Parsimonious Catchment and River Flow Modelling

It is increasingly the case that models are being developed as “evolving” products rather than\ud one-off application tools, such that auditable modelling versus ad hoc treatment of models becomes a\ud pivotal issue. Auditable modelling is particularly vital to “parsimonious modelling” aimed at meeting\ud specific modelling requirements. This paper outlines various contributory factors and aims to seed\ud proactively a research topic by inextricably linking value/risk management to parsimonious modelling.\ud Value management in modelling may be implemented in terms of incorporating “enough detail” into a\ud model so that the synergy among the constituent units of the model captures that of the real system. It is a\ud problem of diminishing returns, since further reductions in the constituent units will create an\ud unacceptable difference between the model and the real system; conversely, any further detail will add to\ud the cost of modelling without returning any significant benefit. The paper also defines risk management\ud in relation to modelling. It presents a qualitative framework for value/risk management towards\ud parsimonious modelling by the categorisation of “modelling techniques” in terms of “control volume.

WHAT FACTORS MOST? IMPACT OF PROGRAMME QUALITY DIMENSIONS ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION WITH BIOSYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMME IN SRI LANKA

In general, education quality can be conceptually determined by the evaluation of students’ satisfaction. In fact, satisfying the students in programme of studies is a key element which directly effect on future students’ intake to a programme or course. The purpose of present study was to determine the impact of programme quality on students' satisfaction amongst the Sri Lankan senior secondary schools students and to analyze which dimensions of programme quality contribute the most in achieving students' satisfaction. This study used quantitative method and administered a questionnaire to 410 Biosystems Technology students from senior secondary schools in the central province of Sri Lanka. The findings revealed that programme quality is an important antecedent and determinant of the students' satisfaction with their programme of study. Interestingly, the findings indicated that subject availability for electives is the critical factor that contributes the most on students' satisfaction followed by subject content in major, classroom environment and class size and also school facilities and learning resources. Thus, the findings of the present study have provided significant contribution to the body of the knowledge in programme quality and students' satisfaction and also relevant authorities in general education such as policymakers, curriculum developers, and other relevant personnel to make necessary amendments to be improve the quality of existing programme that ensures the students' satisfaction.  Article visualizations

Comprehensive E-Research Process Framework and Effects of Electronic Scientific Databases on Its Adoption

Today, the scientific communications are developed and expanded on the internet and the famous World Wide Web service, and the popularity of the electronic scientific databases (ESDs) such as ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and Scopus is an evidence of this claim. In addition to providing scientific contents, the ESDs offer researchers diverse scientific web services such as scientific communications and collaborations. In accordance with the electronic developments such as ESDs and their scientific web services, the scholars’ research process is evolved so as the birth of the electronic research (e-Research) process makes scholars initiate their research, drive it, and reach its determined goals electronically. In this paper, we focus on the ESDs’ scientific web services role in the research process. After presenting a classification for the scientific web services, a comprehensive framework for the e-Research process is proposed. Also, the effects of the scientific web services on adoption of the e-Research process are studied. For this purpose, an appropriate questionnaire was prepared and delivered to the graduate students in the Engineering and Management disciplines of Tarbiat Modares and Amirkabir universities, located in Tehran, to assess the scientific web services’ usages in their research processes development. After analysis of the acquired data, the findings showed that the scientific web services of information storage and sharing, searching, and communications are the most popular and useful web services in the scientific community, and therefore, have great effects on the adoption of the e-Research process so that the more convenient and desirable these services are, the more popular they get

Accelerated mechanical fatigue testing and lifetime of interconnects in microelectronics

AbstractDue to the rapid development of packaging industry accelerated reliability testing for evaluation of lifetime of electronic components are increasingly utilized. In addition to common active thermal cycling procedures, accelerated mechanical fatigue testing provides a new possibility to assess the reliability of microelectronic components, mainly due to the significantly shorter duration of testing time. In this investigation we have used an ultrasonic fatigue testing system in combination with a special experimental set-up for qualification and lifetime determination of microelectronic interconnects. Using this technique, fatigue life of Al wire bonded interconnects were determined and S-N curves (shear stress as a function of loading cycles) up to N=109 were plotted. Three dimensional elasto-plastic FEM simulations were performed to determine the distributions of shear stress and plastic strain generated during cyclic fatigue in the bond area. Furthermore, the FEM model was employed to predict the lifetime of wire-bonds. The results were correlated to the lifetime curves of similar bonds obtained by power cycling tests. Detailed microstructural investigations were performed by means of EBSD -SEM to study the evolution of microstructure of the interconnects subjected to thermal and mechanical fatigue loading. This study demonstrates the applicability of accelerated mechanical fatigue testing as an alternative to time consuming thermal cycling for qualification of microelectronic interconnects

STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION TOWARDS BIOSYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY; DOES PROGRAMME QUALITY MATTERS? (EVIDENCE FROM SRI LANKAN PERSPECTIVES)

In the competitive education setting, with declining students’ enrolment into the programme of study, the policy makers, curriculum developers and other relevant personnel should pay much attention to address the issue of attracting secondary students into job market demanded programmes. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between perceived programme quality and the students’ satisfaction in selected government schools in Sri Lanka. The present study applied quantitative design using 410 senior secondary students who studied Biosystems Technology. The conceptual framework has been formulated based on the comprehensive review of the past studies. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the relationships among the dimensions of programme quality and students’ satisfaction as hypothesized. The finding indicated that the dimensions of programme quality have been correlated significantly with secondary students’ satisfaction whilst there was a positive and significant relationship amongst the four dimensions of programme quality and students’ satisfaction towards Biosystems Technology programme. Thus, the finding of current study has provided significant contribution to the existing body of knowledge in terms of offering statistically established conceptual framework and a validated measuring scale in satisfaction to the general education system. Furthermore, the implications were provided for the policy makers and relevant personnel to make remedial measures in order to quality improvement of Biosystems Technology programme.  Article visualizations

A Gestão Ativa da Dívida Pública

A presente dissertação tem como objetivo de estudo, compreender como é feita a gestão da dívida pública, com especial atenção para a dívida pública portuguesa. Esta investigação foi feita com base nos relatórios anuais publicados pela Agência de Gestão de Tesouraria e da Dívida Pública-IGCP, E.P.E e pelo Tribunal de Contas, nas guidelines para a gestão da dívida pública publicados pelo Fundo Monetário Internacional e Banco Mundial, e através de uma entrevista com o Dr. Jorge Guedes, colaborador da Agência de Gestão de Tesouraria e da Dívida Pública-IGCP, E.P.E. Durante a dissertação procura-se mostrar quais os fatores a ter em conta para uma gestão eficiente da dívida pública, bem como a evolução que se tem verificado ao longo dos anos na gestão ativa da dívida pública portuguesa. O saldo da dívida nos últimos anos cresceu significativamente e com isso a gestão da dívida foi também evoluindo, de forma a manter a dívida sustentável. As emissões reais seguiram sempre o benchmark definido, demonstrando que a gestão da dívida foi sempre feita tendo em consideração todos os limites de risco impostos pela tutela. Em 2011 foi mesmo necessário assinar um acordo de ajuda externa (Programa de Assistência Económica e Financeira), tendo a partir dessa data, a gestão ativa da dívida perdido importância, visto que não dispomos de total autonomia para fazer as operações que se entendem convenientes. Com este estudo constata-se que a gestão da dívida pública tem evoluído de acordo com as condições macro-económicas e adaptando-se à conjuntura existente em cada momento.Esta dissertação permite observar a evolução de estratégias utilizadas na gestão da dívida ao longo dos últimos anos, bem como os valores atualizados respeitantes às emissões de títulos de dívida, à evolução do saldo da dívida e respetivos encargos

Stvarni modul savijanja motki koje imaju sloj od staničnog materijala i uporaba tog modula za određivanje stvarnog modula elastičnosti staničnog materijala

Rectangular bar-shaped sandwich-like samples consisting of a cellular-material core between two standard material layers were prepared. The cellular materials were made of both ferrous and bronze hollow spheres. Using these specimens and testing method based on flexural vibrations, expected differences were observed in effective modulus values determined by means of vibrations parallel and perpendicular to layers. Information on distribution of material throughout the bar cross section was obtained through metallographic studies. The thickness of particular layers, measured values of “parallel” and “perpendicular” effective flexural modulus, and expressions derived for flexural rigidity of quasi-layered bars were used for evaluating the values of effective Young’s modulus of material of particular layers constituting the sample. Reasonable agreement was found among results obtained for various samples.Pripremljeni su pravokutni sendvič-uzorci motki koji se sastoje od jezgre sa staničnim materijalom između dva sloja standardnog materijala. Stanični materijali su napravljeni od željeznih i brončanih šupljih kugli. Uporabom tih uzoraka i metoda testiranja zasnovane na vibracijama savijanja, očekivane razlike su prijećene u postojećim vrijednostima modula određenih pomoću vibracija paralelnih i okomitih na slojeve. Informacija o rasporedu materijala u presjeku motke dobivena je na osnovu proučavanja metalografije. Debljina pojedinih slojeva izmjerenih vrijednosti “paralelnih” i “okomitih” stvarnog modula savijanja i izraza izvedenih iz savitljive krutosti poluslojevnih motki koje se koriste za procjenjivanje vrijednosti stvarnog efektnog Youngovog modula materijala pojedinih slojeva koji sačinjavaju uzorak. Razumno suglasje je pronađeno među rezultatima dobivenim za razne uzorke

An intuitionistic approach to scoring DNA sequences against transcription factor binding site motifs

Background: Transcription factors (TFs) control transcription by binding to specific regions of DNA called transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs). The identification of TFBSs is a crucial problem in computational biology and includes the subtask of predicting the location of known TFBS motifs in a given DNA sequence. It has previously been shown that, when scoring matches to known TFBS motifs, interdependencies between positions within a motif should be taken into account. However, this remains a challenging task owing to the fact that sequences similar to those of known TFBSs can occur by chance with a relatively high frequency. Here we present a new method for matching sequences to TFBS motifs based on intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS) theory, an approach that has been shown to be particularly appropriate for tackling problems that embody a high degree of uncertainty. Results: We propose SCintuit, a new scoring method for measuring sequence-motif affinity based on IFS theory. Unlike existing methods that consider dependencies between positions, SCintuit is designed to prevent overestimation of less conserved positions of TFBSs. For a given pair of bases, SCintuit is computed not only as a function of their combined probability of occurrence, but also taking into account the individual importance of each single base at its corresponding position. We used SCintuit to identify known TFBSs in DNA sequences. Our method provides excellent results when dealing with both synthetic and real data, outperforming the sensitivity and the specificity of two existing methods in all the experiments we performed. Conclusions: The results show that SCintuit improves the prediction quality for TFs of the existing approaches without compromising sensitivity. In addition, we show how SCintuit can be successfully applied to real research problems. In this study the reliability of the IFS theory for motif discovery tasks is proven

Conversion of deoxynivalenol to 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol in barley-derived fuel ethanol co-products with yeast expressing trichothecene 3-O-acetyltransferases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The trichothecene mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) may be concentrated in distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS; a co-product of fuel ethanol fermentation) when grain containing DON is used to produce fuel ethanol. Even low levels of DON (≤ 5 ppm) in DDGS sold as feed pose a significant threat to the health of monogastric animals. New and improved strategies to reduce DON in DDGS need to be developed and implemented to address this problem. Enzymes known as trichothecene 3-<it>O-</it>acetyltransferases convert DON to 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol (3ADON), and may reduce its toxicity in plants and animals.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two <it>Fusarium </it>trichothecene 3-<it>O-</it>acetyltransferases (FgTRI101 and FfTRI201) were cloned and expressed in yeast (<it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</it>) during a series of small-scale ethanol fermentations using barley (<it>Hordeum vulgare</it>). DON was concentrated 1.6 to 8.2 times in DDGS compared with the starting ground grain. During the fermentation process, FgTRI101 converted 9.2% to 55.3% of the DON to 3ADON, resulting in DDGS with reductions in DON and increases in 3ADON in the Virginia winter barley cultivars Eve, Thoroughbred and Price, and the experimental line VA06H-25. Analysis of barley mashes prepared from the barley line VA04B-125 showed that yeast expressing FfTRI201 were more effective at acetylating DON than those expressing FgTRI101; DON conversion for FfTRI201 ranged from 26.1% to 28.3%, whereas DON conversion for FgTRI101 ranged from 18.3% to 21.8% in VA04B-125 mashes. Ethanol yields were highest with the industrial yeast strain Ethanol Red^®, which also consumed galactose when present in the mash.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study demonstrates the potential of using yeast expressing a trichothecene 3-<it>O</it>-acetyltransferase to modify DON during commercial fuel ethanol fermentation.</p