Search results for: government payments to the farm sector

Authors: Ram Chandra Sah

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Few years back, naturally a very beautiful country Nepal was facing a lot of problems related to the practice of open defecation (having no toilet) by almost 98% people of the country. Now, the scenario is changed. Government of Nepal set the target of achieving the situation of basic level sanitation (toilets) facilities by 2017 AD for which the Sanitation and Hygiene Master Plan (SHMP) was brought in 2011 AD with the major beauty as institutional set up formation, local formal authority leadership, locally formulated strategic plan; partnership, harmonized and coordinated approach to working; no subsidy or support at a blanket level, community and local institutions or organizations mobilization approaches. Now, the Open Defecation Free (ODF) movement in the country is at a full swing. The Sanitation and Hygiene Master Plan (SHMP) has clearly defined Total Sanitation which is accepted to be achieved if all the households of the related boundary have achieved the 6 indicators such as the access and regular use of toilet(s), regular use of soap and water at the critical moments, regular practice of use of food hygiene behavior, regular practice of use of water hygiene behavior including household level purification of locally available drinking water, maintenance of regular personal hygiene with household level waste management and the availability of the state of overall clean environment at the concerned level of boundary. Nepal has 3158 Village Development Committees (VDC's) in the rural areas. Amarapuri VDC was selected for the purpose of achieving Total Sanitation. Based on the SHMP; different methodologies such as updating of Village Water Sanitation and Hygiene Coordination Committee (V-WASH-CC), Total Sanitation team formation including one volunteer for each indicator, campaigning through settlement meetings, midterm evaluation which revealed the need of ward level 45 (5 for all 9 wards) additional volunteers, ward wise awareness creation with the help of the volunteers, informative notice boards and hoarding boards with related messages at important locations, management of separate waste disposal rings for decomposable and non-decomposable wastes, related messages dissemination through different types of local cultural programs, public toilets construction and management by community level; mobilization of local schools, offices and health posts; reward and recognition to contributors etc. were adopted for achieving 100 % coverage of each indicator. The VDC was in a very worse situation in 2010 with just 50, 30, 60, 60, 40, 30 percent coverage of the respective indicators and became the first VDC of the country declared with Total Sanitation. The expected result of 100 percent coverage of all the indicators was achieved in 2 years 10 months and 19 days. Experiences of Amarapuri were replicated successfully in different parts of the country and many VDC's have been declared with the achievement of Total Sanitation. Thus, Community Mobilized Total Sanitation Movement in Nepal has supported a lot for achieving a Total Sanitation situation of the country with a minimal cost and it is believed that the approach can be very useful for other developing or under developed countries of the world.

Keywords: community mobilized, open defecation free, sanitation and hygiene master plan, total sanitation

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Authors: Jiazhi Zeng, Leiyu Shi, Xia Zou, Wen Chen, Li Ling

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Background: China is facing the unprecedented challenge of rapidly increasing rural-to-urban migration. Due to the household registration system, migrants are in a vulnerable state when they attempt to access to primary care services. A strong primary care system can reduce health inequities and mitigate socioeconomic disparities in healthcare utilization. Literature indicated that migrants were more reliant on the primary care system than local residents. Although the Chinese government has attached great importance to creating an efficient health system, primary care services are still underutilized. The referral system between primary care institutions and hospitals has not yet been completely established in China. The general populations often go directly to hospitals instead of primary care institutions for their primary care. Primary care institutions generally consist of community health centers (CHCs) and community health stations (CHSs) in urban areas, and township health centers (THCs) and rural health stations (THSs) in rural areas. In addition, primary care services are also provided by the outpatient department of municipal hospitals and tertiary hospitals. A better understanding of migrants’ experiences with primary care in the above-mentioned medical institutions is critical for improving the performance of primary care institutions and providing indications of the attributes that require further attention. The purpose of this pioneering study is to explore rural-to-urban migrants’ experiences in primary care, compare their primary care experiences in four types of medical institutions in Guangzhou, China, and suggest implications for targeted interventions to improve primary care for the migrants. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted with 736 rural-to-urban migrants in Guangzhou, China, in 2014. A multistage sampling method was employed. A validated Chinese version of Primary Care Assessment Tool - Adult Short Version (PCAT-AS) was used to collect information on migrants’ primary care experiences. The PCAT-AS consists of 10 domains. Analysis of covariance was conducted for comparison on PCAT domain scores and total scores among migrants accessing four types of medical institutions. Multiple linear regression models were used to explore factors associated with PCAT total scores. Results: After controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, migrant characteristics, health status and health insurance status, migrants accessing primary care in tertiary hospitals had the highest PCAT total scores when compared with those accessing primary care THCs/ RHSs (25.49 vs. 24.18, P=0.007) and CHCs/ CHSs(25.49 vs. 24.24, P=0.006). There was no statistical significant difference for PCAT total scores between migrants accessing primary care in CHCs/CHSs and those in municipal hospitals (24.24 vs. 25.02, P=0.436). Factors positively associated with higher PCAT total scores also included insurance covering parts of healthcare payment (P < 0.001). Conclusions: This study highlights the need for improvement in primary care provided by primary care institutions for rural-to-urban migrants. Migrants receiving primary care from THCs, RHSs, CHSs and CHSs reported worse primary care experiences than those receiving primary care from tertiary hospitals. Relevant policies related to medical insurance should be implemented for providing affordable healthcare services for migrants accessing primary care. Further research exploring the specific reasons for poorer PCAT scores of primary care institutions users will be needed.

Keywords: China, PCAT, primary care, rural-to-urban migrants

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Authors: E. O. Aluta, C. A. Booth, D. G. Proverbs, T. Appleby

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Challenges in the effective management of potable water have attracted global attention in recent years and remain many world regions’ major priorities. Scarcity and unavailability of potable water may potentially escalate poverty, obviate democratic expression of views and militate against inter-sectoral development. These challenges contra-indicate the inherent potentials of the resource. Thus, while creation of poverty may be regarded as a broad-based problem, it is capable of reflecting life-span reduction diseases, the friction of interests manifesting in threats and warfare, the relegation of democratic principles for authoritarian definitions and Human Rights abuse. The challenges may be identified as manifestations of ineffective management of potable water resource and therefore, regarded as major problems in environmental protection. In reaction, some nations have re-examined their laws and policies, while others have developed innovative projects, which seek to ameliorate difficulties of providing sustainable potable water. The problems resonate in Nigeria, where the legal framework supporting the supply and management of potable water has been criticized as ineffective. This has impacted more on rural community members, often regarded as ‘voiceless’. At that level, the participation of non-state actors has been identified as an effective strategy, which can improve water supply. However, there are indications that there is no pragmatic application of this, resulting in over-centralization and top-down management. Thus, this study focuses on how the participatory process may enable the development of participatory water governance framework, for use in Nigeria rural communities. The Rural Advisory Board (RAB) is proposed as a governing body to promote proximal relationships, institute democratisation borne out of participation, while enabling effective accountability and information. The RAB establishes mechanisms for effectiveness, taking into consideration Transparency, Accountability and Participation (TAP), advocated as guiding principles of decision-makers. Other tools, which may be explored in achieving these are, Laws and Policies supporting the water sector, under the direction of the Ministries and Law Courts, which ensure non-violation of laws. Community norms and values, consisting of Nigerian traditional belief system, perceptions, attitude and reality (often undermined in favour of legislations), are relied on to pave the way for enforcement. While the Task Forces consist of community members with specific designation of duties, which ensure compliance and enforceability, a cross-section of community members are assigned duties. Thus, the principle of participation is pragmatically reflected. A review of the literature provided information on the potentials of the participatory process, in potable water governance. Qualitative methodology was explored by using the semi-structured interview as strategy for inquiry. The purposive sampling strategy, consisting of homogeneous, heterogeneous and criterion techniques was applied to enable sampling. The samples, sourced from diverse positions of life, were from the study area of Delta State of Nigeria, involving three local governments of Oshimili South, Uvwie and Warri South. From the findings, there are indications that the application of the participatory process is inhered with empowerment of the rural community members to make legitimate demands for TAP. This includes the obviation of mono-decision making for the supply and management of potable water. This is capable of restructuring the top-down management to a top-down/bottom-up system.

Keywords: participation, participatory process, participatory water governance, rural advisory board

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Authors: Mireille Elhajj, Washington Ochieng, Deeph Chana

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The challenges of the rapid growth in the demand for transport has traditionally been seen within the context of the problems of congestion, air quality, climate change, safety, and affordability. However, there are increasing threats including those related to crime such as cyber-attacks that threaten the security of the transport of people and goods. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents for the first time, a comprehensive framework for the assessment of the current and future security issues of multi-modal transport systems. The approach or method proposed is based on a structured framework starting with a detailed specification of the transport asset map (transport system architecture), followed by the identification of vulnerabilities. The asset map and vulnerabilities are used to identify the various approaches for exploitation of the vulnerabilities, leading to the creation of a set of threat scenarios. The threat scenarios are then transformed into risks and their categories, and include insights for their mitigation. The consideration of the mitigation space is holistic and includes the formulation of appropriate policies and tactics and/or technical interventions. The quality of the framework is ensured through a structured and logical process that identifies the stakeholders, reviews the relevant documents including policies and identifies gaps, incorporates targeted surveys to augment the reviews, and uses subject matter experts for validation. The approach to categorising security risks is an extension of the current methods that are typically employed. Specifically, the partitioning of risks into either physical or cyber categories is too limited for developing mitigation policies and tactics/interventions for transport systems where an interplay between physical and cyber processes is very often the norm. This interplay is rapidly taking on increasing significance for security as the emergence of cyber-physical technologies, are shaping the future of all transport modes. Examples include: Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) in road transport; the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) in rail transport; Automatic Identification System (AIS) in maritime transport; advanced Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) technologies in air transport; and the Internet of Things (IoT). The framework adopts a risk categorisation scheme that considers risks as falling within the following threat→impact relationships: Physical→Physical, Cyber→Cyber, Cyber→Physical, and Physical→Cyber). Thus the framework enables a more complete risk picture to be developed for today’s transport systems and, more importantly, is readily extendable to account for emerging trends in the sector that will define future transport systems. The framework facilitates the audit and retro-fitting of mitigations in current transport operations and the analysis of security management options for the next generation of Transport enabling strategic aspirations such as systems with security-by-design and co-design of safety and security to be achieved. An initial application of the framework to transport systems has shown that intra-modal consideration of security measures is sub-optimal and that a holistic and multi-modal approach that also addresses the intersections/transition points of such networks is required as their vulnerability is high. This is in-line with traveler-centric transport service provision, widely accepted as the future of mobility services. In summary, a risk-based framework is proposed for use by the stakeholders to comprehensively and holistically assess the security of transport systems. It requires a detailed understanding of the transport architecture to enable a detailed vulnerabilities analysis to be undertaken, creates threat scenarios and transforms them into risks which form the basis for the formulation of interventions.

Keywords: mitigations, risk, transport, security, vulnerabilities

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Authors: Farhana Karim, Abdullah N. S. Khan, Mohiuddin A. K. Chowdhury, Nabila Zaka, Alexander Manu, Shams El Arifeen, Sk Masum Billah

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Breastfeeding, an integral part of newborn care, can reduce 55-87% of all-cause neonatal mortality and morbidity. Early initiation of breastfeeding within 1 hour of birth can avert 22% of newborn mortality. Only 45% of world’s newborns and 42% of newborns in South-Asia are put to the breast within one hour of birth. In Bangladesh, only a half of the mothers practice early initiation of breastfeeding which is less likely to be practiced if the baby is born in a health facility. This study aims to generate strong evidence for early initiation of breastfeeding practices in the government health facilities and to explore the associated factors influencing the practice. The study was conducted in selected health facilities in three neighbouring districts of Northern Bangladesh. Total 249 normal vaginal delivery cases were observed for 24 hours since the time of birth. The outcome variable was initiation of breastfeeding within 1 hour while the explanatory variables included type of health facility, privacy, presence of support person, stage of labour at admission, need for augmentation of labour, complications during delivery, need for episiotomy, spontaneous cry of the newborn, skin-to-skin contact with mother, post-natal contact with the service provider, receiving a post-natal examination and counselling on breastfeeding during postnatal contact. The simple descriptive statistics were employed to see the distribution of samples according to socio-demographic characteristics. Kruskal-Wallis test was carried out for testing the equality of medians among two or more categories of each variable and P-value is reported. A series of simple logistic regressions were conducted with all the potential explanatory variables to identify the determining factors for breastfeeding within 1 hour in a health facility. Finally, multiple logistic regression was conducted including the variables found significant at bi-variate analyses. Almost 90% participants initiated breastfeeding at the health facility and median time to initiate breastfeeding was 38 minutes. However, delivering in a sub-district hospital significantly delayed the breastfeeding initiation in comparison to delivering in a district hospital. Maintenance of adequate privacy and presence of separate staff for taking care of newborn significantly reduced the time in early breastfeeding initiation. Initiation time was found longer if the mother had an augmented labour, obstetric complications, and the newborn needed resuscitation. However, the initiation time was significantly early if the baby was put skin-to-skin on mother’s abdomen and received a postnatal examination by a provider. After controlling for the potential confounders, the odds of initiating breastfeeding within one hour of birth is higher if mother gives birth in a district hospital (AOR 3.0: 95% CI 1.5, 6.2), privacy is well-maintained (AOR 2.3: 95% CI 1.1, 4.5), babies cry spontaneously (AOR 7.7: 95% CI 3.3, 17.8), babies are put to skin-to-skin contact with mother (AOR 4.6: 95% CI 1.9, 11.2) and if the baby is examined by a provider in the facility (AOR 4.4: 95% CI 1.4, 14.2). The evidence generated by this study will hopefully direct the policymakers to identify and prioritize the scopes for creating and supporting early initiation of breastfeeding in the health facilities.

Keywords: Bangladesh, early initiation of breastfeeding, health facility, normal vaginal delivery, skin to skin contact

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Authors: Rajkumar Ghosh

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Water scarcity is a pressing issue in urban areas, even in smart cities where efficient resource management is a priority. This scarcity is mainly caused by factors such as lifestyle changes, excessive groundwater extraction, over-usage of water, rapid urbanization, and uncontrolled population growth. In the specific case of Gomti Nagar, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, the depletion of groundwater resources is particularly severe, leading to a water imbalance and posing a significant challenge for the region's sustainable development. The aim of this study is to address the water shortage in the Gomti Nagar region by focusing on the implementation of artificial groundwater recharge methods. Specifically, the research aims to investigate the effectiveness of rainwater collection through rooftop rainwater harvesting systems (RTRWHs) as a sustainable approach to reduce aquifer depletion and bridge the gap between groundwater recharge and extraction. The research methodology for this study involves the utilization of RTRWHs as the main method for collecting rainwater. This approach is considered effective in managing and conserving water resources in a sustainable manner. The focus is on implementing RTRWHs in residential and commercial buildings to maximize the collection of rainwater and its subsequent utilization for various purposes in the Gomti Nagar region. The study reveals that the installation of RTRWHs in the Gomti Nagar region has a positive impact on addressing the water scarcity issue. Currently, RTRWHs cover only a small percentage (0.04%) of the total rainfall collected in the region. However, when RTRWHs are installed in all buildings, their influence on increasing water availability and reducing aquifer depletion will be significantly greater. The study also highlights the significant water imbalance of 24519 ML/yr in the region, emphasizing the urgent need for sustainable water management practices. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of sustainable water management systems in smart cities. By highlighting the effectiveness of RTRWHs in reducing aquifer depletion, it emphasizes the importance of implementing such systems in urban areas. The findings of this study can serve as a basis for policymakers, urban planners, and developers to prioritize and incentivize the installation of RTRWHs as a potential solution to the water shortage crisis. The data for this study were collected through various sources such as government reports, surveys, and existing groundwater abstraction patterns. The collected data were then analysed to assess the current water situation, groundwater depletion rate, and the potential impact of implementing RTRWHs. Statistical analysis and modelling techniques were employed to quantify the water imbalance and evaluate the effectiveness of RTRWHs. The findings of this study demonstrate that the implementation of RTRWHs can effectively mitigate the water scarcity crisis in Gomti Nagar. By reducing aquifer depletion and bridging the gap between groundwater recharge and extraction, RTRWHs offer a sustainable solution to the region's water scarcity challenges. The study highlights the need for widespread adoption of RTRWHs in all buildings and emphasizes the importance of integrating such systems into the urban planning and development process. By doing so, smart cities like Gomti Nagar can achieve efficient water management, ensuring a better future with improved water availability for its residents.

Keywords: rooftop rainwater harvesting, rainwater, water management, aquifer

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Authors: Faruk Inaltekin, Imran Gurakan

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This paper will aim to discuss the importance of value-added services provided by Science and Technology Parks for entrepreneurship development in Turkey. Entrepreneurship is vital subject for all countries. It has not only fostered economic development but also promoted innovation at local and international levels. To foster high tech entrepreneurship ecosystem, Technopark (Science and Technology Park/STP) concept was initiated with the establishment of Silicon Valley in the 1950s. The success and rise of Silicon Valley led to the spread of technopark activities. Developed economies have been setting up projects to plan and build STPs since the 1960s and 1970s. To promote the establishment of STPs, necessary legislations were made by Ministry of Science, Industry, and Technology in 2001, Technology Development Zones Law (No. 4691) and it has been revised in 2016 to provide more supports. STPs’ basic aim is to provide customers high-quality office spaces with various 'value added services' such as business development, network connections, cooperation programs, investor/customers meetings and internationalization services. For this aim, STPs should help startups deal with difficulties in the early stages and to support mature companies’ export activities in the foreign market. STPs should support the production, commercialization and more significantly internationalization of technology-intensive business and foster growth of companies. Nowadays within this value-added services, internationalization is very popular subject in the world. Most of STPs design clusters or accelerator programs in order to support their companies in the foreign market penetration. If startups are not ready for international competition, STPs should help them to get ready for foreign market with training and mentoring sessions. These training and mentoring sessions should take a goal based approach to working with companies. Each company has different needs and goals. Therefore the definition of ‘success' varies for each company. For this reason, it is very important to create customized value added services to meet the needs of startups. After local supports, STPs should also be able to support their startups in foreign market. Organizing well defined international accelerator program plays an important role in this mission. Turkey is strategically placed between key markets in Europe, Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Its population is young and well educated. So both government agencies and the private sectors endeavor to foster and encourage entrepreneurship ecosystem with many supports. In sum, the task of technoparks with these and similar value added services is very important for developing entrepreneurship ecosystem. The priorities of all value added services are to identify the commercialization and growth obstacles faced by entrepreneurs and get rid of them with the one-to-one customized services. Also, in order to have a healthy startup ecosystem and create sustainable entrepreneurship, stakeholders (technoparks, incubators, accelerators, investors, universities, governmental organizations etc.) should fulfill their roles and/or duties and collaborate with each other. STPs play an important role as bridge for these stakeholders & entrepreneurs. STPs always should benchmark and renew services offered to how to help the start-ups to survive, develop their business and benefit from these stakeholders.

Keywords: accelerator, cluster, entrepreneurship, startup, technopark, value added services

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Authors: Dong Yue, Hua Chen

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The study region Xihu Harbor in Xiangshan County, Ningbo City is located in the central coast of Zhejiang Province. Concerning the wave dispating issue, Ningbo government firstly introduced Spartina alterniflora in 1980s. In the 1990s, S. alterniflora spread so rapidly thus a ‘grassland’ in the sea has been created nowadays. It has become the most important invasive plant of China’s coastal tidal flats. Although S. alterniflora had some ecological and economic functions, it has also brought series of hazards. It has ecological hazards on many aspects, including biomass and biodiversity, hydrodynamic force and sedimentation process, nutrient cycling of tidal flat, succession sequence of soil and plants and so on. On engineering, it courses problems of poor drainage and channel blocking. On economy, the hazard mainly reflected in the threat on aquaculture industry. The purpose of this study is to explore an ecological, feasible and economical way to manage Spartina alterniflora and use the land formed by it, taking Xihu Harbor in Xiangshan County as a case. Comparison method, mathematical modeling, qualitative and quantitative analysis are utilized to proceed the study. Main outcomes are as follows. By comparing a series of S. alterniflora managing methods which include the combination of mechanical cutting and hydraulic reclamation, waterlogging, herbicide and biological substitution from three standpoints – ecology, engineering and economy. It is inferred that the combination of mechanical cutting and hydraulic reclamation is among the top rank of S. alternifora managing methods. The combination of mechanical cutting and hydraulic reclamation means using large-scale mechanical equipment like large screw seagoing dredger to excavate the S. alterniflora with root and mud together. Then the mix of mud and grass was blown off nearby coastal tidal zone transported by pipelines, which can cushion the silt of tidal zone to form a land. However, as man-made land by coast, the reclamation area’s ecological sensitivity is quite high and will face high possibility of flood threat. Therefore, the reclamation area has many reasonability requirements, including ones on location, specific scope, water surface rate, direction of main watercourse, site of water-gate, the ratio of ecological land to urban construction land. These requirements all became important basis when the planning was being made. The water system planning, green space system planning, road structure and land use all need to accommodate the ecological requests. Besides, the profits from the formed land is the managing project’s source of funding, so how to utilize land efficiently is another considered point in the planning. It is concluded that by aiming at managing a large area of S. alterniflora, the combination of mechanical cutting and hydraulic reclamation is an ecological, feasible and economical method. The planning of reclamation area should fully respect the natural environment and possible disasters. Then the planning which makes land use efficient, reasonable, ecological will promote the development of the area’s city construction.

Keywords: ecological management, ecological planning method, reclamation area, Spartina alternifora, Xihu harbor

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Authors: Irum Naz

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In the Arabian higher education context, linguistic proficiency in the English language is considered crucial for the developmental sustainability, economic growth, and stability of communities and societies. Qatar’s educational reforms package, through the 2030 vision, identifies the acquisition of English at K-12 as an essential survival communication tool for globalization, believing that Qatari students need better preparation to take on the responsibilities of leadership and to participate effectively in the country’s surging economy. The idea of introducing Qatari students to modern curricula benchmarked to high-student-performance curricula in developed countries is one of the components of reformatory design principles of Education for New Era reform project that is mutually consented to and supported by the Office of Shared Services, Communications Office, and Supreme Education Council. In appreciation of the government’s vision, the English Language Centre (ELC) at the Community College of Qatar ran an internal educational audit and conducted evaluative research to understand and appraise the value, impact, and practicality of the existing ELC language development program. This study sought to identify the type of change that could identify and improve the quality of Foundation Program courses and the manners in which second language learners could be assisted to transit smoothly between (ELC) levels. Following the interpretivist paradigm and mixed research method, the data was gathered through a bicyclic research model and a triangular design. The analyses of the data suggested that there was a need for improvement in the ELC program as a whole, and particularly in terms of curriculum, student learning outcomes, and the general learning environment in the department. Key findings suggest that the target program would benefit from significant revisions, which would include narrowing the focus of the courses, providing sets of specific learning objectives, and preventing repetition between levels. Another promising finding was about the assessment tools and process. The data suggested that a set of standardized assessments that more closely suited the programs of study should be devised. It was also recommended that students undergo a more comprehensive placement process to ensure that they begin the program at an appropriate level and get the maximum benefit from their learning experience. Although this ties into the idea of curriculum revamp, it was expected that students could leave the ELC having had exposure to courses in English for specific purposes. The idea of a more reliable exit assessment for students was raised frequently so ELC could regulate itself and ensure optimum learning outcomes. Another important recommendation was the provision of a Student Learning Center for students that would help them to receive personalized tuition, differentiated instruction, and self-driven and self-evaluated learning experience. In addition, an extra study level was recommended to be added to the program to accommodate the different levels of English language proficiency represented among ELC students. The evidence collected in the course of conducting the study suggests that significant change is needed in the structure of the ELC program, specifically about curriculum, the program learning outcomes, and the learning environment in general.

Keywords: educational audit, ESL, optimum learning outcomes, Qatar’s educational reforms, self-driven and self-evaluated learning experience, Student Learning Center

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Authors: B. Philip, J. Littlewood, R. Radford, N. Evans, T. Whyman, D. P. Jones

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UK buildings and energy infrastructures are heavily dependent on natural gas, a large proportion of which is used for domestic space heating. However, approximately half of the gas consumed in the UK is imported. Improving energy security and reducing carbon emissions are major government drivers for reducing gas dependency. In order to do so there needs to be a wholesale shift in the energy provision to householders without impacting on thermal comfort levels, convenience or cost of supply to the end user. Heat pumps are seen as a potential alternative in modern well insulated homes, however, can the same be said of older homes? A large proportion of housing stock in Britain was built prior to 1919. The age of the buildings bears testimony to the quality of construction; however, their thermal performance falls far below the minimum currently set by UK building standards. In recent years significant sums of money have been invested to improve energy efficiency and combat fuel poverty in some of the most deprived areas of Wales. Increasing energy efficiency of older properties remains a significant challenge, which cannot be achieved through insulation and air-tightness interventions alone, particularly when alterations to historically important architectural features of the building are not permitted. This paper investigates the energy demand of pre-1919 dwellings in a former Welsh mining village, the feasibility of meeting that demand using water from the disused mine workings to supply a district heat network and potential barriers to success of the scheme. The use of renewable solar energy generation and storage technologies, both thermal and electrical, to reduce the load and offset increased electricity demand, are considered. A wholistic surveying approach to provide a more accurate assessment of total household heat demand is proposed. Several surveying techniques, including condition surveys, air permeability, heat loss calculations, and thermography were employed to provide a clear picture of energy demand. Additional insulation can bring unforeseen consequences which are detrimental to the fabric of the building, potentially leading to accelerated dilapidation of the asset being ‘protected’. Increasing ventilation should be considered in parallel, to compensate for the associated reduction in uncontrolled infiltration. The effectiveness of thermal performance improvements are demonstrated and the detrimental effects of incorrect material choice and poor installation are highlighted. The findings show estimated heat demand to be in close correlation to household energy bills. Major areas of heat loss were identified such that improvements to building thermal performance could be targeted. The findings demonstrate that the use of heat pumps in older buildings is viable, provided sufficient improvement to thermal performance is possible. Addition of passive solar thermal and photovoltaic generation can help reduce the load and running cost for the householder. The results were used to predict future heat demand following energy efficiency improvements, thereby informing the size of heat pumps required.

Keywords: heat demand, heat pump, renewable energy, retrofit

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Authors: Ashok Kumar Lonavath, V. Sathish Kumar

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Urban sprawl is the uncontrolled and uncoordinated outgrowth of towns and cities. The process of urban sprawl can be described by change in pattern over time, like proportional increase in built-up surface to population leading to rapid urban spatial expansion. Significant economic and livelihood opportunities in the urban areas results in lack of basic amenities due to the unplanned growth The patterns, processes, dynamic causes and consequences of sprawl can be explored and designed with the help of spatial planning support system. In India context the urban area is defined as the population more than 5000, density more than 400 persons per sq. km and 75% of the population is involved in non-agricultural occupations. India’s urban population is increasing at the rate of 2.35% pa. The class I town’s population of India according to 2011 census is 18.8% that accounts for 60.4% of total unban population. Similarly in Erstwhile Andhra Pradesh it is 22.9% which accounts for 68.8% of total urban population. Suryapet town has historical recognition as ‘Gate Way of Telangana’ in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. The Municipality was constituted in 1952 as Grade-III, later upgraded into Grade-II in 1984 and to Grade-I in 1998. The area is 35 Sq.kms. Three major tanks located in three different directions and Musi River is flowing from a distance of 8 kms. The average ground water table is about 50m below ground. It is a fast growing town with a population of 1, 06,805 and 25,448 households. Density is 3051pp sq km, It is a Class I city as per population census. It secured the ISO 14001-2004 certificate for establishing and maintaining an environment-friendly system for solid waste disposal. It is the first municipality in the country to receive such a certificate. It won HUDCO award under environment management, award of appreciation and cash from Ministry of Housing and Poverty Elevation from Government of India and undivided Andhra Pradesh under UN Human Settlement Programme, Greentech Excellance award, Supreme Courts appreciation for solid waste management. Foreign delegates from different countries and also from various other states of India visited Suryapet municipality for study tour and training programs as part of their official visit Suryapet is located at 17°5’ North Latitude and 79°37’ East Longitude. The average elevation is 266m, annual mean temperature is 36°C and average rainfall is 821.0 mm. The people of this town are engaged in Commercial and agriculture activities hence the town has become a centre for marketing and stocking agricultural produce. It is also educational centre in this region. The present paper on urban sprawl is a theoretical framework to analyze the interaction of planning and governance on the extent of outgrowth and level of services. The GIS techniques, SOI Toposheet, satellite imageries and image analysis techniques are extensively used to explore the sprawl and measure the urban land-use. This paper concludes outlining the challenges in addressing urban sprawl while ensuring adequate level of services that planning and governance have to ensure towards achieving sustainable urbanization.

Keywords: remote sensing, GIS, urban sprawl, urbanization

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Authors: Tzipi Eshet

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The primary objectives of this work are the examination of public preferences and attributed importance to different characteristics of coastal cliff protection alternatives, and drawing conclusions about the applicable alternative in Beit-Yanai beach. Erosion of coastal cliffs is a natural phenomenon that occurs in many places in the world. This creates problems along the coastlines, which are densely populated areas with highly developed economic activity. In recent years, various aspects of the aeolianite cliffs along the Israeli coast have been studied extensively. There is a consensus among researchers regarding a general trend of cliff retreat. This affects civilian infrastructure, wildlife habitats and heritage values, as well as Increases the risk to human life. The Israeli government, committed to the integrated coastal zones management approach, decided on a policy and guidelines to deal with cliff erosion, which includes establishing physical protection on land and in the sea, sand nourishment and runoff drainage. Physical protection solutions to reduce the rate of retreat of the cliffs are considerably important both for planning authorities and visitors to the beach. Direct costs of different protection alternatives, as well as external costs and benefits, may vary, thus affecting consumer preferences. Planning and execution of sustainable coastal cliff protection alternatives must take into account the different characteristics and their impact on aspects of economics, environment and leisure. The rocky shore of Beit-Yanai Beach was chosen as a case study to examine the nature of the influence of various protective solutions on consumer preferences. This beach is located in the center of Israel's coastline, and acts as a focus of attraction for recreation, land and sea sports, and educational activities as well. If no action will be taken, cliff retreat will continue. A survey was conducted to reveal the importance of coastal protection alternatives characteristics and the visual preferences to visitors at beach Beit-Yanai and residents living on the cliff (N=287). Preferences and willingness-to-pay were explored using Contingent-Ranking and Choice-Experiments techniques. Results show that visitors’ and residents’ willingness-to-pay for coastal cliff protection alternatives is affected both by financial and environmental aspects, as well as leisure. They prefer coastal cliff protection alternatives that are not visible and do not need constant maintenance, do not affect the quality of seawater or the habitats of wildlife and do not lower the security level of the swimmers. No significant difference was found comparing willingness-to-pay among local and non-local users. Additionally, they mostly prefer a protection solution which is integrated in the coastal landscape and maintains the natural appearance of the beach. Of the possible protection alternatives proposed for the protection of the cliff in Beit Yanai beach are two techniques that meet public preferences: rock revetments and submerged detached breakwaters. Results indicate that the visiting public prefer the implementation of these protection alternatives and will be willing to pay for them. Future actions to reduce retreat rate in Beit-Yanai have to consider implications on the economic, environmental and social conditions, along with weighting public interest against the interest of the individual.

Keywords: contingent-ranking, choice-experiments, coastal cliff protection, erosion of coastal cliffs, environment

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Authors: Yuguang Gao, Mingtao Deng

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The integration of independently operating hospitals into a unified healthcare service system has become a strategic imperative in the pursuit of hospitals’ high-quality development. Central to the concept of group governance over such transformation, exemplified by a collaborative medical alliance, is the delineation of shared value, vision, and goals. Given the inherent disparity in capabilities among hospitals within the alliance, particularly in the treatment of different diseases characterized by Disease Related Groups (DRG) in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and resource utilization, this study aims to address the centralized decision-making of intra-hospital patient referral within the medical alliance to enhance the overall production and quality of service provided. We first introduce the notion of production utility, where a higher production utility for a hospital implies better performance in treating patients diagnosed with that specific DRG group of diseases. Then, a Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) framework is established for patient referral among hospitals, where patient flow modeling incorporates a queueing system with fixed capacities for each hospital. The simulation study begins with a two-member alliance. The pivotal strategy examined is a "whether-to-refer" decision triggered when the bed usage rate surpasses a predefined threshold for either hospital. Then, the decision encompasses referring patients to the other hospital based on DRG groups’ production utility differentials as well as bed availability. The objective is to maximize the total production utility of the alliance while minimizing patients’ average length of stay and turnover rate. Thus the parameter under scrutiny is the bed usage rate threshold, influencing the efficacy of the referral strategy. Extending the study to a three-member alliance, which could readily be generalized to multi-member alliances, we maintain the core setup while introducing an additional “which-to-refer" decision that involves referring patients with specific DRG groups to the member hospital according to their respective production utility rankings. The overarching goal remains consistent, for which the bed usage rate threshold is once again a focal point for analysis. For the two-member alliance scenario, our simulation results indicate that the optimal bed usage rate threshold hinges on the discrepancy in the number of beds between member hospitals, the distribution of DRG groups among incoming patients, and variations in production utilities across hospitals. Transitioning to the three-member alliance, we observe similar dependencies on these parameters. Additionally, it becomes evident that an imbalanced distribution of DRG diagnoses and further disparity in production utilities among member hospitals may lead to an increase in the turnover rate. In general, it was found that the intra-hospital referral mechanism enhances the overall production utility of the medical alliance compared to individual hospitals without partnership. Patients’ average length of stay is also reduced, showcasing the positive impact of the collaborative approach. However, the turnover rate exhibits variability based on parameter setups, particularly when patients are redirected within the alliance. In conclusion, the re-structuring of diagnostic disease groups within the medical alliance proves instrumental in improving overall healthcare service outcomes, providing a compelling rationale for the government's promotion of patient referrals within collaborative medical alliances.

Keywords: collaborative medical alliance, disease related group, patient referral, simulation

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Authors: Norma Kok, Diemo Masuko, Thandokazi Dlongwana, Komala Pillay

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CONTEXT: While many school principals have been outstanding teachers and have inherent leadership potential, many have not had access to the quality of leadership development or support that empowers them to produce high-quality education outcomes in extremely challenging circumstances. Further, school leaders in under-served communities face formidable challenges arising from insufficient infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, socio-economic challenges within the community, and insufficient parental involvement, all of which put a strain on principals’ ability to lead their schools effectively. In addition few school leaders have access to other supportive networks, and many do not know how to build and leverage social capital to create opportunities for their schools and learners. Moreover, we know that fostering parental involvement in their children’s learning improves a child’s morale, attitude, and academic achievement across all subject areas, and promotes better behaviour and social adjustment. Citizen Leader Lab facilitates the Partners for Possibility (PfP) programme to provide leadership development and support to school leaders serving under-resourced communities in South Africa to create effective environments of learning. This is done by creating partnerships between school leaders and private-sector business leaders over a 12-month period. (185) OBJECTIVES: To explore school leaders’ perceptions of their leadership capacities and changes at their schools after being exposed to a year-long leadership development training programme. METHODS: School leaders gained new leadership capacities e.g. resilience, improved confidence, communication and conflict resolution skills - catalysing into improved cultures of collaborative decision-making and environments for enhanced teaching and learningprogramme based on the 70:20:10 model whereby: 10% of learning comes from workshops, 20% of learning takes place through peer learning and 70% of learning occurs through experiential learning as partnerships work together to identify and tackle challenges in targeted schools. Participants completed a post-programme questionnaire consisting of structured and unstructured questions and semi-structured interviews were conducted with them and their business leader. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and thematic content analysis was undertaken. The analysis was inductive and emerging themes were identified. A code list was generated after coding was undertaken using computer software (Dedoose). Quantitative data gathered from surveys was aggregated and analysed. RESULTS: School leadership found the programme interesting and rewarding. They gained new leadership capacities such as resilience, improved confidence, communication and conflict resolution skills - catalyzing into improved cultures of collaborative decision-making and environments for enhanced teaching and learning. New networks resulted in tangible outcomes such as upgrades to school infrastructure, water and sanitation, vegetable gardens at schools resulting in nutrition for learners and/or intangible outcomes such as skills for members of school management teams (SMTs). Collaborative leadership led to SMTs being more aligned, efficient, and cohesive; and teachers being more engaged and motivated. Notable positive changes at the school inspired parents and community members to become more actively involved in the school and in their children’s education. CONCLUSION: The PfP programme leads to improved leadership capacities and improved school culture which leads to improved teaching and learning and new resources for schools.

Keywords: collaborative decision-making, collaborative leadership, community involvement, confidence

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Authors: Vaiddehi Bansal, Laura Hinson, Mayumi Rezwan, Erin Leasure, Mithila Iyer, Connor Roth, Poulomi Pal, Kareem Kysia

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As digital usage becomes increasingly ubiquitous worldwide, technology-facilitated gender-based violence (GBV) has garnered increasing attention in the recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This form of violence is defined as “action by one or more people that harms others based on their sexual or gender identity or by enforcing harmful gender norms. This action is carried out using the internet and/or mobile technology that harms others based on their sexual or gender identity or by enforcing harmful gender norms”.Common forms of technology-facilitated GBV include cyberstalking, cyberbullying, sexual harassment, image-based abuse, doxing, hacking, gendertrolling, hate speech, and impersonation. Most literature on this pervasive yet complex issue has emerged from high-income countries, and few studies comprehensively summarize its prevalence, manifestations, and implications. This rigorous scoping review examines the evidence base of this phenomenon in low and middle-income countries across Asia, summarizing trends and gaps to inform actionable recommendations. The research team developed search terms to conduct a comprehensive search of peer-reviewed and grey literature. Query results were eligible for inclusion if they were published in English between 2006-2021 and with an explicit emphasis on technology-facilitated violence, gender, and the countries of interest in the Asia region. Title, abstracts, and full-texts were independently screened by two reviewers based on inclusion criteria, and data was extracted through deductive coding. Of 2,042 articles screened, 97 met inclusion criteria. The review revealed a gap in the evidence-base in Central Asia and the Pacific Islands. Findings across South and Southeast Asia indicate that technology-facilitated GBV comprises various forms of abuse, violence, and harassment that are largely shaped by country-specific societal norms and technological landscapes. The literature confirms that women, girls, and sexual minorities, especially those with intersecting marginalized identities, are often more vulnerable to experiencing online violence. Cultural norms and patriarchal structures tend to stigmatize survivors, limiting their ability to seek social and legal support. Survivors are also less likely to report their experience due to barriers such as lack of awareness of reporting mechanisms, the perception that digital platforms will not address their complaints, and cumbersome reporting systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated perpetration and strained support mechanisms. Prevalence varies by the form of violence but is difficult to estimate accurately due to underreporting and disjointed, outdated, or non-existent legal definitions. Addressing technology-facilitated GBV in Asia requires collective action from multiple actors, including government authorities, technology companies, digital and feminist movements, NGOs, and researchers.

Keywords: gender-based violence, technology, online sexual harassment, image-based abuse

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Authors: Raquel Dafouz Neus Cáceres, Javier Fernandez-Rubio, Belinda Huerta José Luis Rodríguez-Gil, Nicola Mastroianni, Miren López de Alda, Damià Barceló, Yolanda Valcárcel

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The region of Galicia, found in north-western (NW) Spain, is a national and world leader in shellfish, especially mussel production, and recognized for its fishing industry. Few studies have evaluated the presence of emerging contaminants in NW Spain, with those published mainly concerning the continental aquatic environment. The objective of this study was to identify the environmental risk posed by the presence of pharmaceuticals and drugs of abuse in this important coastal region. The presence of sixteen pharmaceuticals (benzodiazepines, anxiolytics, and caffeine), and 19 drugs of abuse (cocainics, amphetamine-like compounds, opiates and opioids, lysergic compounds, and cannabinoids) was assessed in 23 sites located in the Rías (Coastal inlets) of Muros, Arousa, and Pontevedra (NW Spain). Twenty-two of these locations were affected by waste-water treatment plant (WWTP) effluents, and one represented the effluent of one of these WWTPs. Venlafaxine was the pharmaceutical compound detected at higher concentration in the three Rías, with a maximum value of 291 ng/L at the site Porto do Son (Ría de Muros). Total concentration in the three Rías was 819,26 ng/L. Next, citalopram and lorazepam were the most prevalent compounds detected. Metabolite of cocaine benzoylecgonine was the drug of abuse with the highest concentration, measured at 972 ng/L in the Ría of Noia WWTP (no dilution). This compound was also detected at 142 ng/L in the site La Isla de Aros, Ría of Pontevedra. Total concentration for the three Rías was 1210 ng/L. Ephedrine was also detected at high level in the three Rías, with a total concentration of 579,28 ng/L. The results obtained for caffeine show maximum and average concentrations of 857 ng/L Isla de Arosa, Ría de Pontevedra the highest measured in seawater in Spain. A preliminary hazard assessment was carried out by comparing these measured environmental concentrations (MEC) to predicted no-effect concentrations (PNECs) for aquatic organisms. Six out of the 22 seawater samples resulted in a Hazard Quotient (HQ) from chronic exposure higher than 1 with the highest being 17.14, indicating a high probability of adverse effects in the aquatic environment. In addition, the risk was assessed on the basis of persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity (PBT). This work was financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Carlos III Health Institute and the program 'Proyectos de Investigacion en Salud 2015-2017' FIS (PI14/00516), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Catalan Government (Consolidated Research Groups '2014 SGR 418 - Water and Soil Quality Unit' and 2014 SGR 291 - ICRA), and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 603437. The poster entitled 'Environmental Risk of Pharmaceuticals, Drugs of Abuse and Stimulant Caffeine in Marine Water: A Case Study in the North-Western of Spain'.

Keywords: drug of abuse, pharmaceuticals, caffeine, environmental risk, seawater

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Authors: Eli Avraham

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The Arab Spring was widely covered in the global media and the number of Western tourists traveling to the area began to fall. The goal of this study was to analyze which media strategies marketers in Middle Eastern countries chose to employ in their attempts to repair the negative image of the area in the wake of the Arab Spring. Several studies were published concerning image-restoration strategies of destinations during crises around the globe; however, these strategies were not part of an overarching theory, conceptual framework or model from the fields of crisis communication and image repair. The conceptual framework used in the current study was the ‘multi-step model for altering place image’, which offers three types of strategies: source, message and audience. Three research questions were used: 1.What public relations crisis techniques and advertising campaign components were used? 2. What media policies and relationships with the international media were adopted by Arab officials? 3. Which marketing initiatives (such as cultural and sports events) were promoted? This study is based on qualitative content analysis of four types of data: 1) advertising components (slogans, visuals and text); (2) press interviews with Middle Eastern officials and marketers; (3) official media policy adopted by government decision-maker (e.g. boycotting or arresting newspeople); and (4) marketing initiatives (e.g. organizing heritage festivals and cultural events). The data was located in three channels from December 2010, when the events started, to September 31, 2013: (1) Internet and video-sharing websites: YouTube and Middle Eastern countries' national tourism board websites; (2) News reports from two international media outlets, The New York Times and Ha’aretz; these are considered quality newspapers that focus on foreign news and tend to criticize institutions; (3) Global tourism news websites: eTurbo news and ‘Cities and countries branding’. Using the ‘multi-step model for altering place image,’ the analysis reveals that Middle Eastern marketers and officials used three kinds of strategies to repair their countries' negative image: 1. Source (cooperation and media relations; complying, threatening and blocking the media; and finding alternatives to the traditional media) 2. Message (ignoring, limiting, narrowing or reducing the scale of the crisis; acknowledging the negative effect of an event’s coverage and assuring a better future; promotion of multiple facets, exhibitions and softening the ‘hard’ image; hosting spotlight sporting and cultural events; spinning liabilities into assets; geographic dissociation from the Middle East region; ridicule the existing stereotype) and 3. Audience (changing the target audience by addressing others; emphasizing similarities and relevance to specific target audience). It appears that dealing with their image problems will continue to be a challenge for officials and marketers of Middle Eastern countries until the region stabilizes and its regional conflicts are resolved.

Keywords: Arab spring, cultural events, image repair, Middle East, tourism marketing

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Authors: Alexander David Natanson

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This paper focuses on the effect of Sanctuary and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies on local economies. "Sanctuary cities" refers to municipal jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with the federal government's efforts to enforce immigration. Using county-level data from the American Community Survey and ICE data on economic indicators from 2006 to 2018, this study isolates the effects of local immigration policies on U.S. counties. The investigation is accomplished by simultaneously studying the policies' effects in counties where immigrants' families are persecuted via collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in contrast to counties that provide protections. The analysis includes a difference-in-difference & two-way fixed effect model. Results are robust to nearest-neighbor matching, after the random assignment of treatment, after running estimations using different cutoffs for immigration policies, and with a regression discontinuity model comparing bordering counties with opposite policies. Results are also robust after restricting the data to a single-year policy adoption, using the Sun and Abraham estimator, and with event-study estimation to deal with the staggered treatment issue. In addition, the study reverses the estimation to understand what drives the decision to choose policies to detect the presence of reverse causality biases in the estimated policy impact on economic factors. The evidence demonstrates that providing protections to undocumented immigrants increases economic activity. The estimates show gains in per capita income ranging from 3.1 to 7.2, median wages between 1.7 to 2.6, and GDP between 2.4 to 4.1 percent. Regarding labor, sanctuary counties saw increases in total employment between 2.3 to 4 percent, and the unemployment rate declined from 12 to 17 percent. The data further shows that ICE policies have no statistically significant effects on income, median wages, or GDP but adverse effects on total employment, with declines from 1 to 2 percent, mostly in rural counties, and an increase in unemployment of around 7 percent in urban counties. In addition, results show a decline in the foreign-born population in ICE counties but no changes in sanctuary counties. The study also finds similar results for sanctuary counties when separating the data between urban, rural, educational attainment, gender, ethnic groups, economic quintiles, and the number of business establishments. The takeaway from this study is that institutional inclusion creates the dynamic nature of an economy, as inclusion allows for economic expansion due to the extension of fundamental freedoms to newcomers. Inclusive policies show positive effects on economic outcomes with no evident increase in population. To make sense of these results, the hypothesis and theoretical model propose that inclusive immigration policies play an essential role in conditioning the effect of immigration by decreasing uncertainties and constraints for immigrants' interaction in their communities, decreasing the cost from fear of deportation or the constant fear of criminalization and optimize their human capital.

Keywords: inclusive and exclusive institutions, post matching, fixed effect, time trend, regression discontinuity, difference-in-difference, randomization inference and sun, Abraham estimator

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Authors: Silvia D. Vaca, Benjamin J. Kuo, Joao Ricardo N. Vissoci, Catherine A. Staton, Linda W. Xu, Michael Muhumuza, Hussein Ssenyonjo, John Mukasa, Joel Kiryabwire, Henry E. Rice, Gerald A. Grant, Michael M. Haglund

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Background: While delays to care exist in resource rich settings, greater delays are seen along the care continuum in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) largely due to limited healthcare capacity to address the disproportional rates of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). While many LMICs have government subsidized systems to offset surgical costs, the burden of securing funds by the patients for medications, supplies, and CT diagnostics poses a significant challenge to timely surgical interventions. In Kampala Uganda, the challenge of obtaining timely CT scans is twofold. First, due to a lack of a functional CT scanner at the tertiary hospital, patients need to arrange their own transportation to the nearby private facility for CT scans. Second, self-financing for the private CT scans ranges from $80 - $130, which is near the average monthly income in Kampala. These bottlenecks contribute significantly to the care continuum delays and are associated with poor TBI outcomes. Objective: The objectives of this study are to 1) describe the temporal delays through a modified three delays model that fits the context of neurosurgical interventions for TBI patients in Kampala and 2) investigate the association between delays and mortality. Methods: Prospective data were collected for 563 TBI patients presenting to a tertiary hospital in Kampala from 1 June – 30 November 2016. Four time intervals were constructed along five time points: injury, hospital arrival, neurosurgical evaluation, CT results, and definitive surgery. Time interval differences among mild, moderate and severe TBI and their association with mortality were analyzed. Results: The mortality rate of all TBI patients presenting to MNRH was 9.6%, which ranged from 4.7% for mild and moderate TBI patients receiving surgery to 81.8% for severe TBI patients who failed to receive surgery. The duration from injury to surgery varied considerably across TBI severity with the largest gap seen between mild TBI (174 hours) and severe TBI (69 hours) patients. Further analysis revealed care continuum differences for interval 3 (neurosurgical evaluation to CT result) and 4 (CT result to surgery) between severe TBI patients (7 hours for interval 3 and 24 hours for interval 4) and mild TBI patients (19 hours for interval 3, and 96 hours for interval 4). These post-arrival delays were associated with mortality for mild (p=0.05) and moderate TBI (p=0.03) patients. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first analysis using a modified ‘three delays’ framework to analyze the care continuum of TBI patients in Uganda from injury to surgery. We found significant associations between delays and mortality for mild and moderate TBI patients. As it currently stands, poorer outcomes were observed for these mild and moderate TBI patients who were managed non-operatively or failed to receive surgery while surgical services were shunted to more severely ill patients. While well intentioned, high mortality rates were still observed for the severe TBI patients managed surgically. These results suggest the need for future research to optimize triage practices, understand delay contributors, and improve pre-hospital logistical referral systems.

Keywords: care continuum, global neurosurgery, Kampala Uganda, LMIC, Mulago, prospective registry, traumatic brain injury

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Authors: Victoria L. Chester, Usha Kuruganti

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The forest industry is a major economic sector of Canada and also one of the most dangerous industries for workers. The use of mechanized mobile forestry harvesting machines has successfully reduced the incidence of injuries in forest workers related to manual labor. However, these machines have also created additional concerns, including a high machine operation learning curve, increased the length of the workday, repetitive strain injury, cognitive load, physical and mental fatigue, and increased postural loads due to sitting in a confined space. It is critical to obtain objective performance data for employers to develop appropriate work practices for this industry, however ergonomic field studies of this industry are lacking mainly due to the difficulties in obtaining comprehensive data while operators are cutting trees in the woods. The purpose of this study was to establish a measurement and experimental protocol to examine the effects of worker skill level and movement training speed (joystick crane speed) on harvesting performance using a forestry simulator. A custom wrist angle measurement device was developed as part of the study to monitor Euler angles during operation of the simulator. The device of the system consisted of two accelerometers, a Bluetooth module, three 3V coin cells, a microcontroller, a voltage regulator and an application software. Harvesting performance and crane data was provided by the simulator software and included tree to frame collisions, crane to tree collisions, boom tip distance, number of trees cut, etc. A pilot study of 3 operators with various skill levels was tested to identify factors that distinguish highly skilled operators from novice or intermediate operators. Dependent variables such as reaction time, math skill, past work experience, training movement speed (e.g. joystick control speeds), harvesting experience level, muscle activity, and wrist biomechanics were measured and analyzed. A 10-channel wireless surface EMG system was used to monitor the amplitude and mean frequency of 10 upper extremity muscles during pre and postperformance on the forestry harvest stimulator. The results of the pilot study showed inconsistent changes in median frequency pre-and postoperation, but there was the increase in the activity of the flexor carpi radialis, anterior deltoid and upper trapezius of both arms. The wrist sensor results indicated that wrist supination and pronation occurred more than flexion and extension with radial-ulnar rotation demonstrating the least movement. Overall, wrist angular motion increased as the crane speed increased from slow to fast. Further data collection is needed and will help industry partners determine those factors that separate skill levels of operators, identify optimal training speeds, and determine the length of training required to bring new operators to an efficient skill level effectively. In addition to effective and employment training programs, results of this work will be used for selective employee recruitment strategies to improve employee retention after training. Further, improved training procedures and knowledge of the physical and mental demands on workers will lead to highly trained and efficient personnel, reduced risk of injury, and optimal work protocols.

Keywords: EMG, forestry, human factors, wrist biomechanics

Procedia PDF Downloads 121

Authors: Vasundhara H. Krishnani, Ajay Saini, Dibesh Karmacharya, Salit Kark

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Illegal Wildlife Trade is one of the most pressing global conservation challenges. Unregulated wildlife trade can threaten biodiversity, contribute to habitat loss, limit sustainable development efforts, and expedite species declines and extinctions. In low-income and middle-income countries, such as Nepal and other countries in Asia and Africa, many of the people engaged in the early stages of illegal wildlife trade, which includes the hunting and transportation of wildlife, belong to Indigenous tribes and local communities.These countries primarily rely on punitive measures to prevent and suppress Illegal Wildlife Trade. For example, in Nepal, people involved in wildlife crimes can often be sentenced to incarceration and a hefty fine and serve up to 15 years in prison. Despite these harsh punitive measures, illegal wildlife trade remains a significant conservation challenge in many countries. The aim of this study was to examine factors affecting the participation of Indigenous communities in Illegal Wildlife Trade while recording the experiences of members of the Indigenous Chepang community, some of whom were imprisoned for their alleged involvement in rhino poaching. Chepangs, belonging to traditionally a hunter-gatherer community, are often considered an isolated and marginalized Indigenous community, some of whom live around the Chitwan National Park in Nepal. Established in 1973, Chitwan National Park is situated in the Chitwan Valley of Nepal and was one of the first regions that was declared as a protected area in Nepal, aiming to protect the one-horned rhinoceros as a flagship species. Conducted over a period of three years, this study used semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to collect data from Illegal Wildlife Trade offenders, family members of offenders, community Elders, NGO personnel, community forest representatives, Chepang community representatives, and Government school teachers from the region surrounding Chitwan National Park. The study also examined the social, cultural, health, and financial impacts that the imprisonment of offenders had on the families of the community members, especially women and children. The results suggest that involvement of the members of the Chepang community living around Chitwan National Park in the poaching of the one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) can be attributed to a range of factors, some of which include: lack of livelihood opportunities, lack of awareness regarding wildlife rules and regulations and poverty.This work emphasises the need for raising awareness and building programs to enhance alternative livelihood training and empower indigenous and marginalised communities that provide sustainable alternatives. Furthermore, the issue needs to be addressed as a community solution which includes all community members. We suggest this multi-pronged approach can benefit wildlife conservation by reducing illegal poaching and wildlife trade, as well as community conservation in regions with similar challenges. By actively involving and empowering local communities, the communities become key stakeholders in the conservation process. This involvement contributes to protecting wildlife and natural ecosystems while simultaneously providing sustainable livelihood options for local communities.

Keywords: alternative livelihoods, chepang community, illegal wildlife trade, low-and middle-income countries, nepal, one-horned rhinoceros

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Authors: Abha Gupta, Deepak K. Mishra

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The focus of food security studies in India has been on the adequacy of calories and its linkage with poverty level. India currently being undergoing a massive demographic and epidemiological transition has demonstrated a decline in average physical activity with improved mechanization and urbanization. Food consumption pattern is also changing with decreasing intake of coarse cereals and a marginal increase in the consumption of fruits, vegetables and meat products resulting into a nutrition transition in the country. However, deficiency of essential micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals is rampant despite their growing importance in fighting back with lifestyle and other modern diseases. The calorie driven studies can hardly tackle the complex problem of malnutrition. This paper fills these research lacuna and analyses mean intake of different major and micro-nutrients among different socio-economic groups and adequacy of these nutrients from recommended dietary allowance. For the purpose, a cross-sectional survey covering 304 households selected through proportional stratified random sampling was conducted in six villages of Aligarh district of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Data on quantity consumed of 74 food items grouped into 10 food categories with a recall period of seven days was collected from the households and converted into energy, protein, fat, carbohydrate, calcium, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin C using standard guidelines of National Institute of Nutrition. These converted nutrients were compared with recommended norms given by National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau. Per capita nutrient adequacy was calculated by dividing mean nutrient intake by the household size and then by comparing it with recommended norm. Findings demonstrate that source of both macro and micro-nutrients are mainly cereals followed by milk, edible oil and sugar items. Share of meat in providing essential nutrients is very low due to vegetarian diet. Vegetables, pulses, nuts, fruits and dry fruits are a poor source for most of the nutrients. Further analysis evinces that intake of most of the nutrients is higher than the recommended norm. Riboflavin is the only vitamin whose intake is less than the standard norm. Poor group, labour, small farmers, Muslims, scheduled caste demonstrate comparatively lower intake of all nutrients than their counterpart groups, though, they get enough macro and micro-nutrients significantly higher than the norm. One of the major reasons for higher intake of most of the nutrients across all socio-economic groups is higher consumption of monotonous diet based on cereals and milk. Most of the nutrients get their major share from cereals particularly wheat and milk intake. It can be concluded from the analysis that although there is adequate intake of most of the nutrients in the diet of rural population yet their source is mainly cereals and milk products depicting a monotonous diet. Hence, more efforts are needed to diversify the diet by giving more focus to the production of other food items particularly fruits, vegetables and pulse products. Awareness among the population, more accessibility and incorporating food items other than cereals in government social safety programmes are other measures to improve food security in India.

Keywords: hidden hunger, India, nutrients, recommended norm

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Authors: Joel Niklaus, Matthias Sturmer

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The publication of judicial proceedings is a cornerstone of many democracies. It enables the court system to be made accountable by ensuring that justice is made in accordance with the laws. Equally important is privacy, as a fundamental human right (Article 12 in the Declaration of Human Rights). Therefore, it is important that the parties (especially minors, victims, or witnesses) involved in these court decisions be anonymized securely. Today, the anonymization of court decisions in Switzerland is performed either manually or semi-automatically using primitive software. While much research has been conducted on anonymization for tabular data, the literature on anonymization for unstructured text documents is thin and virtually non-existent for court decisions. In 2019, it has been shown that manual anonymization is not secure enough. In 21 of 25 attempted Swiss federal court decisions related to pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceuticals, and legal parties involved could be manually re-identified. This was achieved by linking the decisions with external databases using regular expressions. An automated re-identification system serves as an automated test for the safety of existing anonymizations and thus promotes the right to privacy. Manual anonymization is very expensive (recurring annual costs of over CHF 20M in Switzerland alone, according to an estimation). Consequently, many Swiss courts only publish a fraction of their decisions. An automated anonymization system reduces these costs substantially, further leading to more capacity for publishing court decisions much more comprehensively. For the re-identification system, topic modeling with latent dirichlet allocation is used to cluster an amount of over 500K Swiss court decisions into meaningful related categories. A comprehensive knowledge base with publicly available data (such as social media, newspapers, government documents, geographical information systems, business registers, online address books, obituary portal, web archive, etc.) is constructed to serve as an information hub for re-identifications. For the actual re-identification, a general-purpose language model is fine-tuned on the respective part of the knowledge base for each category of court decisions separately. The input to the model is the court decision to be re-identified, and the output is a probability distribution over named entities constituting possible re-identifications. For the anonymization system, named entity recognition (NER) is used to recognize the tokens that need to be anonymized. Since the focus lies on Swiss court decisions in German, a corpus for Swiss legal texts will be built for training the NER model. The recognized named entities are replaced by the category determined by the NER model and an identifier to preserve context. This work is part of an ongoing research project conducted by an interdisciplinary research consortium. Both a legal analysis and the implementation of the proposed system design ESRA will be performed within the next three years. This study introduces the system design of ESRA, an end-to-end system for re-identification and anonymization of Swiss court decisions. Firstly, the re-identification system tests the safety of existing anonymizations and thus promotes privacy. Secondly, the anonymization system substantially reduces the costs of manual anonymization of court decisions and thus introduces a more comprehensive publication practice.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, courts, legal tech, named entity recognition, natural language processing, ·privacy, topic modeling

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Authors: Abdullah Nurus Salam Khan, Farhana Karim, Mohiuddin Ahsanul Kabir Chowdhury, S. Masum Billah, Nabila Zaka, Alexander Manu, Shams El Arifeen

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Globally, pre-eclampsia (PE) and ante-partum haemorrhage (APH) are two major causes of maternal mortality. Prompt identification and management of these conditions depend on competency of the birth attendants. Since these conditions are infrequent to be observed, clinical vignette based assessment could identify the extent of health worker’s competence in managing emergency obstetric care (EmOC). During June-August 2016, competence of 39 medical officers (MO) and 95 nurses working in obstetric ward of 15 government health facilities (3 district hospital, 12 sub-district hospital) was measured using clinical vignettes on PE and APH. The vignettes resulted in three outcome measures: total vignette scores, scores for diagnosis component, and scores for management component. T-test was conducted to compare mean vignette scores and linear regression was conducted to measure the strength and association of vignette scores with different cadres of health workers, facility’s readiness for EmOC and average annual utilization of normal deliveries after adjusting for type of health facility, health workers’ work experience, training status on managing maternal complication. For each of the seven component of EmOC items (administration of injectable antibiotics, oxytocic and anticonvulsant; manual removal of retained placenta, retained products of conception; blood transfusion and caesarean delivery), if any was practised in the facility within last 6 months, a point was added and cumulative EmOC readiness score (range: 0-7) was generated for each facility. The yearly utilization of delivery cases were identified by taking the average of all normal deliveries conducted during three years (2013-2015) preceding the survey. About 31% of MO and all nurses were female. Mean ( ± sd) age of the nurses were higher than the MO (40.0 ± 6.9 vs. 32.2 ± 6.1 years) and also longer mean( ± sd) working experience (8.9 ± 7.9 vs. 1.9 ± 3.9 years). About 80% health workers received any training on managing maternal complication, however, only 7% received any refresher’s training within last 12 months. The overall vignette score was 8.8 (range: 0-19), which was significantly higher among MO than nurses (10.7 vs. 8.1, p < 0.001) and the score was not associated with health facility types, training status and years of experience of the providers. Vignette score for management component (range: 0-9) increased with higher annual average number of deliveries in their respective working facility (adjusted β-coefficient 0.16, CI 0.03-0.28, p=0.01) and increased with each unit increase in EmOC readiness score (adjusted β-coefficient 0.44, CI 0.04-0.8, p=0.03). The diagnosis component of vignette score was not associated with any of the factors except it was higher among the MO than the nurses (adjusted β-coefficient 1.2, CI 0.13-2.18, p=0.03). Lack of competence in diagnosing and managing obstetric complication by the nurses than the MO is of concern especially when majority of normal deliveries are conducted by the nurses. Better EmOC preparedness of the facility and higher utilization of normal deliveries resulted in higher vignette score for the management component; implying the impact of experiential learning through higher case management. Focus should be given on improving the facility readiness for EmOC and providing the health workers periodic refresher’s training to make them more competent in managing obstetric cases.

Keywords: Bangladesh, emergency obstetric care, clinical vignette, competence of health workers

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Authors: Mohosina Jabin Toma, Gerald Tembrevilla, Marina Milner-Bolotin

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Science education in Bangladesh is losing its appeal at an alarming rate due to the lack of science laboratory equipment, excessive teacher-student ratio, and outdated teaching strategies. Research-based educational technologies aim to address some of the problems faced by teachers who have limited access to laboratory resources, like many Bangladeshi teachers. Physics Education Technology (PhET) research team has been developing science and mathematics interactive simulations to help students develop deeper conceptual understanding. Still, PhET simulations are rarely used in Bangladesh. The purpose of this study is to explore Bangladeshi teachers’ challenges in learning to implement PhET-enhanced pedagogies and examine teachers’ views on PhET’s pedagogical opportunities in secondary science education. Since it is a new technology for Bangladesh, seven workshops on PhET were conducted in Dhaka city for 129 in-service and pre-service teachers in the winter of 2023 prior to data collection. This study followed an explanatory mixed method approach that included a pre-and post-workshop survey and five semi-structured interviews. Teachers participated in the workshops voluntarily and shared their experiences at the end. Teachers’ challenges were also identified from workshop discussions and observations. The interviews took place three to four weeks after the workshop and shed light on teachers’ experiences of using PhET in actual classroom settings. The results suggest that teachers had difficulty handling new technology; hence, they recommended preparing a booklet and Bengali YouTube videos on PhET to assist them in overcoming their struggles. Teachers also faced challenges in using any inquiry-based learning approach due to the content-loaded curriculum and exam-oriented education system, as well as limited experience with inquiry-based education. The short duration of classes makes it difficult for them to design PhET activities. Furthermore, considering limited access to computers and the internet in school, teachers think PhET simulations can bring positive changes if used in homework activities. Teachers also think they lack pedagogical skills and sound content knowledge to take full advantage of PhET. They highly appreciated the workshops and proposed that the government designs some teacher training modules on how to incorporate PhET simulations. Despite all the challenges, teachers believe PhET can enhance student learning, ensure student engagement and increase student interest in STEM Education. Considering the lack of science laboratory equipment, teachers recognized the potential of PhET as a supplement to hands-on activities for secondary science education in Bangladesh. They believed that if PhET develops more curriculum-relevant sims, it will bring revolutionary changes to how Bangladeshi students learn science. All the participating teachers in this study came from two organizations, and all the workshops took place in urban areas; therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to all secondary science teachers. A nationwide study is required to include teachers from diverse backgrounds. A further study can shed light on how building a professional learning community can lessen teachers’ challenges in incorporating PhET-enhanced pedagogy in their teaching.

Keywords: educational technology, inquiry-based learning, PhET interactive simulations, PhET-enhanced pedagogies, science education, science laboratory equipment, teacher professional development

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Authors: Olayeye Olubunmi Shola

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Amidst increasing global environmental concerns, sustainable urban planning has emerged as a vital strategy in counteracting the negative impacts of urbanization on the environment. However, the emphasis on sustainability often disregards crucial elements of fairness and equal participation within urban settings. This abstract presents a comprehensive overview of the challenges, objectives, significance, and methodologies for addressing social inequalities in the development of eco-cities, with a specific focus on Abuja, Nigeria. Sustainable urban planning, particularly in the context of developing eco-cities, aims to construct cities prioritizing environmental sustainability and resilience. Nonetheless, a significant gap exists in addressing the enduring social disparities within these initiatives. Equitable distribution of resources, access to services, and social inclusivity are essential components that must be integrated into urban planning frameworks for cities that are genuinely sustainable and habitable. Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, provides a distinctive case for examining the intersection of sustainability and social justice in urban planning. Despite the urban development, Abuja grapples with challenges such as socio-economic disparities, unequal access to essential services, and inadequate housing among its residents. Recognizing and redressing these disparities within the framework of eco-city development is critical for nurturing an inclusive and sustainable urban environment. The primary aim of this study is to scrutinize and pinpoint the social discrepancies within Abuja's initiatives for eco-city development. Specific objectives include: Evaluating the current socio-economic landscape of Abuja to identify disparities in resource, service, and infrastructure access. Comprehending the existing sustainable urban planning initiatives and their influence on social fairness. Suggesting strategies and recommendations to improve fairness and inclusivity within Abuja's plans for eco-city development. This research holds substantial importance for urban planning practices and policy formulation, not only in Abuja but also on a global scale. By highlighting the crucial role of social equity and inclusivity in the development of eco-cities, this study aims to provide insights that can steer more comprehensive, people-centered urban planning practices. Addressing social disparities within sustainability initiatives is crucial for achieving genuinely sustainable and fair urban spaces. The study will employ qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Data collection will involve surveys, interviews, and observations to capture the diverse experiences and perspectives of various social groups within Abuja. Furthermore, quantitative data on infrastructure, service access, and socio-economic indicators will be collated from government reports, academic sources, and non-governmental organizations. Analytical tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) will be utilized to map and visualize spatial disparities in resource allocation and service access. Comparative analyses and case studies of successful interventions in other cities will be conducted to derive applicable strategies for Abuja's context. In conclusion, this study aims to contribute to the discourse on sustainable urban planning by advocating for equity and inclusivity in the development of eco-cities. By centering on Abuja as a case study, it aims to provide practical insights and solutions for the creation of more fair and sustainable urban environments.

Keywords: fairness, sustainability, geographical information system, equity

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Authors: Haruka Ando

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Undernutrition of children is a critical issue, especially for people in the remote areas of the Republic of Djibouti, since household food insecurity, inadequate child caring and feeding, unhealthy environment and lack of clean water, as well as insufficient maternal and child healthcare, are underlying causes which affect. Nomadic pastoralists living in the Dikhil region (Dikhil) are socio-economically and geographically more vulnerable due to displacement, which in turn worsens the situation of child stunting. A high prevalence of inappropriate complementary feeding among pastoral mothers might be a significant barrier to child growth. This study aims to identify health promotion intervention strategies that would support an increase in optimal complementary feeding among pastoral mothers of children aged 6-23 months in Dikhil. There are four objectives; to explore and to understand the existing practice of complementary feeding among pastoral mothers in Dikhil; to identify the barriers in appropriate complementary feeding among the mothers; to critically explore and analyse the strategies for an increase in complementary feeding among the mothers; to make pragmatic recommendations to address the barriers in Djibouti. This is an in-depth study utilizing a conceptual framework, the behaviour change wheel, to analyse the determinants of complementary feeding and categorize health promotion interventions for increasing optimal complementary feeding among pastoral mothers living in Dikhil. The analytical tool was utilized to appraise the strategies to mitigate the selected barriers against optimal complementary feeding. The data sources were secondary literature from both published and unpublished sources. The literature was systematically collected. The findings of the determinants including the barriers of optimal complementary feeding were identified: heavy household workload, caring for multiple children under five, lack of education, cultural norms and traditional eating habits, lack of husbands' support, poverty and food insecurity, lack of clean water, low media coverage, insufficient health services on complementary feeding, fear, poor personal hygiene, and mothers' low decision-making ability and lack of motivation for food choice. To mitigate selected barriers of optimal complementary feeding, four intervention strategies based on interpersonal communication at the community-level were chosen: scaling up mothers' support groups, nutrition education, grandmother-inclusive approach, and training for complementary feeding counseling. The strategies were appraised through the criteria of effectiveness and feasibility. Scaling up mothers' support groups could be the best approach. Mid-term and long-term recommendations are suggested based on the situation analysis and appraisal of intervention strategies. Mid-term recommendations include complementary feeding promotion interventions are integrated into the healthcare service providing system in Dikhil, and donor agencies advocate and lobby the Ministry of Health Djibouti (MoHD) to increase budgetary allocation on complementary feeding promotion to implement interventions at a community level. Moreover, the recommendations include a community health management team in Dikhil training healthcare workers and mother support groups by using complementary feeding communication guidelines and monitors behaviour change of pastoral mothers and health outcome of their children. Long-term recommendations are the MoHD develops complementary feeding guidelines to cover sector-wide collaboration for multi-sectoral related barriers.

Keywords: Afar, child food, child nutrition, complementary feeding, complementary food, developing countries, Djibouti, East Africa, hard-to-reach areas, Horn of Africa, nomad, pastoral, rural area, Somali, Sub-Saharan Africa

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Authors: Jennifer Wheeldon, Nick de Viggiani, Nikki Cotterill

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Background: Urinary and fecal incontinence affect a significant proportion of older adults aged 65 and over who permanently reside in residential and nursing home facilities. Incontinence symptoms have been linked to comorbidities, an increased risk of infection and reduced quality of life and mental wellbeing of residents. However, continence care provision can often be poor, further compromising the health and wellbeing of this vulnerable population. Objectives: To identify experiences and perceptions of continence care provision in older adult residential care settings and to identify factors that help or hinder good continence care provision. Settings included both residential care homes and nursing homes for older adults. Methods: A qualitative evidence synthesis using systematic review methodology established the current evidence-base. Data from 20 qualitative and mixed-method studies was appraised and synthesized. Following the review process, 10* qualitative interviews with staff working in older adult residential care settings were conducted across six* sites, which included registered managers, registered nurses and nursing/care assistants/aides. Purposive sampling recruited individuals from across England. Both evidence synthesis and interview data was analyzed thematically, both manually and with NVivo software. Results: The evidence synthesis revealed complex barriers and facilitators for continence care provision at three influencing levels: macro (structural and societal external influences), meso (organizational and institutional influences) and micro (day-to-day actions of individuals impacting service delivery). Macro-level barriers included negative stigmas relating to incontinence, aging and working in the older adult social care sector, restriction of continence care resources such as containment products (i.e. pads), short staffing in care facilities, shortfalls in the professional education and training of care home staff and the complex health and social care needs of older adult residents. Meso-level barriers included task-centered organizational cultures, ageist institutional perspectives regarding old age and incontinence symptoms, inadequate care home management and poor communication and teamwork among care staff. Micro-level barriers included poor knowledge and negative attitudes of care home staff and residents regarding incontinence symptoms and symptom management and treatment. Facilitators at the micro-level included proactive and inclusive leadership skills of individuals in management roles. Conclusions: The findings of the evidence synthesis study help to outline the complexities of continence care provision in older adult care homes facilities. Macro, meso and micro level influences demonstrate problematic and interrelated barriers across international contexts, indicating that improving continence care in this setting is extremely challenging due to the multiple levels at which care provision and services are impacted. Both international and national older adult social care policy-makers, researchers and service providers must recognize this complexity, and any intervention seeking to improve continence care in older adult care home settings must be planned accordingly and appreciatively of the complex and interrelated influences. It is anticipated that the findings of the qualitative interviews will shed further light on the national context of continence care provision specific to England; data collection is ongoing*. * Sample size is envisaged to be between 20-30 participants from multiple sites by Spring 2023.

Keywords: continence care, residential and nursing homes, evidence synthesis, qualitative

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Authors: L. R. Valencia Pérez, J. M. Peña Aguilar, A. Lamadrid Álvarez, A. Pastrana Palma, H. F. Valencia Pérez, M. Vivanco Vargas

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This work proposes a Cooperation-Competitive (Coopetitive) approach that allows coordinated work among the Secretary of Public Education (SEP), the Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ) and government funds from National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) or some other international organizations. To work on an overall knowledge transfer strategy with e-learning over the Cloud, where experts in junior high and high school education, working in multidisciplinary teams, perform analysis, evaluation, design, production, validation and knowledge transfer at large scale using a Cloud Computing platform. Allowing teachers and students to have all the information required to ensure a homologated nationally knowledge of topics such as mathematics, statistics, chemistry, history, ethics, civism, etc. This work will start with a pilot test in Spanish and initially in two regional dialects Otomí and Náhuatl. Otomí has more than 285,000 speaking indigenes in Queretaro and Mexico´s central region. Náhuatl is number one indigenous dialect spoken in Mexico with more than 1,550,000 indigenes. The phase one of the project takes into account negotiations with indigenous tribes from different regions, and the Information and Communication technologies to deliver the knowledge to the indigenous schools in their native dialect. The methodology includes the following main milestones: Identification of the indigenous areas where Otomí and Náhuatl are the spoken dialects, research with the SEP the location of actual indigenous schools, analysis and inventory or current schools conditions, negotiation with tribe chiefs, analysis of the technological communication requirements to reach the indigenous communities, identification and inventory of local teachers technology knowledge, selection of a pilot topic, analysis of actual student competence with traditional education system, identification of local translators, design of the e-learning platform, design of the multimedia resources and storage strategy for “Cloud Computing”, translation of the topic to both dialects, Indigenous teachers training, pilot test, course release, project follow up, analysis of student requirements for the new technological platform, definition of a new and improved proposal with greater reach in topics and regions. Importance of phase one of the project is multiple, it includes the proposal of a working technological scheme, focusing in the cultural impact in Mexico so that indigenous tribes can improve their knowledge about new forms of crop improvement, home storage technologies, proven home remedies for common diseases, ways of preparing foods containing major nutrients, disclose strengths and weaknesses of each region, communicating through cloud computing platforms offering regional products and opening communication spaces for inter-indigenous cultural exchange.

Keywords: Mexicans indigenous tribes, education, knowledge transfer, cloud computing, otomi, Náhuatl, language

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Authors: Abdul Wohab

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Context: The role of religion in the transformation of Bangladesh society has been significant since 1975. There has been a rise in religious presence, particularly Islam, in both private and public spheres supported by the state apparatuses. In 2009, a 'secular' political party came into power for the second time since independence and initiated the modernization of religious education systems. This research focuses on the transformation observed among the educated middle class who now prefer their children to attend modern, English medium madrasas that offer both religion-based and secular education. Research Aim: This research aims to investigate two main questions: a) what motivates the educated middle class to send their children to madrasa education? b) To what extent can it be argued that Bangladeshi society is transforming from its secular nature to being more religious?Methodology: The research applies a combination of primary and secondary methods. Case studies serve as the primary method, allowing for an in-depth exploration of the motivations of the educated middle class. The secondary method involves analyzing published news articles, op-eds, and websites related to madrasa education, as well as studying the reading syllabus of Aliya and Qwami madrasas in Bangladesh. Findings: Preliminary findings indicate that the educated middle class chooses madrasa education for reasons such as remembering and praying for their departed relatives, keeping their children away from substance abuse, fostering moral and ethical values, and instilling respect for seniors and relatives. The research also reveals that religious education is believed to help children remain morally correct according to the Quran and Hadith. Additionally, the establishment of madrasas in Bangladesh is attributed to economic factors, with demand and supply mechanisms playing a significant role. Furthermore, the findings suggest that government-run primary education institutions in rural areas face more challenges in enrollment compared to religious educational institutions like madrasas. Theoretical Importance: This research contributes to the understanding of societal transformation and the role of religion in this process. By examining the case of Bangladesh, it provides insights into how religion influences education choices and societal values. Data Collection and Analysis Procedures: Data for this research is collected through case studies, including interviews and observations of educated middle-class families who send their children to madrasas. In addition, analysis is conducted on relevant published materials such as news articles, op-eds, and websites. The reading syllabus of Aliya and Qwami madrasas is also analyzed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the education system. Questions Addressed: The research addresses two questions: a) what motivates the educated middle class to choose madrasa education for their children? b) To what extent can it be argued that Bangladeshi society is transforming from its secular nature to being more religious?Conclusion: The preliminary findings of this research highlight the motivations of the educated middle class in opting for madrasa education, including the desire to maintain religious traditions, promote moral values, and provide a strong foundation for their children. It also suggests that Bangladeshi society is experiencing a transformation towards a more religious orientation. This research contributes to the understanding of societal changes and the role of religion within Bangladesh, shedding light on the complex dynamics between religion and education.

Keywords: madrasa education, transformation, Bangladesh, religion and society, education

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