Thirty multiparous lactating Turcana ewes were used to determine the effect of supplementing the diet of ewes of pasture on milk fatty acid (FA) profile. The exeperimental diets consisted of: P - pasture, PH – P + alfalfa hay(H) + standard concentrate, PHCs – P + H + camelina seed-based concentrate. Camelina seeds (Cs - Camelina sativa) were used to increase the beneficial FA concentration in milk fat. PH diet as compared to P diet increases daily milk yield (764.6 vs. 621.3 ml/d) and the content of milk fat (7.41 vs. 6.82%), but it adversely affects the quality of milk fats. Fat in the milk of PH ewes had a higher content of hypercholesterolemic FA (i.e. C12:0, C14:0 and C16:0), while the PUFA concentration decreased (5.45 vs. 6.95%). When compared with the PH diet, including Cs in the concentrate (PHCs diet) increased the c9,t11-CLA (1.08 vs. 2.68%), C20:5n-3 (EPA), C22:6n-3 (DHA), C18:3n-3 (ALA) (by 58.2%) and t11-C18:1 (VA) (by 21.7%) in milk fat. This study has demostrated the feasibility of producing milk enriched in FA beneficial to human health when the availability of grass, or its composition, is inadequate for the nutritional needs of the animals.
This study was conducted to determine the balance between the inputs of energy and the energetic yield for hazelnut production in Turkey. The data for the study were collected from 30 hazelnut plantations. A total energy input of 43,790.57 MJ ha-1 was required for hazelnut production. Diesel-fuel, the single highest source of energy input, accounted for 44.78% of the total energy input. The two next highest energy sources were chemical fertilizers (36.94%) and farm manure (6.51%). The values of energy efficiency, energy productivity, specific energy, and net energy were 1.03, 0.04 kg MJ-1, 22.62 MJ kg-1 and 1,322.90 MJ ha-1, respectively. Estimates made using econometric models showed that human labor, machinery, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, farm manure, electricity and water used for irrigation energy inputs had significantly positive effects on energy yield. The results of a sensitivity analysis of the energy inputs showed that the marginal physical productivity (MPP) value of human labor was the highest, followed by electricity and water for irrigation.
The aim of this study is to analyse the data collected by questionnaire from the farmers who produce apples with different rootstocks (dwarf, semi-dwarf and seedling). The questions concerned economic indicators such as profitability factor, payback period, net present value, benefit/cost ratio and internal rate of return. The number of farmers who received questionnaires was determined by purposive sampling. In the research area, five farms for each group (dwarf, semi-dwarf and seedling rootstocks) with the same apple orchard size close to each other were selected. A survey was conducted in September 2010 and the data of the last three production periods (2007/08, 2008/09 and 2009/10) were examined, but the average data of the last production year was analysed and interpreted. \nParticularly, in terms of criteria considering time value of money the seedling rootstock apple orchards activity is more feasible than the others. The initial investment amount is very high in dwarf and semi-dwarf systems, and the feasibility results are lower than the seedling rootstock orchard group.
Nowadays, customer satisfaction is of great importance in terms of enhancing profitability and repeat purchase behavior. To provide customer satisfaction should be considered as a future investment for the smooth run of the businesses considered. This study sets out to examine the satisfaction levels of tourists of different nationalities staying at five star hotels in Antalya, one of the most popular tourism destinations in Turkey. The survey data collected the results of 2,907 questionnaires received from visitors from Turkey, Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. The results indicate that there are variations in satisfaction levels with respect to the nationality of tourists. The study concludes with appropriate marketing and management implications for managers of five star hotels in Antalya.
This study examined both the mediating and moderating roles of flourishing on the relationship between external and internal academic locus of control. Participants were 571 (291 female, 280 male) university students, between age range of 18–24, who completed a questionnaire package that includes the Flourishing Scale and the Academic Locus of Control Scale. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that flourishing partially mediated the relationship between external and internal academic locus of control. However, flourishing did not moderate the relationship between external and internal academic locus of control. The significance and limitations of the results are discussed.
In manufacturing the vehicles tiers, its surface roughness is considered, Also in coating roads, this matter is greatly considered. It was found that increasing the roughness, either the tire surface roughness or the road surface roughness both has a positive influence on the hydroplaning speed, during driving on a wet road. But the question that has to be answered is what is the roughness limit that would give adverse results in the driving performance. This was satisfactory answered in this paper.\nTire radius, tire width, circumference groove, width, depth and tire aspect ratio all are studied. It was found that, increasing the groove width, depth and aspect ratio case an increase the hydroplaning speed, while increasing the tire radius or the tire width, both has a negative influence on the hydroplaning speed ,during decreasing it.
In this paper we will define some new types of general-tangle graphs consisting of tangles with different types. These general-tangle graphs will classified with respect to the dimension of tangle. Some application in medicine will be introduced.
Abstract\nThe potential radiological impact of phosphogypsum wastes from phosphate fertilizer plant in Nigeria was assessed in view of the fact that they could be employed as substitutes for natural gypsum in construction industry. The radionuclides present in the phosphogypsum were identified and absorbed dose, radium equivalent, external and internal hazard index calculated. The values of the external and internal hazard index were 0.96 and 1.87 respectively. The value of internal hazard index was more than unity and thus poses danger to the occupants of the building in which it would be applied.
This paper proposes a 3D computational FE model of a shear wall test that includes the test device with the tested concrete slab. A modified Drucker-Prager model was used for the modelling of the nonlinear behaviour of the concrete. The condition of plasticity is formed from two criteria with which it is possible to realistically describe the strength of concrete under pressure, tension and shear stress. The simulation results are compared to measured data.
Purpose: Melatonin is a well known antioxidant molecule and protector against ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury. It has a tissue protective effect against I/R injury. Methods: We aimed to evaluate the effect of oral melatonin , on I/R injury in patients undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery under spinal anaesthesia. \nMethods: Malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD) , nitric oxide (NO), haemodynamics, respiration rate, atropine and efedrin need, sedation scores were all measured for this purpose.\n New Results: There were no significant differences between groups in terms of age, weight, height, sex, ASA classification, BMI, tourniquet time and operation time. Plasma concentrations of MDA increased after ischemia (AI) and decreased at the 15. min of reperfusion (AR) but these results are not statistically significant (p>0.05). Plasma NO levels of Group C were significantly increased when compared to baseline values and Group M at AI period. It decreased significantly in both of the groups AR. Plasma SOD levels in preischemia period increased significantly in both of the groups. Also decreased significantly compared to AI period, and increased significantly compared to basal values in both of the groups. \nConclusions: In conclusion 3 mg oral melatonin does not reduce I/R injury in skeletal muscle after pneumatic tourniquet application in human. It may reduce I/R injury in skeletal muscle in higher doses. So future investigation may be necessary to clarify if melatonin decrease I/R injury model of human skeletal muscle and at what dose or not. \nKey Words: Biochemistry; enzymes, Surgery; orthopedics, ischemia reperfusion injury, melatonin.
Background: We aimed to evaluate the effects of intra-articular levobupivacaine on rabbit knee articular cartilage and certain biochemical parameters in the blood.\nMethods: A total of 24 New Zealand rabbits were included to study. Blood sampling was done from all animals on the first day, then the subjects were randomly allocated either to the control group (Group C,n=9) or the levobupivacaine group (Group L, n=15). Group C underwent each two intra-articular injections of saline, 0.25 mL into right and 0.50 mL into left knee. Group L was injected 0.25 mL levobupivacaine given into the right knee and 0.50 mL into the left one. The groups were divided randomly into three. Tissue and blood samples for histologic and biochemical examination were collected from Groups C1 and L1 on the first day, C2 and L2 on the second and C3 and L3 on the tenth day of the study. Interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were analyzed.\nResults: No statistically significant differences could be detected when comparing either left and right joints within the same groups and Group C and L (p>0.05). Significant elevations of biochemical parameters were found in Group C.\nConclusions: We concluded that levobupivacaine doesn’t lead to significant histologic changes in rabbit articular cartilage. Significant elevations of biochemical parameters being generally found in the C Group, we tend to think that such elevations are not linked to levobupivacaine. Intra-articular levobupivacaine may be a safe alternative for use in postoperative analgesia.
Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert the chemical energy of a reaction directly into electrical energy and it is a clean energy source. Among the several types of fuel cell, Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is a suitable choice for distributed energy sources. A single phase hybrid multilevel inverter (HMLI) with reduced number of switches interfaced with PEMFC has been designed and analyzed. This paper presents a comparison between fundamental frequency switching and pulse width modulation (PWM) switching for HMLI. A two phase interleaved boost converter (IBC) between the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and the HMLI is introduced to reduce the input current ripples and also to convert low voltage high current input into a high voltage low current output. The inverter circuit topology and its modulation strategies have been described in detail and their performance has been verified based on total harmonic distortion (THD) and switching losses using MATLAB/SIMULINK and PSIM. Experimental results are presented to validate the proposed inverter configuration.
Out of the many possible methods suitable for measuring efficiency, we selected a financial analysis based on ratio indicators. The method uses empirical data extracted from the Trade Register for the period 2001–2011. The structure of the data allows us to analyse economic effects of mergers and indicate possible causes of their (in)efficiency. We chose variables earnings after tax and equity out of the possible economic characteristics of merger efficiency. Statistical testing of hypotheses did not confirm a positive effect of mergers on the development of either of the variables. To ascertain the real economic contribution of the mergers for owners, we chose the indicator return on equity and monitored its change before and after a merger. The created model enables to select any sets of parallel indicators suitable for a complex analysis of economic effects of mergers.
The use of easily renewable raw material sources is a key objective in material research in the majority of the world’s industrialized countries. The importance of easily-renewable raw material resources is closely related to the increasing demand for high-quality construction materials and sustainable development in the building industry. With the use of easily renewable raw material resources, the demand for consumption of non-renewable raw material resources decreases and there is often a decrease in the energy demands for the whole manufacturing process. In the case of raw materials from agriculture, an undisputed advantage is the local accessibility of raw materials and the decrease of costs and CO2 emissions during transport. The advanced insulating materials produced from inputting raw materials from agriculture can easily replace other/traditional heat insulating materials in building constructions which are highly demanding in terms of energy and raw materials.\nThe advantage of natural insulating materials (on the basis of natural fibres from agriculture) is the option of so-called healthy constructions, i.e. constructions using traditional construction technology and natural construction materials which are, by their moisture behavior, close to the demands of the human body. In terms of utility properties, insulating materials with a basis of natural fibres have excellent heat insulating and mechanical properties. \nThis article presents the results of research focused on the development of advanced insulating materials on the basis of linen and hemp fibres and the study of their physical and heat insulating properties.
Tracking the interacting objects in the presence of objects appearance variation, their backgrounds, partial occlusion, and deterioration in object images is one of the most difficult problems in computer vision. The motivation of this paper is to propose a new approach to tracking multiple interacting objects based on a generalized probabilistic particle filter. In this approach, a sample set of the tracked objects is constructed at the beginning of the tracking process. Then, we have predicted the prior representation and position of the tracked objects depending on the minimization of the parameters of the proposed generalized probabilistic distribution. Finally, the candidates holding the most similar histogram of the tracked objects will be regarded as the instantaneous tracking result. Experimental results show that, the proposed method can effectively improve the tracking precision especially multiple moving objects. We also compare our results with previous work and we have found that, the proposed approach is an effective technique for tracking multiple interacting objects in the presence of partial occlusion.
The race towards new heights of buildings faces many challenges. The main challenge that governs the design of a tall slender structure is the building drift. Another challenge that may face the designer is the required robustness to avoid progressive collapse due to localized failures in case of a column loss. The study will investigate how to improve the building performance to face these challenges. \nOne of the most efficient and economical structural systems that is used to face these challenges is the use of belt trusses. They will provide a significant drift control through the tying of the peripheral columns and will enhance the building resistance of progressive collapse through the holding of the initial failure of the damaged element and redistributing the load supporting by the failure element. The optimum locations of the belt trusses are still remain a crucial but also pending question.\nThe study gives an answer for this question by presenting the results of a 25 story steel building as a design example with different locations of belt trusses. The results indicate that both the drift and progressive collapse will be obviously enhanced just by determining the optimum locations of belt trusses
This paper, describes an assorted approach where Turbo codes with APSK modulation are used to reduce the complexity and power consumption of pulsed orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (pulsed-OFDM) ultra-wideband (UWB) systems. The proposed system will use Turbo codes to achieve higher code rates and APSK modulation to reduce power consumption of pulsed-OFDM system. . The objective of this paper is to elaborate on the performance of Turbo code with APSK modulation in the UWB Communication systems and to provide the comparison with already standardized convolution coding with QPSK modulation scheme. The performance of Turbo code with APSK modulation for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN) is analyzed for different UWB indoor propagation channels ( CM3 and CM4) provided by the IEEE 802.15.3a Standard activity committee and its performance is compared with existing convolution code with QPSK modulation techniques.
Clustering concept is a very powerful and useful technique in data mining. Various ways this can be utilized from application perspective. Clustering of similar topic from text documents is an important task in organizing information, search engine results obtaining from user query, enhancing web crawling and information retrieval. Generally partitional clustering algorithms are reported performing well on document clustering like family of k-means. In this case clustering problem can be consider as an optimization process of grouping documents into k clusters so that a particular criterion function is minimized or maximized. Existing algorithms for k-means clustering converge to different local minima based on the initializations and creation of empty clusters as a clustering solution. To solve this problem, we applied the newly developed optimization method based on human social behavior called adaptive social behavior optimization (ASBO), which contains simplicity in computational model and deliver global solution. Proposed method is compared with the result of another well established swarm social optimization method namely particle swarm optimization (PSO) and frequently applied K-means algorithm. Performance criteria is very critical in deciding the quality of clusters hence two mostly dominating criteria which are well accepted by research community, F-measure and purity of cluster evaluated with proposed results in all cases. Vector space model applied to represent the documents mathematically. Our experimental results demonstrated that our proposed methods can significantly improve the performance of document clustering in terms of accuracy and robustness without increasing the execution time much.
Family controlling structure is a popular controlling structure in most companies in Asia. This paper aims at analyzing corporate governance and financial characteristics between family business and non-family and their relations to business failure. Six indexes found different between family and non-family business are: PLEDGE, IND, INBOD, INCEO, BODLEV, and TAR. No evidence is found between controlling structure and the occurrence of business failure.\nIndexes to predict business failure in terms of controlling structure are different; in family business, IND, BODLEV, DEBT, and REA can predict business failure while in non-family business, BODLEV, CEO, CEOLEV, DEBT, and REA can predict business failure.
This research was conducted to investigate the relevance of lamb sex, birth type and birth rate on birth distribution within the 24-hour daily cycle in Anatolian Merino Sheep. The aim is to find solutions to any problem that could arise in this subject. In this research, birth records obtained from 981 ewes and their 1175 lambs in the private sector in Konya province in the years 2010–2011 were used as a data set. According to the results, the twin birth rate observed was 19.78% and the sex distribution was as follows; 54.54% were females and 45.46% were males. Examining the time of birth revealed the percentage of lambs born between 22:01 and 04:00 was 25.99%, while the percentage was 29.36% between 04:01 and 10:00, 25.57% between 10:01 and 16:00 and 20.08% between 16:01 and 22:00. For sheep giving birth for the first time, the highest birth rate (27.18%) was between 04:01 and 10:00, while for sheep giving birth for the second, third or fourth time the percentages were 28.88%, 31.78% and 29.26%, respectively, and the births occurred at the same time. In the business examined, 53.93% of births took place during daylight hours while 46.07% of births took place at night. The percentage of births between 22:00 and 04:00 was 25.99%.
We witness more and more often a diversification of the elements of underground economy, as potentiated by the effects of the global economic crisis. If in the previous years we have witnessed manifestations related to tax evasion, gambling or bribery, nowadays the aspects of the underground economy are represented by organizing criminal activities after the model of legal businesses (reception, production, transport, recovery, protection sectors) and white-collar crime.\nSometimes these activities of organized crime surpass the capacity of the state to limit them as the specialists in the tax and legal areas prefer to offer their services to private employers who afford to pay them more than the state. \nLast but not least the globalization has created conditions in which money, weapons or human trafficking runs optimally between international groups of organized crime through the easy access to international networks of data or transport. Moreover, organized crime groups became focused on the control of financial institutions or banks, under the cover of which they could transfer huge amounts of money. \nIn this respect, it appears that besides its positive features, globalization has created an environment in which organized crime groups have easily extended beyond state borders becoming real transnational crime industries.
Aromatherapy is a natural medicine method involving the use of natural plant essential oils, biologically active substances that are located in different parts of plants. It has been known for a long time, and developed in parallel with herbal and alternative medicine. Many research centres are currently examining the effectiveness and the ability to re-use this benefits of nature. Authors focused on the use of this substances in psychiatry and dentistry, discussing not only the studies of traditional ways of application (i.e. through massage, inhalation, compresses, baths), but therefore reviewed some oral formulations containing essential oils. Therapy of depression, anxiety disorders, mental disorders, stupor, fear of the dental treatment was successfully supported by use of Melissa, Lavender, Sage, Bitter orange, Rosemary, Lemon and Bergamot derived essential oils. Important fact for dentist, is that rose oil inhaled by patients before dental procedures in the waiting room has relaxing effect. In conclusion the effectiveness of essential oils in these studies may be explained by a high content and condense of biologically active compounds in each single oil. Good absorption and lack of side effects suggest wider use of aromatherapy in both behavioural and mental disorders, as well as contemporary, comprehensive dentistry.
Arsenic is classified as one of the most toxic and carcinogenic chemical elements and its presence in natural water resources can result in serious environmental problems. At present study, ability of coagulation process with polyaluminum chloride (PAC) using aloe vera (AV) as coagulant aid in a batch system to remove arsenic (V) from aqueous solutions was investigated. The effects of most important operating variables such as coagulant dose of PAC (1-20 mg/L) coagulant aid dose of aloe vara (0.1-2.0 mg/L) and pH (1-11) were investigated. The optimum pH for arsenic removal by coagulation using PAC was 5 and the highest removal was found to be 81.75%, 80.45%, 78.21%, 77.12% and 78.02% at initial As(v) concentration 200, 250, 500, 750 and 1000 µg/L respectively. The optimum dosage of PAC for both low and high arsenic solutions was 3 mg/L. Also the removal efficiency of As(V) increased with increase of coagulant aid (AV), so maximum efficiency (92.63%) was achieved with 2.0 mg/L AV (3 mg PAC-2.0 mg AV) as a result of precipitation, co-precipitation and adsorption mechanisms. It can be concluded that AV not only was an inexpensive coagulant, but also a quite effective factor in removal of As(V) from aqueous environments.
Gaussian filtering is one of the most successfully computer operation vision to reduce noise, calculating the gradient intensity change or performing laplacien or the second directional derivative of an image. However it’s well known that in scale space context, the Gaussian kernel has some drawbacks, loss of information caused by the unavoidable Gaussian truncation and the prohibitive processing time due to the mask size. To give a solution to both problems, Remaki and Cheriet proposed in their recent work , a new kernel family with compact support (KCS) in scale space that achieved good performance in smoothing operation with regard to the Gaussian kernel. In further, to improving the KCS efficiency, a new separable version of kernel family namely (SKCS) was proposed by Ben Braiek and Cheriet [10] which in itself has a compact support. The SKCS kernel should be parameterized by a scale parameter and generated in such a way that fine scale structures are successively suppressed when the scale parameter is increased. Moreover, the scale parameter is increased, the image is blurred and details and border are removed. All these disadvantages are related to the static nature of the SKCS kernel. In this paper, we present a smoothing approach with a SKCS separable version of the KCS kernel, to separate the de-blurring process, recover the missing data and guarantee the non degradation of the sharp edges of image during the process. Secondly, to avoid the drawbacks related to the static nature of the SKCS kernel, we propose a new dynamic kernel based on neural networks to create an adaptive SKCS filter. The parameter involved in the filtering process are calculated in real time and supervised by neural networks. The filter is continuously variable to detect, clean and avoid noisy areas of the image. A comparative study between the SKCS kernel and the Gaussian kernel will be considered and discussed and some experimental results will be shown to illustrate our approach efficiency.
The synthesis of Janus particles via a modified Pickering emulsion route has recently been reported. Substitution of the conventionally used paraffin wax (PW) with a POW and use of chloroform as a solvent, in support of green technology, are the major modifications of the present method. Optimum solvent-to-water ratio has been determined for the present synthesis route to be 2:8 volume ratio. The maximum weight percentage of the silica nanoparticles to POW, for non-agglomerated product, has also been obtained. The feasibility of using POW for the synthesis of Janus particle via the Pickering emulsion route is confirmed by Zeta potential analysis.
Currently construction companies are subject to enormous pressures to achieve objectives of time and budget. However, this situation can result in an unsafe workplace prone to accidents because, often, with the purpose of meeting deadlines, the implementation of measures to prevent occupational hazards is relegated to the background. In order to discuss the relationship between intensification of activities and work accidents on construction sites, a survey of the views of various construction stakeholders (public owners and private owners, contractors and designers/consultants) was performed as part of a national survey on construction delays. It was found that most stakeholder respondents agree with the growing evidence of this problem. However, many believe that it is possible to reconcile the growing pressure imposed by compliance to deadlines with essential requirements for quality and safety through more efficient coordination.
International financial organisations such as the IMF, have been employed in very critical points of the neoliberal transformation. In order to assist the spread of the global capitalist hegemony, national states have been enforced to transform their structures by these institutions. In this paper, the transformation of economic, political and social structures of Turkey was investigated as a case within the enlargement of the global hegemony on tle light of Gramscian and Coxian approachs Inside the economic transformation, changes in employment, privatisation, union activities and social state structure were examined. For the political and social transformation, the rise of political Islam and authoritarian state were given. \nKeyWords: International Political Economy, Gramscian Theory, IMF
