Search results for: economic loss score

Authors: Rasha Ali Dheyab, Edurad Vlad

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Migration is associated with other important global issues, including development, poverty, and human rights. Migrants are often the most dynamic members of society; historically, migration has supported economic development and the rise of nations and enriched cultures. It also presents significant challenges. The word ‘racism’ is not just about beliefs or statements; it also contains the ability to force those beliefs or world views as hegemonic and as a basis for the refusal of rights or equality. For this reason, racism is embedded in power relations of different types. Racism is not only an awareness of distinction and groups, but it also has extremely practical roles in maintaining: First, inequitable social power arrangements; and second, racist behavioral manifestations such as verbal rejection, avoidance, discrimination, physical attack, and elimination. The focus is on aspects of racism in the media to deal with the migration phenomenon. The reproduction and promotion of racism by certain areas of the media is not a simple and straightforward process. It is important to see how the media serves in the reproduction of racism. This article shows attitudes to migration as they have appeared in British periodicals over the last few years. One might conclude that the reproduction of racism by the media is not a simple and straightforward process. It has become obvious that the role of the media in the reproduction of racism is inextricably linked to the general characteristics of racism and white domination in society, particularly the structural and ideological structuring of that kind of group power. This highlights the press's function as a business, social, and cultural institution. The press has to be examined in connection to the institutions of the economic and political as well.

Keywords: British periodicals, culture studies, migration, racism

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Authors: Samedin Mehmeti

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Very tens political and economic situation, in particular armed conflicts that followed at the time of the destruction of the former Yugoslavia, influenced migrations and displacement of population. Especially setting international sanctions and embargo influenced the creation of organized criminal groups. A lot of members of the former Yugoslav security apparatus in collaboration with ordinary criminal groups engaged in: smuggling of goods, petroleum and arms, sale and transport of drugs, payable murder, damage to public property, kidnappings, extortion, racketeering, etc. This tradition of criminality, of course in other forms and with other methods, has continued after conflicts and continues with a high intensity even in nowadays. One of the most delicate problems of organized crime activity is the impact on the economic sphere, where organized crime opposes and severely damages national security and economy to criminalize it in certain sectors and directions. Organized crime groups including who find Kosovo as a place to develop their criminal activities are characterized by: loyalty of many people especially through family connections and kinship in carrying out criminal activities and the existence of powerful hierarchy of leadership which in many cases include the corrupt officials of state apparatus. Groups have clear hierarchy and flexible structure of command, each member within the criminal group knows his duties concrete. According to statistics presented in police reports its notable that Kosovo has a large number of cases of organized crime, cultivation, trafficking and possession of narcotics. As already is very well known that one of the primary conditions that must be fulfilled on track toward integration in the European Union is precisely to prevent and combat organized crime. Kosovo has serious problems with prosecutorial and judicial system. But the misuse of public funds, even those coming directly from EU budget or the budget of the European Union member states, have a negative impact on this process. The economic crisis that has gripped some of the EU countries has led to the creation of an environment in which there are far fewer resources and opportunities to invest in preventing and combating organized crime within member states. This automatically reduces the level of financial support for other countries in the fight against organized crime. Kosovo as a poor country, now has less likely benefiting from the support tools that will be eventually offered by Europe set of in this area.

Keywords: police, european integration, organized crime, narcotics

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Authors: Sidharth Talan, Rajlakshmi G. Majumdar

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Problem-solving skill is one the few skills which is constantly endeavored to improve upon by the professionals and academicians around the world in order to sustain themselves in the ever-growing competitive environment. The given paper focuses on evaluating a hypothesized relationship between the problems solving efficiency of an individual with spaced repetitions, conducted with a time interval of one day over a period of two weeks. The paper has utilized uni-variate regression analysis technique to assess the best fit curve that can explain the significant relationship between the given two variables. The paper has incorporated Anagrams solving as the appropriate testing process for the analysis. Since Anagrams solving involves rearranging a jumbled word to form a correct word, it projects to be an efficient process to observe the attention span, visual- motor coordination and the verbal ability of an individual. Based on the analysis for a sample population of 30, it was observed that problem-solving efficiency of an individual, measured in terms of the score in each test was found to be significantly correlated with time period measured in days.

Keywords: Anagrams, histogram plot, moving average curve, spacing effect

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Authors: Isabel Schestak, Jan Spriet, David Styles, Prysor Williams

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Breweries and distilleries are well-known for their high water usage. The water consumption in a UK brewery to produce one litre of beer reportedly ranges from 3-9 L and in a distillery from 7-45 L to produce a litre of spirit. This includes product water such as mashing water, but also water for wort and distillate cooling and for cleaning of tanks, casks, and kegs. When cooling towers are used, cooling water can be the dominating water consumption in a brewery or distillery. Interlinked to the high water use is a substantial heating requirement for mashing, wort boiling, or distillation, typically met by fossil fuel combustion such as gasoil. Many water and waste water streams are leaving the processes hot, such as the returning cooling water or the pot ales. Therefore, several options exist to optimise water and energy efficiency of spirit production through heat recovery. Although these options are known in the sector, they are often not applied in practice due to planning efforts or financial obstacles. In this study, different possibilities and design options for heat recovery systems are explored in four breweries/distilleries in the UK and assessed from an economic but also environmental point of view. The eco-efficiency methodology, according to ISO 14045, is applied to combine both assessment criteria to determine the optimum solution for heat recovery application in practice. The economic evaluation is based on the total value added (TVA) while the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is applied to account for the environmental impacts through the installations required for heat recovery. The four case study businesses differ in a) production scale with mashing volumes ranging from 2500 to 40,000 L, in b) terms of heating and cooling technology used, and in c) the extent to which heat recovery is/is not applied. This enables the evaluation of different cases for heat recovery based on empirical data. The analysis provides guidelines for practitioners in the brewing and distilling sector in and outside the UK for the realisation of heat recovery measures. Financial and environmental payback times are showcased for heat recovery systems in the four distilleries which are operating at different production scales. The results are expected to encourage the application of heat recovery where environmentally and economically beneficial and ultimately contribute to a reduction of the water and energy footprint in brewing and distilling businesses.

Keywords: brewery, distillery, eco-efficiency, heat recovery from process and waste water, life cycle assessment

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Authors: A. O. Adenaiya, S. F. Curling, O. Y. Ogunsanwo, G . A. Ormondroyd

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Treatment of wood with chemicals in order to prolong its service life may prove difficult in some refractory wood species. This impermeability in wood is usually due to biochemical changes which occur during heartwood formation. Bioincision, which is a short-term, controlled microbial decomposition of wood, is one of the promising approaches capable of improving the amenability of refractory wood to chemical treatments. Gmelina Arborea, a mainstay timber species in Nigeria, has impermeable heartwood due to the excessive tyloses which occlude its vessels. Therefore, the chemical uptake and penetration in Gmelina arborea heartwood bioincised with Inonotus dryophilus fungus was investigated. Five mature Gmelina Arborea trees were harvested at the Departmental plantation in Ajibode, Ibadan, Nigeria and a bolt of 300 cm was obtained from the basal portion of each tree. The heartwood portion of the bolts was extracted and converted into dimensions 20 mm x 20 mm x 60 mm and subsequently conditioned (200C at 65% Relative Humidity). Twenty wood samples each were bioincised with the white-rot fungus Inonotus dryophilus (ID, 999) for 3, 5, 7 and 9 weeks using standard procedure, while a set of sterile control samples were prepared. Ten of each bioincised and control sample were pressure-treated with 5% tanalith preservative, while the other ten of each bioincised and control samples were pressure-treated with a liquid dye for easy traceability of the chemical in the wood, both using a full cell treatment process. The bioincised and control samples were evaluated for their Weight Loss before chemical treatment (WL, %), Preservative Absorption (PA, Kg/m3), Preservative Retention (PR, Kg/m3), Axial Absorption (AA, Kg/m3), Lateral Absorption (LA, Kg/m3), Axial Penetration Depth (APD, mm), Radial Penetration Depth (RPD, mm), and Tangential Penetration Depth (TPD, mm). The data obtained were analyzed using ANOVA at α0.05. Results show that the weight loss was least in the samples bioincised for three weeks (0.09%) and highest after 7 weeks of bioincision (0.48%). The samples bioincised for 3 weeks had the least PA (106.72 Kg/m3) and PR (5.87 Kg/m3), while the highest PA (134.9 Kg/m3) and PR were observed after 7 weeks of bioincision (7.42 Kg/m3). The AA ranged from 27.28 Kg/m3 (3 weeks) to 67.05 Kg/m3 (5 weeks), while the LA was least after 5 weeks of incubation (28.1 Kg/m3) and highest after 9 weeks (71.74 Kg/m3). Significantly lower APD was observed in control samples (6.97 mm) than in the samples bioincised after 9weeks (19.22 mm). The RPD increased from 0.08 mm (control samples) to 3.48 mm (5 weeks), while TPD ranged from 0.38 mm (control samples) to 0.63 mm (9 weeks), implying that liquid flow in the wood was predominantly through the axial pathway. Bioincising G. arborea heartwood with I. dryophilus fungus for 9 weeks is capable of enhancing chemical uptake and deeper penetration of chemicals in the wood through the degradation of the occluding vessel tyloses, which is accompanied by a minimal degradation of the polymeric wood constituents.

Keywords: Bioincision, chemical uptake, penetration depth, refractory wood, tyloses

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Authors: Hassan Eshkiki, Benjamin Mora

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The Neighbor Migrating Generator is a simple and efficient approach to finding the closest potential neighbor(s) with a different label for a given instance and so without the need to calibrate any kernel settings at all. This allows determining and explaining the most important features that will influence an AI model. It can be used to either migrate a specific sample to the class decision boundary of the original model within a close neighborhood of that sample or identify global features that can help localising neighbor classes. The proposed technique works by minimizing a loss function that is divided into two components which are independently weighted according to three parameters α, β, and ω, α being self-adjusting. Results show that this approach is superior to past techniques when detecting the smallest changes in the feature space and may also point out issues in models like over-fitting.

Keywords: explainable AI, EX AI, feature importance, counterfactual explanations

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Authors: Benjamin Ankomah-Asare, Richard Adade

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Sea level rise (SLR) poses a significant threat to coastal communities globally. Ghana has over the years implemented protective measures such as the construction of groynes and revetment to serve as barriers to sea waves in major cities and towns to prevent sea erosion and flooding. For vulnerable rural coastal communities, the planned retreat is often proposed; however, relocation costs are often underestimated as losses of future social and cultural value are not always adequately taken into account. Through a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative interviews, surveys, and spatial analysis, the study examined the experiences of coastal rural communities in Ghana and assess the effectiveness of relocation strategies in addressing the socio-economic and environmental challenges posed by sea level rise. The study revealed the devastating consequences of sea level rise on these communities, including increased flooding, erosion, and saltwater intrusion into freshwater sources. Moreover, it highlights the adaptive capacities within these communities and how factors such as infrastructure, economic activities, cultural heritage, and governance structures shape their resilience in the face of environmental change. While relocation can be an effective strategy in reducing the risks associated with sea level rise, the study recommends that proper implementation of this adaptation strategy can be achieved when coupled with community-led planning, participatory decision-making, and targeted support for vulnerable groups.

Keywords: sea level rise, relocation, socio-ecological impacts, rural communities

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Authors: Lasha Mskhaladze, Guram Burchuladze, Khvicha Datunashvili

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Technological changes have an impact not only on economic but also on social elements of society which in turn has created new challenges for states’ political systems and their regimes. As a result of unprecedented growth of information technologies and communications digital democracy and electronic governance have emerged. Nowadays effective state functioning cannot be imagined without electronic governance. In Georgia, special attention is paid to the development of such new systems and establishment of electronic governance. Therefore, in parallel to intensive development of information technologies an important priority for public sector in Georgia is the development of electronic governance. In spite of the fact that today Georgia with its economic indicators satisfies the standards of western informational society, and major part of its gross domestic product comes from the service sector (59.6%), it still remains a backward country on the world map in terms of information technologies and electronic governance. E-transparency in Georgia should be based on such parameters as government accountability when the government provides citizens information about their activities; e-participation which involves government’s consideration of external expert assessments; cooperation between officials and citizens in order to solve national problems. In order to improve electronic systems the government should actively do the following: Fully develop electronic programs concerning HR and exchange of data between public organizations; develop all possible electronic services; improve existing electronic programs; make electronic services available on different mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, etc.).

Keywords: electronic transparency, electronic services, information technology, information society, electronic systems

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Authors: Duangkamol Thitivesa

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This paper focuses on the use of project work as a pretext for applying the conventions of writing, or the correctness of mechanics, usage, and sentence formation, in a content-based class in a Rajabhat University. Its aim was to explore to what extent the student teachers’ academic achievement of the basic writing features against the 70% attainment target after the use of project is. The organization of work around an agreed theme in which the students reproduce language provided by texts and instructors is expected to enhance students’ correct writing conventions. The sample of the study comprised of 38 fourth-year English major students. The data was collected by means of achievement test and student writing works. The scores in the summative achievement test were analyzed by mean score, standard deviation, and percentage. It was found that the student teachers do more achieve of practicing mechanics and usage, and less in sentence formation. The students benefited from the exposure to texts during conducting the project; however, their automaticity of how and when to form phrases and clauses into simple/complex sentences had room for improvement.

Keywords: project-based learning, project work, writing conventions, academic achievement

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Authors: Ibrahim H. Kilic, A. B. Tugrul

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Energy is a fundamental component in economic development and energy consumption is an index of prosperity and the standard of living. The consumption of energy per capita has increased significantly over the last decades, as the standard of living has improved. Turkey’s geographical location has several advantages for extensive use of wind power. Among the renewable sources, Turkey has very high wind energy potential. Information such as installation capacity of wind power plants in installation, under construction and license stages in the country are reported in detail. Some suggestions are presented in order to increase the wind power installation capacity of Turkey. Turkey’s economic and social development has led to a massive increase in demand for electricity over the last decades. Since the Turkey has no major oil or gas reserves, it is highly dependent on energy imports and is exposed to energy insecurity in the future. But Turkey does have huge potential for renewable energy utilization. There has been a huge growth in the construction of wind power plants and small hydropower plants in recent years. To meet the growing energy demand, the Turkish Government has adopted incentives for investments in renewable energy production. Wind energy investments evaluated the impact of feed-in tariffs (FIT) based on three scenarios that are optimistic, realistic and pessimistic with APLUS software that is developed for rational evaluation for energy market. Results of the three scenarios are evaluated in the view of electricity market for Turkey.

Keywords: APLUS, energy policy, renewable energy, wind power, Turkey

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Authors: Yifu Ding, Vijay Avinash, Malcolm McCulloch

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As the proliferation of decentralized energy systems, the UK power system allows small-scale entities such as microgrids (MGs) to tender multiple energy services including energy arbitrage and frequency responses (FRs). However, its operation requires the balance between the uncertain renewable generations and loads in real-time and has to fulfill their provision requirements of contract services continuously during the time window agreed, otherwise it will be penalized for the under-delivered provision. To hedge against risks due to uncertainties and maximize the economic benefits, we propose a stochastic model predictive control (SMPC) framework to optimize its operation for the multi-service provision. Distinguished from previous works, we include a detailed economic-degradation model of the lithium-ion battery to quantify the costs of different service provisions, as well as accurately describe the changing dynamics of the battery. Considering a branch of load and generation scenarios and the battery aging, we formulate a risk-averse cost function using conditional value at risk (CVaR). It aims to achieve the maximum expected net revenue and avoids severe losses. The framework will be performed on a case study of a PV-battery grid-tied microgrid in the UK with real-life data. To highlight its performance, the framework will be compared with the case without the degradation model and the deterministic formulation.

Keywords: model predictive control (MPC), battery degradation, frequency response, microgrids

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Authors: R. J. Kuo, W. C. Cheng, W. C. Lien, T. J. Yang

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Taiwan is a hyper endemic area for the Hepatitis B virus (HBV). The estimated total number of HBsAg carriers in the general population who are more than 20 years old is more than 3 million. Therefore, a case record review is conducted from January 2003 to June 2007 for all patients with a diagnosis of acute hepatitis who were admitted to the Emergency Department (ED) of a well-known teaching hospital. The cost for the use of medical resources is defined as the total medical fee. In this study, principal component analysis (PCA) is firstly employed to reduce the number of dimensions. Support vector regression (SVR) and artificial neural network (ANN) are then used to develop the forecasting model. A total of 117 patients meet the inclusion criteria. 61% patients involved in this study are hepatitis B related. The computational result shows that the proposed PCA-SVR model has superior performance than other compared algorithms. In conclusion, the Child-Pugh score and echogram can both be used to predict the cost of medical resources for patients with acute hepatitis in the ED.

Keywords: acute hepatitis, medical resource cost, artificial neural network, support vector regression

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Authors: Shahab Mirzaean Mahabadi, Elham Ebrahimi

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The urban development process in the historical urban context has predominately witnessed two main approaches: the first is the Preservation and conservation of the urban fabric and its value, and the second approach is urban renewal and redevelopment. The latter is generally supported by political and economic aspirations. These two approaches conflict evidently. The authors go through the history of urban planning in order to review the historical development of the mentioned approaches. In this article, various values which are inherent in the historical fabric of a city are illustrated by emphasizing on cultural identity and activity. In the following, it is tried to find an optimized plan which maximizes economic development and minimizes change in historical-cultural sites simultaneously. In the proposed model, regarding the decision maker’s intention, and the variety of functions, the selected zone is divided into a number of components. For each component, different alternatives can be assigned, namely, renovation, refurbishment, destruction, and change in function. The decision Variable in this model is to choose an alternative for each component. A set of decisions made upon all components results in a plan. A plan developed in this way can be evaluated based on the decision maker’s point of view. That is, interactions between selected alternatives can make a foundation for the assessment of urban context to design a historical-cultural landscape. A genetic algorithm (GA) approach is used to search for optimal future land use within the historical-culture landscape for a sustainable high-growth city.

Keywords: urban sustainability, green city, regeneration, genetic algorithm

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Authors: Adji Achmad Rinaldo Fernandes

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Path analysis is an analytical technique to study the causal relationship between independent and dependent variables. In this study, the integration of Clusters in the Ward Linkage method was used in a variety of clusters with path analysis. The variables used are character (x₁), capacity (x₂), capital (x₃), collateral (x₄), and condition of economy (x₄) to on time pay (y₂) through the variable willingness to pay (y₁). The purpose of this study was to compare the Ward Linkage method cluster integration in various clusters with path analysis to classify willingness to pay (y₁). The data used are primary data from questionnaires filled out by customers of Bank X, using purposive sampling. The measurement method used is the average score method. The results showed that the Ward linkage method cluster integration with path analysis on 2 clusters is the best method, by comparing the coefficient of determination. Variable character (x₁), capacity (x₂), capital (x₃), collateral (x₄), and condition of economy (x₅) to on time pay (y₂) through willingness to pay (y₁) can be explained by 58.3%, while the remaining 41.7% is explained by variables outside the model.

Keywords: cluster integration, linkage, path analysis, compliant paying behavior

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Authors: Yevheniia Varyvoda, Douglas Taren

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At the aggregate level, climate variability, the rising number of active violent conflicts, globalization and industrialization of agriculture, the loss in diversity of crop species, the increase in demand for agricultural production, and the adoption of healthy and sustainable dietary patterns are exacerbating factors of food system destabilization. The importance of pseudocereals to fuel and sustain resilient food systems is recognized by leading organizations working to end hunger, particularly for their critical capability to diversify livelihood portfolios and provide plant-sourced healthy nutrition in the face of systemic shocks and stresses. Amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa are the most promising and used pseudocereals for ensuring food system resilience in the reality of climate change due to their high nutritional profile, good digestibility, palatability, medicinal value, abiotic stress tolerance, pest and disease resistance, rapid growth rate, adaptability to marginal and degraded lands, high genetic variability, low input requirements, and income generation capacity. The study provides the rationale and examples of advancing local and regional food systems' resilience by scaling up the utilization of amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa along all components of food systems to architect indirect nutrition interventions and climate-smart approaches. Thus, this study aims to explore the drivers for ancient pseudocereal utilization, the potential resilience benefits that can be derived from using them, and the challenges and opportunities for pseudocereal utilization within the food system components. The PSALSAR framework regarding the method for conducting systematic review and meta-analysis for environmental science research was used to answer these research questions. Nevertheless, the utilization of pseudocereals has been slow for a number of reasons, namely the increased production of commercial and major staples such as maize, rice, wheat, soybean, and potato, the displacement due to pressure from imported crops, lack of knowledge about value-adding practices in food supply chain, limited technical knowledge and awareness about nutritional and health benefits, absence of marketing channels and limited access to extension services and information about resilient crops. The success of climate-resilient pathways based on pseudocereal utilization underlines the importance of co-designed activities that use modern technologies, high-value traditional knowledge of underutilized crops, and a strong acknowledgment of cultural norms to increase community-level economic and food system resilience.

Keywords: resilience, pseudocereals, food system, climate change

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Authors: Teera Intararuang

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This research aims to study guidelines to developed Sai Temple’ local boat museum to be as cultural tourism attraction and explored villagers requirement in term of type and format of interpretation which they want to promote their cultural tourism for Sai Temple, Kradangnga sub-district, Bang Khon Tee district, Samut Songkhram province. However, this article will explores only the requirement of type and format of interpretation which 40 villagers of Ruam Sai Pattana 789 purposed to promote Sai temple. The procedures are In-depth Interview, Observation, Focus Group by discussing ideas. After that the information received is synthesized and analyzed. From research result, it is revealed that the local community’ requirement on types and format of interpretation as brochure with up to date, faithfully and formally content to present Sai Temple which got the most demand score (3.82) considered as most wanted demand.

Keywords: museum, boat museum, cultural tourism, interpretation, brochure, Bangkhontee district, Samut Songkhram province

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Authors: Dimitris Kokkinos, Panagiotis Prinos

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In the last three decades, climate change has been studied extensively from scientific community, and its consequences are more than clear all around the world. Most countries have carried out a great effort to reduce global warming rates with the ratification and implementation of several international treaties. Moreover, many of them have already adopted national plans in order to adapt to climate change effects and mitigate human and economic losses. Coastal environments, with their inherent physical sensitivity, will face important challenges as a result of projected changes in climate conditions and hundreds of millions of people will be affected. Coastal zones are of high social and economic value and this research focuses on the Mediterranean basin, which is a densely populated and highly urbanized area. With 40% of its land used for human activity and the inevitability of the impacts of the climate change, it is obvious that some form of adaptation measures will be necessary. In this regard, the EU tools, policies and legislation concerning adaptation to climate change are presented. Additionally, the National Adaptation Strategies of State members of the Mediterranean basin are compared and analyzed concerning the coastal areas, along with an overview of projects and programs results focused on coastal issues at different spatial scales. The purpose of this research is to stress the differences between Mediterranean State members at methodologies implemented, to highlight the possible gaps in co-ordination and to emphasize on research initiatives that EU can build upon moving towards an integrated adaptation planning on a region-wide basis.

Keywords: coastal adaptation, Mediterranean Basin, climate change, coastal environments

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Authors: Huayuan Lu, Chunfang Yang, Ma Zhu, Baojun Qi, Yaqiong Qiao, Jiangqian Xu

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Image geolocalization has great application prospects in fields such as autonomous driving and virtual/augmented reality. In practical application scenarios, the size of the image to be located is not fixed; it is impractical to train different networks for all possible sizes. When its size does not match the size of the input of the descriptor extraction model, existing image geolocalization methods usually directly scale or crop the image in some common ways. This will result in the loss of some information important to the geolocalization task, thus affecting the performance of the image geolocalization method. For example, excessive down-sampling can lead to blurred building contour, and inappropriate cropping can lead to the loss of key semantic elements, resulting in incorrect geolocation results. To address this problem, this paper designs a learnable image resizer and proposes an arbitrary-sized image geolocation method. (1) The designed learnable image resizer employs the self-attention mechanism to enhance the geometric features of the resized image. Firstly, it applies bilinear interpolation to the input image and its feature maps to obtain the initial resized image and the resized feature maps. Then, SKNet (selective kernel net) is used to approximate the best receptive field, thus keeping the geometric shapes as the original image. And SENet (squeeze and extraction net) is used to automatically select the feature maps with strong contour information, enhancing the geometric features. Finally, the enhanced geometric features are fused with the initial resized image, to obtain the final resized images. (2) The proposed image geolocalization method embeds the above image resizer as a fronting layer of the descriptor extraction network. It not only enables the network to be compatible with arbitrary-sized input images but also enhances the geometric features that are crucial to the image geolocalization task. Moreover, the triplet attention mechanism is added after the first convolutional layer of the backbone network to optimize the utilization of geometric elements extracted by the first convolutional layer. Finally, the local features extracted by the backbone network are aggregated to form image descriptors for image geolocalization. The proposed method was evaluated on several mainstream datasets, such as Pittsburgh30K, Tokyo24/7, and Places365. The results show that the proposed method has excellent size compatibility and compares favorably to recently mainstream geolocalization methods.

Keywords: image geolocalization, self-attention mechanism, image resizer, geometric feature

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Authors: Björn de Kruijf, Arjen Edzes, Sietske Waslander

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In an ever-quickly changing society, lifelong development is seen as a solution to labor market problems by politicians and policymakers. In this paper, we investigate how policy instruments are used to increase participation in lifelong development and on which behavioral principles policy is based. Digitization, automation, and an aging population change society and the labor market accordingly. Skills that were once most sought after in the workforce can become abundantly present. For people to remain relevant in the working population, they need to continue adapting new skills useful in the current labor market. Many reports have been written that focus on the role of lifelong development in this changing society and how lifelong development can help keep people adapt and stay relevant. Inspired by these reports, governments have implemented a broad range of policies to support participation in lifelong development. The question we ask ourselves is how government policies promote participation in lifelong development. This stems from a complex interplay of policy instruments and learning. Regulation, economic and soft instruments can be combined to promote lifelong development, and different types of education further complex policies on lifelong development. Literature suggests that different stages in people’s lives might warrant different methods of learning. Governments could anticipate this in their policies. In order to influence people’s behavior, the government can tap into a broad range of sociological, psychological, and (behavioral) economic principles. The traditional economic assumption that behavior is rational is known to be only partially true, and the government can use many biases in human behavior to stimulate participation in lifelong development. In this paper, we also try to find which biases the government taps into to promote participation if they tap into any of these biases. The goal of this paper is to analyze government policies intended to promote participation in lifelong development. To do this, we develop a framework to analyze the policies on lifelong development. We specifically incorporate the role of learning and the behavioral principles underlying policy instruments in the framework. We apply this framework to the case of the Netherlands, where we examine a set of policy documents. We single out the policies the government has put in place and how they are vertically and horizontally related. Afterward, we apply the framework and classify the individual policies by policy instrument and by type of learning. We find that the Dutch government focuses on formal and non-formal learning in their policy instruments. However, the literature suggests that learning at a later age is mainly done in an informal manner through experiences.

Keywords: learning, lifelong development, policy analysis, policy instruments

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Authors: Mustopa, Setyawan Wahyu Pradana

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This study aims to determine the application of animal welfare in Madura cow racing competition at Sumenep district, Madura Island. This study conducted by survey and discussion methods with 3 Madura cow owners in the competition. The animal welfare is going to be proved by observing the condition of the cage, the cleanliness of it, feeding and water, the health of the cow, also owner treatments for their Madura cow that will be served as a racer. Observations made using stable conditions ACRES form with assessment scores ranged from 1 = very poor, 2 = poor, 3 = regular, 4 = good and 5 = very good, animal welfare conditions seen by conducting observations and interviews with Madura cow owners. The result shows that the Madura cow competition has fulfilled the criteria of animal welfare application. Application of animal welfare principle by the owner of Madura cow terms of ACRES (Animal Concerns Research and Education Society) below standard, the average score obtained was 2.06, which is mean in a poor ratings. Besides considering the animal welfare application, Madura cow owners also do special treatments for their Madura cow with purpose to produce racers that are healthy and fast. Therefore, if the cow wins in Madura cow racing competition, it will purchase a high-value price.

Keywords: animal welfare, competition, Madura cow, racing

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Authors: Chow Fah Yee, Eu Chye Tan

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The main purpose of developing a modern and sophisticated financial system is to mobilize and allocate the country’s resources for productive uses and in the process contribute to economic growth. Financial liberalization introduced in Malaysia in 1978 was said to be a step towards this goal. According to Mc-Kinnon and Shaw, the deregulation of a country’s financial system will create a more efficient and competitive market driven financial sector; with savings being channelled to the most productive users. This paper aims to assess whether financial liberalization resulted in bank credit being allocated to the more productive users, for the case of Malaysia by: firstly, using Chi-square test to if there exists a relationship between financial liberalization and bank lending in Malaysia. Secondly, to analyze on a comparative basis, the share of loans secured by 9 major economic sectors, using data on bank loans from 1975 to 2003. Lastly, present value analysis and rank correlation was used to determine if the recipients of bigger loans are the more efficient users. Chi-square test confirmed the generally observed trend of an increase in bank credit with the adoption of financial liberalization. While the comparative analysis of loans showed that the bulk of credit were allocated to service sectors, consumer loans and property related sectors, at the expense of industry. Results for rank correlation analysis showed that there is no relationship between the more productive users and amount of loans obtained. This implies that the recipients (sectors) that received more loans were not the more efficient sectors.

Keywords: allocation of resources, bank credit, financial liberalization, economics

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Authors: Cora Fernandez Dacosta, John A. Posada, Andrea Ramirez

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The biodegradable family of polymers polyhydroxyalkanoates are interesting substitutes for convectional fossil-based plastics. However, the manufacturing and environmental impacts associated with their production via intracellular bacterial fermentation are strongly dependent on the raw material used and on energy consumption during the extraction process, limiting their potential for commercialization. Industrial wastewater is studied in this paper as a promising alternative feedstock for waste valorization. Based on results from laboratory and pilot-scale experiments, a conceptual process design, techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment are developed for the large-scale production of the most common type of polyhydroxyalkanoate, polyhydroxbutyrate. Intracellular polyhydroxybutyrate is obtained via fermentation of microbial community present in industrial wastewater and the downstream processing is based on chemical digestion with surfactant and hypochlorite. The economic potential and environmental performance results help identifying bottlenecks and best opportunities to scale-up the process prior to industrial implementation. The outcome of this research indicates that the fermentation of wastewater towards PHB presents advantages compared to traditional PHAs production from sugars because the null environmental burdens and financial costs of the raw material in the bioplastic production process. Nevertheless, process optimization is still required to compete with the petrochemicals counterparts.

Keywords: circular economy, life cycle assessment, polyhydroxyalkanoates, waste valorization

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Authors: Elias K. Maragos, Petros E. Maravelakis, Apostolos I. Linardis

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Health2020 is a promising framework of policies provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and aiming to diminish the health and well-being inequalities among the citizens of the European Union (EU) countries. The major demographic, social and environmental changes, in addition to the resent economic crisis prevent the unobstructed and successful implementation of this framework. The unemployment rates and the percentage of people at risk of poverty have increased among the citizens of EU countries. At the same time, the adopted fiscal, economic policies do not help governments to serve their social role and mitigate social and health inequalities. In those circumstances, there is a strong pressure to organize all health system resources efficiently and wisely. In order to provide a unified and value-based framework of valuation, we propose a valuation framework using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and dynamic DEA. We believe that the adopted methodology could provide a robust tool which can capture the degree of success with which policies have been implemented and is capable to determine which of the countries developed the requested policies efficiently and which of the countries have been lagged. Using the proposed methodology, we evaluated the performance of 28 EU member-countries in relation to the Health2020 peripheral targets. We adopted several versions of evaluation, measuring the effectiveness and the efficiency of EU countries from 2011 to 2016. Our results showed stability in technological changes and revealed a group of countries which were benchmarks in most of the years for the inefficient countries.

Keywords: DEA, Health2020, health inequalities, malmquist index, policies evaluation, well-being

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Authors: Ayelet Gur

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Background: In recent years we are witnessing a welcome trend in which more children/persons with disabilities are living at home with their families and within their communities. This trend is related to various policy innovations as the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities that reflect a shift from the medical-institutional model to a human rights approach. We also witness the emergence of family centered approaches that perceive the family and not just the individual with the disability as a worthy target of policy planning, implementation and evaluation efforts. The current investigation aims to explore economic, psychological and social factors among households of families of children or adults with intellectual disabilities in Israel and to present policy recommendation. Methods: A national sample of 301 households was recruited through the education and employment settings of persons with intellectual disability. The main caregiver of the person with the disability (a parent) was interviewed. Measurements included the income and expense surveys; assets and debts questionnaire; the questionnaire on resources and stress; the social involvement questionnaire and Personal Wellbeing Index. Results: Findings indicate significant gaps in financial circumstances between households of families of children with intellectual disabilities and households of the general Israeli society. Households of families of children with intellectual disabilities report lower income and higher expenditures and loans than the general society. They experience difficulties in saving and coping with unexpected expenses. Caregivers (the parents) experience high stress, low social participation, low financial support from family, friend and non-governmental organizations and decreased well-being. They are highly dependent on social security allowances which constituted 40% of the household's income. Conclusions: Households' dependency on social security allowances may seem contradictory to the encouragement of persons with intellectual disabilities to favor independent living in light of the human rights approach to disability. New policy should aim at reducing caregivers' stress and enhance their social participation and support, with special emphasis on families of lower socio-economic status. Finally, there is a need to continue monitoring the economic and psycho-social needs of households of families of children with intellectual disabilities and other developmental disabilities.

Keywords: disability policy, family policy, intellectual and developmental disabilities, Israel, households study, parents of children with disabilities

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Authors: Siva K. Bathina, Sudheer Siddapureddy

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Pool fires are formed when the flammable liquid accidentally spills on the ground or water and ignites. Pool fire is a kind of buoyancy-driven and diffusion flame. There have been many pool fire accidents caused during processing, handling and storing of liquid fuels in chemical and oil industries. Such kind of accidents causes enormous damage to property as well as the loss of lives. Pool fires are complex in nature due to the strong interaction among the combustion, heat and mass transfers and pyrolysis at the fuel surface. Moreover, the experimental study of such large complex fires involves fire safety issues and difficulties in performing experiments. In the present work, large eddy simulations are performed to study such complex fire scenarios using fire dynamic simulator. A 1 m diesel pool fire is considered for the studied cases, and diesel is chosen as it is most commonly involved fuel in fire accidents. Fire simulations are performed by specifying two different boundary conditions: one the fuel is in liquid state and pyrolysis model is invoked, and the other by assuming the fuel is initially in a vapor state and thereby prescribing the mass loss rate. A domain of size 11.2 m × 11.2 m × 7.28 m with uniform structured grid is chosen for the numerical simulations. Grid sensitivity analysis is performed, and a non-dimensional grid size of 12 corresponding to 8 cm grid size is considered. Flame properties like mass burning rate, irradiance, and time-averaged axial flame temperature profile are predicted. The predicted steady-state mass burning rate is 40 g/s and is within the uncertainty limits of the previously reported experimental data (39.4 g/s). Though the profile of the irradiance at a distance from the fire along the height is somewhat in line with the experimental data and the location of the maximum value of irradiance is shifted to a higher location. This may be due to the lack of sophisticated models for the species transportation along with combustion and radiation in the continuous zone. Furthermore, the axial temperatures are not predicted well (for any of the boundary conditions) in any of the zones. The present study shows that the existing models are not sufficient enough for modeling blended fuels like diesel. The predictions are strongly dependent on the experimental values of the soot yield. Future experiments are necessary for generalizing the soot yield for different fires.

Keywords: burning rate, fire accidents, fire dynamic simulator, pyrolysis

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Authors: Tirimisiyu Olaide Gbadamosi

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Individuals go into business for the sake of obtaining regular income, becoming self-employed. Although, there different kinds of business enterprises that female and male can go into, often times, some businesses are regarded more suitable for a particular sex and not the other. This means that there is some gender discrimination in the choice of business one goes into and by extension in entrepreneurship development. Apparently, gender attitudes and behaviors will have positive or negative effects on entrepreneurship development in a society or economy. This research work therefore intends to take a critical look at gender discrimination as they affect entrepreneurship development with particular reference to northern Nigeria in general, using Exceptional Production Services Limited Kaduna, Kaduna North Local Government area as a case study, and also to suggest the possible solution to unidentified problems and give recommendation where necessary. Statement of research problem: Entrepreneurship has generally been recognised as a good medium or strategy for economic development of an individual, a community and a nation. It is also a known a known fact that some gender discrimination are often used in the choice of business or even the decision to go into business. For example, some businesses are regarded as more suitable to men than women. The question here is, is this the right approach to economic development through entrepreneurship? Of what effect is this approach to entrepreneurship development? These and the other questions are what this research intends to find answers to and if possible make recommendations. Significance of the study: The findings of this study will provide a guide for anyone for the establishment of a business in Nigeria. The study will help any prospective entrepreneur to make the right decision of which business to go into and how to contend with gender related issues that might influence its success in business. Furthermore, it is hoped that the study will assist the government and her agencies in the process in developing entrepreneurship development programs. Conclusion: There has been growing recognition that various types of discrimination do not always affect women and men in the same way. Moreover, gender discrimination may be intensified and facilitated by all other forms of discrimination. It has been increasingly recognized that without gender analysis of all forms of discrimination in business, including multiple forms of discrimination, and, in particular, in this context, related intolerance, violations of the human rights of women might escape detection and remedies to address racism may also fail to meet the needs of women and girls. It is also important that efforts to address gender discrimination incorporate approaches to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. Recommendation: Campaigning and raising awareness among young men and women, parents, teachers and employers about gender stereotypical attitudes towards academic performances and the likely consequences of overall educational choices for employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, career progression and earnings.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, economic development, small medium enterprises, gender discrimination

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Authors: Fawzia Al-Sakeer, Hassan Aldeeb

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Development in the communications field is proceeding at an amazing speed, which has led researchers to improve and develop electronic circuits by increasing their efficiency and reducing their size to reduce the weight of electronic devices. One of the most important of these circuits is the band-pass filter, which is what made us carry out this research, which aims to use an alternate technology to design a dual band-pass filter by using a stepped impedance microstrip transmission line. We designed a filter that works at two center frequency bands by designing with the ADS program, and the results were excellent, as we obtained the two design frequencies, which are 1 and 3GHz, and the values of insertion loss S11, which was more than 21dB with a small area.

Keywords: band pass filter, dual band band-pass filter, ADS, microstrip filter, stepped impedance

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Authors: Bharathadas Sandhya

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Janamaithri Suraksha Project is the community policing project of Kerala police, fully sponsored by the Government of Kerala and in vogue in Kerala for the last ten years. The socio-economically weaker areas in the hilly terrains consisting of tribal hamlets are given special importance under the project. These hamlets are visited by the beat police officers, and they intervene in various issues in the hamlets. This study is based on data collected from 350 respondents living in the tribal hamlets of the Nilambur area in the District of Malappuram. The respondents were personally interviewed by the research team using a questionnaire consisting of 183 questions, seeking the details regarding their interaction with beat police officers, their ability to prevent or detect crimes, the menace of Maoists (extremist) presence, their interventions in other socio-economic problems like alcoholism, school dropout issues, lack of facilities for preparation for competitive examinations for educated youth, etc. The perception of the tribal population regarding the effectiveness of police intervention in their criminal justice complaints, the attitude of the police officers towards the tribal population when they approach the police station with a criminal complaint, are also studied. The general socio-economic problems of the tribal population as perceived by them are also brought out. Being the visible agency of the government, the police person coming on beat duty to the hamlet is generally seen by the tribal population as a representative to whom they can communicate the issues, even if it’s solution rests with another department like the forest or agriculture. The analysis of the primary data is carried out using computer applications. The amount of social justice benefits the tribal hamlets received through various government schemes, and their deficiencies are brought out in the study. From the conclusions of the study, certain suggestions for positive criminal justice and social justice intervention strategies are made out. The need for various government departments to work in tandem with each other so as to bring out more effectiveness in the socio-economic projects is evident from the study. Whether it is the need to obtain a transport to go to school or problem of drinking water or even opening a bank account, at least occasionally, the visiting beat police officer is of help to the tribal population. Mostly the tribal population feels free to approach the police with a criminal complaint without any inhibitions.

Keywords: community policing, beat police officer, criminal justice, social justice

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Authors: Basharat Yousuf, Abhaya K. Srivastava

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Psyllium gum alone and in combination with sunflower oil was investigated as a possible alternative edible coating for improvement of quality and shelf life of fresh-cut papaya. Different concentrations including 0.5, 1 and 1.5 percent of psyllium gum were used for coating of fresh-cut papaya. In some samples, refined sunflower oil was used as a lipid component to increase the effectiveness of coating in terms of water barrier properties. Soya lecithin was used as an emulsifier in coatings containing oil. Pretreatment with 1% calcium chloride was given to maintain the firmness of fresh-cut papaya cubes. 1% psyllium gum coating was found to yield better results. Further, addition of oil helped to maintain the quality and acted as a barrier to water vapour, therefore, minimizing the weight loss.

Keywords: coating, fresh-cut, gum, papaya, psylllium

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Authors: N. Dahbi, R. B. Taleb

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This study concerns the ion implantation of oxygen in two semiconductors Si and GaAs realized by a simulation using the SRIM tool. The goal of this study is to compare the effect of implantation energy on the distribution of implant ions in the two targets and to examine the different processes resulting from the interaction between the ions of oxygen and the target atoms (Si, GaAs). SRIM simulation results indicate that the implanted ions have a profile as a function of Gaussian-type; oxygen produced more vacancies and implanted deeper in Si compared to GaAs. Also, most of the energy loss is due to ionization and phonon production, where vacancy production amounts to few percent of the total energy.

Keywords: defect profile, GaAs, ion implantation, SRIM, phonon production, vacancies

Procedia PDF Downloads 178