Search results for: emotion situation knowledge

Authors: Sehrish Khan

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The present study investigated the attitude of university students towards semester system and teachers with a specific objective of finding problems faced by students in semester system. 10 focus group discussions were conducted among students in five Universities of Hazara Division of KPK regarding their knowledge and attitudes about semester system and problems they faced due to this system and teacher’s attitude. The key findings were the problems like favoritism, gender biased ness, racial biased ness, biased ness in marking, relative marking, harassment, using students for personal tasks and authoritarian attitude from teachers’ side and the heavy tasks in less time which are causing stress among students. It was recommended that proper training and monitoring system should be maintained for evaluation of teachers to minimize the corruption in this sacred profession and maximize the optimal functioning. The information gathered in this research can be used to develop training modules for University teachers.

Keywords: university teachers, favoritism, biasedness, harassment

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Authors: Aarti Muley

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An ancient Vedic philosophy defines the three basic gods i.e Bramha, Vishnu and Shiva. Bramha is known as a supreme god and responsible for creating a universe. Vedic scriptures have not given the direct description of Lord Bramha but with the name Hiranyagarbha Rig Veda describes Bramha. Vedas, Bhagwat Gita, Mahabharata describes Bramha and modern science has found that many theories and principle is directly related with the life of Lord Bramha but there is no direct explanation and evidence regarding a planet Bramhaloka or also called as Satyaloka. Neither the ancient scriptures nor the Indian astrology which is based on the motion of the planet have given any evidence to the planet Bramhaloka directly. In this paper, the efforts have been made to study who is god Bramha and the planet Bramhaloka from Vedic scriptures and using the theories of modern science it has been found that it has strong resemblance with the star Sun. To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first report which gives the explanation that the lord Bramha’s planet Bramhaloka and the Sun is one and the same.

Keywords: God Bramha, ancient scriptures, cosmic theory, scientific explanation

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Authors: Samba Raju, Chiluveru, Manoj Tripathy

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Intelligibility is an essential characteristic of a speech signal, which is used to help in the understanding of information in speech signal. Background noise in the environment can deteriorate the intelligibility of a recorded speech. In this paper, we presented a simple variance subtracted - variable level discrete wavelet transform, which improve the intelligibility of speech. The proposed algorithm does not require an explicit estimation of noise, i.e., prior knowledge of the noise; hence, it is easy to implement, and it reduces the computational burden. The proposed algorithm decides a separate decomposition level for each frame based on signal dominant and dominant noise criteria. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated with speech intelligibility measure (STOI), and results obtained are compared with Universal Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) thresholding and Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) methods. The experimental results revealed that the proposed scheme outperformed competing methods

Keywords: discrete wavelet transform, speech intelligibility, STOI, standard deviation

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Authors: Tryastuti I. B. Manullang, Juang Sunanto

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This study aimed to find the perspectives of the Toba Batak education stakeholders towards the education of children with disabilities in Toba Samosir North Sumatra Indonesia. The education stakeholders consist of a head of the education department in Toba Samosir, head of the H foundation, two principals and three teachers from the Special Primary Schools. This study uses qualitative a descriptive approach and research data obtained through interviews. The results of this study demonstrate that the education stakeholders knowledge about disabilities needs improvement in accordance with the development of science. The cultural views towards disability and its implications, and the education services available for children with disabilities, in addition, to encountered its problem in Toba Samosir are known. The education concept considered appropriate is the special school and the CBR (Community Based Rehabilitation) strategy, also inclusive education because it represents the Toba Batak philosophy.

Keywords: community based rehabilitation, education concept, education stakeholders, inclusive education

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Authors: A. Bentabet, A. Aydin, N. Fenineche

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The mean penetration depth has a most important in the absorption transport phenomena. Analytical model of light ion backscattering coefficients from solid targets have been made by Vicanek and Urbassek. In the present work, we showed a mathematical expression (deterministic model) for Z1/2. In advantage, in the best of our knowledge, relatively only one analytical model exit for electron or positron mean penetration depth in solid targets. In this work, we have presented a simple geometric spherical model of absorbed particles based on CSDA scheme. In advantage, we have showed an analytical expression of the mean penetration depth by combination between our model and the Vicanek and Urbassek theory. For this, we have used the Relativistic Partial Wave Expansion Method (RPWEM) and the optical dielectric model to calculate the elastic cross sections and the ranges respectively. Good agreement was found with the experimental and theoretical data.

Keywords: Bentabet spherical geometric model, continuous slowing down approximation, stopping powers, ranges, mean penetration depth

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Authors: Barbora Haltofová

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In recent years, citizens have become an important source of geographic information and, therefore, geo-crowdsourcing, often known as volunteered geographic information, has provided an interesting alternative to traditional mapping practices which are becoming expensive, resource-intensive and unable to capture the dynamic nature of urban environments. In order to address a gap in research literature, this paper deals with a survey conducted to assess the current state of geo-crowdsourcing, a recent phenomenon popular with people who collect geographic information using their smartphones. This article points out that there is an increasing body of knowledge of geo-crowdsourcing mobile applications in the Visegrad countries marked by the ubiquitous Internet connection and the current massive proliferation of smartphones. This article shows how geo-crowdsourcing can be used as a complement, or in some cases a replacement, to traditionally generated sources of spatial data and information in public management. It discusses the new spaces of citizen participation constructed by these geo-crowdsourcing practices.

Keywords: citizen participation, e-Government, geo-crowdsourcing, participatory mapping, mobile applications

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Authors: M. D. D. Chathurangi, M. G. K. Nayanathara, K. M. H. M. M. Gunapala, G. M. R. G. Dayananda, Kavinga Yapa Abeywardena, Deemantha Siriwardana

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Due to the growing popularity of social media platforms at present, there are various concerns, mostly cyberbullying, spam, bot accounts, and the spread of incorrect information. To develop a risk score calculation system as a thorough method for deciphering and exposing unethical social media profiles, this research explores the most suitable algorithms to our best knowledge in detecting the mentioned concerns. Various multiple models, such as Naïve Bayes, CNN, KNN, Stochastic Gradient Descent, Gradient Boosting Classifier, etc., were examined, and the best results were taken into the development of the risk score system. For cyberbullying, the Logistic Regression algorithm achieved an accuracy of 84.9%, while the spam-detecting MLP model gained 98.02% accuracy. The bot accounts identifying the Random Forest algorithm obtained 91.06% accuracy, and 84% accuracy was acquired for fake news detection using SVM.

Keywords: cyberbullying, spam behavior, bot accounts, fake news, machine learning

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Authors: S. M. A. Al-Qawabah, A. I. O. Zaid

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Aluminum and its alloys are versatile materials which are widely used in industrial and engineering applications due to their good and useful properties e.g. high strength to weight ratio, high thermal and electrical conductivities and good resistance to corrosion. However, against these favorable properties they have the disadvantage they solidifying large grain columnar structure which negatively affects their mechanical properties and surface quality. Aluminum alloys are normally grain refined by some alloying elements, such as Ti, Ti-B or Zr. In this paper, the effect of zirconium addition to Al grain refined by Ti after extrusion on its wear resistance is investigated under different loads and sliding speeds namely at 5,10 and 20 N loads and sliding speeds ranging from m/min. and m/min. the results are presented in three-dimensional wear mode. To the best the authors' knowledge, the wear of aluminum in 3-dimensions has never been tackled before. In this work, the wear resistance of by presenting the results of wear are presented and discussed on the time, load and speed plots.

Keywords: aluminum grain refined, addition of titanium, wear resistance, titanium

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Authors: Lukas Kober, Vladimir Littva, Vladimir Siska

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The pandemic has had a significant impact on our lives. One of the most affected professions is the nursing profession. Nurses are closest to the patient, spend the most time with him, support him, often replace the closest family members, and of course, are part of the whole treatment process. Current nurses have more competencies and roles than in the past. The healthcare system has reached a turning point, also in connection with the spreading Delta variant and the risk of the arrival of the third wave. The lack of nurses is a long-term problem, but it did not arise by itself. The reasons for the departure of nurses from the health care system are not only due to the increasing average age of nurses and midwives in Slovakia and their retirement. Thousands of nurses are leaving due to poor working conditions, low wages, and poor management of individual workplaces. We need to keep older nurses in the health care system, otherwise, we risk their early departure. The pandemic only exacerbates this situation, and the associated risks, such as occupational infections or enormous overload and exhaustion, only accelerate the exit from the profession. According to current data from the register of nurses and midwives, we canceled 772 registrations from January to September 2021, and 584 nurses requested the suspension of registration due to non-performance of the profession. During the same period, we registered only 240 new nurses graduate. We have had this significant disparity here for a long time. For the whole of 2020, we canceled 911 registrations and suspended 973 registrations. We registered a total of 389 graduates. Our system loses hundreds of graduates a year and loses experienced nurses with decades of experience who leave due to poor working conditions, wages and suffer from burnout. Such compensation should also be awarded to the families of health professionals who have lost their lives due to work and to COVID-19. These options can also be motivating for promising people interested in studying nursing, who can gradually replace the missing workforce. This purchase is supported by the KEGA project no. 015KU-4/2019.

Keywords: pandemic, COVID-19, nursing, nursing workforce, lack of nurses

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Authors: Ali Allahverdi, Harun Aydilek, Asiye Aydilek

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The two stage assembly flowshop scheduling problem has lots of application in real life. To the best of our knowledge, the two stage assembly flowshop scheduling problem with total tardiness performance measure and separate setup times has not been addressed so far, and hence, it is addressed in this paper. Different dominance relations are developed and several algorithms are proposed. Extensive computational experiments are conducted to evaluate the proposed algorithms. The computational experiments have shown that one of the algorithms performs much better than the others. Moreover, the experiments have shown that the best performing algorithm performs much better than the best existing algorithm for the case of zero setup times in the literature. Therefore, the proposed best performing algorithm not only can be used for problems with separate setup times but also for the case of zero setup times.

Keywords: scheduling, assembly flowshop, total tardiness, algorithm

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Authors: Smita Chaudhary

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Traffic in India are observed uncontrolled, and are characterized by chaotic (not follows the lane discipline) traffic situation. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has emerged as a viable option to enhance transportation capacity and provide increased levels of mobility and accessibility. At present in Ahmadabad there are as many intersections which face the congestion and delay at signalized intersection due to transit (BRT) lanes. Most of the intersection in spite of being signalized is operated manually due to the conflict between BRT buses and heterogeneous traffic. Though BRTS in Ahmadabad has an exclusive lane of its own but with this comes certain limitations which Ahmadabad is facing right now. At many intersections in Ahmadabad due to these conflicts, interference, and congestion both heterogeneous traffic as well as transit buses suffer traffic delays of remarkable 3-4 minutes at each intersection which has a become an issue of great concern. There is no provision of BRT bus priority due to which existing signals have their least role to play in managing the traffic that ultimately call for manual operation. There is an immense decrement in the daily ridership of BRTS because people are finding this transit mode no more time saving in their routine, there is an immense fall in ridership ultimately leading to increased number of private vehicles, idling of vehicles at intersection cause air and noise pollution. In order to bring back these commuters’ transit facilities need to be improvised. Classified volume count survey, travel time delay survey was conducted and revised signal design was done for whole study stretch having three intersections and one roundabout, later one intersection was simulated in order to see the effect of giving priority to BRT on side street queue length and travel time for heterogeneous traffic. This paper aims at suggesting the recommendations in signal cycle, introduction of intermittent priority for transit buses, simulation of intersection in study stretch with proposed signal cycle using VISSIM in order to make this transit amenity feasible and attracting for commuters in Ahmadabad.

Keywords: BRT, priority, Ridership, Signal, VISSIM

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Authors: Anshu Gupta, Charu Gupta

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Background: Punjab, a border state in India has achieved notoriety world over for its drug abuse problem. People right from school kids to elderly are hooked to drugs. This pattern of substance abuse is prevalent in both cities and villages alike. Excess of younger population in India has further aggravated the situation. It is feared that the benefits of India’s economic growth may well be negated by the rising substance abuse especially in this part of the country. It is quite evident that the pattern of substance abuse tends to change over time which is an impediment in the formulation of effective strategies to tackle this issue. Aim: Purpose of the study was to ascertain the change in the pattern of drug abuse for two consecutive years in the out patient department (OPD) population. Method: The study population comprised of all the patients reporting for deaddiction to the psychiatry outpatient department over a period of twelve months for two consecutive years. All the patients were evaluated by the International Classification of Diseases; 10 criteria for substance abuse/dependence. Results: A considerably high prevalence of substance abuse was present in the Indian population. In general, there was an increase in prevalence from first to the second year, especially among the female population. Increase in prevalence of substance abuse appeared to be more prominent among the younger age group of both the sexes. A significant increase in intravenous drug abuse was observed. Peer pressure and parental imitation were the major factors fueling substance abuse. Precipitation or fear of withdrawal symptoms was the major factor preventing abstinence. Substance abuse had a significant effect on the health and interpersonal relations of these patients. Summary/Conclusion: Drug abuse and addiction are on the rise throughout India. Changing cultural values, increasing economic stress and dwindling supportive bonds appear to be leading to initiation of substance abuse. Need of the hour is to formulate a comprehensive strategy to bring about an overall reduction in the use of drugs.

Keywords: deaddiction, peer pressure, parental imitation, substance abuse/dependance

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Authors: Mark Heads, Carrie Adamson

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Introduction This study evaluated the educational merits of the teaching activities of ‘Sheffield Anatomy Society,’ a student society with minimal faculty oversight which delivers near peer teaching in a range of formats to support students in their revision. Near peer, teaching is defined as teaching delivered by more senior students who have themselves recently completed the course content. This study was conducted between early April and late May 2022. This programme aims to improve student knowledge of anatomy, increase student confidence in their anatomy learning and cultivate a sense of community. The sessions were delivered by more senior medical students and by medical students undertaking an intercalated Master's degree in Human Anatomy with Education. Background: The majority of studies concerning near peer teaching focus on faculty designed programmes. Few studies have examined entirely student led near peer teaching of anatomy. Existing studies have been favourable but have limited qualitative examination of the benefits and weaknesses of near peer teaching. Various drawbacks have been proposed in the literature but not extensively investigated in practice. This study examines student led near peer anatomy teaching across a range of formats and considers these proposed criticisms. Methods: The teaching series consisted of 11 online lectures, a small group teaching session, two in person mock spotter examinations, and an online mock examination. Feedback forms were given for each session, and follow up interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis utilising an interpretivist epistemology was conducted on the feedback form responses and interview transcripts. Findings: 207 first year medical students, 34 second year biomedical science students, and 12 third year biomedical science students completed one or more feedback forms following these sessions, with 875 responses being collected in total. Six interviews were conducted. 99.5% of respondents said that they would recommend these sessions to other students. The quantitative results ranged from a mean of 4.6-4.8/5 per session when asked to rate how useful the students found it. Qualitative: analysis yielded numerous strengths and some weaknesses of the programme. The most commonly cited strength was that students found the explanations readily comprehensible. Students also praised the interactive nature of the sessions, with students frequently saying they felt more able to engage with interactive elements and ask questions in these sessions than in faculty teaching. Students did, however, raise some issues. The most common drawback students mentioned was a desire for more help preparing for their examinations, especially more examination style questions. Criticisms of the teaching itself were less prominent and typically reflected time constraints and limited resources. Conclusions : This study suggests student organised near peer teaching, utilising interactive online lectures, small group teaching, and mock examinations, can be an effective method for supporting students studying anatomy. Students reported improvements in their knowledge as a result of the sessions, greater confidence approaching their examinations, and this programme has helped foster an environment where students feel able to ask questions outside of sessions and even get involved with teaching themselves the following academic year.

Keywords: medical education, near peer teaching, anatomy teaching, online learning

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Authors: Daniel Schwarz, Jan Fivaz, Alessia Neuroni

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Although digitization is a buzzword in almost every election campaign, the political parties leave voters largely in the dark about their specific positions on digital issues. In the run-up to the 2019 elections in Switzerland, the ‘Digitization Monitor’ project (DMP) was launched in order to change this situation. Within the framework of the DMP, all 4,736 candidates were surveyed about their digital policy positions and values. The DMP is designed as a digital policy supplement to the existing ‘smartvote’ voting advice application. This enabled a direct comparison of the digital policy attitudes according to the DMP with the topics of the ‘smartvote’ questionnaire which are comprehensive in content but mainly related to conventional policy areas. This paper’s main research goal is to analyze and visualize possible differences between conventional and digital policy areas in terms of response patterns between and within political parties. The analysis is based on dimensionality reduction methods (multidimensional scaling and principal component analysis) for the visualization of inter-party differences, and on standard deviation as a measure of variation for the evaluation of intra-party unity. The results reveal that digital issues show a lower degree of inter-party polarization compared to conventional policy areas. Thus, the parties have more common ground in issues on digitization than in conventional policy areas. In contrast, the study reveals a mixed picture regarding intra-party unity. Homogeneous parties show a lower degree of unity in digitization issues whereas parties with heterogeneous positions in conventional areas have more united positions in digital areas. All things considered, the findings are encouraging as less polarized conditions apply to the debate on digital development compared to conventional politics. For the future, it would be desirable if in further countries similar projects to the DMP could emerge to broaden the basis for conclusions.

Keywords: comparison of political issue dimensions, digital awareness of candidates, digital policy space, party positions on digital issues

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Authors: Niracha Chompurach, Dararat Khampusaen

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EFL students have to be able to synthesize the texts they are reading critically to compose and connect the information. This study focuses on the effects of the application of Infographics as a supplementary tool to improve Thai EFL students’ Academic reading skills. Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, and knowledge offering students to work on gathering multiple types of information, such as pictures, texts, graphs, mapping, and charts. The study aims to investigate if the Infographics as a supplementary tool in academic reading lessons can make a difference in students’ reading skills, and the students’ opinions toward the application of infographics as a reading tool. The participants of this study were 3rd year Thai EFL Khon Kaen University students who took English Academic Reading course. This study employed Infographics assignments, Infographics rubric, and Gucus group interview. This study would advantage for both EFL teachers and students as a means to engage the students to handle the larger load of and represents the complex information in visible and comprehensible way.

Keywords: EFL, e-learning, infographics, language education

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Authors: Benjawan Tipprachaban

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This research aims to investigate mistakes in translation, particularly from Thai to English, which cause translation problems for undergraduate students in Thailand. The researcher had the non-English major students of Suratthani Rajabhat University as samples. The data were collected by having 27 non-English major students translate 50 Thai sentences into English. After the translation, lots of mistakes were found and the researcher categorized them into 3 main types which were the grammatical mistake, the usage mistake, and the spelling mistake. However, this research is currently in the process of analyzing the data and shall be completed in August. The researcher, nevertheless, predicts that, of all the mistakes, the grammatical mistake will principally be made, the usage mistake and the spelling one respectively, which will support the researcher’s hypothesizes, i.e. 1) the grammatical mistake, mainly caused by language transfer, essentially leads to considerable translation problems; 2) the usage mistake is another critical problem that causes translation problems; 3) basic knowledge in Thai to English translation of undergraduate students in Thailand is at low level.

Keywords: English, language, Thai, translation

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Authors: M. B. Ahmadi, A. A. Kaffash B., B. Mobaraki

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Slump loss, which refers to the gradual reduction of workability and the amount of slump in fresh concrete over time, is one of the significant challenges in the ready-mixed concrete industry. Therefore, having accurate knowledge of the factors affecting slump loss is a crucial solution in this field. In this paper, an attempt was made to investigate the effect of cement produced by different units on the slump of concrete in a laboratory setting. For this purpose, 12 cement samples were prepared from 6 different production units. Physical and chemical tests were performed on the cement samples. Subsequently, a laboratory concrete mix with a slump of 13 ± 1 cm was prepared with each cement sample, and the slump was measured at 0, 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes. Although the environmental factors, mix design specifications, and execution conditions—factors that significantly influence the slump loss trend—were constant in all 12 laboratory concrete mixes, the slump loss trends differed among them. These trends were categorized based on the results, and the relationship between the slump loss percentage in 60 minutes, the water-cement ratio, and the LOI and K2O values of different cements were introduced.

Keywords: concrete, slump loss, portland cement, efficiency

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Authors: L.Vaz, L. Ferreira, R. Aparício, J. Pedro, M. Franco

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This article concerns a qualitative analysis, through an interview, regarding “Sustainability Adoption Barriers in SMEs.” To begin with, the article provides a state-of-the-art overview through fifty-seven articles initially extracted from the Scopus database. The articles were analyzed, and four main clusters emerged in the literature: 1) sustainability and small and medium-sized companies; 2) sustainable business models; 3) sustainability practices adoption procedures, and 4) adoption difficulties on sustainability practices. Utilizing interviews as a methodology, the article seeks to strengthen knowledge regarding sustainability practices, their barriers and the sustainable procedures adopted by SMEs in a Portuguese context. The results demonstrate that the literature agrees with this case study, where there are numerous sustainable practices, yet, due to financial, political, cultural, and technological factors, barriers emerge in the adoption process. By comparing the literature findings with the conducted interviews of interior Portuguese SMEs, this article develops a contribution to the scientific community through a captivating, intuitive and motivating way.

Keywords: barriers, practices, business model, green

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Authors: Debabrata Biswas

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The current trend in the development of antibiotic resistance by multiple bacterial pathogens has resulted in a troubling loss of effective antibiotic options for human. The emergence of multi-drug-resistant pathogens has necessitated higher dosages and combinations of multiple antibiotics, further exacerbating the problem of antibiotic resistance. Zoonotic bacterial pathogens, such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (such as enterohaemorrhagic E. coli or EHEC), and Listeria are the most common and predominant foodborne enteric infectious agents. It was observed that these pathogens gained/developed their ability to survive in the presence of antibiotics either in farm animal gut or farm environment and researchers believe that therapeutic and sub-therapeutic antibiotic use in farm animal production might play an important role in it. The mechanism of action of antimicrobial components used in farm animal production in genomic interplay in the gut and farm environment, has not been fully characterized. Even the risk of promoting the exchange of mobile genetic elements between microbes specifically pathogens needs to be evaluated in depth, to ensure sustainable farm animal production, safety of our food and to mitigate/limit the enteric infection with multiple antibiotic resistant bacterial pathogens. Due to the consumer’s demand and considering the current emerging situation, many countries are in process to withdraw antibiotic use in farm animal production. Before withdrawing use of the sub-therapeutic antibiotic or restricting the use of therapeutic antibiotics in farm animal production, it is essential to find alternative natural antimicrobials for promoting the growth of farm animal and/or treating animal diseases. Further, it is also necessary to consider whether that compound(s) has the potential to trigger the acquisition or loss of genetic materials in zoonotic and any other bacterial pathogens. Development of alternative therapeutic and sub-therapeutic antimicrobials for farm animal production and food processing and preservation and their effective implementation for sustainable strategies for farm animal production as well as the possible risk for horizontal gene transfer in major enteric pathogens will be focus in the study.

Keywords: food safety, natural antimicrobial, sustainable farming, antibiotic resistance

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Authors: Carly Madge, Melanie Zurba, Ryan Bullock

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The Boreal Forest has experienced some of the most drastic climate change-induced temperature rises in Canada, with average winter temperatures increasing by 3°C since 1948. One of the main concerns of the province of Saskatchewan, and particularly wildfire managers, is the increased risk of wildfires due to climate change. With these concerns in mind Sakaw Askiy Management Inc., a forestry corporation located in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan with operations in the Boreal Forest biome, is developing wildfire risk reduction strategies that are supported by the shareholders of the corporation as well as the stakeholders of the Prince Albert Forest Management Area (which includes citizens, hunters, trappers, cottage owners, and outfitters). In the past, wildfire management strategies implemented through harvesting have been received with skepticism by some community members of Prince Albert. Engagement of the stakeholders of the Prince Albert Management Area through the development of the wildfire risk reduction strategies aims to reduce this skepticism and rebuild some of the trust that has been lost between industry and community. This research project works with the framework of social learning, which is defined as the learning that occurs when individuals come together to form a group with the purpose of understanding environmental challenges and determining appropriate responses to them. The project evaluates the social learning processes that occur through the development of the risk reduction strategies and how the learning has allowed Sakaw to work towards implementing the strategies into their forest harvesting plans. The incorporation of wildfire risk reduction strategies works to increase the adaptive capacity of Sakaw, which in this case refers to the ability to adjust to climate change, moderate potential damages, take advantage of opportunities, and cope with consequences. Using semi-structured interviews and wildfire workshop meetings shareholders and stakeholders shared their knowledge of wildfire, their main wildfire concerns, and changes they would like to see made in the Prince Albert Forest Management Area. Interviews and topics discussed in the workshops were inductively coded for themes related to learning, adaptive capacity, areas of concern, and preferred methods of wildfire risk reduction strategies. Analysis determined that some of the learning that has occurred has resulted through social interactions and the development of networks oriented towards wildfire and wildfire risk reduction strategies. Participants have learned new knowledge and skills regarding wildfire risk reduction. The formation of wildfire networks increases access to information on wildfire and the social capital (trust and strengthened relations) of wildfire personnel. Both factors can be attributed to increases in adaptive capacity. Interview results were shared with the General Manager of Sakaw, where the areas of concern and preferred strategies of wildfire risk reduction will be considered and accounted for in the implementation of new harvesting plans. This research also augments the growing conceptual and empirical evidence of the important role of learning and networks in regional wildfire risk management efforts.

Keywords: adaptive capacity, community-engagement, social learning, wildfire risk reduction

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Authors: Phalaunnaphat Siriwongs

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The classroom of the 21st century is an ever-changing forum for new and innovative thoughts and ideas. With increasing technology and opportunity, students have rapid access to information that only decades ago would have taken weeks to obtain. Unfortunately, new techniques and technology are not a cure for the fundamental problems that have plagued the classroom ever since education was established. Class size has been an issue long debated in academia. While it is difficult to pinpoint an exact number, it is clear that in this case, more does not mean better. By looking into the success and pitfalls of classroom size, the true advantages of smaller classes becomes clear. Previously, one class was comprised of 50 students. Since they were seventeen- and eighteen-year-old students, it was sometimes quite difficult for them to stay focused. To help students understand and gain much knowledge, a researcher introduced “The Theory of Multiple Intelligence” and this, in fact, enabled students to learn according to their own learning preferences no matter how they were being taught. In this lesson, the researcher designed a cycle of learning activities involving all intelligences so that everyone had equal opportunities to learn.

Keywords: multiple intelligences, role play, performance assessment, formative assessment

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Authors: N. Moazami, R. Ranjbar, A. Ashori

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Out of hundreds of microalgal strains reported, only very few of them are capable for production of high content of lipid. Therefore, the key technical challenges include identifying the strains with the highest growth rates and oil contents with adequate composition, which were the main aims of this work. From 147 microalgae screened for high biomass and oil productivity, the Nannochloropsis sp. PTCC 6016, which attained 52% lipid content, was selected for large scale cultivation in Persian Gulf Knowledge Island. Nannochloropsis strain PTCC 6016 belongs to Eustigmatophyceae (Phylum heterokontophyta) isolated from Mangrove forest area of Qheshm Island and Persian Gulf (Iran) in 2008. The strain PTCC 6016 had an average biomass productivity of 2.83 g/L/day and 52% lipid content. The biomass productivity and the oil production potential could be projected to be more than 200 tons biomass and 100000 L oil per hectare per year, in an outdoor algal culture (300 day/year) in the Persian Gulf climate.

Keywords: biofuels, microalgae, Nannochloropsis, raceway open pond, bio-jet

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Authors: Hamed Hakim, Roderic Archambault, Charles J. Kibert, Maryam Mirhadi Fard

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Changes in the patterns of life in the late 20th and early 21st century have created new challenges for educational systems. Greening the physical environment of school buildings has emerged as a response to some of those challenges and led to the design of energy efficient K-12 school buildings. With the advancement in knowledge and technology, the successful construction of Net Zero Energy Schools, such as the Lady Bird Johnson Middle School demonstrates a cutting edge generation of sustainable schools, and solves the former challenge of attaining energy self-sufficient educational facilities. There are approximately twenty net zero energy K-12 schools in the U.S. of which about six are located in Climate Zone 5 and 6 based on ASHRAE climate zone classification. This paper aims to describe and analyze the current status of energy efficient and NZE schools in Canada. An attempt is made to study existing U.S. energy neutral strategies closest to the climate zones in Canada (zones 5 and 6) and identify the best practices for Canadian schools.

Keywords: Canada K-12 schools, green school, energy efficient, net-zero energy schools

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Authors: Luigina Mortari, Alessia Bevilacqua, Roberta Silva

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The experience presented in this paper aims to understand how educational research can support the introduction and optimization of teaching innovations in legal education. In this increasingly complex context, a strong need to introduce paths aimed at acquiring not only professional knowledge and skills but also transversal such as reflective, critical, and problem-solving skills emerges. Through a peer observation intertwined with an analysis of discursive practices, researchers and the teacher worked together through a process of participatory and transformative accompaniment whose objective was to promote the active participation and engagement of students in learning processes, an element indispensable to work in the more specific direction of strengthening key competences. This reflective faculty development path led the teacher to activate metacognitive processes, becoming thus aware of the strengths and areas of improvement of his teaching innovation.

Keywords: legal education, teaching innovation, peer observation, discursive analysis, faculty development

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Authors: Innocent Atuhe, Babra Nalwadda, Grace Mulyowa, Annabella Habinka Ejiri

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Background: Atopic Dermatitis (AD) is one of the most prevalent and growing chronic inflammatory skin diseases in African prisons. AD care is limited in African due to a lack of information about the disease amongst primary care workers, limited access to dermatologists, lack of proper training of healthcare workers, and shortage of appropriate treatments. We designed and implemented the Prisons Telederma project based on the recommendations of the International Society of Atopic Dermatitis. We aimed at; i) increase awareness and understanding of teledermatology among prison health workers and ii) improve treatment outcomes of prisoners with atopic dermatitis through increased access to and utilization of consultant dermatologists through teledermatology in Uganda prisons. Approach: We used Store-and-forward Teledermatology (SAF-TD) to increase access to dermatologist-led care for prisoners and prison staff with AD. We conducted five days of training for prison health workers using an adapted WHO training guide on recognizing neglected tropical diseases through changes on the skin together with an adapted American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Childhood AD Basic Dermatology Curriculum designed to help trainees develop a clinical approach to the evaluation and initial management of patients with AD. This training was followed by blended e-learning, webinars facilitated by consultant Dermatologists with local knowledge of medication and local practices, apps adjusted for pigmented skin, WhatsApp group discussions, and sharing pigmented skin AD pictures and treatment via zoom meetings. We hired a team of Ugandan Senior Consultant dermatologists to draft an iconographic atlas of the main dermatoses in pigmented African skin and shared this atlas with prison health staff for use as a job aid. We had planned to use MySkinSelfie mobile phone application to take and share skin pictures of prisoners with AD with Consultant Dermatologists, who would review the pictures and prescribe appropriate treatment. Unfortunately, the National Health Service withdrew the app from the market due to technical issues. We monitored and evaluated treatment outcomes using the Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM) tool. We held four advocacy meetings to persuade relevant stakeholders to increase supplies and availability of first-line AD treatments such as emollients in prison health facilities. Results: We have the very first iconographic atlas of the main dermatoses in pigmented African skin. We increased; i) the proportion of prison health staff with adequate knowledge of AD and teledermatology from 20% to 80%; ii) the proportion of prisoners with AD reporting improvement in disease severity (POEM scores) from 25% to 35% in one year; iii) increased proportion of prisoners with AD seen by consultant dermatologist through teledermatology from 0% to 20% in one year and iv)Increased the availability of AD recommended treatments in prisons health facilities from 5% to 10% in one year. Our study contributes to the use, evaluation, and verification of the use of teledermatology to increase access to specialist dermatology services to the most hard to reach areas and vulnerable populations such as that of prisoners.

Keywords: teledermatology, prisoners, reaching, un-reachable

Procedia PDF Downloads 93

Authors: Samanik

Abstract:

This writing is correlated with English teaching material development, Contextual Teaching Learning (CTL). CTL is believed to facilitate students with real world challenge. Contextual Teaching and Learning is identified as a promising strategy that actively engages students and promotes skills development. It is based on the notion that learning can only occur when students are able to connect between content and context. It also helps teachers link between the materials taught with real-world situations and encourage students to make connection between the knowledge possessed by its application. Besides, it directs students to be critical and analytical. In accordance, this paper looks for the opportunity to improve EFL learners’ English speaking skill through tour guide presentation. A single case study will be conducted to highlight EFL learners’ experience of doing tour guide presentation in the English class room setting. The writer assumes that CLT will contribute positively to EFL learners’ English speaking skill.

Keywords: English speaking skill, contextual teaching learning, tour guide presentation

Procedia PDF Downloads 255

Authors: Lucas Paganin, Viliam Makis

Abstract:

With the advent of globalization, the market competition has become a major issue for most companies. One of the main strategies to overcome this situation is the quality improvement of the product at a lower cost to meet customers’ expectations. In order to achieve the desired quality of products, it is important to control the process to meet the specifications, and to implement the optimal maintenance policy for the machines and the production lines. Thus, the overall objective is to reduce process variation and the production and maintenance costs. In this paper, an integrated model involving Statistical Process Control (SPC) and maintenance is developed to achieve this goal. Therefore, the main focus of this paper is to develop the jointly optimal maintenance and statistical process control policy minimizing the total long run expected average cost per unit time. In our model, the production process can go out of control due to either the deterioration of equipment or other assignable causes. The equipment is also subject to failures in any of the operating states due to deterioration and aging. Hence, the process mean is controlled by an Xbar control chart using equidistant sampling epochs. We assume that the machine inspection epochs are the times when the control chart signals an out-of-control condition, considering both true and false alarms. At these times, the production process will be stopped, and an investigation will be conducted not only to determine whether it is a true or false alarm, but also to identify the causes of the true alarm, whether it was caused by the change in the machine setting, by other assignable causes, or by both. If the system is out of control, the proper actions will be taken to bring it back to the in-control state. At these epochs, a maintenance action can be taken, which can be no action, or preventive replacement of the unit. When the equipment is in the failure state, a corrective maintenance action is performed, which can be minimal repair or replacement of the machine and the process is brought to the in-control state. SMDP framework is used to formulate and solve the joint control problem. Numerical example is developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the control policy.

Keywords: maintenance, semi-Markov decision process, statistical process control, Xbar control chart

Procedia PDF Downloads 82

Authors: C. F. Popoola, K. Akinsanya, S. B. Babarinde, D. A. Farinde

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This study investigated published financial statement as correlate of investment decision among commercial bank stakeholders in Nigeria. A correlation research design was used in the study. 180 users of published financial statement were purposively sampled from Lagos and Ibadan. Data generated were analyzed using Pearson correlation and regression. The findings of the study revealed that, balance sheet is negatively related with investment decision (r=-.483; p < .01) while income statement (r= .249; p < .001), notes on the account (r= .230; p < .001), cash flow statement (r= .202; p < .001), value added statement (r= .328; p < .001) and five-year financial summary (r= .191 ;p < .01) are positively related with investment decision. Findings also revealed that components of published financial statement significantly predicted good investment decision (R2= .983; F(5,175)=284.5; p < .05) for commercial bank stakeholders. Therefore, it was suggested that Nigeria banks and professional bodies should instigate programs that will increase the knowledge of stakeholders on published financial statement.

Keywords: commercial banks, financial statement, income statement, investment decision, stakeholders

Procedia PDF Downloads 450

Authors: Smail Boussaadi, Hassina Aliane

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With the rapid growth of scientific literature, it is becoming increasingly challenging for researchers to keep up with the latest findings in their fields. Academic, professional networks play an essential role in connecting researchers and disseminating knowledge. To improve the user experience within these networks, we need effective article recommendation systems that provide personalized content.Current recommendation systems often rely on collaborative filtering or content-based techniques. However, these methods have limitations, such as the cold start problem and difficulty in capturing semantic relationships between articles. To overcome these challenges, we propose a new approach that combines BERTopic (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), a state-of-the-art topic modeling technique, with community detection algorithms in a academic, professional network. Experiences confirm our performance expectations by showing good relevance and objectivity in the results.

Keywords: scientific articles, community detection, academic social network, recommender systems, neural topic model

Procedia PDF Downloads 86

Authors: Pauline Swee Choo Goh, Kung Teck Wong

Abstract:

The research reported here investigates variation in beginning teachers’ early experiences of their own teaching competency. A phenomenographic research approach was used to show the qualitatively different ways teacher competence was understood amongst beginning teachers in Malaysia. Phenomenographic interviews were conducted with 18 beginning teachers who had started full time teaching for between 1-3 years. Analysis revealed that beginning teachers ‘saw’, ‘understood’ the conceptions of competency in five different ways: i) the ability to manage classroom and student behavior, ii) a strong knowledge of the subject content, iii) the ability to reach out for assistance and support, iv) understanding the students they teach, and v) possessing values of professionalism. The relationships between these different ways are represented diagrammatically. This investigation gives an insider’s perspective a strong voice of what constitutes teacher competence, as well as illustrates that if teacher competence is to be used for any articulation of teacher standards, the term must be carefully defined through the help of the group most affected by any judgements of their competency to avoid misunderstandings, unhappiness and discontent.

Keywords: pre-service teachers, phenomenology, competency, teacher education

Procedia PDF Downloads 312