English has for long been one of the most widely used media of communication globally, especially in the Malaysian universities. It has been termed as a Lingua Franca because it is shared with other languages which are considered first languages by different speakers. For this reason, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has attracted a number of researchers to investigate its variety via other languages in various communities. The objective of this paper is therefore to establish the strategies which are employing by the international students at the National University of Malaysia/ UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) as an example of one of the Malaysian universities; when they e

The paper presents a highly accurate power flow solution, reducing the possibility of ending at local minima, by using Real-Coded Genetic Algorithm (RCGA) with system reduction and restoration. The proposed method (RCGA) is modified to reduce the total computing time by reducing the system in size to that of the generator buses, which, for any realistic system, will be smaller in number, and the load buses are eliminated. Then solving the power flow problem for the generator buses only by real-coded GA to calculate the voltage phase angles, whereas the voltage magnitudes are specified resulted in reduced computation time for the solution. Then the system is restored by calculating the voltages of the load buses in terms

Understanding the effects of fear, quadratic fixed effort harvesting, and predator-dependent refuge are essential topics in ecology. Accordingly, a modified Leslie–Gower prey–predator model incorporating these biological factors is mathematically modeled using the Beddington–DeAngelis type of functional response to describe the predation processes. The model’s qualitative features are investigated, including local equilibria stability, permanence, and global stability. Bifurcation analysis is carried out on the temporal model to identify local bifurcations such as transcritical, saddle-node, and Hopf bifurcation. A comprehensive numerical inquiry is carried out using MATLAB to verify the obtained theoretical findings and und

This study was carried out at the Dept. Hortic. and Land.Gard., Coll. Agric. Eng.Sci., University of Baghdad during fall season of 2019-2020, in order to evaluate the effect of nutrient solution type under hydroponic system (NFT) on growth, yield and quality of broccoli Brassica oleracea var.italica. Two experiments were carried out which were the standard solution experiment (Cooper) and the alternative solution experiment (ABEER) prepared from fertilizers. Results revealed that  the type of solution used in the hydroponics system had non significant effect on the leaves content of N,K, Mg, Fe, Cu, B, Chlorophyll, leaves number, root length, weight of the main heads, number of side heads were not significantly affected. 13nt, refl

Sludge from stone-cutting (SSC) factories and stone mines cannot be used as decorative stones, stone powder, etc. These substances are left in the environment and cause environmental problems. This study aim is to produce artificial stone composite (ASC) using sludge from stone cutting factories, cement, unsaturated resin, water, silicon carbide nanoparticles (SiC-NPs), and nano-graphene oxide (NGO) as fillers. Nano graphene oxide has a hydrophobic plate structure that water is not absorbed due to the lack of surface tension on these plates. NGO has a significant effect on the properties of artificial stone due to its high specific surface area and low density in the composite. Its uniform distribution in ASC is very low due to its hydropho

Short Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes functionalized with OH group (MWCNTs-OH) were used to synthesize flexible MWCNTs networks. The MWCNTs suspension was synthesized using Benzoquinone (BQ) and N, N Dimethylformamide alcohol (DMF) in specific values and then deposited on filter paper by filtration from suspension (FFS) method. Polypyrrole (PPy) conductive polymer doped with metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) prepared using in-situ chemical polymerization method. To improve the properties of the MWCNTs networks, a coating layer of (PPy) conductive polymer, PPy:Ag nanoparticles, and PPy: Cu nanoparticles were applied to the network. The fabricated networks were characterized using an X-ray diffractometer (XRD), UV-Vis. spectrometer, and Ato

The performance quality and searching speed of Block Matching (BM) algorithm are affected by shapes and sizes of the search patterns used in the algorithm. In this paper, Kite Cross Hexagonal Search (KCHS) is proposed. This algorithm uses different search patterns (kite, cross, and hexagonal) to search for the best Motion Vector (MV). In first step, KCHS uses cross search pattern. In second step, it uses one of kite search patterns (up, down, left, or right depending on the first step). In subsequent steps, it uses large/small Hexagonal Search (HS) patterns. This new algorithm is compared with several known fast block matching algorithms. Comparisons are based on search points and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR). According to resul

Sustainable plant protection and the economy of plant crops worldwide depend heavily on the health of agriculture. In the modern world, one of the main factors influencing economic growth is the quality of agricultural produce. The need for future crop protection and production is growing as disease-affected plants have caused considerable agricultural losses in several crop categories. The crop yield must be increased while preserving food quality and security and having the most negligible negative environmental impact. To overcome these obstacles, early discovery of satisfactory plants is critical. The use of Advances in Intelligent Systems and information computer science effectively helps find more efficient and low-cost solutions. Thi

In many applications such as production, planning, the decision maker is important in optimizing an objective function that has fuzzy ratio two functions which can be handed using fuzzy fractional programming problem technique. A special class of optimization technique named fuzzy fractional programming problem is considered in this work when the coefficients of objective function are fuzzy. New ranking function is proposed and used to convert the data of the fuzzy fractional programming problem from fuzzy number to crisp number so that the shortcoming when treating the original fuzzy problem can be avoided. Here a novel ranking function approach of ordinary fuzzy numbers is adopted for ranking of triangular fuzzy numbers with simpler an