4,256 research outputs found
The effectiveness of location incentive: An analytical study of manufacturing SMEs in the Kedah State
The main objective of this research is to find out the effectiveness of location incentive in att racting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to a certain industrial location in the state of Kedah. The location choice identified in this research would be Sungai Petani and non-Sungai Petani industrial areas. By using the logit model, we found that location incentive is not as effective as other factors in attracting SMEs in setting up their establishments in Kedah. The important factors that influence the location choice of manufacturing SMEs are (i) the years of operation of an SME, and (ii) the physical distribution of an SME product
Role of Electon Excitation and Nature of Molecular Gas in Cluster Central Elliptical Galaxies
We present observations in CO(3-2) that, combined with previous observations
in CO(2-1), constrain the physical properties of the filamentary molecular gas
in the central 6.5 kpc of NGC 1275, the central giant elliptical galaxy
of the Perseus cluster. We find this molecular gas to have a temperature
K and a density -, typically
warmer and denser than the bulk of Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) in the Galaxy.
Bathed in the harsh radiation and particle field of the surrounding
intracluster X-ray gas, the molecular gas likely has a much higher ionization
fraction than that of GMCs. For an ionization fraction of ,
similar to that of Galactic diffuse ()
partially-molecular clouds that emit in HCN(1-0) and HCO(1-0), we show that
the same gas traced in CO can produce the previously reported emissions in
HCN(3-2), HCO(3-2), and CN(2-1) from NGC 1275; the dominant source of
excitation for all the latter molecules is collisions with electrons. To
prevent collapse, as evidenced by the lack of star formation in the molecular
filaments, they must consist of thin strands that have cross-sectional radii
0.2-2 pc if supported solely by thermal gas pressure; larger radii
are permissible if turbulence or poloidal magnetic fields provide additional
pressure support. We point out that the conditions required to relate CO
luminosities to molecular gas masses in our Galaxy are unlikely to apply in
cluster central elliptical galaxies. Rather than being virialized structures
analogous to GMCs, we propose that the molecular gas in NGC 1275 comprises
pressure-confined structures created by turbulent flows.Comment: 41 pages, 1 table, 12 figures; accepted by Ap
What makes a graduate an agro-entrepreneur?
Realizing the importance of entrepreneurship to economic development, the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education has launched the Higher Education Institute Entrepreneurship Development Policy in 2010. This because, based on the 2010 Graduate Tracer Study, there is a low involvement (5.5 percent) of graduates in entrepreneurship, compared to employment in other sectors.This warrants a study to explore the factors influencing a graduate to become agro-entrepreneur.This study aims to identify these factors and also the characteristics of what actually make an agro-based graduate entrepreneur. In-depth interviews are conducted with twelve graduate agro-based entrepreneurs.The entrepreneurs are also requested to rate
the importance of various triggering factors which are identified by previous studies. The
factor rating results reveals that relatively, the most important factors are interest, satisfaction
of being an entrepreneur, a sense of contribution to the society, generic skills (leadership, problem-solving, creativity and innovation, analytical, time and group management), social networking and taking-up of entrepreneur courses (after completing undergraduate studies);
whereas, formal entrepreneur education, either at the degree, diploma or certificate level, is
the least important. Results of in-depth interviews reveal that the characteristics of a graduate agro-based entrepreneur include those such as the right attitude, open mindedness,
willingness to learn and face challenges, diligence, and good social networking
Cosmological Information in Weak Lensing Peaks
Recent studies have shown that the number counts of convergence peaks
N(kappa) in weak lensing (WL) maps, expected from large forthcoming surveys,
can be a useful probe of cosmology. We follow up on this finding, and use a
suite of WL convergence maps, obtained from ray-tracing N-body simulations, to
study (i) the physical origin of WL peaks with different heights, and (ii)
whether the peaks contain information beyond the convergence power spectrum
P_ell. In agreement with earlier work, we find that high peaks (with amplitudes
>~ 3.5 sigma, where sigma is the r.m.s. of the convergence kappa) are typically
dominated by a single massive halo. In contrast, medium-height peaks (~0.5-1.5
sigma) cannot be attributed to a single collapsed dark matter halo, and are
instead created by the projection of multiple (typically, 4-8) halos along the
line of sight, and by random galaxy shape noise. Nevertheless, these peaks
dominate the sensitivity to the cosmological parameters w, sigma_8, and
Omega_m. We find that the peak height distribution and its dependence on
cosmology differ significantly from predictions in a Gaussian random field. We
directly compute the marginalized errors on w, sigma_8, and Omega_m from the
N(kappa) + P_ell combination, including redshift tomography with source
galaxies at z_s=1 and z_s=2. We find that the N(kappa) + P_ell combination has
approximately twice the cosmological sensitivity compared to P_ell alone. These
results demonstrate that N(kappa) contains non-Gaussian information
complementary to the power spectrum.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures, 14 tables. Accepted for publication in PRD
(version before proofs
Wavenet based low rate speech coding
Traditional parametric coding of speech facilitates low rate but provides
poor reconstruction quality because of the inadequacy of the model used. We
describe how a WaveNet generative speech model can be used to generate high
quality speech from the bit stream of a standard parametric coder operating at
2.4 kb/s. We compare this parametric coder with a waveform coder based on the
same generative model and show that approximating the signal waveform incurs a
large rate penalty. Our experiments confirm the high performance of the WaveNet
based coder and show that the speech produced by the system is able to
additionally perform implicit bandwidth extension and does not significantly
impair recognition of the original speaker for the human listener, even when
that speaker has not been used during the training of the generative model.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
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