Search results for: existing value

Authors: Vanja Vejzagic, Jackie Brander Brown, Peter Schmidt

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Purpose: For some time now, the global hotel industry trends are strongly oriented towards sustainable development and environmental management accounting (EMA) should have the supporting role for hotel’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) management. The aim of this paper is thus to analyse and present data on the key steps leading toward the effective incorporation of EMA within hotel performance information systems. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research study is a continuation of the process carried out on the sample of 20 eco-hotels in the UK, a year ago. Research evidence was obtained via in-depth case studies on sample of 180 hotels (4 and 5 stars hotels) located in Croatia. Research was conducted through interviews with key personnel and an online survey which specifically focused on 10 business areas considered vital for successful EMA integration. Findings: The research results indicate a pattern by which hotels can determine the existing level of their sustainable (environmental) business. Furthermore, the management understanding of the sustainability concept was still proven to lead to a relatively subjective appreciation and presentation of sustainable hotel operations and their performance. It was determined that majority of analysed hotel organisations reflect typical short-term, financially oriented performance information systems. Steps for EMA introduction have been offered. Research Limitations/Implications: CSR is still a broad-set concept. Exploring the effects of EMA on such-like a defined management system may be subject to considerable influence of the respondent’s subjective perception of the concept. Originality/Value: This article should be of interest to higher education academics and careers staff who have an interest in CSR introduction and the ways of implementing its informational support for performance measurement.

Keywords: environmental management accounting, EMA, corporate social responsibility, CSR, sustainability, hotel

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Authors: Ali Raouli, Amin Chegenizadeh, Hamid Nikraz

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The Perth metropolitan area and its surrounding regions have been expanding rapidly in recent decades and it is expected that this growth will continue in the years to come. With this rapid growth and the resulting increase in population, consideration should be given to strategic planning and modelling for the future expansion of Perth. The accurate estimation of projected traffic volumes has always been a major concern for the transport modelers and planners. Development of a reliable strategic transport model depends significantly on the inputs data into the model and the calibrated parameters of the model to reflect the existing situation. Trip distribution is the second step in four-step modelling (FSM) which is complex due to its behavioral nature. Gravity model is the most common method for trip distribution. The spatial separation between the Origin and Destination (OD) zones will be reflected in gravity model by applying deterrence functions which provide an opportunity to include people’s behavior in choosing their destinations based on distance, time and cost of their journeys. Deterrence functions play an important role for distribution of the trips within a study area and would simulate the trip distances and therefore should be calibrated for any particular strategic transport model to correctly reflect the trip behavior within the modelling area. This paper aims to review the most common deterrence functions and propose a calibrated deterrence function for work trips within the Perth Metropolitan Area based on the information obtained from the latest available Household data and Perth and Region Travel Survey (PARTS) data. As part of this study, a four-step transport model using EMME software has been developed for Perth Metropolitan Area to assist with the analysis and findings.

Keywords: deterrence function, four-step modelling, origin destination, transport model

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Authors: Thavananthan Sivananthawerl

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Coconut palm is existing for more than 2000 years in Sri Lanka. However, cultivation on a large scale (plantation) began only in the 19th century. Due to different light perceptions during the growth stages of palm, there is a huge potential to grow crops in-between rows of coconut plants which are grown with wider, fixed spacing. Intercropping under coconut will have multiple benefits such as increasing soil fertility, increasing sunlight utilization, increasing total crop productivity, increasing income & profit, maximum use of resources, reducing the risk, and increasing food security. Growing potential annual, agricultural intercrops could be classified as ‘agri-silvicultural’ system. This is the best agri-silvicultural system that can be named under any perennial crop system in Sri Lanka. In the late 1970’s cassava, pepper and cacao are the major intercrops under the coconut plantations. At the early ages of the palm (<5 years) light-loving crops such as pineapple, passion, papaya, and cassava are recommended and preferred by the cultivators. In between 5-20 years of age, the availability of light is very low, and therefore shade tolerant/loving crops (pasture, yam, ginger) could be used as the intercrops. However, after 20 years of age (>20 years) canopy is getting small, and the light availability on the ground increases. So, light demanding crops such as pepper, banana, pineapple, betel, cassava, and seasonal crops could be grown successfully. Even though this is a sustainable system in several aspects, there are potential challenges ahead to the system. The major ones are land fragmentation and infrastructure development. The other factors are drought, lack of financial support, price instability of the intercrops, availability of improved planting materials, and development of dwarf varieties which reduces the light.

Keywords: coconut cultivation, agri-silviculture, intercrop, sunlight, annuals, sustainability

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Authors: Harsha B. R., Anil Kumar K. S.

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Climate and soils are the two most dynamic entities among the factors affecting growth and grapes productivity. Studying of prevailing climate over the years in a region provides sufficient information related to management practices to be carried out in vineyards. Evaluating the suitability of vineyard soils under different climatic conditions serves as the yardstick to analyse the performance of grapevines. This study was formulated to study the climate and evaluate the site-suitability of soils in vineyards of southern Karnataka, which has registered its superiority in the quality production of wine. Ten soil profiles were excavated for suitability evaluation of soils, and six taluks were studied for climatic analysis. In almost all the regions studied, recharge starts at the end of the May or June months, peaking in either September or October months. Soil Starts drying from mid of December months in the taluks studied. Bangalore North (Rajanukunte) soils were highly suited for grapes cultivation with no or slight limitations. Bangalore North (GKVK Farm) was moderately suited with slight to moderate limitations of slope and available nitrogen content. Moderate suitability was observed in the rest of the profiles studied in Eastern dry zone soils with the slight to moderate limitations of either organic carbon or available nitrogen or both in the Eastern dry zone. Magadi (Southern dry zone) soils were moderately suitable with slight to moderate limitations of graveliness, available nitrogen, organic carbon, and exchangeable sodium percentage. Sustainable performance of vineyards in terms of yield can be achieved in these taluks by managing the constraints existing in soils.

Keywords: climatic analysis, dry zone, water recharge, growing period, suitability, sustainability

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Authors: Sunday Olufemi Adesogan

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The supply of potable water at least is a very important index in national development. Water tariffs depend on the treatment cost which carries the highest percentage of the total operation cost in any water supply scheme. In order to keep water tariffs as low as possible, treatment costs have to be minimized. The University of Ibadan, Nigeria, water supply scheme consists of a treatment plant with three distribution stations (Amina way, Kurumi and Lander) and two raw water supply sources (Awba dam and Eleyele dam). An operational study of the scheme was carried out to ascertain the efficiency of the supply of potable water on the campus to justify the need for water supply schemes in tertiary institutions. The study involved regular collection, processing and analysis of periodic operational data. Data collected include supply reading (water production on daily basis) and consumers metered reading for a period of 22 months (October 2013 - July 2015), and also collected, were the operating hours of both plants and human beings. Applying the required mathematical equations, total loss was determined for the distribution system, which was translated into monetary terms. Adequacies of the operational functions were also determined. The study revealed that water supply scheme is justified in tertiary institutions. It was also found that approximately 10.7 million Nigerian naira (N) is lost to leakages during the 22-month study period; the system’s storage capacity is no longer adequate, especially for peak water production. The capacity of the system as a whole is insufficient for the present university population and that the existing water supply system is not being operated in an optimal manner especially due to personnel, power and system ageing constraints.

Keywords: development, panacea, supply, water

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Authors: Jessica Achebe, Susan Tighe

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The reduction of material consumption and greenhouse gas emission when maintain and rehabilitating road networks can achieve added benefits including improved life cycle performance of pavements, reduced climate change impacts and human health effect due to less air pollution, improved productivity due to an optimal allocation of resources and reduced road user cost. This is the essence of incorporating environmental sustainability into pavement management. The functionality of performance measurement approach has made it one of the most valuable tool to Pavement Management Systems (PMSs) to account for different criteria in the decision-making process. However measuring the environmental performance of road network is still a far-fetched practice in road network management, more so an ostensive agency-wide environmental sustainability or sustainable maintenance specifications is missing. To address this challenge, this present research focuses on the environmental sustainability performance of network-level pavement management. The ultimate goal is to develop a framework to incorporate environmental sustainability in pavement management systems for network-level maintenance programming. In order to achieve this goal, this paper present the first step, the intention is to review the previous studies that employed environmental performance measures, as well as the suitability of environmental performance indicators for the evaluation of the sustainability of network-level pavement maintenance strategies. Through an industry practice survey, this paper provides a brief forward regarding the pavement manager motivations and barriers to making more sustainable decisions, and data needed to support the network-level environmental sustainability. The trends in network-level sustainable pavement management are also presented, existing gaps are highlighted, and ideas are proposed for network-level sustainable maintenance and rehabilitation programming.

Keywords: pavement management, environment sustainability, network-level evaluation, performance measures

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Authors: Jakub Zembrzuski, Bartosz Sobczyk, Mikołaj MIśkiewicz

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Besides designing new constructions, engineers all over the world must face another problem – maintenance, repairs, and assessment of the technical condition of existing bridges. To solve more complex issues, it is necessary to be familiar with the theory of finite element method and to have access to the software that provides sufficient tools which to enable create of sometimes significantly advanced numerical models. The paper includes a brief assessment of the technical condition, a description of the in situ non-destructive testing carried out and the FEM models created for global and local analysis. In situ testing was performed using strain gauges and displacement sensors. Numerical models were created using various software and numerical modeling techniques. Particularly noteworthy is the method of modeling riveted joints of the crossbeam of the viaduct. It is a simplified method that consists of the use of only basic numerical tools such as beam and shell finite elements, constraints, and simplified boundary conditions (fixed support and symmetry). The results of the numerical analyses were presented and discussed. It is clearly explained why the structure did not fail, despite the fact that the weld of the deck plate completely failed. A further research problem that was solved was to determine the cause of the rapid increase in values on the stress diagram in the cross-section of the transverse section. The problems were solved using the solely mentioned, simplified method of modeling riveted joints, which demonstrates that it is possible to solve such problems without access to sophisticated software that enables to performance of the advanced nonlinear analysis. Moreover, the obtained results are of great importance in the field of assessing the operation of bridge structures with an orthotropic plate.

Keywords: bridge, diagnostics, FEM simulations, failure, NDT, in situ testing

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Authors: M. Wangai

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Following the promulgation of a new Constitution of Kenya in 2010, wide-ranging proposals for reform of the criminal justice system have been made. Proposed measures include a clear and separate system of dealing with juvenile offenders with a greater focus on rehabilitation and reintegration. As part of a broader constitutional transition, this article considers the contribution of restorative justice to reforming the youth justice system. The paper analyses Kenya’s juvenile justice legal framework measured against current international trends in youth justice. It identifies the first post-independence juvenile justice system as a remnant of the colonial period and notes that the post-2001 system is a marked improvement. More recent legal and institutional efforts to incorporate restorative justice are also examined. The paper advocates further development of the juvenile justice system by mainstreaming of restorative justice principles through national level legislative amendments. International and comparative perspectives are used to inform a diversion centered model of restorative justice. In addition, a case is made for the use of existing forms of alternative dispute resolution. Conscious of a tense political climate, the paper also proposes strategies to address challenges posed by a punitive penal environment, chiefly the linking of restorative justice to wider democratic goals and community spirit. The article concludes that restorative justice led juvenile justice reform will contribute to better treatment of young offenders under the criminal justice system and has the potential to set a new precedent for fair, sustainable and effective justice. Further, as part of far-reaching criminal justice reform, the proposed efforts may strengthen democratic progress in Kenya’s ensuing phase of political transition.

Keywords: constitutional transition, criminal justice, restorative justice, young offenders

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Authors: Vanja Skoric

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The paper examines whether the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) can be meaningfully addressed through the rights-based approach to AI design, investigating in particular how the inclusive, participatory process of assessing the AI impact would make this viable. There is a significant gap between envisioning rights-based AI systems and their practical application. Plausibly, internalizing human rights approach within AI design process might be achieved through identifying and assessing implications of AI features human rights, especially considering the case of vulnerable individuals and communities. However, there is no clarity or consensus on how such an instrument should be operationalised to usefully identify the impact, mitigate harms and meaningfully ensure relevant stakeholders’ participation. In practice, ensuring the meaningful inclusion of those individuals, groups, or entire communities who are affected by the use of the AI system is a prerequisite for a process seeking to assess human rights impacts and risks. Engagement in the entire process of the impact assessment should enable those affected and interested to access information and better understand the technology, product, or service and resulting impacts, but also to learn about their rights and the respective obligations and responsibilities of developers and deployers to protect and/or respect these rights. This paper will provide an overview of the study and practice of the participatory design process for AI, including inclusive impact assessment, its main elements, propose a framework, and discuss the lessons learned from the existing theory. In addition, it will explore pathways for enhancing and promoting individual and group rights through such engagement by discussing when, how, and whom to include, at which stage of the process, and what are the pre-requisites for meaningful and engaging. The overall aim is to ensure using the technology that works for the benefit of society, individuals, and particular (historically marginalised) groups.

Keywords: rights-based design, AI impact assessment, inclusion, harm mitigation

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Authors: Salma Maher, Ahmed Elseragy, Sally Eldeeb

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Nowadays, Urbanism and climate change lead to the rapid growth in energy consumption and the increase of using air-conditioning for cooling. In a hot climate area, there is a need for a new sustainable alternative that is more convenient for an existing situation. The Building envelope controls the heat transfer between the outside and inside the building. While the building façade is the most critical part, types of façade material play a vital role in influences of the energy demand for heating and cooling due to exposure to direct solar radiation throughout the day. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the use of curtain walls in office buildings façades started to increase rapidly, which lead to more cooling loads in energy consumption. Integrating the living wall system in urban areas as a sustainable renovation and energy-saving method for the built environment will reduce the energy demand of buildings and will also provide environmental benefits. Also, it will balance the urban ecology and enhance urban life quality. The results show that the living wall systems reduce the internal temperature up to 4.0 °C. This research carries on an analytical study by highlighting the different types of living wall systems and verifying their thermal performance, energy-saving, and life potential on the building. These assessing criteria include the reason for using the Living wall systems in the building façade as well as the effect it has upon the surrounding environment. Finally, the paper ends with concluding the effect of using living wall systems on building. And, it suggests a system as long-lasting, and energy-efficient solution to be applied in curtain wall façades in a hot climate area.

Keywords: living wall systems, energy consumption, curtain walls, energy-saving, sustainability, urban life quality

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Authors: Mahshid Asadollahi, Mohammad Akbari Asl

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The restaurant industry is highly competitive, and restaurants are constantly looking for ways to attract new customers and retain their existing ones. Nonverbal communication is an important factor in creating a positive customer experience and can play a significant role in attracting customers to restaurants. Nonverbal communication can include body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and physical proximity, among other things. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of nonverbal communication between restaurant employees and customers on attracting customers in food courts in Tehran. The research method was descriptive-correlational, and the statistical population of this study included all customers of food court restaurants in Tehran, which was about 30 restaurants. The research sample was selected through probability sampling, and 440 customers completed emotional response, customer satisfaction, and nonverbal communication questionnaires in person. The data obtained were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. The results showed that vocal language, employee proximity, physical appearance, and speech movements, as components of nonverbal communication of restaurant employees, had an impact on attracting customers. Additionally, positive and negative emotions of customers have a significant relationship with customer attraction in Food Court restaurants. The study shows that various nonverbal communication factors can play a significant role in attracting customers, and that positive and negative customer emotions can affect customer satisfaction. Therefore, restaurant owners and managers should pay attention to nonverbal communication and train their employees accordingly to create a positive and welcoming atmosphere for customers.

Keywords: verbal language, proximity of employees, physical appearance, speech gestures, nonverbal communication, customer emotions, customer attraction

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Authors: Samira Essabari

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What, unfortunately, governs the Moroccan educational philosophy and policy today is a concerning neoliberal discourse with its obsession with market logics and individualism. Critical education has been advocated to resist the neoliberal hegemony since it holds the promise to reclaim the social function of education. Significantly, the mounting forms of sexism and discrimination against women combined with hegemonic educational practices are jeopardizing the social function of teaching and learning, hence the relevance of feminist critical pedagogy. A substantial body of research worldwide has explored the ways in which feminist pedagogy can develop feminist consciousness and examine power relations in different educational contexts. In Morocco, however, the feasibility of feminist pedagogy has not been researched despite the overwhelming interest in gender issues in different educational settings. The research on critical pedagogies in Morocco remains very promising. Yet, most studies were conducted in contexts which are already engaged with issues of theory, discourse, and discourse analysis. The field of ESP ( English for Specific Purposes) is pragmatic by nature, and priority in research has been given to questions that adhere to the mainstream concerns of need analysis and study skills and ignore issues of power, gender power relations, and intersectional forms of oppression. To address these gaps in the existing literature, this participatory action research seeks to investigate the feasibility of Feminist pedagogy in ESP higher education and how it can foster feminist critical consciousness among ESP students without compromising their language learning needs. The findings of this research will contribute to research on critical applied linguistics and critical ESP more specifically and add to the practice of critical pedagogies in Moroccan higher education by providing in-depth insights into the enablers and barriers to the implementation of feminist critical pedagogy, which is still feeling its way into the educational scene in Morocco.

Keywords: feminist pedagogy, critical pedagogy, power relations, gender, ESP, intersectionality

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Authors: Jaehong Yu, Seoung Bum Kim

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Clustering analysis can facilitate the extraction of intrinsic patterns in a dataset and reveal its natural groupings without requiring class information. For effective clustering analysis in high dimensional datasets, unsupervised dimensionality reduction is an important task. Unsupervised dimensionality reduction can generally be achieved by feature extraction or feature selection. In many situations, feature selection methods are more appropriate than feature extraction methods because of their clear interpretation with respect to the original features. The unsupervised feature selection can be categorized as feature subset selection and feature ranking method, and we focused on unsupervised feature ranking methods which evaluate the features based on their importance scores. Recently, several unsupervised feature ranking methods were developed based on ensemble approaches to achieve their higher accuracy and stability. However, most of the ensemble-based feature ranking methods require the true number of clusters. Furthermore, these algorithms evaluate the feature importance depending on the ensemble clustering solution, and they produce undesirable evaluation results if the clustering solutions are inaccurate. To address these limitations, we proposed an ensemble-based feature ranking method with random subspace and multiple-k ensemble (FRRM). The proposed FRRM algorithm evaluates the importance of each feature with the random subspace ensemble, and all evaluation results are combined with the ensemble importance scores. Moreover, FRRM does not require the determination of the true number of clusters in advance through the use of the multiple-k ensemble idea. Experiments on various benchmark datasets were conducted to examine the properties of the proposed FRRM algorithm and to compare its performance with that of existing feature ranking methods. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed FRRM outperformed the competitors.

Keywords: clustering analysis, multiple-k ensemble, random subspace-based feature evaluation, unsupervised feature ranking

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Authors: Yulan Wu

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With the rapid development of social media, the issue of fake news has gained considerable prominence, drawing the attention of both the public and governments. The widespread dissemination of false information poses a tangible threat across multiple domains of society, including politics, economy, and health. However, much research has concentrated on supervised training models within specific domains, their effectiveness diminishes when applied to identify fake news across multiple domains. To solve this problem, some approaches based on domain labels have been proposed. By segmenting news to their specific area in advance, judges in the corresponding field may be more accurate on fake news. However, these approaches disregard the fact that news records can pertain to multiple domains, resulting in a significant loss of valuable information. In addition, the datasets used for training must all be domain-labeled, which creates unnecessary complexity. To solve these problems, an unsupervised domain knowledge discovery framework for fake news detection is proposed. Firstly, to effectively retain the multidomain knowledge of the text, a low-dimensional vector for each news text to capture domain embeddings is generated. Subsequently, a feature extraction module utilizing the unsupervisedly discovered domain embeddings is used to extract the comprehensive features of news. Finally, a classifier is employed to determine the authenticity of the news. To verify the proposed framework, a test is conducted on the existing widely used datasets, and the experimental results demonstrate that this method is able to improve the detection performance for fake news across multiple domains. Moreover, even in datasets that lack domain labels, this method can still effectively transfer domain knowledge, which can educe the time consumed by tagging without sacrificing the detection accuracy.

Keywords: fake news, deep learning, natural language processing, multiple domains

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Authors: Darren Edwards, Thomas Pinna

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Background: Interoception and heart rate variability have been found to predict outcomes of mental health and well-being. However, these have usually been investigated independently of one another. Objectives: This review aimed to explore the associations between interoception and heart rate variability (HRV) with emotion regulation (ER) and ER strategies within the existing literature and utilizing systematic review methodology. Methods: The process of article retrieval and selection followed the preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Databases PsychINFO, Web of Science, PubMed, CINAHL, and MEDLINE were scanned for papers published. Preliminary inclusion and exclusion criteria were specified following the patient, intervention, comparison, and outcome (PICO) framework, whilst the checklist for critical appraisal and data extraction for systematic reviews of prediction modeling studies (CHARMS) framework was used to help formulate the research question, and to critically assess for bias in the identified full-length articles. Results: 237 studies were identified after initial database searches. Of these, eight studies were included in the final selection. Six studies explored the associations between HRV and ER, whilst three investigated the associations between interoception and ER (one of which was included in the HRV selection too). Overall, the results seem to show that greater HRV and interoception are associated with better ER. Specifically, high parasympathetic activity largely predicted the use of adaptive ER strategies such as reappraisal, and better acceptance of emotions. High interoception, instead, was predictive of effective down-regulation of negative emotions and handling of social uncertainty, there was no association with any specific ER strategy. Conclusions: Awareness of one’s own bodily feelings and vagal activation seem to be of central importance for the effective regulation of emotional responses.

Keywords: emotional regulation, vagal tone, interoception, chronic conditions, health and well-being, psychological flexibility

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Authors: O. O. Oguntoye

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Product consumption constitutes an important consideration for sustainable development. Seeing how product consumption could be highly unsustainable, coupled with how existing policies on corporate responsibility do not particularly address the consumption aspect of product lifecycle, conducting this research became necessary. The research makes an attempt to provide a framework by which to gauge corporate responsibility of product suppliers in terms of their commitment towards the sustainable consumption of their products. Through an exploration of relevant literature, independently established ideas with which to assess a given product supplier were galvanised into a four-criterion framework. The criteria are: (1) Embeddedness of consumption as a factor in corporate sustainability policy, (2) Level of understanding of consumption behaviour, (3) Breadth of behaviour-influencing strategies adopted, and (4) Inclusiveness for all main dimensions of sustainability. This resulting framework was then applied in a case study involving a UK-based furniture supplier where interviews and content analysis of corporate documents were used as the mode for primary data collection. From the case study, it was found that the supplier had performed to different levels across the four themes of the assessment. Two major areas for improvement were however identified – one is for the furniture supplier to focus more proactively on understanding consumption behaviour and, two is for it to widen the scope of its current strategies for enhancing sustainable consumption of supplied furniture. As a generalisation, the framework presented here makes it possible for companies to reflect with a sense of guidance, how they have demonstrated commitment towards sustainable consumption through their values, culture, and operations. It also provides a foundation for developing standardized assessment which the current widely used frameworks such as the GRI, the Global Compact, and others do not cover. While these popularly used frameworks mainly focus on sustainability of companies within the production and supply chain management contexts (i.e. mostly ‘upstream’), the framework here provides an extension by bringing the ‘downstream’ or consumer bit into light.

Keywords: corporate sustainability, design for sustainable consumption, extended producer responsibility, sustainable consumer behaviour

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Authors: Okuyade Ighoroje Wilson Ata

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Magneto-hydrodynamic mixed convective chemically reacting fluid flow through two parallel vertical plates channel with Hall, radiation, and chemical reaction effects are examined. The fluid is assumed to be chemically reactive, electrically conducting, magnetically susceptible, viscous, incompressible, and Newtonian; the plates are porous, electrically conductive, and heated to a high-temperature regime to generate thermal rays. The flow system is highly interactive, such that cross/double diffusion is present. The governing equations are partial differential equations transformed into ordinary differential equations using similarity transformation and solved by the method of Homotopy Perturbation. Expressions for the concentration, temperature, velocity, Nusselt number, Sherwood number, and Wall shear stress are obtained, computed, and presented graphically and tabularly. The analysis of results shows, amongst others, that an increase in the Raleigh number increases the main velocity and temperature but decreases the concentration. More so, an increase in chemical reaction rate increases the main velocity, temperature, rate of heat transfer from the terminal plate, the rate of mass transfer from the induced plate, and Wall shear stress on both the induced and terminal plates, decreasing the concentration, and the mass transfer rate from the terminal plate. Some of the obtained results are benchmarked with those of existing literature and are in consonance.

Keywords: chemical reaction, hall effect, magneto-hydrodynamic, radiation, vertical plates channel

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Authors: Nazirah Hassan, Andrew Kendrick

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Punishment inside the penal institution has always been practiced in order to maintain discipline and keep order. Nonetheless, criminologists have long debated that the enforcement of discipline by punishing inmates is often ineffective and has a detrimental impact on inmates’ conduct. This paper uses data from a sample of 289 incarcerated young offenders to investigate the prevalence of institutional misconduct. It explores punitive cultural practices inside institutions and how this culture affects the inmates’ conduct during confinement. The project focused on male and female young offenders aged 12 to 21 years old, in eight juvenile justice institutions. The research collected quantitative and qualitative data using a mixed-method approach. All participants completed the Direct and Indirect Prisoner behavior Checklist-Scaled Version Revised (DIPC-SCALED-R). In addition, exploratory interviews were carried out with sixteen inmates and eight institutional staff. Results of the questionnaire survey show that almost half of the inmates reported a higher level of involvement in perpetration. It demonstrates a remarkable convergence of direct, rather than indirect, perpetration. Also, inmates reported a higher level of tobacco used and behavior associated with negative attitudes towards staff and institutional rules. In addition to this, the qualitative data suggests that the punitive culture encourages the onset of misconduct by increasing the stressful and oppressive conditions within the institution. In general, physical exercise and locking up inmates are two forms of punishment that were ubiquitous throughout the institutions. Interestingly, physical exercise is not only enforced by institutional staff but also inmates. These findings are discussed in terms of existing literature and their practical implications are considered.

Keywords: institutional punishment, incarcerated young offenders, punitive culture, institutional misconduct

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Authors: Aaron Walayat

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Protection of the environment in international law has been one of the most developed in the context of international humanitarian law. This paper examines the history of the protection of the environment in times of armed conflict, beginning with the traditional notion of restraint observed in antiquity towards the obligation to protect the environment, examining the treaties and agreements, both binding and non-binding which have contributed to environmental protection in war. The paper begins with a discussion of the ancient concept of restraint. This section examines the social norms in favor of protection of the environment as observed in the Bible, Greco-Roman mythology, and even more contemporary literature. The study of the traditional rejection of total war establishes the social foundation on which the current legal regime has stemmed. The paper then studies the principle of restraint as codified in international humanitarian law. It mainly examines Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Convention of 1949 and existing international law concerning civilian objects and the principles of international humanitarian law in the classification between civilian objects and military objectives. The paper then explores the environment’s classification as both a military objective and as a civilian object as well as explores arguments in favor of the classification of the whole environment as a civilian object. The paper will then discuss the current legal regime surrounding the protection of the environment, discussing some declarations and conventions including the 1868 Declaration of St. Petersburg, the 1907 Hague Convention No. IV, the Geneva Conventions, and the 1976 Environmental Modification Convention. The paper concludes with the outline noting the movement from codification of the principles of restraint into the various treaties, agreements, and declarations of the current regime of international humanitarian law. This paper provides an analysis of the history and significance of the relationship between international humanitarian law as a major contributor to the growing field of international environmental law.

Keywords: armed conflict, environment, legal regime, restraint

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Authors: Niroshan K. Walgama Wellalage, Tieling Zhang, Richard Dwight

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State-based Markov deterioration models (SMDM) sometimes fail to find accurate transition probability matrix (TPM) values, and hence lead to invalid future condition prediction or incorrect average deterioration rates mainly due to drawbacks of existing nonlinear optimization-based algorithms and/or subjective function types used for regression analysis. Furthermore, a set of separate functions for each condition state with age cannot be directly derived by using Markov model for a given bridge element group, which however is of interest to industrial partners. This paper presents a new approach for generating Homogeneous SMDM model output, namely, the Modified Weibull approach, which consists of a set of appropriate functions to describe the percentage condition prediction of bridge elements in each state. These functions are combined with Bayesian approach and Metropolis Hasting Algorithm (MHA) based Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation technique for quantifying the uncertainty in model parameter estimates. In this study, factors contributing to rail bridge deterioration were identified. The inspection data for 1,000 Australian railway bridges over 15 years were reviewed and filtered accordingly based on the real operational experience. Network level deterioration model for a typical bridge element group was developed using the proposed Modified Weibull approach. The condition state predictions obtained from this method were validated using statistical hypothesis tests with a test data set. Results show that the proposed model is able to not only predict the conditions in network-level accurately but also capture the model uncertainties with given confidence interval.

Keywords: bridge deterioration modelling, modified weibull approach, MCMC, metropolis-hasting algorithm, bayesian approach, Markov deterioration models

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Authors: Omojokun G. Aju, Adedayo O. Sule

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ZigBee wireless sensor and control network is one of the most popularly deployed wireless technologies in recent years. This is because ZigBee is an open standard lightweight, low-cost, low-speed, low-power protocol that allows true operability between systems. It is built on existing IEEE 802.15.4 protocol and therefore combines the IEEE 802.15.4 features and newly added features to meet required functionalities thereby finding applications in wide variety of wireless networked systems. ZigBee‘s current focus is on embedded applications of general-purpose, inexpensive, self-organising networks which requires low to medium data rates, high number of nodes and very low power consumption such as home/industrial automation, embedded sensing, medical data collection, smart lighting, safety and security sensor networks, and monitoring systems. Although the ZigBee design specification includes security features to protect data communication confidentiality and integrity, however, when simplicity and low-cost are the goals, security is normally traded-off. A lot of researches have been carried out on ZigBee technology in which emphasis has mainly been placed on ZigBee network performance characteristics such as energy efficiency, throughput, robustness, packet delay and delivery ratio in different scenarios and applications. This paper investigate and analyse the data accuracy, network implementation difficulties and security challenges of ZigBee network applications in star-based and mesh-based topologies with emphases on its home monitoring application using the ZigBee ProBee ZE-10 development boards for the network setup. The paper also expose some factors that need to be considered when designing ZigBee network applications and suggest ways in which ZigBee network can be designed to provide more resilient to network attacks.

Keywords: home monitoring, IEEE 802.14.5, topology, wireless security, wireless sensor network (WSN), ZigBee

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Authors: Rabin Paudel, Dambar Bahadur Mahato, Prabin Poudel, Bijaya Neupane, Sakar Jha

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Understanding Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) is very important in countries like Nepal, where solutions to escalating conflicts are urgently required. However, most of the HEC mitigation measures implemented so far have been done on an ad hoc basis without the detailed understanding of nature and extent of the damage. This study aims to assess the current scenario of HEC in regards to crop and property damages by Wild Asian Elephant and people’s perception towards existing mitigating measures and elephant conservation in Buffer zone area of Bardia National Park. The methods used were a questionnaire survey (N= 178), key-informant interview (N= 18) and focal group discussions (N= 6). Descriptive statistics were used to determine the nature and extent of damage and to understand people’s perception towards HEC, its mitigation measures and elephant conservation. Chi-square test was applied to determine the significance of crop and property damages with respect to distance from the park boundary. Out of all types of damage, crop damage was found to be the highest (51%), followed by house damage (31%) and damage to stored grains (18%) with winter being the season with the greatest elephant damage. Among 178 respondents, the majority of them (82%) were positive towards elephant conservation despite the increment in HEC incidents as perceived by 88% of total respondents. Among the mitigation measures present, the most applied was electric fence (91%) followed by barbed wire fence (5%), reinforced concrete cement wall (3%) and gabion wall (1%). Most effective mitigation measures were reinforced concrete cement wall and gabion wall. To combat increasing crop damage, the insurance policy should be initiated. The efficiency of the mitigation measures should be timely monitored, and corrective measures should be applied as per the need.

Keywords: crop and property damage, elephant conflict, Asiatic wild elephant, mitigation measures

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Authors: Tris Kee

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This research investigates social sustainability factors in transitional housing projects and their impact on fostering healthy living environments that promote physical activity and social interaction for residents. Social sustainability is integral to individual health and well-being, as emphasized by Goal 11 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which highlights the importance of safe, affordable, and accessible transport systems, green spaces, and public spaces catering to vulnerable populations' needs. Communal spaces in urban environments are essential for fostering social sustainability, as they serve as settings for physical activities and social interactions among diverse socio-economic groups. Factors such as neighborhood social atmosphere, historical context, social disparity, and mobility can influence the relationship between existing and transitional communities. Mental health effects can be measured through housing segregation, mobility and accessibility, and housing tenure. A significant research gap exists in understanding the living environment of transitional housing in Hong Kong and the social sustainability factors affecting residents' mental and physical health. To address this gap, our study employs a mixed-methods approach combining survey questionnaires and interviews to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. This methodology will provide comprehensive insights into residents' experiences and perceptions. Our research's main contribution is identifying key social sustainability factors in transitional housing and their impact on residents' well-being, informing policy-making and the creation of inclusive, healthy living environments. By addressing this research gap, we aim to provide valuable insights for future housing projects, ultimately promoting the development of socially sustainable transitional communities.

Keywords: social sustainablity, affordable housing, transitional housing, high density housing

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Authors: Jubril Olatunbosun Akinde

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Unplanned population growth are mostly attributed to a lack of infrastructural facilities and poor economic condition in the rural dwellings and the incidence of rural-urban migration, which has resulted in severe housing deficiency in the urban centre, with a resultant pressure on housing delivery in the cities. Affordable housing does not only encompass environmental factors that make living acceptable and comfortable, which include good access routes, ventilation, sanitation and access to other basic human needs, which include water and safety. The research assessed the housing affordability and safety measures in the varied residential area of lagos by examining the demographic and socioeconomic attributes of residents; examining the existing residential safety measures; by examining the residential quality in terms of safety; the researcher therefore examined if relationship between housing affordability and safety in the varied residential areas. The research adopted the bartlett, kotrlik and higgins (2001) method of t-test to determine the sample size which specifies different populations at different levels of significance (α). The researcher adopted primary data which was sourced from a field survey where the sample population was simply randomly selected to give a member of the population an equal chance of being selected, therefore, the sample size for the field survey was two hundred (200) respondents, and subjected to necessary testing. The research come to conclusion that housing safety and security is the responsibility of every resident, the landlords/landladies possess a better sense of security in their neighbourhood than renters in the community, therefore they need to be aware of their responsibility of ensuring the safety of lives and property.

Keywords: housing, housing affordability, housing security, residential, residential quality

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Authors: Abhimanyu Sharma

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India is known for its cultural heritage. As the country is rich in diversity along its length and breadth, the state of Jammu & Kashmir is world famous for the beautiful tourist destinations in the Kashmir region of the state. However, equally destined destinations are also located in Jammu region of the said state. For most of the time in last 50-60 years, the prime focus of development was centered around Kashmir region. But now due to an ever increase in globalization, the focus is decentralizing throughout the country. Pertinently, the potential of Jammu Region needs to be incorporated into the world tourist map in particular. One such spot in the Jammu region of the state is a place called ‘Mubarak Mandi’ – the palace with the royal residence of the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir from the Dogra Dynasty, is located in the heart of Jammu city (the winter capital of the state). Since the place is destined with a heritage importance but yet lack the supporting infrastructure to attract the national tourist in general and worldwide tourist at large. For such places, conservation and restoration of the existing structures are the potential tools to overcome the present limiting nature of the place. The rejuvenation of this place through potential and dynamic conservation techniques is targeted through this paper. This paper deals with developing and restoring the areas within the whole campus with appropriate building materials, conservation techniques, etc. to promote a great number of visitors by developing it into a prioritised tourist attraction point. Major thrust shall be on studying the criteria’s for developing the place considering the psychological effect needed to create a socially interactive environment. Additionally, thrust shall be on the spatial elements that will aid in creating a common platform for all kinds of tourists. Accordingly, different conservation guidelines (or model) shall be targeted through this paper so that this Jammu region shall also be an equally contributor to the tourist graph of the country as the Kashmir part is.

Keywords: conservation, heritage architecture, rejuvenating, restoration

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Authors: Farhood Rismanchian, Seong Hyeon Park, Young Hoon Lee

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This paper proposes a method to optimize the layout of an emergency department (ED) based on real executions of care processes by considering several planning objectives simultaneously. Recently, demand for healthcare services has been dramatically increased. As the demand for healthcare services increases, so do the need for new healthcare buildings as well as the need for redesign and renovating existing ones. The importance of implementation of a standard set of engineering facilities planning and design techniques has been already proved in both manufacturing and service industry with many significant functional efficiencies. However, high complexity of care processes remains a major challenge to apply these methods in healthcare environments. Process mining techniques applied in this study to tackle the problem of complexity and to enhance care process analysis. Process related information such as clinical pathways extracted from the information system of an ED. A 0-1 goal programming approach is then proposed to find a single layout that simultaneously satisfies several goals. The proposed model solved by optimization software CPLEX 12. The solution reached using the proposed method has 42.2% improvement in terms of walking distance of normal patients and 47.6% improvement in walking distance of critical patients at minimum cost of relocation. It has been observed that lots of patients must unnecessarily walk long distances during their visit to the emergency department because of an inefficient design. A carefully designed layout can significantly decrease patient walking distance and related complications.

Keywords: healthcare operation management, goal programming, facility layout problem, process mining, clinical processes

Procedia PDF Downloads 273

Authors: Ismaila Oladunni Muhammed, Adegbenga Raphael Ashiru

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Construction industry has been attributed to be the engine growth of Nigerian economic and infrastructural development. It promotes infrastructural development and grows an average output of Nigerian Gross Domestic Profit. However, from this great prospect, yearly reports show that consistent accidents on construction sites in Zamfara State has affected a substantial number of workers as they become temporarily or permanently disabled, thereby making many construction sites a death trap. This posed a great threat to the industry’s sustainability, de- motivate workers from working in the industry, and further have negative impact on the economy as well. It is as a result of high construction site accident currently experiencing in Zamfara state that this research was carried out to appraise the sustainability of health and safety of construction workers on sites. The proper practice and compliance to Construction Health and safety laws are very vital to the output and growth of Zamfara State construction sector. However, a quantitative approach was adopted to justify the aforesaid statement which will provide a broader understanding of the study. Descriptive statistical analysis was obtained through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS Version 20). Furthermore, the findings from the research highlighted that the performance and output of construction workers on construction sites depends on the proper practice of health and safety. The research findings also recommended ways to enhance employers and employee’s compliance with existing laws guiding health and safety on Zamfara State construction sites. Nevertheless, the purpose of the paper is to appraise the sustainability of Health and Safety on Zamfara State construction sites. This study further provided thorough information for resolving challenges of construction sites accidents to improve construction firm productivity and also ensured construction worker’s safety on site.

Keywords: construction industry, health and safety regulations, causes of accident, construction safety practices

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Authors: Zafar Iqbal, Nigel P. Grigg, K. Govindaraju, Nicola M. Campbell-Allen

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Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is structured approach. It has been used to improve the quality of products and process in a wide range of fields. Using this systematic tool, practitioners normally rank Voice of Customer ratings (VoCs) in order to produce Improvement Ratios (IRs) which become the basis for prioritising process / product design or improvement activities. In one matrix of the House of Quality (HOQ) competitors are rated. The method of obtaining improvement ratios (IRs) does not always integrate the competitors’ rating in a systematic way that fully utilises competitor rating information. This can have the effect of diverting QFD practitioners’ attention from a potentially important VOC to less important VOC. In order to enhance QFD analysis, we present a more systematic method for integrating competitor ratings, utilising the geometric mean of the customer rating matrix. In this paper we develop a new approach, based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), in which we generating a matrix of multiple comparisons of all competitors, and derive a geometric mean for each competitor. For each VOC an improved IR is derived which-we argue herein - enhances the initial VOC importance ratings by integrating more information about competitor performance. In this way, our method can help overcome one of the possible shortcomings of QFD. We then use a published QFD example from literature as a case study to demonstrate the use of the new AHP-based IRs, and show how these can be used to re-rank existing VOCs to -arguably- better achieve the goal of customer satisfaction in relation VOC ratings and competitors’ rankings. We demonstrate how two dimensional AHP-based geometric mean derived from the multiple competitor comparisons matrix can be useful for analysing competitors’ rankings. Our method utilises an established methodology (AHP) applied within an established application (QFD), but in an original way (through the competitor analysis matrix), to achieve a novel improvement.

Keywords: quality function deployment, geometric mean, improvement ratio, AHP, competitors ratings

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Authors: Layan Moussa, Darine Salam, Samir Mustapha

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Heavy metal contamination in agricultural soils in Lebanon poses serious environmental and health problems. Intensive efforts are employed to improve existing quantification methods of heavy metals in contaminated environments since conventional detection techniques have shown to be time-consuming, tedious, and costly. The implication of hyperspectral remote sensing in this field is possible and promising. However, factors impacting the efficiency of hyperspectral imaging in detecting and quantifying heavy metals in agricultural soils were not thoroughly studied. This study proposes to assess the use of hyperspectral imaging for the detection of Ni in agricultural clay soil collected from the Bekaa Valley, a major agricultural area in Lebanon, under different contamination levels and soil moisture content. Soil samples were contaminated with Ni, with concentrations ranging from 150 mg/kg to 4000 mg/kg. On the other hand, soil with background contamination was subjected to increased moisture levels varying from 5 to 75%. Hyperspectral imaging was used to detect and quantify Ni contamination in the soil at different contamination levels and moisture content. IBM SPSS statistical software was used to develop models that predict the concentration of Ni and moisture content in agricultural soil. The models were constructed using linear regression algorithms. The spectral curves obtained reflected an inverse correlation between both Ni concentration and moisture content with respect to reflectance. On the other hand, the models developed resulted in high values of predicted R2 of 0.763 for Ni concentration and 0.854 for moisture content. Those predictions stated that Ni presence was well expressed near 2200 nm and that of moisture was at 1900 nm. The results from this study would allow us to define the potential of using the hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technique as a reliable and cost-effective alternative for heavy metal pollution detection in contaminated soils and soil moisture prediction.

Keywords: heavy metals, hyperspectral imaging, moisture content, soil contamination

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Authors: Marc Polo, Núria Arbonés Arán

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Amsterdam is considered one of the great European capitals, which concentrates the headquarters of various multinational companies and which, in addition, enjoys a huge tourist attraction. Its typical residential buildings next to the canals, the museums, or its striking "Red Light District" are a great focus of attraction. In 2019 almost 9 million tourists visited it, but few of them traveled to the farthest neighborhood in the city: Amsterdam-Zuidoost (Amsterdam-Southeast). This neighborhood is geographically separated from the urban core, which makes it an exclave of Amsterdam as it does not border any of the other boroughs. Bijlmermeer neighborhood is the largest of the Amsterdam-Zuidoost, and it was born in the 1960s with the expectations of becoming the city of the future. Its main architect, Siegfried Nassuth, was inspired by the Swiss Le Corbusier to design nearly 18,000 homes, most of which were in high-rise tower blocks and built together, forming a recognizable "honeycombed" pattern. For more than 40 years, a series of infrastructure and social vicissitudes have made the neighborhood outline quite different as it was expected to be. It helped also varied elements such as ethnicity, demolitions, or unoccupied apartments. The called “city of the future” became home to immigrants, drug addicts, and vandals, and the conflicts denigrated the Amsterdam-Zuidoost. This work analyzes the evolution of the Bijlmermeer from its origins and illustrates relevant international referents able to help the area. The purpose of the work is to show how different variations along the recent history didn't help enough, but how there are positive perspectives for the future taking advantage of the food as a creative issue. The research, based on academic literature, existing material in different stadiums, plus the analysis of the city imaginaries, will help to concrete relevant elements in terms of innovation, creativity, and disruption. Despite of radical renewal that is taking place, the research will demonstrate that there are still new opportunities for the old Bijlmermeer.

Keywords: amsterdam, bijlmermeer, creativity, food

Procedia PDF Downloads 107