The present study proposes a fuzzy sets model for computing rainfall using a few parameters including temperature, relative humidity and radar reflectivity. Genetic algorithm technique was applied to calibrate membership function condition of fuzzy sets model. The proposed model was applied to determine the rainfall of five rain gauge Meteorological stations in Thailand. The 3-hourly climatological data were used in this study. The results showed that the Fuzzy-GAs model could be used effectively to estimate rainfall given only three parameters; temperature, relative humidity and radar reflectivity. Furthermore, the results presented that the Genetic algorithm calibration provided the optimal condition of membership function. The simulation results indicated that the results of Fuzzy-GAs model were close to the observed rainfall data more than the results of multiple linear regression model for both calibration and validation processes. Consequently, we are confident that a Fuzzy-GAs model is a useful tool for estimating the rainfall.

This paper investigates the integration of emerging stock markets over different time horizons using daily data over 1992-2011. The links among major Middle East and North African (MENA) stock exchange markets (Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey and United Arab Emirates) are considered by adopting the recently developed wavelet comovement analysis (Rua, 2010). The wavelet base measure of correlation enables not only to analyze the interdependence among stock markets but also to consider changing effects of time and frequency domains simultaneously. The characteristics of returns’ patterns are examined over the whole sample by special emphasis on pre- and post- global financial crisis periods to test the impact of pressure exerted on these markets through the interdependence in the global economic structure. The results indicate that MENA stock markets are partially integrated and the degree of interdependence has increased significantly after 2008 Crisis. Nevertheless, for global investors there is still room for gains especially in the post global crisis period.

The role of Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) are significant in most of the economy in the world, since they are creating opportunity for thousands of individuals and even more. The main objective of this paper is to develop a bridge between literature and adoption of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) within the Malay based SMEs in Malaysia. Survey was utilized to collect data from one hundred ninety Malay entrepreneurs from Klang ‘valley and regression analysis was conducted to analyse the data. Study results show that, though the adoption of ICT enhances the accessibility of global market, but it is very critical to adapt ICT within the SMEs. The motivation behind the adoption of ICT is still very low within the Malay based SMEs in Malaysia. This will facilitate the policy maker to improve ICT adaption within the Malay based SMEs. The finding of this paper assists all types of stakeholder to adopt ICT.

The performance of a cyclone, with different outlet boundary condition, was evaluated to examine the effect of the boundary condition on the characteristics of the collection efficiency. Gas-particle flow in cyclones was numerically modeled using the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach and the Reynolds stress transport model (RSTM) has been employed to predict the gas flow fields of the cyclones. The tangential velocity, axial velocity profiles and turbulent intensity profiles are presented and the numerical profiles are compared with experiment. The result indicates that the tangential velocity, axial velocity and turbulent intensity in the state of outflow-wall boundary condition are more similar to experimental curves.

This paper assesses a performance evaluation framework for wealth management (WM) banks. We propose a method that combines the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with the assurance region (AR) model of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to enable a consensus decision. We also present several strategies for using this methodology, such as Delphi procedures. The analysis results indicate that evaluators (evaluation members) responsible for recommending the business performance of WM banks in Taiwan employ the AHP and DEA methods. In this study, we summarize the evaluation analysis process followed by the evaluators, emphasizing the methodological aspects.

We present theoretical and simulated studies of the phase characteristics of coplanar waveguides\n(CPWs) at Gigahertz frequencies. Two types of CPWs were studied, those with conventional center\nconductor and those with step tapered center conductors. In both cases, simulation gives us a basis for\nimplementing the CPWs in circuit-design models for a wide range tuning of phase shifters. Analysis is\ndone using conformal mapping technique.

Reservoir rule curves are basic guide line for long term operation. Often, they haven’t been accepted to practical operation because of lacking water resources participation. This study therefore incorporated the expert operators to participate with optimization technique to find the optimum reservoir rule curves. The developed reservoir operation model conducted on a differential evolution algorithm and reservoir simulation model. The Lampao reservoir located in Kalasin province, in the northeastern Thailand were considered in this study. The synthetic inflow data were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, and the results were compared with those of the existing model and those of the optimization model only. The result was found that the accepted rule curves gave a lower frequency and smaller magnitude of water shortage than the existing rule curve, whilst the flood frequency of excess water release, the average excess water release, and the maximum excess water release were reduced. Compared to the differential evolution technique, the differential evolution with expert participation provided a similar pattern of rule curve but the new rule curves of differential evolution with expert participation were acceptable to operate reservoir.

This study provides a UK counterpart to evidence presented by Brick and Palia (2007) regarding jointness in relationship lending that grants credit to small firms. Using the UK survey of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises from 2008, simultaneous equation results show if the lender considers collateral necessary, a loan is characterised by higher interest rates. In exchange for collateral, high quality borrowers receive an advantage of lower interest rates, as predicted by screening models. Regarding the borrower–lender relationship, the results suggest that over time, borrowers become locked in to the relationship. The results also show that borrowers and lender prefer jointness in loan pricing.\nKeywords: loan pricing; collateral; interest rate; borrower-lender relationship\nJEL Classification: G20, G21

Since the first half of the 1990’s, many developing countries liberalizing their financial systems and they began to be more integrated to the global financial system. Due to the financial crises, many developing countries have shifted to floating exchange rate regime. Therefore, the number of studies which focus on forecasting the currency exchange rates dramatically increased. In this study, USD-Turkish Lira (TRY) and Euro-TRY exchange rate forecasts are generated via fundamental stochastic processes based on random walk or martingale, forward rates and basic time series models. The error performance values of the obtained results are tested via the test method developed by (Diebold and Mariano, 1995) and (West, 1996). It can be concluded that stochastic processes outperformed time series models for USD-TRY exchange rates. According to these results, stochastic process generates more consistent and significant results than other kind of time series models.

The article is aimed not only at highlighting the need to evaluate talent management functioning in the organization but particularly at describing two basic ways of that evaluation - the audit of talent management and the evaluation of key indicators. The article points out the fact that as long as the organization puts talent management into effect then there is a necessity to evaluate its functioning in a certain way. Only on the basis of regular evaluation it is possible to identify the causes of a failure and, consequently, to perform necessary corrective measures. In order to achieve the aims of the article a method of analyzing the findings from literature and practical experience gained by organizations implementing talent management has been chosen. On the basis in that way acquired information the authors then submits proposals of how to implement the evaluation of talent management functioning in the organization.

The crucial procedure in haptic interaction with mobile devices is to convey an appropriate haptic signal to the user according to the device’s condition. This haptic effect is achieved by creating vibrotactile signals with a large frequency bandwidth. However, it is quite challenging to generate vibrotactile signal with large frequency bandwidth in mobile devices because a vibration motor is fabricated to be embedded into the mobile devices. This paper presents a tiny vibrotactile actuator that can selectively stimulate human mechanoreceptors by creating a haptic signal with a large frequency bandwidth. Actuated by Lorentz force, the proposed actuator intends to convey vibration signal with large frequency bandwidth to user in mobile device. The proposed actuator not only offers more reliable input than plain onscreen keyboards in smaller spaces but also allows users to manipulate keyboards more effectively. The experiment clearly shows that the proposed actuator creates enough output force to stimulate human skin across a large frequency bandwidth and to convey a variety of vibrotactile sensations to users.

In many applications, device speed is the most important requirement, and so conventional voltage mode silicon based devices cannot solve this necessity. Many years ago the current mode logic is proposed as a potential solution for this problem but combining this logic and MOSFET technology reduces the speed advantage pertains to the current mode logic and furthermore have additional imperfection due to using MOSFET technology. By using current mode logic we have achieved a significant improvement in the circuit parameters such as delay and power delay product. This paper presents an efficient circuit designs for OR-NOR logical functions in the current mode and MOSFET technology. The circuits being studied are optimized for energy efficiency at 0.13u CMOS technology. HSPICE is used to simulate these circuits. The denouements, that we have achieved ,show the best performance in the different Temperature (0 to 100) in comparison with the state of the art designs.

This paper evaluated the technical efficiency of rice growing farmers in selected Nandail Thana of Mymensingh district, Bangladesh using a Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model. Farmer-specific technical efficiencies are estimated using rice growing farmers level cross-sectional survey data which includes both stochastic frontier and inefficiency effects models, applying the maximum likelihood estimation method. The technical inefficiency effects are modeled as a function of farmer-specific information about farmers, the farmer’s experience in boro rice cultivation, the linkages of agriculture extension officer, the condition of soil in cultivated land, extra labour and environmental factors. The cultivation experience of farmer and the linkage of the extension officer in cultivation affect the efficiency level of the farmers. This study finds the necessity of improving the quality of seed, the irrigation method and maintained the amount of fertilizer which has a significant effect of the boro rice production in selected Nandail thana of Mymensingh district, Bangladesh. The most of the farmers of boro rice cultivation are found efficient and their technical efficiency is 0.95. Policies leading to the improvement of irrigation method, the quality of seed and reduction of using pesticides could be beneficial in decreasing inefficiency of farmers in Bangladesh.

This paper explores the impact of reference groups and unanticipated situational factors on the travelers’ patronage intentions and the re-patronage decisions for the tourist trains services in Taiwan. Regression analyses are used to examine the magnitude and the nature of different dimensional influence from the 1200 domestic patrons. The results show the significant moderating effects for informational and value-expressive reference group influences but not for utilitarian type. From the consumer behavior perspective, these influences of reference groups may manifest in various types of tangible products and intangible services patronages by individuals. Especially for tourism services, these forms of influences can provide the opportunity for individuals to communicate with group members in sharing the experiences of a destination and selection of a particular purchasing decision. This empirical study also demonstrates a novel perspective on identifying the importance of on-the-spot atmosphere as well as service quality of tourist train.

This paper describes the system analysis, modeling and simulation of a Hydraulic Servo System (HSS) for hydraulic mini press machine. Comparisons among linear output feed back PID control, Fuzzy control and Hybrid of PID and Fuzzy control are presented. Application of hybrid controller to a nonlinear is investigated by both position and velocity of the hydraulic servo system. The experiment is based on an 8 bit PIC 16F877 microcontroller, and the simulation is based on MATLAB Simulink. Simulation and hardware experimental results show that the hybrid controller gave the best performance as it has the smallest overshoot, oscillation, and setting time.

This study empirically examines the impact of urban agglomeration on economic growth, using cross-country data on 3 measures of urban agglomeration. The existing literature suggests that the agglomeration of population is beneficial to economic growth in low-income countries, since it creates economies of scale. In contrast, the urban agglomeration is harmful for economic growth in high-income countries, given that the relative importance of congestion costs increases as income rises. The regression results show that there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between urban agglomeration and economic growth, regardless of model specifications or estimation methods. In addition, this paper suggests the threshold value of income level that is equivalent to the highest point of the inverted U-shaped impact, derived from the estimated coefficients.

In this study population status and limiting factors on breeding success of Great bustard Otis tarda in Mokryan region are investigated. Population trends of main habitats in Mokryan is monitored and observation records based on month, season and year was registered in 2010, we also used data and information from our previous works and local people for assessment of Great bustard number trends since 1990 -2000s. On March to July 2010, we extensively screened sensitive region of Sootave plan, where a late of leke site observed it, to measured of negative factors on Great bustard immunity in breeding season. In Kani seve and Misalem areas Great bustard number faced to extinct and in other habitats as Azad-Bajvand, Se kanian, Qazlian, Yengija-Albolaq and Sootave has been declined. In compare with other areas Sootave and Se kian have a good potential for breeding site but in sensitive times, some limiting factors as arriving farmers and local people, grazing sheep, wild animals (fox, jackal,..), crossing of vehicle and stray dog have depressive effects on breeding success and can a main cause of the decreasing number of this species in current decades. \nKeywords: Great bustard, Limiting factors, Population trend, Mokryan, Northwestern Iran

The daily behaviours of Great Bustard Otis tarda at the breeding period were investigated in the Sootave, Mokryan region, NW Iran. The first data about of Great Bustard activities based on seasonal variation, times of day and type of land use published by Carmen Martinez (2000), in Spain, therefore in current study we focused on month variation of Great bustards behaviors at the breeding period. Time budgets were calculated according to sex and month. Males spent more time courtship display and less time feeding than females in March and April. In spite of, devoted time to feeding in females less than males in May and June. Resting time in females was higher than males in whole of study period but numerically no difference observed between allocated behaviors time of males and females as moving, scanning and flying. The females incubate behavior was observed only in May and June with lowest spent time. Time allocated to different activities was affected by month. Courtship activities in Bustrad was restricted to March and April and incubate to May and June, although in the other behaviors, minor variation was observed.\nKeywords: Daily behavior, Geat Bustrd Otis tarda, Sootave habitat, Mokryan region

Recently, investing managers all over the world have basically improved their exposure to the Iranian capital markets. Despite the Iranian capital market’s quick growth and its improving importance in the international market, there has been limited empirical evidence connecting security return to cash flows and earnings. This study includes the increasing empirical literature on the relationship between cash flows and earnings with security returns by applying an Iranian dataset. Our hypothesis includes: (1) When earnings are transitory, the association between cash flows and security returns, increases or decreases, and (2) Cash flows and earnings have jointly linked with stock returns. Our evidence empirically says (that): (1) Cash flows have a more (less) key role in the marketplace when earnings are transitory, and (2) Cash flows have informative role beyond earnings in expressing security returns. According to our results, the Iranian models, as their European counterparts, utilize cash flows and earnings in their pricing similar to the evidence provided in previous European studies. As a role, implications and correlation predictions of cash flows and earnings are consistent with the data.

Private Finance Initiative (PFI) offers an alternative to the conventional procurement of public service infrastructure. Originated form the United Kingdom (UK) from its public sector reforms, it has since been widely used in many countries such as Japan, Italy and France. The Malaysian government in the past six years has officially announced the adoption of PFI for its construction and infrastructure projects in order to promote greater involvement of the private sector in delivering public services. This paper aims at exploring the true nature of the Malaysian adoption of PFI, against the British experience; by extensive literature review of the official documents published by government bodies and government-link organisations in relation to the implementation of PFI for both countries. To support the literature findings, interview sessions were conducted with Malaysian government agencies where PFI is engaged. Empirical analysis indicates that Malaysia has a unique model of PFI, where it differs from UK in terms of its definition, financing system, and risks allocation. This paper hopes to supplement and improve knowledge in the management of PFI projects in Malaysia, primarily on the possible improvements that could be executed in strengthening PFI implementations in Malaysia by learning from the UK experience.

This study investigates the key determinants of the adoption of electronic finance application (i.e. online stock trading). Based on the decomposed theory of planned behaviour (DTPB), the study incorporated two other constructs: trust perception and investors’ knowledge, in an attempt to explain the factors that influence investors’ intentions to adopt online stock trading in Iran. With the aid of structured questionnaires, data were collected from 385 investors, while structural equation modelling technique was employed in the analysis of data. According to the obtained results, 52% of variance in investors’ attitude can be explained by perceived ease of use, usefulness and trust perception, with perceived ease of use having the most significant effect. Both self-efficacy and investors knowledge explained 67% of variation in perceived behavioural control. Finally, investors’ attitude was discovered to have significant positive effect on their intentions to adopt online stock trading services. Moreover, the findings are expected to enable various stakeholders in the Iranian stock exchange (i.e. investors, managers, policy makers, regulators and financial analysts) have comprehensive understanding on the factors associated with online stock trading, so as to devise their strategies accordingly.

In Magnetic Resonance Imaging low-resolution images are normally interpolated to decrease voxel size and improve apparent resolution. Conversely, classical interpolation techniques are not able to recover the high frequency information lost during the acquisition process. In this manuscript a novel super-resolution technique is proposed to recover such information using coplanar high resolution images. The proposed methodology takes benefit from the fact that in typical clinical settings both high and low-resolution images of different types are taken from the same subject. These available high resolution images can be used to improve effectively the resolution of other coplanar lower resolution images. Experiments on MRI data are supplied to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. A comparison with classical interpolation techniques is presented to demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed methodology over previous State-of-the-art methods.

In this paper, the logistic regression is used to propose a mathematical model for the success/failure of the students at the course of mathematics, as a function of some measured variables. By the logistic regression equations presented, we measure the odds ratios of the results based on the explanatory variables; confidence intervals are shown as well. \n\nThe data was collected by a survey conducted during October-November, 2011 at South East European University and State University in Tetovo, Macedonia. It is related to the following three activities of the teaching process: the beginning of the lecture, the development of the lecture and the homework evaluation. For this purpose, three logistic regression models are proposed to describe each of the phases. In total, 22 variables are considered and classified into three groups. The variable “answer” represents the retention. \n\nIn a previous paper (S. Alija. L. Kamberi and Ll. Puka. 2011) we described a similar problem. In this study, once again, the results obtained with the new data identify a relationship between the teaching practices during the lecture and the success/failure of the students at the course of mathematics. We compare the results with those found in the previous research, and we find almost the same model and characteristics. Some comments follow the situation, related with the list of variables and some social and structural developments at the university.

Many traffic agencies have been using Geographical Information System (GIS) for understanding, analyzing, and solving the traffic accidents problems. Traffic accidents cause enormous loss of lives and money in Amman city. There are about 86,000 vehicles accidents in Amman city in year 2009 and approximately 7000 vehicles accidents each month. To analyze and solve this problem, a double clustering approach and data visualization analysis on spatial data mining of GIS are developed in this paper. The double clustering approach mainly includes two steps. First, spatial clustering that includes clustering accident datasets depending on the spatial locations of accidents. Second, accidents are classified based on their non-spatial attributes within each spatial cluster. Identifying road accident hotspots is a key role in determining effective strategies for the reduction of vehicle accidents. In this paper, accident hotspots are analyzed by identifying geographical locations with high accident frequencies within a predefined area. In addition, our work presents the analysis of spatial and non-spatial content so as to classify vehicle accidents. The Minimum Bounding Rectangle (MBR) is used for the visualization purpose. The data visualization depends on mapping the resulted spatial classification of accidents into MBR and subdivides the MBR into smaller areas or cells where each cell reflects the analysis of spatial classification.

The English vocabulary learning has been essentially recognized for English language learning for young learners. The purpose of this convergent parallel mixed methods study was to study the kinesthetic learning activities effect on English vocabulary learning for young learners and to explore the reasons of using the kinesthetic learning activities improving English vocabulary learning for the young learners. Both quantitative data and qualitative data are collected and analyzed at the same time, then the results were merged. An English vocabulary achievement pretests and posttests were used to collect the quantitative data from all the participants, then the t-test was used to analyze the data, at the same time, the qualitative data from observation of the teaching logs was collect, and thematically analysis was used to build the themes in the results. In this study both of the quantitative data results and qualitative data results were integrated. The results showed that after using kinesthetic learning activities, comparing the English vocabulary achievement tests result of experiment group highly improved than control group, which were explained and supposed from qualitative findings, that using kinesthetic learning activities was provided the enjoyable leaning environments and supported by the sharing and creative leaning during the young learners learning English vocabulary.

English is widely used in the world. It is essential to explore and develop the effective way of learning or acquisition English language for non-native learner. As the developing of educational setting of the language, the learners` differences have been addressed for different views. This study is focused on discussing the reasons the using physical movement may improve English language learning for non-English native learner which is centralized the learners` differences on psycholinguistics perspective. Thus, the learners` learning styles related to language learning was reviewed. Similarly, the relationship between multiple intelligence and language learning was discussed. Furthermore, the importance of vocabulary learning theory of mental lexicon was mentioned as well as reviewed the different previous researches contribution to the physical activities or exercising improving cognition and learning, which used the foreign language vocabulary learning.