Archives-December 2016

The purpose of contour farming is to reduce runoff and soil erosion on mild slopes. This practice can also increase crop yield through the soil moisture retention in arid and semi-arid regions. Results showed contour cultivation reduced the annual runoff as 10% in compared with cultivation perpendicular to the slope. Also cultivation and planting along contour lines in comparison with cultivation and planting downwards the slop reduced soil losses and water losses as 49.5 and 32%, respectively. Although contour farming reduces runoff and soil erosion largely, but when it's combined with other conservation tillage such as no-tillage or minimum tillage can be more effective. Contour farming on permanent raised beds combined with residue retained on the soil surface is suggested according the results of previous studies as the best practice on mild slopes.

In the present study, the objective was the ZnS nanoparticles are prepared by chemical co-precipitation method and analysis Antimicrobial activity against oral pathogens is demonstrated, and the characteristics of synthesized nanoparticles are investigated by using x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy(SEM), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis),Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR).

It will impossible to attain competitiveness capability without using IT and communications; thus enterprises require redefining what they are as regards this technology and finding a new architecture for their own organization. The country's auto part manufacturing industry needs a model whereby various aspects of enterprise architecture are appropriately expanded and upon which suitable strategies for implementing an integrated system is created. This paper seeks to offer a reference model for preparing and formulating an appropriate enterprise architecture regarding the implementation of integrated systems in auto parts manufacturing firms. To design model, principles of Axiomatic designing and generalized enterprise reference architecture and methods are applied. With the identification of 120 pieces of requirements and conversion of them to business capabilities, the recommended reference model, based on a service-oriented architecture consists of 6 layers of architecture, 17 components and 71 business capabilities.

Businesses worldwide are faced with the challenge of responding to the needs of their external environment in a manner that adds value to their operations. It is imperative that businesses run their operations within the precepts of the law of the land in which they operate and other regulations prescribed by authorities like business associations and government agencies. The organization is also expected to treat their employees with dignity and within the existing labour laws. The customers expect organizations to produce quality goods and services while the shareholders expect a return on their investment. The communities’ expectations conflict with the shareholders demands because in most cases community investments do not guarantee returns to the organizations. Nonetheless, organizations cannot afford to ignore the communities partly due to government regulations and also due to the long term benefits that accrue from such investments. The issue of organizations running operations in a responsible manner is no longer disputable due to the common understanding of the inherent benefits. Corporations possess power to control and influence the quality of employees, customers, shareholders, and residents of local communities in which they operate. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) focuses mostly on reputation and has only limited connection to the business, making them hard to justify and maintain over the long run.

In any business, large or small, the adoption of competitive strategies is imperative. Sales generate profits – in turn profits allow for growth. Financial institutions, especially in developing markets, use agents to reach an additional client segment or geography. However, many companies have found the application of competitive strategies difficult to properly implement due to lack of adequate understanding and preparation by management and agents. Hyper-competition is characterized by intense and rapid competitive moves, in which competitors must move quickly to build new advantages and erode the advantages of their rivals. Factors that have led to accelerated hyper competition include knowledge sharing (franchise and outsourcing), brand convergence, quick niche copying (imitation), and high quality resulting from standardization, shrinking markets, and attraction of powerful new entrants to business segments with high returns, Yet the astonishing reality is that most of the firms are as unprepared for the challenges of finding, motivating, and retaining capable workers as they were a decade ago. Business leaders are deeply concerned with increasingly global nature of that competition - to have a major effect on their companies. Specific focus for this study is dedicated on theoretical and empirical literature, on organizational and institutional competitive strategies applied within management and concludes with a conceptual framework. Literature reviews consists of details of published and unpublished documents such as journals, papers, books, e-sources and other accredited researchers on related topics.

This paper contains the results of a new experimental study of the temperature effect on density and ultrasonic velocity for peanut (Arachis hypogaea), canola (Brassica napus L., Brassica rapa L. and Brassica juncea) and rosa mosqueta (Rosa affinis rubiginosa L.) oils. The Halvorsen’s model (HM), and Collision Factor Theory (CFT) were selected for prediction of these properties, attending to ease of use and range of application. An accurate response was observed, despite of the use of molecular group contribution procedures for estimation of theoretical critical points and the complex nature of the studied fluids.

In this paper, we study some of the properties of multi intuitionistic fuzzy rw-open mappings and multi intuitionistic fuzzy rw-closed mappings in multi intuitionistic fuzzy topological spaces and prove some results on these.

Information assurance (IA) projects serve as critical elements of the information technology industry, yet enjoy limited success since these pursuits are often plagued by classical project management failures stemming improperly managing budgets, cost overruns, and missing projected timelines, commonly attributed to performance of the project teams. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the leadership and other strategies necessary to enhance IA project performance achievement and success. The Lewin (1939) situational leadership theory underpinned the study and served as a theoretical reference source for deeper interpretations of the study data, against these propositions. Interviews were conducted with 20 IA professionals located in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area of the United States. The data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using a process of thematic analysis using the Moustakas’ modified van Kaam analysis method. The major themes from the analysis of the interviews of IA professionals denoted the importance of leveraging the technical knowledge of these resources, with a balanced mix of technical and subject matter experts in make-up of project teams. Training in increasing the success of these teams indicated that this must commence at the leadership level. The study results may contribute to existing knowledge in improving project success and in the development and growth of the IA industry.

A study was conducted to determine the microbial quality and safety of meat sold in formal and informal markets around Egodini Taxi Rank in Bulawayo. Sausage and chicken samples randomly selected from each outlet were screened for bacterial contamination. E.coli was the predominant bacteria in sausage samples (43% in butchery samples and 85% in vendor samples), whilst S. aureus was abundant in chicken samples (43%). Contamination of meat with Klebsiella spp and Streptococcus spp was minimum. The mean Total bacterial counts (TBCs) for sausage and chicken in vendor samples were 7.66 x 105; 2.41 x 105 cfu/ml respectively whilst the TBCs for butchery samples were 1.14 x 104; 5.45 x 102 cfu/ml respectively. Overally, vendor meat was more contaminated than butchery meat which poses a serious health hazard to the public. The type of meat and outlet had no significant influence on the bacterial load (P=0.298 and P=0.061 at ?=0.05).

Sometimes BMI at almost the marginally end values of the standard prescribed intervals may wrongly categories a person either into normal or overweight category. This may be sometimes due to either wrong measurement of BMI value or wrong diagnosis of medical practitioner. This may lead to the wrong treatment of the patient. This is a frequent event everywhere in the world. To overcome such type of problems, it is observed that a soft computing approach can only provide a better satisfaction. Since it is a medical diagnosis problem, and since for almost all the medical problems the concerned physicians do always have some amount of hesitation (at best it could be nil), we have no other soft computing theory as our option but the intuitionistic fuzzy set theory of Atanassov only, for approaching towards a satisfactory solution.