Search results for: growth factors

Authors: Kiranmai S.Rai

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The neurogenic potential of many herbal extracts used in Indian medicine is hitherto unknown. Extracts derived from Clitoria ternatea Linn have been used in Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine as an ingredient of “Medhya rasayana", consumed for improving memory and longevity in humans and also in treatment of various neurological disorders. Our earlier experimental studies with oral intubation of Clitoria ternatea aqueous root extract (CTR) had shown significant enhancement of learning and memory in postnatal and young adult Wistar rats. The present study was designed to elucidate the in vitro effects of 200ng/ml of CTR on proliferation, differentiation and growth of anterior subventricular zone neural stem cells (aSVZ NSC-s) derived from prenatal and postnatal rat pups. Results show significant increase in proliferation and growth of neurospheres and increase in the yield of differentiated neurons of aSVZ neural precursor cells (aSVZNPC-s) at 7 days in vitro when treated with 200ng/ml of CTR as compared to age matched control. Results indicate that CTR has growth promoting neurogenic effect on aSVZ neural stem cells and their survival similar to neurotrophic factors like Survivin, Neuregulin 1, FGF-2, BDNF possibly the basis for enhanced learning and memory.

Keywords: Anterior subventricular zone (aSVZ) neural stemcell, Clitoria ternatea, Learning and memory, Neurogenesis.

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Authors: A. Abdullah, A. Bakshwain, A. Aslam

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Livestock is one of the fastest-growing sectors in agriculture. If carefully managed, have potential opportunities for economic growth, food sovereignty and food security. In this study we mainly analyse and compare long-term i.e. for year 2030 climate variability impact on predicted productivity of meat i.e. beef, mutton and poultry for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia w.r.t three factors i.e. i) climatic-change vulnerability ii) CO2 fertilization and iii) water scarcity and compare the results with two countries of the region i.e. Iraq and Yemen. We do the analysis using data from diverse sources, which was extracted, transformed and integrated before usage. The collective impact of the three factors had an overall negative effect on the production of meat for all the three countries, with adverse impact on Iraq. High similarity was found between CO2 fertilization (effecting animal fodder) and water scarcity i.e. higher than that between production of beef and mutton for the three countries considered. Overall, the three factors do not seem to be favorable for the three Middle-East countries considered. This points to possibility of a vegetarian year 2030 based on dependency on indigenous livestock population.

Keywords: Prediction, animal-source foods, pastures, CO2 fertilization, climatic-change vulnerability, water scarcity.

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Authors: Sérgio Afonso Mulema, Andrés Carrión García, Vicente Ernesto

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This paper analyses the effect of fertilizer (organic and inorganic) in the growth of tilapia. An experiment was implemented in the Aquapesca Company of Mozambique; there were considered four different treatments. Each type of fertilizer was applied in two of these treatments; a feed was supplied to the third treatment, and the fourth was taken as control. The weight and length of the tilapia were used as the growth parameters, and to measure the water quality, the physical-chemical parameters were registered. The results show that the weight and length were different for tilapias cultivated in different treatments. These differences were evidenced mainly by organic and feed treatments, where there was the largest and smallest value of these parameters, respectively. In order to prove that these differences were caused only by applied treatment without interference for the aquatic environment, a Fisher discriminant analysis was applied, which confirmed that the treatments were exposed to the same environment condition.

Keywords: Fertilizer, tilapia, growth, statistical methods.

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Authors: M. Benachour, N. Benachour, M. Benguediab

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In this investigation variation of cyclic loading effect on fatigue crack growth is the studied. This study is performed on 2024 T351 and 7050-T74 aluminum alloys, used in aeronautical structures. The propagation model used in this study is NASGRO model. In constant amplitude loading (CA), effect of stress ratio has been investigated. Fatigue life and fatigue crack growth rate were affected by this factor. Results showed an increasing in fatigue crack growth rates (FCGRs) with increasing stress ratio. Variable amplitude loading (VAL) can take many forms i.e. with a single overload, overload band… etc. The shape of these loads affects strongly the fracture life and FCGRs. The application of a single overload (ORL) decrease the FCGR and increase the delay crack length caused by the formation of a larger plastic zone compared to the plastic zone due without VAL. The fatigue behavior of the both material under single overload has been compared.

Keywords: Fatigue crack growth, overload ratio, stress ratio, generalized willenborg model, retardation, Al-alloys.

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Authors: I. Rodionov, A. Semenov, E. Gosteva, O. Sokolova

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The venture capital becomes more and more advanced and effective source of the innovation project financing, connected with a high-risk level. In the developed countries, it plays a key role in transforming innovation projects into successful businesses and creating the prosperity of the modern economy. In Russia, there are many necessary preconditions for creation of the effective venture investment system: the network of the public institutes for innovation financing operates; there is a significant number of the small and medium-sized enterprises, capable to sell production with good market potential. However, the current system does not confirm the necessary level of efficiency in practice that can be substantially explained by the absence of the accurate plan of action to form the national venture model and by the lack of experience of successful venture deals with profitable exits in Russian economy. This paper studies the influence of various factors on the venture industry development by the example of the IT-sector in Russia. The choice of the sector is based on the fact, that this segment is the main driver of the venture capital market growth in Russia, and the necessary set of data exists. The size of investment of the second round is used as the dependent variable. To analyse the influence of the previous round, such determinant as the volume of the previous (first) round investments is used. There is also used a dummy variable in regression to examine that the participation of an investor with high reputation and experience in the previous round can influence the size of the next investment round. The regression analysis of short-term interrelations between studied variables reveals prevailing influence of the volume of the first round investments on the venture investments volume of the second round. The most important determinant of the value of the second-round investment is the value of first–round investment, so it means that the most competitive on the Russian market are the start-up teams that can attract more money on the start, and the target market growth is not the factor of crucial importance. This supports the point of view that VC in Russia is driven by endogenous factors and not by exogenous ones that are based on global market growth.

Keywords: Venture industry, venture investment, determinants of the venture sector development, IT-sector.

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Authors: Hirich A., Rami A., Laajaj K., Choukr-Allah R., Jacobsen S-E., El youssfi L., El Omari H.

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Yield and Crop Water Productivity are crucial issues in sustainable agriculture, especially in high-demand resource crops such as sweet corn. This study was conducted to investigate agronomic responses such as plant growth, yield and soil parameters (EC and Nitrate accumulation) to several deficit irrigation treatments (100, 75, 50, 25 and 0% of ETm) applied during vegetative growth stage, rainfed treatment was also tested. The finding of this research indicates that under deficit irrigation during vegetative growth stage applying 75% of ETm lead to increasing of 19.4% in terms of fresh ear yield, 9.4% in terms of dry grain yield, 10.5% in terms of number of ears per plant, 11.5% for the 1000 grains weight and 19% in terms of crop water productivity compared with fully irrigated treatment. While those parameters in addition to root, shoot and plant height has been affected by deficit irrigation during vegetative growth stage when increasing water stress degree more than 50% of ETm.

Keywords: Leaf area, yield, crop water productivity, water saving

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Authors: F. A. M. Safwan, H. N. N. Dilrukshi, P. U. S. Peiris

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Less availability of high quality green forages leads to low productivity of national dairy herd of Sri Lanka. Growing grass and fodder to suit the production system is an efficient and economical solution for this problem. CO-3 is placed in a higher category, especially on tillering capacity, green forage yield, regeneration capacity, leaf to stem ratio, high crude protein content, resistance to pests and diseases and free from adverse factors along with other fodder varieties grown within the country. An experiment was designed to determine the effect of organic sheep manure, inorganic fertilizers and liquid sheep manure on growth, yield and nutritive value of CO-3. The study was consisted with three treatments; sheep manure (T1), recommended inorganic fertilizers (T2) and liquid sheep manure (T3) which was prepared using bucket fermentation method and each treatment was consisted with three replicates and those were assigned randomly. First harvest was obtained after 40 days of plant establishment and number of leaves (NL), leaf area (LA), tillering capacity (TC), fresh weight (FW) and dry weight (DW) were recorded and second harvest was obtained after 30 days of first harvest and same set of data were recorded. SPSS 16 software was used for data analysis. For proximate analysis AOAC, 2000 standard methods were used. Results revealed that the plants treated with T1 recorded highest NL, LA, TC, FW and DW and were statistically significant at first and second harvest of CO-3 (p˂ 0.05) and it was found that T1 was statistically significant from T2 and T3. Although T3 was recorded higher than the T2 in almost all growth parameters; it was not statistically significant (p ˃0.05). In addition, the crude protein content was recorded highest in T1 with the value of 18.33±1.61 and was lowest in T2 with the value of 10.82±1.14 and was statistically significant (p˂ 0.05). Apart from this, other proximate composition crude fiber, crude fat, ash, moisture content and dry matter were not statistically significant between treatments (p ˃0.05). In accordance with the results, it was found that the organic fertilizer is the best fertilizer for CO-3 in terms of growth parameters and crude protein content.

Keywords: Fertilizer, growth parameters, Hybrid Napier CO-3, proximate composition.

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Authors: Nguyen Minh Tuan, Yen Chung–Ruey

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This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of gibberellic acid and 2,4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid on flower number, fruit growth and fruit quality of wax apple. GA3 and 2,4-D were applied at small bud and petal fall stage. Number of flower, fruit set, fruit drop, fruit crack, fruit growth and fruit quality were recorded. Results indicated that spraying with 10 ppm GA3 had the best results in number of flower. GA3 spray at 30 ppm gave the faster rate of fruit growth than the other treatments. Fruit set, fruit size as well as fruit weight markedly improved by spraying 30 ppm GA3, followed by 10 ppm GA3 compared to untreated control. Moreover, spray GA3 at 30 ppm was the most effective and increased total soluble solids, reduced titratable acidity and fruit drop. On the other hand, it was noticed that with 10 ppm 2,4-D application also enhanced the fruit growth rate, improved physiological and biochemical characters of fruit compared to untreated control. It was concluded that both GA3 and 2,4-D spray have positive effects on fruit development, reduced fruit drop, fruit crack and improved fruit quality of wax apple under field conditions.

Keywords: Wax apple, GA3, 2, 4-D, fruit growth, fruit quality.

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Authors: K. P. K. S. Lahirushan, W. G. V. Gunasekara

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Main purpose of this study is to identify the impact of government expenditure on economic growth in Asian Countries. Consequently, main objective is to analyze whether government expenditure causes economic growth in Asian countries vice versa and then scrutinizing long-run equilibrium relationship exists between them. The study completely based on secondary data. The methodology being quantitative that includes econometrical techniques of cointegration, panel fixed effects model and granger causality in the context of panel data of Asian countries; Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, China, Sri Lanka, India and Bhutan with 44 observations in each country, totaling to 396 observations from 1970 to 2013. The model used is the random effects panel OLS model. As with the above methodology, the study found the fascinating outcome. At first, empirical findings exhibit a momentous positive impact of government expenditure on Gross Domestic Production in Asian region. Secondly, government expenditure and economic growth indicate a long-run relationship in Asian countries. In conclusion, there is a unidirectional causality from economic growth to government expenditure and government expenditure to economic growth in Asian countries. Hence the study is validated that it is in line with the Keynesian theory and Wagner’s law as well. Consequently, it can be concluded that role of government would play a vital role in economic growth of Asian Countries. However; if government expenditure did not figure out with the economy’s needs it might be considerably inspiration the economy in a negative way so that society bears the costs.

Keywords: Asian Countries, Government Expenditure, Keynesian theory, Wagner’s theory, Random effects panel OLS model.

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Authors: Long Van Hoang, Mitsuyasu Yabe

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Environmental factors affect agriculture production productivity and efficiency resulted in changing of profit efficiency. This paper attempts to estimate the impacts of environmental factors to profitability of rice farmers in the Red River Delta of Vietnam. The dataset was extracted from 349 rice farmers using personal interviews. Both OLS and MLE trans-log profit functions were used in this study. Five production inputs and four environmental factors were included in these functions. The estimation of the stochastic profit frontier with a two-stage approach was used to measure profitability. The results showed that the profit efficiency was about 75% on the average and environmental factors change profit efficiency significantly beside farm specific characteristics. Plant disease, soil fertility, irrigation apply and water pollution were the four environmental factors cause profit loss in rice production. The result indicated that farmers should reduce household size, farm plots, apply row seeding technique and improve environmental factors to obtain high profit efficiency with special consideration is given for irrigation water quality improvement.

Keywords: Profit efficiency; Profit function; Environmental factors; OLS and MLE estimations; Rice Production; Vietnam

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Authors: Boualem El Kechebour, Djilali Benouar

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The objective of this work is to present a expertise on flooding hazard analysis and how to reduce the risk. The analysis concerns the disaster induced by the flood on November 10/11, 2001 in the Bab El Oued district of the city of Algiers.The study begins by an expertise of damages in related with the urban environment and the history of the urban growth of the site. After this phase, the work is focalized on the identification of the existing correlations between the development of the town and its vulnerability. The final step consists to elaborate the interpretations on the interactions between the urban growth, the sewerage network and the vulnerability of the urban system.In conclusion, several recommendations are formulated permitting the mitigation of the risk in the future. The principal recommendations concern the new urban operations and the existing urbanized sites.

Keywords: urban growth, sewerage network, vulnerability of town, flooding risk, mitigation

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Authors: M. Alqhatani, S. Bajwa, S. Setunge

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Metropolitan areas have suffered from traffic problems, which have steadily increased in many monocentric cities. Urban expansion, population growth, and road network development have resulted in a structural shift toward urban sprawl, increasing commuters’ dependence on private modes of transport. This paper aims to model the influence of socioeconomic and land-use factors on mode choice using a multinomial and nested logit model. Land-use patterns—such as residential, commercial, retail, educational and employment related—affect the choice of mode and destination in the short and medium term. Socioeconomic factors—such as age, gender, income, household size, and house type—also affect choice, while residential location is affected in the long term. Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Melbourne in Australia were chosen as case studies. Riyadh is a car-dependent city with limited public transport, whereas Melbourne has good public transport but an increase in car dependence. Aggregate level land-use data and disaggregate level individual, household, and journey-to-work data are used to determine the effects of land use and socioeconomic factors on mode choice. The model results determined that urban sprawl is the main factor that affects mode choice, income, and house type.

Keywords: Socioeconomic, land use, mode choice, multinomial logit and nested logit.

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Authors: Chockpisit Thepsithar, Aree Thongpukdee

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For sterilization of Phalaenopsis culture medium without autoclaving, selected single sterilizing agents and in combinations were added to a 25ml Hyponex medium in a 120ml glass container. Treated liquid and solid media, supplemented with sterilizing agents, were compared to a control medium, autoclaved at 121°C for 15min. It was found that 90(L of 10% povidone-iodine, 150(L of 5.25% sodium hypochlorite, 150(L of 2% mercurochrome, 90(L of 2.5% iodine + 2.5% potassium iodine in combination with 10% providone-iodine (1:3) and 30(L of 2.5% iodine + 2.5% potassium iodide in combination with 2% mercurochrome showed 100% sterile conditions in liquid medium but provided 75, 100, 50, 75 and 80% sterile conditions, respectively, in solid medium. For growth of Phalaenopsis protocorms, 90(L of 10% povidone-iodine in liquid Hyponex medium gave the comparable growth of protocorms to control medium while 150(L of 5.25% sodium hypochlorite in solid medium provided the promising growth of protocorms. Growth of protocorms, whole fresh weight, numbers of leaf and root, root length and number of protocorm-like bodies, was discussed.

Keywords: Phalaenopsis, sterilizing agents, Hyponex medium, sterile medium without autoclaving.

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Authors: N. Alharbi

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E-government is becoming more important these days. However, the adoption of e-government is often slowed down by technical and non-technical security factors. Nowadays, there many security models that can make the e-government services more secure. This paper will explain the main security factors that affected the level of e-government security. Moreover, it will also analyse current existing models. Finally, the paper will suggest a comprehensive security model that will contain most of technical and non-technical factors.

Keywords: E-government, technical, non-technical, security model.

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Authors: Ekrem Erdem, Can Tansel Tugcu

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Improved resource efficiency of production is a key requirement for sustainable growth, worldwide. In this regards, by considering the energy and tourism as the extra inputs to the classical Coub-Douglas production function, this study aims at investigating the efficiency changes in the North African countries. To this end, the study uses panel data for the period 1995-2010 and adopts the Malmquist index based on the data envelopment analysis. Results show that tourism increases technical and scale efficiencies, while it decreases technological and total factor productivity changes. On the other hand, when the production function is augmented by the energy input; technical efficiency change decreases, while the technological change, scale efficiency change and total factor productivity change increase. Thus, in order to satisfy the needs for sustainable growth, North African governments should take some measures for increasing the contribution that the tourism makes to economic growth and some others for efficient use of resources in the energy sector.

Keywords: Data envelopment analysis, Economic efficiency, North African countries, Sustainable growth.

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Authors: M. Kaggwa

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Technology or lack of it will play an important role in Africa-s effort to achieve inclusive development. Although a key determinant of competitiveness, new technology can exacerbate exclusion of the majority from the mainstream economic activities. To minimise potential technology exclusion while leveraging its critical role in African-s development, requires insight into technology diffusion process. Using system dynamics approach, a technology diffusion model is presented. The frequency of interaction of people exposed to and those not exposed to technology, and the technology adoption rate - the fraction of people who embrace new technologies once they are exposed, are identified as the broad factors critical to technology diffusion to wider society enabling more people to be part of the economic growth process. Based on simulation results, it is recommends that these two broad factors should form part of national policy aimed at achieving inclusive and sustainable development in Africa.

Keywords: Inclusive Development, System Dynamics, Technology, Technology diffusion.

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Authors: V. Benidze

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After the Rose Revolution of 2003, Georgia has achieved an unparalleled socioeconomic success. However, economic growth since 2012 has been sluggish and certainly not enough to rapidly improve the county’s standard of living that still remains substantially low compared to that in developed nations. Recent poor economic performance has shown that some key challenges need to be addressed if Georgia is to achieve high future economic growth that will decrease the poverty rate and create a middle class in the country. This paper offers in detail analysis of the economic performance of Georgia since 2012 and identifies key challenges facing the country’s economy. The main challenge going forward will be transforming Georgia from a consumption-driven to a production-oriented economy. It is identified that mobilizing domestic investment through savings, attracting foreign investment in tradable sectors and expanding the country’s export base will be crucial in the facilitation of the above-mentioned structural transformation. As the outcome of the research, the paper suggests a strategy for accelerating Georgia’ future economic growth and offers recommendations based on the relevant conclusions.

Keywords: Challenges, development, economic growth, economic policy, Georgia.

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Authors: Shang-Ping Lin, Shi-Hwa Lo, Ho-Li Yang

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Company mergers and acquisitions reached their peak in the twenty-first century. Mergers and acquisitions have become one of the competitive strategies for external growth. In general, it is believed that mergers and acquisitions can create synergies. However, they require complete information technology system and service integration, especially in the banking industry. Much of the research has focused on performance evaluation, shareholder equity allocation, or even the increase of company market value after the merger and acquisition, whereas few scholars have focused on information system integration post merger and acquisition. This study indicates the role of information systems after a merger and acquisition, explaining the benefits of information system integration using a merger and acquisition case in the banking industry as an example. In addition, we discuss factors that affect the performance of information system integration, and utilize system dynamics to interpret the relationship among factors that affect information system integration performance in the banking industry after a merger and acquisition.

Keywords: Merger and Acquisition, Information SystemIntegration, System Dynamics

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Authors: Chinnaiah Madduri, Raghu V. Prakash

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This paper presents the results of corrosion fatigue crack growth behaviour of a Ni-Cr-Mn steel commonly used in marine applications. The effect of mechanical variables such as frequency and load ratio on fatigue crack growth rate at various stages has been studied using compact tension (C(T)) specimens along the rolling direction of steel plate under 3.5% saturated NaCl aqueous environment. The significance of crack closure on corrosion fatigue, and the validity of Elber-s empirical linear crack closure model with the ASTM compliance offset method have been examined. Fatigue crack growth rate is higher and threshold stress intensities are lower in aqueous environment compared to the lab air conditions. It is also observed that the crack growth rate increases at lower frequencies. The higher stress ratio promotes the crack growth. The effect of oxidization and corrosion pit formation is very less as the stress ratio is increased. It is observed that as stress ratios are increased, the Elber-s crack closure model agrees well with the crack closure estimated by the ASTM compliance offset method for tests conducted at 5Hz frequency compared to tests conducted at 1Hz in corrosive environment.

Keywords: Corrosion fatigue, oxide induced crack closure, Elber's crack closure, ASTM compliance offset method.

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Authors: M. A. Askari, M. A. Nazari, P. Perrier, Y. Payan

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Growth and remodeling of biological structures have gained lots of attention over the past decades. Determining the response of living tissues to mechanical loads is necessary for a wide range of developing fields such as prosthetics design or computerassisted surgical interventions. It is a well-known fact that biological structures are never stress-free, even when externally unloaded. The exact origin of these residual stresses is not clear, but theoretically, growth is one of the main sources. Extracting body organ’s shapes from medical imaging does not produce any information regarding the existing residual stresses in that organ. The simplest cause of such stresses is gravity since an organ grows under its influence from birth. Ignoring such residual stresses might cause erroneous results in numerical simulations. Accounting for residual stresses due to tissue growth can improve the accuracy of mechanical analysis results. This paper presents an original computational framework based on gradual growth to determine the residual stresses due to growth. To illustrate the method, we apply it to a finite element model of a healthy human face reconstructed from medical images. The distribution of residual stress in facial tissues is computed, which can overcome the effect of gravity and maintain tissues firmness. Our assumption is that tissue wrinkles caused by aging could be a consequence of decreasing residual stress and thus not counteracting gravity. Taking into account these stresses seems therefore extremely important in maxillofacial surgery. It would indeed help surgeons to estimate tissues changes after surgery.

Keywords: Finite element method, growth, residual stress, soft tissue.

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Authors: R. Nagendra Babu, K. V. Ramana, K. Mallikarjuna Rao

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Stress Concentration Factors are significant in machine design as it gives rise to localized stress when any change in the design of surface or abrupt change in the cross section occurs. Almost all machine components and structural members contain some form of geometrical or microstructural discontinuities. These discontinuities are very dangerous and lead to failure. So, it is very much essential to analyze the stress concentration factors for critical applications like Turbine Rotors. In this paper Finite Element Analysis (FEA) with extremely fine mesh in the vicinity of the blades of Steam Turbine Rotor is applied to determine stress concentration factors. A model of Steam Turbine Rotor is shown in Fig. 1.

Keywords: Stress Concentration Factors, Finite Element Analysis, and ANSYS.

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Authors: D. Triantakonstantis, D. Stathakis

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Urban areas have been expanded throughout the globe. Monitoring and modelling urban growth have become a necessity for a sustainable urban planning and decision making. Urban prediction models are important tools for analyzing the causes and consequences of urban land use dynamics. The objective of this research paper is to analyze and model the urban change, which has been occurred from 1990 to 2000 using CORINE land cover maps. The model was developed using drivers of urban changes (such as road distance, slope, etc.) under an Artificial Neural Network modelling approach. Validation was achieved using a prediction map for 2006 which was compared with a real map of Urban Atlas of 2006. The accuracy produced a Kappa index of agreement of 0,639 and a value of Cramer's V of 0,648. These encouraging results indicate the importance of the developed urban growth prediction model which using a set of available common biophysical drivers could serve as a management tool for the assessment of urban change.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks, CORINE, Urban Atlas, Urban Growth Prediction.

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Authors: Abdulkadir Abu Lawal

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For the dearth of reliable cardinal numerical data, the linked phenomena in productivity indices such as operational costs and company turnovers, etc. could not be investigated. This would not give us insight to the root of productivity problems at unique sites. So, ordinal ranking by professionals who were most directly involved with construction sites was applied for Kendall’s concordance. Responses gathered from independent architects, builders/engineers, and quantity surveyors were herein analyzed. They were responses based on factors that affect sites productivity, and these factors were categorized as head office factors, resource management effectiveness factors, motivational factors, and training/skill development factors. It was found that productivity is low and has to be improved in order to facilitate Nigerian efforts in bridging its infrastructure deficit. The significance of this work is underlined with the Kendall’s coefficient of concordance of 0.78, while remedial measures must be emphasized to stimulate better productivity. Further detailed study can be undertaken by using Fuzzy logic analysis on wider Delphi survey.

Keywords: Factors, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, magnitude of agreement, percentage magnitude of dichotomy, ranking variables.

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Authors: G. Arslan, S. Kivrak

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Achieving success is a highly critical issue for the companies to survive in a competitive business environment. The construction industry is also an area where there is strong competition due to a large number of construction contractors. There have been many factors such as qualified employees, quality workmanship and financial management that can lead to company success in the construction industry. The aim of this study was to investigate the critical factors leading to construction company success. Within this context, a survey was carried out among 40 Turkish construction companies which are located in the Northwest region of Turkey. In this survey, top-level managers and owners of the companies were interviewed. The interviews took place over a five month period between January and May 2007. Finally, the ranking of the critical success factors has been determined by using the Simple Multi Attribute Rating Technique (SMART). Based on the results, business management, financial conditions and owner/manager characteristics were determined as the most important factors to company success.

Keywords: Company success, construction, organization, success factors.

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Authors: M. W. Siddiqi, M. Ilyas

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Availability and mobilization of revenue is the main essential with which an economy is managed and run. While planning or while making the budgets nations set revenue targets to be achieved. But later when the accounts are closed the actual collections of revenue through taxes or even the non-tax revenue collection would invariably be different as compared to the initial estimates and targets set to be achieved. This revenue-gap distorts the whole system and the economy disturbing all the major macroeconomic indicators. This study is aimed to find out short and long term impact of revenue gap on budget deficit, debt burden and economic growth on the economy of Pakistan. For this purpose the study uses autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration and error correction mechanism on three different models for the period 1980 to 2009. The empirical results show that revenue gap has a short and long run relationship with economic growth and budget deficit. However, revenue gap has no impact on debt burden.

Keywords: Revenue Gap, Economic Growth, Budget Deficit, Debt Burden

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Authors: Supattra Kanchanopast

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The purpose of this research was to identify factors that influenced the success of e-commerce implementation within SMEs businesses. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, the researcher collected data from random firms in Thailand, both the users and those who are not using the e-commerce. The data was comprised of the results of 310 questionnaires, as well as 10 interviews with owner/managers of businesses who are currently using e-commerce successfully. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, which included frequency, percentages, mean, and the standard deviation of pertinent factors. Independent t-test and one-way ANOVA test were also used. The findings of this research revealed that 50% of all the firms surveyed had e-commerce website, whereas, over 20% of all firms surveyed had developing an ecommerce strategy. The result findings also indicate that organizational factors, technological factors and environment factors as significant factors effecting success of e-commerce implementation in SMEs. From the hypotheses testing, the findings revealed that the different level of support use ecommerce by owner/manager had different success in e-commerce implementation. Moreover, the difference in e-commerce management approach affected the success in terms of higher total sales for the business or higher number of retained or returning customers.

Keywords: Electronic commerce, Implementation of ECommerce, small and medium sized enterprises, SMEs, Website, success factors.

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Authors: R. S. Hassani, S. Chikh, L. Tadrist, S. Radev

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A bubbly flow in a vertical miniature tube is analyzed theoretically. The liquid and gas phase are co-current flowing upward. The gas phase is injected via a nozzle whose inner diameter is 0.11mm and it is placed on the axis of the tube. A force balance is applied on the bubble at its detachment. The set of governing equations are solved by use of Mathematica software. The bubble diameter and the bubble generation frequency are determined for various inlet phase velocities represented by the inlet mass quality. The results show different behavior of bubble growth and detachment depending on the tube size.

Keywords: Two phase flow, bubble growth, minichannel, generation frequency.

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Authors: Zohreh Bang Tavakoli, Shuktika Chatterjee

Abstract:

This study investigates the fiscal policy impact on countries’ economic growth in developing countries with a different external debt level. The fiscal policy effectiveness has been re-emphasized in the global financial crisis of 2008 with the external debt as its new contemporary driver. Different theories have proposed the economic consequence of fiscal policy, specifically for developing countries. However, fiscal policy literature is lacking research regarding the fiscal policy’s effectiveness with the external debt’s contributions through comprehensive study. Also, high levels of external debt will influence economic growth. Through foreign resources and channel of investment in which high level of debt decreases the amount of foreign investment in the developing countries. The finding of this study suggests that only countries with a low external debt level and appropriate fiscal policies and good quality institutions can gain the proper quantity and quality of foreign investors in which will help the economic growth. For this, this research is examining the impact of fiscal policy on developing countries' economic growth in the situation of different external debt levels.

Keywords: fiscal policy, external debt, gross domestic product, developing countries

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Authors: Guillermo Vilalta, Félix Nieto, Carlos Vaquero, José A. Vilalta

Abstract:

Abdominal aortic aneurysms rupture (AAAs) is one of the main causes of death in the world. This is a very complex phenomenon that usually occurs “without previous warning". Currently, criteria to assess the aneurysm rupture risk (peak diameter and growth rate) can not be considered as reliable indicators. In a first approach, the main geometric parameters of aneurysms have been linked into five biomechanical factors. These are combined to obtain a dimensionless rupture risk index, RI(t), which has been validated preliminarily with a clinical case and others from literature. This quantitative indicator is easy to understand, it allows estimating the aneurysms rupture risks and it is expected to be able to identify the one in aneurysm whose peak diameter is less than the threshold value. Based on initial results, a broader study has begun with twelve patients from the Clinic Hospital of Valladolid-Spain, which are submitted to periodic follow-up examinations.

Keywords: AAA, rupture risk prediction, biomechanical factors, AAA geometric characterization.

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Authors: Hussain Ali Bekhet, Endang Jati Mat Sahid

Abstract:

For the past few decades, the Malaysian economy has expanded at an impressive pace, whilst, the Malaysian population has registered a relatively high growth rate. These factors had driven the growth of final energy demand. The ballooning energy demand coupled with the country’s limited indigenous energy resources have resulted in an increased of the country’s net import. Therefore, acknowledging the precarious position of the country’s energy self-sufficiency, this study has identified three main concerns regarding energy security, namely; over-dependence on fossil fuel, increasing energy import dependency, and increasing energy consumption per capita. This paper discusses the recent energy demand and supply trends, highlights the policies that are affecting energy security in Malaysia and suggests strategic options towards achieving energy security. The paper suggested that diversifying energy sources, reducing carbon content of energy, efficient utilization of energy and facilitating low-carbon industries could further enhance the effectiveness of the measures as the introduction of policies and initiatives will be more holistic.

Keywords: Energy security, electricity, energy policy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, Malaysia.

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