Archives-August 2011

In this paper, a mathematical model is proposed with three classes of population namely, susceptible, incubated and infected. The incubation period is defined as the time from exposure to onset of viral disease, and when limited to infectious viral disease, corresponds to the time from infection with a microorganism to symptom development. Immunity(natural or caused by vaccination) plays an important role in recovery of a disease, due to strong immunity a portion of incubated class rejoins susceptible class without being infected. The stability behavior of the trivial, disease free and endemic steady states are studied, it is found that the instability of disease free state leads to the existence of the endemic state. The possibility of Hopf-bifurcation of the endemic equilibrium is studied, considering the transfer rate from susceptible to incubated population as bifurcation parameter. Finally, a threshold value of bifurcation parameter is determined numerically for a particular set of parameters.

Academic libraries which are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education have owned their roles and contributions either to the surrounding community or to the academicians (Zaiton, Goon & Wan Hajrah, 1998: 426). Realizing the utmost importance of the academic library to each research university, it is essential to inspect the service quality implementation in the respective academic library. Therefore, this study, in particular, examines the user acceptance of the service quality implementation in research universities’ libraries, taking Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) as the sample. One of the objectives of this study is to measure the quality service performance in academic libraries using the reliability dimension. The reliability dimension measures the ability to deliver service as it relates to dependability and accuracy. It includes information on whether the library is reliable in providing services as promised, whether it is reliable in performing services right the first time, whether it is reliable in providing accurate services, whether it is dependable in handling user’s service problems, whether it is maintains free-error record, whether OPAC is reliable in providing accurate information and also whether the library is reliable in keeping users informed about when services will be performed. The results of correlation showed that there is a significant relationship between all independent variables. Finally, this study found that the reliability dimension meets the standard of the high quality scores given by the users at the academic library in USM.

Contract Farming (CF) is one of the major High Impact Project of the Malaysian government in order to be more effective in supplying fruits product and to provide enough land to produce it with collaboration and cooperation of eight government agencies where Federal Agriculture Marketing Agency (FAMA) acts as project manager. The reason for choosing watermelon production in Kelantan is due to the fact that the state has the highest number of participants involved under contract farming and the major crop produce in Kelantan is the watermelon. One of the objectives of this study is to determine the relationship between aspect of technical transfer and farmer’s productivity in contract farming. Projects implementation of agricultural development needs the efficient and effective service support. The result showed that there is significant relationship between all independent variables studied. Results indicated that the highest percentage response on aspect of technical transfer and a significant relationship between aspects of technology transfer and watermelon output.

In this Paper a new Max. Power point tracking algorithm is used for PV array. The algorithm which is based on the mathematical calculation based MATLAB used to detect the max. Power point. Software (PSIM, MATLAB) dedicated to the simulation of the photovoltaic system can realize the extensive and precise analysis, but they are generally do not allow the modify the algorithm. Software includes the models of the solar panels, battery and investor, solar radiation.

Today, one of the problems of managers is information security in the organizations and ways of struggling with those penetrating into the organization. Social engineering technique is one of the ways of access to organizational information through vulnerable behaviors of human beings. This article tries to determine the most important criteria by assessing effective social engineering criteria in the organization in DEMATEL method. At first, views of the experts have been used in order to select effective criteria and then a structure based on theory of graphs was formulated on the basis of experts’ judges and a mathematical model has been obtained with regard to relations, manner and intensity of effect and their interactions. Finally, determination of criteria importance helps the managers make decisions and do correct management in the organization.

Mobile ad-hoc networks have become very popular because of their widespread usage. Cooperation among the nodes in ad-hoc networks is an important issue for communication to be possible. But some nodes do not cooperate in communication and saves their energy. These nodes are called as selfish nodes. In the literature there are many methods which deal with the selfish behavior of nodes. This paper compares different methods available for reducing the effect of selfish nodes in mobile ad hoc networks.

The effect of gender role perception and sense of efficacy on mental health of married employed women was examined. The study adopted a 2 (androgynous and sex-typed) x 2 (efficacious and less-efficacious) factorial design. One hundred twenty employed women participated in the study. They were categorized into androgynous and sex-typed on the basis of the median split of their scores on the measure of androgyny. Again androgynous and sex-typed women were categorized into efficacious and less efficacious subgroups on the basis of the median split of their scores on self-efficacy measures. The participants of all the four groups were compared with respect to their mental health. The result indicated that androgynous women showed better mental health than that of sex-typed women. Women with high sense of efficacy showed better mental health and scored higher in almost all dimensions of mental health than less-efficacious women.

A CFD analysis was done to numerically study the heat transfer characteristics of an oil cooler under laminar flow conditions with varying Reynolds number from 250 to 2400 with ISOVG46 Turbinol on tube side and water on shell side for different flow rates. Simulated results of Nusselt number and friction factor are in good agreement with the available experimental results and with the Sieder and Tate equation for plain tube. Results show that the strip inserts led to a higher heat transfer rates over the plain tube with increase in Nusselt number, friction factor and over all enhancement ratios.

If survival data follows a specific survival distribution (weibull, exponential), survival probabilities can be estimated by using the specific survival function. Alternate easy and assumptions free methods for computing the survival probabilities are Kaplan-Meier and Bootstrap survival functions. The aim of present study is to compare the two non-parametric methods under the influence of different percentage of censoring presented in four different data sets “Leukaemia data set, Stanford Heart Transplant data set, Thalassaemia data set and Lung cancer data set”. Results of analysis show that the performance of Kaplan-Meier survival function is better than the Bootstrap survival function. This is due to the easy concept, less time, less time, easily availability as well as in terms of survival probabilities

The writing assessment has long been considered a problematic area for educational assessment professionals and TEFL practitioners in particular. Due to a significant growth in the number of language learners in the past two decades, fairness issues in ESL writing assessments have been of growing interest and importance and have given birth to a great deal of theoretical and empirical research which have been examining the effect of various factors on the evaluation of students’ writing. The result of such studies leads us to question the accuracy and the raters’ fairness in rating learners’ written works. Hence, the rater variable, affected by various factors, has always been an important issue in the literature of writing assessment. This paper aims at investigating the impact of raters’ personality traits on the analytic evaluation of the students’ writings, encapsulating the probable effect of the genre too. In order to measure the personality traits of raters, NEO FFI developed by Costa and McCrae has been applied. A group of language instructors rated an expository essay and an argumentative one based on Jacobs’ rating scale. The results of the study indicate that there is a relationship between the raters’ personalities and the score they have assigned to the students’ writing. The genre of the essay has also been significant in the process of rating.