bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
THE ATTITUDES OF NCE STUDENTS TOWARDS USE OF INTERNET AT USCOEGA
Authors: Yusuf Abdulrahman
Published: February 2019

This research work examines the attitudes of Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) students towards use of InternetatUmar Sulaiman College of Education Gashua (USCOEGA) in the year 20010/11 academic session. In this connection therefore, the study aims at studying the effect of certain variables such as gender, computer/Internet experiences and Internet perception on learning process at different schools and levels in the college. A survey was carried out with a sample of 240 students from various schools and levels in the USCOEGA. A questionnaire was designed and distributed to the students sample. Surprisingly, the result revealed a limited awareness about the important and the usage of Internet among NCE students and the NCE students learning has no relationship with the usage of Internet. However it was shown that gender has no significant effect towards Internet usage. Furthermore, the study also vindicated that the token amount being paid for the Internet services stops most students from using Internet; in addition to that, contradicted findings were also discovered as a result of falsification of information by some students: conclusively, some list of recommendations were given base on the findings.
Consumer Animosity
Authors: Aljarboa Hesah
Published: February 2019

This paper provides an inclusivereview of the literatureconcerning the consequences and antecedents of animosity on consumer purchasing intentions. Consumer animosity has attracted a lot of attention in the international marketing and business literature in previous years and was found to have various effects on consumer behavior as a result of a version on the foreign products country of origin. The paper reviews the literature that has been conducted on animosity and focuses on certain limitations that are addressed. Suggestions for future research have been also emphasized in the paper.
Reduction of Boarding Times to the Emergency Department
Authors: Taif Fatima
Published: February 2019

Emergency hospital services (ED) was the main hospital entrance door and so was the almost obligatory passage for patients before admission in most health units. The practice of blocking admitted patients (patients IP) on stretchers in the corridors of the hospital emergency services for hours or days, called "boarding" causes emergency space and can be harmful to patients. Boarding increases patient morbidity, length of hospital stay, and mortality. In this article, we make the modeling of boarding patients in the emergency department to minimize overcrowding in emergency departments, using a network of queues open to the MMC. The results of this paper help the hospital administration to test alternative policies to improve overall performance.
Combating insider fraud in Financial Institutions/impact
Authors: Itai Yaya , Onwubiko Emmanuel
Published: February 2019

The fear of fraud is constant. Unfortunately, now more than ever before, fraud is being committed by employees on the inside, the very people who are supposed to be supporting and protecting an organization. Even though the financial industry is one of the most regulated, financial institution are still getting with the highest rate of internal fraud. Insider threat has always existed within each Financial Institution. In the recent years, insider threat has become a more prominent issue because of the emerging trends in the workplace. This change to a more flexible and productive workplace environment allows employees to easily gain access to an organization’s critical and sensitive information. While the risk of insider threat has certainly increased, Financial Institution have not deployed enough controls to mitigate this risk either because they believe that the frequency of such threat is very low or because they feel powerless to do so.

 This paper tends to employ techniques that would abate the spate of Insider fraud and cybercrime on customer transactions and insider processing which is in full compliance with most regulatory mandate of Countries Government bank.
Differential Cryptanalysis on S-DES
Authors: Raj Keshav , Sharma Bharti , Kumar Neeraj , Kaur Dr.Dalveer
Published: February 2019

In this paper differential attack on S-DES is carried out. S-DES is the reduced version of DES algorithm. This algorithm operates on 8-bit message block with 10-bit key and DES operates on 64-bit message block with 56-bit key. This paper analyzed the differential attack on S-DES. Differential attack is used to break a cipher by trying each possible key.
Offer Document Disclosures and its Impact on Equity Return in India
Authors: Singh Swinder
Published: February 2019

Primary market investors deploy their surplus funds inequity issues on the basis of disclosures made by the issuer companies in their offer documents. An attempt has been made in the present study to measure the impact of offer document disclosures regarding turnover, total assets, net worth, earnings per share, book value, percentage of dividend paid, age, promoters stake in post-issue capital and issue size on equity return in India. Taking a sample of 97 equity issues of the size of Rs. 10 crore or more of closely held unlisted companies belonging to 5 different industries during a period of 12 years from 1992-93 to 2003-04 and after applying Linear Multiple Regression Analysis, the study finds that the offer document disclosures covered by the study explained significant amount of variation in equity return in case of issues of banking as well as finance and investment industry. Disclosure of turnover in case of issues of finance and investment industry and of net worth and earnings per share in case of issues ofpharmaceutical industry establishedits statistically significant impact on equity return during the period covered by the study. The industry-wise performancerevealed that the equity issues of banking industry proved more beneficial for long-term investors whereas the issues of IT industry remained more profitable for short-term investors. The study reported that the equity issuesof finance and investment industryprovided less initial return and highest negative return to the investors after three years from first trading day of the issues on Bombay Stock Exchange
Applying GQM method in Balanced Scorecard System for Iranian university performance appraisal: Case Study
Authors: Bakhtiari Shaghayegh
Published: February 2019

Rapid development in academic instruction sector has resulted in changes in the supply and demand of higher education graduates and influenced on the quality of education. Hence, if the performance assessment of a university is done in an effective manner, the university may identify internal strong and weak points and provide the chance of improvement. The aim of this article is to apply Balanced Scorecard Systems to access the performance of a sample in Irans universities. On the other hand, this article describes how to apply GQM method to obtain the suitable metrics of measurement in Balanced Scorecard System assessment to improve the efficiency.
Retail Credit Default Risk An Empirical Study
Authors: B.N Dr. Shubha
Published: February 2019

This study empirically examines the role of various socio -demographic and financial factors that determine borrowers default risk in housing loans. Using the data from the housing loan accounts (sanctioned from 1999-2010) of two public sector banks in Bangalore, the study investigates the repayment pattern of two groups of borrowers: defaulters and non-defaulters and group them into different risk level. The study uses stepwise regression to find the extent of influence of socio demographic and financial factors on default risk. The outcome of the study indicates that the association of financial variables like Net worth, Income, maturity and loan size are more significant on borrower default risk. However, one cannot ignore the sociodemographic variables like age, educational level, Number of dependents and experience in the job which otherwise may inhibit lender to properly assess credit risk in developing the internal score sheets. The outcome of the study shows that these parameters also act as default triggers.
A Methodology for Emergent Telecommunication Technology Experiments Based on Virtual Environment and AI Techniques
Authors: Benyahi Ilham
Published: February 2019

Advanced telecommunications technologies innovations evolve quickly and are often considered as a main component of critical and emerging applications such as Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Smart Grid (energy systems). The need of rapid deployment of these technologies requires their testing to assess their performance and if necessary seek appropriate configurations that optimize the QoS (Quality Of Service) of associated applications. Existing simulation tools for testing these technologies remain limited when it comes to appraise their innovations involving additional knowledge. We present in this paper a methodology to design and develop a tool for training and experimentation of technologies innovations such as telecommunication. Our approach is focused on the integration of virtual reality concepts based on object oriented modeling and 3 D techniques for realistic scenarios experiments. We also consider artificial intelligence techniques such as inference mechanisms to enable the integration of new knowledge of the technologies to be tested and their management.
Identifying Opportunities & Developing Models of Environmental Education from an Indian Perspective
Authors: Siddiqui Tauseef ZiaIA , Pathak Pramod
Published: February 2019

As we are entering in the next millennium it is essential for our experts to review the environmental education curriculum and training modules and materials, this will help in closing the gap between what environmental experts know and what the public and students needs to know. Current environmental education and training programs are stressed on controlling, remediation or clean up environmental problems. Because more than 90% of the world population growth and much of the economic growth expected in the next 40-50 years will be in developing countries it is important that environmental education must be made a priority. Therefore, teachers need continuing awareness, environmental education and related training programs to keep up with the complexity of environmental problems and technologies and strategies to reduce environmental risks. The paper focuses in developing working model of Environmental Education (EE) in the formal sector and to evaluate and statically analyze the EE knowledge perception of the different sectors of the society through structured questionnaire surveys of teachers, students and literate citizens of the urban area. This paper tries to find out the barriers and strategies for promotion of EE in India.
Identifying Trends In Job Hopping In Private Institutions Of Higher Learning
Authors: Dhanapal Saroja , Manickam Gobinathan , Vashu Deeparechigi , Mohd Alwie Sueraya binti , Bee Hwa Evelyn Toh
Published: February 2019

Since early 20th century, there is greater mobility among academicians in the private institutions of higher learning in Malaysia. The high turnover is the result of economical and social changes in the country. With globalization, Malaysia has now become a hub for international education. This has led to the growth in private institutions of higher learning. With the vast increase in such institutions, employees today have greater opportunities to job hop for various reasons. This research paper investigated the emerging trends in job hopping and the reasons behind it. The reasons were attributed to intrinsic and extrinsic motivating factors. The research further investigated whether there are differences in the trends between the various age groups; Baby Boomers (48 years and above), Generation X (33-47 years) and Generation Y (32 years and below). The researchers were motivated to do this research due to the increasing concern over the drastic mobility that is taking place in the private institutions of higher learning. The sample for this research comprised of 100 academicians working in private institutions of higher learning. Participants were given questionnaires to obtain responses on the intrinsic and extrinsic motivating factors leading to their decision to job hop. The selection of participants was based on a purposive sampling method as the researchers wanted to obtain responses from the three categories of generation. The findings proved the key hypothesis of the research which is; firstly, there is a trend in the job hopping exercise in the private institutions of higher learning and secondly, there are differences in the trends between the three categories of generations. The researchers went on to offer practical suggestions to the private institutions of higher learning and the Ministry of Human Resources in Malaysia to establish guidelines and policies to ensure that the job hopping practice is kept to the minimum.
AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF FACULTY PERFORMANCE AND PERSPECTIVES IN JAPANESE BUSINESS SCHOOLS
Authors: Amaldas Christine , Shankaranarayanan Avinash , Gemba Kiminori
Published: February 2019

The research focuses on various factors influencing intrinsic and extrinsic motivational levels in international tenuredacademics and contractual teaching staff in Management and Business departments towards the adoption of Management of Technology (MOT) related methodologies. A set of hypotheses were defined to deduce the relationship between teaching and adoption of MOT as a framework. This research implies that job performance of international academics strongly depends on various motivational levels. The study was conducted using the interaction survey method with in-depth personal interviews consisting of open ended questions with 250 international academics (respondents consisting of Japanese and Foreign teaching staff) chosen for the study based in Japan. Hence, policy recommendationsand decision making should be dealt with prudence and pragmatism.
Cooperative Problem Solving in Telecommunication Network
Authors: K Rakesh Shanu , Choudhary Bharat , Sandhu Rachna
Published: February 2019

Swarm intelligence, as demonstrated by natural biological swarms, has numerous powerful properties desirable in many engineering systems, such as telecommunication. Communication network management is becoming increasingly difficult  due to the increasing size, rapidly changing topology, and complexity of communication networks. This paper describes  how biologically-inspired agents can be used to solve control problems in telecommunications. These agents, inspired by the foraging behaviour of ants, exhibit the desirable characteristics of simplicity of action and interaction. The colle ction of agents, or swarm system, deals only with local knowledge and exhibits a form of distributed control with agent communication effected through the environment. In this paper we explore the application of ant-like agents to the problem of routing in telecommunication networks.
The impact of task-sharing on employee intentions to leave: A factor analytic investigation
Authors: Abderrahman JAHMANE
Published: February 2019

Among the best human resources practices following Peretti (2006), "the logic of HRM" encouraging and promoting loyalty,: Personalization, Adaptation, mobilization, sharing, Anticipation ". Through this research paper we took Sharing in the company as an example, trying to find a link between a logical component of HRM and for voluntary departure of employees.Our study is performed on a sample of 407 framework, working in listed companies, the data were collected using a questionnaire specially developed, the scales used to measure key variables (division of tasks perceivedintentions voluntary departure) were confirmed by factor analysis. The procedure developed in our research has led to satisfactory results and show that there is a negative correlation between the original intent of the voluntary and personal level of sharing within the company. Suggesting that work sharing with employees, as a human resources strategy, leads to lower for voluntary departure of employees.
Maintainability analysis of Consumer Electronics using Software Quality Metrics
Authors: Pal dhaka Dr.Vijay , Agrawal Swati
Published: February 2019

Software quality is a complex mix of factors that will very across different application and the customers who request them [1]. Determining the quality of products so ftware quality is important factor in consumer electronic software. Consumer electronics domain demands high performance, low cost and easy to use continuous need for new product innovation. So, maintainability is considered as a solution to satisfying such demand. Maintainability is an important quality goal for CE product software. In this paper, we have identified some quality characteristics of McCall as critical quality factors, these factor help in our model to improve the quality of product in busine ss and define the product properties. Also we have identified metrics which can be measured by static analysis tool (veracode, codesonar) for critical quality factors and then,we found some problems which affect the software quality. We design a model for CE products, derived quality model can be utilized for quality evaluation and quality improvement in CE domain.
Strengthening Business Process Modeling with the Application / Combination of Viable System Model in ICT Policy Analysis Context
Authors: Alinaghian Reza , Abdul Rahman Azizah , Ibrahim Roliana
Published: February 2019

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy is a code that clarifies the duties, responsibilities and rights of technology stakeholders and specifies acceptable and efficient ICT utilization. ICT policy life cycle encompasses four main processes which are: development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. In many cases, the processes that form the life cycle of ICT policy usually stopped or failed at starting phase(s), including th e case study in this research (one of the Malaysian Public Institutions of Higher Education). Failures in ICT policy management may compromise ICT security, control and strategy in addition to incurring unnecessary expense. This paper discusses the methods utilized in conducting the study. Qualitative research and case study method were utilized to provide greater insight into this complicated phenomenon. An in-depth analysis and elaboration was performed using Viable System Model (VSM) and Hermeneutics method to diagnose and identify weaknesses, mismatches and viable requirements. The proposed model combined the perspectives of systemic functions and organizational structure of VSM with organizational processes and entities of Business Process Modeling (BPM). The application of VSM accommodated environmental dynamism, encouraged sustainable development and provided a sound theoretical platform. In combination with BPM, emphasis shifted from a specific, isolated policy domain to a business process model designed to manage overall ICT policy. An ICT policy management prototype was also developed based on the model. The model and prototype system have been verified through the case study.
Post adoption evaluation model for cloud computing services utilization in universities in Kenya
Authors: Titus Mukisa Muhambe , Orwa Ochien Daniel
Published: February 2019

Cloud Computing, a recent technology development presents a paradigm shift in computing, a move away from personal computers and enterprise server systems, to a cloud of computers located on the internet. Applications and resources are accessed from the cloud. The introduction of cloud computing services in Kenya by some telecommunication company like Safari Cloud from Safaricom Limited is an indicator that cloud computing technology is gaining ground and popularity locally. Technology adoption studies, which include Cloud computing adoption, have mainly been carried out in United State of America, Europe, Japan and Australia. No previous study has analyzed the acceptance and use of cloud computing services in a university setting in Kenya. In addition, no model has been advanced to explain the factors that influence acceptance and use of cloud services in the same setting. A conceptual model derived from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was used as a guide in this study. Survey (n=217) and Focus Group Discussion (n=12) were used as data collection instruments in an attempt to understand cloud services adoption and use. The results of partial correlation showed that Performance Expectancy and Facilitating Condition were the two main factors that significantly influence cloud services acceptance and use in the universities in Kenya. The Focus Group Discussion results established that personal ego was a factor that prevented individuals from admitting that they were socially influenced towards adoption and use of cloud services. The findings will be useful to multiple stakeholders that include; academic researchers, technology adoption and perception researchers and cloud services providers and vendors.
An Experimental Approach for Studying the Fuel Characteristics of Agricultural Waste Based Charcoal A Case Study
Authors: Lonia B. , Bansal R.K.
Published: February 2019

This paper enlists fuel characteristics of agricultural wastes experimentally.Woody charcoal has been the primary fuel for cooking (power generation) in many countries because it is cheap and easily available .However, using wood charcoal has consequences on health and pollution because of smoking. This study aims at providing agricultural waste as an alternative to woody charcoal using agricultural based wastes (dry leaves, coffee husk, sugarcane trash, grass,etc) converted into charcoal briquettes to provide much needed source of cheap fuel that is cleaner in burning. The agriwaste, like rice-straw, saw-dust, sugarcane-trash, coir-pith, peanut -shells, wheat-stalks and straw, cotton-seed, stalks and husk, soybean stalks, maize stalks and cobs, sorghum, bagasse, waste wood, walnut shells, sunflower seeds, shells, hulls and kernels and coconut husk can be fruitfully utilized in power generation. This stuff is otherwise a waste and liability and consumes a lot of effort on its disposal; in addition to being a source of fire and health hazard. Apart from the above, it causes serious air pollution in the form of smoke, un-burnt suspended particles and unwanted addition of heat to atmosphere. Surely, agriwaste stuff at present is available in abundance and prospects of its utilization in producing energy are enormous. On the basis of calorific value, agri-residue is comparable with low quality coal.Manual extruder machine having a capacity of pressing 30kg/hr and the carbonizer converts 15kg of input agricultural wastes into 5kg of burned charcoal within 25 minutes. Power can be generated from 5 Kw to 10Kw by using 10kg of briquetted agricultural charcoal.
Model-based Framework for Change Management and Integrated Devlopment of Information Security
Authors: Medve Anna
Published: February 2019

This paper introduces a business process-based goal-oriented framework which consists of generic and specific model repositories, and of methodology for integrated change management of business and IT evolutions. Sets of generic models of ISO/IEC 27001 and 27002 standards for information security support developers and decision makers in MDE process. The techniques and tools used are from the User Requirements Notation technologies for model compositions and traceability assessments of goal-oriented and scenario-based models. An example is given from the instantiation of framework for B2B change management with empirical validation within a commercial SME. The framework supports MDE process of enterprise architecture re-engineering integrating the development of information security.
Does Emotional Labour Influence Burnout?
Authors: Kaur Sandeep , Malodia Dr. Luxmi
Published: February 2019

Background: Over the last few years, India is experiencing a revolution in the hospital sector. Due to increase in the diseases, it has become the responsibility of hospitals and medical staff to provide the best facilities and the personal touch to the patients. While doing this job, the medical staff has to undergo through emotional labou and burnout.

Purpose: The objective of this study is to find the influence of emotional labour on job satisfaction in selected public and private hospitals of Punjab. The data was collected from doctors, nurses and paramedical staff (ratio 1:2:1) working in public and private hospitals .The total sample of 1193 was selected from six public hospitals and six private hospitals of Punjab.

Methods: The Dutch Questionnaire on Emotional Labor (D-QEL) developed and validated by Geared Nearing, Mariette Briet and Andre Browers(2005) and burnout tool by Pines and Aronson (1988) was used to assess physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. Descriptive statistics was applied to check the level of emotional labour and burnout, correlation was applied for relationship study and regression was applied to find the influence of emotional labour on burnout.

Â Results: Results showed that medical staff in public and private hospitals was performing emotional labour on a low level but in comparison to public hospitals, it was more in private hospitals. There was a positive but a low correlation between emotional labour and burnout.

Conclusion: Emotional labour has not emerge as the significant predictor of burnout. It was observed from the descriptive statistics that the medical staff working in both type of hospitals were doing emotional labour on low level so their scores of burnout was not influenced by emotional labour. There might be the other reasons such as long working hours, frequency of interactions with the patients, demographic variables etc. that can contribute to the burnout.
Total Quality Management & Service Sector
Authors: Alsolamy Afnan Atiah , Albeladi Khulood Salem , Hasan Syed Hamid
Published: February 2019

The following paper highlights the domination of quality service and adaptation of Total Quality Management in the service Industry. It tries to explain that along with the increasing awareness in the society in respect to culture, education and the living standard, there is an increasing demand for quality service. It is one of the factors that is forcing the service industry to adopt TQM (total quality management) as the measures to improving quality of service. It has been observed that TQM is being accepted increasingly in the last decade by the service sector which clearly signifies that service quality is treated as a crucial factor for survival, Success & growth by the companies. This has led to an increased interest in service quality recently, and TQM concepts increasingly being applied in literature for service sector
Activity-based costing (ABC) Model for Public Higher Education Institutions (PHEI) : A guide for a Model development
Authors: Hashim Jamalludin Helmi
Published: February 2019

The purpose of this study is to develop the Activity-based costing (ABC) model for Bachelor of Accountancy (BACC) program in University of Excellence (UoE) Malaysia. A case study approach using the professional software, ABM-SAS, and the actual expenses figure for BACC for the year 20XX were used to develop the ABC model in this study. The finding showed that the cost computed using the ABC Model is lower as compared to the cost from the traditional (current) method, i.e. RM 8,678.54 and RM 10,509.99, respectively.  The differences amounted RM 1,830.55 in cost calculated by these two systems is not surprising. It is expected as many other researchers have discovered the same pattern on the lower cost of ABC as compared to the traditional method due to several reasons. Among others are,  (i) the inability of the traditional costing system in spreading their costs over larger numbers of students, ii) the support services do not benefit the programmes uniformly and, iii) there were internal cross-subsidies among departments and seriously distorted if support costs were allocated based on head counts. As such, this study confirmed the ability of ABC to act in higher education institutions with the same functions as its functions in the profit and manufacturing setting.
A Simulation and analysis of DSR Protocol in Mobile ad hoc Networks
Authors: Velagaleti Sesha Bhargavi , Seetha Dr.M. , Raju Dr.S.Viswanadha
Published: February 2019

A MANET can be treated as a network in which the nodes have the capability of self-configuring among themselves. These nodes are connected by wireless links to form an distributed topology without the help of any pre-existing infrastructure. Each node in a MANET can itself act as a router on its own. To perform effective routing operation in MANETS , several routing protocols were proposed, addressing several issues in MANETS. In this paper ,we tried to study the operation of DSDV protocol ,which is a proactive protocol and analyse the results obtained by simualting the DSDV protocol using NS-2 Simulator.
INTEGRATION FINANCIERE TEST ET EFFET SUR LA DIVERSIFICATION INTERNATIONALE
Authors: Tijani DR. AMARA , Ammar SAMOUT
Published: February 2019

L’intégration des marchés financiers a fait l'objet de nombreuses études et travaux théoriques et empiriques quitiennent leur importance du fait qu'en présence d'une intégration financière entre les marchés, la diversificationinternationale voit ses avantages se réduire voir s'éliminer complètement dans le cas d'une intégration totale. Ce ci étant, nous nous interrogeons a travers cette recherche dans quelle mesure les marchés financiers sont intégrés ? Et quel est l’impact du degré de l’intégration sur la diversification internationale des portefeuilles ? Partant, l’objectif consiste à examiner l’intégration des marchés de capitaux, aussi bien au niveau des pays développés qu’au niveau des pays émergents. Pour répondre à cette problématique et atteindre l’objectif fixé, nousprésentons dans la première partie de cette recherche une revue de la littérature sur les origines de l’intégrationfinancière, la diversification internationale et l’intérêt des marches émergents et l’impact de l’intégration financière sur la diversification internationale. Dans la deuxième partie nous présentons la méthodologie de la recherche et les résultats dégagés.
Software Performance Testing Measures
Authors: Patel Charmy , Gulati Dr. Ravi
Published: February 2019

Software developers typically measure a Web application's quality of service in terms of webpage availability, response time, and throughput. Performance testing and evaluation of software components becomes a critical task. Poor quality of software performance can lead to bad opportunities. Few research papers address the issues and systematic solutions to performance testing and measurement for modern components of software. This paper proposes a solution and environment to support performance measurement for software. The objective is to provide all kind of important measures which must be tested at the coding phase instead of after completion of software. So developers can make software that can meet performance objectives.
The effect of business environment on firm performance Exploratory Study: Case of Tunisian enterprises
Authors: LAOUITI Rahma , GHARBI Samiha , LIOUANE Naoufel
Published: February 2019

The objective of this paper is to identify the different framework characterizing the business environment and assess their impact on companies performance in order to identify the most dimension environmental affecting companies performance; new created as well as developed companies. Three mains categories of the business environment are suggested: socio-cultural, institutional and technological environment. To achieve this goal, our research is based on a literature review on the question followed by an empirical study on a sample of 96 companies to make the association between theory and reality An empirical study provides that the institutional and the technological factors are the most positively and significantly related to performance. Regarding the socio-cultural environment has a less significance on companies performance.
The effect of using collaborative technology on the banking knowledge management: case of Tunisian banks with mixed capital
Authors: KHELIL Amira , AFFES Habib
Published: February 2019

This study examines the influence of using collaborative technology (Groupware) on knowledge management (KM) process (capture, storage, dissemination and reuse of knowledge). Based on a survey of 272 front office Tunisian agents working in Tunisian banks with mixed capital, this study uses a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to investigate the research model. The results showed that the adoption of Groupware in Tunisian banks with mixed capital is influenced by the facilitating conditions, the social influence and the expected performance. In addition, results revealed that the usage of this technology, by the front office agents, was significantly associated with capture, storage and the reuse of knowledge. However, the Groupware use did not significantly influence the knowledge dissemination. Given the importance of Groupware implementation as a knowledge management system, the findings of this study are designed to help bank managers or policy-makers in formulating appropriate organizational policies enabling them to enhance knowledge management implementation.
Effects of Fixed Capital Investments in current economic downturn
Authors: Muscettola Marco
Published: February 2019

The aim of this paper is to verify both the impact and influences when investing in fixed assets on probability of default. Using data from an extensive sample of Italian firms (6,000 Italian SMEs), we find that fixed assets are negatively related to efficiency and this fact leads to a greater instability with the consequence of a direct impact on the risk of insolvency. A portrait of firms in 2011, after the flash-over of the current economic downturn, subdividing them in firms that made fixed capital investments in 2008, three years before, and the others, which had no plan to increase tangible fixed assets. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the solvency ought to decrease with rigidity of assets, especially in the area of commercial firms.
Impact of Biochar and Different Nitrogen Sources on Forage Radish Production in Middle Tennessee
Authors: Pirtle Todd , Rumble Lee , Klug Michael , Walker Forbes , Cui Song , Phillips Nathan
Published: February 2019

Short-season forage radish (Raphanus sativus L. var. longipinnatus) has recently gained great popularity in Middle Tennessee and many parts of the world used as a high-quality vegetable crop for human consumption or a forage crop for winter grazing and cover cropping. In this study, we (i) estimated soil pH buffering capacity and microbial activity, (ii) quantified crop productivity influenced by different biochar amendment rates and N fertilizer management practices based on a factorial treatment design. Particularly, biochar was amended at rates of 0, 5, 20, and 40 Mg/ha; N fertilizer was applied at zero (N0), 122 kg/ha of urea (56 kg/ha of N; N1) and 4.8 Mg/ha of aged dairy cattle manure (56-60 kg/ha of N), providing a total of 12 treatments (four biochar rates × three fertilization practices). The combination of biochar and inorganic N fertilizer such as urea appeared to have positive impacts on the short-term biomass production, soil pH buffering capacity, and enhanced soil microbial activity for short-season forage radish production (P < 0.05). Future research is warranted to evaluate the use of biochar in field-based forage/vegetable studies in Tennessee.
The study of important agronomic traits by multivariate analysis in winter rapeseed cultivars
Authors: Ghaffari Gader , Baghbani Farhad , Tahmasebpour Behnam
Published: February 2019

In order to group winter rapeseed cultivars according to evaluated traits, an experiment was conducted in the Research Greenhouse of Agriculture Faculty, University of Tabriz - IRAN. In the experiment were included 12 cultivars of winter rapeseed and 3 levels of water deficit stress. Gypsum blocks were used to monitor soil moisture. Water deficit stress was imposed from stem elongation to physiological maturity. According to the principal component analysis, five principal components were chosen with greater eigenvalue (more than 0.7) that are including 81.34% of the primeval variance of variables. The first component that explained the 48.02% of total variance had the high eigenvalue. The second component could justify about 13.64% of total variance and had positive association with leaf water potential and proline content and had negative relationship with leaf stomatal conductivity. The third, fourth and fifth components expressed around, 10.18, 4.83 and 4.68% of the total variance respectively. The third component had the high eigenvalue for plant dry weight. The fourth component put 1000-seed weight, seed yield, Silique per Plant and root dry weight against plant dry weight, chlorophyll fluorescence and leaf water potential. The fifth component had the high eigenvalue for root dry weight, root volume and 1000-seed weight.
Germination and initial growth of triticale seeds under stationary magnetic fields
Authors: Florez Mercedes , Martinez Elvira , Carbonell Victoria
Published: February 2019

The main objective of this study is to determine the effects of 125 mT and 250mT magnetic treatment on the germination and initial growth of triticale seeds. This objective has a practical application in agriculture science: early growth of triticale. An increase in the percentage and rate of germination of seeds and a stimulation of growth of seedlings as positive response to magnetic field treatment in rice, wheat, maize and barley seeds have been found in previous studies. Germination tests were carried out under laboratory conditions by exposing triticale seeds to magnetic field for different times. The effect was studied by exposure of seeds prior sowing. The mean germination time were reduced for all the magnetic treatments applied. Most significant differences were obtained for time of exposure of 1 and 24 hours and maximum reductions was 12%. Furthermore, seedlings from magnetically treated seeds grew taller than control. The longest mean total length was obtained from seedlings exposed to 125 and 250 mT for 24 hours. External magnetic fields are assumed to enhance seed vigor by influencing the biochemical processes by stimulating activity of proteins and enzymes. Numerous studies suggested that magnetic field increases ions uptake and consequently improves nutrition value.
Sustainable Urban Horticulture of Sweet Pepper via Vermicomposting in Summer Season
Authors: Soud Abul , Emam M. A., M. S. A. , Abdrabbo M. A. A. , Hashem F. A. , Abd-Elrahman Shaimaa H.
Published: February 2019

The need for extend the urban horticulture to cover the food security demands, to mitigate CO2 emissions and avoid the extreme heat waves drive this study to investigate the ability of using soilless culture systems, vermicomposting technology and net cover in producing vegetables in urban area in summer season. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of different vermicompost rates mixed with the standard substrate peat moss: perlite (perlite: peat moss: vermicompost (45:45:10) (Mix.10%), perlite: peat moss: vermicompost (40:40:20) (Mix.20%), perlite: peat moss: vermicompost (35:35:30) (Mix.30%) and perlite: peat moss (50:50 V/V) (Control) under three microclimate conditions (plants covered with black net, white net and without cover) on vegetative growth and yield of sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L. cv. Reda) grown in pots culture during summer seasons of 2012 and 2013 at the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate, Agricultural Research Center, Dokki, Giza Governorate.

Physical and chemical properties of substrates, vegetative growth and yield characteristics, agrometerological data and mineral contents were determined. The obtained data indicated that vermicomposting could contribute in mitigate CO2 emission, save the essential nutrients and energy via recycling the urban organic wastes to vermicompost. The physical and chemical properties were affected by vermicompost. The best vegetative growth and yield of sweet pepper were given by (Mix.20%) vermicompost mixture followed by (Mix.10%) and (Mix.30%) vermicompost mixture. There were also significant differences between cover net treatments in affecting vegetative growth and yield of pepper, the white net was superior for producing pepper during the summer season; while the black net gave the lowest plant growth and yield. The best treatment was (Mix.20%) vermicompost mixture with white net cover, while the lowest vegetative growth and yield were obtained by (Control) vermicompost mixture with black cover net during the two tested seasons. These results suggested that vermicomposting and green roof can be used in urban area for producing food instead of incineration the urban organic wastes or imported food from rural area and using white cover net to improve the pepper growth and productivity during summer season.
Removal of methylene blue by orange and uvaia seeds
Authors: Coelho Botrel Bianca Mesquita , Magriotis Zuy Maria , Saczk Adelir Aparecida , Coelho Sabrina Mesquita , De Sales Priscila Ferreira
Published: February 2019

In this study, the adsorption behavior of methylene blue (MB) was investigated using orange seed (OS) and uvaia seed (US) as low cost adsorbents. These materials were characterized using FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), elemental chemical analysis (CHNO), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), zeta potential, specific surface area and a test for determination of acid sites. The parameters evaluated in the kinetic study of adsorption were contact time, initial dye concentration, mass of adsorbent and pH. The adsorption of MB onto OS and US samples could be explained by Elovich ?s kinetic model. The experimental isotherms data, carried out at the temperatures of 25°C, 35°C, 45°C and 55°C, were better represented by Sips. It was verified that the adsorption was spontaneous and endothermic according to the thermodynamic parameters ?G°, ?H ° and ?S ° evaluated. The OS and US maximum adsorption capacity at the temperature of 25°C was 38 mg g-1 and 48 mg g-1 , respectively. The reuse tests performed at three subsequent times showed that there was no significant decrease regarding the materials efficiency, therefore emphasizing its viability as biosorbents.
Relationship between antioxidant properties and GC-MS component composition of extracts from flowers, leaves and fruits of Crataegus Oxycanta
Authors: Hadjimitova Vera
Published: February 2019

The aim of this study was to perform a comparative investigation of the antioxidant effect of Crataegus oxycanthas’ flowers, leaves, green and ripe fruits probes and to relate the obtained results with the ones of the accomplished qualitative GC-MS analysis of the antioxidant components participating in the studied standardized ethanol extracts. We established that the three extracts have well manifested antioxidant properties in three biological relevant model systems with different mechanism of generation of ROS: Fe-induced lipid peroxidation, UV induced deoxyribose damage and horse-radish peroxidase (HRP)-H2O2 chemiluminescent system. In the UV system the strongest effect is observed for the extract from flowers and leaves (C-50 = 0.109±0.009 mg/ml), followed by the ones from ripe fruits (C-50 = 0.259±0.015 mg/ml) and finally – by green fruits (C-50 = 0.557±0.014 mg/ml). In the Fe-induced lipid peroxidation system the antioxidant effect of the studied samples decreases in the following order: effect of flowers and leaves (C-50 = 0.287±0.018 mg/ml) > effect of green fruits (C-50 = 0.495±0.021 mg/ml) > effect of ripe fruits (C-50 = 0.704±0.035 mg/ml). Similar results were obtained in the HRP-H2O2 system. The generalized results show that the strongest antioxidant effect is observed for the plant extract from flowers and leaves of Crataegus. The GC-MS analyses we carried out indicate that the observed differences are due to the presence of a bigger number of constitutes possessing antioxidant properties in flowers and leaves extracts, compared with the fruits extracts.
The status of Indigenous chicken production systems in the Lango sub region of Northern Uganda
Authors: Geofrey Nviiri , Mugerwa S , Okello H , Nakyewa P
Published: February 2019

This study was conducted in four districts in Lango sub region of Northern Uganda. A total of 320 households (HH) from 32 villages (eight villages from each district) were included in the study. The objectives were to assess the flock characteristics, production, productivity and related constraints of village chicken production in Lango sub region. A formal survey, using structured questionnaires integrated with participatory rural appraisal techniques relevant to rural chicken production system, was applied. Study districts and corresponding market sheds differed significantly in the flock characteristics. The mean number of Matured chicken, Hen/pullets, Cocks, and Chicks per household was 7.4±0.22, 5.4±0.17, 2.2±0.09, 8.5±0.37 respectively, with a male to female ratio of 1:2.9. Purchase and exchange for labor were the main sources of foundation stock while hatching was the main sources of replacement stocks. Mean egg laying performance of hens was 17, 21 and 25 eggs for the first, second and third and higher clutches, respectively. Mean clutch number was 2.6±0.06 per year. The mean number of eggs set per bird was 13.5±0.19. Hatching rate was 74.6±0.86 ranging from 35.3-90% (n=320). High mortality of chicks (average survival rate of 51.6±6.3%, ranging from 12-71%.) were reported and occurred between hatching and the end of brooding at 8 weeks of age. About 86.5% of the eggs produced are incubated in order to replace birds that die. This makes the reproduction for replacement as the main focuses of chicken keepers. It is concluded that village chicken production is part of a balanced farming system and that there exists considerable opportunities for changing the inefficient system using the available animal and other resources.
Effects of water stress on the physiological growth indices on performance of soybean genotypes
Authors: Yunusa Mustapha , Ibraheem Alhassan , Ibrahim Manu
Published: February 2019

Pot experiment was conducted at the Department of Agronomy Crop Pavilion of the University of Ilorin, Ilorinto assess the effects of water stress at different growth stages on the physiological parameters of soybean genotypes. Six soybean genotypes (TGX 536-02D, TGX 1830-2DE, TGX 1019-2EN, TGX 1740-2F, TGX 1485-1D and TGX 1817-12E) were subjected to water stress at three growth stages (vegetative, flowering and post-flowering stages) with a well-watered control. The experiment was designed as a factorial trial and laid out in split- plot arrangements. Morphological growth characters such as number of leaves, leaf area, branching and dry matter production were measured during growth which were used to determine physiological growth indices.Results show that crop growth rate (CGR), relative leaf growth rate (RLGR), net assimilation rate (NAR) and leaf area ratio measured at vegetative growth were significantly reduced by water stress occurring at the vegetative stage.Amongst the investigated genotypes TGX 536-02D was the most tolerant while 1485-1D was the least tolerant genotypes.