Search results for: Group contribution theory

Authors: A. M. Gsiea, J. P. Goss, P. R. Briddon, Ramadan. M. Al-habashi, K. M. Etmimi, Khaled. A. S. Marghani

Abstract:

Using first-principles methods based on density functional theory and pseudopotentials, we have performed a details study of native defects in ZnO. Native point defects are unlikely to be cause of the unintentional n-type conductivity. Oxygen vacancies, which considered most often been invoked as shallow donors, have high formation energies in n-type ZnO, in edition are a deep donors. Zinc interstitials are shallow donors, with high formation energies in n-type ZnO, and thus unlikely to be responsible on their own for unintentional n-type conductivity under equilibrium conditions, as well as Zn antisites which have higher formation energies than zinc interstitials. Zinc vacancies are deep acceptors with low formation energies for n-type and in which case they will not play role in p-type coductivity of ZnO. Oxygen interstitials are stable in the form of electrically inactive split interstitials as well as deep acceptors at the octahedral interstitial site under n-type conditions. Our results may provide a guide to experimental studies of point defects in ZnO.

Keywords: DFT, Native, n-Type, ZnO.

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Authors: Antonio Estache, Atsushi Iimi

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Limited competition has been a serious concern in infrastructure procurement. Importantly, however, there are normally a number of potential bidders initially showing interest in proposed projects. This paper focuses on tackling the question why these initially interested bidders fade out. An empirical problem is that no bids of fading-out firms are observable. They could decide not to enter the process at the beginning of the tendering or may be technically disqualified at any point in the selection process. The paper applies the double selection model to procurement data from road development projects in developing countries and shows that competition ends up restricted, because bidders are self-selective and auctioneers also tend to limit participation depending on the size of contracts.Limited competition would likely lead to high infrastructure procurement costs, threatening fiscal sustainability and economic growth.

Keywords: Auction theory, endogenous bidder entry, infrastructure development, public procurement.

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Authors: G. Trigui, B. Laroche, M. Miquel, B. Dubreucq, A. Trubuil

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The subcellular organelles called oil bodies (OBs) are lipid-filled quasi-spherical droplets produced from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and then released into the cytoplasm during seed development. It is believed that an OB grows by coalescence with other OBs and that its stability depends on the composition of oleosins, major proteins inserted in the hemi membrane that covers OBs. In this study, we measured the OB-volume distribution from different genotypes of A. thaliana after 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 days of seed development. In order to test the hypothesis of OBs dynamics, we developed a simple mathematical model using non-linear differential equations inspired from the theory of coagulation. The model describes the evolution of OB-volume distribution during the first steps of seed development by taking into consideration the production of OBs, the increase of triacylglycerol volume to be stored, and the growth by coalescence of OBs. Fitted parameters values show an increase in the OB production and coalescence rates in A. thaliana oleosin mutants compared to wild type.

Keywords: Biogenesis, coalescence, oil body, oleosin, population dynamics.

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Authors: Pu Duan, Shi Cui, Choong Wah Chan

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Finding suitable non-supersingular elliptic curves for pairing-based cryptosystems becomes an important issue for the modern public-key cryptography after the proposition of id-based encryption scheme and short signature scheme. In previous work different algorithms have been proposed for finding such elliptic curves when embedding degree k ∈ {3, 4, 6} and cofactor h ∈ {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. In this paper a new method is presented to find more non-supersingular elliptic curves for pairing-based cryptosystems with general embedding degree k and large values of cofactor h. In addition, some effective parameters of these non-supersingular elliptic curves are provided in this paper.

Keywords: Family of group order, kth root of unity, non-supersingular elliptic curves polynomial field.

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Authors: Shannon M. Chance, Pamela L. Eddy, Gavin Duffy, Brian Bowe, Jen Harvey

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Educational institutions often implement policies with the intention of influencing how learning and teaching occur. Generally, such policies are not as effective as their makers would like; changing the behavior of third-level teachers proves difficult. Nevertheless, a policy instituted in 2006 at the Dublin Institute of Technology has met with success: each newly hired faculty member must have a post-graduate qualification in “Learning and Teaching" or successfully complete one within the first two years of employment. The intention is to build teachers- knowledge about student-centered pedagogies and their capacity to implement them. As a result of this policy (and associated programs that support it), positive outcomes are readily apparent. Individual teachers who have completed the programs have implemented significant change at the course and program levels. This paper introduces the policy, identifies outcomes in relation to existing theory, describes research underway, and pinpoints areas where organizational learning has occurred.

Keywords: Faculty Development, Institutional Policy, Learning and Teaching, Postgraduate Qualification, Professional Development.

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Authors: Natinee Thanajaro

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In the past few decades, international research on the country of origin of products has garnered significant interest, particularly in investigating the effects of consumers’ evaluation and perception. As globalization and market competition rise, international firms are seeking ways to control their labour costs and minimise taxes. Many products are outsourced and manufactured in countries with cheap labour. Consequently, the proliferation of ‘bi-national’ products has increased, raising important questions related to consumers’ perception. Moreover, the rapid growth in emerging markets, especially in Asia, has made these countries attractive options for international brands. Therefore, studying the country of origin allows firms and researchers to understand how customers perceive such information regarding the country of manufacture and the country of the brand. This study aims to investigate the influence of the country of manufacture (COM) and country of brand (COB) on Thai consumers’ perception of the brand. In addition, it embraces a different perspective on brand experience as a moderating factor. A sample of 403 Thai respondents was collected through face-to-face survey questionnaires in central Bangkok. This research employs an experiment using a factorial design to test the hypotheses. SPSS statistics software was adopted to analyse and validate the reliability of the testing of the constructs and model hypotheses. The results of this research show that the respondents positively respond to the COB more than the COM, and brand experience plays a moderating role in this research. This research provides a significant contribution to the existing literature and managerial practicality by using multi-dimensional information on the country and analyses the relationships between these dimensions.

Keywords: Brand experience, country of brand, country of manufacture, purchase intention.

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Authors: Z. Shaaban

Abstract:

This paper presents a new approach to tackle the problem of recognizing machine-printed Arabic texts. Because of the difficulty of recognizing cursive Arabic words, the text has to be normalized and segmented to be ready for the recognition stage. The new scheme for recognizing Arabic characters depends on multiple parallel neural networks classifier. The classifier has two phases. The first phase categories the input character into one of eight groups. The second phase classifies the character into one of the Arabic character classes in the group. The system achieved high recognition rate.

Keywords: Neural Networks, character recognition, feature extraction, multiple networks, Arabic text.

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Authors: S. Looser, W. Wehrmeyer

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Given the limited research on Small and Mediumsized Enterprises’ (SMEs) contribution to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and even scarcer research on Swiss SMEs, this paper helps to fill these gaps by enabling the identification of supranational SME parameters. Thus, the paper investigates the current state of SME practices in Switzerland and across 15 other countries. Combining the degree to which SMEs demonstrate an explicit (or business case) approach or see CSR as an implicit moral activity with the assessment of their attributes for “variety of capitalism” defines the framework of this comparative analysis. To outline Swiss small business CSR patterns in particular, 40 SME owner-managers were interviewed. A secondary data analysis of studies from different countries laid groundwork for this comparative overview of small business CSR. The paper identifies Swiss small business CSR as driven by norms, values, and by the aspiration to contribute to society, thus, as an implicit part of the day-to-day business. Similar to most Central European, Mediterranean, Nordic, and Asian countries, explicit CSR is still very rare in Swiss SMEs. Astonishingly, also British and American SMEs follow this pattern in spite of their strong and distinctly liberal market economies. Though other findings show that nationality matters this research concludes that SME culture and an informal CSR agenda are strongly formative and superseding even forces of market economies, nationally cultural patterns, and language. Hence, classifications of countries by their market system, as found in the comparative capitalism literature, do not match the CSR practices in SMEs as they do not mirror the peculiarities of their business. This raises questions on the universality and generalisability of unmediated, explicit management concepts, especially in the context of small firms.

Keywords: CSR, comparative study, cultures of capitalism, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.

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Authors: Shunsuke Miyoshi, Yasuyuki Nogami, Takuya Kusaka, Nariyoshi Yamai

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Elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem(ECDLP) is one of problems on which the security of pairing-based cryptography is based. This paper considers Pollard’s rho method to evaluate the security of ECDLP on Barreto-Naehrig(BN) curve that is an efficient pairing-friendly curve. Some techniques are proposed to make the rho method efficient. Especially, the group structure on BN curve, distinguished point method, and Montgomery trick are well-known techniques. This paper applies these techniques and shows its optimization. According to the experimental results for which a large-scale parallel system with MySQL is applied, 94-bit ECDLP was solved about 28 hours by parallelizing 71 computers.

Keywords: Pollard’s rho method, BN curve, Montgomery multiplication.

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Authors: Saleh Dabil

Abstract:

the research was conducted using the self report of shoplifters who apprehended in the supermarket while stealing. 943 shoplifters in three years were interviewed right after the stealing act and before calling the police. The aim of the study is to know the shoplifting characteristics in Saudi Arabia, including the trait of shoplifters and the situation of the supermarkets where the stealing takes place. The analysis based on the written information about each thief as the documentary research method. Descriptive statistics as well as some inferential statistics were employed. The result shows that there are differences between genders, age groups, occupations, time of the day, days of the week, months, way of stealing, individual or group of thieves and other supermarket situations in the type of items stolen, total price and the count of items. The result and the recommendation will serve as a guide for retailers where, when and who to look at to prevent shoplifting.

Keywords: Shoplifting, stealing, theft, supermarket.

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Authors: Alireza Fereidooni, Kamran Behdinan, Zouheir Fawaz

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The integral form of equations of motion of composite beams subjected to varying time loads are discretized using a developed finite element model. The model consists of a straight five node twenty-two degrees of freedom beam element. The stability analysis of the beams is studied by solving the matrix form characteristic equations of the system. The principle of virtual work and the first order shear deformation theory are employed to analyze the beams with large deformation and small strains. The regions of dynamic instability of the beam are determined by solving the obtained Mathieu form of differential equations. The effects of nonconservative loads, shear stiffness, and damping parameters on stability and response of the beams are examined. Several numerical calculations are presented to compare the results with data reported by other researchers.

Keywords: Finite element beam model, Composite Beams, stability analysis

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Authors: Ali Akbar

Abstract:

The main purpose of this essay is to examine whether or not the earthly punishments in regards to apostates that are often found in classical Islamic sources are applicable in the present context. The paper indeed addresses how Muslims should understand the question of apostasy in the contemporary context. To do so, the paper first argues that an accurate understanding of the way the Quranic verses and prophetic hadiths deal with the concept of apostasy could help us rethink and re-examine the classical Islamic laws on apostasy in the present context. In addition, building on Abdolkarim Soroush’s theory of contraction and expansion of religious knowledge, this article argues that approaches to apostasy in the present context can move away from what prescribed by classical Islamic laws. Finally, it argues that instances of persecution of apostates in the early days of Islam during the Medinan period of Muhammad’s prophetic mission should be interpreted in their own socio-historical context. Rereading these reports within our modern context supports the mutability of the traditional corporal punishments of apostasy.

Keywords: Apostasy, Islam, Quran, hadith, Abdolkarim Soroush, contextualization.

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Authors: M. Haghighi, M. Zowghi, B. Zohouri

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Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is an expounded, multi-step planning method for delivering commodity, services, and processes to customers, both external and internal to an organization. It is a way to convert between the diverse customer languages expressing demands (Voice of the Customer), and the organization-s languages expressing results that sate those demands. The policy is to establish one or more matrices that inter-relate producer and consumer reciprocal expectations. Due to its visual presence is called the “House of Quality" (HOQ). In this paper, we assumed HOQ in multi attribute decision making (MADM) pattern and through a proposed MADM method, rank technical specifications. Thereafter compute satisfaction degree of customer requirements and for it, we apply vagueness and uncertainty conditions in decision making by fuzzy set theory. This approach would propound supervised neural network (perceptron) for MADM problem solving.

Keywords: MADM, fuzzy set, QFD, supervised neural network (perceptron).

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Authors: Alexandre Boum, Salomon Madinatou

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This paper aims at bringing a scientific contribution to the cardiac arrhythmia biomedical diagnosis systems; more precisely to the study of the amelioration of cardiac arrhythmia classification performance using artificial neural network, adaptive neuro-fuzzy and fuzzy inference systems classifiers. The purpose of this amelioration is to enable cardiologists to make reliable diagnosis through automatic cardiac arrhythmia analyzes and classifications based on high confidence classifiers. In this study, six classes of the most commonly encountered arrhythmias are considered: the Right Bundle Branch Block, the Left Bundle Branch Block, the Ventricular Extrasystole, the Auricular Extrasystole, the Atrial Fibrillation and the Normal Cardiac rate beat. From the electrocardiogram (ECG) extracted parameters, we constructed a matrix (360x360) serving as an input data sample for the classifiers based on neural networks and a matrix (1x6) for the classifier based on fuzzy logic. By varying three parameters (the quality of the neural network learning, the data size and the quality of the input parameters) the automatic classification permitted us to obtain the following performances: in terms of correct classification rate, 83.6% was obtained using the fuzzy logic based classifier, 99.7% using the neural network based classifier and 99.8% for the adaptive neuro-fuzzy based classifier. These results are based on signals containing at least 360 cardiac cycles. Based on the comparative analysis of the aforementioned three arrhythmia classifiers, the classifiers based on neural networks exhibit a better performance.

Keywords: Adaptive neuro-fuzzy, artificial neural network, cardiac arrythmias, fuzzy inference systems.

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Authors: A. Peniak, J. Makarovič, P. Rafajdus, P. Dúbravka

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The purpose of this work is to optimize a Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) for an automotive application, specifically for a fully electric car. A new optimization approach is proposed. This unique approach transforms automotive customer requirements into an optimization problem, based on sound knowledge of a SRM theory. The approach combines an analytical and a finite element analysis of the motor to quantify static nonlinear and dynamic performance parameters, as phase currents and motor torque maps, an output power and power losses in order to find the optimal motor as close to the reality as possible, within reasonable time. The new approach yields the optimal motor which is competitive with other types of already proposed motors for automotive applications. This distinctive approach can also be used to optimize other types of electrical motors, when parts specifically related to the SRM are adjusted accordingly.

Keywords: Automotive, drive system, electric car, finite element method, hybrid car, optimization, switched reluctance motor.

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Authors: Zsolt Szabolcsi

Abstract:

Political communication in Hungary has undergone a significant change in the 2010s. One element of the transformation is the Flashnews. This media product was launched in March 2015 and since then 40-50 blocks are broadcasted, daily, on 5 channels. Flashnews blocks are condensed news sessions, containing the summary of political narratives. It starts with the introduction of the narrator, then, usually four news topics are presented and, finally, the narrator concludes the block. The block lasts only one minute and, therefore, it provides a blink session into the main narratives of political communication at the time. Beyond its rapid pace, what makes its avoidance difficult is that these blocks are always in the first position in the commercial break of a non-political media product. Although it is only one minute long, its significance is high. The content of the Flashnews reflects the main governmental narratives and, therefore, the Flashnews is part of the agenda-setting capacity of political communication. It reaches media consumers who have limited knowledge and interest in politics, and their use of media products is not politically related. For this audience, the Flashnews pops up in the same way as commercials. Due to its structure and appearance, the impact of Flashnews seems to be similar to commercials, imbedded into the break of media products. It activates existing knowledge constructs, builds up associational links and maintains their presence in a way that the recipient is not aware of the phenomenon. The research aims to examine the extent to which the Flashnews and the main news narratives are identical in their content. This aim is realized with the content analysis of the two news products by examining the Flashnews and the evening news during main sport events from 2016 to 2018. The initial hypothesis of the research is that Flashnews is a contribution to the news management technique for an effective articulation of political narratives in public service media channels.

Keywords: Flashnews, political communication, political marketing, news management.

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Authors: Debesh R. Roy

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The fundamental issue in understanding the origin and growth mechanism of nanomaterials, from a fundamental unit is a big challenging problem to the scientists. Recently, an immense attention is generated to the researchers for prediction of exceptionally stable atomic cluster units as the building units for future smart materials. The present study is a systematic investigation on the stability and electronic properties of a series of bimetallic (semiconductor-alkaline earth) clusters, viz., BxMg3 (x=1-5) is performed, in search for exceptional and/ or unusual stable motifs. A very popular hybrid exchange-correlation functional, B3LYP along with a higher basis set, viz., 6-31+G[d,p] is employed for this purpose under the density functional formalism. The magic stability among the concerned clusters is explained using the jellium model. It is evident from the present study that the magic stability of B4Mg3 cluster arises due to the jellium shell closure.

Keywords: Atomic Clusters, Density Functional Theory, Jellium Model, Magic Clusters, Smart Nanomaterials.

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Authors: Tayeb Bensattalah, Mohamed Zidour, Mohamed Ait Amar Meziane, Tahar Hassaine Daouadji, Abdelouahed Tounsi

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In this paper, the Differential Transform Method (DTM) is employed to predict and to analysis the non-local critical buckling loads of carbon nanotubes with various end conditions and the non-local Timoshenko beam described by single differential equation. The equation differential of buckling of the nanobeams is derived via a non-local theory and the solution for non-local critical buckling loads is finding by the DTM. The DTM is introduced briefly. It can easily be applied to linear or nonlinear problems and it reduces the size of computational work. Influence of boundary conditions, the chirality of carbon nanotube and aspect ratio on non-local critical buckling loads are studied and discussed. Effects of nonlocal parameter, ratios L/d, the chirality of single-walled carbon nanotube, as well as the boundary conditions on buckling of CNT are investigated.

Keywords: Boundary conditions, buckling, non-local, the differential transform method.

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Authors: A. T. Kamzanova, G. Matthews, A. M. Kustubayeva, S. M. Jakupov

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity of a range of EEG indices to time-on-task effects and to a workload manipulation (cueing), during performance of a resource-limited vigilance task. Effects of task period and cueing on performance and subjective state response were consistent with previous vigilance studies and with resource theory. Two EEG indices – the Task Load Index (TLI) and global lower frequency (LF) alpha power – showed effects of task period and cueing similar to those seen with correct detections. Across four successive task periods, the TLI declined and LF alpha power increased. Cueing increased TLI and decreased LF alpha. Other indices – the Engagement Index (EI), frontal theta and upper frequency (UF) alpha failed to show these effects. However, EI and frontal theta were sensitive to interactive effects of task period and cueing, which may correspond to a stronger anxiety response to the uncued task.

Keywords: brain activity, EEG, task engagement, vigilance task.

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Authors: A.Seif, H.Aghaie, K.Majlesi

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A computational study at the level density functional theory (DFT) was carried out to investigate the influences of Si and C-doping on the 14N and 27Al quadrupole coupling constant in the (10, 0) zigzag single ? walled Aluminum-Nitride nanotube (AlNNT). To this aim, a 1.16nm, length of AlNNT consisting of 40 Al atoms and 40 N atoms were selected where the end atoms are capped by hydrogen atom. To follow the purpose, three Si atoms and three C atoms were doped instead of three Al atoms and three N atoms as a central ring in the surface of the Si and C-doped AlNNT. At first both of systems optimized at the level of BLYP method and 6-31G (d) basis set and after that, the NQR parameters were calculated at the level BLYP method and 6-311+G** basis set in two optimized forms. The calculate CQ values for both optimized AlNNT systems, raw and Si and C-doped, reveal different electronic environments in the mentioned systems. It was also demonstrated that the end nuclei have the largest CQ values in both considered AlNNT systems. All the calculations were carried out using Gaussian 98 package of program.

Keywords: DFT, Quadrupole Coupling Constant, Si and CDoping, Single-Walled AlN nanotubes.

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Authors: Svetlana Perovic

Abstract:

This paper examines the role and the place of transdisciplinarity in the urbanism of the 21st century, with the emphasis on Montenegro urbanism. Global processes require a systematic strategy and systemic synergistic engagement in the development of cities in 21st centuries. Urbanism as a profession and a discipline should be developed parallel and in correlation, based on the principles of integrality and communication skills, in order to enable development of the sustainable urban system. The importance of integrated urbanism and other disciplines are also emphasized as well as their synergies activities. The paper also presents the positive examples of urban theory and practice in the world, which influenced the direction of development of the modern urbanism. Transdisciplinarity is a priority methodology for sustainable urban development, which is insufficiently developed in Montenegro, but there is a basis for its development. It is necessary to unite different social sensibilities, academic and non-academic knowledge, as well as the public and private sectors in order to develop holistic, inclusive and sustainable urban spaces of the 21st centuries.

Keywords: Montenegro urbanism, sustainability, the 21st century, transdisciplinarity.

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Authors: S. Ait Ali Yahia

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One of the main features of the Maghreb is its linguistic richness. The multilingualism is a fact which always marked the Maghreb since the beginning of the history up to know. Since the arrival of the Phoenicians, followed by the Carthaginians, Romans, and Arabs, etc, there was a social group in the Maghreb which controlled two kinds of idioms. The libyc one remained, despite everything, the local language used by the major part of the population. This language had a support of written transmission attested by many inscriptions. Among all the forms of the Maghreb writing, this alphabet, however, continues to cause a certain number of questions about the origin and the date of its appearance. The archaeological, linguistic and historical data remain insufficient to answer these questions. This did not prevent the researchers from giving an opinion. In order to answer these questions we will expose here the various assumptions adopted by various authors who are founded on more or less explicit arguments. We will also speak about the various forms taken by the libyc writing during antiquity.

Keywords: The alphabet libyc, Eastern libyc, Western libyc.

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Authors: Tholokuhle T. Ntshakala, Seraphin D. Eyono Obono

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Nations are still finding it quite difficult to win mega sport competitions despite the major contribution of sport to society in terms of social and economic development, personal health, and in education. Even though the world of sports has been transformed into a huge global economy, it is important to note that the first step of sport is usually its introduction to children at school through physical education or PE. In other words, nations who do not win mega sport competitions also suffer from a weak and neglected PE system. This problem of the neglect of PE systems is the main motivation of this research aimed at examining the factors affecting the perceived awareness of physical education teachers on the ICTs that are adoptable for the teaching and learning of physical education. Two types of research objectives will materialize this aim: relevant theories will be identified in relation to the analysis of the perceived ICT awareness of PE teachers and subsequent models will be compiled and designed from existing literature; the empirical testing of such theories and models will also be achieved through the survey of PE teachers from the Camperdown magisterial district of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The main hypothesis at the heart of this study is the relationship between the demographics of PE teachers, their behavior both as individuals and as social entities, and their perceived awareness of the ICTs that are adoptable for PE, as postulated by existing literature; except that this study categorizes human behavior under performance expectancy, computer attitude, and social influence. This hypothesis was partially confirmed by the survey conducted by this research in the sense that performance expectancy and teachers’ age, gender, computer usage, and class size were found to be the only factors affecting their awareness of ICTs for physical education.

Keywords: Human Behavior, ICT Awareness, Physical Education, Teachers.

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Authors: P. Ruttanee, K-N. Areerak, K-L. Areerak

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Dynamic models of power converters are normally time-varying because of their switching actions. Several approaches are applied to analyze the power converters to achieve the timeinvariant models suitable for system analysis and design via the classical control theory. The paper presents how to derive dynamic models of the power system consisting of a three-phase controlled rectifier feeding an uncontrolled buck converter by using the combination between the well known techniques called the DQ and the generalized state-space averaging methods. The intensive timedomain simulations of the exact topology model are used to support the accuracies of the reported model. The results show that the proposed model can provide good accuracies in both transient and steady-state responses.

Keywords: DQ method, Generalized state-space averaging method, Three-phase controlled rectifier, Uncontrolled buck converter, Averaging model, Modeling, Simulation.

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Authors: Anant Lal, M. Elangovan

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A general purpose viscous flow solver Ansys CFX was used to solve the unsteady three-dimensional (3D) Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Equation (RANSE) for simulating a 3D numerical viscous wave tank. A flap-type wave generator was incorporated in the computational domain to generate the desired incident waves. Authors have made effort to study the physical behaviors of Flap type wave maker with governing parameters. Dependency of the water fill depth, Time period of oscillations and amplitude of oscillations of flap were studied. Effort has been made to establish relations between parameters. A validation study was also carried out against CFD methodology with wave maker theory. It has been observed that CFD results are in good agreement with theoretical results. Beaches of different slopes were introduced to damp the wave, so that it should not cause any reflection from boundary. As a conclusion this methodology can simulate the experimental wave-maker for regular wave generation for different wave length and amplitudes.

Keywords: CFD, RANSE, Flap type, wave-maker, VOF, seakeeping, numerical method.

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Authors: S. Parida, S. C. Mohanty

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The free vibration behavior of thick pretwisted cantilevered functionally graded material (FGM) plate subjected to the thermal environment is investigated numerically in the present paper. A mathematical model is developed in the framework of higher order shear deformation theory (HOST) with C⁰ finite element formulation i.e. independent displacement and rotations. The material properties are assumed to be temperature dependent and vary continuously through the thickness based on the volume fraction exponent in simple power rule. The finite element model has been discretized into eight node quadratic serendipity elements with node wise seven degrees of freedom. The effect of plate geometry, temperature field, material composition, and the modal analysis on the vibrational characteristics is examined. Finally, the results are verified by comparing with those available in literature.

Keywords: FGM, pretwisted plate, thermal environment, HOST, simple power law.

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Authors: Fred Lacy

Abstract:

A superconductor has the ability to conduct electricity perfectly and exclude magnetic fields from its interior. In order to understand electromagnetic characteristics of superconductors, their material properties need to be examined. To facilitate this understanding, a theoretical model based on concepts of electromagnetics is presented to explain the electrical and magnetic properties of superconductors. The permittivity response is the key aspect of the model and it describes the electrical resistance response and why it vanishes at the material’s critical temperature. The model also explains the behavior of magnetic fields and why they cannot exist inside superconducting materials. The theoretical concepts and equations associated with this model are used to demonstrate that they are sufficient in describing the behavior of both type I and type II (or high temperature) superconductors. This model is also able to explain why superconductors behave differently than perfect conductors. As a result, examining the permittivity response and understanding electromagnetic field theory provides insight into the major aspects associated with superconducting materials.

Keywords: Ampere’s law, permittivity, permeability, resistivity, Schrödinger wave equation.

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Authors: Jamaliah Mohd. Yusof, Rosidah Musa, Sofiah Abd. Rahman

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With previous studies that examined the importance of functional store image and CSR, this study is aimed at examining their effects in the self-congruity model in influencing store loyalty. In particular, this study developed and tested a structural model in the context of retailing industry on the self-congruity theory. Whilst much of the self-congruity studies have incorporated functional store image, there has been lack of studies that examined social responsibility image of retail stores in the self-congruity studies. Findings indicate that self-congruity influence on store loyalty was mediated by both functional store image and social responsibility image. In influencing store loyalty, the findings have shown that social responsibility image has a stronger influence on store loyalty than functional store image. This study offers important findings and implications for future research as it presents a new framework on the importance of social responsibility image.

Keywords: Self-congruity, functional store image, social responsibility image, store loyalty

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Authors: S. M. Rifat, André L. Marchildon, Mark F. Tachie

Abstract:

Experiments were performed to investigate the effects of roughness on the reattachment and redevelopment regions over a 12 mm forward facing step (FFS) in an open channel flow. The experiments were performed over an upstream smooth wall and a smooth FFS, an upstream wall coated with sandpaper 36 grit and a smooth FFS and an upstream rough wall produced from sandpaper 36 grit and a FFS coated with sandpaper 36 grit. To investigate only the wall roughness effects, Reynolds number, Froude number, aspect ratio and blockage ratio were kept constant. Upstream profiles showed reduced streamwise mean velocities close to the rough wall compared to the smooth wall, but the turbulence level was increased by upstream wall roughness. The reattachment length for the smooth-smooth wall experiment was 1.78h; however, when it is replaced with rough-smooth wall the reattachment length decreased to 1.53h. It was observed that the upstream roughness increased the physical size of contours of maximum turbulence level; however, the downstream roughness decreased both the size and magnitude of contours in the vicinity of the leading edge of the step. Quadrant analysis was performed to investigate the dominant Reynolds shear stress contribution in the recirculation region. The Reynolds shear stress and turbulent kinetic energy profiles after the reattachment showed slower recovery compared to the streamwise mean velocity, however all the profiles fairly collapse on their corresponding upstream profiles at x/h = 60. It was concluded that to obtain a complete collapse several more streamwise distances would be required.

Keywords: Forward facing step, open channel, separated and reattached turbulent flows, wall roughness.

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Authors: Emil Crişan, Matthias Klumpp

Abstract:

This paper discusses the theory behind the existence of an idealistic model for business network governance and uses a clarifying case-study, containing governance structures and processes within a business network framework. The case study from a German pharmaceutical industry company complements existing literature by providing a comprehensive explanation of the relations between supply chains and business networks, and also between supply chain management and business network governance. Supply chains and supply chain management are only one side of the interorganizational relationships and ensure short-term performance, while real-world governance structures are needed for ensuring the long-term existence of a supply chain. Within this context, a comprehensive model for business governance is presented. An interesting finding from the case study is that multiple business network governance systems co-exist within the evaluated supply chain.

Keywords: Business network, pharmaceutical industry, supply chain governance, supply chain management.

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