Towards a UK local government reform Act of 2015: improving public sector performance for 2025

This paper proposes a three tiered governance structure to rebalance local government within the United Kingdom. The introduction of a North of England assembly is proposed to rebalance the North / South divide. An international comparison of U.K. Australian and Canadian public sectors suggests that the U.K lags behind in competitiveness and wellbeing. Calling for equality for all citizens, the paper concludes that a shift in central government policy formulation is needed to enable equitable localisation of political power and improved global competitiveness of the U.K

Size Reduction and Gain Enhancement of a Microstrip Antenna using Partially Defected Ground Structure and Circular/Cross Slots

Microwave engineers have been known to designedly created defects in the shape of carved out patterns on the ground plane of microstrip circuits and transmission lines for a long time, although their implementations to the antennas are comparatively new. The term Defected Ground Structure (DGS), precisely means a single or finite number of defects. At the beginning, DGS was employed underneath printed feed lines to suppress higher harmonics. Then DGS was directly integrated with antennas to improve the radiation characteristics, gain and to suppress mutual coupling between adjacent elements. Since then, the DGS techniques have been explored extensively and have led to many possible applications in the communication industry. The objective of this paper is to design and investigate microstrip patch antenna that operates at 2.4 GHz for Wireless Local Area Network WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g/n, ,Zigbee, Wireless HART, Bluetooth and several proprietary technologies that operate in the 2.4 GHz band. The design of the proposed antenna involves using partially Defected Ground Structure and circular/cross slots and compare it to the traditional microstrip patch antenna.  The results show improvement in both the gain of 3.45 dB and the S11 response of -22.3 dB along with reduction in the overall dimensions of the antenna. As a conclusion, the performance of the antenna has been improved through the incorporation with the DGS and slots structures regarding the S11 response and the gain. The proposed antenna become more compact. Finally, the radiation pattern of proposed antenna has remained directional in spite of adding slots on the ground plane

IMPACTS OF DIFFERENT CONCENTRATIONS OF AQUEOUS GREEN TEA EXTRACT ADMINISTERED DURING METHOTREXATE TREATMENT ON SOME SELECTED BLOOD INDICES IN RATS

Objective: This study was designed to investigate the impacts of administering of different concentrations of Aqueous Green Tea Extract (AGTE) (0.625, 1.25 or 2.5%) during Methotrexate (MTX) treatment, and continued for 5 days, on blood indices in rats. Methods: Six groups of white Albino rats were utilized:  Group I- (Control, received water); Group II- [single i. p. injection (20 mg/kg) of MTX], Group III- [1.25% concentration of AGTE alone for 5 days], and Groups IV, V and VI- [rats were administered, respectively AGTE (0.625, 1.25 or 2.5%), during MTX treatment, and continued for 5 days]. Results: The results showed that MTX alone induced significant decreases in Hb, HCT, MCHC, MCH, RBCs, and total WBCs; while, it increased platelets count. Administration of different concentrations of AGTE during MTX produced significant decrease in total WBCs and platelets;  while significant increase in Hb, HCT, MCHC, MCH;  meanwhile, significant increase, or decrease, respectively in MCV (depending on the concentration of AGTE); and a significant increase in RBCs only was seen at 2.5% AGTE plus MTX), compared to MTX-treated animals. Conclusion: Marked alterations in blood indices were obtained from this study when AGTE was administered during MTX treatment. So this study recommends taking into account such administration when MTX is therapeutically utilized

Konsep Diri Pria Metroseksual di Kota Pekanbaru (dalam Perspektif Fenomenologi)

Metrosexual men generally are in larger urban centers such as the city of Pekanbaru, with a neat appearance, good looking, smells good, charming and characteristic of its own. The phenomenon of the metrosexual man is a unique behavior in urban culture, they generally have a masculine image but is concerned about the appearance, body treatments, hanging out with their friends. Although, we know that is like like to concerned about the appearance and body treatments in generally are woman, that things cause positive stigma from society, from the stigma will form self-concept metrosexual man.This research aims to Known as metrosexual male self-concept cover physical, psychological, social and motives that influence self-concept formation metrosexual man in the city of Pekanbaru. This research uses qualitative research methods to conduct phenomenologhy approach. Subjects in this study amounted to 9 people. Data collection techniques are grouped through participant observation, in-depth interviews, and documentations. This study uses data validity checking technique through extended participation and triangulation.The results of this research are that self-concept metrosexual man in Pekanbaru has its own self-concept, with various aspects of the physical, psychic, and social. And also metrosexual Men in Pekanbaru city also has its own motive that cause their right to live the lifestyle as a metrosexual man, and they have a positive self-concept of self, good personality, visible from the appearance, as well as a positive attitude towards the environment.Keywords : Self Concept, Symbol Interaction, Metrosexual Male, Phenomenology

Communication system improvement with control performance based on link quality in wireless sensor actuator networks

New communication and networking paradigms started with wireless sensor actuator networks (WSANs) to introduce new applications. One of these is the automatic gain control system (AGC). It will enable a high degree of the decentralized and mobile control. In this study, neural networks (NN) with fuzzy logic (one of the techniques of artificial intelligence (AI)) is used to enhance the control performance depending on the link quality. The NN and fuzzy inference system (FIS) with Mamdani’s method used to build a model reference, adaptive controller, for recompensing for delay time packets losses, and improving the reliability of WSAN. Between 88.62% and 99.99%, validation data is obtained for the medium and high conditions of operation with the proposed algorithm. Experimental and simulation results show a promising approach

A New Technique of The q-Homotopy Analysis Method for Solving Non-Linear Initial Value Problems

In this paper, a new procedure of the q-homotopy analysis technique (NTqHAM) was submitted for solving non-linear initial value problems. The NTq-HAM contains just a single convergence control parameter α. To show the dependability and proficiency of the technique, this approach is applied to solve two non-linear IVPs, and the outcomes uncover that the NTq-HAM is more general of the He’s homotopy perturbation technique (HPM) [27] and the He’s HPM is only special case of the NTq-HAM when α = 1

Pengukuran Tingkat Kesehatan dan Gejala Financial Distress Bank Umum Syariah

: Measurement of Financial Soundness and Financial Distress Symptom of Commercial Bank. This study aims to measure, analyze and compare the level of Islamic Banks (BUS) soundness using the CAMELS and the Multiple ECR method. The results of the CAMEL analysis show that the three Islamic banks studied are healthy. However, the results of the MDA analysis suggest that those three banks are categorized bankrupt. This conflicting finding indicates that MDA method is not appropriate to assess commercial banks. This is because the natures of commercial bank as a financial intermediary are much different from those of the company

Pengukuran Kualitas Layanan Sistem Informasi Akademik Menggunakan Metode Webqual 4.0

- Perkembangan IT yang pesat menjadikan website sebagai bagian yang tidak terpisahkan dari sebuah lembaga pendidikan dalam hal layanan bagi civitas akademika, dosen, mahasiswa, dan tenaga kependidikan. Layanan suatu sistem informasi akademik berbasis web perlu diukur untuk mengetahui tingkat kepuasan pengguna. Dalam penelitian ini, kualitas webite sistem akademik universitas diukur dengan menggunakan metode WebQual 4.0. WebQual merupakan instrumen yang menilai kualitas suatu website menurut perspektif pengguna akhir. Analisis Regresi Linear Berganda digunakan utuk menguji hubungan antar variabel dari WebQual 4.0 dengan User Satisfaction (kepuasan pengguna). Dari hasil penelitian dapat disimpulkan bahwa hanya satu variabel WebQual 4.0, yaitu Service Interaction Quality yang berpengaruh signifikan terhadap User satisfaction (kepuasan pengguna) website sistem akademik universitas

Using Feedback In Teaching Writing Descriptive Text

This study is to see the improvement of student's writing skill on descriptive text for seventh grade students of SMP 14 Kota Serang by using peer feedback technique. The subject of this research is the students of seventh grade of SMP 14 Kota Serang which consist of 30 students. This research is applied by a quasi-experimental design and quantitative research method. The instrument used in this research was tests (pre-test and post-test) which is conducted based on the main problems: 1) How is the students writing ability on descriptive text at the seventh grade of SMP 14 Kota serang? 2) How is the effectiveness of peer feedback in teaching writing descriptive text at the seventh grade of SMP 14 Kota serang?. The research finding of the last result showed that “to” from the calculation is higher than t table both at significance level 5% and 1%. Significance 5% t observation= 7.14 and t table= 1.67 or 7.14 >1.67 which its significance 1% t observation=7.14 and t table= 2.39 or 7.14 >2.39. In addition, the result of observations showed that the students more motivated in learning English, especially for writing subject. Based on the result above, it can be concluded that peer feedback can be used in teaching writing descriptive text. The result of this research shows that the students' writing on descriptive text who use peer feedback achieve better performance than those who do not use it. &nbsp

Influence of Petroleum Price, Gold Price, Inflation and Expport Growth on Exchange Rate (Study at Indonesia Stock Exchange Corner Economic Faculty Brawijaya University and Bank Indonesia Period 2005-2014)

This research is aimed to examine the effect of economic commodities\u27 price such as petroleum prices and gold price, also macroeconomic indicator such as inflation rate and export growth toward Rupiah exchange rate against US Dollar. Using quantitative approach, the data applied is time series quarterly data during 2005 – 2014 selected through saturated sampling method. This method resulted 40 samples which then applied into multi linear regression. The F test result indicates that petroleum price, gold price, inflation rate and export growth has significant effect on Rupiah exchange rate against US Dollar simultaneously. Partial test result (t test), indicating that variable of petroleum price, gold price, inflation rate and export growth has significant effect on Rupiah exchange rate against US Dollar