beSMART

GLOBAL FOOD PRICE HIKE IS A BURDEN TO THE POOR

This paper discusses the global food price hike and the effects of it among the poor of developing countries. Increase of food price became severe during 2007 and 2008, which was high in the last fifty years and more than half of the populations of the world affected due to this price hike. Biofuels production is one of the main causes of food price increase. Rapid increase of world population is another cause of soar of food price. Global supply and demand of food commodities, low harvest and natural calamities are also some other causes of increasing of the food prices. Soaring food prices have generated global concern about threats to food security, shaking the satisfaction created by many years of comparatively low commodity prices. Right of food is a fundamental right of every citizen of the state; unfortunately citizens of the most countries are deprived from this right. Many developing countries use food price subsidies or price controls to mitigate hunger and improve the nutrition of the poor but this is not a permanent solution to control food price hike.

IN THE FRAMEWORK OF GREEN MARKETING ACTIVITIES: A STUDY TO DETERMINE THE TENDENCIES OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TOWARDS USING ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY PRODUCTS

The aim of this study is to explore beliefs related to green products and environmental awareness, and to make a contribution regarding environmental strategies, and green action, for the business community. In this study, a questionnaire has been administered at the Harran University’s Osmanbey Campus with 400 university students studying in various faculties, departments and classrooms in order to find out about the university students’ environmental awareness and tendency to use environment-friendly products. Frequency distributions, factor analysis and correlation analyses were used in the analysis of data. As a conclusion, it was found that the university students are environmentally aware and sensitive to use environment-friendly products.

DYNAMIC FORECASTING OF BUS PATH TRAVEL TIME:
SIMPLIFIED STOCHASTIC APPROACH

This study aims for the development of methodology on the prediction of bus path travel time considering dynamic traffic flow condition. For the progress of this study, we classified a bus route data with three standards: length of target area section, and traffic flow character by days of week and by season. The methodology development progressed is based on the probability density function, and the primary result is as follows. First, in general, when using the historical average method, the prediction rate was higher than the following stochastic process. Second, the stochastic method shows high prediction accuracy during peak time. Third, during peak time on weekends, the stochastic method was better than historical average method. Forth, the stochastic method is more flexible to forecast when the traffic flow is fluid. Fifth, when using the stochastic method, the section of larger standard deviation value was more accurate than relatively smaller one.

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF KNOWLEDGE VALIDATION OF ERP TO LOW TECH SMES

Anoud I Bani-Hani, Chris Hinde, Thomas W Jackson

Knowledge Validation is a challenge in Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), as most of the available information is held in people’s minds as tacit knowledge, or saved on each employees PC without sharing or common validation. This case study is based on a company in Leicester who installed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system after two previous failed trials with different type of software. The underlying reasons for the problems were due to the distributed and tacitly held knowledge where the assumptions in one part of the company were inconsistent with other parts. The research goes through three years of ERP implementation and analyses the main problem of validating knowledge in more detail and identifies the consequences of failing to do this. It also describes the potential economic benefits for installing enterprise resource planning system in SMEs and investigates the claim of ERP vendors that their ERP solutions increase the performance of their customers, increase profitability and efficiency of work processes. It discusses the effects of ERP on the company’s overall performance, what the benefits are, and where there could be an enhancement to SMEs from the ERP system. The major benefits accrue from the more accurate estimates the system is able to provide and the resulting improvement in quotes. Challenges are discussed and highlighted in the paper, which concludes at the end the importance of Knowledge Validation and identifies benefits of doing it.

Knowledge Validation, ERP, SME

CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS IN KENYAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS: AN INVESTIGATION

Felicita Wanjiru Njuguna

Implicit theories are constructions by people that are formed in a socio-cultural and historical context. Every group or culture has its own view of what constitutes effective leadership which is unique to that culture. There is therefore no universal theory of conceptualizing leadership because there are as many theories as there are different cultures. This study was conducted with a view to exploring what teachers think are the characteristics of an effective Principal (leader) in Kenyan Secondary Schools in Muranga and Nairobi Districts. These schools are in rural and urban regions respectively. The study was conducted in two Phases.  In Phase one, Secondary school teachers (N= 100) in Nairobi and Muranga districts were asked to list the ideal characteristics of an effective educational leader. They were also asked to identify one educational leader who they thought was effective and explain why they thought so. On the basis of the characteristics, a checklist of effective leaders was prepared. In Phase two, Principals in the two Districts were rated by a sample of 349 teachers using the checklist of effective leaders. Teachers were asked to respond to the statements about effective leaders on a seven point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The data were coded and factor analyzed.  Factor analysis of these ratings yielded six factors which were labeled as “nurturing orientation”, “decision-making”, “conventional personality”, “ethical leadership”, “empowerment” and “communication”. This set of factors was unique to the Kenyan schools as they had not been combined like this else where in research. This clearly showed that assessment of leadership effectiveness cannot be meaningful and accurate if the assessment tool is constructed in another culture. It also implies that there are as many tools of assessment of leadership effectiveness as there are cultures. 

CHOICE OF MARBLE BLOCK CUTTING MACHINE BY USING ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS (AHP) METHOD

Metin ERSOY & Liyaddin YESILKAYA

In marble and natural stone factories, the most important factor that affects productivity and capacity of the plant, and amount of the investment is the block cutting machines. The marble block cutting machines are classified as circular saw (Stripper, Trimmer), blade (Gangsaw), and wire (Multiwire) block cutting machine according to the cutting pattern of the marble. Selection among the machines is based on a great number of economic and technical criteria. Therefore, scientific methods must be used when selecting the machines.

AHP, one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods, is a powerful and lucid method that allows the decision makers to combine qualitative and quantitative factors during the decision-making process; and it can express the process on a mathematical basis.

Decision-making, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Marble block cutting machine

SIMULTANEOUS REMOVAL OF NO2 AND SO2 FROM COAL FIRED     BOILERS USING WET SCRUBBER WITH PLC CONTROLLER

  R.Yasodharan

Main motivation behind this project is to reduce the environmental effects caused due to combustion of coal that results in the emission of toxics namely sulfur dioxide (SO2) and Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) into atmosphere. Both NO2 and SO2 are responsible to the formation of acid rain which is one of the most widespread forms of pollution all over the world and also cause harmful effects to humans and environment. To minimize the adverse impacts of SO2 and NO2 emissions, separate methods were used for removal of SO2 and NO2. For reduction SO2, flue gas desulfurization (FGD) and for reduction of NO2, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technologies were most commonly used. In the present work, hydrogen peroxide along with application of heating to the resultant solution for about 500C-600C, simultaneous removal of NO2 and SO2 had taken places. Apart from the reduction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, this process also produces useful by-products namely sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and Nitric acid (HNO3). As a result, the clean gas exit out at the top of the scrubber which connects to stack where as the sulfuric acid and Nitric acid are collected in the bottom section from where it is cooled and sent to storage. A feedback system is developed where PLC is used to control the flow rate of H2O2 according to the pH value of the by-product. Hence by using this method the level of SO2 and NO2 in the flue gas is reduced to greater extent and also obtained commercially used by-product. For better quality of the by-product recirculation process is carried out until specific pH value of the acid is reached.

PLC, Process control, Nitrogen dioxide, Sulphur dioxide