly competitive market, over the last few decades, have embraced organization-wide transformation to achieve cultural and operational excellence. In recent years, numerous approaches have been proposed to improve business and manufacturing performance. Lean practices in particular, Total Productive Management (TPM) and Total Quality Management (TQM) have received considerable attention, as they being adopted and adapted for raising the performance standard of Indian manufacturing firms to world class levels. The complementary nature of TPM and TQM is being practiced in many companies to achieve synergy. Specifically, this research investigates whether joint TPM-TQM implementation contribute to higher business performance when compared to individual implementation. Data from 160 manufacturing firms were analyzed that demonstrate synergetic implementation of both TPM-TQM practices over a reasonable period of time, contributed in delivering better business performance as compared to individual implementation strategy.

Keywords: Total productive management, total quality management, Indian manufacturing firms, business performance.

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Authors: H. H. Goh, K. C. Goh, T. W. Seow, N. S. Said, S. E. P. Ang

Abstract:

Malaysia is rich with historic buildings, particularly in Penang and Malacca states. Restoration activities are increasingly important as these states are recognized under UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Restoration activities help to maintain the uniqueness and value of a heritage building. However, increasing in restoration activities has resulted in large quantities of waste. To cope with this problem, the 3R concept (reduce, reuse and recycle) is introduced. The 3R concept is one of the waste management hierarchies. This concept is still yet to apply in the building restoration industry compared to the construction industry. Therefore, this study aims to promote the 3R concept in the heritage building restoration industry. This study aims to examine the importance of 3R concept and to identify challenges in applying the 3R concept in the heritage building restoration industry. This study focused on contractors and consultants who are involved in heritage restoration projects in Penang. Literature review and interviews helps to reach the research objective. Data that obtained is analyzed by using content analysis. For the research, application of 3R concept is important to conserve natural resources and reduce pollution problems. However, limited space to organise waste is the obstruction during the implementation of this concept. In conclusion, the 3R concept plays an important role in promoting environmental conservation and helping in reducing the construction waste.

Keywords: 3R Concept, Heritage building, Restoration activities.

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