We use a Meshless local Petrov-Galerkin method (MLPG) to analyse an elastostatic problem deformation of a homogeneous rectangular plate of two –dimensional. First the formulations of method local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) and Local radial point interpolation method (LRPIM) are obtained. The aim of this article is to study the convergence and accuracy of these methods: MLPG and LRPIM. Finally a comparative study of numerical results obtained is made.

This study examines the influence of board nationality on the return on equity of money deposits banks in Nigeria. This study makes use of econometric procedure and data was collected through a secondary source of information. The population of interest for the study comprised the twenty-two deposit money banks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and the sample size consists of nine selected money deposit banks which were purposively chosen based on the consistency in their publication of their financial account up to 2016; and as well based on their equity. The finding shows that the board nationality brings diverse experience and expertise to bear on the operations of banks and it has a significant positive effect on the ROE of the selected banks. It is therefore recommended that the money banks in Nigeria should infuse more independent non-executive directors in the board to acts as checks on the excesses of the executive directors and to counter-balance the influence of the executive directors on the management. Further, the study also advised that more foreign directors should be elected on the board of deposit money banks in Nigeria as more foreigners on the board provide a large stock of qualified candidates with broader experience and diverse expertise which the domestic members may not possess

This study was conducted to understand the status of scabies infection and its epidemic characteristics in the Korean hospitals. 43 hospitals (86.0%) received the reports of scabies infection with suspicious or definite diagnosis to infection control department, implicating continuous increases 14.6% (7/48), 20.8% (10/48), 35.7% (17/48), 44.1% (21/48), and 56.7% (27/48) in 2010 to 2013 and 35.7% (17/48) in 2014 up to April. 92.0% of the hospitals had the rules and guideline of scabies infection control, which seemed to be prepared by the recent certifications of medical institutions and establishment of rules in infection control departments. However, less than half of the hospitals 44.0% (22/50) prepared the screening system related to scabies during the admission processes of the patients, 56.7% of the patients had the typical symptoms related to scabies when they admitted with 47.0% of pruritus, requiring the system to prevent from the scabies epidemic beforehand.

This study empirically evaluates the moderating effect of task environment on the organizational performance of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study ascertains the extent of relationship between the bargaining power of suppliers and firm productivity and as well accesses the extent to which bargaining power of competitors affect firms competitive advantage. A descriptive survey design method was adopted and a self-administered closed-end questionnaire was used to sift data from respondents who were management and non management staff of ten selected manufacturing organizations in southeastern Nigeria. A sample size of 499 respondents was drawn from the population. The finding revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between bargaining power of suppliers and firms’ productivity. The study also found that bargaining power of competitor has a significant positive effect on manufacturing firms’ competitive advantage. In lieu of these findings, the study recommendations that manufacturing firms should be committed to maintaining a cordial relationship with their suppliers and avoid possible conflict in both short and long-run. Further, manufacturing firms are also advised to be more strategic in managing their competitors. This can be achieved through the advancement of blue ocean strategy.

The present study aims at investigating the value relevance of prepayment audit characteristics and the impact on enhancing the effective implementation of World Bank funded project in Nigeria. These characteristics include independence, Size, Expertise and Meetings frequency of audit project financial management team.The study seeks to analyse how auditors’ qualities aid in prepayment audit and the resultant effect of the synergy on performance of public sector funded projects in Nigeria. This study adopted both an explanatory research design. The source of data was purely from secondary which used all the twenty-nine (29) ministries between 2000-2016.The statistical tools adopted parametric and non-parametric techniques of data analysis. In testing the hypotheses, Ordinary Least Square (OLS), multiple regression technique of analysis was employed, at 5% level of significance (p<0.05). There was positive and significant relationship between Audit project financial management unit Independence and ratio of completed project. There was positive and significant relationship between Audit Financial Expertise of project financial Management unit and ratio of completed project. There was positive and significant relationship between Meetings frequency of audit project financial Management unit and ratio of completed project. The paper concludes that auditors’ qualities affect positively prepayment audit and this in turn affect performance of public sector funded projects in Nigeria

Energy demand is ever increasing, fossil fuels are depleting at faster rate and emission of green house gases by fossil fuels are increasing, this scenario forced the researchers to investigate alternate fuel. Biomass energy is a viable option as an alternative due to reduced CO2 emissions. Biomass from food crops not a good option due to demand of food. Lignocellulosic feed stocks are residues of food crop and forestry waste. This makes researchers to focus on the conversion of feed stock to useful green fuels and other flat form chemicals. This present paper briefly reviews the conversion of lignocellulosic material conversion to furfural and furfuryl alcohol by hydrolysis process

The paper is concerned with methodological problems of search of new ways of reformation for space engineering education. The problems of renewal of the content of course units and educational forms are of special relevance in the field of education of specialists in design of small and ultra small spacecrafts. Renewal of educational forms is frequently associated with the choice between the pragmatic and ontological approaches in education. We present the experience gained at Bauman University in creation of individual plans of education of students. Our studies show that mixedteam work enables one to realize continuous transfer of practical skills, and in parallel to secure positive environment for personal growth of future engineers.

The proposed framework faculties even the scarcest vehicle movement subsequent to being furnished (bolted) and gives an upgraded hands-free remote keyless section framework dependent on ZigBee remote correspondence. The venture is based upon a continuous in-vehicle arrange that includes two incredible car conventions CAN and LIN. The caution sign may normally be a glimmering of the lights or potentially the sounding of the vehicle horn or an alarm. Moreover, the vehicle start power might be specifically crippled dependent on an alert condition. The remote transmitter might be utilized to arm and incapacitate the vehicle security framework or give other remote control highlights from a foreordained range far from the vehicle. The ZigBee keyless section framework allows the client to remotely open the vehicle entryways utilizing a little handheld transmitter. Dynamic Car Finder Locate your vehicle in jam-packed leaving lots.CAN system incorporates a movement detecting subsystem, throttle control subsystem and Zigbee remote correspondence subsystem and a body control unit that is helped by LIN sub organize. The LIN (Local Interconnect Network) arrange includes vehicle subsystems, for example, headlight control and horn control.

This article investigates existence, uniqueness and stability solutions of new Volterra- Friedholm of integro-differential equations by using both method Picard approximation and Banach fixed point theorem which was introduced by Rama. Theorems on existence and uniqueness of a solution are established under some necessary and sufficient conditions on compact spaces. Also expand the some results gained by Butris

This paper presents the level of road density and the number of vehicles passing on the Jakarta city toll road. This study was conducted at the Jakarta Toll Gate namely Semanggi I, Semanggi II and Halim. Data is obtained from observations when the driver pays the cost of the expressway at the toll gate. This study shows a reaction time for the payment of expressway costs, which are influenced by types of motorized vehicles such as sedans, jeeps, buses, and trucks. The results show that the reaction time of driver when before and after paying, the longest toll road costs is 48 seconds and the shortest is 1 second. Reaction time for the payment of expressway costs could shorten the travel time, with an average reaction time of 6.04 seconds on vehicles. The number of vehicles crossing the toll gate on 24 hours from the three Toll Gates amount 17.256 vehicles. As a result, Most of vehicle traffic contributed by the behavior of driver at the Toll Gate

This paper presents the design and analysis of the sandwich model for casted metal-natural fiber composite. The objective of this research is to analyze the sandwich model of natural fiber composite to be introduced in metal matrix alloys for engineering application purposes. The sandwich model is the hybrid material combined with layers aluminum LM6 and kenaf composite laminated. Overall thickness for each design is 35mm. For the sandwich design, each layer of LM6 is 10mm thickness and each layer of kenaf-polyester composites is 15mm to make it 3 layers with 35mm thickness. The dimensions for both models are referring based on the requirement of ASTM C393, Standard Test Method for Flexural Properties of Sandwich Construction. Based on the simulation results, it is feasible to use the sandwich model of LM6 with kenaf-polyester composite. In addition, this simulation result strongly supports the potential for this hybrid laminate of LM6 and kenafpolyester composite as a substitute for solid LM6, reducing the usage of LM6 substance and introducing natural fiber element into engineering application.

This studied examined the effect of financial flexibility on profitability of Money Deposit Banks in Nigeria. The study adopted the survey method and data were collected using a structured questionnaire and these were complemented with oral interview. From a population of 694, a sample of 255 was selected through multistage sampling technique. The hypothesis was tested using the probability values anchored on simple linear regression estimations. The findings revealed that flexible financial practice in the firms studied has a positive effect on profitability (p-value =0.000, R2 = 0.611682). Based on the findings, the study concludes that financial flexibility enhances profitability of Nigerian Money Deposit Banks. Among others, it is recommended that an appropriate flexibility mix should be adopted by deposit money banks in order to increase and sustain the profitability of their firms

The growing worldwide demand of electricity and the consequences related to the use of fossil fuel to generate electricity have boosted research in renewable and sustainable energies to overcome those challenges. From diverse sources of renewable energies (RE), solar and wind are wildly distributed and have reached the maturity stage. South Africa (SA) as one of growing economy is in need of more electricity to sustain its domestic need of electricity and its economy, RE is an option. With its potential in solar energy (SE), the need of accurate information on site to build solar power plans are of vital importance for designers and decision’s makers. This paper presents the preliminary analysis of ground-based measurements solar data in Umlazi, South Africa. From this analysis, data statistics and statistic models for the global horizontal irradiance (GHI), the direct horizontal irradiance (DHI) and the ultraviolet radiations (UVR) are obtained for Durban and surrounding areas. Those results can be used in the design and analysis of solar systems and can also be used as referential parameters for further assessment of solar energy potentials for those areas.

This project consists on creating an app that helps people with partial or total loss of hearing and deaf people. It is ideally designed to be used in academic environments and classrooms where students with these conditions can carry out their everyday activities with normalcy. Hence, the application enables teacher and student to join a chat room so that the teacher can give a class while the student sees his words reflected in the text of the chat room in the chosen language. The application has an additional function that consists on turning text into speech to communicate easily with others (not only in the academic environment). Users are allowed to record audio with the microphone to convert text so it can be read by a deaf person especially during short conversations. This is planned through cognition services offered by Google AI with cloud data processing algorithms where developers have access to high-level services that boost the creation of solutions that require Artificial Intelligence (AI). The eagerness of this project is reflected in the fact that 100% of the people interviewed to assess the app agree that it can be useful tool for society. Therefore, they conclude that there is an 80% probability that they will download the app in a nearby future.

The effect of temperature, voltage, roll speed on grade, recovery and separation efficiency for a titanium ore was experimentally investigated using a laboratory rolltype electrostatic separator. The objective was to determine the optimal conditions for achieving the highest grade, recovery and efficiency while describing in clear terms the effect of the input variables on the studied responses. A three-level Box-Behnken factorial design was combined with response surface methodology (RSM) to model and optimise the process. The quadratic models derived for grade, recovery and separation efficiency were consistent with experimental results reported in this study (R2 values were 0.83, 0.94 and 0.95 for Grade, Recovery and Efficiency, respectively). Furthermore, Boolean algebra was successfully used as a practical tool for better describing the complex interactions between process factors as they affect the responses. The latter were simultaneously optimised to obtain the following values: 45.89 %, 91.85 % and 61.22 %, for grade, recovery and separation efficiency respectively. Optimal input variables were 17.73 kV (voltage), 205.24 RPM (roll speed) and 108.97 oC (temperature).

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze emerging technologies in agricultural engineering and its import on agricultural production. There has been series of changes in agricultural technology. Agricultural engineering has been reputed to be a veritable tool for ensuring food security globally and it is now recognized in the global front. Efforts to make it more acceptable has resulted in the development of various technologies aimed at improving agricultural production. This study analyzed the emerging technologies in agricultural engineering and gave a thorough review of how it has brought about improvement in agricultural production generally. The study relied on relevant literature as it relates to agricultural engineering to lend support to the topic under consideration. It concludes and recommends that these technologies should be replicated across board especially in African countries where food insecurity and malnutrition is still prevalent.

The Research area of engineering of the electronic system cooling is having wide application nowadays. Therefore, in the present work, Aluminum is chosen as the material for the heat sink. In the present work effect of various shapes of cross sections of fins on the mother board is studied keeping the inlet air velocity, temperature of the ambient and the heat generation constant. The optimized shape of cross section is done to analyzing the effects of velocity and inlet air temperature, keeping the other parameters constant. The results are compared and optimum operational condition of that sink is found out. The optimized shape is proceeded to find a suitable sectional area which gives a minimum temperature.

Industrial Relations Dispute Settlement or known in Indonesia as PPHI through bipartite and mediation must be based on the philosophy of Pancasila for the purpose of resolution by deliberation covered by kinship spirit. A Hermenutic method in law, meanings understanding as a method of an interpretation of the texts of law or to understand a method to normative manuscript. The wages theory, put workers and businesses is a family or joined together as one in the company. Problem solved by deliberation and consensus not give a priority with “bargaining position“pattern that will lead to some win and there are who lost. The ability in a mediator based on: knowledge, expertise, skill and attitude, behavior. The expertise of a mediator technically conceptual, and expertise interpersonal relations; greatly determine the implementation of the PPHI which in turn could be solved quickly, fair, and cheap

Youth are the pillars of the country. Yet most of them are still confused over the concept of love. It is important for them to understand the concept of universal love which cover the understanding of various religions. A study of 395 multi-racial respondents from universities in Malaysia found that youth understood the concept of universal love. However, in practical terms, the ethical love behaviour and rational thinking in love remained at low and moderate levels. In addition, the three predictors: universal love, rational thinking in love and ethical love behaviour have been included in the regression model. These three variables are the predictors of transformation because they have a significance level of p <0.05. This suggests that the concept of universal love could transform the Malaysian youth. Hence, the correct understanding of universal love will be able to shape the ethical love behaviour and rational thinking in love among youth.

This work was performed to study the effect of C/N ratio on biogas volume production. The raw material used was cow dung while glucose and ammonium sulfate was used to modify the C/N ratio. An isolated six-liter container was used to run the anaerobic process where the temperature was kept in a range of mesophilic condition. The container pressure and temperature were investigated daily. In order to boost the biogas volume production, 10% by volume of effective microorganism-4 (EM-4) was added to the substrate (a mixture of cow dung and water with ratio of 1:1). To investigate the effect of C/N ratio of substrate on biogas volume, four different ratios were employed of 15, 22, 27, and 35 respectively. The C/N ratio of the raw material is 22.71. The work showed that the biogas volume increased when C/N ratio of the substrate was high. In the case of C/N ratio of 35, the highest biogas volume was achieved in day 16-18th then the volume decreased gradually. However, the highest volume was achieved in different day for each ratio. For instance in the second best in biogas production, C/N ratio of 27, the highest volume was achieved in day 13-15th and even it was achieved in early day for lower C/N ratios. The results give indication that increasing the C/N ratio of cow dung can improve the quantity of biogas

Taylor-Couette flow is a fluid flow between two concentric cylinders with the rotating cylinders equipped with heat transfer. This study aims to analyze the influence of geometry parameters and dynamics on flow characteristics and torque with heat transfer. Geometry parameters in the study with radius ratio 0.714 and aspect ratio 10 with variations of Reynolds numbers circular 81 to 5200 and cylinder temperatures in 60 0C and outside cylinder temperatures 100C. Discretization with the second-order scheme of Upwind and the SIMPLEC Algorithm scheme. The flow was modeled with the turbulence model k-? turbulence model. The results showed that Taylor-Couette Flow would form a flow pattern of Couette Laminar, Wavy Vortex, and Vortex Turbulent. The wavelength of the wavelength increases with increasing rotation. The profile of temperature distribution in the form of a linear profile increases the Reynolds number. The higher the profile of the temperature distribution will look more tilted, the convection heat transfer coefficient of the cylinder is higher because the condition of the cylinder wall rotates. Whereas for cylinders in the idle condition, the Nusselt average number on the inner cylinder is higher than the outer cylinder. This shows that the inner cylinder walls have stronger heat transfer capabilities. Increased torque is more than the effect of cylinder rotation in the flow area with Taylor vortex sharper than laminar flow.

The appearance of fissures on structural elements has led researchers to develop innovative techniques using synthetic fibers and has triggered a kind of awakening in this area of research. The study of the mechanical behavior of sand concrete mixed with polypropylene (PP) fibers shows that with the incorporation of (PP) fibers into the cementitious matrix, there is some improvement in the ductile behavior of the composite. In our study we tested the composite with different dosages of polypropylene (0.05%, 0.1%, 0.3% and 0.5%), the results showed that the 0.05% fiber dosage in sand concrete with a fiber diameter of 33.2 µm PP gives significant results in terms of flexural tensile strength and a slight improvement in compressive strength compared to the constituent with the same dosage in a sand concrete with a diameter of the PP fiber of 45.5 µm.

This paper presents the development of a Group Technology (GT) code based system for selection of cutting tools and conditions of turning operations. The system developed can be used to select the tool holder and insert. It is able to analyse and optimise cutting tools required for particular turning operation. This system is constructed and implemented using Optiz GT code method and machine cloud app. The inputs to the system developed are the part family and standard tool files, which include the representation of the part features and cutting tools. This paper describes the application of the system developed using a typical example.