April 2011
A review of sustainable development of bioenergy in Africa: An outlook for the future bioenergy industry
April 2011
State of the art of genetic diversity research in Jatropha curcas
Jatropha curcas (Euphorbiaceae) is a mesoamerican plant. However, till date, it is extensively grown in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The seeds have high oil content, which can be transformed into biodiesel. In the present review, the geographical origin of J. curcas is discussed, then, advances of research in the genetic diversity are summarized and contrasted. Proposed future research...
April 2011
An optimization technique using hybrid GA-SA algorithm for multi-objective scheduling problem
A Mixed-model assembly line is widely employed to perform the assembly operation in industries and the time needed to release products to market is frequently considered by many researchers. However, providing an appropriate level of flexibility to meet customer demand variations is critical for companies survival in this competitive market. The problem of production planning in terms of sequencing various product model...
April 2011
Engineering properties of cemented peat bricks
Housing is a great problem in today’s world and the world future. The most basic building material for infrastructure construction and housing is the usual brick or blocks. Conventional bricks, which are burnt clay, create environmental problems. The purpose for this study was undertaken on the production of peat; siliceous sand, composite cement and lime solid bricks to solve the economic problems of housing and...
April 2011
Determination of the preference of urban people in picnic areas with different landscape characteristics
Access to open, green spaces for recreational purposes plays a significant role in the quality of the lives of city dwellers. Given this, such spaces should be provided, but quite what is required? Appropriately detailed research can help in the identification of principles capable of informing the work of landscape architects, designers and planners in the development, construction and restoration of such valuable...
April 2011
Estimation of slump value and Bingham parameters of fresh concrete mixture composition with artificial neural network modelling
High performance is the most important expectation from concrete which is commonly used in today’s construction technology. To form a high performance concrete “HPC”, two fundamental properties are required. These properties are optimization of the materials used to form the concrete and the workability of fresh concrete during shaping. Many scientists have used rheological properties in conjunction...
April 2011
Oxidative stress in diagnosis of acute appendicitis patients
The most common acute surgical infection seen in emergency department is acute appendicitis (AA). Although many advances in diagnostic system, the diagnosis of AA is not always straight forward. Early diagnosis of AA is important for reducing morbidity rates. The objective of the current study was to investigate the value of oxidative stress in the accuracy of preoperative AA diagnosis. A total of thirty consecutive...
April 2011
Determination of carbofuran in fish and corn leaves by two types of commercial immunoassays
We evaluated two commercially available immunoassay kits for the detection of carbofuran in fish and corn leaves. We observed strong matrix interference or inhibition due to the extraction solvent. This interference was corrected by either diluting or decolorizing and diluting the extract. The coefficient of variation of the recovery ranged from 3.9 - 11.0% for the coated tubes compared to 1.3 - 3.9% for magnetic...
April 2011
The use of methylene blue test for predicting swell parameters of natural clay soils
Swell behavior of clayey soils is referred to as a hidden disaster causing a great deal of damage in light hydraulic structures. In this context, it is of key importance to make a preliminary soil research and to identify soils of this nature through lab tests in order to adopt the correct design strategy. It is extremely important to have determined the swell parameters (swell percentage and swell pressure) in...
April 2011
Chemical properties of soils and plant as affected by use of metallurgical slag
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of usage of Ca - containing metallurgical slag from Steel factory from Smederevo, Republic of Serbia (owned by U.S. Steel), through vegetative experiments performed in semi-controlled conditions on two types of acid soils (Lessivated Cambisol and Pseudogley). The studied parameters were chemical properties of soils and chemical composition of...
April 2011
Spotted words recognition system based on Kalman filter and HMM (hidden Markove model) models to control the movement of the manipulator arm
The main objective of this paper is to implement a real-time speech recognition module to use it in controlling the movements of a five degree of freedom (FOD) manipulator arm using a Kalman filter as a selector in noisy environment and HHM model to recognise 12 Arabic spotted words. The adopted methodology is based on detecting and spotting vocabulary words within a phrase generated by user. The system recognises the...
April 2011
Modelling and forecasting electricity consumption of Malaysian large steel mills
This paper describes a model to forecast the daily maximum demand of Malaysian large steel mills and the annual maximum demand contributed by these steel mills. This study attempts to combine both the top-down and bottom-up approaches to forecast the daily and annual maximum demand of the steel mills. The top-down approach uses regression analysis to forecast the annual amount of electricity consumption of the steel...
April 2011
The agricultural extension system and practices in Turkey
This paper presents background information about the Agricultural Extension System (AES) in Turkey. It is concerned with the institutions, extension approaches and activities in the AES. In addition, some critical issues in public extension system are discussed. The AES, and the actors who provide extension and other services, are in both public institutions and private organizations. Agricultural extension activities...
April 2011
Life satisfaction in Iran; A national representative study
Given that there is no internationally published document regarding life satisfaction (LS) in the Iranian general population, we aimed at seeking the determinants of LS in a nationally representative sample in Iran. This cross-sectional study drew upon the data of the Iranian National General Health Survey in 2007 with a sample size of 12,000 individuals randomly selected from all 30 provinces of the country. The...
April 2011
Impact of exercise-training on restenosis rate after drug-elution stent implantation in large coronary artery
The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of exercise-training on restenosis rate within six months after drug-elution stent (DES) (≥ 3.0 mm) implantation. A total of 90 hospitalized patients with coronary artery disease underwent DES (≥ 3.0 mm) implantation were retrospectively analyzed. Acute myocardial infarction, chronic total occlusion lesions, restenosis lesions and bypass graft lesions were...
April 2011
Information needs and seeking behavior among primary care physicians in Saudi Arabia: Implications for policy and practice
This is an exploratory study conducted in Riyadh region, Saudi Arabia to determine information needs and information-seeking behavior among rural and urban primary health care physicians. The study employed self-administered questionnaires to collect data on demographic characteristics, types of medical and health information needed, sources sought and barriers encountered by physicians. The questionnaires were...
April 2011
Effect of microwave heating on magnetic separation: Kesikköprü magnetite deposits in Ankara, Central Turkey
In this study, the effect of microwave heating on magnetic separation of the iron ore of magnetite from Kesikköprü (Bala-Ankara, Central Turkey) was investigated. The investigation was based on understanding the enrichment factor differences of magnetic separation and microwave+magnetic separation methods. Only five fractions of magnetite ore display high level of enrichment by using magnetic separation. The...
April 2011
Long-term diazoxide preconditioning attenuates the cardioprotective effect against isoproterenol induced myocardial injury in a rat model
Short-term diazoxide (DZ) preconditioning exerts efficient protective effect on myocardial ischemia injury. This study aimed to investigate the effects of long term DZ preconditioning on isoproterenol (ISO) induced myocardial injury. DZ (20 mg/kg/d) was intraperitoneally injected into rats for different durations (1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 w) and myocardial injury was then introduced through intraperitoneal...
April 2011
Rate of saving health in program of screening for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) in Iran
Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is one of prevalent and preventable diseases. There is a delay to diagnose this disease because its symptoms at the beginning of birth are non-specialized. This study is aimed at anticipating the rate of prevented years living with disability and its resulted costs in the population under supervision of the Program of Screening for CH in Iran. In this study, the rate of CH incidence is...
April 2011
Evaluation of ancient structures by GPR: The arch bridges of Galicia (Spain)
Historical bridges are an integral part of the traditional architectonic heritage of a region. These ancient structures require special attention because many of them have lost their original utility and now perform different functions, which often require supporting special tension conditions. Therefore, constant diagnosis of their structure is necessary using methods that will not change the historical character of...
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