Search results for: educational policies

Authors: Fatma Al Abdullah, Shahad Al Ameer, Ritaj Jaragh, Fatimah Khajah, Rawan Qambar, Amr Nounou

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Kuwait currently manufactures its tankers in foreign countries. Oil tankers play a role in the supply chain of the oil industry. Therefore, with Kuwait’s sufficient financial resources, the country should secure itself strategically in order to protect its oil industry to sustain economic development. The purpose of this report is designing an oil tankers’ shipyard facility. Basing the shipyard facility in Kuwait will have great economic rewards. The shipbuilding industry directly enhances the industrial chain in terms of new job and business opportunities as well as educational fields. Heavy Engineering Industries & Shipbuilding Co. K.S.C. (HEISCO) was chosen as a host due to benefits that will result from HEISCO’s existing infrastructure and expertise to reduce cost. The Facility Design methodology chosen has been used because it covers all aspects needed for the report. The oil tanker market is witnessing a shift from crude tankers to product tankers. Therefore the Panamax tanker (product tanker) was selected to be manufactured in the facility. The different departments needed in shipyards were identified based on studying different global shipyards. Technologies needed to build ships helped in the process design. It was noticed that ships are engineer to order. The new layout development of the proposed shipyard is currently in progress. A feasibility study will be conducted to ensure the success of the facility after developing the shipyard’s layout.

Keywords: oil tankers, shipbuilding, shipyard, facility design, Kuwait

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Authors: Marian Emmanuel Okon

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Introduction: The Niger Delta region of Nigeria has a vast reserve of oil and gas, which has globally positioned the nation as the sixth largest exporter of crude oil. Production rapidly rose following oil discovery. In most oil producing nations of the world, the wealth generated from oil production and export has propelled economic advancement, enabling the development of industries and other relevant infrastructures. Therefore, it can be assumed that majority of the oil resource such as Nigeria’s, has the potential to improve the health of the population via job creation and derived revenues. However, the health benefits of this economic development might be offset by the environmental consequences of oil exploitation and production. Objective: This research aims to evaluate the balance between the health benefits of oil-led economic development and harmful environmental consequences of crude oil exploitation in Nigeria. Study Design: A pathway has been designed to guide data search and this study. The model created will assess the relationship between oil-led economic development and population health development via job creation, improvement of education, development of infrastructure and other forms of development as well as through harmful environmental consequences from oil activities. Data/Emerging Findings: Diverse potentially suitable datasets which are at different geographical scales have been identified, obtained or applied for and the dataset from the World Bank has been the most thoroughly explored. This large dataset contains information that would enable the longitudinal assessment of both the health benefits and harms from oil exploitation in Nigeria as well as identify the disparities that exist between the communities, states and regions. However, these data do not extend far back enough in time to capture the start of crude oil production. Thus, it is possible that the maximum economic benefits and health harms could be missed. To deal with this shortcoming, the potential for a comparative study with countries like United Kingdom, Morocco and Cote D’ivoire has also been taken into consideration, so as to evaluate the differences between these countries as well as identify the areas of improvement in Nigeria’s environmental and health policies. Notwithstanding, these data have shown some differences in each country’s economic, environmental and health state over time as well as a corresponding summary statistics. Conclusion: In theory, the beneficial effects of oil exploitation to the health of the population may be substantial as large swaths of the ‘wider determinants’ of population heath are influenced by the wealth of a nation. However, if uncontrolled, the consequences from environmental pollution and degradation may outweigh these benefits. Thus, there is a need to address this, in order to improve environmental and population health in Nigeria.

Keywords: environmental pollution, health benefits, oil-led economic development, petroleum exploitation

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Authors: Sharapat Sharapat

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English language is perceived as cultural capital in many non-native English-speaking countries, and minority groups in these social contexts seem to invest in the language to be empowered and reposition themselves from the imbalanced power relation with the dominant group. This study is devoted to explore how English learning influence minority Kazakh students’ identity (re)construction at Chinese universities from the scope of ‘imagined community, investment, and identity’ theory of Norton (2013). To this end the three research questions were designed as follows: 1) Kazakh minority students’ English learning experiences at Chinese universities; 2) Kazakh minority students’ views about benefits and opportunities of English learning; 3) the influence of English learning on Kazakh minority students’ identity (re)construction. The study employs an interview-based qualitative research method by interviewing nine Kazakh minority students in universities in Xinjiang and other inland cities in China. The findings suggest that through English learning, some students have reconstructed multiple identities as multicultural and global identities, which created ‘a third space’ to break limits of their ethnic and national identities and confused identity as someone in-between. Meanwhile, most minority students were empowered by the English language to resist inferior or marginalized positions and reconstruct imagined elite identity. However, English learning disempowered students who have little previous English education in school and placed them on unequal footing with other students, which further escalated the educational inequities.

Keywords: minority in China, identity construction, multilingual education, language empowerment

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Authors: Oren Shtayermman

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The current investigation expended on research among parents caring for a child who is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An online web survey was used to collect data from 253 parents caring for a child with a diagnosis of ASD. Both parents reported on elevated levels of parental stress associated with caring for the child on the spectrum. In addition, lower levels of marital satisfaction were found in both parents. About 13% of the parents in the sample met the diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive Disorder and About 15% of the parents met the diagnostic criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Although the majority of the sample was females (94%) significant differences were found between males and females in relation to meeting the diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive Disorder and for Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Higher levels of stress were associated with higher number of Generalized Anxiety Disorder symptoms and higher number of Major Depressive Disorder symptoms. Findings from this study indicate how vulnerable parents and especially females are in relation to caring to a child diagnosed with ASD. Educational Objectives: At the conclusion of the paper, the readers should be able to: -Identify levels of stress and marital satisfaction among parents caring for a child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, -Recognize the impact of stress on the development of mental health issues, -Name the two most common mood and anxiety related disorders associated with caring for a child diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.

Keywords: autism, stress, parents, children

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Authors: Samar Alharbi, Yota Dimitriadi

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The literature on educational technology in Saudi Arabia reveals female learners’ unwillingness to study fully online courses in higher education despite the fact that Saudi universities have offered a variety of online degree programmes to undergraduate students in many regions of the country. The root causes keeping female students from successfully learning in online environments are limited social interaction, lack of motivation and difficulty with the use of e-learning platforms. E-immediacy remains an important method of online teaching to enhance students’ interaction and support their online learning. This study explored Saudi female students’ perceptions, as well as the experiences of lecturers’ immediacy behaviours in online environments, who participate in fully online courses using Blackboard at a Saudi university. Data were collected through interviews with focus groups. The three focus groups included five to seven students each. The female participants were asked about lecturers’ e-immediacy behaviours and which e-immediacy behaviours were important for an effective learning environment. A thematic analysis of the data revealed three main themes: the encouragement of student interaction, the incorporation of social media and addressing the needs of students. These findings provide lecturers with insights into instructional designs and strategies that can be adopted in using e-immediacy in effective ways, thus improving female learners’ interactions as well as their online learning experiences.

Keywords: e-learning, female students, higher education, immediacy

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Authors: Mir Afzal Tajik

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The 'Strengthening Teacher Education in Pakistan' (STEP) is an innovative programme jointly funded by the Government of Canada and the Aga Khan Foundation Canada and implemented by the Aga Khan University - Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED) in partnership with the local governments, education departments and communities in the provinces of Balochistan, Sindh and Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan. One of the key components of the programme is professional development of teachers, head teachers and teacher educators through a variety of teacher education programmes including a two-year Masters of Education (MEd) Programme offered by AKU-IED. A number of teachers, head teachers and teacher educators from these provinces have been developed through the MEd Programme. This paper discusses a qualitative research study conducted to explore the nature, relevance, rigor and richness of the experiences of the MEd graduates, and how these experiences have fostered their own professional development and their ability to bring about positive changes in their schools. The findings of the study provide useful insights into the graduates’ self-actualization, transformation of their professional beliefs and practices, the difference they have made in their schools, and the challenges they face. The study also provides evidences of how the implementation of this multi-stakeholders and multi-partners STEP programme has led to the development of ‘communities of practice’ in schools. The study then makes a number of recommendations for policy and practice related to teacher education programmes as well as for partnerships in education.

Keywords: STEP, change agents, Pakistan, Canada, teacher education, MEd

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Authors: T. Esteves, S. Mesquita, A. Santos, A. Campina, C. Costa-Lobo

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The theme regarding the differentiation of high-performance athletes has always aroused curiosity and fascination, becoming a target for study, especially in the social and human sciences. It was from the 60's and 70's that the concern for the study of the excellence of athletes that showed indices of high performance in sports began to arise. From the 1990s, it became possible to specify the mental competencies and psychological characteristics associated with Olympic athletes with high levels of success. Several studies considered that well-structured pre-competitive and competitive routines and plans were predictors of sports success. Likewise, the high levels of motivation, commitment and concentration; the high levels of self-confidence and optimism; the presence of effective coping strategies to deal with distractions and unexpected situations or events; adequate regulation of activation and anxiety; the establishment and formulation of objectives; and mental visualization and practice were determinants in the manifestation of excellence in these athletes. As such, the promotion of these cognitive abilities has been emphasized in the good performance of the athletes. With the objective of implementing cognitive stimulation programs to meet the specific needs of talented athletes, together with pedagogical activities to promote educational strategies and promote interpersonal relationships, this communication systematizes a proposal for a psychopedagogical service to promote cognitive abilities in competitive athletes, SPAC, to implement in a Portuguese soccer team. This service will be based on a holistic vision in order to promote talent.

Keywords: athletes, cognitive abilities, high competition, psycho-pedagogical service

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Authors: Ebobo Urowoli Christiana

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The Nigerian Prison Service statistics of 2007; 2009 revealed that though crime in the past was ascribed to men, but today there is a steady increase in the population of women involved in crime. This study focused on the investigation of female criminality in Lagos State: A case of Armed Robbery. Its major objective was to find out if there is an increase or decrease in female involvement in armed robbery and its growth rate. The major research question is 'Is there an increase in the perpetration of armed robbery by females in Lagos State?' the null hypotheses is 'There is no significant increase in the perpetration of armed robbery by females in Lagos State.' As a result, this study adopted the survey design, purposive sampling method and a sample size of 120 respondents. The rational choice theory was used to explain the reason for female involvement in armed robbery. Both primary and secondary data was generated for this study; the primary data was collected from the criminal records in Lagos State Police Command, Panti while the Quantitative data was collected using the questionnaire from 120 female detainees and inmates. The data collected was analyzed using the simple frequency tables and percentages and chi square was used to test for relationships. The study revealed a persistent rise in the prevalence of female armed robbery and recommended that youths should be equipped with educational/vocational skills in order to lead responsible lives.

Keywords: criminality, armed robbery, female, police commands, panti, nature

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Authors: Emmanuel Osaze Oshoiribhor, Adetokunbo MacGregor John-Otumu

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In recent years, there has been a desire to forecast student academic achievement prior to graduation. This is to help them improve their grades, particularly for individuals with poor performance. The goal of this study is to employ supervised learning techniques to construct a predictive model for student academic achievement. Many academics have already constructed models that predict student academic achievement based on factors such as smoking, demography, culture, social media, parent educational background, parent finances, and family background, to name a few. This feature and the model employed may not have correctly classified the students in terms of their academic performance. This model is built using a logistic regression classifier with basic features such as the previous semester's course score, attendance to class, class participation, and the total number of course materials or resources the student is able to cover per semester as a prerequisite to predict if the student will perform well in future on related courses. The model outperformed other classifiers such as Naive bayes, Support vector machine (SVM), Decision Tree, Random forest, and Adaboost, returning a 96.7% accuracy. This model is available as a desktop application, allowing both instructors and students to benefit from user-friendly interfaces for predicting student academic achievement. As a result, it is recommended that both students and professors use this tool to better forecast outcomes.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, ML, logistic regression, performance, prediction

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Authors: Saroj Bala Grover, Al Munther Alhasawi, Prem N. Sharma, P. S. N. Menon

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Background: Prisoners are considered one of the high-risk populations for the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Targeting this group is one of the strategies to reduce the incidence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the community. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among male inmates in Kuwait’s prison by administering three sets of questionnaires to assess the level of their knowledge and awareness about the mode of transmission of HIV/AIDS, their risky personal behavior that may lead to HIV infection, and the presence of any negative attitudes and stigmatization towards HIV infected individuals. Results: The study included 123 male inmates, with a mean ± SD age of 30.9 ± 8.4 years. Most participants had good general knowledge (90%) about the mode of transmission of HIV/AIDS, including sharing contaminated syringes, risky personal behaviors such as having unprotected sex and increased number of extramarital relationships (66%), and the avoidance of the regular use of condoms. The younger age group (< 35 years) had more extramarital relationships than those > 35 years (71.4% Vs. 46.4%; p=0.016). There was a perceived attitude of stigmatization among inmates towards HIV-infected persons. Conclusions: This vulnerable group of prisoners, especially young adults, need educational programs to improve knowledge about the transmission of HIV and to correct and change their risky personal behaviors to protect themselves and the community against HIV transmission.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Kuwait, prisoners, knowledge, awareness, personal behavior, extramarital relationships, safe sex, discrimination, stigmatization

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Authors: Tibor Koltay

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Among varied new literacies, information literacy is not only the best-known one but displays numerous models and frameworks. Nonetheless, there is still a lack of its complex theoretical model that could be applied to information literacy education in public (K12) education, which often makes use of constructivist approaches. This paper aims to present the main features of such a model. To develop a complex model, the literature and practice of phenomenographic and sociocultural theories, as well as discourse analytical approaches to information literacy, have been reviewed. Besides these constructivist and expressive based educational approaches, the new model is intended to include the innovation of coupling them with a cognitive model that takes developing informational and operational knowledge into account. The convergences between different literacies (information literacy, media literacy, media and information literacy, and data literacy) were taken into account, as well. The model will also make use of a three-country survey that examined secondary school teachers’ attitudes to information literacy. The results of this survey show that only a part of the respondents feel properly prepared to teach information literacy courses, and think that they can teach information literacy skills by themselves, while they see a librarian as an expert in educating information literacy. The use of the resulting model is not restricted to enhancing theory. It is meant to raise the level of awareness about information literacy and related literacies, and the next phase of the model’s development will be a pilot study that verifies the usefulness of the methodology for practical information literacy education in selected Hungarian secondary schools.

Keywords: communication, data literacy, discourse analysis, information literacy education, media and information literacy media literacy, phenomenography, public education, sociocultural theory

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Authors: Samuel Holder

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Mass incarceration in the United States is a human rights issue, not merely a civil rights problem. It is a human rights problem not only because the United States has a high rate of incarceration, but more importantly because of who is jailed, for what purpose they are jailed and, ultimately, the manner in which they are jailed. To sustain the scale of the criminal justice system, one of the darker policies involves a multi-tiered strategy of fee- and fine-collection, targeting, usually, the most vulnerable and poor, many of whom run into the law via small offenses that do not rise to the level of felonies. This paper advances the notion that this debt collection-to-incarceration pipeline is tantamount to a modern-day debtors’ prison system. This article seeks to confront the thorny issue of incarceration via criminal justice debt from a human rights and cause-lawyering position. It will argue that a two-pronged cause-lawyering strategy: the first focused on traditional litigation along constitutional grounds, and the second, an advocacy approach rooted in grassroots campaigns, designed to shift the normative operation and understanding of the rights of marginalized and racialized offenders. Ultimately, the argument suggests that this approach will be effective in combatting the (often highly privatized) criminal justice debt system and bring the roles of 'incapacitation, rehabilitation, deterrence, and retribution' back into the criminal justice legal conversation. Part I contextualizes and historicizes the role of fees, penalties, and fines in American criminal justice. Part II examines the emergence of private industry in the criminal justice system, and its role in the acceleration of profit-driven criminal justice debt collection and incarceration. Part III addresses the failures of the federal and state law and legislation in combatting predatory incarceration and debt collection in the criminal justice system, particularly as waged against the indigent and/or ethnically or racially marginalized. Part IV examines the potential for traditional cause-lawyering litigation along constitutional grounds, using case studies across contexts for illustration. Finally, Part V will review the radical cause-lawyer’s role in the normative struggle in redefining prisoners’ rights and the rights of the marginalized (and racialized) as they intersect at the crossroads of criminal justice debt. This paper will conclude with recommendations for litigation and advocacy, drawing on hypotheses advanced, and informed by case studies from a variety of both national and international jurisdictions.

Keywords: cause-lawyering, criminal justice debt, human rights, judicial fees

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Authors: Thanduxolo Nomngcoyiya, Simon M. Kang’ethe

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The aim of this article is to explore whether a relationship exists between traditional male circumcision mishaps and level of education in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, exemplified by an empirical case study. The study used qualitative paradigm; was exploratory in nature and used case study design that was descriptive and exploratory; and entailed interviewing twenty-eight (28) research participants comprising of eleven (11) newly initiated men and their families on one-on-one in-depth interviews, twelve (12) traditional nurses and community members in focus group discussions; and five (5) society key informants on key informant method. An interview guide served as a data collection instrument for focus group discussions, key informant method and in-depth interviews with unstructured open-ended questions. Findings indicated an array of traditional male circumcision (TMC) gaps, some of which were indicative of a relationship between the mishaps and level of education: the phenomenon of schooling became secondary in newly initiated men’s lives; TMC mishaps became a drawback towards the newly initiated men’s education progression; the newly initiated men are sacrificed at the altar of culture, and TMC mishaps ushered in socioeconomic setback to the newly initiated men. The study suggested that: TMC be developmental; TMC as a cultural endeavor be educational and human rights friendly; and the need to identify and integrate all other players with diverse specialties.

Keywords: culture, education for all, EFA, millennium development goals, traditional male circumcision

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Authors: Lisa Naudine Parrock, Geoffrey Lautenbach

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The changes brought to society by the technological development in the Fourth Industrial Revolution are also reaching the sphere of education and the education system needs to respond. Students need skills such as communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking in order to be successful in the 21st Century, which could be developed through the meaningful use of technology. This study is theorized by the 21st Century Framework for Learning and examines the student perceptions of grade 10 and 11 English Home language learners on how the technology used in their English classroom contributes to the development of 21st Century skills. The researcher adopted a constructivist paradigm and presented findings based on a general qualitative method. The study found that students perceived the use of technology in the classroom positively contributed to their development of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. Students also perceived technology as contributing to their access to information, a positive classroom atmosphere, heightened engagement in learning and developing skills necessary for their future. In addition, this study highlighted certain pedagogical strategies and digital tools that support the development of 21st Century skills. The findings suggest that the meaningful integration of technology fosters the development of 21st Century skills in grade 10 and 11 learners.

Keywords: educational technology, 21st century skills, fourth industrial revolution, affordances of technology

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Authors: Duong Van Thanh

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been recently a new trend in Higher Education systems globally as well as in the Vietnamese Higher Education. This study explores the benefits and challenges in applications of AI in 02 selected universities, ie. Vietnam National Universities in Hanoi Capital and the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City. Particularly, this paper focuses on how the ethics of Artificial Intelligence have been addressed among faculty members at these two universities. The AI ethical issues include the access and inclusion, privacy and security, transparency and accountability. AI-powered educational technology has the potential to improve access and inclusion for students with disabilities or other learning needs. However, there is a risk that AI-based systems may not be accessible to all students and may even exacerbate existing inequalities. AI applications can be opaque and difficult to understand, making it challenging to hold them accountable for their decisions and actions. It is important to consider the benefits that adopting AI-systems bring to the institutions, teaching, and learning. And it is equally important to recognize the drawbacks of using AI in education and to take the necessary steps to mitigate any negative impact. The results of this study present a critical concern in higher education in Vietnam, where AI systems may be used to make important decisions about students’ learning and academic progress. The authors of this study attempt to make some recommendation that the AI-system in higher education system is frequently checked by a human in charge to verify that everything is working as it should or if the system needs some retraining or adjustments.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, ethics, challenges, vietnam

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Authors: Ari Istiany, Guspri Devi Artanti, M. Si

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Based on the results Riskesdas, it is known that breastfeeding awareness about the importance of exclusive breastfeeding is still low at only 15.3 %. These conditions resulted in a very infant at risk for infectious diseases, such as diarrhea and acute respiratory infection. Therefore, the aim of this study to evaluate the video development about exclusive breastfeeding as a nutrition education media for posyandu cadre. This research used development methods for making the video about exclusive breastfeeding. The study was conducted in urban areas Rawamangun, East Jakarta. Respondents of this study were 1 media experts from the Department of Educational Technology - UNJ, 2 subject matter experts from Department of Home Economics - UNJ and 20 posyandu cadres to assess the quality of the video. Aspects assessed include the legibility of text, image display quality, color composition, clarity of sound, music appropriateness, duration, suitability of the material and language. Data were analyzed descriptively likes frequency distribution table, the average value, and deviation standard. The result of this study showed that the average score assessment according to media experts, subject matter experts, and posyandu cadres respectively was 3.43 ± 0.51 (good), 4.37 ± 0.52 (very good) and 3.6 ± 0.73 (good). The conclusion is on exclusive breastfeeding video as feasible as a media for nutrition education. While suggestions for the improvement of visual media is multiply illustrations, add material about the correct way of breastfeeding and healthy baby pictures.

Keywords: exclusive breastfeeding, posyandu cadre, video, nutrition education

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Authors: Serena Clark, Katriona O'Sullivan, Kevin Marshall, Mac MacLachlan

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This paper explores the United Nation's sustainable development goals (SDGs) alongside digital poverty and proposes that digital poverty should be a new SDG. The SDGs concentrate on 17 key areas, including economic growth, reducing inequalities, climate action, ending poverty, gender equality, and quality education. Many of the plans to fulfill these goals involve the creation and adaptation of new technologies. As we have seen with COVID-19, access to these technologies has determined communities and societies' ability to respond to these challenges in both developed and developing nations. For example, the transition to online education due to the lockdowns had a detrimental effect on children who did not have access to technology to provide continuity in their educational development. Digitalization and emerging technologies, especially information and communication technologies (ICTs), can help address each goal. Digital poverty and exclusion exacerbate the gap between rich and poor within our societies and internationally, and COVID-19 has further highlighted these issues. Closing this gap can support achieving the SDGs. If access to digital technologies measure society's response and resilience in addressing the challenges the SDGs seek to resolve, should reducing digital poverty be an SDG of its own? This paper will explore this question, arguing that digital poverty should be an independent SDG working alongside and supporting the achievement of the other 17 SDGs.

Keywords: digital poverty, digital exclusion, United Nations sustainable development goals, information and communication technologies

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Authors: Daniel J. Patricio Jiménez

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The term 'total compensation’ refers to salary, training, innovation, and development, and of course, motivation; total compensation is an open and flexible system which must facilitate personal and family conciliation and therefore cannot be isolated from social reality. Today, the challenge for any company that wants to have a future is to be sustainable, and women play a ‘special’ role in this. Spain, in its statutory and conventional development, has not given sufficient response to new phenomena such as ‘bonuses’, ‘stock options’ or ‘fringe benefits’ (constructed dogmatically and by court decisions), the new digital reality, where cryptocurrency, new collaborative models and service provision -such as remote work-, are always ahead of the law. To talk about compensation is to talk about the gender gap, and with the entry into force of RD.902 /2020 on 14 April 2021, certain measures are necessary under the principle of salary transparency; the valuation of jobs, the pay register (Rd. 6/2019) and the pay audit, are an example of this. Analyzing the methodologies, and in particular the determination and weight of the factors -so that the system itself is not discriminatory- is essential. The wage gap in Spain is smaller than in Europe, but the sources do not reflect the reality, and since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a clear stagnation. A living wage is not the minimum wage; it is identified with rights and needs; it is that which, based on internal equity, reflects the competitiveness of the company in terms of human capital. Spain has lost and has not recovered the relative weight of its wages; this is having a direct impact on our competitiveness, consequently on the precariousness of employment and undoubtedly on the levels of extreme poverty. Training is becoming more than ever a strategic factor; the new digital reality requires that each component of the system is connected, the transversality is imposed on us, this forces us to redefine content, to give answers to the new demands that the new normality requires because technology and robotization are changing the concept of employability. The presence of women in this context is necessary, and there is a long way to go. The so-called emotional compensation becomes particularly relevant at a time when pandemics, silence, and disruption, are leaving after-effects; technostress (in all its manifestations) is just one of them. Talking about motivation today makes no sense without first being aware that mental health is a priority, that it must be treated and communicated in an inclusive way because it increases satisfaction, productivity, and engagement. There is a clear conclusion to all this: compensation systems do not respond to the ‘new normality’: diversity, and in particular women, cannot be invisible in human resources policies if the company wants to be sustainable.

Keywords: diversity, gender gap, human resources, sustainability.

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Authors: Mclee Kerolle

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For more than 50 years, the state of Hawaii has had the beginnings of a burgeoning commercial aerospace presence statewide. While Hawaii provides the aerospace industry with unique assets concerning geographic location, lack of range safety issues and other factors critical to aerospace development, Hawaii’s strategy and commitment for aerospace have been unclear. For this reason, this paper presents a comparative analysis of Hawaii’s space sector with two of the world’s leading space sectors, Colorado and the Netherlands, in order to provide a strategic plan that establishes a firm position going forward to support Hawaii’s aerospace development statewide. This plan will include financial and other economic incentives legislatively supported by the State to help grow and diversify Hawaii’s aerospace sector. The first part of this paper will examine the business model adopted by the Colorado Space Coalition (CSC), a group of industry stakeholders working to make Colorado a center of excellence for aerospace, as blueprint for growth in Hawaii’s space sector. The second section of this paper will examine the business model adopted by the Netherlands Space Business Incubation Centre (NSBIC), a European Space Agency (ESA) affiliated program that offers business support for entrepreneurs to turn space-connected business ideas into commercial companies. This will serve as blueprint to incentivize space businesses to launch and develop in Hawaii. The third section of this paper will analyze the current policies both CSC, and NSBIC implores to promote industry expansion and legislative advocacy. The final section takes the findings from both space sectors and applies their most adaptable features to a Hawaii specific space business model that takes into consideration the unique advantage and disadvantages found in developing Hawaii’s space sector. The findings of this analysis will show that the development of a strategic plan based on a comparative analysis that creates high technology jobs and new pathways for a trained workforce in the space sector, as well as elicit state support and direction, will achieve the goal of establishing Hawaii as a center of space excellence. This analysis will also serve as a signal to the federal, private sector and international community that Hawaii is indeed serious about developing its’ aerospace industry. Ultimately this analysis and subsequent aerospace development plan will serve as a blueprint for the benefit of all space-faring nations seeking to develop their space sectors.

Keywords: Colorado, Hawaii, Netherlands, space policy

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Authors: Shehroz Mukhtar, Maqsood Ahmed, Abdullah Mukhtar, Choudhry Shahid, Waqar Javaid

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Code switching is a common phenomenon, generally observed in multilingual communities across the globe. A critical look at code switching literature reveals that mostly code switching has been studied in classroom in learning and teaching context while code switching outside classroom in settings such as café, hostel and so on have been the least explored areas. Current research investigated the reasons for code switching in the interactive practices of students and their perceptions regarding the same outside the classroom settings. This paper is the study of the common practice that prevails in the Universities of Sialkot that bilinguals mix two languages when they speak in different class room situations. In Pakistani classrooms where Multilingual are in abundance i.e. they can speak two or more than two languages at the same time, the code switching or language combination is very common. The teachers of Sialkot switch from one language to another consciously or unconsciously while teaching English in the class rooms. This phenomenon has not been explored in the Sialkot’s teaching context. In Sialkot private educational institutes does not encourage code-switching whereas the public or government institutes use it frequently. The crux of this research is to investigate and identify the importance of code switching by taking its users in consideration. Survey research method and survey questionnaire will be used to get exact data from teachers and students. We will try to highlight the functions and importance of code switching in foreign language classrooms of Sialkot and will explore why this trend is emerging in Sialkot.

Keywords: code switching, bilingual context, L1, L2

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Authors: Meiliana, Achmad Eko Prabowo, Muhammad Fathan Mubina

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AFTA agreement in 2015 will bring a significant impact on Indonesian society. Indonesia’s people will face competition both in the economic, political, and cultural regionally among ten countries in ASEAN. Indonesia is a rich country in culture and has a large enough demographic bonus when compared to other ASEAN countries. Indonesia also has a lot of cultural enrichment in every its region. It’s mean, the role of society and culture of Indonesia's abundant if combined properly it will help Indonesia in the face of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. This paper will discuss the role of one-stop culture workshop (OSCW) concept at Saung Angklung Udjo (SAU), a cultural tourist area of Angklung which is located in Bandung. OSCW is a concept that implemented a cultural tour in SAU that invites the visitor to engage in the cultural empowerment. In this research, we will answer how the concepts are applied by SAU can be an alternative to re-discover the potential of Indonesia in the face of the AEC 2015. Units of analysis that we used is among the programs, outcomes, and community empowerment. This study used a qualitative approach with in-depth interviews and observation. The finding of this study prove that OSCW concept is an opportunity for Indonesia to encourage a culture to go international. The concept of OSCW can really be used other communities to develop cultures of Indonesia so that later institutionalized culture that not only can be used as a tourist attraction but also as an educational laboratory for the community.

Keywords: OSCW concept, citizen empowerment, cultural tour, AEC 2015

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Authors: Tsepiso Mofolo, Luna Bergh

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The Lesotho construction industry fails to embrace environmental practices, which has then lead to excessive consumption of resources, land degradation, air and water pollution, loss of habitats, and high energy usage. The industry is highly inefficient, and this undermines its capability to yield the optimum contribution to social, economic and environmental developments. Sustainable construction is, therefore, imperative to ensure the cultivation of benefits from all these intrinsic themes of sustainable development. The development of a sustainable construction industry requires a holistic approach that takes into consideration the interaction between Lean Construction principles, socio-economic and environmental policies, technological advancement and the principles of construction or project management. Sustainable construction is a cutting-edge phenomenon, forming a component of a subjectively defined concept called sustainable development. Sustainable development can be defined in terms of attitudes and judgments to assist in ensuring long-term environmental, social and economic growth in society. The key concept of sustainable construction is Lean Construction. Lean Construction emanates from the principles of the Toyota Production System (TPS), namely the application and adaptation of the fundamental concepts and principles that focus on waste reduction, the increase in value to the customer, and continuous improvement. The focus is on the reduction of socio-economic waste, and protestation of environmental degradation by reducing carbon dioxide emission footprint. Lean principles require a fundamental change in the behaviour and attitudes of the parties involved in order to overcome barriers to cooperation. Prevalent barriers to adoption of Lean Construction in Lesotho are mainly structural - such as unavailability of financing, corruption, operational inefficiency or wastage, lack of skills and training and inefficient construction legislation and political interferences. The consequential effects of these problems trigger down to quality, cost and time of the project - which then result in an escalation of operational costs due to the cost of rework or material wastage. Factor and correlation analysis of these barriers indicate that they are highly correlated, which then poses a detrimental potential to the country’s welfare, environment and construction safety. It is, therefore, critical for Lesotho’s construction industry to develop a robust governance through bureaucracy reforms and stringent law enforcement.

Keywords: construction industry, sustainable development, sustainable construction industry, lean construction, barriers to sustainable construction

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Authors: Kalat P. Duniya

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A number of technologies expected to increase maize productivity have been introduced by several research programs at national and international level. To this end, the study sought to identify the factors influencing adoption intensity of certified maize varieties. The data used were obtained from a sample household survey of 406 maize farmers, conducted in the northern guinea savannah of Nigeria through multistage stratified sampling, structured questionnaire. A triple hurdle model was adopted to estimate the determinants of adoption intensity; considering awareness, adoption, and intensity as three separate stages. The result showed that the drivers of farmers’ awareness, adoption, and intensity of usage may not necessarily be the same, and where they are, not of the same magnitude and direction. However, factors which were found to be statistically significant were age, education, membership of association and frequency of extension advice. In addition, awareness and adoption of the technologies were likely to be increased with male respondents. Farmers that were members of either community organizations or cooperative organizations had a higher tendency of being aware and adopting certified maize seed varieties. It was also discovered that though some of the farmers were fully aware of the existence of some certified maize varieties, majority lacked detailed knowledge and technical know-how. There is a need for creation of awareness through an excellent trained extension and restructuring of the educational sector to improve on the adoption process as well as improve maize productivity in the country.

Keywords: adoption, awareness, maize farmers, Nigeria, regression

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Authors: Shehroz Mukhtar, Maqsood Ahmed, Abdullah Mukhtar, Choudhry Shahid, Waqar Javaid

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Code switching is a common phenomenon, generally observed in multilingual communities across the globe. A critical look at code-switching literature reveals that mostly code-switching has been studied in the classrooms in learning and teaching contexts, while code-switching outside the classroom in settings such as café, hostels and so on has been the least explored areas. The current research investigated the reasons for code-switching in the interactive practices of students and their perceptions regarding the same outside the classroom settings. This paper is the study of the common practice that prevails in the Universities of Sialkot that bilinguals mix two languages when they speak in different classroom situations. In Pakistani classrooms where Multilingual is in abundance, i.e. they can speak two or more two languages at the same time, code-switching or language combination is very common. The teachers of Sialkot switch from one language to another consciously or unconsciously while teaching English in the classrooms. This phenomenon has not been explored in Sialkot’s teaching context. In Sialkot, private educational institutes do not encourage code-switching, whereas public or government institutes use it frequently. The crux of this research is to investigate and identify the importance of code-switching by taking its users into consideration. The survey research method and survey questionnaire will be used to get exact data from teachers and students. We will try to highlight the functions and importance of code switching in foreign language classrooms of Sialkot and will explore why this trend is emerging in Sialkot.

Keywords: code switching, foreign language classrooms, bilingual context, use of L1, importance of L2.

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Authors: Sukrita Mukherjee, Anindita Chaudhuri

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Soft skills are a crucial aspect for employees, and these skills are not confined to any particular field rather, it guarantees further career growth and job opportunities for employees who are seeking growth. Soft skills are also regarded as personality-specific skills that are observable and are qualitative in nature, which determines an employee’s strengths as a leader. When an employee intends to hold his job, then the person must make effective use of his personal resources, that, in turn, impacts his employability in a positive manner. An employee at his workplace is expected to make effective use of his personal resources. The resources that are to be used by the employee are generally of two types. First type of resources are occupation related, which is related with the educational background of the employee, and the second type of resources are the psychological resources of the employee, such as self-knowledge, career orientation awareness, sense of purpose and emotional literacy, that are considered crucial for an employee in his workplace. The present study is a qualitative study which includes 10 individuals working in IT Sector and Service Industry, respectively. For IT sector, graduate people are considered, and for the Service Industry, individuals who have done a Professional course in order to get into the industry are considered. The emerging themes from the findings after thematic analysis reveal that different aspect of Soft skills such as communication, decision making, constant learning, keeping oneself updated with the latest technological advancement, emotional intelligence are some of the important factors that helps an employee not only to sustain his job, but also grow in his workplace.

Keywords: employabiliy, soft skils, employees, resources, workplace

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Authors: S. Jamshidi, E. Feizi Ashtiani, M. Ardestani, A. Feizi Ashtiani

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Waste load allocation (WLA) strategies usually intend to find economical policies for water resource management. Water quality trading (WQT) is an approach that uses discharge permit market to reduce total environmental protection costs. This primarily requires assigning discharge limits known as total maximum daily loads (TMDLs). These are determined by monitoring organizations with respect to the receiving water quality and remediation capabilities. The purpose of this study is to compare two approaches of TMDL assignment for WQT policy in small catchment area of Haraz River, in north of Iran. At first, TMDLs are assigned uniformly for the whole point sources to keep the concentrations of BOD and dissolved oxygen (DO) at the standard level at checkpoint (terminus point). This was simply simulated and controlled by Qual2kw software. In the second scenario, TMDLs are assigned using multi objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) method in which the environmental violation at river basin and total treatment costs are minimized simultaneously. In both scenarios, the equity index and the WLA based on trading discharge permits (TDP) are calculated. The comparative results showed that using economically optimized TMDLs (2nd scenario) has slightly more cost savings rather than uniform TMDL approach (1st scenario). The former annually costs about 1 M$ while the latter is 1.15 M$. WQT can decrease these annual costs to 0.9 and 1.1 M$, respectively. In other word, these approaches may save 35 and 45% economically in comparison with command and control policy. It means that using multi objective decision support systems (DSS) may find more economical WLA, however its outcome is not necessarily significant in comparison with uniform TMDLs. This may be due to the similar impact factors of dischargers in small catchments. Conversely, using uniform TMDLs for WQT brings more equity that makes stakeholders not feel that much envious of difference between TMDL and WQT allocation. In addition, for this case, determination of TMDLs uniformly would be much easier for monitoring. Consequently, uniform TMDL for TDP market is recommended as a sustainable approach. However, economical TMDLs can be used for larger watersheds.

Keywords: waste load allocation (WLA), water quality trading (WQT), total maximum daily loads (TMDLs), Haraz River, multi objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), equity

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Authors: Dr.Vasundhra Misra, Prof. Praveen Vashist

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Purpose: Vitamin A deficiency prevention programmes are at varying stages of development and implementation in all countries. Vitamin A deficiency has been recognized as a public health issue in developing countries like India. Despite achieving a lot of success a load of blindness due to Vitamin A deficiencies is still high. In this regard, a study was conducted to assess the awareness and health-seeking practices about Vitamin A deficiency diseases among the urban slum population of Delhi, India. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the 5 slum clusters from the urban population of South Delhi. A specially designed pre-tested questionnaire schedule was administered. The study sample was comprised of 1552 inhabitants. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 34 ± 12.1 years. A total of 1003 (64.6%) participants out of 1552, had heard of night blindness. Awareness of night blindness was more in the elderly age group and also found significant (p < 0.001). Only 31 (3.1%) knew that night blindness is caused due to deficiency of vitamin A. The awareness of vitamin A prophylaxis programme was significantly higher among elder age (p < 0.05) and females (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The findings highlighted that even though many of the respondents have heard of night blindness but the awareness about causes and treatment was found low in the community. There is a need for efforts directed to enhance community-level counseling and educational programmes.

Keywords: awareness, health-seeking practices, night blindness, vitamin-A deficiency diseases

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Authors: Peien Ma

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Bilingual effect/advantage theorized the positive effect of being bilingual on general cognitive abilities, but it was unknown which factors tend to modulate these bilingualism effects on working memory capacity. This study imposed empirical field research on a group of low-SES emerging bilinguals, Miao people, in the hill tribes of rural China to investigate whether bilingualism affected their verbal working memory performance. 20 Miao-Chinese bilinguals (13 girls and 7 boys with a mean age of 11.45, SD=1.67) and 20 Chinese monolingual peers (13 girls and 7 boys with a mean age of 11.6, SD=0.68) were recruited. These bilingual and monolingual juveniles, matched on age, sex, socioeconomic status, and educational status, completed a language background questionnaire and a standard forward and backward digit span test adapted from Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R). The results showed that bilinguals earned a significantly higher overall mean score of the task, suggesting the superiority of working memory ability over the monolinguals. And bilingual cognitive benefits were independent of proficiency levels in learners’ two languages. The results suggested that bilingualism enhances working memory in sequential bilinguals from low SES backgrounds and shed light on our understanding of the bilingual advantage from a psychological and social perspective.

Keywords: bilingual effects, heritage language, Miao/Hmong language Mandarin, working memory

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Authors: Poornima Gupta, Sadaf Siraj

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The study examined the organizational causes of organizational stress in women executives and entrepreneurs in India. This was done so that mediation strategies could be developed to combat the organizational stress experienced by them, in order to retain the female employees as well as attract quality talent. The data for this research was collected through the self- administered survey, from the women executives across various industries working at different levels in management. The research design of the study was descriptive and cross-sectional. It was carried out through a self-administered questionnaire filled in by the women executives and entrepreneurs in the NCR region. Multistage sampling involving stratified random sampling was employed. A total of 1000 questionnaires were distributed out of which 450 were returned and after cleaning the data 404 were fit to be considered for analyses. The overall findings of the study suggested that there were various job-related factors that induce stress. Fourteen factors were identified which were a major cause of stress among the working women by applying Factor analysis. The study also assessed the demographic factors which influence the stress in women executives across various industries. The findings show that the women, no doubt, were stressed by organizational factors. The mean stress score was 153 (out of a possible score of 196) indicating high stress. There appeared to be an inverse relationship between the marital status, age, education, work experience, and stress. Married women were less stressed compared to single women employees. Similarly, female employees 29 years or younger experienced more stress at work. Women having education up to 12th standard or less were more stressed compared to graduates and post graduates. Women who had spent more than two years in the same organization perceived more stress compared to their counterparts. Family size and income, interestingly, had no significant impact on stress. The study also established that the level of stress experienced by women across industries differs considerably. Banking sector emerged as the industry where the women experienced the most stress followed by Entrepreneurs, Medical, BPO, Advertising, Government, Academics, and Manufacturing, in that order. The results contribute to the better understanding of the personal and economic factors surrounding job stress and working women. It concludes that the organizations need to be sensitive to the women’s needs. Organizations are traditionally designed around men with the rules made by the men for the men. Involvement of women in top positions, decision making, would make them feel more useful and less stressed. The invisible glass ceiling causes more stress than realized among women. Less distinction between the men and women colleagues in terms of giving responsibilities, involvement in decision making, framing policies, etc. would go a long way to reduce stress in women.

Keywords: women, stress, gender in management, women in management

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Authors: Jovana Vukcevic, Sanja Pekovic, Djurdjica Perovic, Tatjana Stanovcic

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This paper presents a critical inquiry into the role of uncomfortable heritage in nation branding with the particular focus on the specificities of the politics of memory, forgetting and revisionism in the post-communist post-Yugoslavia. It addresses legacies of unwanted, ambivalent or unacknowledged past and different strategies employed by the former-Yugoslav states and private actors in “rebranding” their heritage, ensuring its preservation, but re-contextualizing the narrative of the past through contemporary tourism practices. It questions the interplay between nostalgia, heritage and market, and the role of heritage in polishing the history of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in the Balkans. It argues that in post-socialist Yugoslavia, the necessity to limit correlations with former ideology and the use of the commercial brush in shaping a marketable version of the past instigated the emergence of the profit-oriented heritage practices. Building on that argument, the paper addresses these issues as “commodification” and “disneyfication” of Balkans’ ambivalent heritage, contributing to the analysis of changing forms of memorialisation and heritagization practices in Europe. It questions the process of ‘coming to terms with the past’ through marketable forms of heritage tourism, fetching the boundary between market-driven nostalgia and state-imposed heritage policies. In order to analyse plurality of ways of dealing with controversial, ambivalent and unwanted heritage of dictatorships in the Balkans, the paper considers two prominent examples of heritage commodification in Serbia and Montenegro, and the re-appropriations of those narratives for the nation branding purposes. The first one is the story of the Tito’s Blue Train, the landmark of the socialist past and the symbol of Yugoslavia which has nowadays being used for birthday parties and marriage celebrations, while the second emphasises the unusual business arrangement turning the fortress Mamula, former concentration camp through the Second World War, into a luxurious Mediterranean resort. Questioning how the ‘uneasy’ past was acknowledged and embedded into the official heritage institutions and tourism practices, study examines the changing relation towards the legacies of dictatorships, inviting us to rethink the economic models of the things past. Analysis of these processes should contribute to better understanding of the new mnemonics strategies and (converging?) ways of ‘doing’ past in Europe.

Keywords: commodification, heritage tourism, totalitarianism, Serbia, Montenegro

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