WAYS TO CREATE A GREENER TRAFFIC USING TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS and RTTI

The continuous increase of traffic in major cities led to the mandatory usage of traffic management systems in order to have an organized traffic. There are many levels such systems may be implemented, depending on the traffic volume, starting from the static signaling systems up to management systems based on complex algorithms that consider a series of key factors. But in the recent years two new factors were considered in the process of finding solutions for traffic management: control of the pollution level and energy efficiency. There were some studies that concluded that the two measures which have the greatest impact in pollution reduction are the change in drivers’ behavior and the mobility management (in this order) and many European projects tried to integrate the environmental component in the traffic management problem.traffic, B2B services, traveler information, eco-driving, RTTI

Modeling of Urban Water Supply and Water Loss in Distribution System of Adwa Town Using Hydraulic Simulation, Ethiopia

The main objective of this Research is to modeling of urban water supply and water loss in the distribution system of Adwa town under its major water supply source of Midmar Dam. This Research is conducted in Adwa town to model the water supply distribution system, the existing water distribution system of the town is both pump and gravity system. the water from the treatment plant of Adiabun to the storage reservoir by the pump. Then, the stored water is distributed by DCI, PVC, and GI pipe materials to the town by gravity. The research also depends on secondary data from the CSA Census report, and the meter reading reports at the District offices of Adwa town. In this study the data is entered, coded and analyzed using Bentley water GEMS V8i (SELECT series5.The analysis result shows the domestic and non-domestic water supply coverage of the town is 56.13%. The hydraulic Simulation in the existing water system to satisfy the Adwa town has been approved for hydraulic parameters such as head, pressure, and flow rate. The collected data on the number of water losses, causes of water losses, to reduce losses, and the challenges ahead have been collected and analyzed taking international the association best practice of water loss strategies. Keywords: Water Distribution, Network, Model Calibration, Hydraulic simulation water GEMS modeling, Water loss, Leakage Management, Adwa town, Tigray region, Ethiopia DOI: 10.7176/CER/11-7-01 Publication date: August 31st 201

Financial Performance of Cooperatives in Enderta Woreda, Tigray Region, Ethiopia

A cooperative society is an economic entity organized by people who having common interest, through pooling reasonable capital they have, so that they would be able to share the results with their fellow members and where members’ democratic participation is highly expressed. The development movement of cooperatives in Ethiopia shows different ups and downs. This was mainly due to different socio – economic policies followed by the Country under different Governments. Finance is the driving power that rotates the wheels of business. Financial management has a profound impact on business efficiency of an enterprise. In a cooperative enterprise a sound financial planning and proper management is the most vital requirement for success of a business enterprise. The general objective of this study is to measure the financial performance of cooperatives in the Enderta Woreda and to recommend appropriate and reliable monitoring in management practice. The numbers of cooperatives in the Enderta Woreda that obtain legal personality were totally 56 Primary Cooperatives and 1 Multipurpose Cooperative Union and their status had increased from time to time. In analyzing the financial performance of the cooperatives in the Woreda, ratio analysis and focus group discussion were used. On the basis of the results of the ratio analysis, the researcher has found that the financial performance of the cooperatives was not highly encouraging. The liquidity ratio in the three years period was fluctuating and most of the time was below the norm. The gross profit margin of the cooperatives showed positive amount at fluctuating rate. The focus group discussion showed that the perception of the cooperative members on their role was positive .From the discussion and analysis, the main reasons for the poor financial performance of the cooperatives in the Woreda were inefficient management skill, significant part of the total capital employed was in the form of borrowed capital, non-availability of adequate quantity and quality of raw materials at reasonable prices and at the right time, competition from outside the cooperative sector, lack of manpower with relevant expertise and professional qualification, lack of clear accounting system for all the cooperatives, and that financial statements of all the cooperatives were not prepared at the end of the fiscal year. Based on these findings the following recommendations are forwarded: • The cooperatives shall issue additional shares to increase self- financing. • The cooperatives shall launch market surveys and adjust production to correspond market needs by diversifying their products. • A new recruitment policy shall be formulated by the government. • The cooperatives shall develop a policy of profitability. Finally, since cooperatives play an important role in furthering the process of economic development in developing countries like Ethiopia, researchers shall make further research undertakings

The Effectiveness of Recruitment and Selection of Trainees for National Defense Force – the case of Central Zone of Tigray Region

Ethiopian Ministry of Defense has developed a set of well-defined guidelines that are used in the selection of new recruits for the national defense force, based on clearly defined criteria and other nationally accepted yardsticks. Nevertheless, the challenges and prospects of the selection and screening of potential candidates that are fit by all standards to serve in the national defense forces has not so far been well investigated. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of investigating the challenges and prospects of the selection and recruitment processes of trainees and coming up with recommendations. A complete assessment of the respondents in each of the twelve weredas and one zonal security administration was conducted following a purposive sampling scheme. Zonal and four woreda security committee were purposively selected for focus group discussions because they are among the people involved in the screening and selection of candidates for military training in the area who have more knowledge and experience on the issue. The study has identified that the recruitment and selection process of candidates in the Central Zone of Tigray was not effective owing to poor recruitment and selection criteria, allocation of insufficient budget, lack of good coordination and integration and unsatisfactory level of transparency among committee members during the screening and selection process as well as absence of efforts to create an inspiring and popular image of the Ethiopian Defense Forces. This study has, therefore, come up with recommendations such as having appropriate recruitment and selection criteria, allocating sufficient budget and creating positive image towards the Ethiopian Defense Force

Assessment of Beef Cattle Fattening in Selected Districts of Hadya Zone, Southern Ethiopia

The study was conducted in the southern nation, nationality and people regional government in Hadya zone (Misrak Badawacho Woreda), Ethiopia  to assess beef cattle production(feed resources, opportunities and constraints). In the present study, stratified and purposive sampling method were  used; a total of 110 households were selected for survey study.  To collect the data both primary and secondary data sources were used and the collected data were analyzed statistically using SPSS (version 20) for windows. The study showed that the main purposes of beef cattle production in the study area were for income generation(42.72%), draught power(31.81%), for asset(14.54%), for home consumption (9.09%) and for social value(9.09%).  According to the respondents, major feed availability in the study area were natural pasture, crop residues, atela, frushika, maize grains, enset, sugar cane stalker, sweet potato and  maize stalker. The study also showed that frequency of  supplementing beef cattle were varied due to seasons of year, feed types(available), locations(agro-ecology), capacity of the farmers, duration of fattening. In the overall result of the study, most of respondents watered for their cattle  from river (33.63%), tape water, (25.45%) , pond (12.72%), rain fall (10.9%) and well (8.18%) sources in order of their importance. The main beef cattle production constraints were feed shortage, lack of management, drought (10%), improved breed, disease, scarcity of land and lack of knowledge. It is concluded that beef cattle fattening is one of the important strategy to improve the income of the farming community and nation as a whole via utilizing seasonally available feed resources by improving utilization efficiency through training and extension advice with the help of agricultural development organizations. Keywords: Beef, cattle, Ethiopia, feed sources,  production, constraint, opportunit

Sparse Linear Discriminant Analysis with more Variables than Observations

It is known that classical linear discriminant analysis (LDA) performs classification well when the number of observations is much larger than the number of variables. However, when the number of variables is larger than the number of observations, classical LDA cannot be performed because the within-group covariance matrix is singular. Recently proposed LDA methods that can handle singular within-group covariance matrix were reviewed. Most of these methods focus on regularizing the within-class covariance matrix. However, they give less attention to sparsity ( selecting variables), interpretation and computational cost, which are important in high-dimensional problems. The fact that most of the original variables may be irrelevant or redundant suggests looking for sparse solutions that involve only a small portion of the variables. In the present work, new sparse LDA methods are proposed that are suited to high-dimensional data. The first two methods assume groups share a common within-group covariance matrix and approximate this matrix by a diagonal matrix. One of these methods is a variant of the other that sacrifices some accuracy for greater computational speed. Both methods obtain sparsity by minimizing an l1 norm and maximizing discrimination power under a common loss function with a tuning parameter. The third method assumes that groups share common eigenvector in eigenvector-eigenvalue decomposition of their within-group covariance matrices, while their eigenvalues may differ. The fourth method assumes the within-group covariance matrices are proportional to each other. The fifth method is derived from the Dantzig selector and uses optimal scoring to construct discriminant function. The third and fourth methods achieve sparsity by imposing a cardinality constraint with the cardinality level determined by cross-validation. All the new methods reduce their computation time by sequentially determining individual discriminant functions. The methods are applied to six real data sets and perform well when compared with two existing methods

Valuation Process and Performance of Combined Ethiopian Companies: (Experience from Sur Construction plc. and Ethio-Rental plc)

The study circulates around the key issues in merger valuation and financial performance of the merged company before and after union . The objective is to analyze the valuation process and  evaluate the performance of merged company before and after merger. The data used in the study was obtained from the audited financial statements of the company’s and through interview with the executives. The performance 5 years before and after combined   are investigated using financial statement analysis. In order to substantiate the result t- test was used for hypothesis testing. The study finding indicates that the major merger motive is enhancing profitability. It is also found that the merger process is simply pooling the audited financial statements of companies going for merger. The study analysis made both by financial statements analysis and the hypothesis testing made shows that performance of firms after combined has declined as compared to the performance of firms before combined

The Moderating Role of Trust in Supervisor in the Relationship Between Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance of Federal Public Service Organizations in Ethiopia

The effect of Employee Engagement on Organizational Performance and the nature of Engagement-Performance linkage is new area of research in public service organizations of Ethiopia. Drawing on SET, the present study investigated the impact of Engagement on Performance of Public Service Organizations. The study also examined the moderating effect of Trust in Supervisor on the connection between Engagement-Performance. The study employed descriptive research design using cross-sectional data of 340 employees from nine federal public service organizations. The theorized three-factor model was validated through SEM. The legitimacy and reliability of the measurement and structural model was ensured using CFA. The finding of the study revealed that engagement has direct and significant effect on organizational performance. It was also found that Trust in Supervisor has significant effect on organizational performance. However, contrary to our expectation, the SEM analysis result demonstrated that Trust in Supervisor has no moderation effect on the relationship between Engagement and Performance, indicating that Trust in Supervisor has its own independent effect on performance of public service organizations. The result of the study adds to the current writing by incorporating the factors that help to improve performance. The study suggested that much investment should be made on the HR to build an engaged workforce to enhance performance. Keywords: Organizational Performance, Employee Engagement, Trust in Supervisor, Public Service, Federal employees