Search results for: SAGBI- Gröbner basis

Authors: E. Kouhgardi, S. Dashti, H. Fekrandish

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This research has been conducted to study the method of culture and comparing growth and biomass of Gracilaria corticata cultured on rope and net for 50 days through two treatments (first treatment: culture of alga on net and the second treatment: culture of alga on rope and each treatment was repeated by four cases). During culture period, the water of aquariums was replaced once every two days for 40-50%. Also, 0.3-0.5 grams of urea fertilizer was added to the culture environment for fertilization. Moreover, some of the environmental factors such as pH, salinity and temperature of the environment were measured on a daily basis. During the culture period, extent of longitudinal growth of the species of both treatments was equal. The said length was reached from 8-10 cm to 10.5-13 cm accordingly. The resulted weight in repetitions of the first treatment was higher than that of the second treatment in such a way as in the first treatment, its weight reached from 10 grams to 21.119 grams and in the second treatment, its weight reached from 10 grams to 17.663 grams. On a whole, it may be stated that that kind of alga being studied has a considerable growth with respect to its volume. The results have revealed that the percentage of daily growth and wet weight at the end of the first treatment was higher than that of the second treatment and it was registered as 0.934, 6.072 and 811.432 in the first treatment and 0.797, 4.990 and 758.071 in the second treatment respectively. This difference is significant (P<0.05). Growth and biomass of G. corticata through culture on net was more emphasizing on numerous branches due to wider bed. Moreover, higher level of the species in this method was exposed to sunlight and this increased biosynthesis and eventually increases of growth and biomass.

Keywords: Red alga, growth, biomass, culture, net, rope.

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Authors: G.T. Cirella, L. Tao

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The index of sustainable functionality (ISF) is an adaptive, multi-criteria technique that is used to measure sustainability; it is a concept that can be transposed to many regions throughout the world. An ISF application of the Southern Regional Organisation of Councils (SouthROC) in South East Queensland (SEQ) – the fastest growing region in Australia – indicated over a 25 year period an increase of over 10% level of functionality from 58.0% to 68.3%. The ISF of SouthROC utilised methodologies that derived from an expert panel based approach. The overall results attained an intermediate level of functionality which amounted to related concerns of economic progress and lack of social awareness. Within the region, a solid basis for future testing by way of measured changes and developed trends can be established. In this regard as management tool, the ISF record offers support for regional sustainability practice and decision making alike. This research adaptively analyses sustainability – a concept that is lacking throughout much of the academic literature and any reciprocal experimentation. This lack of knowledge base has been the emphasis of where future sustainability research can grow from and prove useful in rapidly growing regions. It is the intentions of this research to help further develop the notions of index-based quantitative sustainability.

Keywords: Environmental engineering, index of sustainable functionality, sustainability indicators, sustainable development.

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Authors: Ifeyinwa E. Achumba, Djamel Azzi, Rinat Khusainov

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There are three approaches to complete Bayesian Network (BN) model construction: total expert-centred, total datacentred, and semi data-centred. These three approaches constitute the basis of the empirical investigation undertaken and reported in this paper. The objective is to determine, amongst these three approaches, which is the optimal approach for the construction of a BN-based model for the performance assessment of students- laboratory work in a virtual electronic laboratory environment. BN models were constructed using all three approaches, with respect to the focus domain, and compared using a set of optimality criteria. In addition, the impact of the size and source of the training, on the performance of total data-centred and semi data-centred models was investigated. The results of the investigation provide additional insight for BN model constructors and contribute to literature providing supportive evidence for the conceptual feasibility and efficiency of structure and parameter learning from data. In addition, the results highlight other interesting themes.

Keywords: Bayesian networks, model construction, parameterlearning, structure learning, performance index, model comparison.

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Authors: Rizwan Ullah, Abdar Ali, Zahid Ullah

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This paper illustrates the study of three isolated zero voltage switched (ZVS) PWM full bridge (FB) converters to charge the high voltage battery in the charger of electric vehicle (EV). EV battery chargers have several challenges such as high efficiency, high reliability, low cost, isolation, and high power density. The cost of magnetic and filter components in the battery charger is reduced when switching frequency is increased. The increase in the switching frequency increases switching losses. ZVS is used to reduce switching losses and to operate the converter in the battery charger at high frequency. The performance of each of the three converters is evaluated on the basis of ZVS range, dead times of the switches, conduction losses of switches, circulating current stress, circulating energy, duty cycle loss, and efficiency. The limitations and merits of each PWM FB converter are reviewed. The converter with broader ZVS range, high efficiency and low switch stresses is selected for battery charger applications in EV.

Keywords: Electric vehicle, PWM FB converter, zero voltage switching, circulating energy, duty cycle loss, battery charger.

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Authors: Ambra Giovannelli, Erika Maria Archilei

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The amount of the electrical power required by refrigeration systems is relevant worldwide. It is evaluated in the order of 15% of the total electricity production taking refrigeration and air-conditioning into consideration. For this reason, in the last years several energy saving techniques have been proposed to reduce the power demand of such plants. The paper deals with the development of an innovative internal recovery system for cryogenic cooling plants. Such a system consists in a Compressor-Expander Group (CEG) designed on the basis of the automotive turbocharging technology. In particular, the paper is focused on the design of the expander, the critical component of the CEG system. Due to the low volumetric flow entering the expander and the high expansion ratio, a commercial turbocharger expander wheel was strongly modified. It was equipped with a transonic nozzle, designed to have a radially inflow full admission. To verify the performance of such a machine and suggest improvements, two different set of nozzles have been designed and modelled by means of the commercial Ansys-CFX software. steady-state 3D CFD simulations of the second-generation prototype are presented and compared with the initial ones.

Keywords: Energy saving, organic fluids, radial turbine, refrigeration plant, vapor compression systems.

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Authors: Alexander V. Libin, Manon Schladen, Assya Pascalev, Nawar Shara, Miriam Philmon, Yuri Millo, Joseph Verbalis

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Chronic conditions carry with them strong emotions and often lead to charged relationships between patients and their health providers and, by extension, patients and health researchers. Persons are both autonomous and relational and a purely cognitive model of autonomy neglects the social and relational basis of chronic illness. Ensuring genuine informed consent in research requires a thorough understanding of how participants perceive a study and their reasons for participation. Surveys may not capture the complexities of reasoning that underlies study participation. Contradictory reasons for participation, for instance an initial claim of altruism as rationale and a subsequent claim of personal benefit (therapeutic misconception), affect the quality of informed consent. Individuals apply principles through the filter of personal values and lived experience. Authentic autonomy, and hence authentic consent to research, occurs within the context of patients- unique life narratives and illness experiences.

Keywords: ethical dilemmas, open source technology, patient education, psychology of decision making

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Authors: Hema C. R., Paulraj M. P., S. Yaacob, A. H. Adom, R. Nagarajan

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Motor imagery classification provides an important basis for designing Brain Machine Interfaces [BMI]. A BMI captures and decodes brain EEG signals and transforms human thought into actions. The ability of an individual to control his EEG through imaginary mental tasks enables him to control devices through the BMI. This paper presents a method to design a four state BMI using EEG signals recorded from the C3 and C4 locations. Principle features extracted through principle component analysis of the segmented EEG are analyzed using two novel classification algorithms using Elman recurrent neural network and functional link neural network. Performance of both classifiers is evaluated using a particle swarm optimization training algorithm; results are also compared with the conventional back propagation training algorithm. EEG motor imagery recorded from two subjects is used in the offline analysis. From overall classification performance it is observed that the BP algorithm has higher average classification of 93.5%, while the PSO algorithm has better training time and maximum classification. The proposed methods promises to provide a useful alternative general procedure for motor imagery classification

Keywords: Motor Imagery, Brain Machine Interfaces, Neural Networks, Particle Swarm Optimization, EEG signal processing.

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Authors: Alhaji M. H. Conteh, Xiangbin Yan, Alfred V Gborie

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Rice, which is the staple food in Sierra Leone, is consumed on a daily basis. It is the most imperative food crop extensively grown by farmers across all ecologies in the country. Though much attention is now given to rice grain production through the small holder commercialization programme (SHCP), however, no attention has been given in investigating the limitations faced by rice producers. This paper will contribute to attempts to overcome the development challenges caused by food insecurity. The objective of this paper is thus, to analysis the relationship between rice production and the domestic retail price of rice. The study employed a log linear model in which, the quantity of rice produced is the dependent variable, quantity of rice imported, price of imported rice and price of domestic rice as explanatory variables. Findings showed that, locally produced rice is even more expensive than the imported rice per ton, and almost all the inhabitants in the capital city which hosts about 65% of the entire population of the country favor imported rice, as it is free from stones with other impurities. On the other hand, to control price and simultaneously increase rice production, the government should purchase the rice from the farmers and then sell to private retailers.

Keywords: Domestic price of rice, Econometric model, Rice production, Sierra Leone.

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Authors: Dana Gabriková, Martin Mistrík, Jarmila Bernasovská, Iveta Tóthová, Jana Kisková

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The Roma (Gypsies) is a transnational minority with a high degree of consanguineous marriages. Similar to other genetically isolated founder populations, the Roma harbor a number of unique or rare genetic disorders. This paper discusses about a rare form of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease – type 4G (CMT4G), also called Hereditary Motor and Sensory Neuropathy type Russe, an autosomal recessive disease caused by mutation private to Roma characterized by abnormally increased density of non-myelinated axons. CMT4G was originally found in Bulgarian Roma and in 2009 two putative causative mutations in the HK1 gene were identified. Since then, several cases were reported in Roma families mainly from Bulgaria and Spain. Here we present a Slovak Roma family in which CMT4G was diagnosed on the basis of clinical examination and genetic testing. This case is a further proof of the role of the HK1 gene in pathogenesis of the disease. It confirms that mutation in the HK1 gene is a common cause of autosomal recessive CMT disease in Roma and should be considered as a common part of a diagnostic procedure.

Keywords: Gypsies, HK1, HSMN-Russe, rare disease.

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Authors: Wanda Luen-Wun Siu, Xiaowen Zhang

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This paper adopted a retrospective review of China’s assistance to Latin America from the 1950s to 2020. Findings suggested that China’s assistance to Latin America can be roughly divided into five stages: The 1950s to 1960s was the initial stage of China’s assistance to Latin America, mainly focusing on the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and other Latin American countries. The strategy has a strong ideological basis. The 1980s were the stage of development of China's aid to Latin America, which was characterized by consolidating and expanding diplomatic space, emphasizing the spirit of cooperation of equality, mutual benefit, and common development. The 1990s to 2000s marked the further development of diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, plus domestic market-oriented reforms, emphasizing the importance of economic considerations, and less ideological orientation; and this period also witnessed more Chinese state-owned enterprises going out to invest in Latin America. 2010-2019 marked the further development of Latin American relations. This paper contributes to the literature of diplomacy and health assistance to Latin America and highlights the importance of foreign aid and health assistance in sealing bilateral diplomatic relations.

Keywords: Broad Spectrum Assistance, China, Latin America, bilateral relations.

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Authors: Monika Kulikowska-Pawlak, Katarzyna Bratnicka-Myśliwiec, Tomasz Ingram

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This study seeks to contribute to the literature on firm competitiveness by advancing the perspective of organizational politics that views this process as a driver which creates identifiable differences in firm performance. The hypothesized relationships were tested on the basis of data from 355 Polish medium and large-sized enterprises. Data were analyzed using correlation analysis, EFA and robustness tests. The main result of the conducted analyses proved the coexistence, previously examined in the literature, of corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance. The obtained research findings made it possible to add organizational politics to a wide range of elements determining corporate entrepreneurship, followed by competitive advantage, in addition to antecedents such as strategic leadership, corporate culture, opportunity-oriented resource-based management, etc. Also, the empirical results suggest that four dimensions of organizational politics (dominant coalition, influence exertion, making organizational changes, and information openness) are positively related to firm competitiveness. In addition, these findings seem to underline a supposition that corporate entrepreneurship is an important mediator which strengthens the competitive effects of organizational politics.

Keywords: Corporate entrepreneurship, firm competitiveness organizational politics, sensemaking.

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Authors: G. Erkomaishvili

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The paper discusses mineral water consumer market and development policy in Georgia, the tools and measures, which will contribute to production of mineral waters and increase its export. The paper studies and analyses current situation in mineral water production sector as well as the factors affecting increase and reduction of its export. It’s noted that in order to gain and maintain competitive advantage, it’s necessary to provide continuous supply of high quality goods with modern design, open new distribution channels to enter new markets, carry out broad promotional activities, organize e-commerce. Economic policy plays an important role in protecting markets from counterfeit goods. The state also plays an important role in attracting foreign direct investments. Stable business environment and export oriented strategy is the basis for the country’s economic growth. Based on the research, the paper suggests the strategy for improving competitiveness of Georgian mineral waters; relevant conclusions and recommendations are provided.

Keywords: Mineral waters, consumer market for mineral waters, export of mineral waters, mineral water development policy in Georgia.

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Authors: Rainer Schneider, Stephan Lau, Levin Kuhlmann, Simon Vogrin, Maciej Gratkowski, Mark Cook, Jens Haueisen

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Cardiac pulse-related artifacts in the EEG recorded simultaneously with fMRI are complex and highly variable. Their effective removal is an unsolved problem. Our aim is to develop an adaptive removal algorithm based on the matching pursuit (MP) technique and to compare it to established methods using a visual evoked potential (VEP). We recorded the VEP inside the static magnetic field of an MR scanner (with artifacts) as well as in an electrically shielded room (artifact free). The MP-based artifact removal outperformed average artifact subtraction (AAS) and optimal basis set removal (OBS) in terms of restoring the EEG field map topography of the VEP. Subsequently, a dipole model was fitted to the VEP under each condition using a realistic boundary element head model. The source location of the VEP recorded inside the MR scanner was closest to that of the artifact free VEP after cleaning with the MP-based algorithm as well as with AAS. While none of the tested algorithms offered complete removal, MP showed promising results due to its ability to adapt to variations of latency, frequency and amplitude of individual artifact occurrences while still utilizing a common template.

Keywords: matching pursuit, ballistocardiogram, artifactremoval, EEG/fMRI.

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Authors: Fangfang Meng, Shuang Cong

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In the closed quantum system, if the control system is strongly regular and all other eigenstates are directly coupled to the target state, the control system can be asymptotically stabilized at the target eigenstate by the Lyapunov control based on the state error. However, if the control system is not strongly regular or as long as there is one eigenstate not directly coupled to the target state, the situations will become complicated. In this paper, we propose an implicit Lyapunov control method based on the state error to solve the convergence problems for these two degenerate cases. And at the same time, we expand the target state from the eigenstate to the arbitrary pure state. Especially, the proposed method is also applicable in the control system with multi-control Hamiltonians. On this basis, the convergence of the control systems is analyzed using the LaSalle invariance principle. Furthermore, the relation between the implicit Lyapunov functions of the state distance and the state error is investigated. Finally, numerical simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed implicit Lyapunov control method. The comparisons of the control effect using the implicit Lyapunov control method based on the state distance with that of the state error are given.

Keywords: Implicit Lyapunov control, state error, degenerate cases, convergence.

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Authors: W. Wanmolee, W. Sornlake, N. Laosiripojana, V. Champreda

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Conversion of lignocellulosic biomass is the basis process for production of fuels, chemicals and materials in the sustainable biorefinery industry. Saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass is an essential step which produces sugars for further conversion to target value-added products e.g. bio-ethanol, bio-plastic, g-valerolactone (GVL), 5-hydroxymethylfuroic acid (HMF), levulinic acid, etc. The goal of this work was to develop an efficient enzyme for conversion of biomass to reducing sugar based on crude fungal enzyme from Chaetomium globosum BCC5776 produced by submerged fermentation and evaluate its activity comparing to a commercial Acremonium cellulase. Five local biomasses in Thailand: rice straw, sugarcane bagasse, corncobs, corn stovers, and palm empty fruit bunches were pretreated and hydrolyzed with varying enzyme loadings. Saccharification of the biomass led to different reducing sugar levels from 115 mg/g to 720 mg/g from different types of biomass using cellulase dosage of 9 FPU/g. The reducing sugar will be further employed as sugar feedstock for production of ethanol or commodity chemicals. This work demonstrated the use of promising enzyme candidate for conversion of local lignocellulosic biomass in biorefinery industry.

Keywords: Biomass, Cellulase, Chaetomiun glubosum, Saccharification.

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Authors: Leandro Marcos Alves Vaz

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The teaching of physics in Brazilian public schools emphasizes strongly the theoretical aspects of this science, showing its philosophical and mathematical basis, but neglecting its experimental character. Perhaps the lack of science laboratories explains this practice. In this work, we present a method of teaching physics using the computer. As alternatives to real experiments, we have the trials through simulators, many of which are free software available on the internet. In order to develop a study on the use of simulators in teaching, knowing the impossibility of simulations on all topics in a given subject, we combined these programs with phenomenological and/or experimental texts in order to mitigate this limitation. This study proposes the use of simulators and the debate using phenomenological/experimental texts on electrostatic theme in groups of the 3rd year of EJA (Adult and Youth Education) in order to verify the advantages of this methodology. Some benefits of the hybridization of the traditional method with the tools used were: Greater motivation of the students in learning, development of experimental notions, proactive socialization to learning, greater easiness to understand some concepts and the creation of collaborative activities that can reduce timidity of part of the students.

Keywords: Physics teaching, simulators, youth and adult education, experimentation, electrostatic.

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Authors: Kevin Fong-Rey Liu, Ken Yeh, Cheng-Wu Chen, Han-Hsi Liang

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The sanitary sewerage connection rate becomes an important indicator of advanced cities. Following the construction of sanitary sewerages, the maintenance and management systems are required for keeping pipelines and facilities functioning well. These maintenance tasks often require sewer workers to enter the manholes and the pipelines, which are confined spaces short of natural ventilation and full of hazardous substances. Working in sewers could be easily exposed to a risk of adverse health effects. This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief networks (BBN) as a higher level of noncarcinogenic health risk assessment of sewer workers. On the basis of the epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic relationships between the hazardous substances in sewers and their adverse health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity and mortality of the adverse health effects. The provision of the morbidity and mortality rates of the related diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of conventional methods.

Keywords: Bayesian belief networks, sanitary sewerage, healthrisk assessment, hazard quotient, target organ-specific hazard index.

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Authors: A. Khalique, T. Naseem, N. Haque, Z. Rasool

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The objective of current study was to investigate the effect of Bacillus subtilis PB6 (CloSTAT) as a probiotic in broilers. The corn-soybean based diet was divided into four treatment groups; T1 (basal diet with no probiotic and no Clostridium perfringens); T2 (basal diet challenged with C. perfringens without probiotic); T3 (basal diet challenged with C. perfringens having 0.05% probiotic); T4 (basal diet challenged with C. perfringens having 0.1% probiotic). Every treatment group had four replicates with 24 birds each. Body weight and feed intake were measured on weekly basis, while ileal bacterial count was recorded on day-28 following Clostridium perfringens challenge. The 0.1% probiotic treatment showed 7.2% increase in average feed intake (P=0.05) and 8% increase in body weight compared to T2. In 0.1% treatment body weight was 5% higher than T3 (P=0.02). It was also observed that 0.1% treatment had improved feed conversion ratio (1.77) on 6^th week. No effect of treatment was observed on mortality and ileal bacterial count. The current study indicated that 0.1% use of probiotic had positive response in C. perfringens challenged broilers.

Keywords: Bacillus subtilis PB6, antibiotic growth promoters, Clostridium perfringens, CloSTAT, broilers.

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Authors: Amit Kumar Jakhar, Kumar Rajnish

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Inherited complexity is one of the difficult tasks in software engineering field. Further, it is said that there is no physical laws or standard guidelines suit for designing different types of software. Hence, to make the software engineering as a matured engineering discipline like others, it is necessary that it has its own theoretical frameworks and laws. Software designing and development is a human effort which takes a lot of time and considers various parameters for successful completion of the software. The cognitive informatics plays an important role for understanding the essential characteristics of the software. The aim of this work is to consider the fundamental characteristics of the source code of Object-Oriented software i.e. complexity and understandability. The complexity of the programs is analyzed with the help of extracted important attributes of the source code, which is further utilized to evaluate the understandability factor. The aforementioned characteristics are analyzed on the basis of 16 C++ programs by distributing them to forty MCA students. They all tried to understand the source code of the given program and mean time is taken as the actual time needed to understand the program. For validation of this work, Briand’s framework is used and the presented metric is also evaluated comparatively with existing metric which proves its robustness.

Keywords: Software metrics, object-oriented, complexity, cognitive weight, understandability, basic control structures.

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Authors: Farideh Sharififar, Zahra Jamalian, Reza Nikbakhsh, Zahra Nobakht Ramezani

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In sport, human resources management gives special attention to method of applying volunteers, their maintenance, and participation of volunteers with each other and management approaches for better operation of events celebrants. The recognition of volunteers- characteristics and motives is important to notice, because it makes the basis of their participation and commitment at sport environment. The motivation and commitment of 281 volunteers were assessed using the organizational commitment scale, motivation scale and personal characteristics questionnaire.The descriptive results showed that; 64% of volunteers were women with age average 21/24 years old. They were physical education student, single (71/9%), without occupation (53%) and with average of 5 years sport experience. Their most important motivation was career factor and the most important commitment factor was normative factor. The results of examining the hypothesized showed that; age, sport experience and education are effective in the amount of volunteers- commitment. And the motive factors such as career, material, purposive and protective factors also have the power to predict the amount of sports volunteers- commitment value. Therefore it is recommended to provide possible opportunities for volunteers and carrying out appropriate instructional courses by events executive managers.

Keywords: Sport Volunteers, Motivation, Organizational Commitment, Sport Event

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Authors: Manuel Seidel, Rainer Seidel, Des Tedford, Richard Cross, Logan Wait

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Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in many economies. In New Zealand, for example, 97% of all manufacturing companies employ less than 100 staff, and generate the predominant part of this industry sector-s economic output. Manufacturing SMEs as a group also have a significant impact on the environment. This situation is similar in many developed economies, including the European Union. Sustainable economic development therefore needs to strongly consider the role of manufacturing SMEs, who generally find it challenging to move towards more environmentally friendly business practices. This paper presents a systems thinking approach to modelling and understanding the factors which have an influence on the successful uptake of environmental practices in small and medium sized manufacturing companies. It presents a number of causal loop diagrams which have been developed based on primary action research, and a thorough understanding of the literature in this area. The systems thinking model provides the basis for further development of a strategic framework for the successful uptake of environmental innovation in manufacturing SMEs.

Keywords: Environmentally benign manufacturing, SMEs, Systems modeling.

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Authors: M. A. M. El-Bendary, H. Kazimian, A. E. Abo-El-azm, N. A. El-Fishawy, F. El-Samie, F. Shawki

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This paper studies a vital issue in wireless communications, which is the transmission of images over Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) through the Bluetooth network. It presents a simple method to improve the efficiency of error control code of old Bluetooth versions over mobile WPANs through Interleaved Error Control Code (IECC) technique. The encoded packets are interleaved by simple block interleaver. Also, the paper presents a chaotic interleaving scheme as a tool against bursts of errors which depends on the chaotic Baker map. Also, the paper proposes using the chaotic interleaver instead of traditional block interleaver with Forward Error Control (FEC) scheme. A comparison study between the proposed and standard techniques for image transmission over a correlated fading channel is presented. Simulation results reveal the superiority of the proposed chaotic interleaving scheme to other schemes. Also, the superiority of FEC with proposed chaotic interleaver to the conventional interleavers with enhancing the security level with chaotic interleaving packetby- packet basis.

Keywords: Mobile Bluetooth terminals, WPANs, Jackes' model, Interleaving technique, chaotic interleaver

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Authors: Wenguang Ding, Yang Wu, Xia Wang, Yayu Gao

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Biogas, a clean renewable energy, is attracting a growing concern of researchers and professionals in many fields. Based on the natural and climatic conditions in semi-arid regions of northwestern China, the present study introduces a specifically-designed family-size biogas plant (with a digester of 10m3) with manure and urine of animals and humanity as raw materials. The biogas plant is applicable to areas with altitudes of more than 2000 meters in northwestern China. In addition to the installation cost, a little operational expenditure, structure, characteristics, benefits of this small-scale biogas plant, this article introduces a wide range of specific popularization methods such as training, financial support, guided tour to the biogas plant, community-based group study and delivery of operational manuals. The feasibility of the biogas plant is explored on the basis of the availability of the raw materials. Simple operations contained in the current work increase the possibility of the wide use of this small-scale biogas plant in similar regions of the world.

Keywords: biogas, family-size biogas plant, northwestern China, popularization

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Authors: Benjamin Gorry, Zezhi Chen, Kevin Hammond, Andy Wallace, Greg Michaelson

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This paper describes new computer vision algorithms that have been developed to track moving objects as part of a long-term study into the design of (semi-)autonomous vehicles. We present the results of a study to exploit variable kernels for tracking in video sequences. The basis of our work is the mean shift object-tracking algorithm; for a moving target, it is usual to define a rectangular target window in an initial frame, and then process the data within that window to separate the tracked object from the background by the mean shift segmentation algorithm. Rather than use the standard, Epanechnikov kernel, we have used a kernel weighted by the Chamfer distance transform to improve the accuracy of target representation and localization, minimising the distance between the two distributions in RGB color space using the Bhattacharyya coefficient. Experimental results show the improved tracking capability and versatility of the algorithm in comparison with results using the standard kernel. These algorithms are incorporated as part of a robot test-bed architecture which has been used to demonstrate their effectiveness.

Keywords: Hume, functional programming, autonomous vehicle, pioneer robot, vision.

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Authors: Kuryati Kipli, Kasumawati Lias, Dayang Azra Awang Mat, Al-Khalid Othman, Ade Syaheda Wani Marzuki, Nurdiani Zamhari

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Visual attention allows user to select the most relevant information to ongoing behaviour. This paper presents a study on; i) the performance of people measurements, ii) accurateness of people measurement of the peaks that correspond to chemical quantities from the Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) graphs and iii) affects of people measurements to the algorithm-based diagnosis. Participant-s eye-movement was recorded using eye-tracker tool (Eyelink II). This experiment involves three participants for examining 20 MRS graphs to estimate the peaks of chemical quantities which indicate the abnormalities associated with Cerebellar Tumours (CT). The status of each MRS is verified by using decision algorithm. Analysis involves determination of humans-s eye movement pattern in measuring the peak of spectrograms, scan path and determining the relationship of distributions of fixation durations with the accuracy of measurement. In particular, the eye-tracking data revealed which aspects of the spectrogram received more visual attention and in what order they were viewed. This preliminary investigation provides a proof of concept for use of the eye tracking technology as the basis for expanded CT diagnosis.

Keywords: eye tracking, fixation durations, pattern, scan paths, spectrograms, visual.

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Authors: L. Parisi

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In this research work, neural networks were applied to classify two types of hip joint implants based on the relative hip joint implant side speed and three components of each ground reaction force. The condition of walking gait at normal velocity was used and carried out with each of the two hip joint implants assessed. Ground reaction forces’ kinetic temporal changes were considered in the first approach followed but discarded in the second one. Ground reaction force components were obtained from eighteen patients under such gait condition, half of which had a hip implant type I-II, whilst the other half had the hip implant, defined as type III by Orthoload®. After pre-processing raw gait kinetic data and selecting the time frames needed for the analysis, the ground reaction force components were used to train a MLP neural network, which learnt to distinguish the two hip joint implants in the abovementioned condition. Further to training, unknown hip implant side and ground reaction force components were presented to the neural networks, which assigned those features into the right class with a reasonably high accuracy for the hip implant type I-II and the type III. The results suggest that neural networks could be successfully applied in the performance assessment of hip joint implants.

Keywords: Kinemic gait data, Neural networks, Hip joint implant, Hip arthroplasty, Rehabilitation Engineering.

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Authors: Yang Meng, James L. Patnao

Abstract:

With the rapid development of information technology and the impact of the epidemic environment, the traditional teaching model can no longer meet the requirements of the development of the times. The development of teaching mechanisms is the inevitable trend of the future development of higher education. We must further promote the informatization of higher education in teaching practice, let modern information technology penetrate and practice in classroom teaching, and provide promising opportunities for the high-quality development of higher education. This article, mainly through the distribution of questionnaires to teachers of colleges and universities, aims to understand the degree of informatization in the teaching of colleges and universities. And on the basis of domestic and foreign scholars' research on higher education informatization, it analyzes the existing problems, and finds the optimal solution based on the needs of education and teaching development. According to the survey results, most college teachers will use information technology in teaching practice, but the information technology teaching tools used by teachers are relatively simple, and most of them use only slides. In addition, backward informatization infrastructure and less informatization training are the main challenges facing the current teaching informatization construction. If colleges and universities can make good use of information technology and multimedia technology and combine it with traditional teaching, it will definitely promote the development of college education and further promote the modernization and informatization of higher education.

Keywords: Higher education, teaching practice, informatization construction, e-education.

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Authors: Ji-Young Song, Moon-Shuk Song, Hee-Seung Na

Abstract:

Recently, Northeast Asia has become one of the three largest trade areas, covering approximately 30% of the total trade volume of the world. However, the distribution facilities are saturated due to the increase in the transportation volume within the area and with the European countries. In order to accommodate the increase of the transportation volume, the transportation networking with the major countries in Northeast Asia and Europe is absolutely necessary. The Eurasian Logistics Network will develop into an international passenger transportation network covering the Northeast Asian region and an international freight transportation network connecting across Eurasia Continent. This paper surveys the changes and trend of the distribution network in the Eurasian Region according to the political, economic and environmental changes of the region, analyses the distribution network according to the changes in the transportation policies of the related countries, and provides the direction of the development of composite transportation on the basis of the present conditions of transportation means. The transportation means optimal for the efficiency of transportation system are suggested to be train ferries, sea & rail or sea & rail & sea. It is suggested to develop diversified composite transportation means and routes within the boundary of international cooperation system.

Keywords: Eurasian Logistics, Integrated Distribution Transport, Northeast Asia, Transportation Networking

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Authors: Siddhartha Chauhan, Nitin Kumar Kotania

Abstract:

Traditional Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) generally use static sinks to collect data from the sensor nodes via multiple forwarding. Therefore, network suffers with some problems like long message relay time, bottle neck problem which reduces the performance of the network.

Many approaches have been proposed to prevent this problem with the help of mobile sink to collect the data from the sensor nodes, but these approaches still suffer from the buffer overflow problem due to limited memory size of sensor nodes. This paper proposes an energy efficient scheme for data gathering which overcomes the buffer overflow problem. The proposed scheme creates virtual grid structure of heterogeneous nodes. Scheme has been designed for sensor nodes having variable sensing rate. Every node finds out its buffer overflow time and on the basis of this cluster heads are elected. A controlled traversing approach is used by the proposed scheme in order to transmit data to sink. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is verified by simulation.

Keywords: Buffer overflow problem, Mobile sink, Virtual grid, Wireless sensor networks.

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Authors: Hasmik P. Ter-Voskanyan

Abstract:

The account of genus Polygonum L. in "Flora of Armenia" was made more than five decades ago. After that many expeditions have been carried out in different regions of Armenia and a huge herbarium material has been collected. The genus included 5 sections with 20 species. Since then many authors accepted the sections as separate genera on the basis of anatomical, morphological, palynological and molecular data. According to the above mentioned it became clear, that the taxonomy of Armenian representatives of Polygonum s. l. also needs revision. New literature data and our investigations of live and herbarium material (ERE, LE) with specification of the morphological characters, distribution, ecology, flowering and fruiting terms brought us to conclusion, that genus Polygonum s. l. has to be split into 5 different genera (Aconogonon (Meisn.) Reichenb., Bistorta (L.) Scop., Fallopia Adans., Persicaria Mill., Polygonum L. s. s.). The number of species has been reduced to 16 species. For each genus new determination keys has been created. 

Keywords: Aconogonon (Meisn.) Reichenb., Bistorta (L.) Scop., Fallopia Adans., Persicaria Mill., Polygonum L. s. s., Flora of Armenia.

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