Search results for: legal strategies

Authors: Yvonne Nanaama Brew, Bismark Jampim Abrokwah

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Children with disabilities in Ghana are not routinely registered, and this can imply that they may be neglected in national policy planning since global estimates may not be near the exact numbers. Although there are some studies with reports on the prevalence of disability among children in Ghana, reliable information on the prevalence, types of disability in children, and children who die with disabilities in the Greater Accra region are lacking. The current study seeks to investigate the incidence of disability among children two to fourteen years at selected districts in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. A cross-sectional design is adapted with a quantitative method for this study. Parents with disabled children who access child welfare clinics at the Greater Accra regional hospital, Maamobi hospital, Ga west, and Ga south district hospitals will be selected through purposive sampling for the study. An adapted UNICEF structured Ten Questions will be used to collect relevant data about participants. The responses to the questions will be either 'Yes' or 'No'. Parents with children who answer 'Yes' to a disability and purposively sampled parents with children who answer 'No' to disability will be invited to Child Health Clinic at the Greater Accra regional hospital for a free clinical assessment. Data will be entered into Microsoft Office Excel 2013 and imported into STATA version 15 for analysis. The study is expected to provide reliable disaggregated data on less than fourteen years of children with disabilities in the Greater Accra region. The findings and recommendations of the study will demonstrate the importance of early detection of disability and facilitate more quality and holistic planning of appropriate programmes that best safeguard the rights of children with disabilities in Ghana. It will help in policy and decision-making on children less than fourteen years with disabilities in Ghana. Also, findings will be useful for health facilities in Ghana to plan services for disabled children. Finally, the study is expected to add to the guides for the National Council of Persons with Disabilities to fulfill its legal mandate for disabled persons in Ghana.

Keywords: prevalence, disability, children, Ghana

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Authors: Saraswati Suna

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The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic and the subsequent lockdown have significantly impacted India's political, structural, and economic systems and a rising gap between the rich and the disadvantaged, upper and lower caste. For Dalit women, such forms of subjugation were followed by socioeconomic uncertainty due to the pandemic's economic shutdown and labour oppressions. Dalit women have been the victims of the most oppression among the nation's underprivileged groups. Dalit women undergo systemic oppression at the hands of the state, caste, class, gender, and religious hegemons historically. Dalit women hold a subordinate position within the gender to their male counterparts and caste to their upper-caste counterparts. This paper examines how Brahminical patriarchy and state power severely affected Dalit/Adivasi women during COVID-19 in Odisha, India. In order to understand caste-based sexual violence, a total of five cases have been analysed from newspapers. Findings revealed that Covid-19 appears to have a significant physical, psychological, and economic impact on Dalit women. The intention of sexual harassment and rape perpetrated by upper caste men is to maintain power and patriarchal culture in society. Dalit women are economically, socially, and culturally marginalised, which effectively exacerbates the sense of impunity by perpetrators of violence against Dalit women. This issue requires special attention to end atrocities against Dalit women. Dalit women become the target of rape, sexual assault, and murder. Sexual violence against Dalit women cannot be fully explained without linkage to caste, gender, and power. Dominant caste comes through caste privilege-socio-economic and politically; these factors contribute to sexual violence against Dalit women. The findings revealed that state police manipulate sexual violence, and in so doing, they create and deny access to both services to get justice. This article has argued that understanding Brahminical culture and the legal impacts of state police on Dalit women's identity requires a nuanced analysis.

Keywords: COVID-19, dalit women, sexual violence, brahminical patriarchy, power

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Authors: Golnar Behzadi, Michael O'Sullivan, Tava Olsen, Abraham Zhang

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By definition, increasing supply chain resilience improves the supply chain’s ability to return to normal, or to an even more desirable situation, quickly and efficiently after being hit by a disruption. This is especially critical in agribusiness supply chains where the products are perishable and have a short life-cycle. In this paper, we propose a resilience metric to capture and improve the recovery process in terms of both performance and time, of an agribusiness supply chain following either supply or demand-side disruption. We build a model that determines optimal supply chain recovery planning decisions and selects the best resilient strategies that minimize the loss of profit during the recovery time window. The model is formulated as a two-stage stochastic mixed-integer linear programming problem and solved with a branch-and-cut algorithm. The results show that the optimal recovery schedule is highly dependent on the duration of the time-window allowed for recovery. In addition, the profit loss during recovery is reduced by utilizing the proposed resilient actions.

Keywords: agribusiness supply chain, recovery, resilience metric, risk management

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Authors: Bamlaku Tadesse Mengistu

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This article explores the link between climate change/variability and its adaptation/coping strategies with resource-based ethnic conflicts among the Afar, Issa-Somali, and Ittu-Oromo ethnic groups. The qualitative data were collected from community leaders, ordinary members of the communities, and administrative and political bodies at various levels through one-on-one interviews, focus group discussions and field observations. The quantitative data were also collected through a household survey from the randomly selected 128 households drawn from the three districts of Mieso-Mullu, Mieso, and Amibara districts. The study shows that there is a causal relationship between resource scarcity impacted by climate change/variability and ethnic conflicts. The study reveals that the increasing nature of resource scarcity and environmental problems, and also the changing nature of ethnic diversity will aggravate the resource-based inter-ethnic conflicts.

Keywords: Eastern Ethiopia, ethnic conflict, climate change, Afar, Issa, Ittu

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Authors: Sophie Del Fa, Loup Ducol

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This presentation will focus on the discursive practices of Les Soulèvements de la Terre (hereafter SdlT), a French environmentalist group mobilized against agribusiness. More specifically, we will use, as a case study, the violently repressed demonstration that took place in Sainte-Soline on March 25, 2023 (see after for details). The SdlT embodies the renewal of anti-capitalist and environmentalist struggles that began with Occupy Wall Street in 2009 and in France with the Nuit debout in 2016 and the yellow vests movement from 2019 to 2020. These struggles have three things in common: they are self-organized without official leaders, they rely mainly on occupations to reappropriate public places (squares, roundabouts, natural territories) and they are anti-capitalist. The SdlT was created in 2021 by activists coming from the Zone-to-Defend of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, a victorious 10 yearlong occupation movement against an airport near Nantes, France (from 2009 to 2018). The SdlT is not labeled as a formal association, nor as a constituted group, but as an anti-capitalist network of local struggles at the crossroads of ecology and social issues. Indeed, although they target agro-industry, land grabbing, soil artificialization and ecology without transition, the SdlT considers ecological and social questions as interdependent. Moreover, they have an encompassing vision of ecology that they consider as a concern for the living as a whole by erasing the division between Nature and Culture. Their radicality is structured around three main elements: federative and decentralized dimensions, the rhetoric of living alliances and militant creatives strategies. The objective of this reflexion is to understand how these three dimensions are articulated through the SdlT’s discursive practices. To explore these elements, we take as a case study one specific event: the demonstration against the ‘basins’ held in Sainte-Soline on March 25, 2023, on the construction site of new water storage infrastructure for agricultural irrigation in western France. This event represents a turning point for the SdlT. Indeed, the protest was violently repressed: 5000 grenades were fired by the police, hundreds of people were injured, and one person was still in a coma at the time of writing these lines. Moreover, following Saint-Soline’s events, the Minister of Interior Affairs, Gérald Darmin, threatened to dissolve the SdlT, thus adding fuel to the fire in an already tense social climate (with the ongoing strikes against the pensions reform). We anchor our reflexion on three types of data: 1) our own experiences (inspired by ethnography) of the Sainte-Soline demonstration; 2) the collection of more than 500 000 Tweets with the #SainteSoline hashtag and 3) a press review of texts and articles published after Sainte-Soline’s demonstration. The exploration of these data from a turning point in the history of the SdlT will allow us to analyze how the three dimensions highlighted earlier (federative and decentralized dimensions, rhetoric of living alliances and creatives militant strategies) are materialized through the discursive practices surrounding the Sainte-Soline event. This will allow us to shed light on how a new contemporary movement implements contemporary environmental struggles.

Keywords: discursive practices, Sainte-Soline, Ecology, radical ecology

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Authors: Erika Tatiana Ruiz, Wilson Adarme Jaimes

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This abstract presents the methodology for improving the logistics processes of agricultural production units belonging to the coffee, cocoa, and fruit sectors, starting from the fundamental concepts and detailing each of the phases to carry out the diagnosis, which will be the basis for the formulation of its action plan and implementation of the maturity model. As a result of this work, the maturity model is formulated to improve logistics processes. This model seeks to: generate a progressive model that is useful for all productive units belonging to these sectors at the national level, regardless of their initial conditions, focus on the improvement of logistics processes as a strategy that contributes to improving the competitiveness of the agricultural sector in Colombia and spread the implementation of good logistics practices in postharvest in all departments of the country through autonomous tools. This model has been built through a series of steps that allow the evaluation and improvement of the logistics dimensions or indicators. The potential improvements for each dimension provide the foundation on which to advance to the next level. Within the maturity model, a methodology is indicated for the design and execution of strategies to improve its logistics processes, taking into account the current state of each production unit.

Keywords: agroindustrial, characterization, logistics, maturity model, processes

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Authors: Mohamed Youssef

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The proliferation of energy consumption in the built environment has made energy efficiency and savings strategies a priority objective for energy policies in most countries. Qatar is a clear example, where it has initiated several programs and institutions to mitigate the overuse of electricity consumption and control the energy load of the building by following global standards and spreading awareness campaigns. A Case study on the Office of Research and Graduate Studies at Qatar University has been investigated in this paper. The paper studied the rating load of existing buildings before and after retrofitting by using Carrier’s Hourly Analysis Program (HAP). The performance of the building has increased especially after using the LED light system instead of fluorescent light with a low payback period. GINAN paint and green roof have shown a considerable contribution to the reduction of electrical load in the building. In comparison, the double HR window had the least effect on the reduction of electricity consumption.

Keywords: energy conservation in Qatar, HAP, LED light, GINAN paint, green roof, double HR window

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Authors: Jihène Khalifa

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This study analyzed the relationships between Tunisia’s economic growth, food security, agricultural productivity, and climate change using the ARDL model for the period from 1990 to 2022. The ARDL model reveals a positive correlation between economic growth and lagged agricultural productivity. Additionally, the vector autoregressive (VAR) model highlights the beneficial impact of lagged agricultural productivity on economic growth and the negative effect of rainfall on economic growth. Granger causality analysis identifies unidirectional relationships from economic growth to agricultural productivity, crop production, food security, and temperature variations, as well as from temperature variations to crop production. Furthermore, a bidirectional causality is established between crop production and food security. The study underscores the impact of climate change on crop production and suggests the need for adaptive strategies to mitigate these climate effects.

Keywords: economic growth, climate change, agriculture, ARDL, Granger causality, VAR

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Authors: X. Lu, T. Lu, S. Javadi

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A simple dynamic approach is presented for analyzing thermal and moisture dynamics of buildings, which is of particular relevance to understanding climate change impacts on buildings, including assessment of risks and applications of resilience strategies. With the goal to demonstrate the proposed modeling methodology, to verify the model, and to show that wooden materials provide a mechanism that can facilitate the reduction of moisture risks and be more resilient to global warming, a wooden church equipped with high precision measurement systems was taken as a test building for full-scale time-series measurements. Sensitivity analyses indicate a high degree of accuracy in the model prediction regarding the indoor environment. The model is then applied to a future projection of climate indoors aiming to identify significant environmental factors, the changing temperature and humidity, and effective response to the climate change impacts. The paper suggests that wooden building materials offer an effective and resilient response to anticipated future climate changes.

Keywords: dynamic model, forecast, climate change impact, wooden structure, buildings

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Authors: Melissa L Gould

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The uptick in social media users during the COVID-19 lockdowns has accelerated concerns about cellphone addiction, cyberbullying, and exposure to harmful content, particularly mis- and disinformation and extremist content. The validity of these concerns is synthesized for media technologists to expose the strategies behind social media and search platform technology and explain why they restrict their children from using it. Banning cell phones in schools, increasing age limits on social media accounts, and putting warning labels on social media are some of the solutions proposed to protect young people from smartphones and social media. Largely missing from these conversations are the voices of young people (rangatahi). Instead, their lived experiences are being told and managed by adults. This presentation will outline my research that amplified the voices and lived experiences of young people by positioning them as experts. Using The Social Dilemma as a discussion prompt, the focus groups of rangatahi in Aotearoa, New Zealand, provide a space for young people to articulate their own lived experiences and respond to the dominant narratives on their generation's use of smartphones and social media.

Keywords: social media, smart phones, young people, social dilemma

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Authors: Munnujahan Ara

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In this paper, we investigate the effect of friendly jamming power allocation strategies on the achievable average secrecy rate over a bank of parallel fading wiretap channels. We investigate the achievable average secrecy rate in parallel fading wiretap channels subject to Rayleigh and Rician fading. The achievable average secrecy rate, due to the presence of a line-of-sight component in the jammer channel is also evaluated. Moreover, we study the detrimental effect of correlation across the parallel sub-channels, and evaluate the corresponding decrease in the achievable average secrecy rate for the various fading configurations. We also investigate the tradeoff between the transmission power and the jamming power for a fixed total power budget. Our results, which are applicable to current orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communications systems, shed further light on the achievable average secrecy rates over a bank of parallel fading channels in the presence of friendly jammers.

Keywords: fading parallel channels, wire-tap channel, OFDM, secrecy capacity, power allocation

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Authors: Akshaya P., Priyanjali Prabhkaran

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The paper examines the formulation of strategies to develop a comprehensive model of city level water utility management to addressing urban sanitation issues. The water is prime life sustaining natural resources and nature’s gifts to all living beings on the earth multiple urban sanitation issues are addressed in the supply of water in a city. Many of these urban sanitation issues are linked to population expansion and economic inequity. Increased usage of water and the development caused water scarcity. The lack of water supply results increases the chance of unhygienic situations in the cities. In this study, the urban sanitation issues are identified with respect to water supply and utility management. The study compared based on their best practices and initiatives. From this, best practices and initiatives identify suitable sustainable measures to address water supply issues in the city level. The paper concludes with the listed provision that should be considered suitable measures for water supply and utility management in city level to address the urban sanitation issues.

Keywords: water, benchmarking water supply, water supply networks, water supply management

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Authors: Dharamvir Mangal

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Supply chain management has increasingly become an inevitable challenge to most companies to continuously survive and prosper in the global chain-based competitive environment. The current challenges of the Indian automotive world, their implications on supply chain are summarized and analyzed in this paper. In this competitive era of ‘LPG’ i.e. Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization, modern marketing systems, introduction of products with short life cycles, and the discriminating expectations of customers have enforced business enterprises to invest in and focus attention on their Supply Chains (SCs) in order to meet out the level of customer’s satisfaction and to survive in the competitive market. In fact, many of trends in the auto industry are reinforcing the need to redefine supply chain strategies layouts, and operations etc. Many manufacturing operations are designed to maximize throughput and lower costs with modest considerations for the crash on inventory levels and distribution capabilities. To improve profitability and efficiency, automotive players are seeking ways to achieve operational excellence, reduce operating cost and enhance customer service through efficient supply chain management.

Keywords: automotive industry, supply chain, challenges, market potential

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Authors: Francis Padi, Solomon Nunoo, John Kojo Annan

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The paper "Survey on Fiber Optic Deployment for Telecommunications Operators in Ghana: Coverage Gap, Recommendations and Research Directions" presents a comprehensive survey on the deployment of fiber optic networks for telecommunications operators in Ghana. It addresses the challenges encountered by operators using microwave transmission systems for backhauling traffic and emphasizes the advantages of deploying fiber optic networks. The study delves into the coverage gap, provides recommendations, and outlines research directions to enhance the telecommunications infrastructure in Ghana. Additionally, it evaluates next-generation optical access technologies and architectures tailored to operators' needs. The paper also investigates current technological solutions and regulatory, technical, and economical dimensions related to sharing mobile telecommunication networks in emerging countries. Overall, this paper offers valuable insights into fiber optic network deployment for telecommunications operators in Ghana and suggests strategies to meet the increasing demand for data and mobile applications.

Keywords: survey on fiber optic deployment, coverage gap, recommendations, research directions

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Authors: Miroslava Hujová, Patricia Rabello Monich, Jozef Kraxner, Dusan Galusek, Enrico Bernardo

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Inorganic waste upcycling offers a solution how to avoid landfilling and how to save raw materials at the same time. However, its practical implementations in Slovakia and elsewhere in Europe, are rather limited despite the potential smaller countries like Slovakia have their advantage in closely-knitted inorganic materials industry. One part of discussion should include an overview of wastes that can be possibly used for upcycling, i.e. fly ashes, red mud, glass cullets, vitrified bottom ashes etc. These wastes can be processed by a variety of strategies, the one of our choice, alkali activation, opens the possibility for the formation of novel materials at almost negligible energetic expense. In the research, these materials are characterized by comprehensive means (X-Ray Fluorescece, Diffraction methods, Thermal Analysis, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Mechanical tests and Chemical stability), which time and time again demonstrate their competitive properties against traditional materials available at the market. It is just a question for discussion why these materials do not receive more significant attention from industry and there is pressing interest for the solution of standing situation.

Keywords: upcycling, inorganic wastes, glass ceramics, alkali-activation

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Authors: Alireza Jalilifar, Nadia Mayahi

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The dissertation defense as a complicated conflict-prone context entails the adoption of elegant interactional strategies, one of which is self-denigration. This study aimed to develop and validate a self-denigration model that fits the context of doctoral defense sessions in applied linguistics. Two focus group discussions provided the basis for developing this conceptual model, which assumed 10 functions for self-denigration, namely good manners, modesty, affability, altruism, assertiveness, diffidence, coercive self-deprecation, evasion, diplomacy, and flamboyance. These functions were used to design a 40-item questionnaire on the attitudes of applied linguists concerning self-denigration in defense sessions. The confirmatory factor analysis of the questionnaire indicated the predictive ability of the measurement model. The findings of this study suggest that self-denigration in doctoral defense sessions is the social representation of the participants’ values, ideas and practices adopted as a negotiation strategy and a conflict management policy for the purpose of establishing harmony and maintaining resilience. This study has implications for doctoral students and academics and illuminates further research on self-denigration in other contexts.

Keywords: academic discourse, politeness, self-denigration, grounded theory, dissertation defense

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Authors: Chinasa U. Imo, Queen Chikwendu, Jonathan Ajuma, Mario Banuelos

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Background: Sociocultural norms primarily influence the health-seeking behavior of populations in rural communities. In the Nkporo community, Abia State, Nigeria, their sociocultural perception of diseases runs counter to biomedical definitions, wherein they rely heavily on traditional medicine and practices. In a state where birth asphyxia and sepsis account for the significant causes of death for neonates, malaria leads to the causes of other mortalities, followed by common preventable diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia, acute respiratory tract infection, malnutrition, and HIV/AIDS. Most local mothers attribute their health conditions and that of their children to witchcraft attacks, the hand of God, and ancestral underlining. This influences how they see antenatal and postnatal care, choice of place of accessing care and birth delivery, response to children's illnesses, immunization, and nutrition. Method: To implement a community health improvement program, we adopted an asset-based community development model to address health's normative and social determinants. The first step was to use a qualitative approach to conduct a community health needs baseline assessment, involving focus group discussions with twenty-five (25) youths aged 18-25, semi-structured interviews with ten (10) officers-in-charge of primary health centers, eight (8) ward health committee members, and nine (9) community leaders. Secondly, we designed an intervention program. Going forward, we will proceed with implementing and evaluating this program. Result: The priority needs identified by the communities were malaria, lack of clean drinking water, and the need for behavioral change information. The study also highlighted the significant influence of youths on their peers, family, and community as caregivers and information interpreters. Based on the findings, the NGO SieDi-Hub collaborated with the Abia State Ministry of Health, the State Primary Healthcare Agency, and Empower Next Generations to design a one-year "Community Health Youth Champions Pilot Program." Twenty (20) youths in the community were trained and equipped to champion a participatory approach to bridging the gap between access and delivery of primary healthcare, to adjust sociocultural norms to improve health equity for people in Nkporo community – with limited education, lack of access to health information, and quality healthcare facilities using an innovative community-led improvement approach. Conclusion: Youths play a vital role in achieving health equity, being a vulnerable population with significant influence. To ensure effective primary healthcare, strategies must include cultural humility. The asset-based community development model offers valuable tools, and this article will share ongoing lessons from the intervention's behavioral change strategies with young people.

Keywords: asset-based community development, community health, primary health systems strengthening, youth empowerment

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Authors: Julia Braun, Sinikka Treuger, Magdalena Mißler-Behr

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The support of start-ups at German universities is an elementary part of the efforts of the universities. Targeted support for innovative and technology-oriented start-ups is an important prerequisite for successful founding. The present study provides in a first research information on whether German universities have concepts and strategies for promoting the internationalization of start-ups, with a focus on various international markets, and whether they have the ability to successfully raise venture capital. The question is clarified as to how many universities in Germany have programs or concepts for the promotion of start-ups and whether they have already established an internationalization concept for the start-ups. Furthermore, it is shown whether the concepts found focus on the acquisition of venture capital. For this research, a website-based search of the concepts at German universities is carried out and evaluated. In a second study, an online survey at a selected German university is used to evaluate whether there is a general interest in such a concept. After that, a possible concept is derived. The aim of the research is to show the current status of German universities and to give an elaborated example of an education concept for a university which can be adapted by other universities.

Keywords: education concept, german universities, internatinalization, start-ups, venture capital

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Authors: Cristina Costa-Lobo, Ana Campina, José Menezes

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Creativity implies originality, but originality does not imply the existence of creativity. Today, one of the challenges of the educational context is the development of educated, autonomous, prudent and competent citizens with a critical attitude, a well-founded questioning and a creative search for innovative alternatives and solutions. These supposedly cognitive capacities impose emotional analysis and decision making, and emotion is also considered as a creative act. Authors emphasize the importance of family and school in the creative manifestation of children and young people, and these agents can stimulate or impede creative expression. Thus, children entering the school system are faced with a barrier that blocks the externalization of this competence. This work deals with the implementation of specific strategies and promoters of an educational environment suitable for the development of creativity. The construct of creativity is discussed in a transdisciplinary perspective, and the importance of the construct is enhanced in psychoeducational practices, in challenging and multifaceted environments. It is assumed that the stimulation and early experience of creative thinking in an educational context are conditions that promote the development of problem-solving skills and future challenges.

Keywords: creativity, education, psychology, pedagogy

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Authors: Ana Hol

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We live in a constantly changing environment where technology has become an integral component of our day to day life. We rely heavily on mobile devices, we search for data via web, we utilise smart home sensors to create the most suited ambiences and we utilise applications to shop, research, communicate and share data. Heavy reliance on technology therefore is creating new connections between STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields which in turn rises a question of what the STEM education of the future should be like? This study was based on the reviews of the six Australian Information Systems students who undertook an international study tour to India where they were given an opportunity to network, communicate and meet local students, staff and business representatives and from them learn about the local business implementations, local customs and regulations. Research identifies that if we are to continue to implement and utilise electronic devices on the global scale, such as for example implement smart cars that can smoothly cross borders, we will need the workforce that will have the knowledge about the cars themselves, their parts, roads and transport networks, road rules, road sensors, road monitoring technologies, graphical user interfaces, movement detection systems as well as day to day operations, legal rules and regulations of each region and country, insurance policies, policing and processes so that the wide array of sensors can be controlled across country’s borders. In conclusion, it can be noted that allowing students to learn about the local conditions, roads, operations, business processes, customs and values in different countries is giving students a cutting edge advantage as such knowledge cannot be transferred via electronic sources alone. However once understanding of each problem or project is established, multidisciplinary innovative STEM projects can be smoothly conducted.

Keywords: STEM, curiosity, innovation, advancements

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Authors: Fernando L. P. Santos, Luiz G. Lyra, Helenice O. Florentino, Daniela R. Cantane

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Dengue is a febrile infectious disease caused by a virus of the family Flaviridae. It is transmitted by the bite of mosquitoes, usually of the genus Aedes aegypti. It occurs in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. This disease has been a major public health problem worldwide, especially in tropical countries such as Brazil, and its incidence has increased in recent years. Dengue is a subject of intense research. Efficient forms of mosquito control must be considered. In this work, the mono-objective optimal control problem was solved for analysing the dengue disease problem. Chemical and biological controls were considered in the mathematical aspect. This model describes the dynamics of mosquitoes in water and winged phases. We applied the genetic algorithms (GA) to obtain optimal strategies for the control of dengue. Numerical simulations have been performed to verify the versatility and the applicability of this algorithm. On the basis of the present results we may recommend the GA to solve optimal control problem with a large region of feasibility.

Keywords: genetic algorithm, dengue, Aedes aegypti, biological control, chemical control

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Authors: David Julian Bernal Melgarejo

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Inland Waterway Transportation (IWT) is playing an important role in national transport systems, water transportation is considered to be safe, energy efficient and environmentally friendly mode of transport, considering all the benefits of IWT the Colombian government is planning to restore the Magdalena’s River navigability, embrace waterway transportation in Colombia could strength competitiveness while reduce most of the transport externalities. However, the current situation of the Magdalena deplorable, the most important river of Colombia has been abandoned for decades and the solution is beyond of a single administrative entity. This paper analyzes the outcomes of the Navigation And Inland Waterway Action and Development in Europe (NAIADES) program as a prospective to develop a sustainable program in Colombia. In order to guarantee the long-term future, and the adaptability of the program a research based on individual interviews with stakeholders and policy experts were carried out, findings support the idea of lack of integration within governmental institution, develop marketing strategies and human resources.

Keywords: inland waterway transportation, logistics, sustainability, multimodal transport systems, water transportation

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Authors: Jennifer Gallup, Beverly Ray, Esther Ntuli

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Many students such as students from linguistically or culturally diverse backgrounds and those with a disability remain chronically underrepresented in higher level science and mathematics disciplines as well as many hands-on-lab-based activities due to the need for remedial reading and mathematics instruction. Makerspace labs can be a conduit for supporting inclusive learning for these students through hands-on active learning strategies that support equitable access to STEM disciplines. Makerspace is a physical space where individuals gather to create, invent, innovate, and learn while using hands-on materials such as 2D and 3D printers, software programs, electronics, and other tools and supplies. Makerspaces are emerging across many P-12 settings; however, many teachers enter the field not prepared to harness the power inherent in a makerspace, especially for those with disabilities and differing needs. This paper offers suggestions on teaching pre-service teachers and practicing teachers how to incorporate a makerspace into their professional practice through guided instruction and hands-on practice. Recommendations for interested stakeholders are included as well.

Keywords: STEM learning, technology, autism, students with disabilities, makerspace

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Authors: Navid Ebrahmi Madiseh, Sina Esfandiarpour-Broujeni, Rahil Razeghi

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Introduction: Quantitative analysis of game-related statistical parameters is widely used to evaluate basketball performance at both individual and team levels. Non-free throw shooting plays a crucial role as the primary scoring method, holding significant importance in the game's technical aspect. It has been explored the predictive value of game-related statistics in relation to various contextual and situational variables. Many similarities and differences also have been found between different age groups and levels of competition. For instance, in the World Basketball Championships after the 2010 rule change, 2-point field goals distinguished winners from losers in women's games but not in men's games, and the impact of successful 3-point field goals on women's games was minimal. The study aimed to identify and compare discriminant shooting-related statistics between winning and losing teams in men’s and women’s FIBA-U19-Basketball-World-Cup-2023 tournaments. Method: Data from 112 observations (2 per game) of 16 teams (for each gender) in the FIBA-U19-Basketball-World-Cup-2023 were selected as samples. The data were obtained from the official FIBA website using Python. Specific information was extracted, organized into a DataFrame, and consisted of twelve variables, including shooting percentages, attempts, and scoring ratio for 3-pointers, mid-range shots, paint shots, and free throws. Made% = scoring type successful attempts/scoring type total attempts¬ (1)Free-throw-pts% (free throw score ratio) = (free throw score/total score) ×100 (2)Mid-pts% (mid-range score ratio) = (mid-range score/total score) ×100 (3) Paint-pts% (paint score ratio) = (Paint score/total score) ×100 (4) 3p_pts% (three-point score ratio) = (three-point score/total score) ×100 (5) Independent t-tests were used to examine significant differences in shooting-related statistical parameters between winning and losing teams for both genders. Statistical significance was p < 0.05. All statistical analyses were completed with SPSS, Version 18. Results: The results showed that 3p-made%, mid-pts%, paint-made%, paint-pts%, mid-attempts, and paint-attempts were significantly different between winners and losers in men (t=-3.465, P<0.05; t=3.681, P<0.05; t=-5.884, P<0.05; t=-3.007, P<0.05; t=2.549, p<0.05; t=-3.921, P<0.05). For women, significant differences between winners and losers were found for 3p-made%, 3p-pts%, paint-made%, and paint-attempt (t=-6.429, P<0.05; t=-1.993, P<0.05; t=-1.993, P<0.05; t=-4.115, P<0.05; t=02.451, P<0.05). Discussion: The research aimed to compare shooting-related statistics between winners and losers in men's and women's teams at the FIBA-U19-Basketball-World-Cup-2023. Results indicated that men's winners excelled in 3p-made%, paint-made%, paint-pts%, paint-attempts, and mid-attempt, consistent with previous studies. This study found that losers in men’s teams had higher mid-pts% than winners, which was inconsistent with previous findings. It has been indicated that winners tend to prioritize statistically efficient shots while forcing the opponent to take mid-range shots. In women's games, significant differences in 3p-made%, 3p-pts%, paint-made%, and paint-attempts were observed, indicating that winners relied on riskier outside scoring strategies. Overall, winners exhibited higher accuracy in paint and 3P shooting than losers, but they also relied more on outside offensive strategies. Additionally, winners acquired a higher ratio of their points from 3P shots, which demonstrates their confidence in their skills and willingness to take risks at this competitive level.

Keywords: gender, losers, shoot-statistic, U19, winners

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Authors: Yunyong Guo, Sudhakar Ganti, Bryan Guo

Abstract:

The swift proliferation of telehealth Internet of Things (IoT) devices has sparked concerns regarding energy consumption and the need for streamlined data processing. This paper presents an energy-efficient model that integrates telehealth IoT devices into a platform based on fog and cloud computing. This integrated system provides a sustainable and robust solution to address the challenges. Our model strategically utilizes fog computing as a localized data processing layer and leverages cloud computing for resource-intensive tasks, resulting in a significant reduction in overall energy consumption. The incorporation of adaptive energy-saving strategies further enhances the efficiency of our approach. Simulation analysis validates the effectiveness of our model in improving energy efficiency for telehealth IoT systems, particularly when integrated with localized fog nodes and both private and public cloud infrastructures. Subsequent research endeavors will concentrate on refining the energy-saving model, exploring additional functional enhancements, and assessing its broader applicability across various healthcare and industry sectors.

Keywords: energy-efficient, fog computing, IoT, telehealth

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Authors: Wanqing You, Kai Qian, Ying Qian

Abstract:

The concepts of Cloud Computing provide users with infrastructure, platform and software as service, which make those services more accessible for people via Internet. To better analysis the performance of Cloud Computing provisioning policies as well as resources allocation strategies, a toolkit named CloudSim proposed. With CloudSim, the Cloud Computing environment can be easily constructed by modelling and simulating cloud computing components, such as datacenter, host, and virtual machine. A good scheduling strategy is the key to achieve the load balancing among different machines as well as to improve the utilization of basic resources. Recently, the existing scheduling algorithms may work well in some presumptive cases in a single machine; however they are unable to make the best decision for the unforeseen future. In real world scenario, there would be numbers of tasks as well as several virtual machines working in parallel. Based on the concepts of multi-queue, this paper presents a new scheduling algorithm to schedule tasks with CloudSim by taking into account several parameters, the machines’ capacity, the priority of tasks and the history log.

Keywords: hierarchical queue, load balancing, CloudSim, information technology

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Authors: Lystra Huggins

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic affected all facets of life, including pedagogical strategies and perceptual experiences for both instructors and students. While there have also been many challenges and advantages to the online teaching and learning environment, when students’ cameras are on, the daily experiences of students’ lives have been magnified during synchronous online instruction and have served to humanize them in the classroom. This means that students’ everyday experiences, now often on display on ZOOM, allow instructors to see the realities of students. They include children running, spouses walking by parents cooking or sitting on the sofa following the lecture, students at their place of employment or driving from work, or having their classroom engagement interrupted by a delivery. Students’ backgrounds and spaces create unique dynamics during synchronous instruction, which offers a holistic view of them outside academia. This research explores whether witnessing students’ daily experiences leads to empathy from their instructors and whether it results in a greater understanding of students’ challenges and circumstances. Ultimately, it will amplify instructors’ stance on the advantages of students having their cameras on during synchronous online classes to develop a connection with the instructor and a more cohesive classroom environment.

Keywords: instructor’s empathy, synchronous class, asynchronous class, online environment

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Authors: Anna Vildová, H. Hendrychová, J. Kubeš, L. Tůmová

Abstract:

The abiotic elicitation is one of the methods for increasing the secondary metabolites production in plant tissue cultures and it seems to be more effective than traditional strategies. This study verified the use of silver nitrate as elicitor to enhance flavonolignans and flavonoid taxifolin production in suspension culture of Sylibum marianum (L.) Gaertn. Silver nitrate in various concentrations (5.887.10-3 mol/L, 5.887.10-4 mol/L, 5.887.10-5 mol/L) was used as elicitor. The content of secondary metabolites in cell suspension cultures was determined by high performance liquid chromatography. The samples were taken after 6, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 168 hours of treatment. The highest content of taxifolin production (2.2 mg.g-1) in cell suspension culture of Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn. was detected after silver nitrate (5.887.10-4 mol/L) treatment and 72 h application. Flavonolignans such as silybinA, silybin B, silydianin, silychristin, isosilybin A, isosilybin B were not produced by cell suspension culture of S. marianum after elicitor treatment. Our results show that the secondarymetabolites could be released from S. marianum cells into the nutrient medium by changed permeability of cell wall.

Keywords: Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn., elicitation, silver nitrate, taxifolin

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Authors: Rozo D. Juan Felipe, Ramírez L. Leonardo Juan, Puerta A. Gabriel Alberto

Abstract:

The telemedicine services require correct computing resource management to guarantee productivity and efficiency for medical and non-medical staff. The aim of this study was to examine web management strategies to ensure the availability of resources and services in telemedicine so as to provide medical information management with an accessible strategy. In addition, to evaluate the quality-of-service parameters, the followings were measured: delays, throughput, jitter, latency, available bandwidth, percent of access and denial of services based of web management performance map with profiles permissions and database management. Through 24 different test scenarios, the results show 100% in availability of medical information, in relation to access of medical staff to web services, and quality of service (QoS) of 99% because of network delay and performance of computer network. The findings of this study suggest that the proposed strategy of web management is an ideal solution to guarantee the availability, reliability, and accessibility of medical information. Finally, this strategy offers seven user profile used at telemedicine center of Bogota-Colombia keeping QoS parameters suitable to telemedicine services.

Keywords: availability, medical information, QoS, strategy, telemedicine

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Authors: Ana Paula Gomes Nogueira, Pietro Tonolini, Andrea Bonfanti

Abstract:

Automotive braking systems must convert kinetic into thermal energy by friction. Nowadays, the disc brake system is the most widespread configuration on the automotive market, which its specific configuration provides a very efficient heat dissipation. At the same time, both discs and pads wear out. Different wear mechanisms can act during the braking, which makes the understanding of the phenomenon essential for the strategies to be applied when an increased lifetime of the components is required. In this study, a specific characterization approach was conducted to analyze the worn surfaces of commercial pad friction materials and its conterface cast iron disc after dynobench tests. Scanning electronic microscope (SEM), confocal microscope, and focus ion beam microscope (FIB) were used as the main tools of the analysis, and they allowed imaging of the footprint of the different wear mechanisms presenting on the worn surfaces. Aspects such as the temperature and specific ingredients of the pad friction materials are discussed since they play an important role in the wear mechanisms.

Keywords: wear mechanism, surface characterization, brake tests, friction materials, disc brake

Procedia PDF Downloads 53