Search results for: open access tools

Authors: Junior George Martin

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The purpose of this study was to explore college instructors’ integration of technology in their content area curriculum. The instructors indicated that they were in need of additional training to successfully integrate technology in their subject areas. The findings point to the implementation of a proposed the Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) model professional development workshop to satisfactorily address the weaknesses of the instructors in technology integration. The professional development workshop is proposed as a rational solution to adequately address the instructors’ inability to the successful integration of technology in their subject area in an effort to improve their pedagogy. The intense workshop would last for 5 days and will be designed to provide instructors with training in areas such as a use of technology applications and tools, and using modern methodologies to improve technology integration. Exposing the instructors to the specific areas identified will address the weaknesses they demonstrated during the study. Professional development is deemed the most appropriate intervention based on the opportunities it provides the instructors to access hands-on training to overcome their weaknesses. The purpose of the TPACK professional development workshop will be to improve the competence of the instructors so that they are adequately prepared to integrate technology successfully in their curricula. At the end of the period training, the instructors are expected to adopt strategies that will have a positive impact on the learning experiences of the students.

Keywords: higher education, modern technology tools, professional development, technology integration

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Authors: Hajnalka Szarvas

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The research examines the effectiveness of e-participation tools and methods from a point of view of cultural fitting to the Hungarian community traditions. Participation can have very different meanings depending on the local cultural and historical traditions, experiences of the certain societies. Generally when it is about e-democracy or e-participation tools most of the researches are dealing with its technological sides and novelties, but there is not much said about the cultural and social context of the different platforms. However from the perspective of their success it would be essential to look at the human factor too, the actual users, how the certain DMS or any online platform is fitting to the way of thought, the way of functioning of the certain society. Therefore the paper will explore that to what extent the different online platforms like Loomio, Democracy OS, Your Priorities EVoks, Populus, miutcank.hu, Liquid Democracy, Brain Bar Budapest Lab are compatible with the Hungarian mental structures and community traditions, the contents of collective mind about community functioning. As a result the influence of cultural embeddedness of the logic of e-participation development tools on success of these methods will be clearly seen. Furthermore the most crucial factors in general which determine the efficiency of e-participation development tools in Hungary will be demonstrated.

Keywords: cultural embeddedness, e-participation, local community traditions, mental structures

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Authors: Endalew Fufa Kufi

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One of the major concerns in educational provision and success determination is access to available opportunities. In that, girls’ access to education has been a point of concern, and more emphasis has come to be at the forefront regarding success. Researches have mostly been held on extremes such as equal access and success, but only a few works deal with process issues related to home and school interplay, issues of progress from lower to higher levels, and spatial conditions related to girls’ education. Hence, this survey assessed experiences in three countries of Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, and Botswana regarding girls’ education in policy and practice as related to contextual matters in girls’ education. Contextual discourse analysis of qualitative design was used to materialize the study. From each country, five research works held 2010 onwards were purposively selected through criterion-sampling. On the policy aspect, workable documents were looked into. The findings denoted that educational access was of more stretch and generic nature, and the narration was dominated by institutional expectations, not identifying which group should benefit what. The researches largely dealt with either subject-specific dealings or access alone at large. Success studies, by far, dealt with a comparison of girls with boys rather than determinant-related projections. Moreover, the cultural representation of girls’ education had a very minimal part in both policy and researches. From that, it could be found that in-depth scrutiny on the individual, institutional, and leadership determinants of girls’ education would be necessary.

Keywords: determinants, girls, education, feminism

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Authors: Anju Vaidya

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Sanitation is concerned with proper disposal of human excreta, waste water and promotion of hygiene. Lack of sanitation impacts our environment affecting our finance, schooling, health, and thus exacerbating poverty, discrimination and exclusion of the marginalized group. Sanitation can be a route and one of the most important factor to reach the goals of all Millennium Development goals. This study aims at exploring what are the rights to sanitation of the people, how it is enacted and what challenges are being faced while implementing the right to sanitation in South-Asian countries (India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka) at government, non-government and international level. This study also aims at finding how right sanitation is interlinked with children rights. The available reports submitted by government and civil society organizations working in South-Asian countries from the website of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights that were submitted under International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights and Convention on rights of the child have been selected and analyzed. The study uses Literature review to analyze these UN documents submitted from 2000 to 2015 in the context of South-Asian countries. Preliminary insight reveals that sanitation is recognized as one of the important factor to attain adequate standard of living. It has been found that inadequate sanitation has been a major factor that affects all aspects of life and one of its devastating impacts is increased child mortality. Many efforts have been made at national and international level in South-Asian countries to improve the state of sanitation and sanitation services. Various approaches such as Community led Total Sanitation, School led Total Sanitation, establishing Open Defecation free zone, water supply services and other sanitation and hygiene awareness programs are being launched. Despite different efforts and programs being implemented, sanitation and hygiene practices and behavior change remains to be a big challenge. Disparity in access and imbalance between urban and rural services and geographical regions, inadequate financing, clear policy framework and fragile functionality are some of the significant challenges faced while implementing these programs. Children are one of the most vulnerable group that are affected to a large extent. The study brings into light varied approaches that are being made and challenges that are being faced by government, non-government and civil society organizations while implementing the programs and strategies related to sanitation. It also highlights the relation of sanitation as a human right with child rights. This can help the stakeholders and policymakers better understand that improving sanitation situation is a process that requires learning, planning and behavior change and achieving sanitation coverage targets and motivating behavior change requires additional tools based on participation, non-discrimination and process approaches for planning and feedback.

Keywords: challenges, child rights, open defecation, sanitation as a human right

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Authors: P. Vanichkobchinda

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The Logistics Transportation techniques, Open Vehicle Routing (OVR) is an approach toward transportation cost reduction, especially for long distance pickup and delivery nodes. The outstanding characteristic of OVR is that the route starting node and ending node are not necessary the same as in typical vehicle routing problems. This advantage enables the routing to flow continuously and the vehicle does not always return to its home base. This research aims to develop a heuristic for the open vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery under time window and loading capacity constraints to minimize the total distance. The proposed heuristic is developed based on the Insertion method, which is a simple method and suitable for the rapid calculation that allows insertion of the new additional transportation requirements along the original paths. According to the heuristic analysis, cost comparisons between the proposed heuristic and companies are using method, nearest neighbor method show that the insertion heuristic. Moreover, the proposed heuristic gave superior solutions in all types of test problems. In conclusion, the proposed heuristic can effectively and efficiently solve the open vehicle routing. The research indicates that the improvement of new transport's calculation and the open vehicle routing with "Insertion Heuristic" represent a better outcome with 34.3 percent in average. in cost savings. Moreover, the proposed heuristic gave superior solutions in all types of test problems. In conclusion, the proposed heuristic can effectively and efficiently solve the open vehicle routing.

Keywords: business competitiveness, cost reduction, SMEs, logistics transportation, VRP

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Authors: Kenneth N. Ohei, Roelien Brink

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For decades, teaching and learning processes have centered on the traditional approach (Web 1.0) that promoted teacher-directed pedagogical practices. Currently, there is a realization that the traditional approach is not adequate to effectively address and improve all student-learning outcomes. The subsequent incorporation of social software, Information, and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in universities may serve as complementary to support educational goals, offering students the affordability and opportunity to educational choices and learning platforms. Consequently, educators’ inability to incorporate these instructional ICT tools in their teaching and learning practices remains a challenge. This will signify that educators still lack the ICT skills required to administer lectures and bridging learning gaps. This study probes a methodological concept with the aim of developing a framework towards the adoption of social software in HES to help facilitate business processes and can build social presence among students. A mixed method will be appropriate to develop a comprehensive framework needed in Higher Educational System (HES). After research have been conducted, the adoption of social software will be based on the developed comprehensive framework which is supposed to impact positively on education and approach of delivery, improves learning experience, engagement and finally, increases educational opportunities and easy access to educational contents.

Keywords: blended and integrated learning, learning experience and engagement, higher educational system, HES, information and communication technology, ICT, social presence, Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0

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Authors: N. Hammid, F. Bouarab-Dahmani, T. Berkane

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Since its appearance, the MOOC (massive open online course) is gaining more and more intention of the educational communities over the world. Apart from the current MOOCs design and purposes, the creators of MOOC focused on the importance of the connection and knowledge exchange between individuals in learning. In this paper, we present a conceptual model for massive open online blended courses where teachers over the world can collaborate and exchange their experience to get a common efficient content designed as a MOOC opened to their students to live a better learning experience. This model is based on disciplines’ concepts capitalization and the detection of the obstacles met by their students when faced with problem situations (exercises, projects, case studies, etc.). This detection is possible by analyzing the frequently of semantic errors committed by the students. The participation of teachers in the design of the course and the attendance by their students can guarantee an efficient and extensive participation (an important number of participants) in the course, the learners’ motivation and the evaluation issues, in the way that the teachers designing the course assess their students. Thus, the teachers review, together with their knowledge, offer a better assessment and efficient connections to their students.

Keywords: massive open online course, MOOC, online learning, e-learning

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Authors: Justie Su-Tzu Juan, Ming-Jheng Li, Ching-Fen Lee, Ruei-Yu Wu

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A secret image sharing scheme is a way to protect images. The main idea is dispersing the secret image into numerous shadow images. A secret image sharing scheme can withstand the impersonal attack and achieve the highly practical property of multiuse  is more practical. Therefore, this paper proposes a verifiable and detectable secret image-sharing scheme called VDGMSISS to solve the impersonal attack and to achieve some properties such as encrypting multi-secret images at one time and multi-use. Moreover, our scheme can also be used for any genera access structure.

Keywords: multi-secret image sharing scheme, verifiable, de-tectable, general access structure

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Authors: Konstantinos Sofianos, Michael Stefanidakis

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Nowadays, advances in information and communication technologies offer a range of opportunities for new approaches, methods, and tools in the field of education and training. Teacher-centered learning has changed to student-centered learning. E-learning has now matured and enables the design and construction of intelligent learning systems. A smart learning system fully adapts to a student's needs and provides them with an education based on their preferences, learning styles, and learning backgrounds. It is a wise friend and available at any time, in any place, and with any digital device. In this paper, we propose an intelligent learning system, which includes an ontology with all elements of the learning process (learning objects, learning activities) and a massive open online course (MOOC) system. This intelligent learning system can be used in music education.

Keywords: intelligent learning systems, e-learning, music education, ontology, semantic web

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Authors: Matteo Nicoli, Gianvito Colucci, Valeria Di Cosmo, Daniele Lerede, Laura Savoldi

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The transport sector is currently responsible for approximately 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. In the wider context of achieving carbon neutrality of the global energy system, different alternatives are available to decarbonizethe transport sector. In particular, while electricity is already the most consumed energy commodity in rail transport, battery electric vehicles are one of the zero-emissions options on the market for road transportation. On the other hand, hydrogen-based fuel cell vehicles are available for road and non-road vehicles. The European Commission is strongly pushing toward the integration of hydrogen in the energy systems of European countries and its widespread adoption as an energy vector to achieve the Green Deal targets. Furthermore, the Italian government is defining hydrogen-related objectives with the publication of a dedicated Hydrogen Strategy. The adoption of energy system optimization models to study the possible penetration of alternative zero-emitting transport technologies gives the opportunity to perform an overall analysis of the effects that the development of innovative technologies has on the entire energy system and on the supply-side, devoted to the production of energy carriers such as hydrogen and electricity. Using an open-source modeling framework such as TEMOA, this work aims to compare the role of hydrogen and electric vehicles in the decarbonization of the transport sector. The analysis investigates the advantages and disadvantages of adopting the two options, from the economic point of view (costs associated with the two options) and the environmental one (looking at the emissions reduction perspectives). Moreover, an analysis on the profitability of the investments in hydrogen and electric vehicles will be performed. The study investigates the evolution of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in different transportation modes (road, rail, navigation, and aviation) by detailed analysis of the full range of vehicles included in the techno-economic database used in the TEMOA model instance adopted for this work. The transparency of the analysis is guaranteed by the accessibility of the TEMOA models, based on an open-access source code and databases.

Keywords: battery electric vehicles, decarbonization, energy system optimization models, fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen, open-source modeling, TEMOA, transport

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Authors: Atousa Khodadadyan, Gabe Mythen, Hirbod Assa, Beverley Bishop

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Risk assessment and the knowledge provided through this process is a crucial part of any decision-making process in the management of risks and uncertainties. Failure in assessment of risks can cause inadequacy in the entire process of risk management, which in turn can lead to failure in achieving organisational objectives as well as having significant damaging consequences on populations affected by the potential risks being assessed. The choice of tools and techniques in risk assessment can influence the degree and scope of decision-making and subsequently the risk response strategy. There are various available qualitative and quantitative tools and techniques that are deployed within the broad process of risk assessment. The sheer diversity of tools and techniques available to practitioners makes it difficult for organisations to consistently employ the most appropriate methods. This tools and techniques adaptation is rendered more difficult in public risk regulation organisations due to the sensitive and complex nature of their activities. This is particularly the case in areas relating to the environment, food, and human health and safety, when organisational goals are tied up with societal, political and individuals’ goals at national and international levels. Hence, recognising, analysing and evaluating different decision support tools and techniques employed in assessing risks in public risk management organisations was considered. This research is part of a mixed method study which aimed to examine the perception of risk assessment and the extent to which organisations practise risk assessment’ tools and techniques. The study adopted a semi-structured questionnaire with qualitative and quantitative data analysis to include a range of public risk regulation organisations from the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The results indicated the public risk management organisations mainly use diverse tools and techniques in the risk assessment process. The primary hazard analysis; brainstorming; hazard analysis and critical control points were described as the most practiced risk identification techniques. Within qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, the participants named the expert judgement, risk probability and impact assessment, sensitivity analysis and data gathering and representation as the most practised techniques.

Keywords: decision-making, public risk management organisations, risk assessment, tools and techniques

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Authors: Said Rabah Azzam, Andrew Graham

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Fragmentation of packets caused by encryption applied on the network layer of the IOS model in Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) networks as well as the possibility of using fragmentation and Access Control Lists (ACLs) as a method of restricting network access to certain hosts or areas of a network.Using default settings, fragmentation is expected to occur and each fragment to be reassembled at the other end. If this does not occur then a high number of ICMP messages should be generated back towards the source host indicating that the packet is too large and that it needs to be made smaller. This result is also expected when the MTU is changed for certain links between devices.When using ACLs and packet fragments to restrict access to hosts or network segments it is possible that ACLs cannot be set up in this way. If ACLs cannot be setup to allow only fragments then it is a limitation of the hardware’s firmware holding back this particular method. If the ACL on the restricted switch can be set up in such a way to allow only fragments then a connection that forces packets to fragment should be allowed to pass through the ACL. This should then make a network connection to the destination machine allowing data to be sent to and from the destination machine. ICMP messages from the restricted access switch and host should also be blocked from being sent back across the link which will be shown in an SSH session into the switch.

Keywords: fragmentation, encryption, security, switch

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Authors: Thomas Njuguna Kibutu

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The ability to access justice is an important facet of securing peaceful, just, and inclusive societies, as recognized by Goal 16 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Goal 16 calls for peace, justice, and strong institutions to promote the rule of law and access to justice at a global level. More specifically, Target 16.3 of the Goal aims to promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all. On the other hand, it is now widely recognized that Alternative Dispute Resolution (hereafter, ADR) represents an efficient mechanism for resolving disputes outside the adversarial conventional court system of litigation or prosecution. ADR processes include but are not limited to negotiation, reconciliation, mediation, arbitration, and traditional conflict resolution. ADR has a number of advantages, including being flexible, cost-efficient, time-effective, and confidential, and giving the parties more control over the process and the results, thus promoting restorative justice. The methodology of this paper is a desktop review of books, journal articles, reports and government documents., among others. The paper recognizes that ADR represents a cornerstone of Africa’s, and more specifically, Kenya’s, efforts to promote inclusive, accountable, and effective institutions and achieve the objectives of goal 16. In Kenya, and not unlike many African countries, there has been an outcry over the backlog of cases that are yet to be resolved in the courts and the statistics have shown that the numbers keep on rising. While ADR mechanisms have played a major role in reducing these numbers, access to justice in the country remains a big challenge, especially to the subaltern. There is, therefore, a need to analyze the opportunities and challenges facing the application of ADR mechanisms as tools for accessing justice in Kenya and further discuss various ways in which we can overcome these challenges to make ADR an effective alternative to dispute resolution. The paper argues that by embracing ADR across various sectors and addressing existing shortcomings, Kenya can, over time, realize its vision of a more just and equitable society. This paper discusses the opportunities and challenges of the application of ADR in Kenya with a view to sharing the lessons and challenges with the wider African continent. The paper concludes that ADR mechanisms can provide critical pathways to justice in Kenya and the African continent in general but come with distinct challenges. The paper thus calls for concerted efforts of respective stakeholders to overcome these challenges.

Keywords: mediation, arbitration, negotiation, reconsiliation, Traditional conflict resolution, sustainable development

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Authors: Lizhu Y. Davis, Gretchen Higginbottom, Vang Vang

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This presentation explores the adoption of library resources to engage students in a Visual Merchandising course during the 2016 spring semester. This study was a cross-disciplinary collaboration between the Fashion Merchandising Program and the Madden Library at California State University, Fresno. The goal of the project was to explore and assess the students’ use of library resources as a part of the Affordable Learning Solutions Initiative, a California State University (CSU) Office of the Chancellor Program that enables faculty to choose and provide high-quality, free or low-cost educational materials for their students. Students were interviewed afterwards and the results were generally favorable and provided insight into how students perceive and use library resources to support their research needs. This study reveals an important step in examining how open educational resources impact student learning.

Keywords: collaboration, library resources, open educational resources, visual merchandising

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Authors: Zohra Mekranfar, Ahmed Saidi, Abdellah Mebrek

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This work aims to develop multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) and spatial data warehouse (SDW) methods, which will be integrated into a GIS according to a ‘GIS dominant’ approach. The GIS operating tools will be operational to operate the SDW. The MCDM methods can provide many solutions to a set of problems with various and multiple criteria. When the problem is so complex, integrating spatial dimension, it makes sense to combine the MCDM process with other approaches like data mining, ascending analyses, we present in this paper an experiment showing a geo-decisional methodology of SWD construction, On-line analytical processing (OLAP) technology which combines both basic multidimensional analysis and the concepts of data mining provides powerful tools to highlight inductions and information not obvious by traditional tools. However, these OLAP tools become more complex in the presence of the spatial dimension. The integration of OLAP with a GIS is the future geographic and spatial information solution. GIS offers advanced functions for the acquisition, storage, analysis, and display of geographic information. However, their effectiveness for complex spatial analysis is questionable due to their determinism and their decisional rigor. A prerequisite for the implementation of any analysis or exploration of spatial data requires the construction and structuring of a spatial data warehouse (SDW). This SDW must be easily usable by the GIS and by the tools offered by an OLAP system.

Keywords: data warehouse, GIS, MCDM, SOLAP

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Authors: Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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Although fisheries and aquaculture studies might seem marginal to international business (IB) studies in general, fisheries and aquaculture IB (FAIB) management is currently facing increasing pressure to meet global demand and consumption for fish in the next coming decades. In part address to this challenge, the purpose of this systematic review of literature (SLR) study is to investigate the use of the term ‘market access’ in its context of use in the generic literature and business sector discourse, in comparison to the more specific literature and discourse in fisheries, aquaculture and seafood. This SLR aims to uncover the knowledge/interest gaps between the academic subject discourses and business sector practices. Corpus driven in methodology and using a triangulation method of three different text analysis software including AntConc, VOSviewer and Web of Science (WoS) analytics, the SLR results indicate a gap in conceptual knowledge and business practices in how ‘market access’ is conceived and used in the context of the pharmaceutical healthcare industry and FAIB research and practice. While it is acknowledged that the product orientation of different business sectors might differ, this SLR study works with the assumption that both business sectors are global in orientation. These business sectors are complex in their operations from product to market. This SLR suggests a conceptual model in understanding the challenges, the potential barriers as well as avenues for solutions to developing market access for FAIB.

Keywords: market access, fisheries and aquaculture, international business, systematic literature review

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Authors: Alhusein Almahjoub, Dongyu Qiu

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This paper deals with the random access procedure in next-generation networks and presents the solution to reduce total service time (TST) which is one of the most important performance metrics in current and future internet of things (IoT) based networks. The proposed solution focuses on the calculation of optimal transmission probability which maximizes the success probability and reduces TST. It uses the information of several idle preambles in every time slot, and based on it, it estimates the number of backlogged IoT devices using Naïve Bayes estimation which is a type of supervised learning in the machine learning domain. The estimation of backlogged devices is necessary since optimal transmission probability depends on it and the eNodeB does not have information about it. The simulations are carried out in MATLAB which verify that the proposed solution gives excellent performance.

Keywords: random access, LTE/LTE-A, 5G, machine learning, Naïve Bayes estimation

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Authors: Vhahangwele Belemu, Isaac Busayo Oluwatayo

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Post-harvest losses pose a serious challenge to smallholder fruit crop farmers, especially in the rural communities of South Africa, affecting their economic livelihoods and food security. This study investigated the post-harvest handling practices and technologies harnessed by smallholder fruit crop farmers in the Vhembe district of Limpopo province, South Africa. Data were collected on a random sample of 224 smallholder fruit crop farmers selected from the four municipalities of the district using a multistage sampling technique. Analytical tools employed include descriptive statistics and the tobit regression model. A descriptive analysis of farmers’ socioeconomic characteristics showed that a sizeable number of these farmers are still in their active working age (mean = 52 years) with more males (63.8%) than their female (36.2%) counterparts. Respondents’ distribution by educational status revealed that only a few of these had no formal education (2.2%), with the majority having secondary education (48.7%). Results of data analysis further revealed that the prominent post-harvest technologies and handling practices harnessed by these farmers include using appropriate harvesting techniques (20.5%), selling at a reduced price (19.6%), transportation consideration (18.3%), cleaning and disinfecting (17.9%), sorting and grading (16.5%), manual cleaning (15.6%) and packaging technique (11.6%) among others. The result of the Tobit regression analysis conducted to examine the determinants of post-harvest technologies and handling practices harnessed showed that age, educational status of respondents, awareness of technology/handling practices, farm size, access to credit, extension contact, and membership of association were the significant factors. The study suggests enhanced awareness creation, access to credit facility and improved access to market as important factors to consider by relevant stakeholders to assist smallholder fruit crop farmers in the study area.

Keywords: fruit crop farmers, handling practices, post harvest losses, smallholder, Vhembe District, South Africa

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Authors: Abdulwahab Alalyani, Mahbub Rashid

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Public Open Space (POS) availability and distribution among urban communities have a central role to promotes community health. However, growing health challenges in a city would raise attention to the planning quality of these community's assets. This research aims to measure the existing availability and distribution equity of POS in the context of Saudi Arabia using Riyadh city as a case study. The methodology for the POS availability was by calculating the total POS with respect to the population total (m²/inhabitant). All POS were mapped using geographical information systems (GIS), and the total area availability of POS was compared to global, regional, and local standards. To evaluate the significant differences in POS availability across low, medium, and high-income Riyadh neighborhoods, we used a One-way ANOVA analysis of covariance to test the differences. The results are as follows; POS availability was lower than global standers. Riyadh has only 1.40m² per capita of POS. Spatial equity of the availability were significantly different among Riyadh neighborhoods based on socioeconomic status. The future development of POS should be focused on increasing general POS availability and should be given priority to those low-income and unhealthy communities. Accessibility indicators of POS should be considered in future studies.

Keywords: open spaces availability, open spaces distribution, spatial equity, healthy city, Riyadh City

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Authors: Norbert Tomaszewski

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Modern politicians tend to resign from the traditional media as Web 2.0 tools allow them to interact with a much bigger audience while spending less money on their campaign. Current studies on this subject prove that in order to win the elections, the candidate needs to show his personal side during the campaign to appeal to the voter as an average citizen. Because of that, the internet user may engage in the politician's campaign by spreading his message along with his followers. The aim of the study is to determine how did the Democratic candidates use the Web 2.0 tools during the 2018 midterm elections campaign and whether they managed to succeed. Taking into consideration the fact that the United States as a country, has always set important milestones for the political marketing as a field of science, the result of the research can set some examples on how to manage the modern internet campaign in less developed countries.

Keywords: political campaign, midterm elections, social media, Web 2.0

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Authors: Robin Singh, Mayank Nautiyal, Priyank Jain, Vatasta Koul, Vaibhav Sharma

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The curiosity to investigate the space and its mysteries was dependably the main impetus of human interest, as the particle of livings exists from the "debut de l'Univers" (beginning of the Universe) typified with its few other living things. The sharp drive to uncover the secrets of stars and their unusual deportment was dependably an ignitor of stars investigation. As humankind lives in civilizations and states, stars likewise live in provinces named ‘clusters’. Clusters are separates into 2 composes i.e. open clusters and globular clusters. An open cluster is a gathering of thousand stars that were moulded from a comparable goliath sub-nuclear cloud and for the most part; contain Propulsion I (extremely metal-rich) and Propulsion II (mild metal-rich), where globular clusters are around gathering of more than thirty thousand stars that circles a galactic focus and basically contain Propulsion III (to a great degree metal-poor) stars. Futurology of this paper lies in the spectroscopic investigation of globular clusters like M92 and NGC419 and open clusters like M34 and IC2391 in different color bands by using software like VIREO virtual observatory, Aladin, CMUNIWIN, and MS-Excel. Assessing the outcome Hertzsprung-Russel (HR) diagram with exemplary cosmological models like Einstein model, De Sitter and Planck survey demonstrate for a superior age estimation of respective clusters. Colour-Magnitude Diagram of these clusters was obtained by photometric analysis in g and r bands which further transformed into BV bands which will unravel the idea of stars exhibit in the individual clusters.

Keywords: color magnitude diagram, globular clusters, open clusters, Einstein model

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Authors: Elizaveta Petelina, Anton Sizo

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Environmental remediation projects deal with a wide spectrum of data, including data collected during site assessment, execution of remediation activities, and environmental monitoring. Therefore, an appropriate data management is required as a key factor for well-grounded decision making. The Environmental Data Management System (EDMS) was developed to address all necessary data management aspects, including efficient data handling and data interoperability, access to historical and current data, spatial and temporal analysis, 2D and 3D data visualization, mapping, and data sharing. The system focuses on support of well-grounded decision making in relation to required mitigation measures and assessment of remediation success. The EDMS is a combination of enterprise and desktop level data management and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools assembled to assist to environmental remediation, project planning, and evaluation, and environmental monitoring of mine sites. EDMS consists of seven main components: a Geodatabase that contains spatial database to store and query spatially distributed data; a GIS and Web GIS component that combines desktop and server-based GIS solutions; a Field Data Collection component that contains tools for field work; a Quality Assurance (QA)/Quality Control (QC) component that combines operational procedures for QA and measures for QC; Data Import and Export component that includes tools and templates to support project data flow; a Lab Data component that provides connection between EDMS and laboratory information management systems; and a Reporting component that includes server-based services for real-time report generation. The EDMS has been successfully implemented for the Project CLEANS (Clean-up of Abandoned Northern Mines). Project CLEANS is a multi-year, multimillion-dollar project aimed at assessing and reclaiming 37 uranium mine sites in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. The EDMS has effectively facilitated integrated decision-making for CLEANS project managers and transparency amongst stakeholders.

Keywords: data management, environmental remediation, geographic information system, GIS, decision making

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Authors: José L. Jiménez

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The use of technology in the classroom is an issue that is constantly evolving. Digital age students learn differently than their teachers did, so now the teacher should be constantly evolving their methods and teaching techniques to be more in touch with the student. In this paper a case study presents how were used some of these technologies by accompanying a classroom course, this in order to provide students with a different and innovative experience as their teacher usually presented the activities to develop. As students worked in the various activities, they increased their digital skills by employing unknown tools that helped them in their professional training. The twenty-first century teacher should consider the use of Information and Communication Technologies in the classroom thinking in skills that students of the digital age should possess. It also takes a brief look at the history of distance education and it is also highlighted the importance of integrating technology as part of the student's training.

Keywords: digital tools, on-line learning, social networks, technology

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Authors: Belau Olatunde Gbadamosi, Oluchi Okere

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Spurred by the ease of access to and the cost-effectiveness of open-source software such as DSpace, EPrints, and Greenstone Digital Libraries for hosting digital content, many libraries have added institutional repositories (IRs) to their repertoire of digital assets. This paper adopts a qualitative approach based on focus group discussions and the system development life cycle model (SDLC) to describe the experience of Albert Ilemobade Library (the Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria (FUTA) in the development of their IR - FUTASpace. Peculiar challenges experienced in the course of the development and solutions adopted are also reported. This study will serve as a reference point to other institutions, particularly those operating in developing countries, which may be poorly funded.

Keywords: institutional repository, digital libraries, university libraries, DSpace

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Authors: Anita Kéri

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Higher education marketing has been a widely researched field in recent years. Due to the increasing competition among higher education institutions worldwide, it has become crucial to target foreign students with effective marketing tools. Online marketing tools became central to attracting, retaining, and satisfying the needs of foreign students. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to reveal how the online marketing tools of a Hungarian university are perceived visually by its first-year foreign students, with special emphasis on the university webpage content. Eye-camera tracking and retrospective think-aloud interviews were used to measure visual perceptions. Results show that freshmen students remember those online marketing content more that has familiar content on them. Pictures of real-life students and their experiences attract students’ attention more, and they also remember information on these webpage elements more, compared to designs with stock photos. This research is novel in the sense that it uses eye-camera tracking in the field of higher education marketing, thereby providing insight into the perception of online higher education marketing for foreign students.

Keywords: higher education, marketing, eye-camera, visual perceptions

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Authors: Carolina Silva Ansélmo

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Airports are demand-generating poles that affect the flow of traffic around them. The airport access system must be fast, convenient, and adequately planned, considering its potential users. An airport with good ground access conditions can provide the user with a more satisfactory access experience. When several transport options are available, service providers must understand users' preferences and the expected quality of service. The present study focuses on airport access in a comparative scenario between bus, private vehicle, subway, taxi and urban mobility transport applications to São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport. The objectives are (i) to identify the factors that influence the choice, (ii) to measure Willingness to Pay (WTP), and (iii) to estimate the market share for each modal. The applied method was Adaptive Choice-based Conjoint Analysis (ACBC) technique using Sawtooth Software. Conjoint analysis, rooted in Utility Theory, is a survey technique that quantifies the customer's perceived utility when choosing alternatives. Assessing user preferences provides insights into their priorities for product or service attributes. An additional advantage of conjoint analysis is its requirement for a smaller sample size compared to other methods. Furthermore, ACBC provides valuable insights into consumers' preferences, willingness to pay, and market dynamics, aiding strategic decision-making to provide a better customer experience, pricing, and market segmentation. In the present research, the ACBC questionnaire had the following variables: (i) access time to the boarding point, (ii) comfort in the vehicle, (iii) number of travelers together, (iv) price, (v) supply power, and (vi) type of vehicle. The case study questionnaire reached 213 valid responses considering the scenario of access from the São Paulo city center to São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport. As a result, the price and the number of travelers are the most relevant attributes for the sample when choosing airport access. The market share of the selection is mainly urban mobility transport applications, followed by buses, private vehicles, taxis and subways.

Keywords: adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis, ground access to airport, market share, willingness to pay

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Authors: Preeti Tiwari, Jay Wood, Duncan Babbage

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Family planning plays a role in saving lives across the globe by preventing unwanted pregnancies. The purpose of this multidisciplinary research was to determine the impact of mHealth tools have on psychosocial determinants of behaviour for family planning. The present study examines a topic that is very relevant in times where human-technology interaction is at its peak. It is probably one of the first studies that have investigated the impact of mobile phone technology on the underlying mechanisms of behaviour change for family planning using primary data. To examine the association between exposure to mHealth tools and predictors of behaviour, data was collected from mHealth intervention areas in India. A post-intervention quasi-experimental study with a 2x2 factorial design was conducted among 831 men and women from the state of Bihar. The quantitative data analysis evaluated the extent of influence that predictors of behaviour (beliefs, social norms, perceived behaviour control, and outcome behaviour) have on a woman’s decisions about family planning. The results indicated an association between exposure to mHealth tools and improved communication about family planning among various family members after receiving health information from a health worker (H1). A relationship between exposure to mHealth tools and increased support women received from their husbands and extended family (mothers-in-law specifically) and peers (H2) was also found. A further result showed that knowledge about family planning was greater among users of family planning (H4). mHealth tools empower women to communicate with family members. This has important implications for developing mobile phone-based tools, as they can be used as a crucial communication channel that can be an effective method of increasing communication among family members about contraceptives. Thus, it can be implied that where women feel nervous talking about contraception, the successful application of mHealth tools can strengthen the interactivity of the health communication and could increase the likelihood of using contraception. However, while it may improve health communication that can inform health decisions, it may be insufficient on its own to cause behaviour change.

Keywords: contraceptive, e-health, psycho-social, women

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Authors: Tasneem Alfalah, Salsabeel Alfalah, Jannat Alfalah

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The quality of higher education as a service is fundamental to a country’s development because universities prepare the professionals who will work as managers in companies and manage public and private resources and care for the health and education of new generations. Knowledge sharing involves the interaction of all activities between individuals. Thus, the higher education institutions are aiming to improve and assist their academics in generating new ideas by encouraging them to work as a team, to simplify the exchange of the new knowledge and to further improve the learning process and achieving institutional aims. Moreover, the sources of competitive advantage in universities derive from intellectual capital and innovations in which innovation comes through knowledge sharing. Using quality tools is to define the exact requirements needed to create the concept of knowledge sharing and what are the barriers to achieve this in universities. The purpose of this research is critically evaluating the role of using quality tools to facilitate the concept of knowledge sharing and improve the academic staff level in the Jordanian universities.

Keywords: higher education, knowledge sharing, quality, management tools

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Authors: Jia-Jin He, Tzu-Yuan Stessa Chao

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It is generally accepted that community residents with abundant open space have better health status on average, and thus more and more cities around the world began their pursuit of the greatest possible amount of green space within urban areas through urban planning approach. Nevertheless, only a few studies managed to provide empirical evidence regarding the actual relationship between 'providing' green space and 'improving' human health at city level. There is also lack of evidence of direct positive improvement of health by increasing the amount of green space. For urban planning professional, it is important to understand citizens’ usage behaviour towards green space as a critical evidence for future planning and design strategies. There is a research need to further investigate the amount of green space, user behaviour of green spaces and the health outcome of urban dwellers. To this end, we would like to find out other important factors for urban dwellers’ usage behaviours of green spaces. 'Average green spaces per person' is one of the National well-being Indicators in Taiwan as in many other countries. Through our preliminary research, we collected and analyzed the official data of planned open space coverages, average life expectancy, exercise frequency and obesity ratio in all cities of Taiwan. The study result indicates an interesting finding that Kaohsiung city, the second largest city in Taiwan, tells a completely different story. Citizens in Kaosiung city have more open spaces than any other city through urban planning, yet have relatively unhealthy condition in contrary. Whether it pointed out that the amount of the open spaces per person has would not direct to the health outcome. Therefore, the pre-established view which states that open spaces must have positive effects on human health should be examined more prudently. Hence, this paper intends to explore the relationship between user behaviour of open spaces and citizens’ health conditions by critically analyzing past related literature and collecting selective data from government health database in 2015. We also take Kaohsiung city, as a case study area to conduct statistical analysis first followed by questionnaire survey to gain a better understanding. Finally, we aim to feedback our findings to the current planning system in Taiwan for better health promotion urbanized areas.

Keywords: open spaces, urban planning systems, healthy cities, health outcomes

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Authors: Abiola A. Sokoya

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Handheld devices are now in use as educational tools for learning in most of the higher institutions, because of the features and functions which can be used in an academic environment. This study examined the usage and the benefits of handheld devices as learning tools. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data, while the data collected was analyzed using simple percentage. It was, however, observed that handheld devices offer numerous functions and application for learning, which could improve academic performance of students. Students are now highly interested in using handheld devices for mobile learning apart from making and receiving calls. The researchers recommended that seminars be organized for students on functions of some common handheld devices that can aid learning for academic purposes. It is also recommended that management of each higher institution should make appropriate policies in-line with the usage of handheld technologies to enhance mobile learning. Government should ensure that appropriate policies and regulations are put in place for the importation of high quality handheld devices into the country, Nigeria being a market place for the technologies. By this, using handheld devices for mobile learning will be enhanced.

Keywords: handheld devices, educational tools, mobile e- learning, usage, benefits

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