Information exchange and re-use is crucial to many organisations throughout the world. However, some business domains involve different organisations that, although nominally in competition, must share information. Privatised utility companies in the UK are one such example. Every year, in excess of four million holes are dug in UK roads to repair assets, provide connecting services to new prem...

Background & objectives: Irrigation water quality is a critical aspect of agricultural production especially in terms of human health and the environmental aspects. The aim of this study was to estimate the level of surface runoff and groundwater pollution used in the production of agricultural products in the south of Tehran. Methods: Sampling points included 14 points of surface water collec...

a r t i c l e i n f o We provide a theoretical and empirical study of the relation between financial development and the size of the underground economy. In our theoretical framework agents allocate investment between a low-return technology which can be operated with internal funds, and a high-return technology which requires external finance. Firms can reduce the cost of funding by disclosing...

To the Editor: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in the workplace is receiving increasing attention, probably because of findings that better functioning, general health and wellbeing and lower levels of pain are associated with higher productivity, dependability and creativity, overall higher work quality and lower absenteeism.1-2 However, no research has been conducted on HRQOL in the So...

Dynamic response of underground structures has always been a topic of concern for designers and researchers. The behavior of these complicated systems under blast loading is affected by various factors and parametric studies are required to investigate their significance. The importance of soil density around the underground structure through which, the waves of explosion of a penetrator bomb i...

Crimeware-as-a-service (CaaS) has become a prominent component of the underground economy. CaaS provides a new dimension to cyber crime by making it more organized, automated, and accessible to criminals with limited technical skills. This paper dissects CaaS and explains the essence of the underground economy that has grown around it. The paper also describes the various crimeware services tha...

Many applications for irrigation management and environment monitoring exploit buried sensors wired-connected to the soil surface for information retrieval. Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) is an emerging area of research that promises to provide communication capabilities to these sensors. To accomplish this, a reliable wireless underground communication channel is necessary, allow...

The paper describes two Monte Carlo codes dedicated to muon simulations: MUSIC (MUon SImulation Code) and MUSUN (MUon Simulations UNderground). MUSIC is a package for muon transport through matter. It is particularly useful for propagating muons through large thickness of rock or water, for instance from the surface down to underground/underwater laboratory. MUSUN is designed to use the results...

Mobile communication system for underground coal mines is far more behind the one on surface for the unique underground tunnel environment and safety requirements. Though our previous CDMA System V1.0 can solve the problems of coal mine communication well in regular environments, it still remains a challenging issue for emergency handling. In this paper, we propose a novel integrated RFID and s...