Search results for: corporate social performance

Authors: Jim Shi, Jasmine Chang, Nesreen El-Rayes

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The world has been experiencing a steadily increasing trend in both the production and consumption of plastic. The global consumer revolution should not have been possible without plastic, thanks to its salient feature of inexpensiveness and durability. But, as a two-edged sword, its durable quality has returned to haunt and even jeopardized us. That exacerbating the plastic crisis has attracted various global initiatives and actions. Simultaneously, firms are eager to adopt new technology as they witness and perceive more potential and merit of Industry 4.0 technologies. For example, Blockchain technology (BCT) is drawing the attention of numerous stakeholders because of its wide range of outstanding features that promise to enhance supply chain operations. However, from a research perspective, most of the literature addresses the plastic crisis from either environmental or social perspectives. In contrast, analysis from the data science perspective and technology is relatively scarce. To this end, this study aims to fill this gap and cover the plastic crisis from a holistic view of environmental, social, technological, and business perspectives. In particular, we propose a mathematical model to examine the inclusion of BCT to enhance and improve the efficiency on the upstream and the downstream sides of the plastic value, where the whole value chain is coordinated systematically, and its interoperability can be optimized. Consequently, the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goal and Circular Economics (CE) sustainability can be maximized.

Keywords: blockchain technology, plastic, circular economy, sustainability

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Authors: Yafri Hazbi, Zaenal Bachruddin, Nafiatul Umami, Lies Mira Yusiati

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The objective of this study was to identify the benefits of total mixture concentrate based on tofu waste silage (TMC-TWS) as ration containing lactic acid bacteria on performance of lambs. Fifteen weaning lambs (2-3 months old) were randomly divided into two treatment groups, treatment group I (TI) was fed with TMC-TWS as ration and treatment group II (TII) was fed with TMC-TWS fresh (without silage fermentation). The performance of lambs was evaluated on day 0, 15, and 30 to have data of body weight per day. Meanwhile, blood sampling and feces were made on the 30th day to get an analysis on the blood profile (erythrocytes (mill/ml), hemoglobin (g/dL), packed cell volume (%), and leukocytes (mill/ml)) and the number of worm eggs in feces. The results of this study showed no significant difference between the effect of different feed on the blood profile (erythrocytes (mill/ml), hemoglobin (g/dL), packed cell volume (%), as well as the number of worm eggs in the feces. However the results showed significant differences if it is low (P<0.05) due to the treatment group based on sex on body weight gain per day, feed conversion rate and the number of erythrocytes.

Keywords: lambs, total mixture concentrate, silage, acid lactid bacteria, blood profile, eggs worm in feces

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Authors: Elizabeth Latham

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Billions of people worldwide profess some feeling of psychological or spiritual connection with the divine. The majority of them attribute this personal connection to the God of the Christian Bible. The objective of this research was to discover what could be known about the exact social nature of these relationships and to see if they mimic the interactions recounted in the bible; if a worldwide majority believes that the Christian Bible is a true account of God’s interactions with mankind, it is reasonable to assume that the interactions between God and the aforementioned people would be similar to the ones in the bible. This analysis required the employment of an unusual method of biblical analysis: Game Theory. Because the research focused on documented social interaction between God and man in scripture, it was important to go beyond text-analysis methods. We used stories from the New Revised Standard Version of the bible to set up “games” using economics-style matrices featuring each player’s motivations and possible courses of action, modeled after interactions in the Old and New Testaments between the Judeo-Christian God and some mortal person. We examined all relevant interactions for the objectives held by each party and their strategies for obtaining them. These findings were then compared to similar “games” created based on interviews with people subscribing to different levels of Christianity who ranged from barely-practicing to clergymen. The range was broad so as to look for a correlation between scriptural knowledge and game-similarity to the bible. Each interview described a personal experience someone believed they had with God and matrices were developed to describe each one as social interaction: a “game” to be analyzed quantitively. The data showed that in most cases, the social features of God-man interactions in the modern lives of people were like those present in the “games” between God and man in the bible. This similarity was referred to in the study as “biblical faith” and it alone was a fascinating finding with many implications. The even more notable finding, however, was that the amount of game-similarity present did not correlate with the amount of scriptural knowledge. Each participant was also surveyed on family background, political stances, general education, scriptural knowledge, and those who had biblical faith were not necessarily the ones that knew the bible best. Instead, there was a high degree of correlation between biblical faith and family religious observance. It seems that to have a biblical psychological relationship with God, it is more important to have a religious family than to have studied scripture, a surprising insight with massive implications on the practice and preservation of religion.

Keywords: bible, Christianity, game theory, social psychology

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Authors: Cecile Garry, Katia Rovira, Julie Brisson

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is defined by a qualitative and quantitative impairment of social interaction. Indeed early intervention programs, such as the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), aimed at encouraging the development of social skills. In classroom, the children need to be socially engaged to learn. Early intervention programs can thus be implemented in kindergarten schools. In these schools, ASD children have more opportunities to interact with their peers or adults than in elementary schools. However, the preschool children with ASD are less socially engaged than their typically developing peers in the classroom. They initiate, respond and maintain less the social interactions. In addition, they produce more responses than initiations. When they interact, the non verbal communication is more used than verbal or symbolic communication forms and they are more engaged with adults than with peers. Nevertheless, communicative patterns may vary according to the clinical profiles of ASD children. Indeed, the ASD children with better cognitive skills interact more with their peers and use more symbolic communication than the ASD children with a low cognitive level. ASD children with the less severe symptoms use more the verbal communication than ASD children with the more severe symptoms. Small groups and structured activities encourage coordinated joint engagement episodes in ASD children. Our goal is to evaluate ASD children’s social engagement development in class, with their peers or adults, during dyadic or group activities. Participants were 19 preschool children with ASD aged from 3 to 6 years old that benefited of an early intervention in special kindergarten schools. Severity of ASD symptoms was measured with the CARS at the beginning of the follow-up. Classroom situations of interaction were recorded during 10 minutes (5 minutes of dyadic interaction and 5 minutes of a group activity), every 2 months, during 10 months. Social engagement behaviors of children, including initiations, responses and imitation, directed to a peer or an adult, were then coded. The Observer software (Noldus) that allows to annotate behaviors was the coding system used. A double coding was conducted and revealed a good inter judges fidelity. Results show that ASD children were more often and longer socially engaged in dyadic than in groups situations. They were also more engaged with adults than with peers. Children with the less severe symptoms of ASD were more socially engaged in groups situations than children with the more severe symptoms of ASD. Then, ASD children with the less severe symptoms of ASD were more engaged with their peers than ASD children with the more severe symptoms of ASD. However, the engagement frequency increased during the 10 month of follow-up but only for ASD children with the more severe symptoms at the beginning. To conclude, these results highlighted the necessity of individualizing early intervention programs according to the clinical profile of the child.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, preschool children, developmental psychology, early interventions, social interactions

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Authors: Dinesh Munjurulimana, Anil Tiwari, Tingwen Li, Carlos Pereira, Sreekanth Pannala, John Waters

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With the rapid transition to electric vehicles (EVs) across the globe, car manufacturers are in need of integrated and lightweight solutions for the battery packs of these vehicles. An integral part of a battery pack is the battery tray, which constitutes a significant portion of the pack’s overall weight. Based on the functional requirements, cost targets, and packaging space available, a range of materials –from metals, composites, and plastics– are often used to develop these battery trays. This paper considers the design and development of integrated thermoplastic-intensive battery trays, using the available packaging space from a representative EV battery pack. Presented as a proposed alternative are multiple concepts to integrate several connected systems such as cooling plates and underbody impact protection parts of a multi-piece incumbent battery pack. The resulting digital prototype was evaluated for several mechanical performance measures such as mechanical shock, drop, crush resistance, modal analysis, and torsional stiffness. The performance of this alternative design is then compared with the incumbent solution. In addition, insights are gleaned into how these novel approaches can be optimized to meet or exceed the performance of incumbent designs. Preliminary manufacturing feasibility of the optimal solution using injection molding and other commonly used manufacturing methods for thermoplastics is briefly explained. Then numerical and analytical evaluations are performed to show a representative Pareto front of cost vs. volume of the production parts. The proposed solution is observed to offer weight savings of up to 40% on a component level and part elimination of up to two systems in the battery pack of a typical battery EV while offering the potential to meet the required performance measures highlighted above. These conceptual solutions are also observed to potentially offer secondary benefits such as improved thermal and electrical isolations and be able to achieve complex geometrical features, thus demonstrating the ability to use the complete packaging space available in the vehicle platform considered. The detailed study presented in this paper serves as a valuable reference for researches across the globe working on the development of EV battery packs – especially those with an interest in the potential of employing alternate solutions as part of a mixed-material system to help capture untapped opportunities to optimize performance and meet critical application requirements.

Keywords: thermoplastics, lightweighting, part integration, electric vehicle battery packs

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Authors: Tarek M. Alguhane, Ayman H. Khalil, M. N. Fayed, Ayman M. Ismail

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A 15-storey RC building, studied in this paper, is representative of modern building type constructed in Madina City in Saudi Arabia before 10 years ago. These buildings are almost consisting of reinforced concrete skeleton, i. e. columns, beams and flat slab as well as shear walls in the stairs and elevator areas arranged in the way to have a resistance system for lateral loads (wind–earthquake loads). In this study, the dynamic properties of the 15-storey RC building were identified using ambient motions recorded at several spatially-distributed locations within each building. After updating the mathematical models for this building with the experimental results, three dimensional pushover analysis (nonlinear static analysis) was carried out using SAP2000 software incorporating inelastic material properties for concrete, infill and steel. The effect of modeling the building with and without infill walls on the performance point as well as capacity and demand spectra due to EQ design spectrum function in Madina area has been investigated. The response modification factor (R) for the 15 storey RC building is evaluated from capacity and demand spectra (ATC-40). The purpose of this analysis is to evaluate the expected performance of structural systems by estimating, strength and deformation demands in design, and comparing these demands to available capacities at the performance levels of interest. The results are summarized and discussed.

Keywords: seismic assessment, pushover analysis, ambient vibration, modal update

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Authors: Yu Qin, Wanjiaman Li

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The widespread use of mobile electronic devices increases the complexities of mobile security. This thesis aims to provide a secure communication environment for smartphone users. Some research proves that the one-time pad is one of the securest encryption methods, and that the key distribution problem can be solved by using the QKD (quantum key distribution). The objective of this project is to design an Android APP (application) to exchange several random keys between mobile phones. Inspired by QKD, the developed APP uses the quick response (QR) code as a carrier to dispatch large amounts of one-time keys. After evaluating the performance of APP, it allows the mobile phone to capture and decode 1800 bytes of random data in 600ms. The continuous scanning mode of APP is designed to improve the overall transmission performance and user experience, and the maximum transmission rate of this mode is around 2200 bytes/s. The omnidirectional readability and error correction capability of QR code gives it a better real-life application, and the features of adequate storage capacity and quick response optimize overall transmission efficiency. The security of this APP is guaranteed since QR code is exchanged face-to-face, eliminating the risk of being eavesdropped. Also, the id of QR code is the only message that would be transmitted through the whole communication. The experimental results show this project can achieve superior transmission performance, and the correlation between the transmission rate of the system and several parameters, such as the QR code size, has been analyzed. In addition, some existing technologies and the main findings in the context of the project are summarized and critically compared in detail.

Keywords: one-time pad, QKD (quantum key distribution), QR code, application

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Authors: Larry Powell, Seth Polsley, Drew Casey, Tracy Hammond

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Human activity recognition (HAR) systems have shown positive performance when recognizing repetitive activities like walking, running, and sleeping. Water-based activities are a reasonably new area for activity recognition. However, water-based activity recognition has largely focused on supporting the elite and competitive swimming population, which already has amazing coordination and proper form. Beginner swimmers are not perfect, and activity recognition needs to support the individual motions to help beginners. Activity recognition algorithms are traditionally built around short segments of timed sensor data. Using a time window input can cause performance issues in the machine learning model. The window’s size can be too small or large, requiring careful tuning and precise data segmentation. In this work, we present a method that uses a time window as the initial segmentation, then separates the data based on the change in the sensor value. Our system uses a multi-phase segmentation method that pulls all peaks and valleys for each axis of an accelerometer placed on the swimmer’s lower back. This results in high recognition performance using leave-one-subject-out validation on our study with 20 beginner swimmers, with our model optimized from our final dataset resulting in an F-Score of 0.95.

Keywords: time window, peak/valley segmentation, feature extraction, beginner swimming, activity recognition

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Authors: James R. Ogden, Denise T. Ogden

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The National Football League (USA) is the largest sporting business in the United States. In order to generate revenue, it is important that NFL teams win. Coaches, owners and general managers of the NFL teams want to create powerful teams with reliable players and they are willing to spend large amounts of money in order to do so. This research looks at one of the National Football League’s key players, the kicker. It would be intuitively obvious to suggest that those kickers who perform the best get paid the most. In this paper the researchers performed a correlation and regression analysis to determine if there is a correlation between an NFL kicker’s field goal percentage and salary. The research proposition was that higher performing kickers receive higher salaries. The data suggest that there is no correlation between salary and on-field performance.

Keywords: business management, sports marketing, tourism, American football

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Authors: Babak Mohajeri

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In recent years, the conventional business model of ownership has been changed towards accessibility in a variety of markets. Two trends can be observed in the evolution of this rental-like business model. Firstly, the technological development that enables the emergence of new business models. These new business models increasingly become agile and flexible. For example Spotify, an online music stream company provides consumers access to over millions of music tracks, conveniently through the smartphone, tablet or computer. Similarly, Car2Go, the car sharing company accesses its members with flexible and nearby sharing cars. The second trend is the increasing communication and connections via social networks. This trend enables a shift to peer-to-peer accessibility based business models. Conventionally, companies provide access for their customers to own companies products or services. In peer-to-peer model, nonetheless, companies facilitate access and connection across their customers to use other customers owned property or skills, competencies or services .The is so-called the sharing economy business model. The aim of this study is to investigate into a new and emerging type of the sharing economy model in which role of customers and service providers may dramatically change. This new model is called Collaborative Service Networks. We propose a mechanism for Collaborative Service Networks business model. Uber and Airbnb, two successful growing companies, have been selected for our case studies and their business models are analyzed. Finally, we study the emergence of the collaborative service networks in the manufacturing domain. Our finding results to a new manufacturing paradigm called social manufacturing.

Keywords: sharing economy, collaborative service networks, social manufacturing, manufacturing development

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Authors: Suriya

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Rapid socio-economic development and urbanization have led to an increasingly serious air pollution problem in Ulaanbaatar (UB), the capital of Mongolia. PM₂.₅ pollution has become the most pressing aspect of UB air pollution. Therefore, monitoring and predicting PM₂.₅ concentration in UB is of great significance for the health of the local people and environmental management. As of yet, very few studies have used models to predict PM₂.₅ concentrations in UB. Using data from 0:00 on June 1, 2018, to 23:00 on April 30, 2020, we proposed two deep learning models based on Bayesian-optimized LSTM (Bayes-LSTM) and CNN-LSTM. We utilized hourly observed data, including Himawari8 (H8) aerosol optical depth (AOD), meteorology, and PM₂.₅ concentration, as input for the prediction of PM₂.₅ concentrations. The correlation strengths between meteorology, AOD, and PM₂.₅ were analyzed using the gray correlation analysis method; the comparison of the performance improvement of the model by using the AOD input value was tested, and the performance of these models was evaluated using mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE). The prediction accuracies of Bayes-LSTM and CNN-LSTM deep learning models were both improved when AOD was included as an input parameter. Improvement of the prediction accuracy of the CNN-LSTM model was particularly enhanced in the non-heating season; in the heating season, the prediction accuracy of the Bayes-LSTM model slightly improved, while the prediction accuracy of the CNN-LSTM model slightly decreased. We propose two novel deep learning models for PM₂.₅ concentration prediction in UB, Bayes-LSTM, and CNN-LSTM deep learning models. Pioneering the use of AOD data from H8 and demonstrating the inclusion of AOD input data improves the performance of our two proposed deep learning models.

Keywords: deep learning, AOD, PM2.5, prediction, Ulaanbaatar

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Authors: Shyh Ming Chern

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Cubic equations of state (EoS), popular due to their simple mathematical form, ease of use, semi-theoretical nature and, reasonable accuracy are normally fitted to vapor-liquid equilibrium P-v-T data. As a result, They often show poor accuracy in the region near and above the critical point. In this study, the performance of the renowned Peng-Robinson (PR) and Patel-Teja (PT) EoS’s around the critical area has been examined against the P-v-T data of water. Both of them display large deviations at critical point. For instance, PR-EoS exhibits discrepancies as high as 47% for the specific volume, 28% for the enthalpy departure and 43% for the entropy departure at critical point. It is shown that incorporating P-v-T data of the supercritical region into the retuning of a cubic EoS can improve its performance above the critical point dramatically. Adopting a retuned acentric factor of 0.5491 instead of its genuine value of 0.344 for water in PR-EoS and a new F of 0.8854 instead of its original value of 0.6898 for water in PT-EoS reduces the discrepancies to about one third or less.

Keywords: equation of state, EoS, supercritical water, SCW

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Authors: Mohammad S. Islam

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Elections in Bangladesh are always controversial, and sometimes it becomes a violent affair when state power is combined with politics. Despite the commitment of the ruling party- the polling government to ensure free, fair, and credible elections, the participants of opposition parties and the general voters became very disappointed, terribly frustrated, and severely shocked. It happened when numerous claims of serious irregularities of vote rigging and violence came out in broad daylight during the election. This paper addresses the issues of how the ruling party created frightening and a horror situation to make people silent over electoral fraud and violent incidents, including gang rape. It also seeks to demonstrate that election-2018 was simply the deceptive action of the ruling party to legitimate their power, but not to provide a minimum opportunity for voters to exercise their fundamental right to vote. The fundamental freedom and the rule of law seemed to be ignored completely in this election process and afterwards. With the help of state machinery, the government of the ruling party violated human rights, restricted fundamental freedoms, and humiliated social protection & dignity. The contestant’s views as witnessed and relevant literatures are cited first for conceptual understanding. Then, the paper will examine how a new dimension of circumstantial social measures related to sustained protection can reduce all kinds of violence against humanity towards establishing a peaceful democratic society. Finally, this paper interprets the key findings and considers wider implications.

Keywords: electoral fraud, human rights, sustained protection, social measures, vote rigging

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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: Sherin Ahmed El-Badry Sadek

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In this research, it is scientifically examined what contribution the professionalization of teachers can make to the development of a future-oriented vocational education and training system in Egypt. For this purpose, a needs assessment of the Egyptian vocational training system with the central actors and prevailing structures forms the foundation of the study, which theoretically underpinned with the attempt to resolve to some extent the tension between Luhmann's systems theory approach and the actor-centered theory of professional teacher competence. The vocational education system, in particular, must be adaptable and flexible due to the rapidly changing qualification requirements. In view of the pace of technological progress and the associated market changes, vocational training is no longer to be understood only as an educational tool aimed at those who achieve poorer academic performance or are not motivated to take up a degree. Rather, it is to be understood as a cornerstone for the development of society, and international experience shows that it is the core of lifelong learning. But to what extent have the education systems been able to react to these changes in their political, social, and technological systems? And how effective and sustainable are these changes actually? The vocational training system, in particular, has a particular impact on other social systems, which is why the appropriate parameters with the greatest leverage must be identified and adapted. Even if systems and structures are highly relevant, teachers must not hide behind them and must instead strive to develop further and to constantly learn. Despite numerous initiatives and programs to reform vocational training in Egypt, including the EU-funded Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) reform phase I and phase II, the fit of the skilled workers to the needs of the labor market is still insufficient. Surveys show that the majority of employers are very dissatisfied with the graduates that the vocational training system produces. The data was collected through guideline-based interviews with experts from the education system and relevant neighboring systems, which allowed me to reconstruct central in-depth structures, as well as patterns of action and interpretation, in order to subsequently feed these into a matrix of recommendations for action. These recommendations are addressed to different decision-makers and stakeholders and are intended to serve as an impetus for the sustainable improvement of the Egyptian vocational training system. The research findings have shown that education, and in particular vocational training, is a political field that is characterized by a high degree of complexity and which is embedded in a barely manageable, highly branched landscape of structures and actors. At the same time, the vocational training system is not only determined by endogenous factors but also increasingly shaped by the dynamics of the environment and the neighboring social subsystems, with a mutual dependency relationship becoming apparent. These interactions must be taken into account in all decisions, even if prioritization of measures and thus a clear sequence and process orientation are of great urgency.

Keywords: competence orientation, educational policies, education systems, expert interviews, globalization, organizational development, professionalization, systems theory, teacher training, TVET system, vocational training

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Authors: Dwi Yulian Fahruddin Shah, Salman Al Farizi, Elyada Ahastari Liunome

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Indonesia is a multicultural society. A wide variety of arts and culture spread throughout in all of part of Indonesia with natural appearance will cause the social behavior differentiation. Similarly, with Tengger people's lives also have different social behaviors that distinguish them from other ethnic groups spread across the Indonesian archipelago. Tengger tribe has an appropriate ethic to build nation character. If all the people of Indonesia who heterogeneous and multicultural can understand, and follow the example of ethical behavior of Tengger tribe, it will be a force in the development of the character of the nation in this modern and globalization era.

Keywords: Tengger tribe, national character, ethics society, Indonesia

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Authors: Aditi Kashi

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While educational technologies have taken great strides, especially in Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) composition, teachers across the world are still adjusting to incorporate such technology into their curricula. While using MIDI in the classroom has become more common, limited class time and a strong focus on performance have made composition a lesser priority. The balance between music theory, performance time, and composition learning is delicate and difficult to maintain for many music educators. This makes including MIDI in the classroom. To address this issue, this paper aims to outline a general conceptual framework centered around a key element of music theory to integrate MIDI composition into the music classroom to not only introduce students to digital composition but also enhance their understanding of music theory and its applicability.

Keywords: educational framework, education technology, MIDI, music education

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Authors: Jillian Correia, Ali Sakkal

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Lunchtime can play a pivotal role in shaping student eating habits. Studies have previously indicated that eating a healthy meal during the school day can improve students’ well-being and academic performance, and potentially prevent childhood obesity. This study investigated the school lunch program in the United Kingdom in order to gain an understanding of the attitudes and beliefs surrounding school meals and the realities of student food patterns. Using a qualitative research methodology, this study was conducted in three primary and secondary school systems in London, United Kingdom. In depth interviews consisting of 14 headteachers, teachers, staff, and chefs and fieldwork observations of approximately 830 primary and secondary school students in the three schools’ cafeterias provided the data. The results of interview responses and fieldwork observation yielded the following set of themes: (a) school meals are publicly portrayed as healthful and nutritious, yet students’ eating habits do not align with this advertising, (b) the level of importance placed on school lunch varies widely among participants and generates inconsistent views concerning who is responsible (government, families, caterers, or schools) for students’ eating habits, (c) role models (i.e. teachers and chefs) present varying levels of interaction with students and conflicting approaches when monitoring students’ eating habits. The latter finding expanded upon Osowski, Göranzon, and Fjellström’s (2013) concept of teacher roles to formulate three education philosophies – the Removed Authority Role Model, the Accommodating Role Model, and the Social Educational Role Model – concluding that the Social Educational Role Model was the most effective at fostering an environment that encouraged healthy eating habits and positive behavior. For schools looking to cultivate strong relationships between students and teachers and facilitate healthier eating habits, these findings were used to construct three key recommendations: (1) elevate the lunch environment by encouraging proper dining etiquette, (2) get teachers eating at the table with students, and (3) shift the focus from monitoring behavior to a teacher-student dialogue centered on food awareness.

Keywords: food culture, eating habits, school meals, student behavior, education, food patterns, lunchtime

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Authors: Amina Naidja, Zedira Khammar, Ines Soltani

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This study investigates the impact of urban development on the urban heat island (UHI) effect in the semi-arid Aures region of Algeria, integrating remote sensing data with statistical analysis and community surveys to examine the interconnected environmental and social dynamics. Using Landsat 8 satellite imagery, temporal variations in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), and land use/land cover (LULC) changes are analyzed to understand patterns of urbanization and environmental transformation. These environmental metrics are correlated with land surface temperature (LST) data derived from remote sensing to quantify the UHI effect. To incorporate the social dimension, a structured questionnaire survey is conducted among residents in selected urban areas. The survey assesses community perceptions of urban heat, its impacts on daily life, health concerns, and coping strategies. Statistical analysis is employed to analyze survey responses, identifying correlations between demographic factors, socioeconomic status, and perceived heat stress. Preliminary findings reveal significant correlations between built-up areas (NDBI) and higher LST, indicating the contribution of urbanization to local warming. Conversely, areas with higher vegetation cover (NDVI) exhibit lower LST, highlighting the cooling effect of green spaces. Social survey results provide insights into how UHI affects different demographic groups, with vulnerable populations experiencing greater heat-related challenges. By integrating remote sensing analysis with statistical modeling and community surveys, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of the environmental and social implications of urban development in semi-arid climates. The findings contribute to evidence-based urban planning strategies that prioritize environmental sustainability and social well-being. Future research should focus on policy recommendations and community engagement initiatives to mitigate UHI impacts and promote climate-resilient urban development.

Keywords: urban heat island, remote sensing, social analysis, NDVI, NDBI, LST, community perception

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Authors: Ali Cheraghian, Farshid Hajati, Soheila Gheisari, Yongsheng Gao

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In this paper, we present a novel 2.5D face recognition method based on Gabor Discrete Cosine Transform (GDCT). In the proposed method, the Gabor filter is applied to extract feature vectors from the texture and the depth information. Then, Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is used for dimensionality and redundancy reduction to improve computational efficiency. The system is combined texture and depth information in the decision level, which presents higher performance compared to methods, which use texture and depth information, separately. The proposed algorithm is examined on publically available Bosphorus database including models with pose variation. The experimental results show that the proposed method has a higher performance compared to the benchmark.

Keywords: Gabor filter, discrete cosine transform, 2.5d face recognition, pose

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Authors: Kailin K. Zhang, Anne W. Thompson

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Electronic learning for continuing professional education (CPE) and interprofessional education (IPE) in healthcare have been shown to improve learners’ satisfaction, attitudes, and performance. Yet, their impact on behavior change in healthcare professionals through continuing interprofessional education (CIPE) is less known. A scoping review of 32 articles from 2010 to 2020 was conducted using the Arksey and O’Malley framework across all healthcare settings. It focused on evaluating the effectiveness of CIPE on behavior change of healthcare professionals, as well as identifying course features of electronic CIPE programs facilitating behavior change. Eight different types of electronic learning methods, including online programs, tele-education, and social media, were identified as interventions. More than 35,542 healthcare professionals participated in the interventions. Electronic learning for CIPE led to positive behavior outcomes in 30 out of 32 studies, especially through a change in patient care practices. The most successful programs provided interactive and authentic learning experiences tailored to learners’ needs while promoting the direct application of what was learned in their clinical settings. Future research should include monitoring of sustained behavior changes and their resultant patient outcomes.

Keywords: behavior change, continuing interprofessional education, distance learning, electronic learning

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Authors: Oludamilare Bode Adewuyi, Yanxia Sun, Isaiah Gbadegesin Adebayo

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Voltage stability analysis is crucial to the reliable and economic operation of power systems. The power system of developing nations is more susceptible to failures due to the continuously increasing load demand, which is not matched with generation increase and efficient transmission infrastructures. Thus, most power systems are heavily stressed, and the planning of extra generation from distributed generation sources needs to be efficiently done so as to ensure the security of the power system. Some voltage stability index-based approach for DG siting has been reported in the literature. However, most of the existing voltage stability indices, though sufficient, are found to be inaccurate, especially for overloaded power systems. In this paper, the performance of a relatively different approach using a line voltage stability margin indicator, which has proven to have better accuracy, has been presented and compared with a conventional line voltage stability index for DG siting using the Nigerian 28 bus system. Critical boundary index (CBI) for voltage stability margin estimation was deployed to identify suitable locations for DG placement, and the performance was compared with DG placement using the Novel Line Stability Index (NLSI) approach. From the simulation results, both CBI and NLSI agreed greatly on suitable locations for DG on the test system; while CBI identified bus 18 as the most suitable at system overload, NLSI identified bus 8 to be the most suitable. Considering the effect of the DG placement at the selected buses on the voltage magnitude profile, the result shows that the DG placed on bus 18 identified by CBI improved the performance of the power system better.

Keywords: voltage stability analysis, voltage collapse, voltage stability index, distributed generation

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Authors: David Suson

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In today's work environment, it becomes harder and harder to attract top talent, motivate them to achieve your goals, create a collaborative work environment and then retain them. It is especially challenging when you have remote employees, manage virtually, have different personalities, ages, work ethics and especially when there is a lure of better opportunities elsewhere. Leaders want results. All the strategies and tactics in the world won't make a difference if your people don't execute and "follow you into battle". The key to better leadership is motivating your teams to want to execute, want to work harder, want to work as a team, all while improving morale. Anyone can force employees by threatening them. This session teaches a 180-degree approach. Objectives/Outcomes: 1. Learn the 3 ways this leadership approach differs from traditional leadership, 2. Use a simple process to increase engagement and loyalty, 3. Implement strategies to drive performance. The approach being taught inspires, motivates, engages, and helps to attract better employees.

Keywords: leadership, success, communication, skills

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Authors: Tiantian Feng

Abstract:

There is a dearth of research on the literary circle as a teaching strategy in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes in Chinese colleges and universities and even fewer empirical studies on its impacts. In this one-quarter, design-based project, the researcher aims to increase students’ engagement, cooperation, and, on top of that, reading comprehension performance by utilizing a researcher-developed, adapted reading circle model in an EFL reading course at a Chinese college. The model also integrated team-based learning and portfolio assessment, with an emphasis on the specialization of individual responsibilities, contributions, and outcomes in reading projects, with the goal of addressing current issues in EFL classes at Chinese colleges, such as passive learning, test orientation, ineffective and uncooperative teamwork, and lack of dynamics. In this quasi-experimental research, two groups of students enrolled in the course were invited to participate in four in-class team projects, with the intervention class following the adapted literature circle model and team members rotating as Leader, Coordinator, Brain trust, and Reporter. The researcher/instructor used a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach to quantitatively analyze the final grades for the pre-and post-tests, as well as individual scores for team projects and will code students' artifacts in the next step, with the results to be reported in a subsequent paper(s). Initial analysis showed that both groups saw an increase in final grades, but the intervention group enjoyed a more significant boost, suggesting that the adapted reading circle model is effective in improving students’ reading comprehension performance. This research not only closes the empirical research gap of literature circles in college EFL classes in China but also adds to the pool of effective ways to optimize reading comprehension performance and class performance in college EFL classes.

Keywords: literature circle, EFL teaching, college english reading, reading comprehension

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Authors: Riya Mishra, Trayambak Tiwari, Anju Lata Singh, I. L. Singh, Tara Singh

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Decrement in vigilance task performance echoes impediment in effortful attention; here attention fluctuated in the realm of external and internal milieu of a person. To examine this fluctuation across time period, we employed two experiments of vigilance task with variation in thought probing rate, which was embedded in the task. The thought probe varies in terms of <2 minute per thought probe and <4 minute per thought probe during vigilance task. A 2x4 repeated measure factorial design was used. 15 individuals participated in this study with an age range of 20-26 years. It was found that thought probing rate has a negative trend with vigilance task performance whereas the subjective measures of mind-wandering have a positive relation with thought probe rate.

Keywords: criterion response, mental status, mind-wandering, thought probe, vigilance

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Authors: Fatemeh Yazdani

Abstract:

This paper explores the student intake policies in high-performing private schools in Iran by studying both sides involved in the school choice processes, parents and the school leaders. It is based on in-depth interviews with 27 parents and private schools’ staff and principals supplemented by ethnographic observation in two private schools in Tehran. From the Bourdieusian point of view, this paper argues that the school leadership engineers the composition of private schools’ students via different gatekeeping strategies, and these strategies represent and reconstruct the school’s institutional habitus. It further explores the ways that parents who look for quality education among non-state education providers deal with the school's institutional habitus based on their familial habitus and possessed economic, social, and cultural capital. The conclusion highlights that investigating school choice as a reciprocal process between family and school leadership can shed more light on the ways that an exclusive environment has been created in some high-performing private schools for certain class strata maintaining a distance that needs to be kept from ‘others.’ In a broader sense, this paper engages into an exploration of social inequality reproduction through private education.

Keywords: institutional habitus, private education, school choice, social inequality, student intake

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Authors: Soumyajit Datta, Jaysmito Mukherjee, Kousik Dasgupta

Abstract:

Class imbalance is a critical challenge in intrusion detection systems, often limiting the effectiveness of classifiers in low-occurrence classes on datasets like CICIDS 2017. We propose a novel approach using Conditional Adversarial Autoencoders (CAAEs) to generate realistic synthetic features for minority classes, enhancing dataset balance and model performance. By formulating binary classification tasks, we evaluated the impact of CAAE-generated data using artificial neural networks (ANNs). Compared to traditional feature generation techniques like SMOTE, CAAEs achieved superior performance even for minority classes with an average F1-Score of 99.38%.

Keywords: intrusion detection systems, feature generation, conditional adversarial autoencoders, SMOTE, CICIDS 2017

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Authors: N. Coskun

Abstract:

Australia has received over 840,000 refugees since its establishment as a federation. Despite the long history of refugee intake, Australia appears to have prolonged problems in refugee education such as academic and social isolations of refugee background students (RBS), the discriminations towards RBS and the high number of RBS drop-outs. This paper examines the place of RBS in educational policies, which can help to identify the problems and set a foundation for solutions. This paper investigates the educational provisions for RBS in three stages. First, the paper identifies the needs of RBS through a comprehensive literature review, using the framework of Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model. Second, the study explores the place of these needs in Australian national and state educational policies which are informed by multiculturalism. The findings conclude that social, academic and psychological needs of RBS hardly find a place in multicultural educational policies. The students and their specific needs are mostly invisible and are placed under a general category of newly arrived immigrants who learn English as a second language. Third, the study explores the possible reasons for the overlook on RBS and their needs with examining the general socio-political context surrounding refugees in Australia. The overall findings suggest that Australian multiculturalism policy in education are inadequate to address RBS' social, academic and psychological needs due to the disadvantaging socio-political context where refugees are placed.

Keywords: Australia, bio-ecological model, multiculturalism, refugee education

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Authors: Hrudaya Kamasani

Abstract:

The cultural prevalence of vigilante justice is sustained through the social sanction for foregoing a judicial trial to determine guilt. Precisely due to its roots in social sanction, it has repercussions as more than just being symptomatic of cultural values that condone violence. In the long term, the practice of vigilante justice as a response to incidents of sexual violence, while veiled in civic discontent over the standards of women’s security in society, can adversely affect the discourse on sexual violence. To illustrate the impact that acts of vigilante justice can have in prematurely ending a budding discourse on sexual violence, the paper reviews three cases of heinous crimes committed against women in India that gained popular attention in the discursive spaces. The 2012 Nirbhaya rape and murder case in Delhi demonstrates how the criminal justice system can spur a social movement and can result in legislative changes and a discourse that challenged a wide range of socio-cultural issues of women’s security and treatment. The paper compares it with two incidents of sexual violence in India that ended with the suspects being killed in the name of vigilante justice that had wide social sanction. The two cases are the 2019 extrajudicial killing of Priyanka Reddy rape and murder case suspects in Hyderabad and the 2015 mob lynching of an accused in a rape case in Dimapur. The paper explains why the absence of judicial trials in sexual violence cases results in ending any likelihood of the instances inspiring civic engagement with the discourse on sexual violence.

Keywords: sexual violence, vigilante justice, extrajudicial killing, cultural values of violence, Nirbhaya rape case, mob violence

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Authors: Teklay Tesfay, Gebreyesus Brhane Tesfahunegn, Abadi Berhane, Selemawit Girmay

Abstract:

Adjusting the proper sowing date of a crop at a particular location with a changing climate is an essential management option to maximize crop yield. However, determining the optimum sowing date for rainfed maize production through field experimentation requires repeated trials for many years in different weather conditions and crop management. To avoid such long-term experimentation to determine the optimum sowing date, crop models such as AquaCrop are useful. Therefore, the overall objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of AquaCrop model in simulating maize productivity under varying sowing dates. A field experiment was conducted for two consecutive cropping seasons by deploying four maize seed sowing dates in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Input data required to run this model are stored as climate, crop, soil, and management files in the AquaCrop database and adjusted through the user interface. Observed data from separate field experiments was used to calibrate and validate the model. AquaCrop model was validated for its performance in simulating the green canopy and aboveground biomass of maize for the varying sowing dates based on the calibrated parameters. Results of the present study showed that there was a good agreement (an overall R2 =, Ef= d= RMSE =) between measured and simulated values of the canopy cover and biomass yields. Considering the overall values of the statistical test indicators, the performance of the model to predict maize growth and biomass yield was successful, and so this is a valuable tool help for decision-making. Hence, this calibrated and validated model is suggested to use for determining optimum maize crop sowing date for similar climate and soil conditions to the study area, instead of conducting long-term experimentation.

Keywords: AquaCrop model, calibration, validation, simulation

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