Behavior and comparison of the standard Zener model with auxiliary mass is analyzed by reducing the governing algebraic-differential equations to systems of coupled differential equations of\nthe first order. This yields the fundamental matrices, which retain the main properties of the considered models. Cases of degeneracy, non-semisimple degeneracy, and stability of the corresponding matrices are analyzed. It is shown that modified Zener model admits more complicated free vibration solution comparing to the standard Zener model. Optimization of parameters for both of the models for achieving better reduction of vibrations in a broad range of\nfrequencies is proposed and analyzed.

Metacognition, thinking about one’s own thinking, is a key cognitive ability. It allows humans to control and restructure their own thoughts and it plays a crucial role in learning and problem solving. Metacognition is especially important during the stages of problem solving: realization that there is a problem, definition of goals, mental representation of the problem, decision on overall strategy, information collection, prediction of further developments, planning and evaluation of possible solutions, decision making, monitoring problem solving, action, and evaluation of outcome. Academic emotions have always been interpreted as text anxiety. However, students experience a rich diversity of emotions in academic settings (Pekrun, Goetz, and Titz, 2002) ranging from achievement emotions, pride to anxiety and boredom. It appears that test anxiety has continued attract many researchers, whereas many other achievement related emotions have received less attention. Pekrun and et al (2002, p.92) believe that students experience a rich diversity of emotions in academic settings. Academic learning and achievement are among the most important topics across the life span in our society today, especially because educational and professional careers, social relations, and the allocation of many kinds of resources are largely dependent on individual achievement. Regarding the relationship between the metacognitive strategy use and academic emotions, this study was conducted in Iran, India, Holland and Portugal (two European and two Asian countries) among 77 teacher trainees to see whether there is a correlation between metacognition and academic emotions.This study investigates the following questions. Do people from different cultures differ in their use of metacognition? Does the metacognitive strategy use show any correlations with academic emotions? The results show that there are indeed cross-cultural similarities and differences in academic emotions and metacognitions.

This paper presents a rarely researched area on empowerment of university academics, even though it is commonly thought that academics have empowerment and have been empowered through professional autonomy. We surveyed 611 academics in some premier public universities and found that there were two kinds of empowerment, namely organizational empowerment and professional empowerment. Organizational empowerment comprises participative decision making, power to execute, and job autonomy; whereas professional empowerment comprises self-efficacy, status, professional growth, and impact. The theory of empowerment entails the goals of empowerment, empowering authority, job specification, method of empowerment, and outcomes of empowerment.

Convexity is an important concept for the quantitative and qualitative study in operation research which helps to optimize\nthe solution of its problems. Therefore, many authors were interested in this branch and studied this property on sets, cones,\nhulls and functions.\nIn this paper, we develop the theory of of $(\\lambda,T)-$ convex fuzzy sublattice, $(\\lambda,T)-$ fuzzy ideal and fuzzy filter generated by a fuzzy set, $(\\lambda,T)-$ convex fuzzy sublattice generated by a fuzzy set based on triangular norms, in which the degree of fuzzy convexity is described by one real number. We also investigate some properties of these convex fuzzy sublattices and study the homomorphic image and pre-image of $(\\lambda,T)-$ convex fuzzy sublattice.

In this paper, we discuss a Language Adaptive Patient-centric Health Information System. It is a software prototype that enables patients to manage their healthcare information via a user interface supporting indigenous African language. We proposed architecture of a cloud infrastructure to support our prototype based on the GUISET project. GUISET is Grid-based Utility Infrastructure for SMMEs (Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises) Enabling Technology. It is a research project that models and prototypes service computing technology for resource constrained rural business scenarios. In this work, we proposed a model of healthcare services for universal access to health information system that GUISET can leverage on. A language translation scheme was developed that can be used for any target language, translating from English (source language). Models of the software and the proposed infrastructural architecture were illustrated. Usability analysis of the system shows a special need for language adaptive solutions such as proposed in this work. The wide adoption of the proposed solution in this work will enhance personal health information management by the underserved population.

This paper proposes a novel multipath routing protocol called Link Reliable Multipath Routing (LRMR) protocol which is the extension of a well known AOMDV routing protocol. The proposed protocol finds multiple link reliable paths having minimal hops using both Path-Link Quality Estimator (P-LQE) such as Cumulative Expected Transmission Count (CETX) and path length such as hop count. The LRMR uses both CETX and hop count as path metrics for determining more link reliable paths between any source to destination pair for data transmission. We have evaluated the performance of LRMR using NS 2.34 and compared it with AOMDV routing protocol. The LRMR reduces the routing overhead, packet loss ratio, normalized routing overhead and energy consumption. It also improves the packet delivery ratio and throughput. From the simulation results, it is found that the LRMR protocol has performed better than AOMDV routing protocol.