To fight or fly: Law Brothers auto accessories

This case describes the stiff competition faced by Law Brothers, a pioneer in the car accessories industry. The negative financial result during the past few years had forced the company to struggle for possible solutions. The company had to consider alternative ways to grow the business, diversify or merge with the other players to remain relevant in the industry. This case is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in strategic management, entrepreneurship and marketing

Numerical Solutions of the Stagnation-Point Flow and Heat Transfer Towards An Exponentially Stretching/ Shrinking Sheet with Constant Heat Flux

The steady stagnation point flow and heat transfer towards an exponentially stretching/shrinking sheet with constant heat flux is investigated in this paper. The transformed governing nonlinear boundary layer equations are solved numerically by using Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg method. Numerical solutions are obtained for the local wall temperature, local skin-friction coefficient as well as velocity and temperature profiles. The features of the flow and heat transfer characteristics for different values of the stretching/shrinking parameter and the Prandtl number are analyzed and discussed

Construction of TVET Students' Career Profile Pathways

A lucrative career and meet the personality of the individual is the dream of every human being. Yet, the diversity of human personalities causes each individual to need a different career path to obtain a career that is in line with their personalities. This study was conducted to develop different career development pathways according to the profile of each individual. This qualitative study used Multiple Case Study with Delphi technique Interview Method as the data collection method. There were 15 informants who were graduated from TVETs background and have been successful in their careers. The results of the analysis using Thematic Analysis and Fuzzy Delphi have produced Seven (7) different career paths according to profile namely Opportunist Path, Aggressive Path, Systematic Path, Cognitive Path, Conventional Path, Roe Path and Roe-Supportive Path. All these Career Routes are then agreed by experts using Focused Group Discussion techniques consisting of lecturers and alumni of TVETs. These different paths can give a new dimension to students to make their own career planning based on their personalities

Cloning and expression of pullulanase gene from locally isolated bacillus SP

Bacterial pullulanase represents one of th e starch-degrading enzymes that are widely used in the starch processing indu stry along with amylases. Amylases hydrolyze a -(1,4 )-glycosidic linkage in starch to produce a mixture of glucose , maltooligo sacchari de and limited a-dextrin. All the remaining a -(1,6)-glycosid ic branches in the products are hydrolyzed by p ullulanase. This is an advantage t o improve glucose production by coupling pullulanase and amylase in the p rocess. As such, many pullulana e enzyme has been isolated and one has been showing optimum pH of 10-10.5 which is suitable for use in dishwasher detergent additive in removal of star ch stain. We have recently iso lated a few bacterias that have shown potentially pullulanase producers by the holo-zone in pullulan-plate assay. One of them, we named Bacillus –1 sho ws a bigger holo-zone among others, Bacillus- 1 is highly active in pH more than 7. The enzyme also shows a mo derate activity to wards starch that may be indicates be side hydrolyzes a -(1,6)-glycosidic linkage in starch, it also hydrolyzes a -(1,4)- glycosidi c simi lar to a -amylase. Unfortunately the enzyme from wild-type bacteria is in lower yield an d in this studies, we intend to clone and sequence the pullulanase gene and also expressed the gene in a high expression system to be able to produce in a high yield before characterizing expressed protein

Parameter estimation of Stochastic Logistic Model : Levenberg-Marquardt Method

In this paper, we estimate the drift and diffusion parameters of the stochas- tic logisticmodels for the growth of Clostridium Acetobutylicum P262 using Levenberg- Marquardt optimization method of non linear least squares. The parameters are esti- mated for five different substrates. The solution of the deterministic models has been approximated using Fourth Order Runge-Kutta and for the solution of the stochastic differential equations, Milstein numerical scheme has been used. Small values of Mean Square Errors (MSE) of stochastic models indicate good fits. Therefore the use of stochastic models are shown to be appropriate in modelling cell growth of Clostridium Acetobutylicum P26

Parameter estimation of stochastic differential equation

Non-parametric modeling is a method which relies heavily on data and motivated by the smoothness properties in estimating a function which involves spline and non-spline approaches. Spline approach consists of regression spline and smoothing spline. Regression spline with Bayesian approach is considered in the first step of a two-step method in estimating the structural parameters for stochastic differential equation (SDE). The selection of knot and order of spline can be done heuristically based on the scatter plot. To overcome the subjective and tedious process of selecting the optimal knot and order of spline, an algorithm was proposed. A single optimal knot is selected out of all the points with exception of the first and the last data which gives the least value of Generalized Cross Validation (GCV) for each order of spline. The use is illustrated using observed data of opening share prices of Petronas Gas Bhd. The results showed that the Mean Square Errors (MSE) for stochastic model with parameters estimated using optimal knot for 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 runs of Brownian motions are smaller than the SDE models with estimated parameters using knot selected heuristically. This verified the viability of the two-step method in the estimation of the drift and diffusion parameters of SDE with an improvement of a single knot selection

Tuning Fuzzy Membership Functions To Improve Performance Of Vector Control Induction Motor Drives

This paper presents an effective strategy for tuning of fuzzy membership functions based on fuzzy logic controller approach for a vector controlled induction motor drives for high performance applications. Initially, the input scaling factors are calculated based on known motor data and symmetrical triangular membership functions have been used for standard design. Then, asymmetrical convergent peak value positions of these membership functions have been considered to improve the control performance. The simulation test is done for low, half and full rated speed response and load disturbance for full rated speed. By tuned membership functions, the results demonstrate that the robustness and the effectiveness of fuzzy logic controller for high performance of induction motor drives system is achieved