Search results for: local self government

Authors: Stamatis Zoras, Boris Ceranic, Ashley Redfern

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Green House Gas emissions from domestic properties currently account for a substantial part of the total UK’s carbon emissions and is a priority area for UK to reach zero carbon emissions. However, GHG emissions of urban complexes depend on building, road, structural developments etc surfaces that form urban microclimate. This in turn may further influence renewable energy system power generation that depend on solar or wind potential. Moreover, urban climatic conditions are also influenced by the installation of those power generation systems that may impact their own power generation efficiency. Increased air temperature is attributed to densely installed roof based solar panels that consequently impact their own production efficiency. Installation of roof based solar panels requires adequate guidance to enable housing businesses, councils and organisations to implement sufficient measures for improved power generation in relation to local urban microclimate. How microclimate is affected and how, in return, it affects solar power productivity. Derby Council & Derby Homes have been collecting solar panel power generation data for a large number of properties. The different building areas and system operation performance will be studied against microclimate conditions through time. It is envisaged that the outcomes of the study will support a working up strategy for Derby city to ensure that owned homes would be able to access information and data of solar photo voltaic PV and solar thermal panels potential on social housing, helping residents on low incomes create their own green energy to power their homes and heat their homeshot water.

Keywords: microclimate, solar power, urban climatology, urban morphology

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Authors: Mihail Nagea, Olivera Lupescu, Nicolae Ciurea, Alexandru Dimitriu, Alina Grosu

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Introduction: As severe open injuries are more and more frequent in modern traumatology, threatening not only the integrity of the affected limb but even the life of the patients, new methods desired to cope with the consequences of these traumas were described. Vacuum therapy is one such method which has been described as enhancing healing in trauma with extensive soft-tissue injuries, included those with septic complications. Material and methods: Authors prospectively analyze 15 patients with severe lower limb trauma with MESS less than 6, with considerable soft tissue loss following initial debridement and fracture fixation. The patients needed serial debridements and vacuum therapy was applied after delayed healing due to initial severity of the trauma, for an average period of 12 days (7 - 23 days).In 7 cases vacuum therapy was applied for septic complications. Results: Within the study group, there were no local complications; secondary debridements were performed for all the patients and vacuum system was re-installed after these debridements. No amputations were needed. Medical records were reviewed in order to compare the outcome of the patients: the hospital stay, anti-microbial therapy, time to healing of the bone and soft tissues (there is no standard group to be compared with) and the result showed considerable improvements in the outcome of the patients. Conclusion: Vacuum therapy improves healing of the soft tissues, including those infected; hospital stay and the number of secondary necessary procedures are reduced. Therefore it is considered a valuable support in treating trauma of the limbs with severe soft tissue injuries.

Keywords: complex injuries, negative pressure, open fractures, wound therapy

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Authors: Bello Abdullahi, Kabir Bala, Yahaya M. Ibrahim, Ahmed D. Ibrahim

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Public sector tendering has traditionally been conducted using manual paper-based processes which are known to be inefficient, less transparent, and more prone to manipulations and errors. However, the advent of the Internet and its associated technologies has led to the development of numerous e-Tendering systems that addressed many of the problems associated with the manual paper-based tendering system. Currently, in Nigeria, the public tendering processes are largely conducted based on manual paper-based system that is bedevilled by a number of problems such as inordinate delays, inefficiencies, manipulation of the tender evaluation process, corruption, lack of transparency and competition, among other problems. These problems can be addressed through the adoption of existing web-based e-Tendering systems which are known to address most of these problems. However, these existing e-Tendering systems that have been developed are not based on the Nigerian legal procurement processes and as such their suitability for local application is very limited. This paper is part of a larger study that attempt to address this problem through the development of an e-Tendering system that is based on the requirements of the Nigerian public procuring entities. In this paper, the identified tendering processes commonly used by Nigerian public procuring entities in the selection of construction sources are presented. A multi-methods research approach was used to identify those tendering processes. Specifically, 19 existing business use cases used by Nigerian public procuring entities were identified and 61 system use cases were prescribed based on the identified business use cases. The use cases were used as the basis for the development of domain and software conceptual models. The models were successfully used to guide the development of an e-Tendering system called NPS-eTender. Ripple and Unified Process were adopted as the software development methodologies.

Keywords: e-tendering, e-procurement, requirement model, conceptual model, public sector tendering, public procurement

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Authors: Yude Wu

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Mongolia, grappling with significant socio-economic challenges, faces pressing issues of inequality and poverty, as evidenced by a high Gini coefficient and the highest poverty rate among the top 20 largest Asian countries. Despite government efforts, Mongolia's poverty rate experienced only a slight reduction from 29.6 percent in 2016 to 27.8 percent in 2020. PEER countries, such as South Africa, Botswana, Kazakhstan, and Peru, share characteristics with Mongolia, including reliance on the mining industry and classification as lower middle-income countries. Successful transitions of these countries to upper middle-income status between 1994 and the 2010s provide valuable insights. Drawing on secondary analyses of existing research and PEER country profiles, the study evaluates past policies, identifies gaps in current approaches, and proposes recommendations to combat poverty sustainably. The hypothesis includes a reliance on the mining industry and a transition from lower to upper middle-income status. Policies from these countries, such as the GEAR policy in South Africa and economic diversification in Botswana, offer insights into Mongolia's development. This essay aims to illuminate the multidimensional nature of underdevelopment in Mongolia through a secondary analysis of existing research and PEER country profiles, evaluating past policies, identifying gaps in current approaches, and providing recommendations for sustainable progress. Drawing inspiration from PEER countries, Mongolia can implement policies such as economic diversification to reduce vulnerability and create stable job opportunities. Emphasis on infrastructure, human capital, and strategic partnerships for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) aligns with successful strategies implemented by PEER countries, providing a roadmap for Mongolia's development objectives.

Keywords: inequality, PEER countries, comparative analysis, nomadic animal husbandry, sustainable growth

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Authors: Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael

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Addis Ababa City Administration is engaged in a massive facelift of the inner-city. The paper, therefore, aims to analyze the challenges of the current urban regeneration effort by paying special attention to Lideta and Basha Wolde Chilot projects. To this end, the paper has adopted a documentary research strategy to collect the data and Institutionalist perspective as well as the concept of urban regeneration to analyze the data. The sources were selected based on relevance and recency. Academic research outputs were used primarily. However, where much scholastic publications are not available institutional reports, newspaper articles, and expert presentations were used. The major findings of the research revealed that although the second generation of urban redevelopment projects have attempted to involve affected groups and succeeded in designing better neighborhoods, they are riddled with three major drawbacks. The first one is institutional constraints, i.e. absence of urban redevelopment strategy as well as housing policy, broad definition of ‘public purpose’, little regard for informal businesses, limitation on rights groups, negotiation power not devolved at sub-city level and no plan for groups that cannot afford to pay the down payment for low-cost apartments. The second one is planning limitation, i.e. absence of genuine affected group participation as well as consultative level of public engagement. The third one is implementation failure, i.e. no regard to maintaining social bond, non-participatory and ill-informed resettlement, interference from senior government officials, failure to protect the poor from speculators, corruption and disregard to heritage buildings. Based on the findings, the paper concluded that the current inner-city redevelopment has failed to be socially sustainable and calls for enactment of housing policy as well as redevelopment strategy, affected group participation, on-site resettlement, empowering the Sub-city to manage the project and allowing housing rights groups to advocate for the poor slum dwellers.

Keywords: participation, redevelopment, planning, implementation, consultation

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Authors: Daniel M. Muntean, Viorel Ungureanu

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More than half of the urban population in Romania lives today in residential buildings made out of large prefabricated reinforced concrete panels. Since their initial design was made in the 1960’s, these housing units are now being technically and morally outdated, consuming large amounts of energy for heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting, while failing to meet the needs of the contemporary life-style. Due to their widespread use, the design of a system that improves their energy efficiency would have a real impact, not only on the energy consumption of the residential sector, but also on the quality of life that it offers. Furthermore, with the transition of today’s existing power grid to a “smart grid”, buildings could become an active element for future electricity networks by contributing in micro-generation and energy storage. One of the most addressed issues today is to find locally adapted strategies that can be applied considering the 20-20-20 EU policy criteria and to offer sustainable and innovative solutions for the cost-optimal energy performance of buildings adapted on the existing local market. This paper presents a possible adaptive design scenario towards sustainable retrofitting of these housing units. The apartments are transformed in order to meet the current living requirements and additional extensions are placed on top of the building, replacing the unused roof space, acting not only as housing units, but as active solar energy collection systems. An adaptive building envelope is ensured in order to achieve overall air-tightness and an elevator system is introduced to facilitate access to the upper levels.

Keywords: adaptive building, energy efficiency, retrofitting, residential buildings, smart grid

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Authors: Roshanim Koris, Norashidah Mohamed Nor, Sharifah Azizah Haron, Normaz Wana Ismail, Syed Mohamed Aljunid Syed Junid, Amrizal Muhammad Nur, Asrul Akmal Shafie, Suraya Yusuff, Namaitijiang Maimaiti

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An ageing population has huge implications for virtually every aspect of Malaysian societies. The elderly consume a greater volume of healthcare facilities not because they are older, but because of they are sick. The chronic comorbidities and deterioration of cognitive ability would lead the elderly’s health to become worst. This study aims to provide a comprehensive estimate of the direct and indirect costs of health care used in a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling elderly with dementia and as well as the determinants of healthcare cost. A survey using multi-stage random sampling techniques recruited a final sample of 2274 elderly people (60 years and above) in the state of Johor, Perak, Selangor and Kelantan. Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score was used to measure the cognitive capability among the elderly. Only the elderly with a score less than 19 marks were selected for further analysis and were classified as dementia. By using a two-part model findings also indicate household income and education level are variables that strongly significantly influence the healthcare cost among elderly with dementia. A number of visits and admission are also significantly affect healthcare expenditure. The comorbidity that highly influences healthcare cost is cancer and seeking the treatment in private facilities is also significantly affected the healthcare cost among the demented elderly. The level of dementia severity is not significant in determining the cost. This study is expected to attract the government's attention and act as a wake-up call for them to be more concerned about the elderly who are at high risk of having chronic comorbidities and cognitive problems by providing more appropriate health and social care facilities. The comorbidities are one of the factor that could cause dementia among elderly. It is hoped that this study will promote the issues of dementia as a priority in public health and social care in Malaysia.

Keywords: ageing population, dementia, elderly, healthcare cost, healthcare utiliztion

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Authors: Radin Siti Aishah Radin A Rahman, Norasmah Othman, Zaidatol Akmaliah Lope Pihie, Hariyaty Ab. Wahid

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The recent instability in economy was found to be influencing the situation in Malaysia whether directly or indirectly. Taking that into consideration, the government needs to find the best approach to balance its citizen’s socio-economic strata level urgently. Through education platform is among the efforts planned and acted upon for the purpose of balancing the effects of the influence, through the exposure of social entrepreneurial activity towards youth especially those in higher institution level. Armed with knowledge and skills that they gained, with the support by entrepreneurial culture and environment while in campus; indirectly, the students will lean more on making social entrepreneurship as a career option when they graduate. Following the issues of marketability and workability of current graduates that are becoming dire, research involving how far the willingness of student to create social innovation that contribute to the society without focusing solely on personal gain is relevant enough to be conducted. With that, this research is conducted with the purpose of identifying the level of entrepreneurial intention and social entrepreneurship among higher institution students in Malaysia. Stratified random sampling involves 355 undergraduate students from five public universities had been made as research respondents and data were collected through surveys. The data was then analyzed descriptively using min score and standard deviation. The study found that the entrepreneurial intention of higher education students are on moderate level, however it is the contrary for social entrepreneurship activities, where it was shown on a high level. This means that while the students only have moderate level of willingness to be a social entrepreneur, they are very committed to created social innovation through the social entrepreneurship activities conducted. The implication from this study can be contributed towards the higher institution authorities in prediction the tendency of student in becoming social entrepreneurs. Thus, the opportunities and facilities for realizing the courses related to social entrepreneurship must be created expansively so that the vision of creating as many social entrepreneurs as possible can be achieved.

Keywords: entrepreneurial intention, higher education institutions (HEIs), social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurial activity, gender

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Authors: Foad Hassaninejadafarahani, Scott Ormiston

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Reflux condensation occurs in a vertical channels and tubes when there is an upward core flow of vapor (or gas-vapor mixture) and a downward flow of the liquid film. The understanding of this condensation configuration is crucial in the design of reflux condensers, distillation columns, and in loss-of-coolant safety analyses in nuclear power plant steam generators. The unique feature of this flow is the upward flow of the vapor-gas mixture (or pure vapor) that retards the liquid flow via shear at the liquid-mixture interface. The present model solves the full, elliptic governing equations in both the film and the gas-vapor core flow. The computational mesh is non-orthogonal and adapts dynamically the phase interface, thus produces sharp and accurate interface. Shear forces and heat and mass transfer at the interface are accounted for fundamentally. This modeling is a big step ahead of current capabilities by removing the limitations of previous reflux condensation models which inherently cannot account for the detailed local balances of shear, mass, and heat transfer at the interface. Discretisation has been done based on a finite volume method and a co-located variable storage scheme. An in-house computer code was developed to implement the numerical solution scheme. Detailed results are presented for laminar reflux condensation from steam-air mixtures flowing in vertical parallel plate channels. The results include velocity and pressure profiles, as well as axial variations of film thickness, Nusselt number and interface gas mass fraction.

Keywords: Reflux, Condensation, CFD-Two Phase, Nusselt number

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Authors: Serkan Tezgel

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Effectively managing threats and power that transcend national boundaries requires a reformulation from the traditional post-modern navy to an adaptive and institutional transnational navy. By analyzing existing soft power concept, post-modern navy, and sea power, this study proposes the transnational navy, founded on the triangle of main attributes of transnational companies, 'Global Competitiveness, Local Responsiveness, Worldwide Learning and Innovation Sharing', a new model which will lead to a positive peace with an institutional network. This transnational model necessitates 'Transnational Navies' to help establish peace with collective and transnational understanding during a transition period 'Reactive Postmodern Navy' has been experiencing. In this regard, it is fairly claimed that a new paradigm shift will revolve around sea power to establish good order at sea with collective and collaborative initiatives and bound to breed new theories and ideas in the forthcoming years. However, there are obstacles to overcome. Postmodern navies, currently shaped by 'Collective Maritime Security' and 'Collective Defense' concepts, can not abandon reactive applications and acts. States deploying postmodern navies to realize their policies on international platforms and seapower structures shaped by the axis of countries’ absolute interests resulted in multipolar alliances and coalitions, but the establishment of the peace. These obstacles can be categorized into three tiers in establishing a unique transnational model navy: Strategic, Organizational and Management challenges. To overcome these obstacles and challenges, postmodern navies should transform into cooperative, collective and independent soft transnational navies with the transnational mentality, global commons, and institutional network. Such an adaptive institution can help the world navigate to a positive peace.

Keywords: postmodern navy, transnational navy, transnational mentality, institutional network

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Authors: Simon Mauma Efange

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The main aims of this research were to describe, in co-relational terms, the relationship, if any, between reading comprehension and academic achievement in science studied at the secondary level and, secondly, to find out possible trends in gender differences, such as whether boys would perform better than girls or vice versa. This research employed a quantitative design. Two kinds of instruments were employed: the Oxford Online Placement Test and the Local Assessment System Test. The Oxford Online Placement Test assesses students' English level quickly and easily. The results of these tests were subjected to statistical analysis using a special statistical software called SPSS. Statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation, percentages, frequencies, t-tests, and Pearson’s coefficient of correlation were used for the analysis of the results. Results of the t-test showed that the means are significantly different. Calculating the p-value revealed that the results were extremely statistically significant at p <.05. The value of r (Pearson correlation coefficient) was 0.2868. Although technically there is a positive correlation, the relationship between the variables is only weak (the closer the value is to zero, the weaker the relationship). However, in conclusion, calculations from the t-test using SPSS revealed that the results were statistically significant at p <.05, confirming a relationship between the two variables, and high scores in reading will give rise to slightly high scores in science. The research also revealed that having a high score in reading comprehension doesn’t necessarily mean having a high score in science or vice versa. Female subjects performed much better than male subjects in both tests, which is in line with the literature reviewed for this research.

Keywords: achievement in science, achievement in English, and bilingual students, relationship

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Authors: Sishen Wang

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Chinese rural industry development is the major task currently during rapid urbanization. Development of potentiality assessment, evaluate the overall suitability of each village for further industrial development, could offer reference for policy makers, especially considering the limited data available in Chinese rural regions. The study focuses on 157 official villages in Fuliang County and evaluates their development potentiality by their topography, transportation condition, population, income of villagers, infrastructure and environmental conditions. Land cover changes for Fuliang county and surrounding areas of each village is also investigated for reference. The final development potentiality of each village was calculated by adding different weighted scores of different categories. Besides, inverse distance weighting (IDW) images for both final score of development potentiality and each factor were made and compared to help to understand the final result. The study found that village in the southern and northern regions have higher development potentiality than villages in the eastern and western regions, mainly because of higher income of villagers, good accessibilities and a large amount of population size. In addition, the Fuliang county was divided into five regions based on final result and policy reference for the development of each region were put forward individually. In addition, three suggestions were made for better local development potentiality: Firstly, the transportation accessibility needs to be improved in the northern regions by building more public transit system there. Secondly, the environmental conditions and infrastructure conditions in the eastern region of the county need some improvement. Thirdly, some encouragement and job opportunities should beset up in the western regions to attract labor force to move in and settle down.

Keywords: development potentiality, Fuliang GIS-Based, GIS, official village

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Authors: Elisa Menicucci, Guido Paolucci

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Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing profitability in the Italian hospitality industry during the period 2008-2016. Design/methodology/approach: This study examines the profitability and its determinants using a sample of 2366 Italian hotel firms. First, we use a multidimensional measure of profitability including attributes as return on equity, return on assets and occupancy rate. Second, we examine variables that are potentially related with performance and we sort these into five categories: market variables, business model, ownership structure, management education and control variables. Findings: The results show that financial crisis, business model and ownership structure influence profitability of hotel firms. Specific factors such as the internationalization, location, firm’s declaring accommodation as their primary activity and chain affiliation are associated positively with profitability. We also find that larger hotel firms have higher performance rankings, while hotels with higher operating cash flow volatility, greater sales volatility and a higher occurrence of losses have lower profitability. Research limitations/implications: Findings suggest the importance of considering firm specific factors to evaluate the profitability of a hotel firm. Results also provide evidence for academics to critically evaluate factors that would ensure profitability of hotels in developed countries such as Italy. Practical implications: This investigation offers valuable information and strategic implications for government, tourism policymakers, tourist hotel owners, hoteliers and tourism managers in their decision-making. Originality/value: This paper provides interesting insights into the characteristics and practices of profitable hotels in Italy. Few econometric studies empirically explored the determinants of performance in the European hospitality field so far. Therefore, this paper tries to close an important gap in the existing literature improving the understanding of profitability in the Italian hospitality industry.

Keywords: hotel firms, profitability, determinants, Italian hospitality industry

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Authors: Salah Hosseini, Hadi Ramezani, Bagher Shahbazi, Hossein Rabiei, Jafar Hooshmand, Hiwa Khaldi

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Diversity of energy portfolio and fluctuation of urban energy demand establish the need for more operational flexibility of combined Cooling, Heat, and Power Plants. Currently, the most common way to achieve these specifications is the use of heat storage devices or wet operation of gas turbines. The current work addresses using variable extraction steam turbine in conjugation with a gas turbine inlet cooling system as an alternative way for enhancement of a CCHP cycle operating range. A thermodynamic model is developed and typical apartments building in PARDIS Technology Park (located at Tehran Province) is chosen as a case study. Due to the variable Heat demand and using excess chiller capacity for turbine inlet cooling purpose, the mentioned steam turbine and TIAC system provided an opportunity for flexible operation of the cycle and boosted the independence of the power and heat generation in the CCHP plant. It was found that the ratio of power to the heat of CCHP cycle varies from 12.6 to 2.4 depending on the City heating and cooling demands and ambient condition, which means a good independence between power and heat generation. Furthermore, selection of the TIAC design temperature is done based on the amount of ratio of power gain to TIAC coil surface area, it was found that for current cycle arrangement the TIAC design temperature of 15 C is most economical. All analysis is done based on the real data, gathered from the local weather station of the PARDIS site.

Keywords: CCHP plant, GTG, HRSG, STG, TIAC, operational flexibility, power to heat ratio

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Authors: Rauha Salam

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In Pakistan, over the past decade, the notion of what counts as a true ‘masculine and feminine’ behaviour has become more complicated with the inspection of social media. Given its strong religious and socio-cultural norms, patriarchal values are entrenched in the local and cultural traditions of the Pakistani society and regulate the social value of gender. However, the increasing use of internet among Pakistani men and women, especially in the form of social media uses by the youth, is increasingly becoming disruptive and challenging to the strict modes of behavioural monitoring and control both at familial and state level. Facebook, being the prime social media communication platform in Pakistan, provide its users a relatively ‘safe’ place to embrace how they want to be perceived by their audience. Moreover, the availability of an array of semiotic resources (e.g. the videos, audios, visuals and gifs) on Facebook makes it possible for the users to create a virtual identity that allows them to describe themselves in detail. By making use of Multimodal Discourse Analysis, I aimed to investigate how men and women in Pakistan construct their gendered identities multimodally (visually and linguistically) through their Facebook posts and how these semiotic modes are interconnected to communicate specific meanings. In case of the female data, the analysis showed an ambivalence as females were found to be conforming to the existing socio-cultural norms of the society and they were also employing social media platforms to deviate from traditional gendered patterns and to voice their opinions simultaneously. Similarly, the male data highlighted the reproduction of the prevalent cultural models of masculinity. However, there were instances in the data that showed a digression from the standard norms and there is a (re)negotiation of the traditional patriarchal representations.

Keywords: Facebook, Gendered Identities, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Pakistan

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Authors: Shimeles Terefe Mengistue, Paola Marziani, Ascensióndel Olmo, Jaime Perea, Mirjana Pović

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The theory that rotating accretion disks are responsible for the broad emission-line profiles in quasars is frequently put forth; however, the presence of accretion disk (AD) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) had limited and indirect observational support. In order to evaluate the extent to which the AD is a source of the broad Balmer lines and high ionization UV lines in radio-loud (RL) AGN, we focused on an extremely jetted RL quasar, 3C 47 that clearly shows a double peaked profile. This work presents its optical spectra and UV observations from the HST/FOS covering the rest-frame spectral range from 2000 to 7000 \AA. The fit of the low ionization lines, Hbeta, Halpha and MgII2800 show profiles that are in very good agreement with a relativistic Keplerian AD model. The profile of the prototypical high ionization lines can also be modeled by the contribution of the AD, with additional components due to outflows and emissions from the innermost part of the narrow line regions (NLRs). A prominent fit of the resulting double peaked profiles were found and very important disk parameters of the disk have been determined using the Hbeta, Halpha and MgII2800 lines: the inner and outer radii (both in units of G/mbh, where mbh is the supermassive black hole), an inclination to the line of sight, the emissivity index and the local broadening parameter. In addition, the accretion parameters, /mbh and /lledd are also determined. This work indicates that the line profile of 3C 47 shows the most convincing direct evidence for the presence of a rotating AD in AGN and the broad, double-peaked profiles originate from this AD that surrounds an /mbh.

Keywords: active galactic nuclei, quasars, emission lines, Double-peaked, supermassive black hole

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Authors: Sonia Mannan

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A qualitative study was conducted in a rural area of the southwestern region of Bangladesh to identify perceptions, practices, and the role of first-time mothers surrounding acute respiratory infections (ARI) in infants and children aged under four years. The study reveals that all mothers had knowledge of ARI and were able to identify a number of signs and symptoms. They also recognized pneumonia and thought it to be caused by exposure to cold or weather change, supernatural causes, evil influences, mothers’ negligence, and failure to observe ‘purdah’. They were able to identify chest retractions, difficult breathing, and inability to feed as signs of severe disease needing treatment outside the home. In these cases, spiritual healers were sought, and allopathic treatment was delayed or avoided. Home care practices involved massaging the child with oil and avoiding 'cooling' foods, including water. With the presence of fever and breathing difficulty, mothers tended to increase the number and diversity of medicines, although more concern was expressed about fever than about breathing difficulty. Effective medical care was more likely to be delayed for infants than for older children (they often waited 2-5 days after signs of illness appeared); infants were also more likely to be taken to a spiritual healer as the first-choice provider. The reasons for these perceptions and practices and their implications on the ARI of infants and young children are discussed. Community intervention is identified as viable, effective, and practical to address the body of local socio-cultural knowledge about family practices and the role of the mother regarding the mitigation of ARI in infants and young children.

Keywords: acute respiratory infections , public health, pneumonia, Bangladesh

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Authors: Salisu Gidado Dalibi, Sadiq Gumi Abubakar, JingChun Feng

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Nigeria’s population is about 190 million and is on the increase annually making it the seventh most populated nation in the world and first in Africa. This population growth comes with its prospects, needs, and challenges especially on the existing and future infrastructure. Infrastructure refers to structures, systems, and facilities serving the economy of a country, city, town, businesses, industries, etc. These include roads, railways lines, bridges, tunnels, ports, stadiums, dams and water projects, power generation plants and distribution grids, information, and communication technology (ICT), etc. The Nigerian government embarked on several infrastructural development projects (IDPs) to address the deficit as the present infrastructure cannot cater to the needs nor sustain the country. However, delivering such IDPs have not been smooth; comes with challenges from within and outside the project; frequent delays and abandonment. Thus, affecting all the stakeholders involved. Hence, the aim of this paper is to identify and assess the factors that are hindering the effective delivery of IDPs in Nigeria’s built environment with the view to offer more insight into such factors, and ways to address them. The methodology adopted in this study involves the use of secondary sources of data from several materials (official publications, journals, newspapers, internet, etc.) were reviewed within the IDPs field by laying more emphasis on Nigeria’s cases. The hindrance factors in this regard were identified which forms the backbone of the questionnaire. A pilot survey was used to test its suitability; after which it was randomly administered to various project professionals in Nigeria’s construction industry using a 5-point Likert scale format to ascertain the impact of these hindrances. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test, mean item score computations, relative importance indices, T-test, Chi-Square statistics were used for data analyses. The results outline the impact of various internal, external and project related factors that are hindering IDPs within Nigeria’s built environment.

Keywords: built environment, development, factors, hindrances, infrastructure, Nigeria, project

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Authors: Nguyen Tien Thanh, Günter Meon

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Precipitation plays a key role in water cycle, defining the local climatic conditions and in ecosystem. It is also an important input parameter for water resources management and hydrologic models. With spatial continuous data, a certainty of discharge predictions or other environmental factors is unquestionably better than without. This is, however, not always willingly available to acquire for a small basin, especially for coastal region in Vietnam due to a low network of meteorological stations (30 stations) on long coast of 3260 km2. Furthermore, available gridded precipitation datasets are not fine enough when applying to hydrologic models. Under conditions of global warming, an application of spatial interpolation methods is a crucial for the climate change impact studies to obtain the spatial continuous data. In recent research projects, although some methods can perform better than others do, no methods draw the best results for all cases. The objective of this paper therefore, is to investigate different spatial interpolation methods for daily precipitation over a small basin (approximately 400 km2) located in coastal region, Southern Vietnam and find out the most efficient interpolation method on this catchment. The five different interpolation methods consisting of cressman, ordinary kriging, regression kriging, dual kriging and inverse distance weighting have been applied to identify the best method for the area of study on the spatio-temporal scale (daily, 10 km x 10 km). A 30-year precipitation database was created and merged into available gridded datasets. Finally, observed changes in constructed precipitation were performed. The results demonstrate that the method of ordinary kriging interpolation is an effective approach to analyze the daily precipitation. The mixed trends of increasing and decreasing monthly, seasonal and annual precipitation have documented at significant levels.

Keywords: interpolation, precipitation, trend, vietnam

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Authors: Mohammad Mahdi Namdari, Hosein Torki

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Security as an abstract concept, has involved human being from the beginning of creation to the present, and certainly to the future. Accordingly, battles, conflicts, challenges, legal proceedings, crimes and all issues related to human kind are associated with this concept. Today by interviewing people about their life, the security of societies and Social crimes are interviewed too. Along with the security as an infrastructure and vital concept, the economy and related issues e.g. welfare, per capita income, total government revenue, export, import and etc. is considered another infrastructure and vital concept. These two vital concepts (Security and Economic) have linked together complexly and significantly. The present study employs analytical-descriptive research method using documents and Statistics of official sources. Discovery and explanation of this mutual connection are comprising a profound and extensive research; so management, development and reform in system and relationships of the scope of this two concepts are complex and difficult. Tourism and its position in today's economy is one of the main pillars of the economy of the 21st century that maybe associate with the security and social crimes more than other pillars. Like all human activities, economy of societies and partially tourism dependent on security especially in the public and social security. On the other hand, the true economic development (generally) and the growth of the tourism industry (dedicated) are a security generating and supporting for it, because a dynamic economic infrastructure prevents the formation of centers of crime and illegal activities by providing a context for socio-economic development for all segments of society in a fair and humane. This relationship is a formula of the complexity between the two concept of economy and security. Police as a revealed or people-oriented organization in the field of security directly has linked with the economy of a community and is very effective In the face of the tourism industry. The relationship between security and national crime index, and economic indicators especially ones related to tourism is confirming above discussion that is notable. According to understanding processes about security and economic as two key and vital concepts are necessary and significant for sovereignty of governments.

Keywords: economic, police, tourism, social security

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Authors: Angelica Gonzalez O, Leonardo Rivera Cadavid, Diego Fernando Manotas

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Energy poverty considers a population that does not have access to modern energy service. In particular, an area of a country that is not connected to the national electricity grid is known as a Non-Interconnected Zone (NIZ). Access to electricity has a significant impact on the welfare and development opportunities of the population. Different studies have shown that most health problems have an empirical cause and effect relationship with multidimensional energy poverty. Likewise, research has been carried out to review the consequences of not having access to electricity, and its results have concluded a statistically significant relationship between energy poverty and sources of drinking water, access to clean water, risks of mosquito bites, obesity, sterilization, marital status, occupation, and residence. Therefore, extensive research has been conducted in the construction of an energy poverty measure based on an index. Some of these studies introduce a Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI), Compose Energy Poverty Index (CEPI), Low Income High Costs indicator (LIHC), among others. For this purpose, this study analyzes the energy poverty index using a multicriteria analysis determining the set of feasible alternatives - for which Colombia's ZNI will be used as a case study - to be considered in the problem and the set of relevant criteria in the characterization of the ZNI, from which the prioritization is obtained to determine the level of adjustment of each alternative with respect to the performance in each criterion. Additionally, this study considers the installation of Micro-Grids (MG). This is considered a straightforward solution to this problem because an MG is a local electrical grid, able to operate in grid-connected and island mode. Drawing on those insights, this study compares an energy poverty index considering an MG installation and calculates the impacts of different criterias in an energy poverty index in NIZ.

Keywords: multicirteria, energy poverty, rural, microgrids, non-interconnect zones

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Authors: Ricardo Mendoza, Jason Briceño, Juan F. Santa, Gabriel Peluffo, Mauricio Márquez, Beatriz Cardozo, Carlos Gutiérrez

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Coir natural fiber reinforced polyester composites were exposed to an accelerated environment aging in order to study the influence on the mechanical properties. Coir fibers were obtained in local plantations of the Caribbean coast of Colombia. A physical and mechanical characterization was necessary to found the best behavior between three types of coconut. Composites were fabricated by hand lay-up technique and samples were cut by water jet technique. An accelerated aging test simulates environmental climate conditions in a hygrothermal and ultraviolet chamber. Samples were exposed to the UV/moisture rich environment for 500 and 1000 hours. The tests were performed in accordance with ASTM G154. An additional water absorption test was carried out by immersing specimens in a water bath. Mechanical behaviors of the composites were tested by tensile, flexural and impact test according to ASTM standards, after aging and compared with unaged composite specimens. It was found that accelerated environment aging affects mechanical properties in comparison with unaged ones. Tensile and flexural strength were lower after aging, meantime elongation at break and flexural deflection increased. Impact strength was found that reduced after aging. Other result revealed that the percentage of moisture uptake increased with aging. This results showed that composite materials reinforced with natural fibers required an improvement adding a protective barrier to reduce water absorption and increase UV resistance.

Keywords: coir fiber, polyester composites, environmental aging, mechanical properties

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Authors: Vandana Mishra, Niladri Sekhar Dash, Jayshree Charkraborty

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This present paper focuses on the application of corpus linguistics techniques for critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Hindi newspapers. While Corpus linguistics is the study of language as expressed in corpora (samples) of 'real world' text, CDA is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice. CDA has mainly been studied from a qualitative perspective. However, we can say that recent studies have begun combining corpus linguistics with CDA in analyzing large volumes of text for the study of existing power relations in society. The corpus under our study is also of a sizable amount (1 million words of Hindi newspaper texts) and its analysis requires an alternative analytical procedure. So, we have combined both the quantitative approach i.e. the use of corpus techniques with CDA’s traditional qualitative analysis. In this context, we have focused on the Keyword Analysis Sorting Concordance Lines of the selected Keywords and calculating collocates of the keywords. We have made use of the Wordsmith Tool for all these analysis. The analysis starts with identifying the keywords in the political news corpus when compared with the main news corpus. The keywords are extracted from the corpus based on their keyness calculated through statistical tests like chi-squared test and log-likelihood test on the frequent words of the corpus. Some of the top occurring keywords are मोदी (Modi), भाजपा (BJP), कांग्रेस (Congress), सरकार (Government) and पार्टी (Political party). This is followed by the concordance analysis of these keywords which generates thousands of lines but we have to select few lines and examine them based on our objective. We have also calculated the collocates of the keywords based on their Mutual Information (MI) score. Both concordance and collocation help to identify lexical patterns in the political texts. Finally, all these quantitative results derived from the corpus techniques will be subjectively interpreted in accordance to the CDA’s theory to examine the ways in which political news discourse produces social and political inequality, power abuse or domination.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, Hindi newspapers, power relations

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Authors: Paolo Magnata

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The energy market in the Philippines remains to have one of the highest electricity rates in the region averaging at US$0.16/kWh (PHP6.89/kWh), excluding VAT, as opposed to the overall energy market average of US$0.13/kWh. The movement towards renewable energy, specifically solar energy, will pose as an expensive one with the country’s energy sector providing Feed-in-Tariff rates as high as US$0.17/kWh (PHP8.69/kWh) for solar energy power plants. Increasing the share of renewables at the current state of the energy regulatory background would yield a three-fold increase in residential electricity bills. The issue lies in the uniform charge that consumers bear regardless of where the electricity is sourced resulting in rates that only consider costs and not the consumers. But if they are given the option to choose where their electricity comes from, a number of consumers may potentially choose economically costlier sources of electricity due to higher levels of utility coupled with the willingness to pay of consuming environmentally-friendly sourced electricity. A contingent valuation survey was conducted to determine their willingness-to-pay for solar energy on a sample that was representative of Metro Manila to elicit their willingness-to-pay and a Single Bounded Dichotomous Choice and Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice analysis was used to estimate the amount they were willing to pay. The results showed that Metro Manila residents are willing to pay a premium on top of their current electricity bill amounting to US$5.71 (PHP268.42) – US$9.26 (PHP435.37) per month which is approximately 0.97% - 1.29% of their monthly household income. It was also discovered that besides higher income of households, a higher level of self-perceived knowledge on environmental awareness significantly affected the likelihood of a consumer to pay the premium. Shifting towards renewable energy is an expensive move not only for the government because of high capital investment but also to consumers; however, the Green Energy Option (a policy mechanism which gives consumers the option to decide where their electricity comes from) can potentially balance the shift of the economic burden by transitioning from a uniformly charged electricity rate to equitably charging consumers based on their willingness to pay for renewably sourced energy.

Keywords: contingent valuation, dichotomous choice, Philippines, solar energy

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Authors: Tangyie Evani, Edmond Biloa, Emmanuel Nforbi, Lem Lilian Atanga, Kom Beatrice

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The dynamics of languages in contact necessitates a close study of how its users negotiate meanings from shared values in the process of cross-cultural communication. A transverse analysis of the situation demonstrates the existence of complex efforts on connecting cultural knowledge to cross-linguistic competencies within a widening range of communicative exchanges. This paper sets to examine the psychology of cross-cultural communication in a multi-linguistic setting like Cameroon where many local and international languages are in close contact. The paper equally analyses the pertinence of existing macro sociological concepts as fundamental knowledge traits in literal and idiomatic cross semantic mapping. From this point, the article presents a path model of connecting sociolinguistics to the increasing adoption of a widening range of communicative genre piloted by the on-going globalisation trends with its high-speed information technology machinery. By applying a cross cultural analysis frame, the paper will be contributing to a better understanding of the fundamental changes in the nature and goals of cross-cultural knowledge in pragmatics of communication and cultural acceptability’s. It emphasises on the point that, in an era of increasing global interchange, a comprehensive inclusive global culture through bridging gaps in cross-cultural communication would have significant potentials to contribute to achieving global social development goals, if inadequacies in language constructs are adjusted to create avenues that intertwine with sociocultural beliefs, ensuring that meaningful and context bound sociolinguistic values are observed within the global arena of communication.

Keywords: cross-cultural communication, customary language, literalisms, primary meaning, subclasses, transubstantiation

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Authors: Mike Chia-Yu Huang

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China’s port facility construction projects in the Indian Ocean (IO) region, Gwadar Port and Djibouti Port projects in particular, have led to a heated debate among both Chinese and Western strategists over whether the country has literally been carrying out its “string of pearls” strategy, an alleged Chinese plan to challenge America’s military predominance in South Asia. Even though the Chinese government repeatedly denied the existence of such a strategy and highlighted the civilian/commercial nature of its port projects, it has significantly enhanced its strategic cooperation with littoral countries in the IO region since the “One Belt One Road” initiative was introduced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. Whether China does have a plan to expand its sphere of military influence westward concerns the balance of power in the IO region. If the answer is positive, the security environment there will be changed drastically. This paper argues that rather than simply copying the U.S. model of developing overseas military bases along the IO periphery, Beijing has been deliberating a more sophisticated plan for its physical presence there: creating a new set of “overseas strategic pivots.” These “pivots,” semi-military and semi-commercial in nature, are designed to help Beijing sustain its anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and serve as forward stations for the transportation of China’s imported energy and merchandise. They can support the Chinese Navy’s operations overseas but are not supposed to undertake face-to-face combat missions. This upgraded Chinese scheme can be identified as “string of pearls” strategy 2.0. Moreover, it is expected to help China deepen its roots in the IO region, implying that Beijing has to a large extent scratched its old diplomatic philosophy which highlighted the merits of non-interference and nonalignment. While a full-scale maritime confrontation between China and the U.S.-India security alliance is unlikely to be witnessed in the near future, an ambitious Chinese plan to step into the global maritime domain has been evidently shown.

Keywords: Chinese navy, Djibouti, Gwadar, Indian Ocean, string of pearls strategy

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Authors: K. Almi, S. Lakel, A. Benchabane, A. Kriker

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Several researches are focused on natural resources for the production of biomaterials intended for technical applications. Date palm wood present one of the world’s most important natural resource. Its use as insulating materials will help to solve the severe environmental and recycling problems which other artificial insulating materials caused. This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation on the thermal proprieties of date palm wood from Algeria. A study of physical, chemical, and mechanical properties is also carried out. The goal is to use this natural material in the manufacture of thermal insulation materials for buildings. The local natural resources used in this study are the date palm fibers from Biskra oasis in Algeria. The results have shown that there is no significant difference in the morphological proprieties of the four types of residues. Their chemical composition differed slightly; with the lowest amounts of cellulose and lignin content belong to Petiole. Water absorption study proved that Rachis has a low value of sorption whereas Petiole and Fibrillium have a high value of sorption what influenced their mechanical properties. It is seen that the Rachis and leaflets exhibit high tensile strength values compared to the other residue. On the other hand, the low value of the bulk density of Petiole and Fibrillium leads to a high value of specific tensile strength and young modulus. It was found that the specific young modulus of Petiole and Fibrillium was higher than that of Rachis and Leaflets and that of other natural fibers or even artificial fibers. Compared to the other materials date palm wood provide a good thermal proprieties thus, date palm wood will be a good candidate for the manufacturing efficient and safe insulating materials.

Keywords: composite materials, date palm fiber, natural fibers, tensile tests, thermal proprieties

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Authors: Syrine Bassi

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Sound symbolism has been able to give us an exciting new tool to target consumers’ brand perception. It acts on a subconscious level making them less likely to reject the implicit message delivered by the sound of the brand name. Most of the research conducted in the field was focused on the English language as it is the language used for international branding campaigns and global companies. However, more research is examining the sound symbolism in other languages and comparing it to the English language findings. Besides, researchers have been able to study luxury brand names and spot out the patterns used in them to provoke luxury and sophistication. It stands to a reason to connect the luxury brand names and the local language’s sound effects since a considerable number of these brands are promoting the origin of the Maison, therefore, have names in foreign languages. This study was established around the Hungarian luxury brand names. It aims to spot out the patterns used in these names that connect to the previous findings of luxury sound effects and also the differences. We worked with a non-Hungarian speaking sample who had some basic knowledge of the language just to make sure they were able to correctly pronounce the names. The results have shown both similarities and differences when it comes to perceiving luxury based on the brand name. As the Hungarian language can be qualified as a saturated language, consonant wise, it was easy to feed the luxury feeling only by using designers' names, however, some complicated names were too difficult and repulsive to consider as luxurious. On the other hand, oversimplifying some names did not convey the desired image as it was too simple and easy. Overall, some sounds have been proved to be linked to luxury as the literature suggests, the difficulty of pronunciation has also proved effective since it highlights the distant feeling consumers crave when looking for luxury. These results suggest that sound symbolism can set up an aura of luxury when used properly, leveraging each languages’ convenient assets.

Keywords: hungarian language, linguistics, luxury brands, sound symbolism

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Authors: Siran Offman, Hermes Pacule, Teofilo Nhamuhuco

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Marine invertebrates are very important for the livelihood of coastal communities, particularly in Pemba City. The study was conducted From June 2011 to March 2012. The aim of this study is to determine the socioeconomic impact of collecting marine invertebrates in communities and Chuiba Maringanha. Data were collected biweekly during the spring tide ebb in the intertidal zone, and through structured surveys, the confrontation of data was done through direct observation in the neighborhoods. In total 40 collectors was surveyed and it was found that activity of collecting marine invertebrates is practiced by women 57.2% and men 42.5%. Their ages ranged from 9 to 45 years, and the range was 25-32 dominant with 30.5% and collection practice 5-7 times per week they spend about 4-6 hours a day. The collection methods are direct harvesting by hand aided by knives, sharp irons, and transport use pots, buckets, basins, shawls. Were identified in total 8 marketable species namely: Octopus vulgaris 8.6 Kg, Cyprea Tigers 7 units, Cypraea annulus 48 kg, 40 kg holuturias, Cyprea bully, Atrina vexilium 10 kg, Modiulus philiphinarum and lambis lambis. The species with the greatest economic value are sea cucumber (3 Usd/ kg) and Octopus vulgaris ( 2.5 Usd/ kg) more commercialized. The socio-economic impacts on communities of collectors the average income of collectors varies from 0.5 to 5 Usd/ day and the money are intended to purchase food and agricultural instruments. The other socioeconomics impacts are illiteracy with 36% dropout, and 28% have never studied 87% of unemployed collectors, a high number of family members, weak economic power, poor housing made the basis of local materials and relies on community wells to access water, and most do not have electric power.

Keywords: socio-economic, impacts, collecting marine invertebrates, communities

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Authors: Keroles Akram Saed Ghatas

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The near future will bring significant changes in modern organizations and management due to the growing role of intangible assets and knowledge workers. The area of copyright, intellectual property, digital (intangible) assets and media redistribution appears to be one of the greatest challenges facing business and society in general and management sciences and organizations in particular. The proposed article examines the views and perceptions of fairness in digital media sharing among Harvard Law School's LL.M.s. Students, based on 50 qualitative interviews and 100 surveys. The researcher took an ethnographic approach to her research and entered the Harvard LL.M. in 2016. at, a Face book group that allows people to connect naturally and attend in-person and private events more easily. After listening to numerous students, the researcher conducted a quantitative survey among 100 respondents to assess respondents' perceptions of fairness in digital file sharing in various contexts (based on media price, its availability, regional licenses, copyright holder status, etc.). to understand better . .). Based on the survey results, the researcher conducted long-term, open-ended and loosely structured ethnographic interviews (50 interviews) to further deepen the understanding of the results. The most important finding of the study is that Harvard lawyers generally support digital piracy in certain contexts, despite having the best possible legal and professional knowledge. Interestingly, they are also more accepting of working for the government than the private sector. The results of this study provide a better understanding of how “fairness” is perceived by the younger generation of lawyers and pave the way for a more rational application of licensing laws.

Keywords: cognitive impairments, communication disorders, death penalty, executive function communication disorders, cognitive disorders, capital murder, executive function death penalty, egyptian law absence, justice, political cases piracy, digital sharing, perception of fairness, legal profession

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