Search results for: China-Hungary economic and trade cooperation zone

Authors: Resham Lal Phuldel

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This study based on a bilateral development cooperation project funded by the governments of Nepal and Finland. The first phase of the project has been completed in August 2012 and the phase II started in September 2013 and will end September 2018. The project strengthens the capacity of local governments in 14 districts to deliver services in water supply, sanitation and hygiene in Western development region and in Mid-Western development region of Nepal. In recent days, several spring sources have been dried out or slowly decreasing its yield across the country due to changing character of rainfall, increasing evaporative losses and some other manmade causes such as land use change, infrastructure development work etc. To sustain the hilly communities, the sources have to be able to provide sufficient water to serve the population, either on its own or in conjunction with other sources. Phase III have measured all water sources in Tanahu district in 2004 and sources were located with the GPS. Phase II has repeated the exercise to see changes in the district. 3320 water sources as identified in 2004 and altogether 4223 including new water sources were identified and measured in 2014. Between 2004 and 2014, 50% flow rate (yield) deduction of point sources’ average yield in 10 years is found. Similarly, 21.6% and 34% deductions of average yield were found in spring and stream water sources respectively. The rainfall from 2002 to 2013 shows erratic rainfalls in the district. The monsoon peak month is not consistent and the trend shows the decrease of annual rainfall 16.7 mm/year. Further, the temperature trend between 2002 and 2013 shows warming of + 0.0410C/year.

Keywords: climate change, rainfall, source discharge, water sources

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Authors: Pedro Cardoso Alves, Ana Lucia Galinkin, José Carlos Ribeiro

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Political participation, can be a somewhat tricky subject to define, not in small part due to the constant changes in the concept fruit of the effort to include new forms of participatory behavior that go beyond traditional institutional channels. With the advent of the internet and mobile technologies, defining political participation has become an even more complicated endeavor, given de amplitude of politicized behaviors that are expressed throughout these mediums, be it in the very organization of social movements, in the propagation of politicized texts, videos and images, or in the micropolitical behaviors that are expressed in daily interaction. In fact, the very frontiers that delimit physical and digital spaces have become ever more diluted due to technological advancements, leading to a hybrid existence that is simultaneously physical and digital, not limited, as it once was, to the temporal limitations of classic communications. Moving away from those institutionalized actions of traditional political behavior, an idea of constant and fluid participation, which occurs in our daily lives through conversations, posts, tweets and other digital forms of expression, is discussed. This discussion focuses on the factors that precede more direct forms of political participation, interpreting the relation between informational habits, ideology, and political efficacy. Though some of the informational habits can be considered political participation, by some authors, a distinction is made to establish a logical flow of behaviors leading to participation, that is, one must gather and process information before acting on it. To reach this objective, a quantitative survey is currently being applied in Brazilian social media, evaluating feelings of political efficacy, social and economic issue-based ideological stances and informational habits pertaining to collection, fact-checking, and diversity of sources and ideological positions present in the participant’s political information network. The measure being used for informational habits relies strongly on a mix of information literacy and political sophistication concepts, bringing a more up-to-date understanding of information and knowledge production and processing in contemporary hybrid (physical-digital) environments. Though data is still being collected, preliminary analysis point towards a strong correlation between information habits and political efficacy, while ideology shows a weaker influence over efficacy. Moreover, social ideology and economic ideology seem to have a strong correlation in the sample, such intermingling between social and economic ideals is generally considered a red flag for political polarization.

Keywords: political efficacy, ideology, information literacy, cyberpolitics

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Authors: Yitian Ren, Liyin Shen, Tao Zhou, Xiao Li

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The past urbanization process in China has brought out series of problems, the Chinese government has then positioned small towns in essential roles for implementing the strategy 'The National New-type Urbanization Plan (2014-2020)'. As the connector and transfer station of cities and countryside, small towns are important force to narrow the gap between urban and rural area, and to achieve the mission of new-type urbanization in China. The sustainable development of small towns plays crucial role because cities are not capable enough to absorb the surplus rural population. Nevertheless, there are various types of barriers hindering the sustainable development of small towns, which led to the limited development of small towns and has presented a bottleneck in Chinese urbanization process. Therefore, this paper makes deep understanding of these barriers, thus effective actions can be taken to address them. And this paper chooses the perspective of Southwest China (refers to Sichuan province, Yunnan province, Guizhou province, Chongqing Municipality City and Tibet Autonomous Region), cause the urbanization rate in Southwest China is far behind the average urbanization level of the nation and the number of small towns accounts for a great proportion in mainland China, also the characteristics of small towns in Southwest China are distinct. This paper investigates the barriers of sustainable development of small towns which located in Southwest China by using the content analysis method, combing with the field work and interviews in sample small towns, then identified and concludes 18 barriers into four dimensions, namely, institutional barriers, economic barriers, social barriers and ecological barriers. Based on the research above, questionnaire survey and data analysis are implemented, thus the key barriers hinder the sustainable development of small towns in Southwest China are identified by using fuzzy set theory, those barriers are, lack of independent financial power, lack of construction land index, financial channels limitation, single industrial structure, topography variety and complexity, which mainly belongs to institutional barriers and economic barriers. In conclusion part, policy suggestions are come up with to improve the politic and institutional environment of small town development, also the market mechanism are supposed to be introduced to the development process of small towns, which can effectively overcome the economic barriers, promote the sustainable development of small towns, accelerate the in-situ urbanization by absorbing peasants in nearby villages, and achieve the mission of new-type urbanization in China from the perspective of people-oriented.

Keywords: barrier analysis, sustainable development, small town, Southwest China

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Authors: Maharani Yulisti, Amin Mugera, James Fogarty

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Food safety standards have received significant attention in the fisheries global market due to health issues, free trade agreements, and increasing aquaculture production. Vertical coordination throughout the supply chain of fish producing and exporting countries is needed to meet food safety demands imposed by importing countries. However, the complexities of the supply chain governance structures and difficulties in standard implementation can generate safety uncertainty and high transaction costs. Using a Transaction Cost Economics framework, this paper examines the alignment between food safety standards and the governance structures in the shrimp supply chain in Indonesia. We find the supply chain is organized closer to the hierarchy-like governance structure where private standard (organic standard) are implemented and more towards a market-like governance structure where public standard (IndoGAP certification) are more prevalent. To verify the statements, two cases are examined from Sidoarjo district as a centre of shrimp production in Indonesia. The results show that public baseline FSS (Food Safety Standards) need additional mechanism to achieve a coordinated chain-wide response because uncertainty, asset specificity, and performance measurement problems are high in this chain. Organic standard as private chain-wide FSS is more efficient because it has been achieved by hierarchical-like type of governance structure.

Keywords: governance structure, shrimp value chain, food safety standards, transaction costs economics

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Authors: Kakha Nadiardze, Nana Phirosmanashvili

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The goal of this paper is to present the problems of lack of information among farmers in food safety. Global food supply chains are becoming more and more diverse, making traceability systems much harder to implement across different food markets. In this abstract, we will present our work for analyzing the key developments in Georgian food market from regulatory controls to administrative procedures to traceability technologies. Food safety and quality assurance are most problematic issues in Georgia as food trade networks become more and more complex, food businesses are under more and more pressure to ensure that their products are safe and authentic. The theme follow-up principles from farm to table must be top-of-mind for all food manufacturers, farmers and retailers. Following the E. coli breakout last year, as well as more recent cases of food mislabeling, developments in food traceability systems is essential to food businesses if they are to present a credible brand image. Alongside this are the ever-developing technologies in food traceability networks, technologies that manufacturers and retailers need to be aware of if they are to keep up with food safety regulations and avoid recall. How to examine best practice in food management is the main question in order to protect company brand through safe and authenticated food. We are working with our farmers to work with our food safety experts and technology developers throughout the food supply chain. We provide time by time food analyses on heavy metals, pesticide residues and different pollutants. We are disseminating information among farmers how the latest food safety regulations will impact the methods to use to identify risks within their products.

Keywords: food safety, GMO, LMO, E. coli, quality

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Authors: Latif Yanar, Muharrem Kaçan

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In this study, an Analytic Hierarchy Process and Analytic Network Process Decision Support System (DSS) model for determination of a navy base place in another country is proposed together with a decision support software (DESTEC 1.0) developed using C Sharp programming language. The proposed software also has the ability of performing the fuzzy models (Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy ANP) of the proposed DSS to cope with the ambiguous and linguistic nature of the model. The AHP and ANP model, for a decision support for selecting the best place among the alternatives, including the criteria and alternatives, is developed and solved by the experts from Turkish Navy and Turkish academicians related to international relations branches of the universities in Turkey. Also, the questionnaires used for weighting of the criteria and the alternatives are filled by these experts.Some of our alternatives are: economic and political stability of the third country, the effect of another super power in that country, historical relations, security in that country, social facilities in the city in which the base will be built, the transportation security and difficulty from a main city that have an airport to the city will have the base etc. Over 20 criteria like these are determined which are categorized in social, political, economic and military aspects. As a result all the criteria and three alternatives are evaluated by different people who have background and experience to weight the criteria and alternatives as it must be in AHP and ANP evaluation system. The alternatives got their degrees all between 0 – 1 and the total is 1. At the end the DSS advices one of the alternatives as the best one to the decision maker according to the developed model and the evaluations of the experts.

Keywords: analytic hierarchical process, analytic network process, fuzzy logic, naval base place selection, multiple criteria decision making

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Authors: Bismark Agbemble

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This paper talks about how project-based learning (PBL) is being infused or implemented in the educational sphere of Africa. The paper navigates through the liminal aspects of PBL as a pedagogical approach to bridge the divide between theoretical knowledge and its application within school curriculums. Given that contextualized learning can be embodied, the abstract vehemently discusses that PBL creates an opportunity for students to work on projects that are of academic relevance in their local settings. It presents PBL’s growth of critical thinking, problem-solving, cooperation, and communications, which is vital in getting young citizens to prepare for the 21st-century revolution. In addition, the abstract stresses the possibility that PBL could become a stimulus to creativity and innovation wherein learning becomes motivated from within by intrinsic motivations. The paper advocates for a holistic approach that is based on teacher’s professional development with the provision of adequate infrastructural facilities and resource allocation, thus ensuring the success and sustainability of PBLs in African education systems. In the end, the paper positions this as a transformative educational methodology that has great potential in helping to shape an African generation that is prepared for a great future.

Keywords: student centered pedagogy, constructivist learning theory, self-directed learning, active exploration, real world challenges, STEM, 21st century skills, curriculum design, classroom management, project base learning curriculum, global intelligence, social and communication skills, transferable skills, critical thinking, investigatable learning, life skills

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Authors: Chia-li Wang

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The surge of service and commerce platforms, such as e-commerce and internet-of-things, have rapidly changed our lives. How to avoid the congestion and get the job done in the platform is now a common problem that many people encounter every day. This requires platform users to make decisions about when to enter the platform. To that end, we investigate the strategic entering time of a simple platform containing random numbers of buyers and sellers of some item. Upon a trade, the buyer and the seller gain respective profits, yet they pay the cost of waiting in the platform. To maximize their expected payoffs from trading, both buyers and sellers can choose their entering times. This creates an interesting and practical framework of a game that is played among buyers, among sellers, and between them. That is, a strategy employed by a player is not only against players of its type but also a response to those of the other type, and, thus, a strategy profile is composed of strategies of buyers and sellers. The players' best response, the Nash equilibrium (NE) strategy profile, is derived by a pair of differential equations, which, in turn, are used to establish its existence and uniqueness. More importantly, its structure sheds valuable insights of how the entering strategy of one side (buyers or sellers) is affected by the entering behavior of the other side. These results provide a base for the study of dynamic pricing for stochastic demand-supply imbalances. Finally, comparisons between the social welfares (the sum of the payoffs incurred by individual participants) obtained by the optimal strategy and by the NE strategy are conducted for showing the efficiency loss relative to the socially optimal solution. That should help to manage the platform better.

Keywords: double-sided queue, non-cooperative game, nash equilibrium, price of anarchy

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Authors: Zone-Ching Lin, Hao-Yuan Jheng, Zih-Wun Jhang

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The paper innovatively proposes using the concept of specific down force energy (SDFE) and AFM machine to establish a machining method of cross-shape nanochannel on single-crystal silicon substrate. As for machining a cross-shape nanochannel by AFM machine, the paper develop a method of machining cross-shape nanochannel groove at a fixed down force by using SDFE theory and combining the planned cutting path of cross-shape nanochannel up to 5th machining layer it finally achieves a cross-shape nanochannel at a cutting depth of around 20nm. Since there may be standing burr at the machined cross-shape nanochannel edge, the paper uses a smaller down force to cut the edge of the cross-shape nanochannel in order to lower the height of standing burr and converge the height of standing burr at the edge to below 0.54nm as set by the paper. Finally, the paper conducts experiments of machining cross-shape nanochannel groove on single-crystal silicon by AFM probe, and compares the simulation and experimental results. It is proved that this proposed machining method of cross-shape nanochannel is feasible.

Keywords: atomic force microscopy (AFM), cross-shape nanochannel, silicon substrate, specific down force energy (SDFE)

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Authors: Vivek Krishna, Nikhil Jain, A. Mary Posonia A., Albert Mayan J

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Terrorism and insurgency are significant global issues that require constant attention and effort from governments and scientists worldwide. To combat these threats, nations invest billions of dollars in developing new defensive technologies to protect civilians. Breakthroughs in vehicle automation have led to the use of sophisticated machines for many dangerous and critical anti-terrorist activities. Our concept of an "Unmanned Ground Vehicle" can carry out tasks such as border security, surveillance, mine detection, and active combat independently or in tandem with human control. The robot's movement can be wirelessly controlled by a person in a distant location or can travel to a pre-programmed destination autonomously in situations where personal control is not feasible. Our defence system comprises two units: the control unit that regulates mobility and the motion tracking unit. The remote operator robot uses the camera's live visual feed to manually operate both units, and the rover can automatically detect movement. The rover is operated by manpower who controls it using a joystick or mouse, and a wireless modem enables a soldier in a combat zone to control the rover via an additional controller feature.

Keywords: robotics, computer vision, Machine learning, Artificial intelligence, future of AI

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Authors: Takashi Nakamura

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In the Tokyo metropolitan area, traffic congestion and long commute times are caused by overconcentration in the central area. To resolve these problems, a core business city development policy was adopted in 1988. The core business cities, which include Yokohama, Chiba, Saitama, Tachikawa, and others, have designated business facilities accumulation districts where assistance measures are applied. Focusing on Yokohama city, this study investigates the trends in the number of offices, employees, and commuters at 2001 and 2012 Economic Census, as well as the average commute time in the Tokyo metropolitan area from 2005 to 2015 Metropolitan Transportation Census. Surveys were administered in 2001 and 2012 Economic Census to participants who worked in Yokohama, according to their distribution in the city's 1,757 subregions. Four main findings emerged: (1) The number of offices increased in Yokohama when the number of offices decreased in the Tokyo metropolitan area overall. Additionally, the number of employees at Yokohama increased. (2) The number of commuters to Tokyo's central area increased from Saitama prefecture, Tokyo Tama area, and Tokyo central area. However, it decreased from other areas. (3) The average commute time in the Tokyo metropolitan area was 67.7 minutes in 2015, a slight decrease from 2005 and 2010. (4) The number of employees at business facilities accumulation districts in Yokohama city increased greatly.

Keywords: core business city development policy, commute time, number of employees, Yokohama city, distribution of employees

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Authors: Ani Kojoyan

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The Syrian refugee crisis has been a matter of worldwide concern during the recent years. And though refugees’ problems are contextualized in terms of time and space, the refugee crisis still remains a global issue to discuss. Since the start of the conflict, Armenia has welcomed thousands of Syrian refugees too. Taking into consideration Armenia’s current socio-economic and geopolitical situation, the flow of refugees is a challenge both for the country and for refugees themselves. However, these people are not simply refugees from Syria, they are Syrian-Armenian refugees; people whose ancestors were survivals of the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, people whose ancestors became refugees a century ago in Syria and now, ironically, a century later they follow their ancestors’ paths, turning into refugees themselves in their historical homeland, facing various difficulties, among them socio-economic, socio-ideological, and identity and gender issues, the latter being the main topic of discussion in the present paper. The situation presented above makes us discuss certain questions within this study: how do Syrian-Armenian refugees define themselves and their status? Which are their gender roles in the socio-economic context? How do social and economic challenges re-shape Syrian-Armenian women refugees’ identities? The study applies qualitative research methods of analysis, which includes semi-structured and in-depth interviews with 15 participants (18-25, 26-40 age groups), and two focus group works, involving 8 participants (18-35 age group) for each focus group activity. The activities were carried out in October 2016, Yerevan, Armenia. The study also includes Secondary Data Analysis. In addition, in order to centralize refugee women’s experiences and identity issues, the study adopts a qualitative lens from a feminist standpoint position. It is based on the assumption that human activity structures and limits understanding, and that the distorted comprehension of events or activities has emerged from the male-oriented dominant judgement which can be discovered through uncovering the understanding of the situation from women’s activity perspectives. The findings suggest that identity is dynamic, complex, over-changing and sensitive to time and space, gender and class. The process of re-shaping identity is even more complicated and multi-layered and is based on internal and external factors, conditioned by individual and collective needs and interests. Refugees are mostly considered as people who lost their identity in the past since they have no longer connection anywhere and try to find it in the present. In turn, female refugees, being a more vulnerable class, go through more complicated identity re-formulating discourse negotiations. They stand between the borders of the old and new, borders of lost and re-found selves, borders of creating and self-fashioning, between illusions and the challenging reality. Particularly, refugee women become more sensitive within the discourses of the private and the public domains: some of them try to create a ‘new-self’, creating their space in a new society, whereas others try to negotiate their affective/emotional labour within their own family domains.

Keywords: feminist standpoint position, gender, identity, refugee studies, Syrian-Armenian women refugees

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Authors: Minh Nguyen

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Today, QR or Quick Response Codes are prevalent, and mobile/smart devices can efficiently read and understand them. Therefore, we can see their appearance in many areas, such as storing web pages/websites, business phone numbers, redirecting to an app download, business location, social media. The popularity of the QR Code is mainly because of its many advantages, such as it can hold a good amount of information, is small, easy to scan and read by a general RGB camera, and it can still work with some damages on its surface. However, there are still some issues. For instance, some areas needed to be kept untouched for its successful decode (e.g., the “Finder Patterns,” the “Quiet Zone,” etc.), the capability of built-in auto-correction is not robust enough, and it is not flexible enough for many application such as Augment Reality (AR). We proposed a new Colour Quick Response Code that has several advantages over the original ones: (1) there is no untouchable area, (2) it allows up to 40% of the entire code area to be damaged, (3) it is more beneficial for Augmented Reality applications, and (4) it is back-compatible and readable by available QR Code scanners such as Pyzbar. From our experience, our Colour Quick Response Code is significantly more flexible on damage compared to the original QR Code. Our code is believed to be suitable in situations where standard 2D Barcodes fail to work, such as curved and shiny surfaces, for instance, medical blood test sample tubes and syringes.

Keywords: QR code, computer vision, image processing, 2D barcode

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Authors: Zuwaira Abdullahi

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In this increasing changing world, it is important to be aware of the needs of clients when it comes to race and ethnic diversities. These diversities create difficulties for multicultural counselling: the counsellor’s own culture, attitudes, and theoretical perspective; the client's culture; and the multiplicity of variables comprising an individual's identity. This paper examines the level of realization, sensitization and attitude of counsellors towards individuals that come from different cultural, social and economic background.

Keywords: multicultural, diversities, counselling, needs

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Authors: Salwa Mohammad Alawneh

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The ongoing humanitarian crises spur rapid and unpredicted refugee influxes resulting in demographic changes in cities. Regarding different urban systems are vulnerable in refugee neighborhoods. With the consequent social, economic, and spatial challenges, cities must respond with a more durable and sustainable approach based on urban resilience. The paper systematically approaches urban resilience to contribute to refugee spaces by reflecting on the overall urban systems of their neighborhoods. The research will review the urban resilience literature to develop an evaluation framework. The developed framework applies urban resilience more holistically in refugee neighborhoods and expands to the urban systems of social, economic, and spatial. However, the main highlight of this paper is the resilient spatial structure in refugee neighborhoods to face the internal and complex stress of refugee waves and their demographic changes. Finding a set of resilient spatial measurements and focusing on urban forms at a neighborhood scale provide vulnerability reduction and enhance adaptation capacity. As a model example, the paper applies these measurements and facilitates geospatial technologies to one of the refugee neighborhoods in Amman, Jordan, namely Al-Jubilee. The application in Al-Jubilee helps to demonstrate a road map towards a developmental pattern in design and planning by different decision-makers of inter-governmental and humanitarian organizations. In this regard, urban resilience improves the humanitarian assistantship of refugee settings beyond providing the essential needs. In conclusion, urban resilience responds to the different challenges of refugee neighborhoods by supporting urban stability, improving livability, and maintaining both urban functions and security.

Keywords: urban resilience of refugee, resilient urban form, refugee neighborhoods, humanitarian assistantship, refugee in Jordan

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Authors: Tamara Slišković, Tomislav Sekur

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This manuscript examines factors that affect demand and supply of the housing market in Croatia. The period from the beginning of this century, until 2008, was characterized by a strong expansion of construction, housing and real estate market in general. Demand for residential units was expanding, and this was supported by favorable lending conditions of banks. Indicators on the supply side, such as the number of newly built houses and the construction volume index were also increasing. Rapid growth of demand, along with the somewhat slower supply growth, led to the situation in which new apartments were sold before the completion of residential buildings. This resulted in a rise of housing price which was indication of a clear link between the housing prices with the supply and demand in the housing market. However, after 2008 general economic conditions in Croatia worsened and demand for housing has fallen dramatically, while supply descended at much slower pace. Given that there is a gap between supply and demand, it can be concluded that the housing market in Croatia is in imbalance. Such trend is accompanied by a relatively small decrease in housing price. The final result of such movements is the large number of unsold housing units at relatively high price levels. For this reason, it can be argued that housing prices are sticky and that, consequently, the price level in the aftermath of a crisis does not correspond to the discrepancy between supply and demand on the Croatian housing market. The degree of rigidity of the housing price can be determined by inclusion of the housing price as the explanatory variable in the housing demand function. Other independent variables are demographic variable (e.g. the number of households), the interest rate on housing loans, households' disposable income and rent. The equilibrium price is reached when the demand for housing equals its supply, and the speed of adjustment of actual prices to equilibrium prices reveals the extent to which the prices are rigid. The latter requires inclusion of the housing prices with time lag as an independent variable in estimating demand function. We also observe the supply side of the housing market, in order to explain to what extent housing prices explain the movement of new construction activity, and other variables that describe the supply. In this context, we test whether new construction on the Croatian market is dependent on current prices or prices with a time lag. Number of dwellings is used to approximate new construction (flow variable), while the housing prices (current or lagged), quantity of dwellings in the previous period (stock variable) and a series of costs related to new construction are independent variables. We conclude that the key reason for the imbalance in the Croatian housing market should be sought in the relative relationship of price elasticities of supply and demand.

Keywords: Croatian housing market, economic crisis, housing prices, supply imbalance, demand imbalance

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Authors: Belagoune Fares, Boutoutaou Djamel

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The study on floods in Algeria established by the National Agency of Water Resources (ANRH) shows that the country is confronted with the phenomenon of very destructive floods and floods especially in arid and semiarid regions. Flooding of rivers in these areas is less known. They are characterized by their sudden duration (rain showers, thunderstorm).The duration of the flood is of the order of minutes to hours. The human and material damage caused by these floods were still high. The study area encompasses three watersheds in semi-arid and arid south and Algeria. THERE are pools of Chott-Melghir (68,751 km2), highland Constantine-07 (9578 km2) and El Hodna-05 basin (25,843 km2). The total area of this zone is about 104,500km2.Studies of protection against floods and design studies of hydraulic structures (spillway, storm basin, etc.) require the raw data which is often unknown in several places particularly at ungauged wadis of these areas. This makes it very difficult to schedules and managers working in the field of hydraulic studies. The objective of this study and propose a methodology for determining flows in the absence of observations in the semi-arid and arid south eastern Algeria. The objective of the study is to propose a methodology for these areas of flood calculation for ungauged rivers.

Keywords: flood, watershed, specific flow, coefficient of variation, arid

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Authors: Jun-Ki Choi

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The usage of valuable resources and the potential for waste generation at the end of the life cycle of photovoltaic (PV) technologies necessitate a proactive planning for a PV recycling infrastructure. To ensure the sustainability of PV in large scales of deployment, it is vital to develop and institute low-cost recycling technologies and infrastructure for the emerging PV industry in parallel with the rapid commercialization of these new technologies. There are various issues involved in the economics of PV recycling and this research examine those at macro and micro levels, developing a holistic interpretation of the economic viability of the PV recycling systems. This study developed mathematical models to analyze the profitability of recycling technologies and to guide tactical decisions for allocating optimal location of PV take-back centers (PVTBC), necessary for the collection of end of life products. The economic decision is usually based on the level of the marginal capital cost of each PVTBC, cost of reverse logistics, distance traveled, and the amount of PV waste collected from various locations. Results illustrated that the reverse logistics costs comprise a major portion of the cost of PVTBC; PV recycling centers can be constructed in the optimally selected locations to minimize the total reverse logistics cost for transporting the PV wastes from various collection facilities to the recycling center. In the micro- process level, automated recycling processes should be developed to handle the large amount of growing PV wastes economically. The market price of the reclaimed materials are important factors for deciding the profitability of the recycling process and this illustrates the importance of the recovering the glass and expensive metals from PV modules.

Keywords: photovoltaic, recycling, mathematical models, sustainability

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Authors: Sony Baral, Harald Vacik

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This study analyzes the sustainability of community forest management in two community forests in Terai and Hills of Nepal, representing four forest types: 1) Shorearobusta, 2) Terai hardwood, 3) Schima-Castanopsis, and 4) other Hills. The sustainability goals for this region include maintaining and enhancing the forest stocks. Considering this, we analysed changes in species composition, stand density, growing stock volume, and growth-to-removal ratio at 3-5 year intervals from 2005-2016 within 109 permanent forest plots (57 in the Terai and 52 in the Hills). To complement inventory data, forest users, forest committee members, and forest officials were consulted. The results indicate that the relative representation of economically valuable tree species has increased. Based on trends in stand density, both forests are being sustainably managed. Pole-sized trees dominated the diameter distribution, however, with a limited number of mature trees and declined regeneration. The forests were over-harvested until 2013 but under-harvested in the recent period in the Hills. In contrast, both forest types were under-harvested throughout the inventory period in the Terai. We found that the ecological dimension of sustainable forest management is strongly achieved while the economic dimension is lacking behind the current potential. Thus, we conclude that maintaining a large number of trees in the forest does not necessarily ensure both ecological and economical sustainability. Instead, priority should be given on a rational estimation of the annual harvest rates to enhance forest resource conditions together with regular benefits to the local communities.

Keywords: community forests, diversity, growing stock, forest management, sustainability, nepal

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Authors: Matúš Mihalik, Martin Vavra, Kornel Csach, Marián Mihalik

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GdMnO₃ belongs to orthorhombically distorted, GdFeO₃-type family of perovskite compounds. These compounds are naturally vacant and the amount of vacancies depend on the sample preparation conditions. Our GdMnO₃ samples were prepared by float zone method and the vacancies were controlled using an air, Ar and O₂ preparation atmosphere. The highest amount of vacancies was found for sample prepared in Ar atmosphere, while the sample prepared in O₂ was observed to be almost vacancy-free. The magnetic measurements indicate that the preparation atmosphere has no impact on Néel temperature (TN ~ 42 K), however, it has strong impact on the incommensurate antiferromagnetic (IC) to canted A-type weak ferromagnetic (AWF) phase transition at T1: T1 = 23.4 K; 18 K and 6.7 K for samples prepared in Ar; air and O₂ atmosphere; respectively. The hysteresis loop measured at 2 K has a butterfly-type shape with the remnant magnetization (Mr) of 0.6 µB/f.u. for Ar and air sample, while Mr = 0.3 µB/f.u. for O₂ sample. The shape of the hysteresis loop depends on the preparation atmosphere in magnetic fields up to 1.5 T, but is independent for higher magnetic fields. The coercive field of less than 0.06 T and the maximum magnetic moment of 6 µB/f.u. at magnetic field µ0H = 7 T do not depend on the preparation atmosphere. All these findings indicate that only AWF phase of GdMnO₃ compound is directly affected by the vacancies in the system, while IC phase and the field induced ferroelectric phase are not affected.

Keywords: magnetism, perovskites, sample preparation, magnetic phase transition

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Authors: Sarah Smail

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Algeria has been subject to countless conquests and invasions that resulted in having a diverse linguistic repertoire. The sociolinguistic situation of the country made linguistic landscape analysis pertinent. This in fact, has led to the growth of diverse linguistic landscape studies that mainly focused on identifying the sociolinguistic situation of the country through shop names analysis. The present research adds to the existing literature by offering another perspective to the analysis of signs by combining the physical and digital semiotic landscape. The powerful oil, gas and agri-food industries in Algeria make it interesting to focus on the commodification of natural resources for the sake of identifying the language and semiotic resources deployed in the Algerian public scene in addition to the identification of the visibility of linguistic inequalities and minorities in the business domain. The study discusses the semiotic landscape of three trade cities: Bejaia, Setif and Hassi-Messaoud. In addition to interviews conducted with business owners and graphic designers and questionnaires with business employees. Withal, the study relies on Gorter’s multilingual inequalities in public space (MIPS) model (2021) and Irvine and Gal’s language ideology and linguistic differentiation (2000). The preliminary results demonstrate the sociolinguistic injustice existing in the business domain, e.g., the exclusion of the official languages, the dominance of foreign languages, and the excessive use of the roman script.

Keywords: semiotic landscaping, digital scapes, language commodification, linguistic inequalities, business signage

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Authors: Ewa Krasnodębska

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The article presents the costs and income maize cultivation for grain four selected varieties with different numbers of FAO in 2013-2014. Results of the experiments are derived from a field experiment conducted in indywidulnym farm specializing in the production plant located in the eastern part of Mazowieckie voivodship. The experiment examined the profitability of four varieties of maize cultivation: medium early: P8400 (FAO 240) and P8589 (FAO 250), and an average of late: PR38N86 (FAO 270) and P9027 (FAO 260). In order to evaluate the profitability of grain maize production was calculated income from 1 ha of crops in zł and profitability index taking into account the direct payments up to 1 ha. Analyzing the value of crop production can be concluded that the value of the total production of each variety was very much varied and very much depend on the sales price and yield of maize obtained from 1 ha of cultivation. The largest average seed yield of two years at a moisture content of 15% was achieved in a variety PR38N86, which amounted to 12.1 t / ha and the lowest in the variety P8400 - 9.8 t / ha. Income from 1 ha of crops including EU subsidies ranged from 4916.4 zł / ha in 2013 for variety and only 528.7 PR38N86 zł / ha for a variety of P8400 in 2014. Profitability index reached the highest average late PR38N86 variety of FAO 290 over the entire two-year period under study, and the lowest rate of profitability achieved P8400 medium early variety of FAO 240. The profitability of production ranged from 8964.0 zł / ha in 2013 for a variety of PR38N86 to 5616.0 zł / ha for a variety of P8400 in 2014. Cultivation of maize for grain production is attractive and does not require large amounts of work, but its economic rationale is based primarily on the resulting yield and the price of buying.

Keywords: corn, grain, income, profitability

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Authors: Michele Romanello

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COVID-19 has spread rapidly in Brazil since March 2020, making the country one of the most affected in the world by the pandemic. From an economic point of view, Brazil came from a pre-pandemic period characterized by low or negative growth, with a resulting increase in the number of unemployed and informal workers. This paper considers lockdown implementation in the situation of the large presence of informality in the economy. The objective of the paper is to analyze how the country has tried to help workers affected by economic crisis after the implementation of measures against COVID-19 and whether the emergency assistance from the government has been adequate to contain the increase of informal workers and unemployed. The methodology used in this paper is survival analysis. Through this methodology, the formality – informality, and informality – unemployment transitions are analyzed. This analysis draws data from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD) and from the National Household Sample Survey COVID-19 (PNAD COVID-19) covering the period of January 2020 – July 2020. The results indicate that emergency aid has been not sufficient to reduce the transitions of workers from formal to informal jobs and from informal jobs to unemployment. Emergency aid has been not sufficient considering the previous situation of the country, with levels of poverty and inequality very high. In the next months, another fundamental determinant of the income trajectory in the context of the COVID-19 crisis will be the continuity of the emergency aid, especially considering the fiscal adjustment policy pursued by the government. Therefore, the current negative portrait may be even worse in the coming months.

Keywords: Brazil, COVID-19, informality, survival analysis

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Authors: Rasheed A. Saliu, Sunday E. Ogundipe, Oluwaseun A. Adefila

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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in recent time has transformed the means by which we inform ourselves, with world events and areas of personal interests, and further our learning. Today, for many, books and journals are no longer the first or primary source of information or learning. We now regularly rely on images, video, animations and sound to acquire information and to learn. Increased and improved access to the internet has accelerated this phenomenon. We now acquire and access information in ways fundamentally different from the pre-ICT era. But to what extent is academic staff in colleges of education, having access to and the utilising of ICT devices in their lecture deliveries especially in School of Science and Vocational and Technical? The main focus of this paper is to proffer solution to this salient question. It is essentially an empirical study carried out in five colleges of education in south-west zone of Nigeria. The target population was the academic staff in the selected institution. A total number of 150 male and female lecturers were contacted for the study. The main instrument was questionnaire. The finding reveals that male lecturers are much more ICT inclined than women folk in the academics. Some recommendations were made to endear academics to utilizing ICT at their disposal to foster qualitative delivery in this digital era.

Keywords: education, gender, ICT, Nigeria

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Authors: Mernoosh Abouzari, Shahrokh Sahraei

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Electronic government is a way for governments to use new technology that provides people with the necessary facilities for proper access to government information and services, improving the quality of services and providing broad opportunities to participate in democratic processes and institutions. That leads to providing the possibility of easy use of information technology in order to distribute government services to the customer without holidays, which increases people's satisfaction and participation in political and economic activities. The expansion of e-government services and its movement towards intelligentization has the ability to re-establish the relationship between the government and citizens and the elements and components of the government. Electronic government is the result of the use of information and communication technology (ICT), which by implementing it at the government level, in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of government systems and the way of providing services, tremendous commercial changes are created, which brings people's satisfaction at the wide level will follow. The main level of electronic government services has become objectified today with the presence of artificial intelligence systems, which recent advances in artificial intelligence represent a revolution in the use of machines to support predictive decision-making and Classification of data. With the use of deep learning tools, artificial intelligence can mean a significant improvement in the delivery of services to citizens and uplift the work of public service professionals while also inspiring a new generation of technocrats to enter government. This smart revolution may put aside some functions of the government, change its components, and concepts such as governance, policymaking or democracy will change in front of artificial intelligence technology, and the top-down position in governance may face serious changes, and If governments delay in using artificial intelligence, the balance of power will change and private companies will monopolize everything with their pioneering in this field, and the world order will also depend on rich multinational companies and in fact, Algorithmic systems will become the ruling systems of the world. It can be said that currently, the revolution in information technology and biotechnology has been started by engineers, large economic companies, and scientists who are rarely aware of the political complexities of their decisions and certainly do not represent anyone. Therefore, it seems that if liberalism, nationalism, or any other religion wants to organize the world of 2050, it should not only rationalize the concept of artificial intelligence and complex data algorithm but also mix them in a new and meaningful narrative. Therefore, the changes caused by artificial intelligence in the political and economic order will lead to a major change in the way all countries deal with the phenomenon of digital globalization. In this paper, while debating the role and performance of e-government, we will discuss the efficiency and application of artificial intelligence in e-government, and we will consider the developments resulting from it in the new world and the concepts of governance.

Keywords: electronic government, artificial intelligence, information and communication technology., system

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Authors: Raimi Abiodun Moronfolu, Anthonia Olusola Moronfolu

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The purpose of this study was to assess athlete’s preparation and quality of opponent as determinants of self-efficacy among university athletes in south-west Nigeria. The descriptive research method was employed in conducting the study. A total of 200 athletes, selected from 4 universities in South-West geopolitical zone of Nigeria through a stratified random sampling technique, were used in the study. The instrument used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire named ‘Athletes Self-Efficacy Assessment Questionnaire (ASAQ)’. This was developed by the researchers and face validated by three experts in sports psychology. The test-retest method was used in establishing the reliability of the instrument (r=0.79). A total of 200 copies of the validated ASAQ were administered on selected respondents using the spot method. The data collected was used to develop a frequency distribution table for analysis. The descriptive statistics of percentage was used in presenting the data collected, while inferential statistics of linear regression was used in drawing inferences at a 0.05 level of significance. The findings indicated that athlete’s preparation and quality of opponent were significant determinants of self-efficacy among university athletes in South-West Nigeria.

Keywords: athletes, preparation, opponent, self-efficacy

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Authors: Radhika V., J. M. Chandra Kishen

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The theory of critical distances (TCD), due to its appealing characteristics, has been successfully used in the past to predict the strength of brittle as well as ductile materials, weakened by the presence of stress risers under both static and fatigue loading. By utilising most of the TCD's unique features, this paper summarises an attempt for a reformulation of the point method of the TCD to predict the strength of notched plain concrete beams under mode I quasi-static loading. A zone of micro cracks, which is responsible for the non-linearity of concrete, is taken into account considering the concept of an effective elastic crack. An attempt is also made to correlate the value of the material characteristic length required for the application of TCD with the maximum aggregate size in the concrete mix, eliminating the need for any extensive experimentation prior to the application of TCD. The devised reformulation and the proposed power law based relationship is found to yield satisfactory predictions for static strength of notched plain concrete beams, with geometric dimensions of the beam, tensile strength, and maximum aggregate size of the concrete mix being the only needed input parameters.

Keywords: characteristic length, effective elastic crack, inherent material strength, modeI loading, theory of critical distances

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Authors: Weichen Chang

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To create a guided teaching method for AI generative drawing design, this paper develops a set of teaching models for AI generative drawing (DCAI), which combines learning modes such as problem-solving, thematic inquiry, phenomenon-based, task-oriented, and DFC . Through the information security AI picture book learning guided programs and content, the application of participatory action research (PAR) and interview methods to explore the dual knowledge of Context and ChatGPT (DCAI) for AI to guide the development of students' AI learning skills. In the interviews, the students highlighted five main learning outcomes (self-study, critical thinking, knowledge generation, cognitive development, and presentation of work) as well as the challenges of implementing the model. Through the use of DCAI, students will enhance their consensus awareness of generative mapping analysis and group cooperation, and they will have knowledge that can enhance AI capabilities in DCAI inquiry and future life. From this paper, it is found that the conclusions are (1) The good use of DCAI can assist students in exploring the value of their knowledge through the power of stories and finding the meaning of knowledge communication; (2) Analyze the transformation power of the integrity and coherence of the story through the context so as to achieve the tension of ‘starting and ending’; (3) Use ChatGPT to extract inspiration, arrange story compositions, and make prompts that can communicate with people and convey emotions. Therefore, new knowledge construction methods will be one of the effective methods for AI learning in the face of artificial intelligence, providing new thinking and new expressions for interdisciplinary design and design education practice.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, task-oriented, contextualization, design education

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Authors: M. Zake, I. Barmina, R. Valdmanis, A. Kolmickovs

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Experimental investigations of the DC electric field effect on thermal decomposition of biomass, formation of the axial flow of volatiles (CO, H2, CxHy), mixing of volatiles with swirling airflow at low swirl intensity (S ≈ 0.2-0.35), their ignition and on formation of combustion dynamics are carried out with the aim to understand the mechanism of electric field influence on biomass gasification, combustion of volatiles and heat energy production. The DC electric field effect on combustion dynamics was studied by varying the positive bias voltage of the central electrode from 0.6 kV to 3 kV, whereas the ion current was limited to 2 mA. The results of experimental investigations confirm the field-enhanced biomass gasification with enhanced release of volatiles and the development of endothermic processes at the primary stage of thermochemical conversion of biomass determining the field-enhanced heat energy consumption with the correlating decrease of the flame temperature and heat energy production at this stage of flame formation. Further, the field-enhanced radial expansion of the flame reaction zone correlates with a more complete combustion of volatiles increasing the combustion efficiency by 3 % and decreasing the mass fraction of CO, H2 and CxHy in the products, whereas by 10 % increases the average volume fraction of CO2 and the heat energy production downstream the combustor increases by 5-10 %

Keywords: biomass, combustion, electrodynamic control, gasification

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Authors: Anu Krishna

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Cardamom Hills geographically falls into the Western Ghat region in the state of Kerala (India). The fame of these hills dates back to antiquity as the abode of various indigenous communities and treasure house of spices like cardamom. With the colonial conquest over the region, the evergreen forests got converted into zones of mono-cropping with commercial crops such as coffee, tea, cardamom etc. on plantation basis; a process which has been further accentuated with the migration of settlers during the post-independent times. Curiously, when Cardamom Hills are better known today as the plantation belt of the country or as one of the most fostering grounds of agrarian capitalism producing the lion share of Indian cardamom, the indigenous communities of the place such as the Mannans got alienated of their ancestral lands, became inter-generational proletariats and got reduced into ‘segmented spaces’ called the settlements. While dispossession of land for plantations has dislocated the economic life of the Mannans, the migration of the settlers has resulted into a complete social, cultural, political and demographic dominion over them. This has not only relegated their existential relations, history, culture and association with the place but also condensed them as the ‘Other’ in their own territories. Therefore inquisitively, violation of rights of the communities like Mannans, encroachment of their lands, negation towards their very existence and distortion of their history gets defined as the ‘Manifest Destiny’ of the people and place whereby its inevitability gets manufactured. This paper is an attempt to elicit the ways in which the formation of Mannan settlements are interconnected to the historical reality and contemporary opulence of the plantation industry in the place. The arguments put forth by this study is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in various Mannan settlements in the cardamom hills. The study basically dwells on to the methodological premises of multi-sited ethnography wherein information was gathered from different sites such as settlements, plantations and other interactive spaces wherein the Mannans from the settlements engages in socio-economic, cultural and political relations. Such an attempt was made to understand in depth the associations and interactions that people in the settlements have among themselves and others. The study equally uses the method of oral history to understand the alternative history, the socio-cultural and economic life of the people before the importation of plantations to the place. The paper gauges into the ways in which settlements imprisons generations of Mannans into plantation work and acts as moulds for subservient, hardworking plantation labourers.

Keywords: Cardamom Hills, plantations, labourers, Mannans, segmented spaces, settlements

Procedia PDF Downloads 233