Search results for: dual working parents

Authors: Mario Perez-Won, Roberto Lemus-Mondaca, Fernanda Marin, Constanza Olivares

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This study presents the simultaneous application of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) and osmotic dehydration of jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) slice. Diffusion coefficients for both components water and solids were improved by the process pressure, being influenced by pressure level. The working conditions were different pressures such as 100, 250, 400 MPa and pressure atmospheric (0.1 MPa) for time intervals from 30 to 300 seconds and a 15% NaCl concentration. The mathematical expressions used for mass transfer simulations both water and salt were those corresponding to Newton, Henderson and Pabis, Page and Weibull models, where the Weibull and Henderson-Pabis models presented the best fitted to the water and salt experimental data, respectively. The values for water diffusivity coefficients varied from 1.62 to 8.10x10⁻⁹ m²/s whereas that for salt varied among 14.18 to 36.07x10⁻⁹ m²/s for selected conditions. Finally, as to quality parameters studied under the range of experimental conditions studied, the treatment at 250 MPa yielded on the samples a minimum hardness, whereas springiness, cohesiveness and chewiness at 100, 250 and 400 MPa treatments presented statistical differences regarding to unpressurized samples. The colour parameters L* (lightness) increased, however, but b* (yellowish) and a* (reddish) parameters decreased when increasing pressure level. This way, samples presented a brighter aspect and a mildly cooked appearance. The results presented in this study can support the enormous potential of hydrostatic pressure application as a technique important for compounds impregnation under high pressure.

Keywords: colour, diffusivity, high pressure, jumbo squid, modelling, texture

Procedia PDF Downloads 338

Authors: L. Petrosyan

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The problem of psychologist training remains a key priority in Armenia. During the Soviet period, the notion of a psychologist was obscure not only in Armenia but also in other Soviet republics. The breakup of the Soviet Union triggered a gradual change in this area activating the cooperation with specialists from other countries. The need for recovery from the psychological trauma caused by the 1988 earthquake pushed forward the development of practical psychology in Armenia. This phenomenon led to positive changes in perception of and interest to a psychologist profession.Armenian universities started designing special programs for psychologists’ preparation. Armenian psychologists combined their efforts in the field of training relevant specialists. During the recent years, the Bologna educational system was introduced in Armenia which led to implementation of education quality improvement programs. Nevertheless, even today the issue of psychologists’ training is not yet settled in Armenian universities. So far graduate psychologists haven’t got a clear idea of personal and professional qualities of a psychologist. Recently, as a result of educational reforms, the psychology curricula underwent changes, but so far they have not led to a desired outcome. Almost all curricula in certain specialties are aimed to form professional competencies and strengthen practical skills. A survey conducted in Armenia aimed to identify what are the ideas of young psychology specialists on the image of a psychologist. The survey respondents were 45 specialists holding bachelor’s degree as well as 30 master degree graduates, who have not been working yet. The research reveals that we need to change the approach of preparing psychology practitioners in the universities of Armenia. Such an approach to psychologist training will make it possible to train qualified specialists for enhancement of modern psychology theory and practice.

Keywords: practitioners, psychology degree, study, professional competencies

Procedia PDF Downloads 447

Authors: Motoki Seguchi, Fumiko Harada, Hiromitsu Shimakawa

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There have been many local companies in countryside that carefully produce and sell products, which include crafts and foods produced with traditional methods. These companies are likely to use commercials to advertise their products. However, it is difficult for companies to judge whether the commercials they create are having an impact on consumers. Therefore, to create effective commercials, this study researches what kind of gimmicks in commercials affect what kind of consumers. This study proposes a method for extracting psychological change points from the physiological characteristics of consumers while they are watching commercials and estimating the gimmicks in the commercial that affect consumer engagement. In this method, change point detection is applied to pupil size for estimating gimmicks that affect consumers’ emotional engagement, and to EDA for estimating gimmicks that affect cognitive engagement. A questionnaire is also used to estimate the commercials that influence behavioral engagement. As a result of estimating the gimmicks that influence consumer engagement using this method, it was found that there are some common features among the gimmicks. To influence cognitive engagement, it was found that it was useful to include flashback scenes, messages to be appealed to, the company’s name, and the company’s logos as gimmicks. It was also found that flashback scenes and story climaxes were useful in influencing emotional engagement. Furthermore, it was found that the use of storytelling commercials may or may not be useful, depending on which consumers are desired to take which behaviors. It also estimated the gimmicks that influence consumers for each target and found that the useful gimmicks are slightly different for students and working adults. By using this method, it can understand which gimmicks in the commercial affect which engagement of the consumers. Therefore, the results of this study can be used as a reference for the gimmicks that should be included in commercials when companies create their commercials in the future.

Keywords: change point detection, estimating engagement, physiological characteristics, psychological changes, watching commercials

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Authors: Hafsa Kamran, Asma Afreen, Zaheer Ahmed

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Internet addiction, an emerging mental health disorder from last two decades, is manifested by the inability in the controlled use of internet leading to academics, social, physiological and/or psychological difficulties. The present study aimed to assess the levels of internet addiction among university students in Lahore and to explore the effects of internet addiction on their dietary behavior and lifestyle. It was an analytical cross-sectional study. Data was collected from October to December 2016 from students of four universities selected through two-stage sampling method. The numbers of participants were 500 and 13 questionnaires were rejected due to incomplete information. Levels of Internet Addiction (IA) were calculated using Young Internet Addiction Test (YIAT). Data was also collected on students’ demographics, lifestyle factors and dietary behavior using self-reported questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS (version 21). Chi-square test was applied to evaluate the relationship between variables. Results of the study revealed that 10% of the population had severe internet addiction while moderate Internet Addiction was present in 42%. High prevalence was found among males (11% vs. 8%), private sector university students (p = 0.008) and engineering students (p = 0.000). The lifestyle habits of internet addicts were significantly of poorer quality than normal users (p = 0.05). Internet addiction was found associated with lesser physically activity (p = 0.025), had shorter duration of physical activity (p = 0.016), had more disorganized sleep pattern (p = 0.023), had less duration of sleep (p = 0.019), reported being more tired and sleepy in class (p = 0.033) and spending more time on internet as compared to normal users. Severe and moderate internet addicts also found to be more overweight and obese than normal users (p = 0.000). The dietary behavior of internet addicts was significantly poorer than normal users. Internet addicts were found to skip breakfast more than a normal user (p = 0.039). Common reasons for meal skipping were lack of time and snacking between meals (p = 0.000). They also had increased meal size (p = 0.05) and habit of snacking while using the internet (p = 0.027). Fast food (p = 0.016) and fried items (p = 0.05) were most consumed snacks, while carbonated beverages (p = 0.019) were most consumed beverages among internet addicts. Internet Addicts were found to consume less than recommended daily servings of dairy (p = 0.008) and fruits (p = 0.000) and more servings of meat group (p = 0.025) than their no internet addict counterparts. In conclusion, in this study, it was demonstrated that internet addicts have unhealthy dietary behavior and inappropriate lifestyle habits. University students should be educated regarding the importance of balanced diet and healthy lifestyle, which are critical for effectual primary prevention of numerous chronic degenerative diseases. Furthermore, it is necessary to raise awareness concerning adverse effects of internet addiction among youth and their parents.

Keywords: dietary behavior, internet addiction, lifestyle, university students

Procedia PDF Downloads 196

Authors: Chin-Chih Chang

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Many manufacturing systems suffer failures due to complex degradation processes and various environment conditions such as random shocks. Consider an operating system is subject to random shocks and works at random times for successive jobs. When successive jobs often result in production losses and performance deterioration, it would be better to do maintenance or replacement at a planned time. A preventive replacement (PR) policy is presented to replace the system before a failure occurs at a continuous time T. In such a policy, the failure characteristics of the system are designed as follows. Each job would cause a random amount of additive damage to the system, and the system fails when the cumulative damage has exceeded a failure threshold. Suppose that the deteriorating system suffers one of the two types of shocks with age-dependent probabilities: type-I (minor) shock is rectified by a minimal repair, or type-II (catastrophic) shock causes the system to fail. A corrective replacement (CR) is performed immediately when the system fails. In summary, a generalized maintenance model to scheduling replacement plan for an operating system is presented below. PR is carried out at time T, whereas CR is carried out when any type-II shock occurs and the total damage exceeded a failure level. The main objective is to determine the optimal continuous schedule time of preventive replacement through minimizing the mean cost rate function. The existence and uniqueness of optimal replacement policy are derived analytically. It can be seen that the present model is a generalization of the previous models, and the policy with preventive replacement outperforms the one without preventive replacement.

Keywords: preventive replacement, working time, cumulative damage model, minimal repair, imperfect maintenance, optimization

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Authors: Viral Nagori, Preeti Shroff, Prathana Dodia

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The paper presents the study on women entrepreneurship over the last decade in Indian and Global Context. This research study has its basis primarily in the literature review. The research methodology classifies the literature review paper based on different parameters of women entrepreneurship. The literature review relies on research papers in journals, articles in periodicals, and books published on women entrepreneurship. To accomplish this, the criteria included finding the most relevant, recent, and cited studies on women entrepreneurship over the last decade. It aims to evaluate the issues and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. The finding suggested that there are several common obstacles, which hinders the pathway to success towards being a successful woman entrepreneur. The paper also describes such common obstacles like the level of education, family responsibilities, lack of business information, religious and cultural constraints, limited mobility, exposure, lack of working capital, and more. The in-depth analysis of literature review indicates that despite the numerous barriers, the arrival of social media has played a crucial role in enabling women to start and scale up their enterprises. Further, technology innovation has given them access to have relevant market information, increase reach and network with the customers. It enabled them to achieve work life balance and pursuing entrepreneur in them. The paper also describes the Government and Nongovernmental initiatives for promotion of women entrepreneurship. At the end, the study provides insights into the changing dynamics of women entrepreneurship in the current scenario and future prospects.

Keywords: changing dynamics, government initiatives, literature review, social media, technology innovation, women entrepreneurship

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Authors: Evmorfia Koukia, Polyxeni Mangoulia

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Workshops tend to be a vivid and productive way as an in vivo teaching method. Due to the pandemic, COVID-19 university courses were conducted through the internet. Method It was tried for the first time to integrate online art therapy workshops in a core course named “Special Themes of Mental Health Nursing” in a MSc Program in Mental Health. The duration of the course is 3-hours per week for 11 weeks in a single semester. The course has a main instructor, a professor of psychiatric nursing experienced in arts therapies workshops and visiting art therapists. All art therapists were given a certain topic to cover. Students were encouraged to keep a logbook that was evaluated at the end of the semester and was submitted as a part of the examination process of the course. An interview of 10 minutes was conducted with each student at the end of the course from an independent investigator (an assistant professor) Participants The students (sample) of the program were: nurses, psychologists, and social workers Results: All students who participated in the courses found that the learning process was vivid, encouraging participation and self-motivation, and there were no main differences from in vivo learning. The students identified their personal needs, and they felt a personal connection with the learning experience. The result of the personalized learning was that students discovered their strengths and weaknesses and developed skills like critical thinking. All students admitted that the workshops were the optimal way for them to comprehend the courses’ content, their capability to become therapists, as well as their obstacles and weaknesses while working with patients in mental health. Conclusion: There were no important differences between the views of students in online and in vivo teaching method of the workshops. The result has shown that workshops in mental health can contribute equally in the learning experience.

Keywords: mental health, workshops, students, nursing

Procedia PDF Downloads 207

Authors: N. Damenia, E. Kharaishvili, N. Sagareishvili, M. Saghareishvili

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Women's Employment is one of the most important issues in the global economy. The article discusses the stated topic in Georgia, through historical content, Soviet experience, and modern perspectives. The paper discusses segmentation insa terms of employment and related problems. Based on statistical analysis, women's unemployment rate and its factors are analyzed. The level of employment of women in Transcaucasia (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) is discussed and is compared with Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia). The study analyzes women’s level of development, according to the average age of marriage and migration level. The focus is on Georgia's Association Agreement with the EU in 2014, which includes economic, social, trade and political issues. One part of it is gender equality at workplaces. According to the research, the average monthly remuneration of women managers in the financial and insurance sector equaled to 1044.6 Georgian Lari, while in overall business sector average monthly remuneration equaled to 961.1 GEL. Average salaries are increasing; however, the employment rate remains problematic. For example, in 2017, 74.6% of men and 50.8% of women were employed from a total workforce. It is also interesting that the proportion of men and women at managerial positions is 29% (women) to 71% (men). Based on the results, the main recommendation for government and civil society is to consider women as a part of the country’s economic development. In this aspect, the experience of developed countries should be considered. It is important to create additional jobs in urban or rural areas and help migrant women return and use their working resources properly.

Keywords: employment of women, segregation in terms of employment, women's employment level in Transcaucasia, migration level

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Authors: Bing-Fang Lee, Srinivasan Periasamy, Ming-Yie Liu

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Shift work sleep disorder is a common problem in industrialized world. It is a type of circadian rhythmic sleep disorders characterized by insomnia and sleep deprivation. Lack of sleep in workers may lead to poor health conditions such as hepatic dysfunction. Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland to alleviate insomnia. Moreover, it is a powerful antioxidant and may prevent acute liver injury. Therefore, workers take in melatonin to deal with sleep-related health is an important issue. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of melatonin on an acute hepatic injury model sinusoidal obstruction syndrome (SOS) in mice. Male C57BL/6 mice were injected with a single dose (500 mg/kg) of monocrotaline (MCT) to induce SOS. Melatonin (1, 3, 10 and 30 mg/kg) was injected 1 h before MCT treatment. After 24 h of MCT treatment, mice were sacrificed. The blood and liver were collected. Organ damage was evaluated by serum biochemistry, hematology analyzer, and histological examination. Low doses of melatonin (1 and 3 mg/kg) had no protective effect on SOS. However, high doses (10 and 30 mg/kg) exacerbated SOS. In addition, it not only increased serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT), glutamate pyruvate transaminase (GPT) and extended liver damage indicated by histological examination but also decreased platelet levels, lymphocyte ratio, and glutathione level; it had no effect on malondialdehyde and nitric oxide level in SOS mice. To conclude, melatonin may exacerbate MCT-induced SOS in mice. Furthermore, melatonin might have a synergistic action with SOS. Usage of melatonin for insomnia by people working in long shift must be cautioned; it might cause acute hepatic injury.

Keywords: acute liver injury, melatonin, shift work, sleep deprivation

Procedia PDF Downloads 188

Authors: Nursel Bektas

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the roles of teaching assistants (TAs) working in reception classes through practitioners’ perspectives. The study has two major purposes; firstly to explore the general roles of TAs, and secondly to identify their roles in supporting children for mathematics. A small-scale case study approach was adopted for this study. The research was carried out in two reception classes within a primary school in London. The qualitative data were gathered through observations and semi-structured interviews with four reception class practitioners, comprising two teachers and two TAs. The results show that TAs consider their role to be more like a teacher, whereas classroom teachers do not corroborate this and they generally believe that the role of TAs depends on their personal characteristics and skills. In regard to the general role of TAs, the study suggests that reception class TAs are deployed both at the classroom level to provide academic support for children’s learning and development, and at the school level they are deployed as support staff such as Midday Meal Supervisor or assistants. In terms of the pedagogical roles of TAs, it was found that TAs have a strong teaching role in literacy development, with notable autonomy if conducting their own phonics sessions without teacher direction, but a negligible influence in numeracy/ math’s. In addition, the results show that the TA role is perceived to be quite limited in planning and assessment processes. Linked to their limited roles in such processes, all participants agree that all the responsibility regarding the children’s learning and development, planning and assessment lies with the teacher. Therefore, data suggest that TAs’ roles in these areas depend on TAs’ their own initiatives.

Keywords: early years education, reception classes, roles, teaching assistants

Procedia PDF Downloads 176

Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

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Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a severe health problem which is common among obese individuals. The components of MetS are rather stable in adults compared to the components discussed for children. Due to the ambiguity in this group of the population, how to diagnose MetS in morbid obese (MO) children still constitutes a matter of discussion. For this purpose, a formula, which facilitates the diagnosis of MetS in MO children, was investigated. The aim of this study was to develop a formula which was capable of discriminating MO children with and without MetS findings. Study population comprised MO children. Age and sex-dependent body mass index (BMI) percentiles of the children were above 99. Metabolic syndrome components were also determined. Elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP and DBP), elevated fasting blood glucose (FBG), elevated triglycerides (TRG), and/or depressed high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) in addition to central obesity were listed as MetS components for each child. Presence of at least two of these components confirmed that the case was MetS. Two groups were constituted. In the first group, there were forty-two MO children without MetS components. Second group was composed of forty-four MO children with at least two MetS components. Anthropometric measurements, including weight, height, waist, and hip circumferences, were performed following physical examination. Body mass index and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance values were calculated. Informed consent forms were obtained from the parents of the children. Institutional Non-Interventional Ethics Committee approved the study design. Blood pressure values were recorded. Routine biochemical analysis, including FBG, insulin (INS), TRG, HDL-C were performed. The performance and the clinical utility of the Diagnostic Obesity Notation Model Assessment Metabolic Syndrome Index (DONMA MetS index) [(INS/FBG)/(HDL-C/TRG)*100] was tested. Appropriate statistical tests were applied to the study data. p value smaller than 0.05 was defined as significant. Metabolic syndrome index values were 41.6±5.1 in MO group and 104.4±12.8 in MetS group. Corresponding values for HDL-C values were 54.5±13.2 mg/dl and 44.2±11.5 mg/dl. There were statistically significant differences between the groups (p<0.001). Upon evaluation of the correlations between MetS index and HDL-C values, a much stronger negative correlation was found in MetS group (r=-0.515; p=0.001) in comparison with the correlation detected in MO group (r=-0.371; p=0.016). From these findings, it was concluded that the statistical significance degree of the difference between MO and MetS groups was highly acceptable for this recently introduced MetS index as expected. This was due to the involvement of all of the biochemically defined MetS components into the index. This is particularly important because each of these four parameters used in the formula is cardiac risk factor. Aside from discriminating MO children with and without MetS findings, MetS index introduced in this study is important from the cardiovascular risk point of view in MetS group of children.

Keywords: children, fasting blood glucose, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, index, insulin, metabolic syndrome, morbid obesity, triglycerides.

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Authors: Bushra Jamil, Nudrat Baqri, Muhammad Hassan Saeed

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Entrepreneurship is creating or setting up a business not only for the purpose of generating profit but also for providing job opportunities. Entrepreneurs are problem solvers and product developers. They use their financial asset for hiring a professional team and combine the innovation, knowledge, and leadership leads to a successful startup or a business. To be a successful entrepreneur, one should be people-oriented and have perseverance. One must have the ability to take risk, believe in his/her potential, and have the courage to move forward in all circumstances. Most importantly, have the ability to take risk and can assess the risk. For STEM students, entrepreneurship is of specific importance and relevance as it helps them not just to be able to solve real life existing complications but to be able to recognize and identify emerging needs and glitches. It is becoming increasingly apparent that in today’s world, there is a need as well as a desire for STEM and entrepreneurship to work together. In Pakistan, entrepreneurship is slowly emerging, yet we are far behind. It is high time that we should introduce modern teaching methods and inculcate entrepreneurial initiative in students. A course on entrepreneurship can be included in the syllabus, and we must invite businessmen and policy makers to motivate young minds for entrepreneurship. This must be pitching competitions, opportunities to win seed funding, and facilities of incubation centers. In Pakistan, there are many good public sector research institutes, yet there is a void gap in the private sector. Only few research institute are meant for research and development. BJ Micro Lab is one of them. It is SECP registered company and is working in academia to promote and facilitate research in STEM. BJ Micro Lab is a women led initiative, and we are trying to promote research as a passion, not as an arduous burden. For this, we are continuously arranging training workshops and sessions. More than 100 students have been trained in ten different workshops arranged at BJ Micro Lab.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, STEM, challenges, oppurtunties

Procedia PDF Downloads 125

Authors: Rafael Felipe Guatura da Silva, José Luis Gomes da Silva, Luiz Antonio, Ferreira Perrone de Brito

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Noise can cause serious damage to human health, such as hearing loss, stress, irritability, fatigue, and others. Aviation is a place where your entire process should be work out with the utmost attention and commitment of human resources, thus the need to study the effects of noise in this sector, as aeronautical noise levels are high. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of noise pollution on the performance of professionals regarding the fatigue generated by aeronautical noise and time to noise exposure. The methodology used consists of measurements of sound pressure levels at 42 points of the aerodrome. The selected points are located inside the hangars and outside the airfield hangars. All points chosen are close to the professionals' work areas, seeking to identify the sound pressure levels to which they submitted. The other part of the research used the principle on the application of a self-report questionnaire to a sample of 207 people working inside the aerodrome. The 207 professionals surveyed consist of aircraft mechanics, pilots, maintenance managers, and administrative professionals. The questionnaire was intended to evaluate the knowledge that professionals have about health risks caused by sound exposure as well as to identify diseases that professionals have, and that may be associated with exposure to high levels of sound pressure. Preliminary results identify points with sound pressure levels of up to 91.7 dB, thus highlighting the need for the use of personal protective equipment that reduces noise exposure. It was also identified a large number of professionals who are bothered by the sound exposure and approximately 25% of professionals interviewed reported having a hearing disorder.

Keywords: aeronautical noise, fatigue, noise and health, noise management

Procedia PDF Downloads 140

Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

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Obesity is known to be associated with many clinically important diseases including metabolic syndrome (MetS). Vitamin B₁₂ plays essential roles in fat and protein metabolisms and its cooperation with vitamin B₉ is well-known. The aim of this study is to investigate the possible contributions as well as associations of these micronutrients upon obesity and MetS during childhood. A total of 128 children admitted to Namik Kemal University, Medical Faculty, Department of Pediatrics Outpatient Clinics were included into the scope of this study. The mean age±SEM of 92 morbid obese (MO) children and 36 with MetS were 118.3±3.8 months and 129.5±6.4 months, respectively (p > 0.05). The study was approved by Namık Kemal University, Medical Faculty Ethics Committee. Written informed consent forms were obtained from the parents. Demographic features and anthropometric measurements were recorded. WHO BMI-for age percentiles were used. The values above 99 percentile were defined as MO. Components of MetS [waist circumference (WC), fasting blood glucose (FBG), triacylglycerol (TRG), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-Chol), systolic pressure (SP), diastolic pressure (DP)] were determined. Routine laboratory tests were performed. Serum vitamin B₁₂ concentrations were measured using electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Vitamin B₉ was analyzed by an immunoassay analyzer. Values for vitamin B₁₂ < 148 pmol/L, 148-221 pmol/L, > 221 pmol/L were accepted as low, borderline and normal, respectively. Vitamin B₉ levels ≤ 4 mcg/L defined deficiency state. Statistical evaluations were performed by SPSSx Version 16.0. p≤0.05 was accepted as statistical significance level. Statistically higher body mass index (BMI), WC, hip circumference (C) and neck C were calculated in MetS group compared to children with MO. No difference was noted for head C. All MetS components differed between the groups (SP, DP p < 0.001; WC, FBG, TRG p < 0.01; HDL-Chol p < 0.05). Significantly decreased vitamin B₉ and vitamin B₁₂ levels were detected (p < 0.05) in children with MetS. In both groups percentage of folate deficiency was 5.5%. No cases were below < 148 pmol/L. However, in MO group 14.3% and in MetS group 22.2% of the cases were of borderline status. In MO group B₁₂ levels were negatively correlated with BMI, WC, hip C and head C, but not with neck C. WC, hip C, head C and neck C were all negatively correlated with HDL-Chol. None of these correlations were observed in the group of children with MetS. Strong positive correlation between FBG and insulin as well as strong negative correlation between TRG and HDL-Chol detected in MO children were lost in MetS group. Deficiency state end-products of both B₉ and B₁₂ may interfere with the expected profiles of MetS components. In this study, the alterations in MetS components affected vitamin B₁₂ metabolism and also its associations with anthropometric body measurements. Further increases in vitamin B₁₂ and vitamin B₉ deficiency in MetS associated with the increased vitamin B₁₂ as well as vitamin B₉ deficiency metabolites may add to MetS parameters.

Keywords: children, cobalamin, folate, metabolic syndrome, obesity

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Authors: Abdellah Hanafi, G. M. Mostafa, Mohamed Mortada, Ahmed Hamed

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The steam ejectors are the heart of most of the desalination systems that employ vacuum. The systems that employ low grade thermal energy sources like solar energy and geothermal energy use the ejector to drive the system instead of high grade electric energy. The jet-ejector is used to create vacuum employing the flow of steam or air and using the severe pressure drop at the outlet of the main nozzle. The present work involves developing a one dimensional mathematical model for designing jet-ejectors and transform it into computer code using Engineering Equation solver (EES) software. The model receives the required operating conditions at the inlets and outlet of the ejector as inputs and produces the corresponding dimensions required to reach these conditions. The one-dimensional model has been validated using an existed model working on Abu-Qir power station. A prototype has been designed according to the one-dimensional model and attached to a special test bench to be tested before using it in the solar desalination pilot plant. The tested ejector will be responsible for the startup evacuation of the system and adjusting the vacuum of the evaporating effects. The tested prototype has shown a good agreement with the results of the code. In addition a numerical analysis has been applied on one of the designed geometry to give an image of the pressure and velocity distribution inside the ejector from a side, and from other side, to show the difference in results between the two-dimensional ideal gas model and real prototype. The commercial edition of ANSYS Fluent v.14 software is used to solve the two-dimensional axisymmetric case.

Keywords: solar energy, jet ejector, vacuum, evaporating effects

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Authors: Nesengani Elelwani Clinton

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This paper presents reflective learning as an opportunity commonly available and used for food waste learning in a food processing company in the transition to sustainable and just food systems. In addressing how employees learn about food waste during food processing, the opportunities available for food waste learning were investigated. Reflective learning appeared to be the most used approach to learning about food waste. In the case of food waste learning, reflective learning was a response after employees wasted a substantial amount of food, where process controllers and team leaders would highlight the issue to employees who wasted food and explain how food waste could be reduced. This showed that learning about food waste is not proactive, and there continues to be a lack of structured learning around food waste. Several challenges were highlighted around reflective learning about food waste. Some of the challenges included understanding the language, lack of interest from employees, set times to reach production targets, and working pressures. These challenges were reported to be hindering factors in understanding food waste learning, which is not structured. A need was identified for proactive learning through structured methods. This is because it was discovered that in the plant, where food processing activities happen, the signage and posters that are there are directly related to other sustainability issues such as food safety and health. This indicated that there are low levels of awareness about food waste. Therefore, this paper argues that food waste learning should be proactive. The proactive learning approach should include structured learning materials around food waste during food processing. In the structuring of the learning materials, individual trainers should be multilingual. This will make it possible for those who do not understand English to understand in their own language. And lastly, there should be signage and posters in the food processing plant around food waste. This will bring more awareness around food waste, and employees' behaviour can be influenced by the posters and signage in the food processing plant. Thus, will enable a transition to a just and sustainable food system.

Keywords: sustainable and just food systems, food waste, food waste learning, reflective learning approach

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Authors: Syazwani Idrus, Charles Banks, Sonia Heaven

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The effect of osmotic stress was carried out to determine the ability for biogas production in two types of digesters; anaerobic sludge blanket and anaerobic filters in treating wheat straw washed water. Two anaerobic filters (AF1 and 2) and two UASB reactors (U1 and 2) with working volumes of 1.5 L were employed at mesophilic temperatures (37°C). Digesters AF1 and two were seeded with an inoculum which had previously been fed on with a synthetic wastewater includingSodium Chloride and Potassium Chloride. Digesters U1 and two were seeded with 1 kg wet weight of granular sludge which had previously been treating paper mill effluent. During the first 48 days, all digesters were successfully acclimated with synthetic wastewater (SW) to organic loading rate (OLR) of 6 g COD l^-1 day-1. Specific methane production (SMP) of 0.333 l CH4 g-1 COD). The feed was then changed to wash water from a washing operation to reduce the salt content of wheat straw (wheat straw wash water, WSW) at the same OLR. SMP fell sharply in all reactors to less than 0.1 l CH4 g^-1 COD, with the AF affected more than the UASB. The OLR was reduced to 2.5 g COD l^-1 day^-1 to allow adaptation to WSW, and both the UASB and the AF reactors achieved an SMP of 0.21 l CH4 g^-1 COD added at 82% of COD removal. This study also revealed the accumulation of potassium (K) inside the UASB granules to a concentration of 4.5 mg K g^-1 wet weight of granular sludge. The phenomenon of lower SMP and accumulation of K indicates the effect of osmotic stress when fed on WSW. This finding is consistent with the theory that methanogenic organisms operate a Potassium pump to maintain ionic equilibrium, and as this is an energy-driven process, it will, therefore, reduce the overall methane yield.

Keywords: wheat straw wash water, upflow anaerobic sludge blanket, anaerobic filter, specific methane production, osmotic stress

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Authors: Guoqian Ren, Haijiang Li, Jisong Zhang

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Over the past 40 years, urban development has undergone large-scale, high-speed expansion, beyond what was previously considered normal and in a manner not proportionally related to population growth or physical considerations. With more scientific and refined decision-making in the urban construction process, new urbanization approaches, aligned with public-private partnerships (PPPs) which evolved in the early 1990s, have become acceptable and, in some situations, even better solutions to outstanding urban municipal construction projects, especially in developing countries. However, as the main driving force to deal with urban public services, PPPs are still problematic regarding value for money (VFM) process in most large-scale construction projects. This paper therefore reviews recent PPP articles in popular project management journals and relevant toolkits, published in the last 10 years, to identify the indicators that influence VFM within PPPs across regions. With increasing concerns about profitability and environmental and social impacts, the current PPP structure requires a more integrated platform to manage multi-performance project life cycles. Building information modelling (BIM), a popular approach to the procurement process in AEC sectors, provides the potential to ensure VFM while also working in tandem with the semantic approach to holistically measure life cycle costs (LCC) and achieve better sustainability. This paper suggests that BIM applied to the entire PPP life cycle could support holistic decision-making regarding VFM processes and thus meet service targets.

Keywords: public-private partnership, value for money, building information modelling, semantic approach

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Authors: Akram Mahdaviparsa, Tamera McCuen, Vahideh Karimimansoob

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Fire service is responsible for protecting life, assets, and natural resources from fire and other hazardous incidents. Search and rescue in unfamiliar buildings is a vital part of firefighters’ responsibilities. Providing firefighters with precise building information in an easy-to-understand format is a potential solution for mitigating the negative consequences of fire hazards. The negative effect of insufficient knowledge about a building’s indoor environment impedes firefighters’ capabilities and leads to lost property. A data rich building information modeling (BIM) is a potentially useful source in three-dimensional (3D) visualization and data/information storage for fire emergency response. Therefore, this research’s purpose is prioritizing the required information for firefighters from the most important information to the least important. A survey was carried out with firefighters working in the Norman Fire Department to obtain the importance of each building information item. The results show that “the location of exit doors, windows, corridors, elevators, and stairs”, “material of building elements”, and “building data” are the three most important information specified by firefighters. The results also implied that the 2D model of architectural, structural and way finding is more understandable in comparison with the 3D model, while the 3D model of MEP system could convey more information than the 2D model. Furthermore, color in visualization can help firefighters to understand the building information easier and quicker. Sufficient internal consistency of all responses was proven through developing the Pearson Correlation Matrix and obtaining Cronbach’s alpha of 0.916. Therefore, the results of this study are reliable and could be applied to the population.

Keywords: BIM, building fire response, ranking, visualization

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Authors: Amer Ait Sidhoum

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Interest in sustainability has gained ground among practitioners, academics and policy-makers due to growing stakeholders’ awareness of environmental and social concerns. This is particularly true for agriculture. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the quantification of social sustainability and the contribution of social issues to the agricultural production efficiency. This research's main objective is to propose a method for evaluating prices of social outputs, more precisely shadow prices, by allowing for the stochastic nature of agricultural production that is to say for production uncertainty. In this article, the assessment of social outputs’ shadow prices is conducted within the methodological framework of nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). An output-oriented directional distance function (DDF) is implemented to represent the technology of a sample of Catalan arable crop farms and derive the efficiency scores the overall production technology of our sample is assumed to be the intersection of two different sub-technologies. The first sub-technology models the production of random desirable agricultural outputs, while the second sub-technology reflects the social outcomes from agricultural activities. Once a nonparametric production technology has been represented, the DDF primal approach can be used for efficiency measurement, while shadow prices are drawn from the dual representation of the DDF. Computing shadow prices is a method to assign an economic value to non-marketed social outcomes. Our research uses cross sectional, farm-level data collected in 2015 from a sample of 180 Catalan arable crop farms specialized in the production of cereals, oilseeds and protein (COP) crops. Our results suggest that our sample farms show high performance scores, from 85% for the bad state of nature to 88% for the normal and ideal crop growing conditions. This suggests that farm performance is increasing with an improvement in crop growth conditions. Results also show that average shadow prices of desirable state-contingent output and social outcomes for efficient and inefficient farms are positive, suggesting that the production of desirable marketable outputs and of non-marketable outputs makes a positive contribution to the farm production efficiency. Results also indicate that social outputs’ shadow prices are contingent upon the growing conditions. The shadow prices follow an upward trend as crop-growing conditions improve. This finding suggests that these efficient farms prefer to allocate more resources in the production of desirable outputs than of social outcomes. To our knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to compute shadow prices of social outcomes while accounting for the stochastic nature of the production technology. Our findings suggest that the decision-making process of the efficient farms in dealing with social issues are stochastic and strongly dependent on the growth conditions. This implies that policy-makers should adjust their instruments according to the stochastic environmental conditions. An optimal redistribution of rural development support, by increasing the public payment with the improvement in crop growth conditions, would likely enhance the effectiveness of public policies.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis, shadow prices, social sustainability, sustainable farming

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Authors: Johannes Van Der Sandt

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This paper explores and reflects on the power of music, and more specific singing as an instrument for integration, inclusion, group cohesion, collective cooperation, repairing social relationships and facilitating dialogue between groups in conflict. The General Assembly of the United Nations has declared the 21st of September as International Day of Peace. This day is dedicated to advocate and strengthen among all people, an annual day to strive for no violence and cease-fire. What role does music play in strengthening ideals of peace? The findings of this paper is a result of field and online research as well as a literature survey to identify the most important examples of institutions, instruments or initiatives where music serves as a vehicle for the transmission and promoting of peace ideals and acting to assist movements for social change. Important examples where singing and music were used as tools for peace activism are the 1987 Estonian Singing Revolution and the more recent peace engagement in the Afghan Conflict, both very good examples of the cultural capital of the local population used as catalyst for promoting peace. The author offers a concise and relevant overview of such initiatives with the aim to validate the power of music and song as tools to support the United Nation’s Declaration on the Promotion Among Youth of the Ideals of Peace, Mutual Respect and Understanding Between Peoples: Young people should be educated and made aware of the ideals of peace. They should be educated in a spirit of mutual understanding and respect for one another in order to develop an attitude of striving for equal rights for all human beings, believing in economic and social growth for all, together with a belief in disarmament and working towards the maintenance of peace and security worldwide.

Keywords: conflict, music, peace, singing

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Authors: Majid Ali, Xinfang Jin, Victor Eniola, Henning Hoene

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The performance of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells is sensitive to several factors, including power fluctuations, hydrogen utilization, and the quality orientation of the fuel cell stack. In this study, we investigate the impact of these factors on the performance of a PEM fuel cell. We start by analyzing the power fluctuations that are typical in renewable energy systems and their effects on the 50 Watt fuel cell's performance. Next, we examine the hydrogen utilization rate (0-1000 mL/min) and its impact on the cell's efficiency and durability. Finally, we investigate the quality orientation (three different positions) of the fuel cell stack, which can significantly affect the cell's lifetime and overall performance. The basis of our analysis is the utilization of experimental results, which have been further validated by comparing them with simulations and manufacturer results. Our results indicate that power fluctuations can cause significant variations in the fuel cell's voltage and current, leading to a reduction in its performance. Moreover, we show that increasing the hydrogen utilization rate beyond a certain threshold can lead to a decrease in the fuel cell's efficiency. Finally, our analysis demonstrates that the orientation of the fuel cell stack can affect its performance and lifetime due to non-uniform distribution of reactants and products. In summary, our study highlights the importance of considering power fluctuations, hydrogen utilization, and quality orientation in designing and optimizing PEM fuel cell systems. The findings of this study can be useful for researchers and engineers working on the development of fuel cell systems for various applications, including transportation, stationary power generation, and portable devices.

Keywords: fuel cell, proton exchange membrane, renewable energy, power fluctuation, experimental

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Authors: Haleden Chiririwa, Sandile S. Gwebu

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The coatings industry is a million dollar business, and it is easy and inexpensive to set-up but it is growing very slowly in developing countries, and this study developed a paint formulation which gives better quality and good application properties. The effect of rheology modifiers, i.e. non-ionic polymers hydrophobically-modified ethoxylated urethanes (HEUR), anionic polymers hydrophobically-modified alkali soluble emulsions (HASE) and hydroxyl ethyl cellulose (HEC) on the quality and properties of water-based paints have been investigated. HEC provides the in-can viscosity and increases open working time while HASE improves application properties like spatter resistance and brush loading and HEUR provides excellent scrub resistance. Four paint recipes were prepared using four different thickeners HEC, HASE (carbopol) and Cellulose nitrate. The fourth formulation was thickened with a combination of HASE and HEC, this aimed at improving quality and at the same time reducing cost. The four samples were tested for quality tests such viscosity, sag resistance, volatile matter, tinter effect, drying times, hiding power, scrub resistance and stability on storage. Environmental factors were incorporated in the attempt to formulate an economic and green product. Hydroxyl ethyl cellulose and cellulose nitrate gave high quality and good properties of the paint. HEC and Cellulose nitrate showed stability on storage whereas carbopol thickener was very unstable.

Keywords: properties, thickeners, rheology modifiers, water based paints

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Authors: Haftu Hailu Berhe, Hailekiros Sibhato Gebremichael, Kinfe Tsegay Beyene, Haileselassie Mehari

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The purpose of the study is to develop and validate integrated literature-based JIT, TQM, TPM, SCM and LSS framework through a combination of the PDCA cycle and DMAIC methodology. The study adopted a mixed research approach. Accordingly, the qualitative study employed to develop the framework is based on identifying the uniqueness and common practices of JIT, TQM, TPM, SCM and LSS initiatives, the existing practice of the integration, identifying the existing gaps in the framework and practices, developing new integrated JIT, TQM, TPM, SCM and LSS practice framework. Previous very few studies of the uniqueness and common practices of the five initiatives are preserved. Whereas the quantitative study working to validate the framework is based on empirical analysis of the self-administered questionnaire using a statistical package for social science. A combination of the PDCA cycle and DMAIC methodology stand integrated CI framework is developed. The proposed framework is constructed as a project-based framework with five detailed implementation phases. Besides, the empirical analysis demonstrated that the proposed framework is valuable if adopted and implemented correctly. So far, there is no study proposed & validated the integrated CI framework within the scope of the study. Therefore, this is the earliest study that proposed and validated the framework for manufacturing industries. The proposed framework is applicable to manufacturing industries and can assist in achieving competitive advantages when the manufacturing industries, institutions and government offer unconditional efforts in implementing the full contents of the framework.

Keywords: integrated continuous improvement framework, just in time, total quality management, total productive maintenance, supply chain management, lean six sigma

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Authors: Adam Y. Sulaiman, Gerard I.Obasi, Roma Chang, Hussein Sayed Moghaieb, Ming J. Huang, Neil J. Hewitt

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Residential air-conditioning units are essential for quality indoor comfort in hot climate countries. Nevertheless, because of their non-renewable energy sources and the contribution of ecologically unfriendly working fluids, these units are a major source of CO2 emissions in these countries. The utilisation of sustainable technologies nowadays is essential to reduce the adverse effects of CO2 emissions by replacing conventional technologies. This paper investigates the feasibility of running an off-grid solar-powered air-conditioning bed unit using three low GWP refrigerants (R32, R290, and R600a) to supersede conventional refrigerants.A prototype air conditioning unit was built to supply cold air to a canopy that was connected to it. The assembled unit was designed to distribute cold air to a canopy connected to it. This system is powered by two 400 W photovoltaic panels, with battery storage supplying power to the unit at night-time. Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software is used to mathematically model the vapor compression cycle (VCC) and predict the unit's energetic and exergetic performance. The TRNSYS software was used to simulate the electricity storage performance of the batteries, whereas the IES-VE was used to determine the amount of solar energy required to power the unit. The article provides an analytical design guideline, as well as a comprehensible process system. Combining a renewable energy source to power an AC based-VCC provides an excellent solution to the real problems of high-energy consumption in warm-climate countries.

Keywords: air-conditioning, refrigerants, PV panel, energy storages, VCC, exergy

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Authors: Anshu Gupta, Charu Gupta

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Background: Adolescence is the transitional period between puberty and adulthood. It is marked by immense turmoil in emotional and behavioral spheres. Adolescents are at risk of an array of behavioral and emotional problems, resulting in social, academic and vocational function impairments. Conflicts in the family and inability of the parents to cope with the changing demands of an adolescent have a negative impact on the overall development of the child. This augers ill for the individual’s future, resulting in depression, delinquency and suicides among other problems. Aim: The aim of the study was to compare the prevalence of behavioral and emotional problems in school going adolescents aged 13 to 15 years residing in Ludhiana city. Method: A total of 1380 school children in the age group of 13 to 15 years were assessed by the adolescent health screening questionnaire (FAPS) and Youth Self-Report (2001) questionnaire. Statistical significance was ascertained by t-test, chi-square test (x²) and ANOVA, as appropriate. Results: A considerably high prevalence of behavioral and emotional problems was found in school going adolescents (26.5%), more in girls (31.7%) than in boys (24.4%). In case of boys, the maximum problem was in the 13 year age group, i.e., 28.2%, followed by a significant decline by the age of 14 years, i.e., 24.2% and 15 years, i.e., 19.6%. In case of girls also, the maximum problem was in the 13 year age group, i.e., 32.4% followed by a marginal decline in the 14 years i.e., 31.8% and 15 year age group, i.e., 30.2%. Demographic factors were non contributory. Internalizing syndrome (22.4%) was the most common problem followed by the neither internalizing nor externalizing (17.6%) group. In internalizing group, most (26.5%) of the students were observed to be anxious/ depressed. Social problem was observed to be the most frequent (10.6%) among neither internalizing nor externalizing group. Aggressive behavior was the commonest (8.4%) among externalizing group. Internalizing problems, mainly anxiety and depression, were commoner in females (30.6%) than males (24.6%). More boys (16%) than girls (13.4%) were reported to suffer from externalizing disorders. A critical review of the data showed that most of the adolescents had poor knowledge about reproductive health. Almost 36% reported that the source of their information on sexual and reproductive health being friends and the electronic media. There was a high percentage of adolescents who reported being worried about sexual abuse (20.2%) with majority of them being girls (93.6%) reflecting poorly on the social setup in the country. About 41% of adolescents reported being concerned about body weight and most of them being girls (92.4%). Up to 14.5% reported having thoughts of using alcohol or drugs perhaps due to the easy availability of substances of abuse in this part of the country. 12.8% (mostly girls) reported suicidal thoughts. Summary/conclusion: There is a high prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems among school-going adolescents. Resolution of these problems during adolescence is essential for attaining a healthy adulthood. The need of the hour is to spread awareness among caregivers and formulation of effective management strategies including school mental health programme.

Keywords: adolescence, behavioral, emotional, internalizing problem

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Authors: Paolo Grazioli

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In this paper, we present the main results achieved during an eight-week international design project on Colorado Future Sustainable Mobilitycarried out at Metropolitan State University of Denver. The project was born with the intention to seize the opportunity created by the Colorado government’s plan to promote e-bikes mobility by creating a large network of dedicated tracks. The project was supported by local entrepreneurs who offered financial and professional support. The main goal of the project was to engage design students with the skills to design a user-centered, original vehicle that would satisfy the unarticulated practical and emotional needs of “Gen Z” users by creating a fun, useful, and reliablelife companion that would helps users carry out their everyday tasks in a practical and enjoyable way. The project was carried out with the intention of proving the importance of the combination of creative methods with practical design methodologies towards the creation of an innovative yet immediately manufacturable product for a more sustainable future. The final results demonstrate the students' capability to create innovative and yet manufacturable products and, especially, their ability to create a new design paradigm for future sustainable mobility products. The design solutions explored n the project include collaborative learning and human-interaction design for future mobility. The findings of the research led students to the fabrication of two working prototypes that will be tested in Colorado and developed for manufacturing in the year 2024. The project showed that collaborative design and project-based teaching improve the quality of the outcome and can lead to the creation of real life, innovative products directly from the classroom to the market.

Keywords: sustainable transportation design, interface design, collaborative design, user -centered design research, design prototyping

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Authors: S. Jaikeaw, S. Chavadej

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The objective of this study was to determine the effects of COD loading rate on hydrogen and methane production and micronutrient transportation using a two-stage upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) system under mesophilic temperature (37°C) with a constant recycle ratio of 1:1 (final effluent flow rate: feed flow rate). The first (hydrogen) UASB unit having 4 L liquid holding volume was controlled at pH 5.5 but the second (methane) UASB unit having 24 L liquid holding volume had no pH control. The two-stage UASB system operated at different COD loading rates from 8 to 20 kg/m³d based on total UASB working volume. The results showed that, at the optimum COD loading rate of 13 kg/m³d, the produced gas from the hydrogen UASB unit contained 1.5% H₂, 16.5% CH₄, and 82% CO₂ with H₂S of 252 ppm and also provided a hydrogen yield of 1.66 mL/g COD removed (or 0.56 mL/g COD applied) and a specific hydrogen production rate of 156.85 ml H₂/LRd (or 5.12 ml H₂/g MLVSS d). Under the optimum COD loading rate, the produced gas from the methane UASB unit mainly contained methane and carbon dioxide without hydrogen of 74 and 26%, respectively with hydrogen sulfide of 287 ppm and the system also provided a maximum methane yield of 407.00 mL/g COD removed (or 263.23 mL/g COD applied) and a specific methane production rate of 2081.44 ml CH₄/LRd (or 99.75 ml CH₄/g MLVSS d). Under the optimum COD loading rate, all micronutrients markedly dropped by the sulfide precipitation reactions. The reduction of micronutrients mostly appeared in the methane UASB unit. Under the studied conditions, both Co and Ni were found to be greatly precipitated out, causing the deficiency to microbial activity. It is hypothesized that an addition of both Co and Ni can improve the methanogenic activity.

Keywords: hydrogen and methane production, ethanol wastewater, a two-stage upflow anaerobic blanket (UASB) system, mesophillic temperature, microbial concentration (MLVSS), micronutrients

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Authors: Alaa Sarhan, Rania Abd El Gelil, Hana Awad

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Through the last decades, the impact of thermal comfort on the working performance of users and occupants of an indoor space has been a concern. Research papers concluded that natural ventilation quality directly impacts the levels of thermal comfort. Natural ventilation must be put into account during the design process in order to improve the inhabitant's efficiency and productivity. One example of daily long-term occupancy spaces is educational facilities. Many individuals spend long times receiving a considerable amount of knowledge, and it takes additional time to apply this knowledge. Thus, this research is concerned with user's level of thermal comfort in design studios of educational facilities. The natural ventilation quality in spaces is affected by a number of parameters including orientation, opening design, and many other factors. This research aims to investigate the conscious manipulation of the physical parameters of the spaces and its impact on natural ventilation performance which subsequently affects thermal comfort of users. The current research uses inductive and deductive methods to define natural ventilation design considerations, which are used in a field study in a studio in the university building in Alexandria (AAST) to evaluate natural ventilation performance through analyzing and comparing the current case to the developed framework and conducting computational fluid dynamics simulation. Results have proved that natural ventilation performance is successful by only 50% of the natural ventilation design framework; these results are supported by CFD simulation.

Keywords: educational buildings, natural ventilation, , mediterranean climate, thermal comfort

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Authors: Niyom Suwandej

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This research paper investigated the opinions of small and micro community enterprises from Jom Pluak Subdistrict, Bangkhontee District, Samut Songkram Province towards product quality control, and the findings are aimed to disseminate knowledge on quality control for upgrading product standards for small and micro community enterprises. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods, in which there were 23 samples in the study. The study was divided into 2 steps which were (1) studying the opinions of the respondents towards the community’s product quality control and upgrading product standards; (2) creating development guidance for product quality control and upgrading product standards for small and micro community enterprise. The demographic findings revealed female respondents as the majority, with most above 50 years of age and married. Most had more than 15 years of working experience. The education level reported by most respondents was primary school or lower followed by secondary school or lower with most respondents was vocational certificate level. Most respondents had the highest level of satisfaction with the existing condition of product quality control knowledge management. Pertaining to opinions on the guidance of knowledge creation for product quality control for small and micro community enterprise, the respondents were willing to apply the knowledge in upgrading their product standards. For the opinions of knowledge creation for product quality control and product standards, the respondents had the highest level of satisfaction. Guidance of knowledge creation for product quality control and product standards for small and micro community enterprises received the highest level of satisfaction from the respondents. Furthermore they had knowledge and comprehension in product quality control and product standards and could apply the knowledge in improving the quality of their production and product standards for small and micro community enterprises.

Keywords: product quality control, product standards, community enterprise, marketing management

Procedia PDF Downloads 465