Search results for: categories of practice

Authors: Min-Pei Ling

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Aflatoxin is a fungal secondary metabolite with high toxicity capable of contaminating various types of food crops. It has been identified as a Group 1 human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Chronic aflatoxin exposure has caused a worldwide public food safety concern. Peanuts and peanut products are the major sources of aflatoxin exposure. Therefore, some reduction interventions have been developed to minimize contamination through the peanut production chain. The purpose of this study is to estimate the efficacy of interventions in reducing the health impact of hepatocellular carcinoma caused by aflatoxin contamination in peanuts. The estimated total disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) was calculated using FDA-iRISK online software. Six aflatoxin reduction strategies were evaluated, including good agricultural practice (GAP), biocontrol, Purdue Improved Crop Storage packaging, basic processing, ozonolysis, and ultraviolet irradiation. The results indicated that basic processing could prevent huge public health loss of 4,079.7–21,833 total DALYs per year, which accounted for 39.6% of all decreased total DALYs. GAP and biocontrol were both effective strategies in the farm field, while the other three interventions were limited in reducing total DALYs. In conclusion, this study could help farmers, processing plants, and government policymakers to alleviate aflatoxin contamination issues in the peanut production chain.

Keywords: aflatoxin, health burden, disability-adjusted life-years, peanuts

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Authors: Wided Khiari, Adel Karaa

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This study aims to establish a typology of Tunisian listed firms according to their corporate governance characteristics and disclosure quality. The paper uses disclosed scores to examine corporate governance practices of Tunisian listed firms. A content analysis of 46 Tunisian listed firms from 2001 to 2010 has been carried out and a disclosure index developed to determine the level of disclosure of the companies. The disclosure quality is appreciated through the quantity and also through the nature (type) of information disclosed. Applying the decision tree method, the obtained tree diagrams provide ways to know the characteristics of a particular firm regardless of its level of disclosure. Obtained results show that the characteristics of corporate governance to achieve good quality of disclosure are not unique for all firms. These structures are not necessarily all of the recommendations of best practices, but converge towards the best combination. Indeed, in practice, there are companies which have a good quality of disclosure, but are not well-governed. However, we hope that by improving their governance system their level of disclosure may be better. These findings show, in a general way, a convergence towards the standards of corporate governance with a few exceptions related to the specificity of Tunisian listed firms and show the need for the adoption of a code for each context. These findings shed the light on corporate governance features that enhance incentives for good disclosure. It allows identifying, for each firm and in any date, corporate governance determinants of disclosure quality. More specifically, and all being equal, obtained tree makes a rule of decision for the company to know the level of disclosure based on certain characteristics of the governance strategy adopted by the latter.

Keywords: corporate governance, disclosure, decision tree, economics

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Authors: Karima Chaabna, Sohaila Cheema, Amit Abraham, Hekmat Alrouh, Ravinder Mamtani, Javaid I. Sheikh

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We aimed to assess the production of systematic reviews (SRs) that synthesize observational studies discussing population health issues in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Two independent reviewers systematically searched MEDLINE through PubMed. Between 2008-2016, 5,747 articles (reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses) were identified. Following a multi-stage screening process, 387 SRs (with or without meta-analysis) on population health issues in the MENA were included in our overview. Citation numbers for each SR were retrieved from Google Scholar. Impact factor of the journal during the publication year for the included SRs was retrieved from the Institute of Scientific Information’s Journal Citation Report. We conducted linear regression analysis to assess time trends of number of publications according to SRs’ characteristics. We characterized a linear statistically significant increase in the annual numbers of SRs that summarize observational studies on the MENA population health (p-value<0.0001, R2=0.95), from 15 in 2008 to 81 in 2016. Our analysis reveals also linear statistically significant increases in numbers of SRs published by authors affiliated to institutions located inside MENA and/or neighboring countries (N=113, p-value < 0.0001, R²=0.90), by authors located outside MENA (N=155, p-value=0.0007, R²=0.82), and by collaborating authors affiliated to institutions located outside MENA and inside the region and/or in MENA’s neighboring countries (total number of SRs (N)= 119, p-value=0.0004, R²=0.85). Furthermore, these SRs were published in journals with an IF ranging from 0 to 47.8 (median=2.1). Linear statistically significant increases in numbers of published SRs were demonstrated in journals’ impact factor (IF) categories (IF=[0-2[: R²=0.79, p-value=0.0012; IF=[2-4[:R²=0.86, p-value=0.0003; and IF=[4-6[:R²=0.53, p-value=0.026). Additionally, annual numbers of citations to the SRs varied between 0 and 471 (median=7). While each year, a couple of SRs were getting more than 50 annual citations, there were linear statistically significant increases in numbers of published SRs with an annual number of citations at [0-10[(R²=0.89, p-value=0.00014) and at [10-50[ (R²=0.76, p-value=0.0021). Between 2008-2016, increasingly SRs that summarize observational studies on population health issues in the MENA were published. Authors of these SRs were located inside and/or outside the MENA region and an increasing number of collaborations were seen. Increasing numbers of SRs were predominantly observed in journals with an IF between zero and six. Interestingly, SRs covering MENA region countries were being increasingly cited, indicating an escalation of interest in this region’s population health issues.

Keywords: bibliometric, citation, impact factor, Middle East and North Africa, population health, systematic review

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Authors: Jennifer Bradley

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With opportunities to live and work abroad on the rise, effective preparation and support for international employees needs to be addressed within the work-site. International employees must build new habits, routines and social networks in an unfamiliar culture. Culture shock typically occurs within the first year and can affect both physical and psychological health. Employers have the opportunity to support staff through the adaptation process and foster healthy habits and routines. Cross-cultural training that includes a combination of instructional teaching, cultural experiences, and practice, is shown to increase the international employee adaptation process. However, little evidence demonstrates that organizations provide all of these aspects for international employees. The occupational therapy practitioner (OTP) offers a unique perspective focusing on the employee transactional relationship and engagement of meaningful occupations to enhance and enable participation in roles, habits and routines within new cultural contexts. This paper examines one such program developed and implemented by an OTP at the New England Center for Children, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The effectiveness of the program was assessed via participant feedback and concluded that an international employee support program that focuses on a variety of meaningful experiences and knowledge can empower employees to navigate healthy practices, develop habits and routines, and foster positive inter-cultural relationships in the organization and community.

Keywords: occupational therapy practitioner, cross cultural training, international employee health, international employee support

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Authors: Rainner Roweder

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Theme: The present paper aims to analyze the specificity of the judicial evidence linked to the subjects of dignity and personality rights, otherwise known as moral rights, in the determination of the truth and formation of the judicial reasoning in cases concerning these areas. This research is about the way courts in Brazilian domestic law search for truth and handles evidence in cases involving moral rights that are abundant and important in Brazil. The main object of the paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the evidence in the formation of judicial conviction in matters related to morally controverted rights, based on the Brazilian, and as a comparison, the Latin American legal systems. In short, the rights of dignity and personality are moral. However, the evidential legal system expects a rational demonstration of moral rights that generate judicial conviction or persuasion. Moral, in turn, tends to be difficult or impossible to demonstrate in court, generating the problem considered in this paper, that is, the study of the moral demonstration problem as proof in court. In this sense, the more linked to moral, the more difficult to be demonstrated in court that right is, expanding the field of judicial discretion, generating legal uncertainty. More specifically, the new personality rights, such as gender, and their possibility of alteration, further amplify the problem being essentially an intimate manner, which does not exist in the objective, rational evidential system, as normally occurs in other categories, such as contracts. Therefore, evidencing this legal category in court, with the level of security required by the law, is a herculean task. It becomes virtually impossible to use the same evidentiary system when judging the rights researched here; therefore, it generates the need for a new design of the evidential task regarding the rights of the personality, a central effort of the present paper. Methodology: Concerning the methodology, the Method used in the Investigation phase was Inductive, with the use of the comparative law method; in the data treatment phase, the Inductive Method was also used. Doctrine, Legislative, and jurisprudential comparison was the technique research used. Results: In addition to the peculiar characteristics of personality rights that are not found in other rights, part of them are essentially linked to morale and are not objectively verifiable by design, and it is necessary to use specific argumentative theories for their secure confirmation, such as interdisciplinary support. The traditional pragmatic theory of proof, for having an obvious objective character, when applied in the rights linked to the morale, aggravates decisionism and generates legal insecurity, being necessary its reconstruction for morally charged cases, with the possible use of the “predictive theory” ( and predictive facts) through algorithms in data collection and treatment.

Keywords: moral rights, proof, pragmatic proof theory, insufficiency, Brazil

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Authors: Janet B. Badong-Badilla

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In Jesuit universities, laypersons, who come from the same or different faith backgrounds or traditions, are considered as collaborators in mission. The Jesuits themselves support the contributions of the lay partners in realizing the mission of the Society of Jesus and recognize the important role that they play in education. This study aims to investigate and generate particular notions and understandings of lived experiences of being a lay partner in Jesuit universities in the Philippines, particularly those involved in higher education. Using the qualitative approach as introduced by grounded theorist Barney Glaser, the lay partners’ concept of being a partner, as lived in higher education, is generated systematically from the data collected in the field primarily through in-depth interviews, field notes and observations. Glaser’s constant comparative method of analysis of data is used going through the phases of open coding, theoretical coding, and selective coding from memoing to theoretical sampling to sorting and then writing. In this study, Glaser’s grounded theory as a methodology will provide a substantial insight into and articulation of the layperson’s actual experience of being a partner of the Jesuits in education. Such articulation provides a phenomenological approach or framework to an understanding of the meaning and core characteristics of Jesuit-Lay partnership in Jesuit educational institution of higher learning in the country. This study is expected to provide a framework or model for lay partnership in academic institutions that have the same practice of having lay partners in mission.

Keywords: grounded theory, Jesuit mission in higher education, lay partner, lived experience

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Authors: Liwen Wang, Yuting Chen, Tong Wu, Shaolei Hu

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In order to enhance the security of critical financial infrastructure, this study carries out a transformation of the architecture of a financial trading terminal to a zero trust architecture (ZTA), constructs an active defense system for cybersecurity, improves the security level of trading services in the Internet environment, enhances the ability to prevent network attacks and unknown risks, and reduces the industry and security risks brought about by cybersecurity risks. This study introduces the SDP technology of ZTA, adapts and applies it to a financial trading terminal to achieve security optimization and fine-grained business grading control. The upgraded architecture of the trading terminal moves security protection forward to the user access layer, replaces VPN to optimize remote access, and significantly improves the security protection capability of Internet transactions. The study achieves 1. deep integration with the access control architecture of the transaction system; 2. no impact on the performance of terminals and gateways, and no perception of application system upgrades; 3. customized checklist and policy configuration; 4. introduction of industry-leading security technology such as single-packet authorization (SPA) and secondary authentication. This study carries out a successful application of ZTA in the field of financial trading and provides transformation ideas for other similar systems while improving the security level of financial transaction services in the Internet environment.

Keywords: zero trust, trading terminal, architecture, network security, cybersecurity

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Authors: Magdy Abouzeid

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Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the influence of Monofin training, 36 weeks, 6 times per week, 90 min/unit on left ventricular performance in elite Egyptian Monofin athletes. Background: The elite athletes are one who has superior athletic talent. Monofin swimming already provide the most efficient way of swimming for human being, it is an aquatics sport practice on the surface or under water. Methods :To study these effects,14 elite Monofin children(3 girls and 11boys) aged(11.95± 1.09yr) HT (153.07± 4.2 cm) , WT(52.4 ± 3.7 kg ) , body surface area (BSA.m2 1.48 ± 5.6 m2 ) took part in long-term Monofin Training(LTMT).All subjects underwent two-dimension and M-mode Echordiography at rest before and after(LTMT). Results: There was significant difference (P < 0.01) and percentage improvement for all echocardiography parameter after (LTMT). Inter ventricular septal thickness in diastole and in systole increased by 27.9 % and 42.75 %. Left ventricular end systolic dimension and diastole increased by 16.81 % and 42.7 % respectively. Posterior wall thickness in systole was very highly increased by 283.3 % and in diastole increased by 51.78 %. Left ventricular mass in diastole and in systole increased by 44.8 % and 40.1 % respectively. Stroke volume and resting heart rate (HR) significant changed (sv) 25 %, (HR) 14.7 %. Conclusion: Monofin training is an effective sport to enhance ‘Heart athlete's’ for children, because the unique swim fin tool and create propulsion and overcome resistance. Further researches are needed to determine the effects of Monofin training on right ventricular in child athletes.

Keywords: prepubertal, monofin training, heart athlete's, elite child athlete, echocardiography

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Authors: Narimen Hamdini

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The mastery of a foreign language often implies adequate speaking competency and communication. However, it has been marked that the Algerian students’ oral performance is affected by the lack of language practice opportunities. The present study aims at investigating the impact of cooperative learning strategies on the learners’ oral performance through integrating some learning strategies in oral expression classes. Thus, a quasi-experimental study with one group pretest-posttest design was conducted. A convenience sample of 27 second-year students from the University of Jijel, Algeria, was taught during three consecutive weeks through cooperative learning activities in conjunction with regular language instruction in oral expression classes. Regarding data collection, the study makes use of students’ questionnaire, a semi-structured interview with the teachers of oral expression, and orally scored pre-posttest. While the students’ questionnaire aims at exploring the learners ‘speaking difficulties and attitudes towards the implementation of the strategy, the semi-structured interview aims at revealing the teachers’ instructional practices and attitudes toward the integration of CL activities. Finally, the oral tests were conducted before and after the intervention to measure the effect of the strategy on the learners’ oral production. The findings showed that the experimental group scored higher in the posttest. Cooperative learning promotes not only the learner’s oral performances, but also motivation and social skills. Consequently, its implementation in the oral expression classes is validated and recommended.

Keywords: cooperative learning, learning, oral performance, teaching

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Authors: Philippe Dillien, Patrice Forget, Harald Engel, Olivier Cornu, Marc De Kock, Jean Cyr Yombi

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Introduction: Hip fracture precedes commonly death in elderly people. Identification of high-risk patients may contribute to target patients in whom optimal management, resource allocation and trials efficiency is needed. The aim of this study is to construct a predictive score of mortality after hip fracture on the basis of the objective prognostic factors available: Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), age, and sex. C-Reactive Protein (CRP), is also considered as an alternative to the NLR. Patients and methods: After the IRB approval, we analyzed our prospective database including 286 consecutive patients with hip fracture. A score was constructed combining age (1 point per decade above 74 years), sex (1 point for males), and NLR at postoperative day+5 (1 point if >5). A receiver-operating curve (ROC) curve analysis was performed. Results: From the 286 patients included, 235 were analyzed (72 males and 163 females, 30.6%/69.4%), with a median age of 84 (range: 65 to 102) years, mean NLR values of 6.47+/-6.07. At one year, 82/280 patients died (29.3%). Graphical analysis and log-rank test confirm a highly statistically significant difference (P<0.001). Performance analysis shows an AUC of 0.72 [95%CI 0.65-0.79]. CRP shows no advantage on NLR. Conclusion: We have developed a score based on age, sex and the NLR to predict the risk of mortality at one year in elderly patients after surgery for a hip fracture. After external validation, it may be included in clinical practice as in clinical research to stratify the risk of postoperative mortality.

Keywords: neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, hip fracture, postoperative mortality, medical and health sciences

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Authors: Takudzwa C. Taruza, Carel B. Schoeman, Ilse M. Schoeman

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The proliferation of informal settlements remains one of the major planning challenges in democratic South Africa. In spite of the various local, national and international initiatives to promote the creation of sustainable human settlements, informal settlements continue to exist as spatially marginalised societies characterised by poverty, unemployment, squalor conditions and disaster risks. It is argued that, in practice, intervention is mainly directed at achieving set quantitative targets and goals rather than improving the lives of the inhabitants. The relevant planning instruments do not adequately address the integration of informal settlements into the broader planning framework. This paper is based on the analysis of the informal settlement intervention within the North West Province. Financial constraints, bureaucracy in housing delivery and lack of horizontal and vertical integration in spatial planning and programme implementation are amongst the major factors that caused stagnation in some of the upgrading programmes which in turn hindered the attainment of the target set as part of the Outcome 8 Delivery Agreement. Moreover, the absence of distinct indicators for the assessment of the qualitative progress of upgrading programmes indicates shortcomings in the intervention policies and programmes to promote the creation of sustainable human settlements. Thus, this paper seeks to proffer an assessment toolkit as well as a framework for the implementation of a Sustainable Informal Settlement Programme.

Keywords: formalization of informal settlements, planning intervention, sustainable formalization indicators, sustainable human settlements

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Authors: Marike Venter de Villiers, Alicia Kruger

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The rapid development of the Internet has facilitated the proliferation of online stores. It has, therefore, become a pertinent issue for online retailers to provide the ultimate experience to customers in an attempt to maintain market share in this competitive landscape. Experiential marketing refers to the sensory dimensions that consumers experience when being faced with a purchase decision, such as getting them to sense, feel, think, act, and relate. The goal of experiential marketing is to provide a holistic experience for customers that allow them to engage in an activity where they may be motivated to purchase the concept behind the product. Creating a unique online experience holds several benefits to brands such as increased customer satisfaction, increased revisit intention, and higher levels of customer loyalty. Although several studies have explored the topic of experiential marketing in an online context, a lack of research exists on South African consumers, an emerging economy that is often overlooked globally. More specifically, the present study focused on professional females and their perceptions of experiential marketing when shopping for fashion products online. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the experiential factors that influence the online purchase intention of fashion products among female professionals. Furthermore, this study aimed to achieve the following objectives: firstly, to gain insight into key website characteristics that consumers value when shopping online for fashion products; secondly, to apply Pine and Gilmore’s (1989) Four Realms of an Experience (entertainment, education, esthetics, and escapism) to ground the study; and thirdly, to gain in-depth insight into the importance of these dimensions and identifying sub-categories that fashion marketers can use to enhance consumers’ online experience. By means of a qualitative study, a focus group was conducted comprising six professional females by using semi-structured questions. Respondents were selected using convenience sampling, and the results were analyzed using thematic analysis. The present research suggests that three of the four realms of experience influence purchase intention of fashion products online, namely, escapism, esthetics, and education. The fourth dimension, pleasure, was present but to a lesser degree. In other words, ‘escapism’ provides online shoppers with a sense of emotional and intellectual pleasure, while ‘esthetics’ refers to the website design, functionality, and product range, and ‘education’ comprises the product information such as the quality, fabric, price and available sizes. The findings of this study provide fashion marketers with insight into how they can maximize on experiential marketing when selling fashion products online. It further provides strategies and techniques for creating an enhanced online experience that ultimately may lead to increased purchase intention.

Keywords: experiential marketing, fashion, online, retail

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Authors: Atul Khurana, Rajul Rastogi, Hans-Joachim Gamperl

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The pharmaceutical companies are getting more inclined towards patient support programs (PSPs) which assist patients and/or healthcare professionals (HCPs) in more desirable disease management and cost-effective treatment. The utmost objective of these programs is patient care. The PSPs may include financial assistance to patients, medicine compliance programs, access to HCPs via phone or online chat centers, etc. The PSP has a crucial role in terms of customer acquisition and retention strategies. During the conduct of these programs, Marketing Authorisation Holder (MAH) may receive information related to concerned medicinal products, which is usually reported by patients or involved HCPs. This information may include suspected adverse reaction(s) during/after administration of medicinal products. Hence, the MAH should design PSP to comply with regulatory reporting requirements and avoid non-compliance during PV inspection. The emergence of wireless health devices is lowering the burden on patients to manually incorporate safety data, and building a significant option for patients to observe major swings in reference to drug safety. Therefore, to enhance the adoption of these programs, MAH not only needs to aware patients about advantages of the program, but also recognizes the importance of time of patients and commitments made in a constructive manner. It is indispensable that strengthening the public health is considered as the topmost priority in such programs, and the MAH is compliant to Pharmacovigilance (PV) requirements along with regulatory obligations.

Keywords: drug safety, good pharmacovigilance practice, patient support program, pharmacovigilance

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Authors: Ana Breda, Catarina Cruz

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Daily, we face unpredictable events, often attributed to chance, as there is no justification for such an occurrence. Chance, understood as a source of uncertainty, is present in several aspects of human life, such as weather forecasts, dice rolling, and lottery. Surprisingly, humans and some animals can quickly adjust their behavior to handle efficiently doubly stochastic processes (random events with two layers of randomness, like unpredictable weather affecting dice rolling). This adjustment ability suggests that the human brain has built-in mechanisms for perceiving, understanding, and responding to simple probabilities. It also explains why current trends in mathematics education include probability concepts in official curriculum programs, starting from the third year of primary education onwards. In the first years of schooling, children learn to use a certain type of (specific) vocabulary, such as never, always, rarely, perhaps, likely, and unlikely, to help them to perceive and understand the probability of some events. These are keywords of crucial importance for their perception and understanding of probabilities. The development of the probabilistic concepts comes from facts and cause-effect sequences resulting from the subject's actions, as well as the notion of chance and intuitive estimates based on everyday experiences. As part of a junior summer school program, which took place at a Portuguese university, a non-formal learning experiment was carried out with 18 children in the 5th and 6th grades. This experience was designed to be implemented in a dynamic of a serious ice-breaking game, to assess their levels of probabilistic, critical, and creative thinking in understanding impossible, certain, equally probable, likely, and unlikely events, and also to gain insight into how the non-formal learning context influenced their achievements. The criteria used to evaluate probabilistic thinking included the creative ability to conceive events classified in the specified categories, the ability to properly justify the categorization, the ability to critically assess the events classified by other children, and the ability to make predictions based on a given probability. The data analysis employs a qualitative, descriptive, and interpretative-methods approach based on students' written productions, audio recordings, and researchers' field notes. This methodology allowed us to conclude that such an approach is an appropriate and helpful formative assessment tool. The promising results of this initial exploratory study require a future research study with children from these levels of education, from different regions, attending public or private schools, to validate and expand our findings.

Keywords: critical and creative thinking, non-formal mathematics learning, probabilistic thinking, serious game

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Authors: Andrew Enaifoghe

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The study examined the role of public management development in enhancing public service delivery in the South African local government. The study believes that the ultimate empowerment of the third tier sphere of governments in South Africa remains the instrument required to enhance both national and continental development. This over the year has been overwhelmed with problems and imbalance related to ethical practice, accountability and the functional local government system and the machinery itself. The study finds that imbalances are being strengthened by a lack of understanding and unanimity as to what a public management development in a democratic system is and how it should work to achieve the dividends of democracy in delivering public goods. Studies indicated that the magnitudes are widespread corruption and misrepresentations of government priorities; both of which weaken the ability of governments to enhance broad-based economic growth and social well-being of the people. This study addressed the problem of public management and accountable local government. The study indicates the need for citizens’ participation in the decision-making process in delivering public service in South Africa and how its accountability mechanism supports good governance. The study concludes that good and ethical watersheds in South Africa have since reached such proportions that social pressure, the pressure from the government and various institutions have to re-consider where they stand regarding ethics, ethical behaviour, accountability and professionalism in delivering public goods to the people at the local municipal government.

Keywords: accountability, development, democratic system, South Africa

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Authors: Saimir Heta, Kers Kapaj, Rialda Xhizdari, Ilma Robo

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Dealing with emerging cases of dental malpractice with justifications that stem from the clear rules of dental ethics is a phenomenon with an increasing trend in today's dental practice. Dentists should clearly understand how far the limit of malpractice goes, with or without minimal or major consequences, for the affected patient, which can be justified as a complication of dental treatment, in support of the rules of dental ethics in the dental office. Indeed, malpractice can occur in cases of lack of professionalism, but it can also come as a consequence of anatomical and physiological limitations in the implementation of the dental protocols, predetermined and indicated by the patient in the paragraph of the treatment plan in his personal card. This study is of the review type with the aim of the latest findings published in the literature about the problem of dealing with these phenomena. The combination of keywords is done in such a way with the aim to give the necessary space for collecting the right information in the networks of publications about this field, always first from the point of view of the dentist and not from that of the lawyer or jurist. From the findings included in this article, it was noticed the diversity of approaches towards the phenomenon depends on the different countries based on the legal basis that these countries have. There is a lack of or a small number of articles that touch on this topic, and these articles are presented with a limited number of data on the same topic. Conclusions: Dental malpractice should not be hidden under the guise of various dental complications that we justify with the strict rules of ethics for patients treated in the dental chair. The individual experience of dental malpractice must be published with the aim of serving as a source of experience for future generations of dentists.

Keywords: dental ethics, malpractice, professional protocol, random deviation

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Authors: Mohammad Rawashdeh, Mark McEntee, Maha Zaitoun, Mostafa Abdelrahman, Patrick Brennan, Haytham Alewaidat, Sarah Lewis, Charbel Saade

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Despite the tremendous advancements that have been generated by Computed Tomography (CT) in the field of diagnosis, concerns have been raised about the potential cancer induction risk from CT because of the exponentially increased use of it in medicine. This study aims at investigating the application and knowledge of practicing radiographers in Jordan about CT radiation. In order to collect the primary data of this study, a questionnaire was designed and distributed by social media using a snow-balling sampling method. The respondents (n=54) have answered 36 questions including the questions about their demographic information, knowledge about Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs), CT exposure and adaptation of pediatric patients exposure. The educational level of the respondents was either at a diploma degree (35.2%) or bachelor (64.8%). The results of this study have indicated a good level of general knowledge between radiographers about the relationship between image quality, exposure parameters, and patient dose. The level of knowledge related to DRL was poor where less than 7.4 percent of the sample members were able to give specific values for a number of common anatomical fields, including abdomen, brain, and chest. Overall, Jordanian radiographers need to gain more knowledge about the expected levels of the dose when applying good practice. Additional education on DRL or DRL inclusion in educational programs is highlighted.

Keywords: computed tomography, CT scan, DRLs, exposure parameters, image quality, radiation dose

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Authors: Ekaterina Lukianchenko

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This article sums up a six-year experience of teaching English as a foreign language to over 900 university students at MGIMO (Moscow University of International Relations, Russia), all of them native speakers of Russian aged 16 to 23. By combining modern communicative approach to teaching with cognitive linguistics theories, one can deal more effectively with deeply rooted mistakes which particular students have of which conventional methods have failed to eliminate. If language items are understood as concepts and frames, and classroom activities as meaningful parts of language competence development, this might help to solve such problems as incorrect use of words, unsuitable register, and confused tenses - as well as logical or structural mistakes, and even certain psychological issues concerning essay writing. Along with classic teaching methods, such classroom practice includes plenty of interaction between students - playing special classroom games aimed at eliminating particular mistakes, working in pairs and groups, integrating all skills in one class. The main conclusions that the author of the experiment makes consist in an assumption that academic essay writing classes demand a balanced plan. This should not only include writing as such, but additionally feature elements of listening, reading, speaking activities specifically chosen according to the skills and language students will need to write the particular type of essay.

Keywords: academic essay writing, creative teaching, cognitive linguistics, competency-based approach, communicative language teaching, frame, concept

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Authors: Pedro Rubio

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Antonio Romero y Andía, was one of the most active and interesting figures in 19th century Spanish music. He was not only an exceptional clarinetist, he was also a publisher, a brilliant oboist, a music critic, and he revitalized Madrid’s musical scene by promoting orchestras and a national opera. In 1849, Romero was appointed Professor of Clarinet at the Conservatory of Madrid. Shortly after, Romero introduced to Spain the Boehm-System clarinet recently appeared in France. However, when initial interest in that system waned, he conceived his own system in 1853. The clarinet was manufactured in Paris by Lefêvre, who registered its first patent in 1862. In 1867 a second version was patented, and a year earlier, in 1866, the Romero clarinet was adopted as an official instrument for teaching the clarinet at the Conservatory of Madrid. The Romero-System clarinet mechanism has incorporated numerous additional devices and several extra keys, its skillful combination in a single instrument represents not only one of the pinnacles in the manufacture of musical instruments of the 19th century, but also an authentic synthesis of knowledge and practice in an era in which woodwind instruments were shaped as we know them today. Through the description and analysis of the data related to the aforementioned historical period, this lecture will try to show a crucial time in the history of all woodwind instruments, a period of technological effervescence in which the Romero-System clarinet emerged. The different stages of conception of the clarinet will be described, as well as its manufacturing and marketing process. Romero played with his clarinet system over twenty-five years. The research has identified the repertoire associated with this instrument whose conclusions will be presented in its case in the Congress.

Keywords: Antonio Romero, clarinet, keywork, 19th century

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Authors: Munenari Inoguchi, Keiko Tamura

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In Japan, we were suffered by earthquake, typhoon, and flood disaster in 2019. Especially, 38 of 47 prefectures were affected by typhoon #1919 occurred in October 2019. By this disaster, 99 people were dead, three people were missing, and 484 people were injured as human damage. Furthermore, 3,081 buildings were totally collapsed, 24,998 buildings were half-collapsed. Once disaster occurs, local responders have to inspect damage level of each building by themselves in order to certificate building damage for survivors for starting their life reconstruction process. At that disaster, the total number to be inspected was so high. Based on this situation, Cabinet Office of Japan approved the way to detect building damage level efficiently, that is collectively detection. However, they proposed a just guideline, and local responders had to establish the concrete and infallible method by themselves. Against this issue, we decided to establish the effective and efficient methodology to detect building damage level collectively with flood depth. Besides, we thought that the flood depth was relied on the land height, and we decided to utilize GIS (Geographic Information System) for analyzing the elevation spatially. We focused on the analyzing tool of spatial interpolation, which is utilized to survey the ground water level usually. In establishing the methodology, we considered 4 key-points: 1) how to satisfy the condition defined in the guideline approved by Cabinet Office for detecting building damage level, 2) how to satisfy survivors for the result of building damage level, 3) how to keep equitability and fairness because the detection of building damage level was executed by public institution, 4) how to reduce cost of time and human-resource because they do not have enough time and human-resource for disaster response. Then, we proposed a methodology for detecting building damage level collectively with flood depth utilizing GIS with five steps. First is to obtain the boundary of flooded area. Second is to collect the actual flood depth as sampling over flooded area. Third is to execute spatial analysis of interpolation with sampled flood depth to detect two-dimensional flood depth extent. Fourth is to divide to blocks by four categories of flood depth (non-flooded, over the floor to 100 cm, 100 cm to 180 cm and over 180 cm) following lines of roads for getting satisfaction from survivors. Fifth is to put flood depth level to each building. In Koriyama city of Fukushima prefecture, we proposed the methodology of collectively detection for building damage level as described above, and local responders decided to adopt our methodology at typhoon #1919 in 2019. Then, we and local responders detect building damage level collectively to over 1,000 buildings. We have received good feedback that the methodology was so simple, and it reduced cost of time and human-resources.

Keywords: building damage inspection, flood, geographic information system, spatial interpolation

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Authors: An-Na Li, Ying-Yu Chen, Chang-Kuang Chiou

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Food tourism is one of the growing industries and areas of interest in the tourism industry today. The Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) are aware of the importance of gastronomy in order to stimulate local and regional economic development. From the heritage and cultural aspects, gastronomy is becoming a more important part of the cultural heritage of region and countries. Heritage destinations provide culinary heritage, which fits the current interest in traditional food, and cuisine is part of a general desire for authentic experiences. However, few studies have empirically examining food tourist’s behavior. This study examined the effects of cuisine experience, emotions and tourists’ revisit intentions. A total of 402 individuals responded to the on-site survey in the historic town of Lu-Kang in Taiwan. The results indicated that tourists’ cuisine experience include place flavor, media recommended local learning, life transfer and interpersonal share. In addition, cuisine experience had significant impacts on emotions, which in turn cuisine experience and emotions had significant effects on tourists’ revisit intentions. The findings suggested that the cuisine experience is a multi- dimensions construct. On the other hands, the good quality of cuisine experience could evoke tourists’ positive emotions and it plays a significant role in promote tourist revisit intentions and word of mouth. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Keywords: culinary tourism, cuisine experience, emotions, revisit intentions

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Authors: Katalin Juhos, Enikő Papdi, Flórián Kovács, Vasileios P. Vasileiadis, Andrea Veres

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Mulching techniques can be a solution for better utilization of precipitation and irrigation water and for mitigating soil degradation and drought damages. Waste fibres as alternative biodegradable mulch materials are increasingly coming to the fore. The effect of wool mulch (WM) on water use efficiency of pepper seedlings were investigated in different soil types (sand, clay loam, peat) in a pot experiment. Two semi-field experiments were also set up to investigate the effect of WM-plant interaction on sweet pepper yield in comparison with agro-textile and straw mulches. Soil parameters (moisture, temperature, DHA, β-glucosidase enzymes, permanganate-oxidizable carbon) were measured during the growing season. The effect of WM on yield and biomass was more significant with less frequent irrigation and the greater the water capacity of soils. The microbiological activity was significantly higher in the presence of plants, because of the water retention of WM, the metabolic products of roots and the more balanced soil temperature caused by plants. On the sandy soil, the straw mulch had a significantly better effect on microbiological parameters and yields than the agro-textile and WM. WM is a sustainable practice for improving soil biological parameters and water use efficiency on soils with a higher water capacity.

Keywords: β-glucosidase, DHA enzyme activity; labile carbon, straw mulch; plastic mulch, evapotranspira-tion coefficient, soil temperature

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Authors: Aneela Sheikh

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Private higher education institutes are challenged for their resilience and competitive edge in the globalized knowledge-based economy in the 21st century. Faculty retention plays an important role as a catalyst for addressing the current mega-developmental phenomenon in higher education institutes faced by developing countries. This study intends to explore the influence of servant leadership practice on faculty retention through the intervening role of job satisfaction towards minimizing the high faculty turnover in private higher education institutes, with the mediating role of job satisfaction. A sample of 341 faculty members from ten private higher education institutes in Lahore city of Pakistan, was selected through a stratified proportionate random sampling technique. A descriptive survey research approach was employed to collect data from 341 faculty members by administering a close-ended questionnaire based on a seven-point Likert scale as a self-administered research instrument. The study was conducted under the domain of the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory. The mediating role of job satisfaction was measured by bootstrapping technique. The results revealed that servant leadership has a statistically significant influence on faculty retention, with a statistically significant mediating role of job satisfaction, in private higher education institutes in Pakistan. Further, up to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic and empirical study on faculty retention conducted against the backdrop of servant leadership in an Eastern context, particularly in Pakistan.

Keywords: servant leadership, faculty retention, job satisfaction, higher education institutes

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Authors: Bahia Braktia, Ahlem Ghamri

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Years ago, faculties and administrators realized that students entering college were not prepared for the academic sphere; however, as a type of collaborative learning, peer-review gave students a social context in which they could learn more efficiently. Peer-review has proven its effectiveness in higher education. Numerous studies have been conducted on peer review and its effects on the quality of students’ writing, and several publications recommended peer-review as part of the feedback process. Student writers showed a tendency towards making significant meaning-level revisions and surface-level revisions. Last but not least, studies reported that peer-review helps students develop their self-assessment skills as well as critical thinking. The use of peer-review has become well known and widely adopted to the L2 classroom environment. However, little is known about peer review on translation students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the students' perspective on peer-review, and whether this method affected the quality of their translation. A mixed method design was adopted. Students were requested to translate two texts from Arabic into English, and they gave and received structured feedback to their classmates' translations. A survey was administered, followed by semi-structured interviews, to examine the students' attitudes toward peer-review. The results of the study showed that peer-review was considered a good proofreading method for most students. The students also showed a positive attitude toward it, and they reported that they benefited from the interaction with their peers. The findings implied that the inclusion of peer-review can be an effective pedagogical practice for teaching translation and writing to foreign language learners.

Keywords: language teaching, feedback, peer-review, translation

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Authors: W. Kongnoo, J. Loysongkroa, S. Chotivichien, N. Viriyautsahakul, N. Saiwongse

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Obesity, stunting and wasting problems among Thai school-aged children are increasing due to inappropriate food consumption behavior and poor environments for desirable nutritional behavior. Because of a low school lunch budget of only 0.40 USD per person per day, food quality is not up to nutritional standards. Therefore, the Health Department with the Education Ministry and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation have developed a quality school lunch project during 2009–2013. The program objectives were development and management of public policy to increase school lunch budget. The methods used a healthy public policy motivation process and movement in 241 local administrative organizations and 538 schools. The problem and solution research was organized to study school food and nutrition management, create a best practice policy mobilization model and hold a public hearing to motivate an increase of school meal funding. The results showed that local public policy has been motivated during 2009-2011 to increase school meal budget using local budgets. School children with best food consumption behavior and exercise increased from 13.2% in 2009 to 51.6% in 2013 and stunting decreased from 6.0% in 2009 to 4.7% in 2013. As the result of national policy motivation (2012-2013), the cabinet meeting on October 22, 2013 has approved an increase of school lunch budget from 0.40 USD to 0.62 USD per person per day. Thus, 5,800,469 school children nationwide have benefited from the budget increase.

Keywords: public policy, quality school lunch, Thailand, obesity

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Authors: Andrea Fiorista

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The learning of prepositions is a quite problematic aspect in foreign language instruction, and Italian is certainly not an exception. In their prototypical function, prepositions express schematic relations of two entities in a highly abstract, typically image-schematic way. In other terms, prepositions assume concepts such as directionality, collocation of objects in space and time and, in Cognitive Linguistics’ terms, the position of a trajector with respect to a landmark. Learners of different native languages may conceptualize them differently, implying that they are supposed to operate a recategorization (or create new categories) fitting with the target language. However, most current Italian Foreign/Second Language handbooks and didactic grammars do not facilitate learners in carrying out the task, as they tend to provide partial and idiosyncratic descriptions, with the consequent learner’s effort to memorize them, most of the time without success. In their prototypical meaning, prepositions are used to specify precise topographical positions in the physical environment which become less and less accurate as they radiate out from what might be termed a concrete prototype. According to that, the present study aims to elaborate a cognitive and conceptually well-grounded analysis of some extensive uses of the Italian preposition a, in order to propose effective pedagogical solutions in the Teaching/Learning process. Image schemas, cognitive metaphors and embodiment represent efficient cognitive tools in a task like this. Actually, while learning the merely spatial use of the preposition a (e.g. Sono a Roma = I am in Rome; vado a Roma = I am going to Rome,…) is quite straightforward, it is more complex when a appears in constructions such as verbs of motion +a + infinitive (e.g. Vado a studiare = I am going to study), inchoative periphrasis (e.g. Tra poco mi metto a leggere = In a moment I will read), causative construction (e.g. Lui mi ha mandato a lavorare = He sent me to work). The study reports data from a teaching intervention of Focus on Form, in which a basic cognitive schema is used to facilitate both teachers and students to respectively explain/understand the extensive uses of a. The educational material employed translates Cognitive Linguistics’ theoretical assumptions, such as image schemas and cognitive metaphors, into simple images or proto-scenes easily comprehensible for learners. Illustrative material, indeed, is supposed to make metalinguistic contents more accessible. Moreover, the concept of embodiment is pedagogically applied through activities including motion and learners’ bodily involvement. It is expected that replacing rote learning with a methodology that gives grammatical elements a proper meaning, makes learning process more effective both in the short and long term.

Keywords: cognitive approaches to language teaching, image schemas, embodiment, Italian as FL/SL

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Authors: Sabita Subedi, Bhojan Dhakal, Shankar Raj Pant, Naba Raj Devkota

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An assessment was made about the available feed resources, its utilization pattern, specifically, roughage and concentrate, produced from the Manaslu Conservation Area (MCA) of Nepal to formulate the appropriate strategies in satisfying the annual dietary requirements of the livestock covering its present production and management scenarios. A comparative study was done by employing a purposively conducted survey to deduct the distribution of forage sources in the area. Findings revealed that natural vegetation, seasonally available crop residues, and dried grasses were major feed resources, whereas their contribution to the total supply varied significantly (p < 0.01). The amount of feed obtained from various sources was calculated by standard conversion and using primary household data. Findings revealed that farmers practice significantly higher (p < 0.01) number of grazing days and hours per day for large ruminants such as Yak and Chauries as compared to small ruminants such as goats and sheep. The findings also indicated seasonal variations of feed supply, whereas January to March is the period of short supply (p < 0.01). It was relatively in good supply from June to September though average roughage and crude protein supplement for the animals was far below than optimum requirements. These scenarios suggest the need for immediate attention to improve the range productivity in the MCA as the deteriorating situations of the rangelands may raise questions on the sustainability of livestock herders.

Keywords: altitude, carrying capacity, dietary requirement, feed resources, rangeland, ruminant

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Authors: Artsiom Zinchanka

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The world faces now one of the largest migration crisis and the European Union meets challenges in accepting the flow of migrants that could not be handled finally at this step. This crisis is complicated with many factors, such as military conflict in the Middle East; absence of the appropriate conditions in the refugees’ camps; but also with the complicity of the migration flow consisting of the Sub-Saharan migrants. This type of migrants leave their homelands for many reasons including poverty, not appropriate level of social and economic conditions, absence of infrastructure and access to the education and medical care. In practice, when the restrictive approach directed to limit the flow of illicit migration and to send illicit migrants back to their homelands is not always working, the approach directed to the root causes of the migration crisis can be more effective in settling the crisis. The Cotonou Agreement and the following treaties concluded between the European Union, and Sub-Saharan states show that the European Union considers the development of human rights and appropriate social and economic conditions in the Sub-Saharan states as one of the most important factors addressing the migration crisis. The preventive approach as the efforts of the European Union to develop appropriate social and economic conditions in Sub-Saharan states is considered in this article, as well as its evolution and current condition. This article also considers pros and cons of this approach and the obstacles that this approach faces. The research methods include review of literature and documents, analytical and descriptive methods.

Keywords: migration crisis, preventive approach, Sub-Saharan States, the European Union

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Authors: Haya Sammana

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A well-defined curricula must be adopted to meet the increasing complexity and diversity in the software applications. In reality, some IT majors such as computer science and computer engineering receive the software engineering education in a single course which is considered as a big challenged for the instructors and universities. Also, it requires students to gain the most of practical experiences that simulate the real work in software companies. Furthermore, we have noticed that there is no consensus on how, when and what to teach in that introductory course to gain the practical experiences that are required by the software companies. Because all of software engineering disciplines will not fit in just one course, so the course needs reasonable choices in selecting its topics. This arises an important question which is an essential one to ask: Is this course has the ability to formulate a true software engineer that meets the needs of industry? This question arises a big challenge in selecting the appropriate topics. So answering this question is very important for the next undergraduate students. During teaching this course in the curricula, the feedbacks from an undergraduate students and the keynotes of the annual meeting for an advisory committee from industrial side provide a probable answer for the proposed question: it is impossible to build a true software engineer who possesses all the essential elements of software engineering education such teamwork, communications skills, project management skills and contemporary industrial practice from one course and it is impossible to have a one course covering all software engineering topics. Besides the used teaching approach, the author proposes an implemented three supportive ways aiming for mitigating the expected risks and increasing the opportunity to build a true software engineer.

Keywords: software engineering course, software engineering education, software experience, supportive approach

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Authors: Merav Ben Natan, Heba Igbarin, Arwa Watted

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Introduction: The rising prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has heightened the need to understand the challenges faced by children with ASD and their families in emergency departments (EDs). Children with ASD often experience additional health issues and heightened anxiety in the chaotic ED environment, which can impact their care and parental satisfaction. Purpose: This study aimed to examine factors identified by mothers as affecting their satisfaction with the care provided to their children in the ED, among mothers of children with ASD in comparison to mothers of children without ASD. Design and methods: In this correlational quantitative study, 128 Israeli mothers – 59 (46%) mothers of children with ASD and 69 (54%) of children without ASD - completed an online survey based on a Ministry of Health national survey of patient experience. Results: Mothers of children with ASD expressed lower satisfaction with the care provided. The difference was particularly evident concerning waiting times for examination of the child by nurses and physicians in the ED, whether the nurses were attentive and responsive to the mother's questions and concerns, whether the ED staff demonstrated coordination and cooperation with regard to medical care of the child, and whether work in the ED was conducted in an orderly and organized manner. The presence of communication difficulties in children predicted mothers' satisfaction with care. Conclusions: These findings suggest that certain needs of mothers and/or their children with ASD do not receive an appropriate response in the ED. Practice implications: It is important to raise the awareness of healthcare providers in EDs regarding the needs of children with ASD and their parents, especially children with communication difficulties. Strategies should be implemented to improve the experience of children with ASD and their parents in the ED.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, emergency department, parental satisfaction, healthcare challenges

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