Search results for: international sign training

Authors: Abdul Rofiq Badril Rizal M. Z.

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This case study examines the experiences of four beginning teachers currently working in New South Wales secondary schools. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews conducted one on one over the period of one month. The data were coded with findings reported through key areas of discovery, which linked to the research presented in the literature review. The participants involved in the case study all reported positive experiences with mentoring, though none were given the opportunity to take part in a formal mentoring program, and all the mentors offered their time voluntarily. The mentoring took different forms, but the support most valued by the participants was the emotional and curriculum related supported received. All participants wished they had greater access to mentoring and felt it would have benefits for most beginning teachers. The study highlights ongoing issues around the lack of access to mentoring, which could be due to factors such as funding, time and training.

Keywords: mentor, mentee, pre-service teacher, beginning teacher

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Authors: Md Maruf Hossain Koli

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The issue of child labor is enormous and cannot be ignored in Bangladesh. The problem of child exploitation is a socio-economic reality of Bangladesh. This paper will indicate the causes, consequences, and possibilities of using microfinance as remedies of hazardous child labor in Bangladesh. Poverty is one of the main reasons for children to become child laborers. It is an indication of economic vulnerability, inadequate law, and enforcement system and cultural and social inequities along with the inaccessible and low-quality educational system. An attempt will be made in this paper to explore and analyze child labor scenario in Bangladesh and will explain holistic intervention of BRAC, the largest nongovernmental organization in the world to address child labor through promoting incubation support to youth-led enterprises. A combination of research methods were used to write this paper. These include non-reactive observation in the form of literature review, desk studies as well as reactive observation like site visits and, semi-structured interviews. Hazardous Child labor is a multi-dimensional and complex issue. This paper was guided by the answer following research questions to better understand the current context of hazardous child labor in Bangladesh, especially in Dhaka city. The author attempted to figure out why child labor should be considered as a development issue? Further, it also encountered why child labor in Bangladesh is not being reduced at an expected pace? And finally what could be a sustainable solution to eradicate this situation. One of the most challenging characteristics of child labor is that it interrupts a child’s education and cognitive development hence limiting the building of human capital and fostering intergenerational reproduction of poverty and social exclusion. Children who are working full-time and do not attend school, cannot develop the necessary skills. This leads them and their future generation to remain in poor socio-economic condition as they do not get a better paying job. The vicious cycle of poverty will be reproduced and will slow down sustainable development. The outcome of the research suggests that most of the parents send their children to work to help them to increase family income. In addition, most of the youth engaged in hazardous work want to get training, mentoring and easy access to finance to start their own business. The intervention of BRAC that includes classroom and on the job training, tailored mentoring, health support, access to microfinance and insurance help them to establish startup. This intervention is working in developing business and management capacity through public-private partnerships and technical consulting. Supporting entrepreneurs, improving working conditions with micro, small and medium enterprises and strengthening value chains focusing on youth and children engaged with hazardous child labor.

Keywords: child labour, enterprise development, microfinance, youth entrepreneurship

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Authors: Agi Sunday, Agih Ukuru Agih

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In Nigeria, the food processing sector is dominated by small and medium enterprises, as well as multinational food companies. Quality standards are usually related to improving the safety of food products suitable for consumption in accordance to specifications by food regulatory bodies. These standards are essential elements for local and international businesses which contribute to economic progress through industrial development and trade. This review takes a critical look on the Nigerian food industry development in terms of quality standards that are necessary to be given consideration in the production of food and also ways of improving food production in Nigeria through the use of Total Quality Management (TQM) technique and the use of computerized systems to produce high quality and high value products while at the same time reducing production time and cost.

Keywords: food industry, quality assurance, Nigeria, TQM, computerized systems

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Authors: A. Anastasiou, K. S. Tingay

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Background: Discovering suitable datasets is an important part of health research, particularly for projects working with clinical data from patients organized in cohorts (cohort data), but with the proliferation of so many national and international initiatives, it is becoming increasingly difficult for research teams to locate real world datasets that are most relevant to their project objectives. We present a method for identifying healthcare institutes in the European Union (EU) which may hold haemato-oncology (HO) data. A key enabler of this research was the bibInsight platform, a scientometric data management and analysis system developed by the authors at Swansea University. Method: A PubMed search was conducted using HO clinical terms taken from previous work. The resulting XML file was processed using the bibInsight platform, linking affiliations to the Global Research Identifier Database (GRID). GRID is an international, standardized list of institutions, including the city and country in which the institution exists, as well as a category of the main business type, e.g., Academic, Healthcare, Government, Company. Countries were limited to the 28 current EU members, and institute type to 'Healthcare'. An article was considered valid if at least one author was affiliated with an EU-based healthcare institute. Results: The PubMed search produced 21,310 articles, consisting of 9,885 distinct affiliations with correspondence in GRID. Of these articles, 760 were from EU countries, and 390 of these were healthcare institutes. One affiliation was excluded as being a veterinary hospital. Two EU countries did not have any publications in our analysis dataset. The results were analysed by country and by individual healthcare institute. Networks both within the EU and internationally show institutional collaborations, which may suggest a willingness to share data for research purposes. Geographical mapping can ensure that data has broad population coverage. Collaborations with industry or government may exclude healthcare institutes that may have embargos or additional costs associated with data access. Conclusions: Data reuse is becoming increasingly important both for ensuring the validity of results, and economy of available resources. The ability to identify potential, specific data sources from over twenty thousand articles in less than an hour could assist in improving knowledge of, and access to, data sources. As our method has not yet specified if these healthcare institutes are holding data, or merely publishing on that topic, future work will involve text mining of data-specific concordant terms to identify numbers of participants, demographics, study methodologies, and sub-topics of interest.

Keywords: data reuse, data discovery, data linkage, journal articles, text mining

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Authors: Wei Hing Rosenkvist

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In the past few decades, concerns and demands of promoting student intercultural communicative competence in foreign language education have been increasing along with the rapid growth of information technologies and globalization in the 21st century. In Sweden, related concepts such as internationalization, global citizenship, multiculturalism, and intercultural communication etc., are also keywords that would be found in the written learning objectives of the foreign language education in all levels. Being one of the leading higher institutes in distance education in Europe, Dalarna University clearly states that after completion of the teacher education program, students shall understand the needs for integrating internationalization, intercultural and global perspective in teaching and learning in Swedish schools and implement their own studies to promote education in an international and global context. Despite the fact that many teachers and educators agree with the institutes’ mission and vision about the importance of internationalization and the need of increasing student understanding of intercultural and global perspective, they might find this objective unattainable and restricted due to the nature of the subject and their personal knowledge of intercultural competence. When conducting a comprehensive Chinese language course for the students who are going to become Chinese foreign language teachers, the researcher found that all the learning objectives are linguistic oriented while grammatical components dominate the entire course. Apparently, there is a gap between the learning objectives of the course and the DU’s mission of fostering an international learner with intercultural and globalized perspectives. How to include this macro-learning objective in a foreign language course is a great challenge to the educator. Although scholars from different academic domains have provided different theoretical frameworks and approaches for developing student intercultural competence, research that focuses on the didactic perspectives of developing student intercultural competence in teaching Chinese as a foreign language education (CFL) is limited and practical examples are rare. This has motivated the researcher to conduct an action research study that aims at integrating DU’s macro-learning objective in a current CFL course through different didactic practices with a purpose of developing the teacher student intercultural competence. This research study aims to, firstly, illustrate the cross-cultural knowledge integrated into the present Chinese language course for developing intercultural competence. Secondly, it investigates different didactic means that can be utilized to deliver cross-cultural knowledge to student teachers in the present course without generating dramatic disturbance of the syllabus. Thirdly, it examines the effectiveness of these didactic means in enhancing teacher student intercultural competence regarding the need for integrating and implementing internationalization, intercultural and global perspectives in teaching and learning in Swedish schools. Last but not least, it intends to serve as a practical example for developing the student teachers’ intercultural competence in foreign language education in DU and fill in the research gap of this academic domain worldwide.

Keywords: intercultural competence, foreign language education, action research, teacher education

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Authors: Husen Ahmed Tura

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There are strong links between secure land rights and food security in Africa. However, as land is owned by governments, land users do not have adequate legislative protection. This article explores normative and implementation gaps in relation to small-scale farmers’ land rights under the Ethiopia’s law. It finds that the law facilitates eviction of small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples from their land without adequate alternative means of livelihood. It argues that as access to land and other natural resources is strongly linked to the right to adequate food, Ethiopia should reform its land laws in the light of its legal obligations under international human rights law to respect, protect and fulfill the right to adequate food and ensure freedom from hunger.

Keywords: smallholder, secure land rights , food security, right to food, land grabbing, forced evictions

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Authors: Kevin Wongleedee

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This research paper was aimed to examine the reasons associated with hotel employees’ loyalty. This was a case study of 200 hotel employees in Bangkok, Thailand. The population of this study included all hotel employees who were working in Bangkok during January to March, 2014. Based on 200 respondents who answered the questionnaire, the data were complied by using SPSS. Mean and standard deviation were utilized in analyzing the data. The findings revealed that the average mean of importance was 4.40, with 0.7585 of standard deviation. Moreover, the mean average can be used to rank the level of importance from each factor as follows: 1) salary, service charge cut, and benefits, 2) career development and possible advancement, 3) freedom of working, thinking, and ability to use my initiative, 4) training opportunities, 5) social involvement and positive environment, 6) fair treatment in the workplace and fair evaluation of job performance, and 7) personal satisfaction, participation, and recognition.

Keywords: hotel employees, loyalty, reasons, case study

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Authors: Pouriya Angosht Baft, Farzan Safari Sabet

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Globalization should be considered as a process that has affected all areas of human activity, including the foreign policy of countries. The phenomenon of globalization has created tremendous changes in the economic, political and cultural fields. Obviously, no country can keep itself away from the new global consequences and globalization process. Dealing with the world requires formulating a realistic and intelligent foreign policy. By examining the phenomenon of globalization and its impact on foreign policy, this article aims to provide solutions for formulating a more active and effective foreign policy. The conclusion of this research is that Iran's foreign policy has gradually moved towards more realism and maintaining and strengthening national interests in the changing world has been the focus of foreign policy makers and decision makers. Strengthening the course of more realism in the future should be at the center of formulating Iran's foreign policy.

Keywords: globalization, foreign policy, international relations, realism, iran

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Authors: M. Pellerone, S. G. Razza, L. Miano, A. Miccichè, M. Adamo

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The teacher’s attitude plays a decisive role in promoting the development of the non-native or disabled student and counteracting hypothetical negative attitudes and prejudice towards those who are “different”.The objective of the present research is to measure the relationship between teachers’ prejudices towards disabled and/or immigrant students as predictors of teaching-learning strategies. A cross-sectional study involved 200 Italian female teachers who completed an anamnestic questionnaire, the Assessment Teaching Scale, the Italian Modern and Classical Prejudices Scale towards people with ID, and the Pettigrew and Meertens’ Blatant Subtle Prejudice Scale. Confirming research hypotheses, data underlines the predictive role of prejudice on teaching strategies, and in particular on the socio-emotional and communicative-relational dimensions. Results underline that general training appears necessary, especially for younger generations of teachers.

Keywords: disabled students, immigrant students, instructional competence, prejudice, teachers

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Authors: Clarissa Valença Travassos da Silva

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In this article, it is intended to study the book “The unbearable Lightness of Being” by the Czech Republican writer Milan Kundera. The main objective is to be an interdisciplinary study basis for students in the world about love and politics at old communist Czechoslovakia. Love is presented by discussing the relationship between Tomas and Tereza and the discovery of true love. Furthermore, it is debated the Russian invasion in Czechoslovakia and the outcomes of it for the personages, all this related to the contradiction of lightness and heaviness in life. For the production of this didactic material, the researcher based her work on the original book, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Kundera, Milan Kundera’s interviews, Friedrich Nietzche, Zygmunt Bauman and George Orwell, among Brazilian and international articles on the issue.

Keywords: lightness, heaviness, Russia, Czechoslovakia, love

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Authors: T. S. Terence Ma, Irene T. Ho

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Conducting adequate assessment of the challenges students with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) face and the support they need is imperative for promoting their school adjustment. Students with ASD often show deficits in communication, social interaction, emotional regulation, and self-management in learning. While targeting these areas in intervention is often helpful, we argue that not enough attention has been paid to weak self-regulation being a key factor underlying their manifest difficulty in all these areas. Self-regulation refers to one’s ability to moderate their behavioral or affective responses without assistance from others. Especially for students with high functioning autism, who often show problems not so much in acquiring the needed skills but rather in applying those skills appropriately in everyday problem-solving, self-regulation becomes a key to successful adjustment in daily life. Therefore, a greater understanding of the construct of self-regulation, its relationship with other daily skills, and its role in school functioning for students with ASD would generate insights on how students’ school adjustment could be promoted more effectively. There were two focuses in this study. Firstly, we examined the extent to which self-regulation is a distinct construct that is differentiable from other daily skills and the most salient indicators of this construct. Then we tested a model of relationships between self-regulation and other daily school skills as well as their relative and combined effects on school adjustment. A total of 1,345 Grade1 to Grade 6 students with ASD attending mainstream schools in Hong Kong participated in the research. In the first stage of the study, teachers filled out a questionnaire consisting of 136 items assessing a wide range of student skills in social, emotional and learning areas. Results from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with 673 participants and subsequent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with another group of 672 participants showed that there were five distinct factors of school skills, namely (1) communication skills, (2) pro-social behavior, (3) emotional skills, (4) learning management, and (5) self-regulation. Five scales representing these skill dimensions were generated. In the second stage of the study, a model postulating the mediating role of self-regulation for the effects of the other four types of skills on school adjustment was tested with structural equation modeling (SEM). School adjustment was defined in terms of the extent to which the student is accepted well in school, with high engagement in school life and self-esteem as well as good interpersonal relationships. A 5-item scale was used to assess these aspects of school adjustment. Results showed that communication skills, pro-social behavior, emotional skills and learning management had significant effects on school adjustment only indirectly through self-regulation, and their total effects were found to be not high. The results indicate that support rendered to students with ASD focusing only on the training of well-defined skills is not adequate for promoting their inclusion in school. More attention should be paid to the training of self-management with an emphasis on the application of skills backed by self-regulation. Also, other non-skill factors are important in promoting inclusive education.

Keywords: autism, assessment, factor analysis, self-regulation, school adjustment

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Authors: Linda Kauškale, Ineta Geipele

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Due to the rapidly changing external environment, portfolio management strategies became closely interconnected with real estate industry development and macroeconomic development tendencies. The aim of the research is to analyze sustainable real estate market development influencing factors, with particular focus on its economic and management aspects that influences real estate investment decisions as well. Scientific literature and article analysis, data analysis, expert evaluation, and other quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in the research. Developed real estate market sustainability model and index analysis approach can be applied by investors and real estate companies in real estate asset management and can help in risk minimization activities in international entrepreneurship. Future research directions have been identified in the research as well.

Keywords: indexes, investment decisions, real estate market, sustainability

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Authors: Azeez Ayodele Ayodele

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This paper investigated the problem of picture books design and the quality of the pictures in picture books. The research surveyed nursery and primary schools in four major cities in southwest of Nigeria. The instruments including the descriptive survey questionnaire and a structured interview were developed, validated and administered for collection of relevant data. Descriptive statistics was used in analyzing the data. The result of the study revealed that there were poor quality of pictures in picture books and this is due to scarcity of trained graphic designers who understand systems approach to picture books design and production. There is thus a need for more qualified graphic designers, given in-service professional training as well as a refresher course as criteria for upgrading by the stakeholders.

Keywords: pictures, picture books, pre-primary schools, trained graphic designers

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Authors: Jeerasak Wisatphan, Nara Samattapapong

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This study's goals were to enhance nitroglycerin manufacturing efficiency through simulation, recover nitroglycerin from the storage facility, and enhance nitroglycerine recovery and purge systems. It was found that the problem was nitroglycerin reflux. Therefore, the researcher created three alternatives to solve the problem. The system of Nitroglycerine Recovery and Purge was then simulated using the FlexSim program, and each alternative was tested. The results demonstrate that the alternative system-led Nitroglycerine Recovery and Nitroglycerine Purge System collaborate to produce Nitroglycerine, which is more efficient than other alternatives and can reduce production time. It can also improve the recovery of nitroglycerin. It also serves as a guideline for developing a real-world system and modeling it for training staff without wasting raw chemical materials or fuel energy.

Keywords: efficiency increase, nitroglycerine recovery and purge system, production improvement, simulation

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Authors: Dipanwita Chakravortty

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Officially, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) follows a policy of 'gender equality and partnership' which institutionalises norms regarding equal duty towards the nation. It reiterates the equality in unbiased opportunities and resources for Jewish men and women to participate in the military as equal citizens. At the same time, as a military institution, the IDF supports gender biases and crystallises the same through various interactions among women soldiers, male soldiers and the institution. These biases are expressed through various stages and processes in the military institution like biased training, discriminatory postings of women soldiers, lack of combat training and acceptance of sexual harassment. The gender-military debates in Israel is largely devoted to female emancipation and converting the militarised women’s experiences into mainstream debates. This critical scholarship, largely female-based and located in Israel, has been consistently critical of the structural policies of the IDF that have led to continued discriminatory practices against women soldiers. This has compelled the military to increase its intake of women soldiers and make its structural policies more gender-friendly. Nonetheless, the continued thriving of gender discrimination in the IDF resulted in scholars looking deep into the failure of these policies in bringing about a change. This article looks into two research objectives, firstly to analyse existing gender relations in the IDF which impact the practices and prejudices in the institution and secondly to look beyond the structural discrimination as part of the gender debates in the IDF. The proposed research uses the structural-functional model as a framework to study the discourses and norms emerging out of the interaction between gender and military as two distinct social institutions. Changing gender-military debates will be discussed in great detail to understanding the in-depth relation between the Israeli society and the military due to the conscription model. The main arguments of the paper deal with the functional aspect of the military service rather than the structural component of the institution. Traditional stereotypes of military institutions along with cultural notions of a female body restrict the complete integration of women soldiers despite favourable legislations and policies. These result in functional discriminations like uneven promotion, sexual violence, restructuring gender identities and creating militarised bodies. The existing prejudices encourage younger women recruits to choose from within the accepted pink-collared jobs in the military rather than ‘breaking the barriers.’ Some women recruits do try to explore new avenues and make a mark for themselves. Most of them face stiff discrimination but they accept it as part of military life. The cyclical logic behind structural norms leading to functional discrimination which then emphasises traditional stereotypes and hampers change in the institutional norms compels the IDF to continue to strive towards gender equality within the institution without practical realisation.

Keywords: women soldiers, Israel Defence Forces, gender-military debates, security studies

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Authors: Soyon Kim, Edward Kim

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In order to retrieve information from the massive stream of songs in the music industry, music search by title, lyrics, artist, mood, and genre has become more important. Despite the subjectivity and controversy over the definition of music genres across different nations and cultures, automatic genre classification systems that facilitate the process of music categorization have been developed. Manual genre selection by music producers is being provided as statistical data for designing automatic genre classification systems. In this paper, an automatic music genre classification system utilizing non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is proposed. Short-term characteristics of the music signal can be captured based on the timbre features such as mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC), decorrelated filter bank (DFB), octave-based spectral contrast (OSC), and octave band sum (OBS). Long-term time-varying characteristics of the music signal can be summarized with (1) the statistical features such as mean, variance, minimum, and maximum of the timbre features and (2) the modulation spectrum features such as spectral flatness measure, spectral crest measure, spectral peak, spectral valley, and spectral contrast of the timbre features. Not only these conventional basic long-term feature vectors, but also NMF based feature vectors are proposed to be used together for genre classification. In the training stage, NMF basis vectors were extracted for each genre class. The NMF features were calculated in the log spectral magnitude domain (NMF-LSM) as well as in the basic feature vector domain (NMF-BFV). For NMF-LSM, an entire full band spectrum was used. However, for NMF-BFV, only low band spectrum was used since high frequency modulation spectrum of the basic feature vectors did not contain important information for genre classification. In the test stage, using the set of pre-trained NMF basis vectors, the genre classification system extracted the NMF weighting values of each genre as the NMF feature vectors. A support vector machine (SVM) was used as a classifier. The GTZAN multi-genre music database was used for training and testing. It is composed of 10 genres and 100 songs for each genre. To increase the reliability of the experiments, 10-fold cross validation was used. For a given input song, an extracted NMF-LSM feature vector was composed of 10 weighting values that corresponded to the classification probabilities for 10 genres. An NMF-BFV feature vector also had a dimensionality of 10. Combined with the basic long-term features such as statistical features and modulation spectrum features, the NMF features provided the increased accuracy with a slight increase in feature dimensionality. The conventional basic features by themselves yielded 84.0% accuracy, but the basic features with NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV provided 85.1% and 84.2% accuracy, respectively. The basic features required dimensionality of 460, but NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV required dimensionalities of 10 and 10, respectively. Combining the basic features, NMF-LSM and NMF-BFV together with the SVM with a radial basis function (RBF) kernel produced the significantly higher classification accuracy of 88.3% with a feature dimensionality of 480.

Keywords: mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC), music genre classification, non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), support vector machine (SVM)

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Authors: Karina Zaccari, Ernesto Cordeiro Marujo

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This paper presents a Machine Learning (ML) approach to support Meningitis diagnosis in patients at a children’s hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The aim is to use ML techniques to reduce the use of invasive procedures, such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) collection, as much as possible. In this study, we focus on predicting the probability of Meningitis given the results of a blood and urine laboratory tests, together with the analysis of pain or other complaints from the patient. We tested a number of different ML algorithms, including: Adaptative Boosting (AdaBoost), Decision Tree, Gradient Boosting, K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Logistic Regression, Random Forest and Support Vector Machines (SVM). Decision Tree algorithm performed best, with 94.56% and 96.18% accuracy for training and testing data, respectively. These results represent a significant aid to doctors in diagnosing Meningitis as early as possible and in preventing expensive and painful procedures on some children.

Keywords: machine learning, medical diagnosis, meningitis detection, pediatric research

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Authors: Todd Enslen

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In order to attract more international students to study for undergraduate degrees in Japan, many universities have been developing English-Medium Instruction degree programs. This means that many faculty members must now teach their courses in English, which raises a number of concerns. A common misconception of English-Medium Instruction (EMI) is that teaching in English is simply a matter of translating materials. Since much of the teaching in Japan still relies on a more traditional, teachercentered, approach, continuing with this style in an EMI environment that targets international students can cause a clash between what is happening and what students expect in the classroom, not to mention what the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has shown is effective teaching. A variety of considerations need to be taken into account in EMI classrooms such as varying English abilities of the students, modifying input material, and assuring comprehension through interactional checks. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the English-Medium Instruction (EMI) undergraduate degree programs in engineering, agriculture, and science at a large research university in Japan by presenting the results from student surveys regarding the areas where perceived improvements need to be made. The students were the most dissatisfied with communication with their teachers in English, communication with Japanese students in English, adherence to only English being used in the classes, and the quality of the education they received. In addition, the results of a needs analysis survey of Japanese teachers having to teach in English showed that they believed they were most in need of English vocabulary and expressions to use in the classroom and teaching methods for teaching in English. The result from the student survey and the faculty survey show similar concerns between the two groups. By helping the teachers to understand student-centered teaching and the benefits for learning that it provides, teachers may begin to incorporate more student-centered approaches that in turn help to alleviate the dissatisfaction students are currently experiencing. Through analyzing the current environment in Japanese higher education against established best practices in teaching and EMI, three areas that need to be addressed in professional development workshops were identified. These were “culture” as it relates to the English language, “classroom management techniques” and ways to incorporate them into classes, and “language” issues. Materials used to help faculty better understand best practices as they relate to these specific areas will be provided to help practitioners begin the process of helping EMI faculty build awareness of better teaching practices. Finally, the results from faculty development workshops participants’ surveys will show the impact that these workshops can have. Almost all of the participants indicated that they learned something new and would like to incorporate the ideas from the workshop into their teaching. In addition, the vast majority of the participants felt the workshop provided them with new information, and they would like more workshops like these.

Keywords: English-medium instruction, materials development, professional development, teaching effectiveness

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Authors: J. Daniel Sanchez Ruiz

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The paper explains why and how a research criterion was included within an accreditation system for undergraduate engineering programs, in spite of not being a common practice of accreditation agencies at a global level. This paper is divided into three parts. The first presents the context and the motivations that led the Institute for Quality and Accreditation of Computing, Engineering and Technology Programs (ICACIT) to add a research criterion. The second describes the criterion adopted and the feedback received during 2017 accreditation cycle. The third, the author proposes changes to the accreditation criteria that respond in a pertinent way to the results-based accreditation model and the national context. The author seeks to reconcile an outcome based accreditation model, aligned with the established by the International Engineering Alliance, with the particular context of higher education in Peru.

Keywords: accreditation, engineering education, quality assurance, research

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Authors: Mekdes Getu Chekol, Biniam Tedros Kahsay, Rahwa Berihu Haile

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The main objective of this study is to investigate the marketing strategy practice in the Case of St. George Brewery Factory in Addis Ababa. One of the core activities in a Business Company to stay in business is having a well-developed marketing strategy. It assessed how the marketing strategies were practiced in the company to achieve its goals aligned with segmentation, target market, positioning, and the marketing mix elements to satisfy customer requirements. Using primary and secondary data, the study is conducted by using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The primary data was collected through open and closed-ended questionnaires. Considering the size of the population is small, the selection of the respondents was carried out by using a census. The finding shows that the company used all the 4 Ps of the marketing mix elements in its marketing strategies and provided quality products at affordable prices by promoting its products by using high and effective advertising mechanisms. The product availability and accessibility are admirable with the practices of both direct and indirect distribution channels. On the other hand, the company has identified its target customers, and the company’s market segmentation practice is geographical location. Communication effectiveness between the marketing department and other departments is very good. The adjusted R2 model explains 61.6% of the marketing strategy practice variance by product, price, promotion, and place. The remaining 38.4% of variation in the dependent variable was explained by other factors not included in this study. The result reveals that all four independent variables, product, price, promotion, and place, have a positive beta sign, proving that predictor variables have a positive effect on that of the predicting dependent variable marketing strategy practice. Even though the marketing strategies of the company are effectively practiced, there are some problems that the company faces while implementing them. These are infrastructure problems, economic problems, intensive competition in the market, shortage of raw materials, seasonality of consumption, socio-cultural problems, and the time and cost of awareness creation for the customers. Finally, the authors suggest that the company better develop a long-range view and try to implement a more structured approach to attain information about potential customers, competitor’s actions, and market intelligence within the industry. In addition, we recommend conducting the study by increasing the sample size and including different marketing factors.

Keywords: marketing strategy, market segmentation, target marketing, market positioning, marketing mix

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Authors: Dora Martins, Susana Silva, Cândida Silva

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Human Resources Management (HRM) has been recognized by academics and practitioners as an important element in organizations. Therefore, this paper explores the best practices of HRM and seeks to understand the level of participation in the development of these practices by human resources managers in the hospitality industry and compare it with other industries. Thus, the study compared the HRM practices of companies in the hospitality sector with HRM practices of companies in other sectors, and identifies the main differences between their HRM practices. The results show that the most frequent HRM practices in all companies, independently of its sector of activity, are hiring and training. When comparing hospitality sector with other sectors of activity, some differences were noticed, namely in the adoption of the practices of communication and information sharing, and of recruitment and selection. According to these results, the paper discusses the major theoretical and practical implications. Suggestions for future research are also presented.

Keywords: exploratory study, human resources management practices, human resources manager, hospitality companies, Portuguese companies

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Authors: Renata L. C. Leão, João E. Nascimento, Natalia C. E. S. Nascimento, Elaine S. Vasconcelos, Mércia L. Oliveira

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The quality control procedures of a radiopharmaceutical include the assessment of its chemical purity. The method suggested by international pharmacopeias consists of a thin layer chromatographic run. In this paper, the method proposed by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) is compared to a direct method to determine the final concentration of aminopolyether in Fludeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) preparations. The approach (no chromatographic run) was achieved by placing the thin-layer chromatography (TLC) plate directly on an iodine vapor chamber. Both methods were validated and they showed adequate results to determine the concentration of aminopolyether in ¹⁸F-FDG preparations. However, the direct method is more sensitive, faster and simpler when compared to the reference method (with chromatographic run), and it may be chosen for use in routine quality control of ¹⁸F-FDG.

Keywords: chemical purity, Kryptofix 222, thin layer chromatography, validation

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Authors: Hadeel Abdulatif, Maha Alkhaffaf

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E-government is the use of Information and Communication Technology to enrich the access to and delivery of government services to citizens, business partners and employees, Policy makers and regulatory bodies have to be cognizant of the degree of readiness of a populace in order to design and implement efficient e-government programs. This paper aims to provide a transparent situation analyses for the case of e-government official website in Jordan, it focuses on assessing e-government in Jordan; web site assessment by using international criteria for assessing e-government websites, However, the study analyses the environmental factor consisting of cultural and business environment factors. By reviewing the literature the researchers found that government's efforts towards e-government may vary according to the country's readiness and other key implementation factors which will lead to diverse e-government experience; thus, there is a need to study the impact of key factors to implement e-government in Jordan.

Keywords: e-government, environmental factors, website assessment, readiness

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Authors: Hassan Masoumi, Ahad Salimi, Nazanin Barhemmat, Babak Gholami

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Artificial neural networks have gained a lot of interest as empirical models for their powerful representational capacity, multi input and output mapping characteristics. In fact, most feed-forward networks with nonlinear nodal functions have been proved to be universal approximates. In this paper, we propose a new supervised method for color image classification based on self organizing feature maps (SOFM). This algorithm is based on competitive learning. The method partitions the input space using self-organizing feature maps to introduce the concept of local neighborhoods. Our image classification system entered into RGB image. Experiments with simulated data showed that separability of classes increased when increasing training time. In additional, the result shows proposed algorithms are effective for color image classification.

Keywords: classification, SOFM algorithm, neural network, neighborhood, RGB image

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Authors: Larisa Akhmylovskaia, Andriana Barysh

Abstract:

The present paper is introducing the translation score developing methodology and methods in the cross-cultural communication. The ideas and examples presented by the authors illustrate the universal character of translation score developing methods under analysis. Personal experience in the international theatre-making projects, opera laboratories, cross-cultural master-classes give more opportunities to single out the conditions, forms, means and principles of translation score developing as well as the translator/interpreter’s functions as cultural liaison for multiethnic collaboration.

Keywords: methodology of translation score developing, pre-production, analysis, production, post-production, ethnic scene theory, theatre anthropology, laboratory, master-class, educational project, academic project, participant observation, super-objective

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Authors: Hsiao-Lin Fang

Abstract:

The Patient Self-Determination Act is based on the belief that each life is unique. The act regards each patient as an autonomous entity and explicitly protects the patient’s rights to know and make decisions and choices while ensuring that the patient’s wish for a peaceful end is granted. Even when the patient is unconscious and unable to express himself/herself, the patient’s self-determination and its exercise are still protected under the law. The act also ensures that healthcare professionals (HCPs) have a specific set of rules to follow and complete legal protection when their patients are unable to express themselves clearly. This report is about a 55-year-old female patient who weighed 110 kg and was diagnosed with acute type A aortic dissection. The case was that the patient suddenly felt backache and nausea during sleep before daybreak and was therefore transferred to this hospital from the original one. After the doctor explained the patient’s conditions, it was concluded that surgery was necessary. However, the patient’s family was immediately against the surgery after having heard its possible complications. Nevertheless, the patient was still willing to receive the surgery. Being at odds with her family, the patient decided to sign the surgery agreement herself and agreed to receive the two surgical procedures: (1) ascending aorta replacement and (2) innominate artery debranching. After the surgery, the patient did not regain consciousness and therefore received computed tomography scanning of the brain, which revealed false lumen involving proximal left common carotid artery, left subclavian artery and innominate artery, and severe compression of the true lumen with total/subtotal occlusion in the left common carotid artery. On the following day, the doctor discussed two further surgical procedures: (1) endografting for descending aorta and (2) endografting for left common carotid artery and subclavian artery with the family. However, as the patient’s postoperative recovery of consciousness only reached the level of stupor and her family had no intention of subsequent healthcare for the patient, the family made the joint decision three days later to have the endotracheal tube removed from the patient and let her die a natural death. Suggestion: An advance directive (AD) can be created beforehand. Once the patient is in a special clinical state (e.g., terminal illness, permanent vegetative state, etc.), the AD can determine whether to sustain the patient’s life through ‘medical intervention’ or to respect the patient’s rights to choose a peaceful end and receive palliative care. Through the expression of self-determination, it is possible to respect the patient’s medical practice autonomy and protect the patient’s dignity and right to a peaceful end, thereby respecting and supporting the patient’s decision. This also allows the three sides: the patient, the family and the medical team to understand the patient’s true wish in the process of advance care planning (ACP) and thereby promote harmony in the HCP-patient relationship.

Keywords: intensive care unit patient, cardiovascular surgery, self-determination, advance directive

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Authors: Nutcha Taneepanichskul, Helen C. Hailes, Mark Miodownik

Abstract:

Plastic waste has emerged as a critical global environmental challenge, primarily driven by the prevalent use of conventional plastics derived from petrochemical refining and manufacturing processes in modern packaging. While these plastics serve vital functions, their persistence in the environment post-disposal poses significant threats to ecosystems. Addressing this issue necessitates approaches, one of which involves the development of biodegradable plastics designed to degrade under controlled conditions, such as industrial composting facilities. It is imperative to note that compostable plastics are engineered for degradation within specific environments and are not suited for uncontrolled settings, including natural landscapes and aquatic ecosystems. The full benefits of compostable packaging are realized when subjected to industrial composting, preventing environmental contamination and waste stream pollution. Therefore, effective sorting technologies are essential to enhance composting rates for these materials and diminish the risk of contaminating recycling streams. In this study, it leverage hyperspectral imaging technology (HSI) coupled with advanced machine learning algorithms to accurately identify various types of plastics, encompassing conventional variants like Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Polypropylene (PP), Low density polyethylene (LDPE), High density polyethylene (HDPE) and biodegradable alternatives such as Polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT), Polylactic acid (PLA), and Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). The dataset is partitioned into three subsets: a training dataset comprising uncontaminated conventional and biodegradable plastics, a validation dataset encompassing contaminated plastics of both types, and a testing dataset featuring real-world packaging items in both pristine and contaminated states. Five distinct machine learning algorithms, namely Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Logistic Regression, and Decision Tree Algorithm, were developed and evaluated for their classification performance. Remarkably, the Logistic Regression and CNN model exhibited the most promising outcomes, achieving a perfect accuracy rate of 100% for the training and validation datasets. Notably, the testing dataset yielded an accuracy exceeding 80%. The successful implementation of this sorting technology within recycling and composting facilities holds the potential to significantly elevate recycling and composting rates. As a result, the envisioned circular economy for plastics can be established, thereby offering a viable solution to mitigate plastic pollution.

Keywords: biodegradable plastics, sorting technology, hyperspectral imaging technology, machine learning algorithms

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Authors: Susmita Panda, Arnab Banerjee, Ajinkya Baxy, Bappaditya Manna

Abstract:

The design of short to medium-span high-speed bridges in critical locations is an essential aspect of vehicle-bridge interaction. Due to dynamic interaction between moving load and bridge, mathematical models or finite element modeling computations become time-consuming. Thus, to reduce the computational effort, a universal approximator using an artificial neural network (ANN) has been used to evaluate the dynamic response of the bridge. The data set generation and training of surrogate models have been conducted over the results obtained from mathematical modeling. Further, the robustness of the surrogate model has been investigated, which showed an error percentage of less than 10% with conventional methods. Additionally, the dependency of the dynamic response of the bridge on various load and bridge parameters has been highlighted through a parametric study.

Keywords: artificial neural network, mode superposition method, moving load analysis, surrogate models

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Authors: Boudemagh Naime

Abstract:

Automatic radar detection requires some methods of adapting to variations in the background clutter in order to control their false alarm rate. The problem becomes more complicated in non-Gaussian environment. In fact, the conventional approach in real time applications requires a complex statistical modeling and much computational operations. To overcome these constraints, we propose another approach based on artificial neural network (ANN-CMLD-CFAR) using a Back Propagation (BP) training algorithm. The considered environment follows a log-normal distribution in the presence of multiple Rayleigh-targets. To evaluate the performances of the considered detector, several situations, such as scale parameter and the number of interferes targets, have been investigated. The simulation results show that the ANN-CMLD-CFAR processor outperforms the conventional statistical one.

Keywords: radat detection, ANN-CMLD-CFAR, log-normal clutter, statistical modelling

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Authors: Muhammad Naeem, Syed M. Moeen-ud-Din Raheel, Muhammad Arshad, Muhammad Naeem Qaisar, Muhammad Khalid, Muhammad Zubair Ahmed, Muhammad Ashraf

Abstract:

Iron, Copper, Cadmium, Zinc, Manganese, Chromium levels were estimated to study the risk of trace elements on human consumption. The area of collection was Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan and was evaluated by means of flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The standards find in favor of the six heavy metals were in accordance with the threshold edge concentrations on behalf of fish meat obligatory by European and other international normative. Regressions were achieved for both size (length and weight) and condition factor with concentrations of metal present in the fish body.

Keywords: Oreochromis mossambica, toxic analysis, body size, condition factor

Procedia PDF Downloads 564