An improved algorithm for optimum structural design with multiple frequency constraints

An optimality criterion (OC) method for minimum-weight design of structures having multiple constraints on natural frequencies is presented. In this work a new resizing strategy is developed based on relaxation techniques. A computationally adaptive control parameter is used in conjunction with existing OC recursive formulae to promote convergence of optimum structural designs. Some considerations regarding the coupling of the modified Aitken accelerator with the OC method are discussed. Improved and rapidly converged minimum-weight designs are obtained when using an under-relaxed recursive scheme combined with the modified Aitken accelerator

Human Resource Development and the Needs of Training Department: A Case Study on Malaysia Packaging Sdn. Bhd.

The lacking of the long-tenn human resource development plan for Malaysia packaging Ind Bhd (MA yP AK) had caused the company to suffer from many problems like high turnover, high rejection rate, lack of skilled workforce, weak Sales and Marketing personnel and others. With the increasing demand from the customers for better quality products and services, had put MA yP AK in the difficult situation to coup with the demands. Without quality and competence workforce, the company has difficulty to coup with the increasing demand from the customers. The important of training in the human resource development was ide

The impact of climate change on crop pests and diseases, and adaptation strategies for the Greater Mekong Sub-Region

The workshop report provided evidences from numerous single factorial laboratory studies and modelling exercises that crop pests and diseases were affected by the vagaries of climate change viz., temperature, rainfall and wind patterns. There was also adequate support for the notion on the innate ability of crop pests and diseases to adapt to changing environmental conditions. It was revealed that organisms respond in different ways to various ecosystem templates thus lending credence to the fundamental need for one to be cognitive of organisms’ ecology and that of the nexus with ecosystem services. In contrast, it was recognized that there were conflicting messages on impacts of climate change on crop pests and diseases that were sent out to policy makers and farmers. Several key aspects were identified and the following needs for refinement were recognised: (i) Research designs that span across spatial and temporal landscapes; (ii) Effective modalities of communicating impacts to influence policies and changes and (iii) Re-designing policies and national agricultural frameworks to enhance resilience to climate changes (e.g. ecological engineering). The workshop highlighted several issues pertinent to climate impact on pests and diseases. The issues focused on the following questions: (i) The specific needs (viz. ecological and implementation) in the development of climate change adaptation strategies for P&D management, (ii) New policies or infrastructure that need to be designed to enhance sustainable agriculture, (iii) Policy change activities that could be initiated, and (iv) the key imperatives that need to be addressed to improve farmer livelihoods, learning and motivation. Overall, the workshop provided a valuable opportunity to take stock of the current state of affairs pertaining to the impact of climate change on crop pests and diseases and the adaptation strategies needed to plan and prepare the best set of collective actions in the face of climate change. The output list of recommendations and next steps will enable us to forge ahead with the directions and plans to diagnose and identify optimum efforts that will benefit the rural poor who are chronically vulnerable to the threats of climate change

The occurrence and inter-rater reliability of myofascial trigger points in the quadratus lumborum and gluteus medius: A prospective study in non-specific low back pain patients and controls in general practice

The presence of a trigger point is essential to the myofascial pain syndrome. This study centres on identifying clearer criteria for the presence of trigger points in the quadratus lumborum and gluteus medius muscle by investigating the occurrence and inter-rater reliability of trigger point symptoms. Using the symptoms and signs as described by Simons' 1990 definition and two other former sets of criteria, 61 non-specific low back pain patients and 63 controls were examined in general practice by 5 observers, working in pairs. From the two major criteria of Simons' 1990 definition only ‘localized tenderness’ has good discriminative ability and inter-rater reliability (kappa > 0.5). This study does not find proof for the clinical usefulness of ‘referred pain’, which has neither of these two abilities. The criteria ‘jump sign’ and ‘recognition’, on the condition that localized tenderness is present, also have good discriminative ability and inter-rater reliability. Trigger points defined by the criteria found eligible in this study allow significant distinction between non-specific low back pain patients and controls. This is not the case with trigger points defined by Simons' 1990 criteria. Concerning reliability there is also a significant difference between the two different criteria sets. This study suggests that the clinical usefulness of trigger points is increased when localized tenderness and the presence of either jump sign or patient's recognition of his pain complaint are used as criteria for the presence of trigger points in the M. quadratus lumborum and the M. gluteus medius

Pest Smart interventions and their influence on farmer pest management practices in Tra Hat village, Bac Lieu Province, Vietnam

A pre-Pest Smart (baseline) and post-Pest Smart intervention study was carried out 15 months after the baseline study was conducted to assess the influence of the Pest Smart activities on farmers’ practices, attitudes and beliefs on pest management in Tra Hat village, Bac Lieu Province, Vietnam. Farmers advocating Pest Smart activities showed favorable changes in their practices, attitudes and beliefs. Farmers reported an increase in dry yield of rice, reduced rice seeding rate (from 6.9 t/ha to 7.8 t/ha), reduced application of nitrogenous fertilizer (from 109.5 kg/ha to 93.3 kg/ha), and reduced number of insecticide sprays per season (from 3.4 times per season to 2.7 times per season). The perceived losses were also reduced significantly from 1,452 kg/ha to 718 kg/ha (reduction of 51% perceived loss of rice yield to pests)

Manipulation of flavour and aroma compound sequestration and release using a glycosyltransferase with specificity for terpene alcohols.

Glycosides are an important potential source of aroma and flavour compounds for release as volatiles in flowers and fruit. The production of glycosides is catalysed by UDP-glycosyltransferases (UGTs) that mediate the transfer of an activated nucleotide sugar to acceptor aglycones. A screen of UGTs expressed in kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) identified the gene AdGT4 which was highly expressed in floral tissues and whose expression increased during fruit ripening. Recombinant AdGT4 enzyme glycosylated a range of terpenes and primary alcohols found as glycosides in ripe kiwifruit. Two of the enzyme's preferred alcohol aglycones, hexanol and (Z)-hex-3-enol, contribute strongly to the 'grassy-green' aroma notes of ripe kiwifruit and other fruit including tomato and olive. Transient over-expression of AdGT4 in tobacco leaves showed that enzyme was able to glycosylate geraniol and octan-3-ol in planta whilst transient expression of an RNAi construct in Actinidia eriantha fruit reduced accumulation of a range of terpene glycosides. Stable over-expression of AdGT4 in transgenic petunia resulted in increased sequestration of hexanol and other alcohols in the flowers. Transgenic tomato fruit stably over-expressing AdGT4 showed changes in both the sequestration and release of a range of alcohols including 3-methylbutanol, hexanol and geraniol. Sequestration occurred at all stages of fruit ripening. Ripe fruit sequestering high levels of glycosides were identified as having a less intense, earthier aroma in a sensory trial. These results demonstrate the importance of UGTs in sequestering key volatile compounds in planta and suggest a future approach to enhancing aromas and flavours in flowers and during fruit ripening. Yauk YK1, Ged C, Wang MY, Matich AJ, Tessarotto L, Cooney JM, Chervin C, Atkinson RG

Using Reader’s Theatre Strategy in Learning English Poetry: How Effective it Could be?

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether using Reader’s Theatre starategy could improve students’ comprehension level or not and exore students’ perception about the imlementation of Reader’s Theatre in learning English poetry. A total of eight participants from the same program in Kolej University Islam Perlis (KUIPs), Perlis were involved in the research. This study used Embedded Mixed Method in which preexperimental research was conducted in the quantitative stage of data collection, where the quantitative data were gained from students’ pre-test and posttest. Meanwhile the qulitative data were gained from the interview conducted at the end of experimental study. The data collected from the results of students’ pretest and posttest were analyzed by using paired samle T-Test, while thematic analysis was used to analyse the responses from interviews. The results of the analysis showed that 1) Reader’s Theatre strategy was able to enhance students’ comprehension level and 2) students showed positive perception that the learning activities with the implementation of Reader’s Theatre strategy brought three benefits; first, the activity was interesting and enjoyable, secondly, the activity made it easy to comprehend English literatures and thirdly, the activity made students work collaborativey in groups

Analysis of Influencing Factors on Attitudes, Purchase Intention and Purchase Behavior towards Electric Vehicle (EV) Cars in Super Seven Stars Company Limited ( Aye Mi Khing,2024)

This study investigates the influencing factors on purchase intention and purchase behavior towards electric vehicle (EV) cars users in Super Seven Star Company Limited. Both primary and secondary data were applied. Primary data was collected from 230 customers out of 559 KIA’s users in Super Seven Star Company Limited by calculating Raosoft sample size calculator and using simple random sampling method. Online survey method was used to collect data. Secondary data was searched for previous research, papers, journals and text books. Data was analyzed by descriptive and linear regression method. The results reveal that performance, environmental concern, infrastructure attributes, and price perception are positively and significantly affecting on attitudes. Attitude has also positive and significant effect on purchase intention. The regression analysis demonstrates that purchase intention has positive and significant effect on purchase behavior. The study suggests enhancing consumer awareness, strengthening marketing strategies, improving charging infrastructure, and providing financial incentives to boost EV adoption

Heterogeneous truck routing policies with tour routing time restriction

We study a heterogeneous full-truckload vehicle routing problem based on the case of a trucking company in Malaysia, where trucks originate from a depot and are dispatched to various parts of the service area. Each order defines an origin-destination pair for pickup and delivery locations. Goods have to be picked up or delivered within the pre-specified pickup and delivery time windows. Besides, we consider a restriction on tour routing time, i.e. the total time taken from the time each truck leaves the depot, servicing a number of orders, to the time it returns to the depot. Our objective is to minimize total deadhead costs. Four integer programming solution policies are proposed. Three of the policies identify the set of homebound trucks before assigning jobs to trucks, while the last policy is a one-off algorithm that assigns job routes to all the trucks and makes sure that each truck will not exceed the total route time limit when it returns to the depot. Crosssectional computation results show that the one-off policy is the best amongst the four. Cumulative analysis results show that all four policies do better than the company’s original assignment in terms of deadhead costs and truck utilization

Gain optimization for cochlear implant systems

Cochlear implant systems need Automatic Gain Control (AGC) to compress the large dynamic range (~120 dB) of the acoustic environment into the small dynamic range (< 20 dB) of electrical stimulation. This thesis is concerned with the design, implementation and evaluation of AGC systems for cochlear implants. It investigated the effects of AGC on the speech intelligibility of cochlear implant recipients. Various AGC configurations were evaluated with sentences presented over a wide range of levels at different Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNR) to identify important factors affecting the performance. Signal metrics were developed to quantify the effects of AGC on the channel envelopes. The goal was to improve speech intelligibility in adverse listening conditions. The performance-intensity functions of cochlear implant recipients with no AGC and with a front-end compression limiter were measured in noise. With no AGC, the proportion of envelope clipping grew monotonically with presentation level. The front-end limiter substantially reduced envelope clipping yet gave little improvement in speech intelligibility. The recipients were highly tolerant of envelope clipping when the background noise was low. SNR degradation was identified as the main factor reducing speech intelligibility. A front-end limiter cannot guarantee zero envelope clipping. In contrast, the proposed envelope profile limiter eliminated envelope clipping and hence preserved the spectral profile. The two AGCs were evaluated, with two release times (75 and 625 ms). The shorter release time gave worse speech intelligibility because it caused more waveform distortion and output SNR reduction. For a given release time, preserving spectral envelope profile gave additional benefits. In a take-home experiment, cochlear implant recipients rated a program with the envelope profile limiter equivalent to their everyday program. A conventional cochlear implant signal path uses a predetermined input dynamic range, which is shifted up or down by the AGC. In contrast, the proposed Adaptive Loudness Growth Function (ALGF) continually optimized the input dynamic range by estimating the noise floor and peak level in each channel. The ALGF gave better Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) than the existing state-of-the-art AGC system at the high presentation level when evaluated with a newly developed roving-level SRT test at three presentation levels