Archives-November 2013

Business intelligence systems combine operational data with analytical tools to present complex and competitive information to planners and decision makers. The objective is to improve the timeliness and quality of inputs to the decision process. Business Intelligence is used to understand the capabilities available in the firm; the state of the art, trends, and future directions in the markets, the technologies, and the regulatory environment in which the firm competes; and the actions of competitors and the implications of these actions. The emergence of the data warehouse as a repository, advances in data cleansing, increased capabilities of hardware and software, and the emergence of the web architecture all combine to create a richer business intelligence environment than was available previously. Although business intelligence systems are widely used in industry, research about them is limited. This paper, in addition to being a tutorial, proposes a BI framework and potential research topics. The framework highlights the importance of unstructured data and discusses the need to develop BI tools for its acquisition, integration, cleanup, search, analysis, and delivery. In addition, this paper explores a matrix for BI data types (structured vs. unstructured) and data sources (internal and external) to guide research.

The main aim of this study is analysis Employees’ involvement and quality improvement in Iranian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This research is conducted based on descriptive and surveying method; to collect data, was chosen through questionnaire. For research’s purposes, a distinction was made between small firms (fewer than 50 employees) and medium-sized ones (between 50 and 250 employees), questionnaires was mailed to 600 Iranian SME randomly selected. The questionnaire was pre-tested and validated with the help of a panel of two academics/researchers on quality management issues and two quality managers in SME. Out of the sample, a total of 95 questionnaires were completed and returned. Data gathered through questionnaires were submitted to a set of statistical analyses tools, using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences), and punctually, some of Microsoft Excel’s statistics and data bases tools. In accordance with research purposes, univariate analyses were performed on issues strictly descriptive, while bivariate analysis tools were used on issues based on means comparison (Student’s T test and Chi-square test). Findings: showed that in considered society, most SME developed training programs specifically focused on quality improvement, suggesting that, beyond fostering quality improvement awareness, SME supply their employees with tools necessary to develop their skills and(or acquire new insights needed to improve their performance. These evidences may indicate that top management is aware about the importance of training and development focused on quality improvement, for effective employees’ participation in quality continuous improvement initiatives.

Rabies is a fatal neuropathogenic disease. Of the estimated 55,000 deaths occurring world-wide attributable to rabies every year, 31,000 of occurs in Asia. In Asia the largest proportion of rabies death occurs in India. Dog bites are the primary source of human rabies in all rabies endemic countries and accounting for 96% of rabies cases in the South East Asia Region. The vision of Association for Prevention and control of Rabies in India is to “Make India Rabies Free by 2020”. There is no specific treatment for clinical rabies. Post-Exposure prophylaxis includes local wound care, categorization of animal bite wounds, rabies immunoglobulin and anti-rabies vaccine. The recommended strategies for eradication of rabies in India include educating public about post exposure vaccination, addition of pre exposure rabies vaccination to routine childhood immunization schedule, making rabies a notified disease, vaccination of dogs and animal birth control programs.

In order to assess if there is a potential of solubilizing trace metals from minerals by saline intrusion in costal aquifers, a series of simulations were conducted. Numerical simulations were conducted for a series of saline intrusion scenarios and different aquifer geochemical conditions like; in presence of dolomite, qurtz and pyrites. The effect of saline intrusion induced trace metal solubilisation was assessed using a PHREQCI hydro geochemical model incorporated with minteq.v4 thermodynamic database. For simulation the physicochemical parameters of groundwater (which contains lead and copper in trace level) of the costal aquifer of Mumbai, India was taken in input file. Results show that Cerrusite and Cuprite are the predominant mineral phases in equilibrium with groundwater for Pb and Cu respectively. Further simulations at different rate of saline intrusion revealed that Pb and Cu mobilization increases with the increase in saline intrusion and exceeds their maximum contamination levels (MCL). The involved mechanism in mobilization of metal ion is nothing but the desorption of the metal ions from mineral surface by competitive positive ions Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+ and subsequent formation of soluble complexes by counter ions like Cl-, SO42- and CO32-.The study revealed that the presence of dolomite in the aquifer accelerate the desorption of the Pb and Cu from mineral.

A high molecular weight linear unbranched polymers free of macrocycles has been synthesized by long polycondensation time under high-intensity mixing conditions at about 80°C between cheaper chloro-monomers (instead of fluorinated monomers)1 and 5,5’,6,6’-tetrahydroxy-3,3,3’,3’-tetramethylspirobisindane (TTSBI). From the porosity analysis, it is clear that the prepared polymers are analogous to polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) with high surface area (500-700 m2/g). The hydrogen storage capacity of the prepared PIM-Cl(1-7) and were promising (up to 1.19 wt%, 77 K, at 1.13 bar). The results of this study demonstrate that controlling polymerization condition can provide a uniform microporous morphology in the target polymers.

Many in-fill materials are used to improve ductility of Concrete Filled Steel Tube (CFST). Among the various in-fill materials, fibre is gaining attention in the CFST column. Here an attempt is made to study the effects of the diameter, thickness of steel tube, grade of concrete & volume fractions of glass fibre to Concrete on the behaviour of CFST under Axial Compression. In this research, Taguchi’s methodology with DOE (Design of Experiments) is adopted before conducting experiments for selection of combinations. Therefore, 27 experiments have been conducted for M20 grade, 9 experiments for M25 grade & 9 experiment for Hollow Steel Tube. The results indicate that glass fibre reinforced concrete filled steel tube columns appears to have a significant increasing trend in ductility, & have slight increasing trend in load capacity with increase in volume fraction of glass fibre for 0.5% & 1% whereas decreasing beyond 2%. Obtained Experimental results have been verified with three different codes- Euro code 4, American code (AISC 2005, ACI 2008X, AS), and British code (BS-5400-1979). Variation was found to be in the range of 5%-10% for Euro code & 5%-20% for AISC, ACI, AS & BS-5400 may be due to quality of steel & micro defects.

Pressure dependent exciton binding energy in a Cd0.8Zn0.2Te/ZnTe strained quantum dot is investigated with the geometrical confinement within the single band effective mass approximation. The interband transition energy as functions of dot radius and the hydrostatic pressure is brought out. Computations are carried out using variational formulism. The pressure induced oscillator strength and the nonlinear optical rectification coefficient of an exciton in a Cd0.8Zn0.2Te/ZnTe quantum dot are studied using matrix method. Our results show that the exciton binding energy, interband emission energy and the nonlinear optical rectification coefficient are strongly dependent on the geometrical confinement and the applied hydrostatic pressure values.

A field experiment was conducted at Firozabad region of Iran to study the effect of Effective Microorganisms Activate (EMa), EMa levels on growth, yield, Yield Components and Water Usage Efficiency of two Maize cultivars (Ns640 and Back cross 666). The experiment consisted of 10 treatments which were the combinations between two factors: two cultivars and five EMa levels.Ns640 cultivar significantly exceeded Back cross 666 in more growth characters, yield and its components. The result indicates that EMa increases growth and grain yield and water usage efficiency of Maize.

The purpose of this paper is comparing the role of teachers on teaching - learning process in ordinary and smart schools of Bojnurd (the center of north-eastern province of Iran). This type of survey and the questionnaire as a data collection tool is a cross-sectional study. This study was based upon descriptive-measuring model and due to its objective is categorized in functional research group. The population of the study including the teachers, girls and boys of middle school and high schools are in Bojnourd during Spring-2013. Cochran's formula for determining the sample size and the method used are stratified random sampling. It was found that the reliability obtained was high. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics for the analytical tests such as correlation analysis, analysis of variance and Tukey test. The statistical analyses used are SPSS and Microsoft Excel. The effect of variables such as attitudes toward technology, job outlook and teachers’ teaching methods in teaching-learning process are also investigated in this paper.

Talking about Arabic language invokes mixed feelings in Iranians. On the negative plane, it brings to mind bitter memories of Arab invasion a millennia ago, when they dominated the empire of Persia for three centuries during which radical changes to the language and culture of Persia were engineered. On the positive side, Arabic is the medium of all religious occasions, and enjoys an air of awe, authority, and sacredness to it. This situation makes Arabic unapproachable and innovations and changes to Arabic language policy and its related educational policies difficult, dangerous, and complicated because one easily runs the risk of being accused of hostility, heresy, or conspiracy against a sacred language. It is for this same reason that the major agency responsible for policy planning and implementation about Arabic resides outside of the organizations commonly in charge of language and educational planning; the responsibility lies with the seminary and other religious circles and anyone outside of that circle talking differently about the language, no matter what his professional credentials are, is considered an intruder and is seen with suspicion. In such an ideologically-driven atmosphere, disentangling beliefs from facts proves daunting. As a consequence, despite its prevalence, the quality of Arabic language teaching in Iran remains a mystery, as no serious large-scale study aiming to subject it to empirical investigation has yet been carried out. Aiming at filling this lacuna, we undertook a study in the hope that we may throw some light on of Arabic language teaching (ALT, henceforth). Our study was informed by theories and practices commonly in vogue in teaching other modern languages, particularly English. Collecting data from a survey administered to 53 Arabic teachers, we found that ALT is a different world from ELT in its various dimensions and it clearly fails to meet the standards of modern language teaching orthodoxy. Teachers were found to be lacking the minimum requirements of language teachers such as proficiency, language teaching methodology knowledge base, and the basics of linguistic knowledge needed for a language teacher.