Archives-September 2014

Since the world is full of indeterminacy, the neutrosophics found their place into contemporary research. In this paper we define rough neutrosophic sets and study their properties. Some propositions in this notion are proved. Possible application to computer sciences is touched upon.

There is an increasing state and private sector investment in community- irrigation schemes in Africa. Both governments and private sector investors are equally concerned about the willingness to pay and affordability of such schemes to local farmers. Others are equally concerned about sustainability of public investments in irrigation infrastructure, production enhancement, operation and maintenance costs, climate variability, market failure, externalities, decreasing marginal costs and cost recovery. Investors are worried about return on investments (ROI) when investing in such risky areas and advise farmers and government to use appraisal tools such as net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and accounting rate of return (ARR). In a study conducted in three provinces of Mozambique, Maputo, Sofala and Zambezia involving five districts (Boane, Magude, Manhica, Gorongoza and Mopei) where questionnaires and interviews were conducted with 281 farmers, it was established that farmers were not willing to pay operation and maintenance costs, embarked on collective action, thus frustrating the government’s efforts to recover costs. There is an increasing perception that community irrigation schemes remain reliant on state subsidies and financial analysis projected through NPV, IRR and ARR is not often translated into sustainable return on investment (ROI) for both the private sector and government investors. This paper looks at strategic investment initiatives of the Government of Mozambique and the private sector in terms of yielding sustainable irrigation and agricultural outputs and ensuring long-term benefits for both farmers and investors. The paper attempts to balance issues of investment appraisal systems and endogenous factors that are relevant in dealing with irrigation schemes.

Human activities such as development of urban area and reducing vegetation cause dramatic changes in surface runoff generation. In the present study effects of Land use and Land cover (LU/LC) changes on surface runoff in Siahroud watershed in north of Iran has been assessed. LU/LC was derived from an Aster imagery (acquired in 2002) and a Landsat 8 imagery (acquired in 2013) for two different periods using object-oriented classification. For this purpose preprocessing and Image enhancement on remotely sensed data were applied. The images were segmented to objects and then objects assigned into 5 classes based on spectral features and physical characteristics such as texture and size of the segmented objects. Accuracy assessment of Classifications was computed by calculation of total accuracy for each classification, user, producer`s accuracy for individual classes and also KAPPA index. In order to determine the average Curve Number for each year, LULC maps were combined with Soil Hydrologic Groups map of study area in ArcGIS. The surface runoff was calculated for 7 events in each year using SCS-CN method. Finally direct runoff has been calculated from the same rainfall for both years. Results showed that urban area has increased during the last 11 year resulting in 5to 40 percent increase in surface runoff.

Density functional theory (DFT) was used to determine the ground state geometries of Luminol and new design dyes (L1-Dye-1 L1-Dye-2, L1-Dye-3 and L1-Dye-4). The time dependant density functional theory (TDDFT) was used to calculate the excitation energies. All the calculations were performed in both gas and solvent phase. Theoretical analyses of the Luminol dye molecule and its derivatives with Chlorine (Cl), Sulfur(S), Selenium (Se) substituent were performed. Calculations were performed based on the framework of density functional theory (DFT) with the Becke3-parameter-Lee-Yang-Parr(B3LYP) functional, where the 6-311+G(d,p) basis set was employed. All this for study they properties for be used with metal oxides in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). Each of the molecules was theoretically analyzed.

To determine whether vitamin E and omega-3 supplementations could increase saliva production and reduce oral dryness, 60 patients with oral dryness received either vitamin E (n=30) or omega-3 (n=30) in a three month prospective clinical trial. There was a significant saliva volume increase in vitamin E group (p<0.001) before and after taking the supplementation; However no significant saliva volume change was seen in omega-3 group (p=0.999). In this study vitamin E supplementation was found to be significantly better than omega-3 and significantly effective to improve oral dryness.

Environmental considerations such as the energy, resources or chemical used during manufacturing or environmental implications during its use or disposal stage has a vital role to play in the purchase decision making of consumers’ specially in the developed economies. Consumers’ perceptions towards eco-labels, their environmental concern and choice behavior for purchase of products across the two different categories were analyzed using a validated likert scale. A structural equation modeling methodology and analysis of variance was applied to test a casual model regarding environmental concern, eco-label awareness and consumers’ evaluation across two product categories. The results suggest the whacking role of eco-labels on products when associated with financial savings in market share augmentation for environmentally preferable alternatives subjected to consumers’ environmental approach in an emerging market.

This investigation deals with the reliability of utensils processing unit. Utensils processing unit consists of six subsystems, viz., hot rolling machine, cold rolling machine, cutting machine, pressing machine, polishing machine and packaging machine, connected in 1-out-of-6: F arrangement system. Mathematical formulation of the model is carried out by employing Boolean Function Technique. Various measures of system effectiveness such as reliability and mean time to failure are obtained. Numerical results are also presented to demonstrate the validity of analyzed results. The failure rate is exponentially distributed.

The study aimed at estimating the crop water requirements under climatic and geographical conditions of Armenia with the help of FAO-56 methods to improve irrigation. To calculate the evapotranspiration at 5, 25, 50, 75 and 95 % probability using 10 years’ meteorological data of 24 meteorological stations the Republic territory was conditionally divided into six irrigation zones. The comprehensive analysis show that by the end of this century the air temperature increases by 20 C degrees and precipitation decreases by 10 %, thus the crop water requirements increases resulting in irrigation water consumption change. The Republic irrigated land area will increase by 25-50 % over the existing one. The resulting evapotranspiration patterns before and after the climatic changes were mapped with the use of GIS technology.

Our work is a retrospective study of 14 cases of dorsal lunate fracture-dislocations of the carpus, listed in the service of traumatology and orthopedics of the Ibn Sina Hospital between 2010 and 2014. The back lunar dislocation of the carpus , the most common intra-carpal dislocations, interest in most cases of adult male youth, and whose injury was caused in half the time by accident from the public highway.The diagnosis is only radiological because the clinic can not be evocative.Surgical treatment was recommended at the outset in all cases. The dorsal approach was performed in 10 cases, and the volvar approach was used earlier in one case. Patients were reviewed at a mean of 30 months for clinical evaluation of functional results according to the score of Allieu and Witvoet. The results were satisfactory in all cases reviewed, and only three were lost to view. In conclusion and in light of a literature review, we believe that surgery alone provides a satisfactory reduction and repairs bone and ligament injuries, the only guarantee of a favorable outcome to avoid the long term most serious complication: osteoarthritis of the wrist.

The formation of graphene oxide–polyaniline was studied experimentally and theoretically. Both methods reveal that there is an existence of graphene oxide–polyaniline due to the interaction between oxygen functional groups of graphene oxide and polyaniline. The intercalation of polyaniline into layers of graphene oxide expands the space distance of layers in graphene oxide. The presence of polyaniline in composites can be proved by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and cyclic voltammograms of obtained composites. The formation of graphene oxide – polyaniline was also proved by theoretical calculation of adsorption energy when polyaniline interacts with graphene oxide