Improving construction materials management practices in construction sites

Construction Materials Management is a vital function for improving productivity in construction projects. Poor materials management can often affect the overall construction time, quality and budget. Currently, the construction material management practice in Somalia is believed to be poorly performed. Lack of standardized construction materials management system is one of the key issues facing by the building industry in Mogadishu-Somalia. The aim of this study was to investigate the current practices of material management at construction sites in Mogadishu-Somalia. A questionnaire survey study design was used to explore construction materials management practices. Fifty questionnaires were distributed to project managers, project engineers, site engineers, engineer, and foreman, and they were received and analysed. The following data analysis techniques were used: descriptive statistics were conducted to report sample characteristics, reliability and validity analyses were performed to confirm robustness of the instrument, graphical presentation such as bar charts were developed, and finally Average Mean Index Scale were constructed. The study results reveals that, 46.7% of respondent’s organization obtain materials for sites without site requisition by site engineer provisions, while 28.9% of respondent’s organization procure materials for sites with site requisition by project manager provisions and 13.3% of respondent’s organization procure materials for site by engineer. The results indicated that currently there is no standardized and computerized construction materials management system applied in Somalia. The researcher concluded that all contracting companies are interested in using some techniques of managing construction materials such as creating and updating database for materials categories from local and international suppliers. Finally, researcher recommends to use computerized construction materials management systems to reduce effort and time, and to achieve more accurate results

1 x 4 array antenna for wireless local area network (WLAN)

In this project, a 1 x 4 wide band rectangular patch array antenna proposed and designed at frequency 2.4GHz for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) applications. The antenna will be designed using optimization and study of features. To construct the desired antenna, some strategies for optimizing the Microstrip Patch Antenna are investigated and executed. An antenna array is a radiating system, which consists of individual radiators and elements. Each of this radiator, while functioning has its own induction field. The elements are placed so closely that each one lies in the neighboring one’s induction field. Therefore, the radiation pattern produced by them, would be the vector sum of the individual one When designing these antennas, keep in mind the spacing between the elements as well as the length of the elements in relation to the wavelength. Microstrip patch array antenna developed still face problem with low gain , narrow bandwidth , high complexity and low efficiency therefore, this project proposes 1x4 microstrip patch array antenna that suitable for wireless local area network (WLAN) and provides less complexity, high gain, large bandwidth by using defected ground structure(DGS) technique and slots that suitable point to point communication system. The goal of this research is to create an antenna with higher gain, higher directivity, a wider bandwidth, and good efficiency using array antenna techniques, to propose array antenna that have wide bands using defected ground method and to compare the antenna performance using different techniques. The goal of this project can theoretically be achieved by using a high-quality substrate such as RT Duroid 5870, which has a low relative permittivity or dielectric constant and a higher substrate that will maximize bandwidth. but in this project using FR-4 substrate, which does not have high quality and high dielectric constant finally achieved high performance result using array antenna techniques and parametric studied. This is because the bandwidth of a Rectangular Microstrip Patch Array Antenna is determined by the dielectric constant and the substrate height. The antenna's efficiency will be improved by a low loss-tangent. The patch array also has a better directivity than the single patch. All the simulation design process has been conducted by using CST Studio Suite Software. The 1 x 4 microstrip patch array antenna has simulated gain of 6.33dBi at 2.4 GHz with the wide bandwidth 514MHz and efficiency more than 72%. Therefore The expected result from this project is achieved which was a high gain, better directivity, larger bandwidth and high efficiency

MODEL PEMBELAJARAN INQUIRI\ud SEBUAH ALTERNATIF DALAM PEMBELAJARAN PAI

slamic Education (PAI) is a complex activity that not only focuses on the cognitive aspects, but also affective and psychomotor aspects. Islamic Education aims to shape the behavior and personality in accordance with the principles and Islam concepts in realizing moral values and religion as the foundation of national education goals. But all the goals it will not work if the learning processes of student difficulty in capturing the lessons given by the teacher, instead of teachers have not been able to solve students’ learning difficulties. Therefore, we need a model of learning that can help address the difficulties teachers implementing the task of teaching and students’ learning difficulties. One of them by applying the inquiry learning model. The learning model is designed to engage students in learning that really happened “student centered”. Inquiry means to know how to find out things and to know how to solve problem. The inquiry learning model has six basic steps: 1) orientation, 2) acceptance and definition of the problem, 3) the development of hypotheses, 4) collecting data, 5) hypothesis testing, and 6) conclusion.\ud Key word: Islamic education, the learning inquiry model

Histological assessment of blood cockles (Anadara granosa) using different stains and fixatives.

Blood cockles (Anadara granosa) or locally known as ‘kerang’ are mollusc belonging to Bivalvia class. It is an important fisheries commodity and a delicacy in Malaysia. In RMK-9, one of the objectives of Malaysia’s aquaculture industries is to maximize the production of bivalves up to 130,000 MT per year, which includes cockles, green mussels, clams and oysters. Cockles become one of the important bivalves cultured in Malaysia as it had very good market value in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. According to Phillips and Muttarasin (1985), 80% of the cockles marketed in Thailand were imported from Malaysia. In spite of the diversity and its economic importance, the knowledge of bivalves specifically cockle medicine should be developed in order to meet the requirement of diagnostic work which is necessary in determining the cause of diseases infecting the animals. Up to date, there is no comprehensive information of the histology of cockles. Thus, this study was undertaken to provide basic histological descriptions of normal and anomalies microstructures in Anadara granosa by using different fixatures and stains. Forty live cockles were divided into two groups; one group was fixed with Davidson solution and the other fixed with 10% buffered formalin. The tissues were then processed for 18 hours, and later embedded with paraffin wax and sectioned at 5 µm thickness. There were stained with four stains namely, Haematoxylin and Eosin, Masson’s Trichome, Periodic Acid Schiff’s and Van Gieson’s stains. The sections were evaluated under a computer attached-compound light microscope at low and high magnification. The organs were assessed for microscopic structures staining affinity (Cox et al., 2006). Haematoxylin and Eosin stain was considered the better stain to be used for mantle, foot complex and haemocytes tissues. Combination of Haematoxylin and Eosin and Periodic Acid Schiff’s stains can be used to stain digestive system and palp. Gills could be stained with Masson’s Trichome and Van Gieson’s, while for gonads Masson’s Trichome would be the preferred choice. Van Gieson’s on the other hand, was the choice for foreign body detection. Gills of cockles could be divided into three parts: frontal, intermediate and abfrontal zone similar to Mytella falcate (David et al., 2008). The intermediate zone have a homogenous densely stained structure embedded in the filament which highly indicative that it provided supportive frame to the frontal zone

Metaphor and the development of pragmatic competence

Language development among pre-school children will take place in all aspects of the language especially pragmatics, for instance, the ability to tell stories and semantics, understand the meaning of the language widely including the abstract forms. Their vocabulary will be widened which enable them to construct long and complex sentences and building up words using correct affixes. Language development at pre-school age is more creative, whereby the language creativity is enhanced by the surroundings, experiences, the metaphor that was developed through film and many other language activities. They use their developed language creativity when they communicate with friends and people in their society. Among the pragmatic competence that they have developed are pronoun, similes and metaphor language. Therefore, in this study, focus will be on the language usage in children’s speech. The aspect of the language usage will converge on the use of symbol language used by the children to convey message, depict mind and emotion. In this study, the samples of the study are 25 Malay pre-school children. The method of the study is observation. The language data were recorded during their morning dialogue session, story telling, games and their morning tour around the kindergarten. The collected data was analyzed using the pragmatic theory, the theory of Relevance

Histopathological changes of skin and gills of catfish (Clarias gariepinus) exposed to organophosphate toxicant

The usage of pesticide in the industry will help increase crop yield and meet consumer demand for Malaysia, a country that is undergoing economic revolution through the agricultural. However, the excessive and inappropriateness use of pesticides can affect the environment, water quality and public health. In this experiment, 40 adult African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) were divided and exposed into sublethal concentrations of Malathion (0.8, 1.6 and 3.0 ppm) and a control group for 48 hours. At the end of the study, all fish were sacrificed before skin and gill samples were collected to determine the effect of malathion on the gills and skin. The histopathological lesions in the gills and skin were scored and statistically analysed to compare between group. Histological examination of the gill showed epithelial lifting at secondary lamella, hyperplasia of primary epithelium, fusion of secondary lamella and infiltration of inflammatory cells with peeling and rupture of epithelial cells of secondary lamellae. In the skin, the changes observed were hyperplasia of mucus cell and shrinkage of the club cells after the exposure to malathion. There were significant differences between treatment and control groups. Thus, malathion causes concentration-independent and nonspecific lesions in the gills and skin of African catfish

Interlinkage between food prices and agricultural wages and implications for farm mechanization in Bangladesh

In recent decades, Bangladesh’s economy has undergone a remarkable structural transformation. Agricultural wages are becoming high while staple food prices are becoming volatile. In the meantime, agriculture has experienced an expansion of machine rental services provided by specialized agents, which has contributed to the mechanization of agricultural production. The emergence of machine rental markets and the recent wage growth may have significant effects on the efficiency of farmers of different scales in rural Bangladesh through land reallocation and technology adoption. Proper understanding of the relationship between food prices and rural wages is essential for planning policies in support of the rural poor in Bangladesh. This dissertation analyzes the interlinkage of food price and agricultural wages and its implication in farm mechanization. In exploring the link between food prices and rising agricultural wages, the first analytical chapter analyzes the dynamic relations between those two by using monthly data from 1994 to 2014. A standard vector error correction model (VECM) was implemented to determine the short‐run and long‐run relationships between wages and food prices in eight divisions in Bangladesh. Besides, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models were fitted to estimate the pass‐through coefficients and to compare the short‐run effects of rice price and urban wage shocks on agricultural wages. We found statistical evidence of a structural break between January 2007 and January 2009. After the structural break, in six out of eight divisions, any shock in rice prices did not transmit to the farm wages in the short run. Moreover, in the long run, food prices became less influential in explaining the changes in rural wages while the influence of urban wages became stronger in some divisions. To better understand the rural wages pattern this study also examines the implications of agricultural mechanization for agricultural wages using a unique data set of monthly wages and rice prices over the period from 1995 to 2015. Employing a dynamic panel model, estimated by generalized methods of moments, this study found that increasing agricultural mechanization was associated with an increase in real agricultural wages, both in the short, medium, and the long run. This has important implications for policymakers aiming to reduce rural poverty and for interventions put in place to reduce extensive rural-urban migration and create more employment opportunities in the agricultural sector. The third empirical chapter examines the dynamics of land transactions and the demand for machine services using two-rounds of household panel data from 62 villages of the country. The empirical results show that despite an increase in farm wages, small farmers increased their total cultivable land and their net rented-in land. An increase in the wages of hired agricultural labor led to the substitution of labor with machines. The average investment in hiring farm machines was higher for larger farms. However, there was no significant evidence to suggest larger farmers experienced greater changes in machine hiring expenses. Finally, this study analyzes the rental market for farm machinery services in Bangladesh. Using primary information collected from 371 machine owners and 239 client farmers, this study demonstrates that different rental service systems have emerged in Bangladesh over time. Ownership of machines (e.g., power tillers, tractors, and threshers) is largely determined by the owners’ access to rural credit, land size, and the number of fragmented lands. The monopolistic-type of market prevails for tractors and a competitive market structure exists for power tiller. However, a monopoly exists in the rental market for transplanters and combine harvesters. Social capital seems to be an important factor that ensures the profit of owners as well as the timely availability of services for users. Farmers are willing to mechanize planting and harvesting operations regardless of whether they are owners or non-owners. This strongly indicates that machinery rental services have a bright future in the country