Search results for: emerging technologies

Authors: Giulia Sarego, Lorenzo Olivieri, Andrea Valmorbida, Carlo Bettanini, Giacomo Colombatti, Marco Pertile, Enrico C. Lorenzini

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International guidelines recommend removing any artificial body in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) within 25 years from mission completion. Among disposal strategies, electrodynamic tethers appear to be a promising option for LEO, thanks to the limited storage mass and the minimum interface requirements to the host spacecraft. In particular, recent technological advances make it feasible to deorbit large objects with tether lengths of a few kilometers or less. To further investigate such an innovative passive system, the European Union is currently funding the project E.T.PACK – Electrodynamic Tether Technology for Passive Consumable-less Deorbit Kit in the framework of the H2020 Future Emerging Technologies (FET) Open program. The project focuses on the design of an end of life disposal kit for LEO satellites. This kit aims to deploy a taped tether that can be activated at the spacecraft end of life to perform autonomous deorbit within the international guidelines. In this paper, the orbital performance of the E.T.PACK deorbiting kit is compared to other disposal methods. Besides, the orbital decay prediction is parametrized as a function of spacecraft mass and tether system performance. Different values of length, width, and thickness of the tether will be evaluated for various scenarios (i.e., different initial orbital parameters). The results will be compared to other end-of-life disposal methods with similar allocated resources. The analysis of the more innovative system’s performance with the tape coated with a thermionic material, which has a low work-function (LWT), for which no active component for the cathode is required, will also be briefly discussed. The results show that the electrodynamic tether option can be a competitive and performant solution for satellite disposal compared to other deorbit technologies.

Keywords: deorbiting performance, H2020, spacecraft disposal, space electrodynamic tethers

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Authors: Adem Peker, Yüksel Eroğlu, İsmail Ay

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As the information and communication technologies have become embedded in everyday life of adolescents, both their possible benefits and risks to adolescents are being identified. The information and communication technologies provide opportunities for adolescents to connect with peers and to access to information. However, as with other social connections, users of information and communication devices have the potential to meet and interact with in harmful ways. One emerging example of such interaction is cyber bullying. Cyber bullying occurs when someone uses the information and communication technologies to harass or embarrass another person. Cyber bullying can take the form of malicious text messages and e-mails, spreading rumours, and excluding people from online groups. Cyber bullying has been linked to psychological problems for cyber bullies and victims. Therefore, it is important to determine how internet addiction contributes to cyber bullying. Building on this question, this study takes a closer look at the relationship between internet addiction and cyber bullying. For this purpose, in this study, based on descriptive relational model, it was hypothesized that loss of control, excessive desire to stay online, and negativity in social relationships, which are dimensions of internet addiction, would be associated positively with cyber bullying and victimization. Participants were 383 high school students (176 girls and 207 boys; mean age, 15.7 years). Internet addiction was measured by using Internet Addiction Scale. The Cyber Victim and Bullying Scale was utilized to measure cyber bullying and victimization. The scales were administered to the students in groups in the classrooms. In this study, stepwise regression analyses were utilized to examine the relationships between dimensions of internet addiction and cyber bullying and victimization. Before applying stepwise regression analysis, assumptions of regression were verified. According to stepwise regression analysis, cyber bullying was predicted by loss of control (β=.26, p<.001) and negativity in social relationships (β=.13, p<.001). These variables accounted for 9 % of the total variance, with the loss of control explaining the higher percentage (8 %). On the other hand, cyber victimization was predicted by loss of control (β=.19, p<.001) and negativity in social relationships (β=.12, p<.001). These variables altogether accounted for 8 % of the variance in cyber victimization, with the best predictor loss of control (7 % of the total variance). The results of this study demonstrated that, as expected, loss of control and negativity in social relationships predicted cyber bullying and victimization positively. However, excessive desire to stay online did not emerge a significant predictor of both cyberbullying and victimization. Consequently, this study would enhance our understanding of the predictors of cyber bullying and victimization since the results proposed that internet addiction is related with cyber bullying and victimization.

Keywords: cyber bullying, internet addiction, adolescents, regression

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Authors: Ida Bruheim Jensen, Hulda Mjöll Gunnarsdottir, Ingunn T. Ellingsen

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Digital government is often seen as an enabler or even driver of transformation of public administration, with the objective of creating public value. The increasing use of digital solutions in public services comes with great expectations of new and/or more efficient service provision. Digitalizing public sector services involve multi-level implementation. It involves national policy negotiations and decisions of digital government solutions. It involves co-creation/-production of ideas where planning, design, and implementation involves several groups of actors targeting end-users. Norway is among the most digitalised countries in the world, and Government spendings on digital technologies in public services are high compared to other OECD countries. This contribution studies an ongoing digital transformation in the Norwegian child welfare services. DigiBarnevern (Digi child welfare) is a nationwide project promising better and more efficient child welfare services through various digital technologies. The digitalization process, which is managed by the state and municipalities, is still in its early stages, and as of 2022, only a few services are operative. Digital technologies such as DigiBarnevern are implemented with promises of qualitatively improving child protection work, making the services more effective, foster user participation, and increase availability. There is limited research on the implications of using digital technologies in child protection work. We aim to present findings from an ongoing research project (2022-2024). Drawing on data from focus group interviews with social workers in 5 municipal child welfare services in Norway, we explore social workers’ experiences and expectations towards using digital technologies in child welfare services. Technological solutions may change the services and child protection work in numerous ways. Potential points of departure for discussion are how technologies may change the relationships between social workers, children, youth, and their families, how technologies can alter and obscure responsibilities, and how technologies may demand digital competence among social workers and service recipients.

Keywords: child welfare, social work, technology, digitalisation

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Authors: Laura Hervai

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One of the most significant phenomena of the 2000s was the emergence of social media sites and web 2.0 that revolutionized communication processes. Social networking platforms have fundamentally changed social and political participation of the public, which require organisations in the public and non-profit sector not only to adapt to these new trends but also to actively engage their audiences. Opportunity for interaction, freer expression of opinion and the proliferation of user generated content are major changes brought by web 2.0 technologies. Furthermore, due to the wide penetration of mobile technologies, social media sites are capable of connecting underdeveloped regions to the global flow of information. Taking advantage of these characteristics, organisations have the opportunity to engage much wider audiences, exploit new ways to raise awareness or reach out to regions that are difficult to access. The early adopters of these new communication tools soon recognized the need of developing social media guidelines for their organisations as well as the increased workload that they require. While ten years ago communication officers could handle their organisation’s social media presence, today it is a separate profession. International organisations face several challenges related to their social media presence. Early adopters have contributed to the development of best practices among which the ethics of social media usage still remained problematic. Another challenge for international organisations is to adapt to country-specific social media trends while they have to comply with the requirements of their parent organisation as well. However in the 21st century social media presence can be crucial to the successful operation of international organisations, their importance is still not taken seriously enough. The measurement of the effects and influence of social networking on the organisations’ productivity is an unsolved problem thus further research should focus on this matter. Research methods included primary research of major IGOs’ and NGOs’ social media presence and guidelines along with secondary research of social media statistics and scientific articles in the topic.

Keywords: international organisations, non-profit sector, NGO, social media, social network

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Authors: Shuofen Hsu, Ya-Yi Chao, Chao-Wei Li

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This paper investigates the factors of whether firms’ quarterly consolidated financial statements to be voluntary reviewed by auditor. To promote the information transparency, the Financial Supervisory Commission of Executive Yuan in Taiwan ruled the Taiwanese listed companies should announce the first and third quarterly consolidated financial statements since 2008 to 2012, while the Commission didn’t require the consolidated financial statements should be reviewed by auditors. This is a very special practice in emerging market, especially in Taiwan. The valuable data of this period is suitable for us to research the determinants of firms’ voluntary review decision in emerging markets. We collected the auditors' report of each company and each year of Taiwanese listed companies since 2008 to 2012 for our research samples. We use probit model to test and analyze the determinants of voluntary review decision of the first and third quarterly consolidated financial statements. Our empirical result shows that the firms whose first and third quarterly consolidated financial statements are voluntary to be reviewed by auditors have better ranking of information transparency, higher audit quality, and better corporate governance, suggesting that voluntary review is a good signal to firms’ better information and corporate governance quality.

Keywords: voluntary review, information transparency, audit quality, quarterly consolidated financial statements

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Authors: Thandie Veronicah Sima, Moatlhodi Wiseman Letshwenyo

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Discharge of wastewater is one of the major sources of phosphorus entering streams, lakes and other water bodies causing undesired environmental problem such as eutrophication. This condition not only puts the ecosystem at risk but also causes severe economic damages. Stringent laws have been developed globally by different bodies to control the level of phosphorus concentrations into receiving environments. In order to satisfy the constraints, a high degree of tertiary treatment or at least a significant reduction of phosphorus concentration is obligatory. This comprehensive review summarizes phosphorus removal technologies, from the most commonly used conventional technologies such as chemical precipitation through metal addition, membrane filtration, reverse osmosis and enhanced biological phosphorus removal using activated sludge system to passive systems such as constructed wetlands and filtration systems. Trends, perspectives and scientific procedures conducted by different researchers have been presented. This review critically evaluates the advantages and limitations behind each of the technologies. Enhancement of passive systems using reactive media such as industrial wastes to provide additional uptake through adsorption or precipitation is also discussed in this article.

Keywords: adsorption, chemical precipitation, enhanced biological phosphorus removal, phosphorus removal

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Authors: Faseluka Olamide Tope

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Giving quality education to students with special needs requires that all necessary resources should be harnessed and digital devices has become important part of resources used as instructional materials in educating students with special needs. Teachers who will make use of these technologies are considered as a part of the most important elements in any educational programme and the effective usage of these technologies largely depends on them. Out of numerous determinants of the effective use of these digital devices, this study examines teachers’ attitude and knowledge as predictors of effective use of digital technology for education of special needs student in Oyo state, Nigeria. The descriptive survey research design of the expo-facto type was adopted for the study, using simple random sampling technique. The study was carried out among sixty (60) participants. Two research questions and two research hypotheses were formulated and used. The data collected through the research instruments for the study were analysedusing frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation, Pearson, Product, Moment Correlation (PPMC) and Multiple Regression Analysis. The study revealed a significant relationship between teachers attitude (50, < 0.05) and effective use of digital technologies for special needs students. Furthermore, there was a significant contribution F (F=4.289; R=0.876 and R2 =0.758) in the joint contribution of the independent variable  (teacher’s attitude and teacher’s knowledge) and dependent variable (effective use of digital technologies) while teachers knowledge have the highest contribution(b=7.926, t=4.376), the study therefore revealed that teachers attitude and knowledge are potent factors that predicts the effective usage of digital technologies for the education of special needs student. The study recommended that due to the ever-changing nature of technology which comes with new features, teachers should be equipped with appropriate knowledge in order to effectively make use of them and teachers should also develop right attitude toward the use of digital technologies

Keywords: teachers’ knowledge, teachers’ attitude, digital devices, special needs students

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Authors: Daniel Vargas-Herrera, Ivette Caldelas, Fernando Brambila-Paz, Rodrigo Montufar-Chaveznava

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In this paper, we present the advances corresponding to the implementation of a set of educational materials based on video games technologies. Essentially these materials correspond to projects developed and under development as bachelor thesis of some Computer Engineering students of the Engineering School. All materials are based on the Unity SDK; integrating some devices such as kinect, leap motion, oculus rift, data gloves and Google cardboard. In detail, we present a virtual reality application for neurosciences students (suitable for neural rehabilitation), and virtual scenes for the Google cardboard, which will be used by the psychology students for phobias treatment. The objective is these materials will be located at a server to be available for all students, in the classroom or in the cloud, considering the use of smartphones has been widely extended between students.

Keywords: virtual reality, interactive technologies, video games, educational materials

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Authors: Liubov Magerramova, Eugene Kratt, Pavel Presniakov

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A detailed analysis has been performed for several schemes of Gas Turbine Wheels production based on additive and powder technologies including metal, ceramic, and stereolithography 3-D printing. During the process of development and debugging of gas turbine engine components, different versions of these components must be manufactured and tested. Cooled blades of the turbine are among of these components. They are usually produced by traditional casting methods. This method requires long and costly design and manufacture of casting molds. Moreover, traditional manufacturing methods limit the design possibilities of complex critical parts of engine, so capabilities of Powder Metallurgy Techniques (PMT) were analyzed to manufacture the turbine wheel with air-cooled blades. PMT dramatically reduce time needed for such production and allow creating new complex design solutions aimed at improving the technical characteristics of the engine: improving fuel efficiency and environmental performance, increasing reliability, and reducing weight. To accelerate and simplify the blades manufacturing process, several options based on additive technologies were used. The options were implemented in the form of various casting equipment for the manufacturing of blades. Methods of powder metallurgy were applied for connecting the blades with the disc. The optimal production scheme and a set of technologies for the manufacturing of blades and turbine wheel and other parts of the engine can be selected on the basis of the options considered.

Keywords: additive technologies, gas turbine engine, powder technology, turbine wheel

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Authors: Vasile Caunii, Andreea D. Serban, Mihaela Ivancia

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The paper presents a new approach in terms of the circular economy of technologies for feeding and aeration of accumulations and water basins for fish farming and aquaculture. Because fish is and will be one of the main foods on the planet, the use of bio-eco-technologies is a priority for all producers. The technologies proposed in the paper want to reduce by a substantial percentage the costs of operation of ponds and water accumulation, using non-polluting technologies with minimal impact on the environment. The paper proposes two innovative, intelligent systems, fully automated that use a common platform, completely eco-friendly. One system is intended to aerate the water of the fish pond, and the second is intended to feed the fish by dispersing an optimal amount of fodder, depending on population size, age and habits. Both systems use a floating platform, regenerative energy sources, are equipped with intelligent and innovative systems, and in addition to fully automated operation, significantly reduce the costs of aerating water accumulations (natural or artificial) and feeding fish. The intelligent system used for feeding, in addition, to reduce operating costs, optimizes the amount of food, thus preventing water pollution and the development of bacteria, microorganisms. The advantages of the systems are: increasing the yield of fish production, these are green installations, with zero pollutant emissions, can be arranged anywhere on the water surface, depending on the user's needs, can operate autonomously or remotely controlled, if there is a component failure, the system provides the operator with accurate data on the issue, significantly reducing maintenance costs, transmit data about the water physical and chemical parameters.

Keywords: bio-eco-technologies, economy, environment, fish

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Authors: Vladimir A. Grachev

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Today, in the context of rapidly developing technosphere and hourly emerging new technologies, the industrial and environmental safety issue is ever more pressing. The article is devoted to the relationship of social, environmental, and industrial policies with industrial safety, occupational health and safety, environmental safety, and environmental protection. The author assesses the up-to-day situation through system analysis and on the basis of the existing practices. A complex system of the policies implementation without "gaps" and missing links ensures preservation of human lives, health and a favorable living environment. The author demonstrates that absence of an "environmental safety" high-priority link can lead to a significant loss of human lives and health and the global changes in the environment. The role of implementing the environmental policy of enterprises and organizations, and of economic sectors in the implementation of national environmental policy is shown. It was established that the system for implementing environmental policy should be based on a system analysis.

Keywords: environmental protection, environmental safety, industrial safety, occupational health and safety

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Authors: Bashayer Alsana

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Communication technologies are changing the way we experience life. More specifically, such technologies have changed the interaction system through which women express themselves. Interaction with the other gender, accessibility to useful content, and creative public expression are but a few facets of the new living experience now being offered to women through the use of technology, especially in areas where females are bounded by societal taboos and traditions. An evaluation of the new female experience of expressing themselves through technology is yet to be done. This study aims to fill the void of research conducted around that topic. The study explores women’s use of communication technologies in Kuwait in terms of reasons and effects. women’s responses to survey questions present an overview of the new and changing female experience in this traditional middle eastern country, and draws a framework through which implications and suggestions for future research are discussed to better serve the advancement of women in developing countries.

Keywords: communications, kuwait, social media, women

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Authors: Alemayehu Agizew Woldeamanuel, Mekonnen Maschal Tarekegn, Raj Mohan Balakrishina

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Composting is one of the conventional techniques adopted for organic waste management, but the practice is very limited in emerging cities despite the most of the waste generated is organic. This paper aims to examine the viability of composting for organic waste management in the emerging city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by addressing the composting practice, quality of compost, and application of compost in urban agriculture. The study collects data using compost laboratory testing and urban farm households’ survey and uses descriptive analysis on the state of compost production and application, physicochemical analysis of the compost samples, and regression analysis on the urban farmer’s willingness to pay for compost. The findings of the study indicated that there is composting practice at a small scale, most of the producers use unsorted feedstock materials, aerobic composting is dominantly used, and the maturation period ranged from four to ten weeks. The carbon content of the compost ranges from 30.8 to 277.1 due to the type of feedstock applied, and this surpasses the ideal proportions for C:N ratio. The total nitrogen, pH, organic matter, and moisture content are relatively optimal. The levels of heavy metals measured for Mn, Cu, Pb, Cd and Cr⁶⁺ in the compost samples are also insignificant. In the urban agriculture sector, chemical fertilizer is the dominant type of soil input in crop productions but vegetable producers use a combination of both fertilizer and other organic inputs, including compost. The willingness to pay for compost depends on income, household size, gender, type of soil inputs, monitoring soil fertility, the main product of the farm, farming method and farm ownership. Finally, this study recommends the need for collaboration among stakeholders’ along the value chain of waste, awareness creation on the benefits of composting and addressing challenges faced by both compost producers and users.

Keywords: composting, emerging city, organic waste management, urban agriculture

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Authors: M. Maleki Sadabad, A. Pointing, N. Marashi

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With respect to the role and increasing importance of technology for countries development, in recent decades technology development has paid attention in a systematic form. Nowadays the markets face with highly complicated and competitive conditions in foreign markets, therefore, evaluation and selection of technology effectiveness and also formulating technology strategy have changed into a vital subject for some organizations. The study introduces the standards of empowerment evaluation and technology attractiveness especially strategic technologies which explain the way of technology evaluation, selection and finally formulating suitable technology strategy in the field of drilling in South Azadegan oil field. The study firstly identifies the key challenges of oil fields in order to evaluate the technologies in field of drilling in South Azadegan oil field through an interview with the experts of industry and then they have been prioritised. In the following, the existing and new technologies were identified to solve the challenges of South Azadegan oil field. In order to explore the ability, availability, and attractiveness of every technology, a questionnaire based on Julie indices has been designed and distributed among the industry elites. After determining the score of ability, availability and attractiveness, every technology which has been obtained by the average of expert’s ideas, the technology package has been introduced by Morin’s model. The matrix includes four areas which will follow the especial strategy. Finally, by analysing the above matrix, the technology options have been suggested in order to select and invest.

Keywords: technology, technology identification, drilling technologies, technology capability

Procedia PDF Downloads 142

Authors: Jou-An Chen, Julio Castillo, Errol Duncan Cason, Gabre Kemp, Leana Esterhuizen, Angel Valverde Portal, Esta Van Heerden

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Emerging contaminants (EC) such as pharmaceutical and personal care products have been accumulating for years in water bodies all over the world. However, very little is known about the occurrences, levels, and effects of ECs in South African water resources. This study provides an initial assessment of the distribution of eight ECs (Acetaminophen, Atrazine, Terbuthlyazine, Carbamazepine, Phenyton, Sulfmethoxazole, Nevirapine and Fluconozole) in fifteen water sources from the Free State and Easter Cape provinces of South Africa. Overall, the physiochemical conditions were different in surface and groundwater samples, with concentrations of several elements such as B, Ca, Mg, Na, NO3, and TDS been statistically higher in groundwater. In contrast, ECs levels, quantified at ng/mL using the LC/MS/ESI, were much lower in groundwater samples. The ECs with higher contamination levels were Carbamazepine, Sulfmethoxazole, Nevirapine, and Terbuthlyazine, while the most widespread were Sulfmethoxazole and Fluconozole, detected in all surface and groundwater samples. Fecal and E. coli tests indicated that surface water was more contaminated than groundwater. Microbial communities, assessed using NGS, were dominated by the phyla Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes, in both surface and groundwater. Actinobacteria, Planctomycetes, and Cyanobacteria, were more dominant in surface water, while Verrucomicrobia were overrepresented in groundwater. In conclusion, ECs contamination is closely associated with human activities (human wastes). The microbial diversity identified can suggest possible biodegradation processes.

Keywords: emerging contaminants, EC, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, natural attenuation process

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Authors: Akshata S. Malani, Anagha D. Chaudhari, Rajeshkumar U. Sambhe

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Nanotechnology in pristine sense refers to building of structures at atomic and molecular scale. Meticulously nanotechnology encompasses the nanomaterials with atleast one dimension size ranging from 1 to 100 nanometres.Unlike the literal meaning of its name, nanotechnology is a massive concept beyond imagination. This paper predominantly deals with relevance of nanotechnology in automotive industries. New generation of automotives looks at nanotechnology as an emerging trend of manufacturing revolution. Intricate shapes can be made out of fairly inexpensive raw materials instead of conventional fabrication process. Though the current era have enough technology to face competition, nanotechnology can give futuristic implications to pick up the modern pace. Nanotechnology intends to bridge the gap between automotives with superior technical performance and their cost fluctuation. Preliminarily, it is an area of great scientific interest and a major shaper of many new technologies. Nanotechnology can be an ideal building block for automotive industries, under constant evolution offering a very wide scope of activity. It possesses huge potential and is still in the embryonic form of research and development.

Keywords: nanotechnology, nanomaterials, manufacturing, automotive industry

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Authors: Ghada Elshafei, A. Elazim Negm

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Recently, Green architecture becomes a significant way to a sustainable future. Green building designs involve finding the balance between comfortable homebuilding and sustainable environment. Moreover, the utilization of the new technologies such as artificial intelligence techniques are used to complement current practices in creating greener structures to keep the built environment more sustainable. The most common objectives are green buildings should be designed to minimize the overall impact of the built environment on ecosystems in general and particularly on human health and on the natural environment. This will lead to protecting occupant health, improving employee productivity, reducing pollution and sustaining the environmental. In green building design, multiple parameters which may be interrelated, contradicting, vague and of qualitative/quantitative nature are broaden to use. This paper presents a comprehensive critical state of art review of current practices based on fuzzy and its combination techniques. Also, presented how green architecture/building can be improved using the technologies that been used for analysis to seek optimal green solutions strategies and models to assist in making the best possible decision out of different alternatives.

Keywords: green architecture/building, technologies, optimization, strategies, fuzzy techniques, models

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Authors: Felermino D. M. A. Ali, S. C. Ng

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E-learning is an evolutionary form of distance learning and has become better over time as new technologies emerged. Today, efforts are still being made to embrace E-learning systems with emerging technologies in order to make them better. Among these advancements, Educational Data Mining (EDM) is one that is gaining a huge and increasing popularity due to its wide application for improving the teaching-learning process in online practices. However, even though EDM promises to bring many benefits to educational industry in general and E-learning environments in particular, its principal drawback is the lack of easy to use tools. The current EDM tools usually require users to have some additional technical expertise to effectively perform EDM tasks. Thus, in response to these limitations, this study intends to design and implement an EDM application framework which aims at automating and simplify the development of EDM in E-learning environment. The application framework introduces a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that hides the complexity of technical details and enables users to perform EDM in an automated fashion. The framework was designed based on abstraction, extensibility, and interoperability principles. The framework implementation was made up of three major modules. The first module provides an abstraction for data gathering, which was done by extending Moodle LMS (Learning Management System) source code. The second module provides data mining methods and techniques as services; it was done by converting Weka API into a set of Web services. The third module acts as an intermediary between the first two modules, it contains a user-friendly interface that allows dynamically locating data provider services, and running knowledge discovery tasks on data mining services. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the overhead of the proposed framework through a combination of simulation and implementation. The experiments have shown that the overhead introduced by the SOA mechanism is relatively small, therefore, it has been concluded that a service-oriented architecture can be effectively used to facilitate educational data mining in E-learning environments.

Keywords: educational data mining, e-learning, distributed data mining, moodle, service-oriented architecture, Weka

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Authors: Carmit Noa Shpigelman, Michal Isaacson

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Over the last decades, the improvement in welfare and health services and the increase in awareness of the needs of people with intellectual disability has led to an increase in their life expectancy, and many of them enter into old age. Furthermore, many older adults with intellectual disability live in out-of-home residence. This situation, in addition to the parents' aging process as the main caregivers, may lead to a reduction in contact with the family and, as a result, decreased level of the residents' (older adults with intellectual disability) well-being. A plausible solution for this condition may be using communication technologies. Previous studies indicate that using communication technologies among older adults contributes to maintaining the relationship with others, decreasing the older adult's sense of loneliness, and increasing their level of well-being. Using communication technologies may be especially valuable for older adults in the current global pandemic of COVID-19 and the associated restrictions of social distancing. However, to date, research on using communication technologies among people with intellectual disability has focused on younger cohorts. Moreover, research on the adoption of technologies among older adults with intellectual disability has focused more on assistive technologies and less on communication technologies. To address these practice and research gaps, the present study focuses on the adoption process of communication technology among older adults with intellectual disability (over the age of 45 years) who live in supported accommodation. Fifteen residents participated in an intervention program where they received a tablet with a video communication application and through which they were able to contact their families. A multiple-case study methodology was applied to capture the experiences, including barriers and needs, of the residents from three perspectives: the resident, the family member, and a staff member from the residential setting. The data was collected via quantitative and qualitative measures at different time points over the intervention. The findings demonstrate the contribution of using communication technology for the well-being of older adults with intellectual disability in supported accommodation. The findings also map the adoption process among this population, including pitfalls. The present study contributes to developing best practices on how to accommodate communication technologies to older adults with intellectual disability for maintaining contact with others.

Keywords: adoption, aging, communication, intellectual disability, technology

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Authors: Dirk V. H. K. Franco

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For many of us a lot of phenomena are considered a risk. Examples are: climate change, decrease of biodiversity, amount of available, clean water and the decreasing variety of living organism in the oceans. On the other hand a lot of people perceive the following trends as catastrophic: the sea level, the melting of the pole ice, the numbers of tornado’s, floods and forest fires, the national security and the potential of 192 million climate migrants in 2060. The interest for climate, health and the possible solutions is large and common. The 5th IPCC states that the last decades especially human activities (and in second order natural emissions) have caused large, mainly negative impacts on our ecological environments. Chris Stringer stated that we represent, nowadays after evolution, the only one version of the possible humanity. At this very moment we are faced with an (over) crowded planet together with global climate changes and a strong demand for energy and material resources. Let us hope that we can counter these difficulties either with better application of existing technologies or by inventing new (applications of) clean technologies together with new business models.

Keywords: clean technologies, catastrophic, climate, possible solutions

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Authors: Yusef Hedjazi, Saeedeh Nazari Nooghabi

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New information and communication technologies (ICT) as one of the main needs of Faculty members in the process of teaching and learning has used in Irans higher education system since 2000.The main purpose of this study is to investigate the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in teaching performance of Agricultural and Natural Resources Faculties at University of Tehran. The statistical population of the study consisted of all 250 faculties in Agriculture and Natural Resources Colleges and a questionnaire was used to collect data. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by computing of Cronbachs Alpha coefficient at greater than .72. The study showed a significant relationship between agricultural Faculty members teaching performance and competency in using ICT. The results of the regression analysis also explained 51.7% of the variance, teaching performance. The six independent variables that accounted for the explained variance were experience in using educational websites or software, use of educational multimedia (e.g. film and CD, etc), making a presentation using PowerPoint, familiarity with online education websites, using News group to discuss on educational subjects with colleagues and students, and using Electronic communication (messengers) to solve studentsproblems.

Keywords: information and communication technologies, agricultural and natural resources, faculties, teaching performance

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Authors: Kai Zhu, Shanhua He, Yujiao Chang

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This paper explores the virtual linguistic landscape of an emerging virtual language community in TikTok, a language community realizing immediate and non-immediate communication without a precise Spatio-temporal domain or a specific socio-cultural boundary or interpersonal network. This kind of language community generates a large number and various forms of virtual linguistic landscape, with which we conducted a virtual ethnographic survey together with telephone interviews to collect data from coping. We have been following two language communities in TikTok for several months so that we can illustrate the composition of the two language communities and some typical virtual language landscapes in both language communities first. Then we try to explore the reasons why and how they are formed through the organization, transcription, and analysis of the interviews. Our analysis reveals the richness and diversity of the virtual linguistic landscape, and finally, we summarize some of the characteristics of this language community.

Keywords: virtual linguistic landscape, virtual language community, virtual ethnographic survey, TikTok

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Authors: Paolo Russu

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The purpose of the present paper is to highlight some features of an economic growth model with environmental negative externalities, giving rise to a three-dimensional dynamic system. In particular, we show that the economy, which is based on a Perfect-Substitution Technologies function of production, has no neither indeterminacy nor poverty trap. This implies that equilibrium select by economy depends on the history (initial values of state variable) of the economy rather than on expectations of economies agents. Moreover, by contrast, we prove that the basin of attraction of locally equilibrium points may be very large, as they can extend up to the boundary of the system phase space. The infinite-horizon optimal control problem has the purpose of maximizing the representative agent’s instantaneous utility function depending on leisure and consumption.

Keywords: Hopf bifurcation, open-access natural resources, optimal control, perfect-substitution technologies, Poincarè compactification

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Authors: J. O. Ayinde, S. O. Olatunji

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This study assessed rural youth adoption of cassava production technologies in Southwestern, Nigeria. Specifically, it examine the level of awareness and adoption of cassava production technologies by rural youth, determined the extent of usage of cassava production technologies available to the rural youth, examined constrains to the adoption of cassava production technologies by youth and suggested possible solutions. Multistage sampling procedure was adopted for the study. In the first stage, two states were purposively selected in southwest, Nigeria which are Osun and Oyo states due to high level of cassava production and access to cassava production technology in the areas. In the second stage, purposive sampling technique was used to select two local governments each from the states selected which are Ibarapa central (Igbo-Ora) and Ibarapa East (Eruwa) Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Oyo state; and Ife North (Ipetumodu) and Ede South (Oke Ireesi) LGAs in Osun State. In the third stage, proportionate sampling technique was used to randomly select five, four, six and four communities from the selected LGAs respectively representing 20 percent of the rural communities in them, in all 19 communities were selected. In the fourth stage, Snow ball sampling technique was used to select about 7 rural youths in each community selected to make a total of 133 respondents. Validated structured interview schedule was used to elicit information from the respondents. The data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics to summarize and test the hypotheses of the study. The results show that the average age of rural youths participating in cassava production in the study area is 29 ± 2.6 years and 60 percent aged between 30 and 35 years. Also, more male (67.4 %) were involved in cassava production than females (32.6 %). The result also reveals that the average size of farm land of the respondents is 2.5 ± 0.3 hectares. Also, more male (67.4 %) were involved in cassava production than females (32.6 %). Also, extent of usage of the technologies (r = 0.363, p ≤ 0.01) shows significant relationship with level of adoption of the technologies. Household size (b = 0.183; P ≤ 0.01) and membership of social organizations were significant at 0.01 (b = 0.331; P ≤ 0.01) while age was significant at 0.10 (b = 0.097; P ≤ 0.05). On the other hand 0.01, years of residence (b = - 0.063; P ≤ 0.01) and income (b = - 0.204; P ≤ 0.01) had negative values and implies that a unit increase in each of these variables would decrease extent of usage of the Cassava production technologies. It was concluded that the extent of usage of the technologies in the communities will affect the rate of adoption positively and this will change the negative perception of youths on cassava production thereby ensure food security in the study area.

Keywords: assessment, rural youths’, Cassava production technologies, agricultural production, food security

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Authors: Nousheen Tariq Bhutta, Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah

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Financial crises become a key impediment towards the development of countries especially in emerging economies. Based on standard finance, many researchers investigated the financial crises in different countries in order to find the underlying reason regarding occurrence these event; however they were unable to provide it. In this essence behavioral finance may be helpful in providing answers to some queries regarding occurrence and prevention of financial crises. In this paper, we explore the some psychological factors comprises of our inspiration, emotion, cognition and culture along with their reflection companies, financial markets and governments that present some supportive arguments. Moreover, we compared the views of Keynes and Minsky in order to validate the underling justification towards occurrence of financial crises and their prevention in future. This study helps the practitioners and policy makers through providing valuable recommendation in order to protect the economies.

Keywords: financial crises, behavioral finance, financial markets, emerging economies

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Authors: Charlie Yang

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The idea that business practitioners urgently need a more holistic and humanistic philosophy about the free market economy has gained some attraction among business practitioners and business professors. Those who have endorsed “conscious capitalism” as an emerging business philosophy also contended that business education should be grounded in a more positive understanding of capitalism, which enables future business leaders to have a greater impact on the world. This study is designed to critically examine the theoretical foundations of conscious capitalism and its practical and pedagogical possibilities as an emerging business movement. Based on the analysis of qualitative data collected through reflective essays written by business students, I will discuss the pedagogical and practical implications for developing conscious leadership in the context of more transformative and contemplative management education.

Keywords: conscious capitalism, conscious leadership, contemplative management education, contemplative pedagogy

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Authors: Sumaira Ashraf, Elisabete G.S. Félix, Zélia Serrasqueiro

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Traditional financial distress prediction models performed well to predict bankrupt and insolvent firms of the developed markets. Previous studies particularly focused on the predictability of financial distress, financial failure, and bankruptcy of firms. This paper contributes to the literature by extending the definition of financial distress with the inclusion of early warning signs related to quotation of face value, dividend/bonus declaration, annual general meeting, and listing fee. The study used five well-known distress prediction models to see if they have the ability to predict early warning signs of financial distress. Results showed that the predictive ability of the models varies over time and decreases specifically for the sample with early warning signs of financial distress. Furthermore, the study checked the differences in the predictive ability of the models with respect to the financial crisis. The results conclude that the predictive ability of the traditional financial distress prediction models decreases for the firms with early warning signs of financial distress and during the time of financial crisis. The study developed a new model comprising significant variables from the five models and one new variable earning response. This new model outperforms the old distress prediction models before, during and after the financial crisis. Thus, it can be used by researchers, organizations and all other concerned parties to indicate early warning signs for the emerging markets.

Keywords: financial distress, emerging market, prediction models, Z-Score, logit analysis, probit model

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Authors: Mahmoud F. Mohamadin, Ahmed Abdel Malek, Wessam Said

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Achieving energy efficient architecture in general, and in emerging countries in particular, is a challenging process that requires the contribution of various governmental, institutional, and individual entities. The rule of architectural design is essential in this process as it is considered as one of the earliest steps on the road to sustainability. Architectural firms have a moral and professional responsibility to respond to these challenges and deliver buildings that consume less energy. This study aims to evaluate the design processes and tools in practice of Egyptian architectural firms based on a limited survey to investigate if their processes and methods can lead to projects that meet the Egyptian Code of Energy Efficiency Improvement. A case study of twenty architectural firms in Cairo was selected and categorized according to their scale; large-scale, medium-scale, and small-scale. A questionnaire was designed and distributed to the firms, and personal meetings with the firms’ representatives took place. The questionnaire answered three main points; the design processes adopted, the usage of performance-based simulation tools, and the usage of BIM tools for energy efficiency purposes. The results of the study revealed that only little percentage of the large-scale firms have clear strategies for building energy efficiency in their building design, however the application is limited to certain project types, or according to the client request. On the other hand, the percentage of medium-scale firms is much less, and it is almost absent in the small-scale ones. This demonstrates the urgent need of enhancing the awareness of the Egyptian architectural design community of the great importance of implementing these methods starting from the early stages of the building design. Finally, the study proposed recommendations for such firms to be able to create a healthy built environment and improve the quality of life in emerging countries.

Keywords: architectural firms, emerging countries, energy efficiency, performance-based simulation tools

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Authors: Sumaya Ismail, Aijaz Ahmad Rehi

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Abstract The location tracking and positioning systems have technologically grown exponentially in recent decade. In particular, Global Position system (GPS) has become a universal norm to be a part of almost every software application directly or indirectly for the location based modules. However major drawback of GPS based system is their inability of working in indoor environments. Researchers are thus focused on the alternative technologies which can be used in indoor environments for a vast range of application domains which require indoor location tracking. One of the most popular technology used for indoor tracking is radio frequency identification (RFID). Due to its numerous advantages, including its cost effectiveness, it is considered as a technology of choice in indoor location tracking systems. To contribute to the emerging trend of the research, this paper proposes an application architecture of passive RFID tag based indoor location tracking system. For the proof of concept, a test bed will be developed to in this study. In addition, various indoor location tracking algorithms will be used to assess their appropriateness in the proposed application architecture.

Keywords: RFID, GPS, indoor location tracking, application architecture, passive RFID tag

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Authors: Lee Soo-Kyoung, Kim Young-Su

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This study established a network related to metabolic syndrome intervention by conducting a social network analysis of titles, keywords, and abstracts, and it identified emerging topics of research. It visualized an interconnection between critical keywords and investigated their frequency of appearance to construe the trends in metabolic syndrome intervention measures used in studies conducted over 38 years (1979–2017). It examined a collection of keywords from 8,285 studies using text rank analyzer, NetMiner 4.0. The analysis revealed 5 groups of newly emerging keywords in the research. By examining the relationship between keywords with reference to their betweenness centrality, the following clusters were identified. Thus if new researchers refer to existing trends to establish the subject of their study and the direction of the development of future research on metabolic syndrome intervention can be predicted.

Keywords: intervention, metabolic syndrome, network analysis, research, the trend

Procedia PDF Downloads 201