Search results for: mobile online social networks

Authors: Saleh Alshehri

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Human skin detection is a vital step in many applications. Some of the applications are critical especially those related to security. This leverages the importance of a high-performance detection algorithm. To validate the accuracy of the algorithm, image databases are usually used. However, the suitability of these image databases is still questionable. It is suggested that the suitability can be measured mainly by the span the database covers of the color space. This research investigates the validity of three famous image databases.

Keywords: image databases, image processing, pattern recognition, neural networks

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Authors: E. V. Fakhrutdinova, Y. S. Kolesnikova, E. A. Karasik, V. M. Zagidullina

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Poverty as the social and economic phenomenon exists in any society and represents a many-sided problem. In this sense it is universal and for many centuries serves as a research objects for scientists. Special attention to a problem of poverty in Russia is caused, first of all, by the critical growth of inequality and by scales of expansion of poverty, considerable decrease in the level and quality of life of the population, decrease in availability of education during the period of reforming. The expansion of poverty on the working members of society, youth, which has to provide reproduction of the population is alarming. As poverty is the reason of weakening of national security of the country, degradation of the population, decline in the quality of the human capital, complication of a demographic situation, strengthening of social contradictions in society, so far as the reduction of poverty, so, the increase in production. Poverty: the characteristic of an economic situation of the individual or social group at which they can't satisfy certain minimum requirements necessary for life, preservations of working capacity and reproduction. Poverty became one of the critical factors expelling people from the system of the institutional interactions reducing social space in which their relations were building breaking their social identity. Complication of the problem of poverty in modern society happened due to penetration of the related relations into many spheres of life. It is known that negative consequences of poverty display not only at the personal level of the poor person, but also at the level of interpersonal social interactions, decline in the quality and level of development of the human capital, and also at social and economic system in general. We conducted a research on the influence of education on the change of poverty level of the population. We consider education as a resource for an increase of the income and social mobility. Dependence of the income of the population on the level of education, availability of education (level of education and quality of education) on the level of income of families is found. Differentiation of quality and number of educational services for children depending on the level of the income of families is revealed. Influence of a factor of poverty on the availability of education is also studied. We consider expenses on education as the limiter of access to education. We consider education as a factor of fixation and aggravation of a property inequality. In the solution of problems of poverty the defining condition is the state regulation of social and economic development by means of creation of the effective institutional environment. The state has to develop measures for an increase of availability of various services to all categories of citizens, in particular services of health care and education, especially for poor citizens enters. The special attention regarding an increase of availability of education services has to be paid to creation of system of social elevators.

Keywords: poverty, education, human capital, quality of life

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Authors: Stefan Kurbatfinski, Aliyah Dosani, Andrew F. Hayes, Deborah Dewey, Nicole Letourneau

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Background: Maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been associated with internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in preschool children. However, little is known about the influence of maternal adult attachment patterns on this association. Further, potential moderation by maternal mental health, maternal social support, or child sex is poorly understood. Therefore, this study examined associations between 1) maternal ACEs and preschool children’s behavioural problems, with mediation through maternal attachment patterns and moderation by maternal mental health, maternal social support, and child sex; and 2) maternal attachment patterns and children’s behavioural problems, with mediation through maternal mental health and social support and moderation by child sex. Methods: This secondary analysis used data (n=625) from a high socioeconomic, longitudinally prospective cohort (Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition). Child behaviour (BASC-2) and maternal adult attachment (ECR-Q) were measured at five years of child age, maternal ACEs (ACEs Questionnaire) at around 12 months, and maternal mental health (CESD and SCL-90-R) and social support (SSQ) across various prenatal and postnatal time points. All moderation and mediation analyses occurred through RStudio using PROCESS, interpreting significant interactions through Johnson-Neyman plots. Findings: Maternal ACEs interacted with maternal anxiety symptoms to predict both behavioural problems (pexternalizing=0.007; pinternalizing=0.0159). An indirect pathway via dismissive attachment was moderated by maternal social support ([0.0058, 0.0596]). Attachment patterns predicted all behavioural problems (p<0.05) and interacted with maternal anxiety symptoms to predict internalizing behaviours among male children ([0.0321, 0.1307]; [0.0321, 0.1291]). Interpretation: Maternal attachment patterns may predict children’s behavioural problems more than ACEs. Social support interventions may not always be beneficial for highly dismissively attached mothers. Implications for policy and child health include mandatory sex and gender education for teachers; assessing attachment patterns prior to recommending social support as an intervention; and anxiety-focused interventions for mothers in higher socioeconomic populations.

Keywords: maternal adverse childhood experiences, internalizing behaviours, externalizing behaviours, mediators and moderators, attachment patterns, child health

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Authors: Zasha Romero

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This poster will detail a family oriented event which introduced individuals with visual impairments and individuals with secondary disabilities to social interaction and helped promote life-long fitness and recreational skills. Purpose: The poster will detail a workshop conducted for individuals with visual impairments, individuals with secondary disabilities and their families. Methods: Families from all over the South Texas were invited through schools and different non-profit organizations and came together for a day full recreational games in an effort to promote life-long fitness, recreational opportunities as well as social interactions. Some of the activities that participants and their families participated in were tennis, dance, swimming, baseball, etc. all activities were developed to engage the learner with visual impairments as well as secondary disabilities. Implications: This workshop was done in collaboration with different non-profit institutions to create awareness and provide opportunities for physical fitness, social interaction, and life-long fitness skills associated with the activities presented. The workshop provided collaboration amongst different entities and novel ideas to create opportunities for a typically underserved population.

Keywords: engagement, awareness, underserved population, inclusion, collaboration

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Authors: Halkiopoulos Constantinos, Gkintoni Evgenia, Koutsopoulou Ioanna, Antonopoulou Hera

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E-sports and e-gaming have emerged in recent years since the increase in internet use have become universal and e-gamers are the new reality in our homes. The excessive involvement of young adults with e-sports has already been revealed and the adverse consequences have been reported in researches in the past few years, but the issue has not been fully studied yet. The present research is conducted in Greece and studies the psychological profile of video game players and provides information on personality traits, habits and emotional status that affect online gamers’ behaviors in order to help professionals and policy makers address the problem. Three standardized self-report questionnaires were administered to participants who were young male and female adults aged from 19-26 years old. The Profile of Mood States (POMS) scale was used to evaluate people’s perceptions of their everyday life mood; the personality features that can trace back to people’s habits and anticipated reactions were measured by Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) was used to measure which cognitive (gamers’ beliefs) and emotional parameters (gamers’ emotional abilities) mainly affected/ predicted gamers’ behaviors and leisure time activities?/ gaming behaviors. Data mining techniques were used to analyze the data, which resulted in machine learning algorithms that were included in the software package R. The research findings attempt to designate the effect of personality traits, emotional status and emotional intelligence influence and correlation with e-sports, gamers’ behaviors and help policy makers and stakeholders take action, shape social policy and prevent the adverse consequences on young adults. The need for further research, prevention and treatment strategies is also addressed.

Keywords: e-sports, e-gamers, personality traits, POMS, emotional intelligence, data mining, R

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Authors: Russell Rosen

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American Sign Language (ASL) has been developed and used by signing deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) individuals in the American Deaf community since early nineteenth century. In the last two decades, secondary schools in the US offered ASL for foreign language credit to secondary school learners. The learners who learn ASL as a foreign language are largely American native speakers of English. They not only learn ASL in US schools but also create spaces under certain interactional and social conditions in their home communities outside of classrooms and use ASL with each other instead of their native English. This phenomenon is a transmigration of language from a native social group to a non-native, non-kin social group. This study looks at the transmigration of ASL from signing Deaf community to the general speaking and hearing American society. Theoretical implications of this study are discussed.

Keywords: American Sign Language, Foreign Language, Language transmission, United States

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Authors: Mei-Chun Chang

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Due to digital transformation and social media development in recent years, various real-time interactive digital tools have been developed to meet the design demands for virtual reality avatars, which also promote digital content learners' active participation in the creation process. As a result, new social media design tools have the characteristics of intuitive operation with a simplified interface for fast production, from which works can be simply created. This study carried out observations, records, questionnaire surveys, and interviews on the creation and learning of visual avatars made by students of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) with the VRoid Studio 3D modeling tool so as to explore their learning effectiveness on the design of visual avatars. According to the results of this study, the VRoid Studio 3D character modeling tool has a positive impact on the learners and helps to improve their learning effectiveness. Students with low academic achievements said that they could complete the conceived modeling with their own thinking by using the design tool, which increased their sense of accomplishment. Conclusions are drawn according to the results, and relevant future suggestions are put forward.

Keywords: virtual avatar, character design, social media, vroid studio, creation, digital learning

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Authors: Shiori Ishida, Hiromi Okuno, Hisato Igarashi, Akemi Yamazaki, Hiroko Takahashi

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The purpose of this study was to clarify the differences and similarities regarding the social support of fathers and mothers towards considering increased assistance for the paternity of children with developmental disabilities. Written questionnaires were completed by fathers (n=85) and mothers (n=101) of children using rehabilitation facilities between infancy and 5 years of age. The survey contained multiple-choice questions on four categories: information support (6 items), emotional support (7 items), evaluation support (3 items), and daily living support (3 items). Regarding information support, fathers answered ‘spouse’ as the provider in over 50% of cases for all 6 items, which was significantly different compared with mothers (all p < 0.001). For emotional support, fathers were significantly more likely to get support from the workplace (p < 0.001) and from spouse (p < 0.001). The ‘evaluation support’ did not have significant differences for fathers in all the items, but the most frequent support providers were ‘spouses’. ‘Daily living support’ was significantly different from fathers in the workplace (p < 0.000) in terms of make allowances for work and duties. Thus, it appeared that fathers had fewer social support sources as compared with mothers and limited non-spouse support. The understanding of developmental disabilities, acquisition of methods of rehabilitation, and sources of support might have been inadequately addressed among fathers, which could be a hindrance to the involvement of fathers in the rearing of children with developmental disabilities. On the other hand, we also observed that some fathers were involved in the care of developmentally troubled children while providing mental support for their spouse, cooperating with housework, and adjusting their work life. However, the results on the external and social backgrounds of fathers indicated a necessity for greater empowerment and peer support to improve the paternal care of children with developmental disabilities in the family survey.

Keywords: children with developmental disabilities, family support, father, social support

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Authors: Farjina Malek, Julie King, Niki Edwards

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Across the globe more than a billion people live with a disability and a further billion people, mostly carers, are indirectly impacted. While prevalence data is problematic, it is estimated that more than 15% of the population in Bangladesh live with a disability. Disability service infrastructure in Bangladesh is under-developed; and consequently, the onus of care falls on family, especially on mothers. Within the caring role, mothers encounter many challenging experiences which are not only due to the lack of support delivered through the Bangladeshi health care system but also related to the existence of stigma and perception around disability in the Bangladeshi society. Within this perception, the causes of disability are mostly associated with 'God’s will'; 'possession of ghosts on the disabled person'; and 'karma or the result of past sins of the family members especially the mothers'. These beliefs are likely to have a significant impact on the well-being of mothers and their caring experience of children with disability. This is an ongoing qualitative study which is conducting in-depth interviews with 30 mothers from five districts (Dhaka, Mymensingh, Manikganj, Tangail, and Gazipur) of Bangladesh with the aim to explore the impact of social perception and stigma around physical disability on the caring role of the mothers of children with physical disability. The major findings of this study show that the social perception around disability and the social expectation from a mother regarding her caring role have a huge impact on the well-being of mothers. Mothers are mostly expected to take their child on their lap to prove that they are ‘good mother’. These practices of lifting their children with physical disability and keeping them on the lap for a long time often cause chronic back pain of the mothers. Existing social beliefs consider disability as a ‘curse’ and punishment for the ‘sins’ of the family members, most often by the mother. Mothers are blamed if they give birth to ‘abnormal’ children. This social construction creates stigma, and thus, the caring responsibility of mothers become more challenging. It also encourages the family and mothers to hide their children from the society and to avoid seeking accessible disability services. The mothers also compromise their careers and social interaction as they have to stay with their children at home, and that has a significant impact on personal wellbeing, income, and empowerment of the mothers. The research is informed by intersectional theory and employed an interpretive phenomenological methodology to explore mothers’ experience of caring their children with physical disability, and the contribution and impact of key relationships within the family and the intersection with community and services.

Keywords: mother, family carer, physical disability, children, social stigma, key relationship

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Authors: Mohamed Faslan

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This paper describes how caste-based differentiation functions among the Southern Muslims of Sri Lanka despite Islamic egalitarian principles. Such differences are not promoted by religious teachings, mosques, or the various Islamic religious denominations. Instead, it underpins a hereditary, hierarchical stratification in social structure. Since Islam is against social stratification and promotes egalitarianism, what are the persuasive social structures that organize the existing caste system among Southern Muslims? To answer this puzzle, this paper discusses and analyses the caste system under these five subsections: ancestry; marriage; geography; mosque ownership or trustees; and occupation. The study of caste in Sri Lanka is generally compartmentalized into separate Sinhala and Tamil systems. Most caste studies have focused on the characteristics, upward mobility, or discrimination of specific castes in relation to other castes within ethnic systems. As an operational definition, in this paper, by “southern” or the south of Sri Lanka, I refer to the Kalutara, Galle and Matara Districts. This research was conducted in these three districts, and the respondents were selected purposively. Community history interviews were used as a tool for collecting information, and grounded theory used for analysis. Caste stratification among the Southern Muslims of Sri Lanka is directly connected to whether they are descended from Arab or South Indian ancestors. Arab ancestors are considered upper caste and South Indian ancestors are considered lower caste. Endogamy is the most serious driving factor keeping caste system functioning among Muslims while the other factors—geography, mosques, and occupations—work as supporting factors.

Keywords: caste, social stratification, Sri Lanka Muslims, endogamy

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Authors: Nicolás Rudas

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Sociologists have brought to light the fascination of contemporary societies with numbers but fall short of explaining it. In their accounts, people generally misunderstand the technical intricacies of statistical knowledge and therefore accept numbers as unassailable “facts”. It is due to such pervasive fascination, furthermore, that both old and new forms of social control find fertile ground. By focusing on the process whereby the fetishization of numbers reaches its zenith, i.e., when specific statistics become emblematic of an entire society, it is asserted that numbers primarily function as moral symbols with immense potential for galvanizing collective action. Their “facticity” is not solely a cognitive problem but one that is deeply rooted in myth and connected with social experiences of epiphany and ritual. Evidence from Colombia is used to illustrate how certain quantifications become canonical. In 2021, Colombia’s Peace Court revealed that the national army had executed 6,402 innocent civilians to later report them as members of illegal armed groups. Rapidly, “6,402” transformed into a prominent item in the country’s political landscape. This article reconstructs such a process by following the first six months of the figure’s circulation, both in traditional and social media. In doing so, it is developed a new cultural-sociological conceptualization of numbers as “fact-icons” that departs from traditional understandings of statistics as “technical” objects. Numbers are icons whose appropriation is less rational than aesthetic.

Keywords: culture, statistics, collective memory, social movements

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Authors: Netanel Stern

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Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms have emerged as powerful tools in the field of psychiatry, offering new possibilities for enhancing diagnosis and treatment outcomes. This article explores the utilization of AI algorithms in psychiatry, highlighting their potential to revolutionize patient care. Various AI algorithms, including machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), reinforcement learning, clustering, and Bayesian networks, are discussed in detail. Moreover, ethical considerations and future directions for research and implementation are addressed.

Keywords: AI, software engineering, psychiatry, neuroimaging

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Authors: Nilufer Turksoy

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Social media tools successfully connect people from different milieu to each other. This easy access allows politicians with populist attitude to circulate any kind of political opinion or message, which will hardly appear in conventional media. Populism is a relevant concept, especially, in political communication research. In the last decade, populism in social media has been researched extensively. The present study focuses on how social media is used as a playground by Turkish Cypriot politicians to perform populism in Northern Cyprus. It aims to determine and understand the relationship between politicians and social media, and how they employ social media in their political lives. Northern Cyprus’s multi-faced character provides politicians with many possible frames and topics they can make demagogy about ongoing political deadlock, international isolation, economic instability or social and cultural life in the north part of the island. Thus, Northern Cyprus, bizarrely branded as a 'no man's land', is a case par excellence to show how politically and economically unstable geographies are inclined to perform populism. Northern Cyprus is legally invalid territory recognized by no member of the international community other than Turkey and a phantom state, just like Abkhazia and South Ossetia or Nagorno-Karabakh. Five ideological key elements of populism are employed in the theoretical framework of this study: (1) highlighting the sovereignty of the people, (2) attacking the elites, (3) advocacy for the people, (4) excluding others, and (5) invoking the heartland. A qualitative text analysis of typical Facebook posts was conducted. Profiles of popular political leaders who occupy top positions (e.g. member of parliament, minister, chairman, party secretary), who have different political views, and who use their profiles for political expression on daily bases are selected. All official Facebook pages of the selected politicians are examined during a period of five months (1 September 2017-31 January 2018). This period is selected since it was prior to the parliamentary elections. Finding revealed that majority of the Turkish Cypriot politicians use their social media profile to propagate their political ideology in a populist fashion. Populist statements are found across parties. Facebook give especially the left-wing political actors the freedom to spread their messages in manipulative ways, mostly by using a satiric, ironic and slandering jargon that refers to the pseudo-state, the phantom state, the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus state. While most of the political leaders advocate for the people, invoking the heartland are preferred by right-wing politicians. A broad range of left-wing politicians predominantly conducted attack on the economic elites and ostracism of others. The finding concluded that different politicians use social media differently according to their political standpoint. Overall, the study offers a thorough analysis of populism on social media. Considering the large role social media plays in the daily life today, the finding will shed some light on the political influence of social media and the social media usage among politicians.

Keywords: Northern Cyprus, populism, politics, qualitative text analysis, social media

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Authors: Mateusz Jeżowski, Jadwiga Fila, Paweł Poszytek

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This abstract summarizes the combined findings of several analyses carried out by the authors on the barriers to accessing international education mobility programs by people with fewer opportunities, especially those with a low level of cultural and social capital. Two flagship educational mobility initiatives of the European Union – the Erasmus+ Program and the European Solidarity Corps are aimed at equipping young people and participants of all ages with the qualifications and skills needed for their meaningful participation in a democratic society intercultural understanding and successful transition in the labour market. The heart of these programs is to come closer to people with fewer opportunities, including people with disabilities, migrants, as well as those facing socio-economic difficulties and displaying a low level of social and cultural capital. Still, people who participate in such initiatives usually demonstrate higher than average cultural and social capital, as understood by Pierre Bourdieu. First of all, the educational attainment of their parents is higher than the average. Secondly, they mostly live in large agglomerations, with good access to education and culture, which affects their foreign language skills as well as social and cultural competencies. Finally, participation in Erasmus+ Program or European Solidarity Corps is not their first educational mobility experience. It is therefore justified to state that their social and cultural capital, already high before taking part in Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps, becomes even higher once their international mobility activities have been over, at the expense of those people with fewer opportunities, who, in theory, could participate in those initiatives, nonetheless did not, for the following reasons: lack of sufficient information on such programs, financial obstacles or unappreciation of the value of international mobility. In their work, the authors will discuss what are, in the light of Bourdieu’s perception of social and cultural capital, the main obstacles for young people to participate in international mobility programs of the European Union and will offer comprehensive solutions rooted in their vast experience in management and implementation of Erasmus+ Program and European Solidarity Corps.

Keywords: cultural capital, educational mobility, Erasmus+, European solidarity corps, inclusion, social capital

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Authors: Z. A. Ahmad, R. C. Omar, I. Z. Baharuddin, R. Roslan

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Assessments of social vulnerability, carried out holistically, can provide an important guide to the planning process and to decisions on resource allocation at various levels, and can help to raise public awareness of geo-hazard risks. The assessments can help to provide answers for basic questions such as the human vulnerability at the geo-hazard prone or disaster areas causing health damage, economic loss, loss of natural heritage and vulnerability impact of extreme natural hazard event. To overcome these issues, integrated framework for assessing the increasing human vulnerability to environmental changes caused by geo-hazards will be introduced using an indicator from landslide risk map that is related to agent based modeling platform. The indicators represent the underlying factors, which influence a community’s ability to deal with and recover from the damage associated with geo-hazards. Scope of this paper is particularly limited to landslides.

Keywords: social, vulnerability, geo-hazard, methodology, indicators

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Authors: Karel Borovec, Jerzy Gorecki, Tadeas Ochodek

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Combustion of solid fuels is one of the main sources of mercury in the environment. To reduce the amount of mercury emitted to the atmosphere, it is necessary to modify or optimize old purification technologies or introduce the new ones. Effective reduction of mercury level in the flue gas requires the use of speciation systems for mercury form determination. This paper describes tests and provides comparison of two industrial portable and continuous systems for mercury speciation in the flue gas: Durag HM-1400 TRX with a speciation module and the Portable Continuous Mercury Speciation System based on the SGM-8 mercury speciation set, made by Nippon Instruments Corporation. Additionally, the paper describes a few analytical problems that were encountered during a two-year period of using the systems.

Keywords: continuous measurement, flue gas, mercury determination, speciation

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Authors: Ishtiaq Ahmad Gondal, Mubasher Hussain

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Although the world always has spent a lot to counter the terror, thousands of millions of dollars have been spent in this regard after 9/11 that result to thwart some dangerous plots of terrorists. It is also un-ignorable that the terrorists, keeping the counterterrorist actions in their mind, always planned new ways for their operations, yet there is one thing still common in most terrorists' attacks: to use the label of religion, regardless any specific religion, in any form. The terrorism, in past few years, has also hit state's security, its consistency and coherence for achieving their cultural, political and military objectives. So, if they are not treated harshly for making the people's minds and their society dirty they will continue spreading chaos, anarchy and destruction among the ignorant and innocent people. Australia is doing its best to eliminate terrorism by using different tools such as by educating people and reducing poverty. There is still need to improve the tool of education as it can be used as one of the most effective tools to counter the terrorism. It is, as this paper will highlight, the need of contemporary time for establishing some high level educational centers that can educate people and keep them safe from any kind of terror incident. This study also concluded that common man, to keep himself saved from such activities and incidents, can be educated through public awareness movements and campaigns on media and at social gatherings. There is, according to the study, a need to reorganize the curriculum taught in different educational institutions especially in Islamic Schools (Madāris) that are assumed by some western writers as place of extremists, for the better understanding of moral and social obligations, fundamental rights, religious beliefs as well as cultural and social values to promote social justice and equality. This paper is an attempt to show the role of the Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre in this regard.

Keywords: social justice, counterterrorism, educational policy, religion, peace, terrorism

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Authors: Elizabeth Malebogo Mosepele

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Road transport has become increasingly common in the world; people rely on road networks for transportation purpose on a daily basis. However, environmental impact of roads on surrounding landscapes extends their potential effects even further. This study investigates the impact of road network on natural vegetation. The study will provide baseline knowledge regarding roadside vegetation and would be helpful in future for conservation of biodiversity along the road verges and improvements of road verges. The general hypothesis of this study is that the amount and condition of road side vegetation could be explained by road network conditions. Remote sensing techniques were used to analyze vegetation conditions. Landsat 8 OLI image was used to assess vegetation cover condition. NDVI image was generated and used as a base from which land cover classes were extracted, comprising four categories viz. healthy vegetation, degraded vegetation, bare surface, and water. The classification of the image was achieved using the supervised classification technique. Road networks were digitized from Google Earth. For observed data, transect based quadrats of 50*50 m were conducted next to road segments for vegetation assessment. Vegetation condition was related to road network, with the multinomial logistic regression confirming a significant relationship between vegetation condition and road network. The null hypothesis formulated was that 'there is no variation in vegetation condition as we move away from the road.' Analysis of vegetation condition revealed degraded vegetation within close proximity of a road segment and healthy vegetation as the distance increase away from the road. The Chi Squared value was compared with critical value of 3.84, at the significance level of 0.05 to determine the significance of relationship. Given that the Chi squared value was 395, 5004, the null hypothesis was therefore rejected; there is significant variation in vegetation the distance increases away from the road. The conclusion is that the road network plays an important role in the condition of vegetation.

Keywords: Chi squared, geographic information system, multinomial logistic regression, remote sensing, road side vegetation

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Authors: Rishabh Nagpal, Riya Uchagaonkar, Venkata Naga Narasimha Ashish Mernedi, Ahmed Hambaba

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The rapid evolution of technology in the communication sector continually seeks to bridge the gap between different communities, notably between the deaf community and the hearing world. This project develops a comprehensive American Sign Language (ASL) recognition system, leveraging the advanced capabilities of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and vision transformers (ViTs) to interpret and translate ASL in real-time. The primary objective of this system is to provide an effective communication tool that enables seamless interaction through accurate sign language interpretation. The architecture of the proposed system integrates dual networks -VGG16 for precise spatial feature extraction and vision transformers for contextual understanding of the sign language gestures. The system processes live input, extracting critical features through these sophisticated neural network models, and combines them to enhance gesture recognition accuracy. This integration facilitates a robust understanding of ASL by capturing detailed nuances and broader gesture dynamics. The system is evaluated through a series of tests that measure its efficiency and accuracy in real-world scenarios. Results indicate a high level of precision in recognizing diverse ASL signs, substantiating the potential of this technology in practical applications. Challenges such as enhancing the system’s ability to operate in varied environmental conditions and further expanding the dataset for training were identified and discussed. Future work will refine the model’s adaptability and incorporate haptic feedback to enhance the interactivity and richness of the user experience. This project demonstrates the feasibility of an advanced ASL recognition system and lays the groundwork for future innovations in assistive communication technologies.

Keywords: sign language, computer vision, vision transformer, VGG16, CNN

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Authors: Yacoub Aljaffery

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As much as we think negatively about social media such as TV and smart phones, there are many positive benefits our society can get from it. Cartoons, for example, are made specifically for children. However, in this paper, we will prove how cartoon videos can have a positive impact on adults, especially college students. Since cartoons are meant to be a good learning tool for children, as well as adults, we will show our audience how they can use cartoon in teaching critical thinking and other language skills.

Keywords: social media, TV, teaching, learning, cartoon movies

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Authors: Afrizon Reskino

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The Article explores how the role of Zakat and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can enhance corporate values. This research is a descriptive study which aimed to find out how the impact of Zakat and CSR disclosure towards corporate values. Sample taken in this research is the company has entered into the Jakarta Islamic Index, and it estimated to have implemented CSR and also made statements of sources and uses of Zakat taking PT. INCO, PT. Inducement and PT. Semen Gresik. The reasons for selecting of three companies are known from the data and facts every year they always provide significant CSR funds. CSR and charity both have a role and responsibility for the welfare of the peoples. This study found that in 2008, debt-to-equity ratio of PT. INCO approximately 15%. In 2009, It increased to 23%. While Debt-to-equity ratio of PT Semen Gresik increase of 3% to 4%. PT Inducement is weaken from 10% to 7%, but the average debt-to-equity ratio of the three companies has increased.

Keywords: zakat, charity, corporate social responsibility, corporate values

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Authors: Boukerch Haroun, Luo Qing Sheng, Li Hua Shi, Boukraa Sebti

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In this paper we present the design and the implementation of a target tracking system where the target is set to be a moving person in a video sequence. The system can be applied easily as a vision system for mobile robot. The system is composed of two major parts the first is the detection of the person in the video frame using the SVM learning machine based on the “HOG” descriptors. The second part is the tracking of a moving person it’s done by using a combination of the Kalman filter and a modified version of the Camshift tracking algorithm by adding the target motion feature to the color feature, the experimental results had shown that the new algorithm had overcame the traditional Camshift algorithm in robustness and in case of occlusion.

Keywords: camshift algorithm, computer vision, Kalman filter, object tracking

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Authors: Elena Maria Scalisi, Roberta Pecoraro, Martina Contino, Sara Ignoto, Carmelo Iaria, Santi Concetto Pavone, Gino Sorbello, Loreto Di Donato, Maria Violetta Brundo

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5G Technology is evolving to satisfy a variety of service requirements that may allow high data-rate connections (1Gbps) and lower latency times than current (<1ms). In order to support a high data transmission speed and a high traffic service for eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband) use cases, 5G systems have the characteristic of using different frequency bands of the radio wave spectrum (700 MHz, 3.6-3.8 GHz and 26.5-27.5 GHz), thus taking advantage of higher frequencies than previous mobile radio generations (1G-4G). However, waves at higher frequencies have a lower capacity to propagate in free space and therefore, in order to guarantee the capillary coverage of the territory for high reliability applications, it will be necessary to install a large number of repeaters. Following the introduction of this new technology, there has been growing concern over the past few months about possible harmful effects on human health. The aim of this preliminary study is to evaluate possible short term effects induced by 5G-millimeter waves on embryonic development and early life stages of Danio rerio by Z-FET. We exposed developing zebrafish at frequency of 27 GHz, with a standard pyramidal horn antenna placed at 15 cm far from the samples holder ensuring an incident power density of 10 mW/cm2. During the exposure cycle, from 6 h post fertilization (hpf) to 96 hpf, we measured a different morphological endpoints every 24 hours. Zebrafish embryo toxicity test (Z-FET) is a short term test, carried out on fertilized eggs of zebrafish and it represents an effective alternative to acute test with adult fish (OECD, 2013). We have observed that 5G did not reveal significant impacts on mortality nor on morphology because exposed larvae showed a normal detachment of the tail, presence of heartbeat, well-organized somites, therefore hatching rate was lower than untreated larvae even at 48 h of exposure. Moreover, the immunohistochemical analysis performed on larvae showed a negativity to the HSP-70 expression used as a biomarkers. This is a preliminary study on evaluation of potential toxicity induced by 5G and it seems appropriate to underline the importance that further studies would take, aimed at clarifying the probable real risk of exposure to electromagnetic fields.

Keywords: Biomarker of exposure, embryonic development, 5G waves, zebrafish embryo toxicity test

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Authors: Yasmeen Bassas, Sandra Kuebler, Allen Riddell

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Native language identification is one of the growing subfields in natural language processing (NLP). The task of native language identification (NLI) is mainly concerned with predicting the native language of an author’s writing in a second language. In this paper, we investigate the performance of two types of features; content-based features vs. content independent features, when they are evaluated on a different corpus (using social media data “Reddit”). In this NLI task, the predefined models are trained on one corpus (TOEFL), and then the trained models are evaluated on different data using an external corpus (Reddit). Three classifiers are used in this task; the baseline, linear SVM, and logistic regression. Results show that content-based features are more accurate and robust than content independent ones when tested within the corpus and across corpus.

Keywords: NLI, NLP, content-based features, content independent features, social media corpus, ML

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Authors: S. Karmokar

Abstract:

Over the last 20 years, there has been increasing interest in the topic of entrepreneurship education as it is seen in many countries as a way of enhancing the enterprise culture and promote capability building among community. There is also rapid growth of emerging technologies across the globe and forced entrepreneurs to searching for a new model of economic growth. There are two movements that are dominating and creating waves, Technology Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship. An increasing number of entrepreneurs are awakening to the possibility of combining the scalable tools and methodology of Technology Entrepreneurship with the value system of Social Entrepreneurship–‘Transformational Entrepreneurship’. To do this transitional educational institute’s need to figure out how to unite the scalable tools of Technology Entrepreneurship with the moral ethos of Social Entrepreneurship. The traditional entrepreneurship education model is wedded to top-down instructive approaches, that is widely used in management education have led to passive educational model. Despite the effort, disruptive’ pedagogies are rare in higher education; they remain underused and often marginalized. High impact and transformational entrepreneurship education and training require universities to adopt new practices and revise current, traditional ways of working. This is a conceptual research paper exploring the potential and growth of transformational entrepreneurship, investigating links between social entrepreneurship. Based on empirical studies and theoretical approaches, this paper outlines some educational approach for both academics and educational institutes to deliver emerging transformational entrepreneurship in tertiary education. The paper presents recommendations for tertiary educators to inform the designing of teaching practices, revise current delivery methods and encourage students to fulfill their potential as entrepreneurs.

Keywords: educational pedagogies, emerging technologies, social entrepreneurship, transformational entrepreneurship

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Authors: Einat Waizbard, Emilio Ferrer, Meghan Miller, Brianna Heath, Derek S. Andrews, Sally J. Rogers, Christine Wu Nordahl, Marjorie Solomon, David G. Amaral

Abstract:

Background: Autism symptoms are comprised of social-communication deficits and restricted/repetitive behaviors (RRB). The severity of these symptoms can change during childhood, with differences between boys and girls. From the literature, it was found that young autistic girls show a stronger tendency to decrease and a weaker tendency to increase their overall autism symptom severity levels compared to young autistic boys. It is not clear, however, which symptoms are driving these sex differences across childhood. In the current study, we evaluated the trajectories of independent autism symptoms across childhood and compared the patterns of change in such symptoms between boys and girls. Method: The study included 183 children diagnosed with autism (55 girls) evaluated three times across childhood, at ages 3, 6 and 11. We analyzed 22 independent items from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scheudule-2 (ADOS-2), the gold-standard assessment tool for autism symptoms, each item representing a specific autism symptom. First, we used latent growth curve models to estimate the trajectories for the 22 ADOS-2 items for each child in the study. Second, we extracted the factor scores representing the individual slopes for each ADOS-2 item (i.e., slope representing that child’s change in that specific item). Third, we used factor analysis to identify common patterns of change among the ADOS-2 items, separately for boys and girls, i.e., which autism symptoms tend to change together and which change independently across childhood. Results: The best-emerging patterns for both boys and girls identified four common factors: three factors representative of changes in social-communication symptoms and one factor describing changes in RRB. Boys and girls showed the same pattern of change in RRB, with four items (e.g., speech abnormalities) changing together across childhood and three items (e.g., mannerisms) changing independently of other items. For social-communication deficits in boys, three factors were identified: the first factor included six items representing initiating and engaging in social-communication (e.g., quality of social overtures, conversation), the second factor included five items describing responsive social-communication (e.g., response to name) and the third factor included three items related to different aspects of social-communication (e.g., level of language). Girls’ social-communications deficits also loaded onto three factors: the first factor included five items (e.g., unusual eye contact), the second factor included six items (e.g., quality of social response), and the third factor included four items (e.g., showing). Some items showed similar patterns of change for both sexes (e.g., responsive joint attention), while other items showed differences (e.g., shared enjoyment). Conclusions: Girls and boys had different patterns of change in autism symptom severity across childhood. For RRB, both sexes showed similar patterns. For social-communication symptoms, however, there were both similarities and differences between boys and girls in the way symptoms changed over time. The strongest patterns of change were identified for initiating and engaging in social communication for boys and responsive social communication for girls.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, autism symptom severity, symptom trajectories, sex differences

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Authors: Katherine Denise Queri

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Around the world, there are many corporations and other business organizations who promote the welfare of the society. They are found inside the communities where they naturally perform work. Their aim is to maximize their respective returns on investment while measuring the impact of their activities on the environment. The Senate in the Philippines formed a bill that seeks to foster sustainable economic and environment development and environment protection, among other things, by institutionalizing the corporate responsibility of corporations, whether domestic and foreign, partnership and other establishment performing business in the country. Under the Senate Bill 1239 or an act institutionalizing corporate social responsibility, providing incentives therefor, and for other purposes, all business organizations are mandated to consider the interest of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders communities and environment. In return, businesses shall comply with the mandate of this proposed measure shall be entitled to full deductions of the expenses incurred in connection thereto.

Keywords: ateneo, corporate social responsibility (CSR), industrial relations, marketing, up

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Authors: Murat Sözen

Abstract:

Today terrorism is gaining momentum again. Parallel to this, it hurts more than before because it has victims from not only its own locations but also remote places. As victims are from outside, militants are likewise from own location and outside. What made these individuals join the terrorist organizations and how these organizations recruit militants are still unanswered. The purpose of this work is to find reasons of joining and power of recruiting. In addition, the role of most popular tool of recruiting, ‘social media’ will be examined.

Keywords: recruitment, social media, recruitment, militants

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Authors: M. A. Marlow, R. Sørly, H. K. Kaatrakoski

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Social work practice produces and circulates dominant narratives of young women in residential care. These stories are characterised by negative descriptions and hopelessness while dismissing the capabilities of narrative practice. This paper gives an account of how young women with histories in residential care can resist the dominant narratives. The analysis is based on a study of five young women aged 17 to 26 years old with different backgrounds and experiences with Norwegian residential care. The meaning of the context is analysed based on two interviews that were completed and one that was cancelled in the field. The contextual narrative analysis was oriented around the understanding of stories as performances and provided insight into a possible future storytelling practice in social work. The first author’s field notes are included as part of the data material in the analysis and provide a picture of important knowledge development related to stories and the value of being able to tell one’s own experiences. Faced with the dominant narratives that define young women with negative experiences with residential care, we provide a more contextualised understanding of storytelling as a possibility for positive change. To allow young women to create new stories from their lives, we, as both social workers and researchers, must be aware of what kinds of stories we relate to our own practices.

Keywords: context analysis, narrative research, rejection, residential care, social work practice

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Authors: Kostas Kouvaris, Anastasia Eleftheriou, Georgios A. Sarantitis, Apostolos Chondronasios

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To achieve the objective of almost zero carbon energy solutions by 2050, the EU needs to accelerate the development of integrated, highly efficient and environmentally friendly solutions. In this direction, district heating and cooling (DHC) emerges as a viable and more efficient alternative to conventional, decentralized heating and cooling systems, enabling a combination of more efficient renewable and competitive energy supplies. In this paper, we develop a forecasting tool for near real-time local weather and thermal energy demand predictions for an entire DHC network. In this fashion, we are able to extend the functionality and to improve the energy efficiency of the DHC network by predicting and adjusting the heat load that is distributed from the heat generation plant to the connected buildings by the heat pipe network. Two case-studies are considered; one for Vransko, Slovenia and one for Montpellier, France. The data consists of i) local weather data, such as humidity, temperature, and precipitation, ii) weather forecast data, such as the outdoor temperature and iii) DHC operational parameters, such as the mass flow rate, supply and return temperature. The external temperature is found to be the most important energy-related variable for space conditioning, and thus it is used as an external parameter for the energy demand models. For the development of the forecasting tool, we use state-of-the-art deep neural networks and more specifically, recurrent networks with long-short-term memory cells, which are able to capture complex non-linear relations among temporal variables. Firstly, we develop models to forecast outdoor temperatures for the next 24 hours using local weather data for each case-study. Subsequently, we develop models to forecast thermal demand for the same period, taking under consideration past energy demand values as well as the predicted temperature values from the weather forecasting models. The contributions to the scientific and industrial community are three-fold, and the empirical results are highly encouraging. First, we are able to predict future thermal demand levels for the two locations under consideration with minimal errors. Second, we examine the impact of the outdoor temperature on the predictive ability of the models and how the accuracy of the energy demand forecasts decreases with the forecast horizon. Third, we extend the relevant literature with a new dataset of thermal demand and examine the performance and applicability of machine learning techniques to solve real-world problems. Overall, the solution proposed in this paper is in accordance with EU targets, providing an automated smart energy management system, decreasing human errors and reducing excessive energy production.

Keywords: machine learning, LSTMs, district heating and cooling system, thermal demand

Procedia PDF Downloads 128