Search results for: international labor standard

Authors: P. G. Siddheshwar, T. N. Sakshath

Abstract:

In the paper we make linear and non-linear stability analyses of Rayleigh-Bénard convection of a Newtonian nanoliquid in a rotating medium (called as Rayleigh-Bénard-Taylor convection). Rigid-rigid isothermal boundaries are considered for investigation. Khanafer-Vafai-Lightstone single phase model is used for studying instabilities in nanoliquids. Various thermophysical properties of nanoliquid are obtained using phenomenological laws and mixture theory. The eigen boundary value problem is solved for the Rayleigh number using an analytical method by considering trigonometric eigen functions. We observe that the critical nanoliquid Rayleigh number is less than that of the base liquid. Thus the onset of convection is advanced due to the addition of nanoparticles. So, increase in volume fraction leads to advanced onset and thereby increase in heat transport. The amplitudes of convective modes required for estimating the heat transport are determined analytically. The tri-modal standard Lorenz model is derived for the steady state assuming small scale convective motions. The effect of rotation on the onset of convection and on heat transport is investigated and depicted graphically. It is observed that the onset of convection is delayed due to rotation and hence leads to decrease in heat transport. Hence, rotation has a stabilizing effect on the system. This is due to the fact that the energy of the system is used to create the component V. We observe that the amount of heat transport is less in the case of rigid-rigid isothermal boundaries compared to free-free isothermal boundaries.

Keywords: Nanoliquid, rigid-rigid, rotation, single-phase.

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Authors: P. Nafisi Poor, P. Javid

Abstract:

Religion and divinity have always held important meaning to humans, and therefore it affects different aspects of life including art and architecture. Numerous works of art are related to religion whether supporting or denying it. Religion and religious scholars have influenced and changed art throughout history. This paper focuses on Islam and Christianity because these two religions have been the most discussed and most popular of all time, starting from the birth of Jesus to the arrival of Mohammad. Based on this popularity, these religions have influenced the arts and especially architecture. Islam on one hand changed Iranian and Arabian architecture and they applied it in different places around the world. From the appearance of Islam at 622 AD to this day, Islamic architecture has been evolving; however, one of the most important periods for this style was between 1501 AD and 1736 AD in Iran. Christianity, on the other hand, changed European architecture especially between 1150 AD and 1450 AD or the so-called "Gothic" era, which begins at medieval time and reaches its peak at International Gothic ages. At both of these periods, designing buildings based on spiritual concepts and divine statements reached its peak, and architects were considering God and religion as their center of attention. This article studies the focus on the religions of Islam and Christianity in terms of architecture and presents a general philosophy of both styles to comprehend the idea behind each one, followed by an analysis of their geometry and architectural aspects derived from the best examples, all to understand the purpose of each style and to realize, which one was more successful in reaching their purpose. Subsequently, a comprehensive review of each building is provided including 3D visualizations to help achieve the goal of the article. These studies can support diverse inquiries about both Islamic and Gothic architecture and can be used as a resource to support studies and research towards designing based on religion or for divine purposes.

Keywords: Architecture, gothic, Islamic, religion.

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Authors: B. R. O. Omidiwura, A. F. Agboola, E. A. Iyayi

Abstract:

Pure form of L-Dopa is used to enhance muscular development, fat breakdown and suppress Parkinson disease in humans. However, the L-Dopa in mucuna seed, when present with other antinutritional factors, causes nutritional disorders in monogastric animals. Information on the utilisation of pure L-Dopa in monogastric animals is scanty. Therefore, effect of L-Dopa on growth performance and carcass characteristics in broiler chickens was investigated. Two hundred and forty one-day-old chicks were allotted to six treatments, which consisted of a positive control (PC) with standard energy (3100Kcal/Kg) and negative control (NC) with high energy (3500Kcal/Kg). The rest 4 diets were NC+0.1, NC+0.2, NC+0.3 and NC+0.4% L-Dopa, respectively. All treatments had 4 replicates in a completely randomized design. Body weight gain, final weight, feed intake, dressed weight and carcass characteristics were determined. Body weight gain and final weight of birds fed PC were 1791.0 and 1830.0g, NC+0.1% L-Dopa were 1827.7 and 1866.7g and NC+0.2% L-Dopa were 1871.9 and 1910.9g respectively, and the feed intake of PC (3231.5g), were better than other treatments. The dressed weight at 1375.0g and 1357.1g of birds fed NC+0.1% and NC+0.2% L-Dopa, respectively, were similar but better than other treatments. Also, the thigh (202.5g and 194.9g) and the breast meat (413.8g and 410.8g) of birds fed NC+0.1% and NC+0.2% L-Dopa, respectively, were similar but better than birds fed other treatments. The drum stick of birds fed NC+0.1% L-Dopa (220.5g) was observed to be better than birds on other diets. Meat to bone ratio and relative organ weights were not affected across treatments. L-Dopa extract, at levels tested, had no detrimental effect on broilers, rather better bird performance and carcass characteristics were observed especially at 0.1% and 0.2% L-Dopa inclusion rates. Therefore, 0.2% inclusion is recommended in diets of broiler chickens for improved performance and carcass characteristics.

Keywords: Broilers, Carcass characteristics, L-Dopa, performance.

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Authors: Fernando Seabra, Giulia P. Flores, Karolina C. Gomes

Abstract:

Trade liberalizations measures, as import tariff cuts, are not a sufficient trigger for trade growth. Given that price margins are narrow, traders and cargo operators tend to opt out of markets where the process of goods clearance is slow and costly. Excess paperwork and slow customs dispatch not only lead to institutional breakdowns and corruption but also to increasing transaction cost and trade constraints. The objective of this paper is, therefore, two-fold: First, to evaluate the relationship between institutional and infrastructural performance indexes and trade growth in container throughput; and, second, to investigate the causes for differences in container demurrage and detention fees in Latin American countries (using other emerging countries as benchmarking). The analysis is focused on manufactured goods, typically transported by containers. Institutional and infrastructure bottlenecks and, therefore, the country logistics efficiency – measured by the Logistics Performance Index (LPI, World Bank-WB) – are compared with other indexes, such as the Doing Business index (WB) and the Corruption Perception Index (Transparency International). The main results based on the comparison between Latin American countries and the others emerging countries point out in that the growth in containers trade is directly related to LPI performance. It has also been found that the main hypothesis is valid as aspects that more specifically identify trade facilitation and corruption are significant drivers of logistics performance. The exam of port efficiency (demurrage and detention fees) has demonstrated that not necessarily higher level of efficiency is related to lower charges; however, reductions in fees have been more significant within non-Latin American emerging countries.

Keywords: Container throughput, logistics performance, corruption, Latin America.

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Authors: S. Vignesh, N. Vishnu, S. Vigneshwaran, M. Vishnu Anand, Dinesh Kumar Babu, V. R. Sanal Kumar

Abstract:

Numerical studies have been carried out using a validated two-dimensional standard k-omega turbulence model for the design optimization of a thrust vector control system using shock induced self-impinging supersonic secondary double jet. Parametric analytical studies have been carried out at different secondary injection locations to identifying the highest unsymmetrical distribution of the main gas flow due to shock waves, which produces a desirable side force more lucratively for vectoring. The results from the parametric studies of the case on hand reveal that the shock induced self-impinging supersonic secondary double jet is more efficient in certain locations at the divergent region of a CD nozzle than a case with supersonic single jet with same mass flow rate. We observed that the best axial location of the self-impinging supersonic secondary double jet nozzle with a given jet interaction angle, built-in to a CD nozzle having area ratio 1.797, is 0.991 times the primary nozzle throat diameter from the throat location. We also observed that the flexible steering is possible after invoking ON/OFF facility to the secondary nozzles for meeting the onboard mission requirements. Through our case studies we concluded that the supersonic self-impinging secondary double jet at predesigned jet interaction angle and location can provide more flexible steering options facilitating with 8.81% higher thrust vectoring efficiency than the conventional supersonic single secondary jet without compromising the payload capability of any supersonic aerospace vehicle.

Keywords: Fluidic thrust vectoring, rocket steering, self-impinging secondary supersonic jet, TVC in aerospace vehicles.

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Authors: C. C. Okafor, E. E. Ugwu

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A comparative study on the feasibility of producing instant high fibre plantain flour for diabetic fufu by blending soy residence with different plantain (Musa spp) varieties (Horn, false Horn and French), all sieved at 60 mesh, mixed in ratio of 60:40 was analyzed for their passing properties using standard analytical method. Results show that VIIIS60 had the highest peak viscosity (303.75 RVU), Trough value (182.08 RVU), final viscosity (284.50 RVU), and lowest in breakdown viscosity (79.58 RVU), set back value (88.17 RVU), peak time (4.36min), pasting temperature (81.18°C) and differed significantly (p <0.05) from other samples. VIS60 had the lowest in peak viscosity (192.25 RVU), Trough value (112.67 RVU), final viscosity (211.92 RVU), but highest in breakdown viscosity (121.61 RVU), peak time (4.66min) pasting temperature (82.35°C), and differed significantly (p <0.05), from other samples. VIIS60 had the medium peak viscosity (236.67 RVU), Trough value (116.58 RVU), Break down viscosity (120:08 RVU), set back viscosity (167.92 RVU), peak time (4.39min), pasting temp (81.44°C) and differed significantly (p <0.05) from other samples. High final viscosity and low set back values of the French variety with soy residue blended at 60 mesh particle size recommends this french variety and fibre composition as optimum for production of instant plantain soy residue flour blend for production of diabetic fufu. 

Keywords: Plantain, soy residue pasting properties particle size.

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Authors: Charawee Butbumrung

Abstract:

This paper aimed to study the factors that relate to working behavior of employees at Pakkred Municipality, Nonthaburi Province. A questionnaire was utilized as the tool in collecting information. Descriptive statistics included frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Independent- sample t- test, analysis of variance and Pearson Correlation were also used. The findings of this research revealed that the majority of the respondents were female, between 25- 35 years old, married, with a Bachelor degree. The average monthly salary of respondents was between 8,001- 12,000 Baht, and having about 4-7 years of working experience. Regarding the overall working motivation factors, the findings showed that interrelationship, respect, and acceptance were ranked as highly important factors, whereas motivation, remunerations & welfare, career growth, and working conditions were ranked as moderately important factors. Also, overall working behavior was ranked as high. The hypotheses testing revealed that different genders had a different working behavior and had a different way of working as a team, which was significant at the 0.05 confidence level, Moreover, there was a difference among employees with different monthly salary in working behavior, problem- solving and decision making, which all were significant at the 0.05 confidence level. Employees with different years of working experience were found to have work working behavior both individual and as a team at the statistical significance level of 0.01 and 0.05. The result of testing the relationship between motivation in overall working revealed that interrelationship, respect and acceptance from others, career growth, and working conditions related to working behavior at a moderate level, while motivation in performing duties and remunerations and welfares related to working behavior towards the same direction at a low level, with a statistical significance of 0.01.

Keywords: Employees of Pakkred Municipality, Factors, Nonthaburi Province, Working Behavior.

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Authors: Taposh Roy, Anna Paradowska, Ralph Abrahams, Quan Lai, Michael Law, Peter Mutton, Mehdi Soodi, Wenyi Yan

Abstract:

In this investigation, a laser cladding process with a powder feeding was used to deposit stainless steel 410L (high strength, excellent resistance to abrasion and corrosion, and great laser compatibility) onto railhead (higher strength, heat treated hypereutectoid rail grade manufactured in accordance with the requirements of European standard EN 13674 Part 1 for R400HT grade), to investigate the development and controllability of process-induced residual stress in the cladding, heat-affected zone (HAZ) and substrate and to analyse their correlation with hardness profile during two different laser cladding directions (across and along the track). Residual stresses were analysed by neutron diffraction at OPAL reactor, ANSTO. Neutron diffraction was carried out on the samples in longitudinal (parallel to the rail), transverse (perpendicular to the rail) and normal (through thickness) directions with high spatial resolution through the thickness. Due to the thick rail and thin cladding, 4 mm thick reference samples were prepared from every specimen by Electric Discharge Machining (EDM). Metallography across the laser claded sample revealed four distinct zones: The clad zone, the dilution zone, HAZ and the substrate. Compressive residual stresses were found in the clad zone and tensile residual stress in the dilution zone and HAZ. Laser cladding in longitudinally cladding induced higher tensile stress in the HAZ, whereas transversely cladding rail showed lower tensile behavior.

Keywords: Laser cladding, residual stress, neutron diffraction, HAZ.

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Authors: Tamanna Siddiqui, M. Afshar Alam

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Automated discovery of Rule is, due to its applicability, one of the most fundamental and important method in KDD. It has been an active research area in the recent past. Hierarchical representation allows us to easily manage the complexity of knowledge, to view the knowledge at different levels of details, and to focus our attention on the interesting aspects only. One of such efficient and easy to understand systems is Hierarchical Production rule (HPRs) system. A HPR, a standard production rule augmented with generality and specificity information, is of the following form: Decision If < condition> Generality Specificity . HPRs systems are capable of handling taxonomical structures inherent in the knowledge about the real world. This paper focuses on the issue of mining Quantified rules with crisp hierarchical structure using Genetic Programming (GP) approach to knowledge discovery. The post-processing scheme presented in this work uses Quantified production rules as initial individuals of GP and discovers hierarchical structure. In proposed approach rules are quantified by using Dempster Shafer theory. Suitable genetic operators are proposed for the suggested encoding. Based on the Subsumption Matrix(SM), an appropriate fitness function is suggested. Finally, Quantified Hierarchical Production Rules (HPRs) are generated from the discovered hierarchy, using Dempster Shafer theory. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Knowledge discovery in database, quantification, dempster shafer theory, genetic programming, hierarchy, subsumption matrix.

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Authors: Shao Bo Cheng, Yong-Jin Han, Se Young Park, Seong-Bae Park

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Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) E-commerce has been growing at a very high speed in recent years. Since identical or nearly-same kinds of products compete one another by relying on keyword search in C2C E-commerce, some sellers describe their products with spam keywords that are popular but are not related to their products. Though such products get more chances to be retrieved and selected by consumers than those without spam keywords, the spam keywords mislead the consumers and waste their time. This problem has been reported in many commercial services like ebay and taobao, but there have been little research to solve this problem. As a solution to this problem, this paper proposes a method to classify whether keywords of a product are spam or not. The proposed method assumes that a keyword for a given product is more reliable if the keyword is observed commonly in specifications of products which are the same or the same kind as the given product. This is because that a hierarchical category of a product in general determined precisely by a seller of the product and so is the specification of the product. Since higher layers of the hierarchical category represent more general kinds of products, a reliable degree is differently determined according to the layers. Hence, reliable degrees from different layers of a hierarchical category become features for keywords and they are used together with features only from specifications for classification of the keywords. Support Vector Machines are adopted as a basic classifier using the features, since it is powerful, and widely used in many classification tasks. In the experiments, the proposed method is evaluated with a golden standard dataset from Yi-han-wang, a Chinese C2C E-commerce, and is compared with a baseline method that does not consider the hierarchical category. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the baseline in F1-measure, which proves that spam keywords are effectively identified by a hierarchical category in C2C E-commerce.

Keywords: Spam Keyword, E-commerce, keyword features, spam filtering.

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Authors: Ahmed M. Khedr, Saad M. Abdelrahman, Kareem M. Tonbol

Abstract:

Two geo-referenced sea level datasets (September 2008 – November 2010) and (April 2012 – January 2014) were recorded at Alexandria Western Harbour (AWH). Accurate re-definition of tidal datum, referred to the latest International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF-2014), was discussed and updated to improve our understanding of the old predefined tidal datum at Alexandria. Tidal and non-tidal components of sea level were separated with the use of Delft-3D hydrodynamic model-tide suit (Delft-3D, 2015). Tidal characteristics at AWH were investigated and harmonic analysis showed the most significant 34 constituents with their amplitudes and phases. Tide was identified as semi-diurnal pattern as indicated by a “Form Factor” of 0.24 and 0.25, respectively. Principle tidal datums related to major tidal phenomena were recalculated referred to a meaningful geodetic height datum. The portion of residual energy (surge) out of the total sea level energy was computed for each dataset and found 77% and 72%, respectively. Power spectral density (PSD) showed accurate resolvability in high band (1–6) cycle/days for the nominated independent constituents, except some neighbouring constituents, which are too close in frequency. Wind and atmospheric pressure data, during the recorded sea level time, were analysed and cross-correlated with the surge signals. Moderate association between surge and wind and atmospheric pressure data were obtained. In addition, long-term sea level rise trend at AWH was computed and showed good agreement with earlier estimated rates.

Keywords: Alexandria, Delft-3D, Egypt, geodetic reference, harmonic analysis, sea level.

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Authors: Nareelux Suwannobol, JintanaTapin, Khuanchanok Narachan

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The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy to estimation fetal weight by Johnson-s method and compares it with actual birth weight. The sample group was 126 infants delivered in Dan KhunThot hospital from January March 2012. Fetal weight was estimated by measuring fundal height according to Johnson-s method. The information was collected by studying historical delivery records and then analyzed by using the statistics of frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. Finally, the difference was analyzed by a paired t-test.The results showed had an average birth weight was 3093.57 ± 391.03 g (mean ± SD) and 3,455 ± 454.55 g average estimated fetal weight by Johnson-s method higher than average actual birth weight was 384.09 grams. When classifying the infants according to birth weight found that low birth weight (<2500 g) and the appropriate birth weight (2500-3999g) actual birth weight less than estimate fetal weight . But the high birth weight (> 4000 g) actual birth weight was more than estimated fetal weight. The difference was found between actual birth weight and estimation fetal weight of the minimum weight in high birth weight ( > 4000 g) , the appropriate birth weight (2500-3999g) and low birth weight (<2500 g) respectively. The rate of estimates fetal weight within 10% of actual birth weight was 35.7%. Actual birth weight were compared with the found that the difference is statistically significant (p <.000). Employing Johnson-s method to estimate fetal weight can estimate initial fetal weight before passing to special examinations, which may require excessive high cost. A variety of methods should be employed to estimate fetal weight more precisely, which will help plan care for mother-s and infant-s safety.

Keywords: Johnson's method, Fetal weight estimate, Delivery Room, Student nurse.

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Authors: Md. Royhanur Islam, Thomas Cansse, Md. Sahidul Islam, Atiqur Rahman Sunny

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The geographical location of Bangladesh makes it one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Climate-induced phenomena mainly affect the south-central region of Bangladesh (Laxmipur district) where they have begun to occur more frequently. The aim of the study was to identify the hydro-climatic factors that lead to weather-related disasters in the coastal areas and analyse the consequences of these factors on coastal livelihoods, with possible adaptation options using participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools. The present study showed several disasters such as land erosion, depressions and cyclones, coastal flooding, storm surge, and precipitation. The frequency of these disasters is of a noticeable rate. Surveys have also discovered that land erosion is ongoing. Tidal water is being introduced directly into the mainland, and as a result of the salt intrusion, production capacity is declining. The coastal belt is an important area for fishing activities, but due to changed fishing times and a lack of Alternative Income Generating Activities (AIGAs), people have been forced to search for alternative livelihood options by taking both short-term and long-term adaptation options. Therefore, in order to increase awareness and minimize the losses, vulnerable communities must be fully incorporated into disaster response strategies. The government as well as national and international donor organizations should come forward and resolve the present situation of these vulnerable groups since otherwise, they will have to endure endless and miserable suffering due to the effects of climate change ahead in their lives.

Keywords: Adaptation, community, fishery development, livelihood.

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Authors: V Krishnaveni, S Jayaraman, A Gunasekaran, K Ramadoss

Abstract:

The ElectroEncephaloGram (EEG) is useful for clinical diagnosis and biomedical research. EEG signals often contain strong ElectroOculoGram (EOG) artifacts produced by eye movements and eye blinks especially in EEG recorded from frontal channels. These artifacts obscure the underlying brain activity, making its visual or automated inspection difficult. The goal of ocular artifact removal is to remove ocular artifacts from the recorded EEG, leaving the underlying background signals due to brain activity. In recent times, Independent Component Analysis (ICA) algorithms have demonstrated superior potential in obtaining the least dependent source components. In this paper, the independent components are obtained by using the JADE algorithm (best separating algorithm) and are classified into either artifact component or neural component. Neural Network is used for the classification of the obtained independent components. Neural Network requires input features that exactly represent the true character of the input signals so that the neural network could classify the signals based on those key characters that differentiate between various signals. In this work, Auto Regressive (AR) coefficients are used as the input features for classification. Two neural network approaches are used to learn classification rules from EEG data. First, a Polynomial Neural Network (PNN) trained by GMDH (Group Method of Data Handling) algorithm is used and secondly, feed-forward neural network classifier trained by a standard back-propagation algorithm is used for classification and the results show that JADE-FNN performs better than JADEPNN.

Keywords: Auto Regressive (AR) Coefficients, Feed Forward Neural Network (FNN), Joint Approximation Diagonalisation of Eigen matrices (JADE) Algorithm, Polynomial Neural Network (PNN).

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Authors: M. Ondova, A. Estokova

Abstract:

Rapid industrialization results in increased use of natural resources bring along serious ecological and environmental imbalance due to the dumping of industrial wastes. Principles of sustainable construction have to be accepted with regard to the consumption of natural resources and the production of harmful emissions. Cement is a great importance raw material in the building industry and today is its large amount used in the construction of concrete pavements. Concerning raw materials cost and producing CO₂ emission the replacing of cement in concrete mixtures with more sustainable materials is necessary. To reduce this environmental impact people all over the world are looking for a solution. Over a period of last ten years, the image of fly ash has completely been changed from a polluting waste to resource material and it can solve the major problems of cement use. Fly ash concretes are proposed as a potential approach for achieving substantial reductions in cement. It is known that it improves the workability of concrete, extends the life cycle of concrete roads, and reduces energy use and greenhouse gas as well as amount of coal combustion products that must be disposed in landfills.

Life cycle assessment also proved that a concrete pavement with fly ash cement replacement is considerably more environmentally friendly compared to standard concrete roads. In addition, fly ash is cheap raw material, and the costs saving are guaranteed. The strength properties, resistance to a frost or de-icing salts, which are important characteristics in the construction of concrete pavements, have reached the required standards as well. In terms of human health it can´t be stated that a concrete cover with fly ash could be dangerous compared with a cover without fly ash. Final Multi-criteria analysis also pointed that a concrete with fly ash is a clearly proper solution.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment, fly ash, waste, concrete pavements

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Authors: S. Rawangwong, J. Chatthong, W. Boonchouytan

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The objective of the research was to study of foot anthropometry of children aged 7-12 years in the South of Thailand Thirty-three dimensions were measured on 305 male and 295 female subjects with 3 age ranges (7-12 years old). The instrumentation consists of four types of anthropometer, digital vernier caliper, digital height gauge and measuring tape. The mean values and standard deviations of average age, height, and weight of the male subjects were 9.52(±1.70) years, 137.80(±11.55) cm, and 37.57(±11.65) kg. Female average age, height, and weight subjects were 9.53(±1.70) years, 137.88(±11.55) cm, and 34.90(±11.57) kg respectively. The comparison of the 33 comparison measured anthropometric. Between male and female subjects were sexual differences in size on women in almost all areas of significance (p<0.05). The comparison of size and proportion elementary school students 11-12 years old men in Southern of Thailand with Thai boys aged 11-12 years of industrial standards at stage 4 year A.D. 2000-2001 Number nine ratio. Concluded that students male in Southern of Thailand has a size different from the proportions of research Industrial Standards. Ministry of Industry, Phase 4, when every year from A.D. 2000-2001 ratio was significantly (p<0.05).All of the feet studied were classified into 4 categories according to the ratios of diagonal foot breadth to the maximum foot length and heel breadth to the foot breadth. They were short but thick, small but long, small, and large. The numbers of the males feet classified in these categories were 86, 64, 40, and 115 persons or 28.20, 20.98, 13.11, and 37.70% respectively. For the female feet, the same values were 46, 59, 81, and 109 persons or 15.59, 20.00, 27.46, and 36.95% respectively.

Keywords: Ergonomics, foot anthropometry, male and female, primary school children

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Authors: Hossein Tavallali, Mohammad Ali Karimi, Gohar Deilamy-Rad

Abstract:

The proposed method for speciation, preconcentration and determination of Fe(II) and Fe(III) in pharmaceutical products was developed using of alumina-coated magnetite nanoparticles (Fe₃O₄/Al₂O₃ NPs) as solid phase extraction (SPE) sorbent in magnetic mixed hemimicell solid phase extraction (MMHSPE) technique followed by flame atomic absorption spectrometry analysis. The procedure is based on complexation of Fe(II) with 1, 10-phenanthroline (OP) as complexing reagent for Fe(II) that immobilized on the modified Fe₃O₄/Al₂O₃ NPs. The extraction and concentration process for pharmaceutical sample was carried out in a single step by mixing the extraction solvent, magnetic adsorbents under ultrasonic action. Then, the adsorbents were isolated from the complicated matrix easily with an external magnetic field. Fe(III) ions determined after facility reduced to Fe(II) by added a proper reduction agent to sample solutions. Compared with traditional methods, the MMHSPE method simplified the operation procedure and reduced the analysis time. Various influencing parameters on the speciation and preconcentration of trace iron, such as pH, sample volume, amount of sorbent, type and concentration of eluent, were studied. Under the optimized operating conditions, the preconcentration factor of the modified nano magnetite for Fe(II) 167 sample was obtained. The detection limits and linear range of this method for iron were 1.0 and 9.0 - 175 ng.mL⁻¹, respectively. Also the relative standard deviation for five replicate determinations of 30.00 ng.mL^-1 Fe²⁺ was 2.3%.

Keywords: Alumina-coated magnetite nanoparticles, magnetic mixed hemimicell solid-phase extraction, Fe(ΙΙ) and Fe(ΙΙΙ), pharmaceutical sample.

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Authors: Batin Latif Aylak, Bernd Noche

Abstract:

Overhead conveyor systems satisfy by their simple
construction, wide application range and their full compatibility with
other manufacturing systems, which are designed according to
international standards. Ultra-light overhead conveyor systems are
rope-based conveying systems with individually driven vehicles. The
vehicles can move automatically on the rope and this can be realized
by energy and signals. Crossings are realized by switches. Overhead
conveyor systems are particularly used in the automotive industry but
also at post offices. Overhead conveyor systems always must be
integrated with a logistical process by finding the best way for a
cheaper material flow and in order to guarantee precise and fast
workflows. With their help, any transport can take place without
wasting ground and space, without excessive company capacity, lost
or damaged products, erroneous delivery, endless travels and without
wasting time. Ultra-light overhead conveyor systems provide optimal
material flow, which produces profit and saves time. This article
illustrates the advantages of the structure of the ultra-light overhead
conveyor systems in logistics applications and explains the steps of
their system design. After an illustration of the steps, currently
available systems on the market will be shown by means of their
technical characteristics. Due to their simple construction, demands
to an ultra-light overhead conveyor system will be illustrated.

Keywords: Logistics, material flow, overhead conveyor.

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Authors: S. K. Balashanmugam, Padmavati Manchikanti, S. R. Subramanian

Abstract:

The question of legal liability over injury arising out of the import and the introduction of GM food emerges as a crucial issue confronting to promote GM food and its derivatives. There is a greater possibility of commercialized GM food from the exporting country to enter importing country where status of approval shall not be same. This necessitates the importance of fixing a liability mechanism to discuss the damage, if any, occurs at the level of transboundary movement or at the market. There was a widespread consensus to develop the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and to give for a dedicated regime on liability and redress in the form of Nagoya Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on the Liability and Redress (‘N-KL Protocol’) at the international context. The national legal frameworks based on this protocol are not adequately established in the prevailing food legislations of the developing countries. The developing economy like India is willing to import GM food and its derivatives after the successful commercialization of Bt Cotton in 2002. As a party to the N-KL Protocol, it is indispensable for India to formulate a legal framework and to discuss safety, liability, and regulatory issues surrounding GM foods in conformity to the provisions of the Protocol. The liability mechanism is also important in the case where the risk assessment and risk management is still in implementing stage. Moreover, the country is facing GM infiltration issues with its neighbors Bangladesh. As a precautionary approach, there is a need to formulate rules and procedure of legal liability to discuss any kind of damage occurs at transboundary trade. In this context, the proposed work will attempt to analyze the liability regime in the existing Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 from the applicability and domestic compliance and to suggest legal and policy options for regulatory authorities.

Keywords: Commercialisation, food safety, FSSAI, genetically modified foods, India, liability.

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Authors: Joseph Zernik

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Validity, integrity, and impacts of the IT systems of the US federal courts have been studied as part of the Human Rights Alert-NGO (HRA) submission for the 2015 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of human rights in the United States by the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations (UN). The current report includes overview of IT system analysis, data-mining and case studies. System analysis and data-mining show: Development and implementation with no lawful authority, servers of unverified identity, invalidity in implementation of electronic signatures, authentication instruments and procedures, authorities and permissions; discrimination in access against the public and unrepresented (pro se) parties and in favor of attorneys; widespread publication of invalid judicial records and dockets, leading to their false representation and false enforcement. A series of case studies documents the impacts on individuals' human rights, on banking regulation, and on international matters. Significance is discussed in the context of various media and expert reports, which opine unprecedented corruption of the US justice system today, and which question, whether the US Constitution was in fact suspended. Similar findings were previously reported in IT systems of the State of California and the State of Israel, which were incorporated, subject to professional HRC staff review, into the UN UPR reports (2010 and 2013). Solutions are proposed, based on the principles of publicity of the law and the separation of power: Reliance on US IT and legal experts under accountability to the legislative branch, enhancing transparency, ongoing vigilance by human rights and internet activists. IT experts should assume more prominent civic duties in the safeguard of civil society in our era.

Keywords: E-justice, federal courts, United States, human rights, banking regulation.

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Authors: Chi-Fang Huang, Yun-Shiow Chen, Yun-Kung Chung

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In the past decade, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been regarded as an instrument for problem-solving and decision-making; indeed, they have already done with a substantial efficiency and effectiveness improvement in industries and businesses. In this paper, the Back-Propagation neural Networks (BPNs) will be modulated to demonstrate the performance of the collaborative forecasting (CF) function of a Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR®) system. CPFR functions the balance between the sufficient product supply and the necessary customer demand in a Supply and Demand Chain (SDC). Several classical standard BPN will be grouped, collaborated and exploited for the easy implementation of the proposed modular ANN framework based on the topology of a SDC. Each individual BPN is applied as a modular tool to perform the task of forecasting SKUs (Stock-Keeping Units) levels that are managed and supervised at a POS (point of sale), a wholesaler, and a manufacturer in an SDC. The proposed modular BPN-based CF system will be exemplified and experimentally verified using lots of datasets of the simulated SDC. The experimental results showed that a complex CF problem can be divided into a group of simpler sub-problems based on the single independent trading partners distributed over SDC, and its SKU forecasting accuracy was satisfied when the system forecasted values compared to the original simulated SDC data. The primary task of implementing an autonomous CF involves the study of supervised ANN learning methodology which aims at making “knowledgeable" decision for the best SKU sales plan and stocks management.

Keywords: CPFR, artificial neural networks, global logistics, supply and demand chain.

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Authors: P. I. Adzongo, O. A. Aloga

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The purpose of the study was to examine lifelong education for teachers as a tool for achieving effective teaching and learning. Lifelong education enhances social inclusion, personal development, citizenship, employability, teaching and learning, community and the nation. It is imperative that the teacher needs to update his knowledge regularly to be able to perform optimally, since he has a major position in the inculcation of desirable elements in students, and the challenges of lifelong education were also discussed. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 80 teachers as sample from a population of 105 senior secondary school teachers in Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue State. A 20-item self designed questionnaire subjected to expert validation and reliability was used to collect data. The reliability Alpha coefficient of 0.87 was established using Cronbach’s Alpha technique, mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the 2 research questions while chi-square was used to analyse data for the 2 null hypotheses, which states that lifelong education for teachers is not a significant tool for achieving effective teaching and lifelong education for teachers does not significantly impact on effective learning. The findings of the study revealed that, lifelong education for teachers can be used as a tool for achieving effective teaching and learning, and the study recommended among others that government, organizations and individuals should in collaboration put lifelong education programmes for teachers on the priority list. The paper concluded that the strategic position of lifelong education for teachers towards enhanced teaching, learning and the production of quality manpower in the society makes it imperative for all hands to be on “deck” to support the programme financially and otherwise.

Keywords: Lifelong Education, Tool, Effective Teaching and Learning.

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Authors: Nagore Guerra Bilbao, Clemente Lobato Fraile

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This paper outlines the design and development of the MENDEPRO questionnaire, designed to analyze mentoring performance within a professional development process carried out with professors at the University of the Basque Country, Spain. The study took into account the international research carried out over the past two decades into teachers' professional development, and was also based on a thorough review of the most common instruments used to identify and analyze mentoring styles, many of which fail to provide sufficient psychometric guarantees. The present study aimed to gather empirical data in order to verify the metric quality of the questionnaire developed. To this end, the process followed to validate the theoretical construct was as follows: The formulation of the items and indicators in accordance with the study variables; the analysis of the validity and reliability of the initial questionnaire; the review of the second version of the questionnaire and the definitive measurement instrument. Content was validated through the formal agreement and consensus of 12 university professor training experts. A reduced sample of professors who had participated in a lifelong learning program was then selected for a trial evaluation of the instrument developed. After the trial, 18 items were removed from the initial questionnaire. The final version of the instrument, comprising 33 items, was then administered to a sample group of 99 participants. The results revealed a five-dimensional structure matching theoretical expectations. Also, the reliability data for both the instrument as a whole (.98) and its various dimensions (between .91 and .97) were very high. The questionnaire was thus found to have satisfactory psychometric properties and can therefore be considered apt for studying the performance of mentoring in both induction programs for young professors and lifelong learning programs for senior faculty members.

Keywords: Higher education, mentoring, professional development, university teachers.

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Authors: Shih-Hsu Wang, Yuan-Yuan Cheng, Ming-Tsung Lee, Wei-Chih Wang

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Determining reasonable fees is the main objective of designing the cost estimation and payment systems for consultant contracts. However, project clients utilize different cost estimation and payment systems because of their varying views on the reasonableness of consultant fees. This study reviews the cost estimation and payment systems of consultant contracts for five countries, including the US (Washington State Department of Transportation), Japan (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism), China (Engineering Design Charging Standard) and UK (Her Majesty's Treasure). Specifically, this work investigates the budgeting process, contractor selection method, contractual price negotiation process, cost review, and cost-control concept of the systems used in these countries. The main finding indicates that that project client-s view on whether the fee is high will affect the way he controls it. In the US, the fee is commonly considered to be high. As a result, stringent auditing system (low flexibility given to the consultant) is then applied. In the UK, the fee is viewed to be low by comparing it to the total life-cycle project cost. Thus, a system that has high flexibility in budgeting and cost reviewing is given to the consultant. In terms of the flexibility allowed for the consultant, the systems applied in Japan and China fall between those of the US and UK. Both the US and UK systems are helpful in determining a reasonable fee. However, in the US system, rigid auditing standards must be established and additional cost-audit manpower is required. In the UK system, sufficient historical cost data should be needed to evaluate the reasonableness of the consultant-s proposed fee

Keywords: Consultant Services, Cost Estimation and Payment System, Payment Flexibility, Cost-control Concept

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Authors: Syed Muzyan Shahzad, Liu Jianxin, Asim Shahzad, Muhammad Sharjeel Raza, Sun Ya, Fanidi Meryem

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Electrical resistivity investigation was conducted in vicinity of Tarbela Ghazi, in order to study the subsurface layer with a view of determining the depth to the aquifer and thickness of groundwater potential zones. Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) using Schlumberger array was carried out at 16 VES stations. Well logging data at four tube wells have been used to mark the super saturated zones with great discharge rate. The present paper shows a geoelectrical identification of the lithology and an estimate of the relationship between the resistivity and Dar Zarrouk parameters (transverse unit resistance and longitudinal unit conductance). The VES results revealed both homogeneous and heterogeneous nature of the subsurface strata. Aquifer is unconfined to confine in nature, and at few locations though perched aquifer has been identified, groundwater potential zones are developed in unconsolidated deposits layers and more than seven geo-electric layers are observed at some VES locations. Saturated zones thickness ranges from 5 m to 150 m, whereas at few area aquifer is beyond 150 m thick. The average anisotropy, transvers resistance and longitudinal conductance values are 0.86 %, 35750.9821 Ω.m², 0.729 Siemens, respectively. The transverse unit resistance values fluctuate all over the aquifer system, whereas below at particular depth high values are observed, that significantly associated with the high transmissivity zones. The groundwater quality in all analyzed samples is below permissible limit according to World Health Standard (WHO).

Keywords: Geoelectric layers, Dar Zarrouk parameters, Aquifer, Electro-stratigraphic.

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Authors: A. Rong, P. B. Luh, R. Lahdelma

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High penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources (RES) such as solar power and wind power into the energy system has caused temporal and spatial imbalance between electric power supply and demand for some countries and regions. This brings about the critical need for coordinating power production and power exchange for different regions. As compared with the power-only systems, the combined heat and power (CHP) systems can provide additional flexibility of utilizing RES by exploiting the interdependence of power and heat production in the CHP plant. In the CHP system, power production can be influenced by adjusting heat production level and electric power can be used to satisfy heat demand by electric boiler or heat pump in conjunction with heat storage, which is much cheaper than electric storage. This paper addresses multi-site CHP systems without considering RES, which lay foundation for handling penetration of RES. The problem under study is the unit commitment (UC) of the transmission-constrained multi-site CHP systems. We solve the problem by combining linear relaxation of ON/OFF states and sequential dynamic programming (DP) techniques, where relaxed states are used to reduce the dimension of the UC problem and DP for improving the solution quality. Numerical results for daily scheduling with realistic models and data show that DP-based algorithm is from a few to a few hundred times faster than CPLEX (standard commercial optimization software) with good solution accuracy (less than 1% relative gap from the optimal solution on the average).

Keywords: Dynamic programming, multi-site combined heat and power system, relaxed states, transmission-constrained generation unit commitment.

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Authors: N. Kannan, Sabu Joseph

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Groundwater is an essential and vital component of our life support system. The groundwater resources are being utilized for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes. There is growing concern on deterioration of groundwater quality due to geogenic and anthropogenic activities. Groundwater, being a fragile must be carefully managed to maintain its purity within standard limits. So, quality assessment and management are to be carried out hand-in-hand to have a pollution free environment and for a sustainable use. In order to assess the quality for consumption by human beings and for use in agriculture, the groundwater from the shallow aquifers (dug well) in the Palakkad and Chittur taluks of Bharathapuzha river basin - a paddy dominated agricultural basin (order=8th; L= 209 Km; Area = 6186 Km2), Kerala, India, has been selected. The water samples (n= 120) collected for various seasons, viz., monsoon-MON (August, 2005), postmonsoon-POM (December, 2005) and premonsoon-PRM (April, 2006), were analyzed for important physico-chemical attributes. Spatial and temporal variation of attributes do exist in the study area, and based on major cations and anions, different hydrochemical facies have been identified. Using Gibbs'diagram, rock dominance has been identified as the mechanism controlling groundwater chemistry. Further, the suitability of water for irrigation was determined by analyzing salinity hazard indicated by sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), residual sodium carbonate (RSC) and sodium percent (%Na). Finally, stress zones in the study area were delineated using Arc GIS spatial analysis and various management options were recommended to restore the ecosystem.

Keywords: Groundwater quality, agricultural basin, Kerala, India.

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Authors: Sundararajan Sangeetha, Joseph Jesu Christopher, Swaminathan Ramakrishnan

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In this work, the primary compressive strength components of human femur trabecular bone are qualitatively assessed using image processing and wavelet analysis. The Primary Compressive (PC) component in planar radiographic femur trabecular images (N=50) is delineated by semi-automatic image processing procedure. Auto threshold binarization algorithm is employed to recognize the presence of mineralization in the digitized images. The qualitative parameters such as apparent mineralization and total area associated with the PC region are derived for normal and abnormal images.The two-dimensional discrete wavelet transforms are utilized to obtain appropriate features that quantify texture changes in medical images .The normal and abnormal samples of the human femur are comprehensively analyzed using Harr wavelet.The six statistical parameters such as mean, median, mode, standard deviation, mean absolute deviation and median absolute deviation are derived at level 4 decomposition for both approximation and horizontal wavelet coefficients. The correlation coefficient of various wavelet derived parameters with normal and abnormal for both approximated and horizontal coefficients are estimated. It is seen that in almost all cases the abnormal show higher degree of correlation than normals. Further the parameters derived from approximation coefficient show more correlation than those derived from the horizontal coefficients. The parameters mean and median computed at the output of level 4 Harr wavelet channel was found to be a useful predictor to delineate the normal and the abnormal groups.

Keywords: Image processing, planar radiographs, trabecular bone and wavelet analysis.

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Authors: Mylena McCoggle, Shyra Wilson, Andrea Rivera, Rocio Alba-Flores, Valentin Soloiu

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This work describes a system that uses electromyography (EMG) signals obtained from muscle sensors and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for signal classification and pattern recognition that is used to control a small unmanned aerial vehicle using specific arm movements. The main objective of this endeavor is the development of an intelligent interface that allows the user to control the flight of a drone beyond direct manual control. The sensor used were the MyoWare Muscle sensor which contains two EMG electrodes used to collect signals from the posterior (extensor) and anterior (flexor) forearm, and the bicep. The collection of the raw signals from each sensor was performed using an Arduino Uno. Data processing algorithms were developed with the purpose of classifying the signals generated by the arm’s muscles when performing specific movements, namely: flexing, resting, and motion of the arm. With these arm motions roll control of the drone was achieved. MATLAB software was utilized to condition the signals and prepare them for the classification. To generate the input vector for the ANN and perform the classification, the root mean square and the standard deviation were processed for the signals from each electrode. The neuromuscular information was trained using an ANN with a single 10 neurons hidden layer to categorize the four targets. The result of the classification shows that an accuracy of 97.5% was obtained. Afterwards, classification results are used to generate the appropriate control signals from the computer to the drone through a Wi-Fi network connection. These procedures were successfully tested, where the drone responded successfully in real time to the commanded inputs.

Keywords: Biosensors, electromyography, Artificial Neural Network, Arduino, drone flight control, machine learning.

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Authors: D. Hilton

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An analysis of the Australian Diabetes Screening Study estimated undiagnosed diabetes mellitus [DM] prevalence in a high risk general practice based cohort. DM prevalence varied from 9.4% to 18.1% depending upon the diagnostic criteria utilised with age being a highly significant risk factor. Utilising the gold standard oral glucose tolerance test, the prevalence of DM was 22-23% in those aged >= 70 years and <15% in those aged 40-59 years. Opportunistic screening in Australian general practice potentially can identify many persons with undiagnosed type 2 DM. An Australian Bureau of Statistics document published three years ago, reported the highest rate of DM in men aged 65-74 years [19%] whereas the rate for women was highest in those over 75 years [13%]. If you consider that the Australian Bureau of Statistics report in 2007 found that 13% of the population was over 65 years of age and that this will increase to 23-25% by 2056 with a further projected increase to 25-28% by 2101, obviously this information has to be factored into the equation when age related diabetes prevalence predictions are calculated. This 10-15% proportional increase of elderly persons within the population demographics has dramatic implications for the estimated number of elderly persons with DM in these age groupings. Computational methodology showing the age related demographic changes reported in these official statistical documents will be done showing estimates for 2056 and 2101 for different age groups. This has relevance for future diabetes prevalence rates and shows that along with many countries worldwide Australia is facing an increasing pandemic. In contrast Japan is expected to have a decrease in the next twenty years in the number of persons with diabetes.

Keywords: Epidemiological methods, aging, prevalence.

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