Search results for: special education services
3859 Medical Advances in Diagnosing Neurological and Genetic Disorders
Authors: Simon B. N. Thompson
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Retinoblastoma is a rare type of childhood genetic cancer that affects children worldwide. The diagnosis is often missed due to lack of education and difficulty in presentation of the tumor. Frequently, the tumor on the retina is noticed by photography when the red-eye flash, commonly seen in normal eyes, is not produced. Instead, a yellow or white colored patch is seen or the child has a noticeable strabismus. Early detection can be life-saving though often results in removal of the affected eye. Remaining functioning in the healthy eye when the child is young has resulted in super-vision and high or above-average intelligence. Technological advancement of cameras has helped in early detection. Brain imaging has also made possible early detection of neurological diseases and, together with the monitoring of cortisol levels and yawning frequency, promises to be the next new early diagnostic tool for the detection of neurological diseases where cortisol insufficiency is particularly salient, such as multiple sclerosis and Cushing’s disease.Keywords: cortisol, neurological disease, retinoblastoma, Thompson cortisol hypothesis, yawning
Procedia PDF Downloads 3873858 Functional English: Enhancing Competencies at the Undergraduate Level in Nagaland, India
Authors: Arenkala Kichu
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This paper consolidates and tries to bring out the findings that investigated in Kohima and Mokokchung districts in Nagaland, which is in the northeastern part of India. The aim of this paper is to test the speaking and writing skills of the undergraduate learners who opt functional English as one of their papers. functional English is taught in just two colleges; Fazl Ali College and Kohima Colleges, out of 15 government and 36 private colleges in the state. This research (based on several observations made by Naga researchers) hypothesizes that functional English enhances competencies at the undergraduate level, which would open doors to work, learn more and better prospects. It is expected that learners in Functional English class, which follows the communicative language teaching method, might be the answers to those problems, as to why proficiency level still leaves much to be desired, in spite of the advent of the education over a hundred years ago. This type of teaching follows only in functional English class in these two colleges.Keywords: enhancing competencies, speaking skills, undergraduate level, writing skills
Procedia PDF Downloads 3303857 Cyclic Etching Process Using Inductively Coupled Plasma for Polycrystalline Diamond on AlGaN/GaN Heterostructure
Authors: Haolun Sun, Ping Wang, Mei Wu, Meng Zhang, Bin Hou, Ling Yang, Xiaohua Ma, Yue Hao
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Gallium nitride (GaN) is an attractive material for next-generation power devices. It is noted that the performance of GaN-based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) is always limited by the self-heating effect. In response to the problem, integrating devices with polycrystalline diamond (PCD) has been demonstrated to be an efficient way to alleviate the self-heating issue of the GaN-based HEMTs. Among all the heat-spreading schemes, using PCD to cap the epitaxial layer before the HEMTs process is one of the most effective schemes. Now, the mainstream method of fabricating the PCD-capped HEMTs is to deposit the diamond heat-spreading layer on the AlGaN surface, which is covered by a thin nucleation dielectric/passivation layer. To achieve the pattern etching of the diamond heat spreader and device preparation, we selected SiN as the hard mask for diamond etching, which was deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The conventional diamond etching method first uses F-based etching to remove the SiN from the special window region, followed by using O₂/Ar plasma to etch the diamond. However, the results of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and focused ion beam microscopy (FIB) show that there are lots of diamond pillars on the etched diamond surface. Through our study, we found that it was caused by the high roughness of the diamond surface and the existence of the overlap between the diamond grains, which makes the etching of the SiN hard mask insufficient and leaves micro-masks on the diamond surface. Thus, a cyclic etching method was proposed to solve the problem of the residual SiN, which was left in the F-based etching. We used F-based etching during the first step to remove the SiN hard mask in the specific region; then, the O₂/Ar plasma was introduced to etch the diamond in the corresponding region. These two etching steps were set as one cycle. After the first cycle, we further used cyclic etching to clear the pillars, in which the F-based etching was used to remove the residual SiN, and then the O₂/Ar plasma was used to etch the diamond. Whether to take the next cyclic etching depends on whether there are still SiN micro-masks left. By using this method, we eventually achieved the self-terminated etching of the diamond and the smooth surface after the etching. These results demonstrate that the cyclic etching method can be successfully applied to the integrated preparation of polycrystalline diamond thin films and GaN HEMTs.Keywords: AlGaN/GaN heterojunction, O₂/Ar plasma, cyclic etching, polycrystalline diamond
Procedia PDF Downloads 1403856 Mending Broken Fences Policing: Developing the Intelligence-Led/Community-Based Policing Model(IP-CP) and Quality/Quantity/Crime(QQC) Model
Authors: Anil Anand
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Despite enormous strides made during the past decade, particularly with the adoption and expansion of community policing, there remains much that police leaders can do to improve police-public relations. The urgency is particularly evident in cities across the United States and Europe where an increasing number of police interactions over the past few years have ignited large, sometimes even national, protests against police policy and strategy, highlighting a gap between what police leaders feel they have archived in terms of public satisfaction, support, and legitimacy and the perception of bias among many marginalized communities. The decision on which one policing strategy is chosen over another, how many resources are allocated, and how strenuously the policy is applied resides primarily with the police and the units and subunits tasked with its enforcement. The scope and opportunity for police officers in impacting social attitudes and social policy are important elements that cannot be overstated. How do police leaders, for instance, decide when to apply one strategy—say community-based policing—over another, like intelligence-led policing? How do police leaders measure performance and success? Should these measures be based on quantitative preferences over qualitative, or should the preference be based on some other criteria? And how do police leaders define, allow, and control discretionary decision-making? Mending Broken Fences Policing provides police and security services leaders with a model based on social cohesion, that incorporates intelligence-led and community policing (IP-CP), supplemented by a quality/quantity/crime (QQC) framework to provide a four-step process for the articulable application of police intervention, performance measurement, and application of discretion.Keywords: social cohesion, quantitative performance measurement, qualitative performance measurement, sustainable leadership
Procedia PDF Downloads 2983855 Customer’s Choice of a Bank: An Empirical Enquiry from the Banked Ghanaian
Authors: Emmanuel Larbi Offei, Felix Agyei-Sasu, Maura Naa Densua Ashong
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Ghana has 26 universal banks and several banking and non-banking financial institutions operating in the country. The growing number of banks has heightened competition among banks to attract and retain customers more customers to ensure sustainability. Hence the need to identify and understand factors that influences customers’ choice of banks cannot be overemphasised. This study investigates the determinants of bank selection criteria by banking customers in Ghana. Four banks were purposively sampled for this study namely Barclays, Standard Chartered, Sahel Sahara and Unibank. Convenience sampling was then used to select 114 bank customers in Accra and interviewed. Questionnaires were used to collect data that were analysed in tables and charts with the use of STATA software. The findings of the study revealed that quick/prompt services and complaint handling, safety of funds, networked branches, easy access to functional Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and low/moderate service charges were the major determinants of customers’ choice of banks. The results further show that 89.5 percent of all deposits are held in either current or savings accounts. About 22.1 percent of the respondents indicated that they have plans of changing their banks in the near future because they are not satisfied with their banks. A gender analysis of the choice criteria showed differences between the choice criteria of the male as compared to the female. The study recommends that banks in Ghana should focus on products and policies that will not compromise on the safety of funds of their customers. Again, banks must address customer complaints and dissatisfactions as promptly as possible by taking pragmatic steps to address administrative bureaucracies and infrastructural challenges that prolong the duration of banking transactions.Keywords: Ghana, banks, determinants, customers’ choice, competition
Procedia PDF Downloads 4433854 Preliminary Study of Gold Nanostars/Enhanced Filter for Keratitis Microorganism Raman Fingerprint Analysis
Authors: Chi-Chang Lin, Jian-Rong Wu, Jiun-Yan Chiu
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Myopia, ubiquitous symptom that is necessary to correct the eyesight by optical lens struggles many people for their daily life. Recent years, younger people raise interesting on using contact lens because of its convenience and aesthetics. In clinical, the risk of eye infections increases owing to the behavior of incorrectly using contact lens unsupervised cleaning which raising the infection risk of cornea, named ocular keratitis. In order to overcome the identification needs, new detection or analysis method with rapid and more accurate identification for clinical microorganism is importantly needed. In our study, we take advantage of Raman spectroscopy having unique fingerprint for different functional groups as the distinct and fast examination tool on microorganism. As we know, Raman scatting signals are normally too weak for the detection, especially in biological field. Here, we applied special SERS enhancement substrates to generate higher Raman signals. SERS filter we designed in this article that prepared by deposition of silver nanoparticles directly onto cellulose filter surface and suspension nanoparticles - gold nanostars (AuNSs) also be introduced together to achieve better enhancement for lower concentration analyte (i.e., various bacteria). Research targets also focusing on studying the shape effect of synthetic AuNSs, needle-like surface morphology may possible creates more hot-spot for getting higher SERS enhance ability. We utilized new designed SERS technology to distinguish the bacteria from ocular keratitis under strain level, and specific Raman and SERS fingerprint were grouped under pattern recognition process. We reported a new method combined different SERS substrates can be applied for clinical microorganism detection under strain level with simple, rapid preparation and low cost. Our presenting SERS technology not only shows the great potential for clinical bacteria detection but also can be used for environmental pollution and food safety analysis.Keywords: bacteria, gold nanostars, Raman spectroscopy surface-enhanced Raman scattering filter
Procedia PDF Downloads 1713853 Virtual Team Management in Companies and Organizations
Authors: Asghar Zamani, Mostafa Falahmorad
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Virtualization is established to combine and use the unique capabilities of employees to increase productivity and agility to provide services regardless of location. Adapting to fast and continuous change and getting maximum access to human resources are reasons why virtualization is happening. The distance problem is solved by information. Flexibility is the most important feature of virtualization, and information will be the main focus of virtualized companies. In this research, we used the Covid-19 opportunity window to assess the productivity of the companies that had been going through more virtualized management before the Covid-19 in comparison with those that just started planning on developing infrastructures on virtual management after the crises of pandemic occurred. The research process includes financial (profitability and customer satisfaction) and behavioral (organizational culture and reluctance to change) metrics assessment. In addition to financial and CRM KPIs, a questionnaire is devised to assess how manager and employees’ attitude has been changing towards the migration to virtualization. The sample companies and questions are selected by asking from experts in the IT industry of Iran. In this article, the conclusion is that companies open to virtualization based on accurate strategic planning or willing to pay to train their employees for virtualization before the pandemic are more agile in adapting to change and moving forward in recession. The prospective companies in this research, not only could compensate for the short period loss from the first shock of the Covid-19, but they could also foresee new needs of their customer sooner than other competitors, resulting in the need to employ new staff for executing the emerging demands. Findings were aligned with the literature review. Results can be a wake-up call for business owners especially in developing countries to be more resilient toward modern management styles instead of continuing with traditional ones.Keywords: virtual management, virtual organization, competitive advantage, KPI, profit
Procedia PDF Downloads 843852 Networked Media, Citizen Journalism and Political Participation in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia: Insight from a European Research Project
Authors: Andrea Miconi
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The research will focus on the results of the Tempus European Project eMEDia dedicated to Cross-Media Journalism. The project is founded by the European Commission as it involves four European partners - IULM University, Tampere University, University of Barcelona, and the Mediterranean network Unimed - and three Tunisian Universities – IPSI La Manouba, Sfax and Sousse – along with the Tunisian Ministry for Higher Education and the National Syndicate of Journalists. The focus on Tunisian condition is basically due to the role played by digital activists in its recent history. The research is dedicated to the relationship between political participation, news-making practices and the spread of social media, as it is affecting Tunisian society. As we know, Tunisia during the Arab Spring had been widely considered as a laboratory for the analysis the use of new technologies for political participation. Nonetheless, the literature about the Arab Spring actually fell short in explaining the genesis of the phenomenon, on the one hand by isolating technologies as a casual factor in the spread of demonstrations, and on the other by analyzing North-African condition through a biased perspective. Nowadays, it is interesting to focus on the consolidation of the information environment three years after the uprisings. And what is relevant, only a close, in-depth analysis of Tunisian society is able to provide an explanation of its history, and namely of the part of digital media in the overall evolution of political system. That is why the research is based on different methodologies: desk stage, interviews, and in-depth analysis of communication practices. Networked journalism is the condition determined by the technological innovation on news-making activities: a condition upon which professional journalist can no longer be considered the only player in the information arena, and a new skill must be developed. Along with democratization, nonetheless, the so-called citizen journalism is also likely to produce some ambiguous effects, such as the lack of professional standards and the spread of information cascades, which may prove to be particularly dangerous in an evolving media market as the Tunisian one. This is why, according to the project, a new profile must be defined, which is able to manage this new condition, and which can be hardly reduced to the parameters of traditional journalistic work. Rather than simply using new devices for news visualization, communication professionals must also be able to dialogue with all new players and to accept the decentralized nature of digital environments. This networked nature of news-making seemed to emerge during the Tunisian revolution, when bloggers, journalists, and activists used to retweet each other. Nonetheless, this intensification of communication exchange was inspired by the political climax of the uprising, while all media, by definition, are also supposed to bring some effects on people’s state of mind, culture and daily life routines. That is why it is worth analyzing the consolidation of these practices in a normal, post-revolutionary situation.Keywords: cross-media, education, Mediterranean, networked journalism, social media, Tunisia
Procedia PDF Downloads 2053851 Appraisal of Humanitarian Supply Chain Risks Using Best-Worst Method
Authors: Ali Mohaghar, Iman Ghasemian Sahebi, Alireza Arab
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In the last decades, increasing in human and natural disaster occurrence had very irreparable effects on human life. Hence, one of the important issues in humanitarian supply chain management is identifying and prioritizing the different risks and finding suitable solutions for encountering them at the time of disaster occurrence. This study is an attempt to provide a comprehensive review of humanitarian supply chain risks in a case study of Tehran Red Crescent Societies. For this purpose, Best-Worst method (BWM) has been used for analyzing the risks of the humanitarian supply chain. 22 risks of the humanitarian supply chain were identified based on the literature and interviews with four experts. According to BWM method, the importance of each risk was calculated. The findings showed that culture contexts, little awareness of people, and poor education system are the most important humanitarian supply chain risks. This research provides a useful guideline for managers so that they can benefit from the results to prioritize their solutions.Keywords: Best-Worst Method, humanitarian logistics, humanitarian supply chain, risk management
Procedia PDF Downloads 3123850 Developing Digital Competencies in Aboriginal Students through University-College Partnerships
Authors: W. S. Barber, S. L. King
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This paper reports on a pilot project to develop a collaborative partnership between a community college in rural northern Ontario, Canada, and an urban university in the greater Toronto area in Oshawa, Canada. Partner institutions will collaborate to address learning needs of university applicants whose goals are to attain an undergraduate university BA in Educational Studies and Digital Technology degree, but who may not live in a geographical location that would facilitate this pathways process. The UOIT BA degree is attained through a 2+2 program, where students with a 2 year college diploma or equivalent can attain a four year undergraduate degree. The goals reported on the project are as: 1. Our aim is to expand the BA program to include an additional stream which includes serious educational games, simulations and virtual environments, 2. Develop fully (using both synchronous and asynchronous technologies) online learning modules for use by university applicants who otherwise are not geographically located close to a physical university site, 3. Assess the digital competencies of all students, including members of local, distance and Indigenous communities using a validated tool developed and tested by UOIT across numerous populations. This tool, the General Technical Competency Use and Scale (GTCU) will provide the collaborating institutions with data that will allow for analyzing how well students are prepared to succeed in fully online learning communities. Philosophically, the UOIT BA program is based on a fully online learning communities model (FOLC) that can be accessed from anywhere in the world through digital learning environments via audio video conferencing tools such as Adobe Connect. It also follows models of adult learning and mobile learning, and makes a university degree accessible to the increasing demographic of adult learners who may use mobile devices to learn anywhere anytime. The program is based on key principles of Problem Based Learning, allowing students to build their own understandings through the co-design of the learning environment in collaboration with the instructors and their peers. In this way, this degree allows students to personalize and individualize the learning based on their own culture, background and professional/personal experiences. Using modified flipped classroom strategies, students are able to interrogate video modules on their own time in preparation for one hour discussions occurring in video conferencing sessions. As a consequence of the program flexibility, students may continue to work full or part time. All of the partner institutions will co-develop four new modules, administer the GTCU and share data, while creating a new stream of the UOIT BA degree. This will increase accessibility for students to bridge from community colleges to university through a fully digital environment. We aim to work collaboratively with Indigenous elders, community members and distance education instructors to increase opportunities for more students to attain a university education.Keywords: aboriginal, college, competencies, digital, universities
Procedia PDF Downloads 2173849 The Quality of Human Capital as a Factor of Social and Economic Development of the Region
Authors: O. Gubnitsyna, O. Zakoretskaya, O. Russova
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It is generally recognized that the main task of modern society is human development. The quality of human capital has been identified as a key driver of economic development in the region. In this article, considered the quality of human capital as one of the main types of social and economic potential for the region’s development. The phenomenon of human capital represents both material and intellectual components of human activity. It is show that the necessary population characterized by certain quantitative and qualitative indicators (qualification and professional structure, education or social general condition and others) and is an necessary resource for the development of the regional economy. The connection of the regional goals with the quality of human capital is discussed in the article and a number of recommendations on its improvement were given. Solving the tasks stated in the article, the authors used analytical and statistical methods of research, scientific publications of domestic and foreign scientists on this issue. The results can be used in this implementation of the concept of regional development.Keywords: human capital, the quality of human capital, economic development, social general condition
Procedia PDF Downloads 2963848 Factors Affecting Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Chicken Meat from Biosecure Farms
Authors: Veronica Sri Lestari, Asmuddin Natsir, Hasmida Karim, Ian Patrick
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The research aimed at investigating the factors affecting consumers’ willingness to pay for chicken meat from biosecure farms. The research was conducted in Makassar City, South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. Samples were taken using random sampling technique in two supermarkets namely Lotte Mart and Gelael. Total samples were 50 respondents which comprised the chicken meat consumers. To find out the consumers’ willingness to pay for chicken meat from the biosecure farms, the contingent valuation method was utilized. Data were collected through interviews and questionnaires. Probit Logistic was estimated to examine the factors affecting the consumers’ willingness to pay for at the premium price for chicken meat from the biosecure farms. The research indicates that the education and income affect significantly the consumers’ willingness to pay for chicken meat from the biosecure farms (P < 0.05). The results of the study will be beneficial for the policy makers, producers, consumers and those conducting research.Keywords: biosecure, chicken, farms, consumer, willingness-to-pay
Procedia PDF Downloads 2773847 Evaluation of Railway Network and Service Performance Based on Transportation Sustainability in DKI Jakarta
Authors: Nur Bella Octoria Bella, Ayomi Dita Rarasati
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DKI Jakarta is Indonesia's capital city with the 10th highest congestion rate in the world based on the 2019 traffic index. Other than that based on World Air Quality Report in 2019 showed DKI Jakarta's air pollutant concentrate 49.4 µg and the 5th highest air pollutant in the world. In the urban city nowadays, the mobility rate is high enough and the efficiency for sustainability assessment in transport infrastructure development is needed. This efficiency is the important key for sustainable infrastructure development. DKI Jakarta is nowadays in the process of constructing the railway infrastructure to support the transportation system. The problems appearing are the railway infrastructure networks and the service in DKI Jakarta already planned based on sustainability factors or not. Therefore, the aim of this research is to make the evaluation of railways infrastructure networks performance and services in DKI Jakarta regards on the railway sustainability key factors. Further, this evaluation will be used to make the railway sustainability assessment framework and to offer some of the alternative solutions to improve railway transportation sustainability in DKI Jakarta. Firstly a very detailed literature review of papers that have focused on railway sustainability factors and their improvements of railway sustainability, published in the scientific journal in the period 2011 until 2021. Regarding the sustainability factors from the literature review, further, it is used to assess the current condition of railway infrastructure in DKI Jakarta. The evaluation will be using a Likert rate questionnaire and directed to the transportation railway expert and the passenger. Furthermore, the mapping and evaluation rate based on the sustainability factors will be compared to the effect factors using the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). This research offers the network's performance and service rate impact on the sustainability aspect and the passenger willingness for using the rail public transportation in DKI Jakarta.Keywords: transportation sustainability, railway transportation, sustainability, DKI Jakarta
Procedia PDF Downloads 1663846 Regulating Issues concerning Data Protection in Cloud Computing: Developing a Saudi Approach
Authors: Jumana Majdi Qutub
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Rationale: Cloud computing has rapidly developed the past few years. Because of the importance of providing protection for personal data used in cloud computing, the role of data protection in promoting trust and confidence in users’ data has become an important policy priority. This research examines key regulatory challenges rose by the growing use and importance of cloud computing with focusing on protection of individuals personal data. Methodology: Describing and analyzing governance challenges facing policymakers and industry in Saudi Arabia, with an account of anticipated governance responses. The aim of the research is to describe and define the regulatory challenges on cloud computing for policy making in Saudi Arabia and comparing it with potential complied issues rose in respect of transported data to EU member state. In addition, it discusses information privacy issues. Finally, the research proposes policy recommendation that would resolve concerns surrounds the privacy and effectiveness of clouds computing frameworks for data protection. Results: There are still no clear regulation in Saudi Arabia specialized in legalizing cloud computing and specialty regulations in transferring data internationally and locally. Decision makers need to review the applicable law in Saudi Arabia that protect information in cloud computing. This should be from an international and a local view in order to identify all requirements surrounding this area. It is important to educate cloud computing users about their information value and rights before putting it in the cloud to avoid further legal complications, such as making an educational program to prevent giving personal information to a bank employee. Therefore, with many kinds of cloud computing services, it is important to have it covered by the law in all aspects.Keywords: cloud computing, cyber crime, data protection, privacy
Procedia PDF Downloads 2623845 Self-Government Health Policy Programs as a Form of Implementation of Public Health Tasks in Poland
Authors: T. Holecki, J. Wozniak-Holecka, K. Sobczyk
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Development, implementation, and evaluation of the effects of health policy programs, resulting from the identified health needs and health status of residents, is the own task of all local government units in Poland. This is due to the obligation to provide access to healthcare services to all residents and the implementation of tasks in the field of health promotion based on specific legal acts. Until the end of 2016 local governments financed health policy programs only with their own funds. Currently, there are additional resources available from the public health insurance subsidising up to 80% of health policy programs costs in cities with a population under 5 thousand people and up to 40% in bigger cities. Changes in legal provisions do not translate automatically to increased involvement of local government units in the implementation of public health tasks. The main objective of the study was to assess the actual impact of the new legal regulation on financing local health policy programs on the engagement of local administration in this area of public health activity. To achieve this aim, we analyzed difference in the number of local governments developing and implementing health policy programs before and after the new law came into force. The aim of the study was also to estimate the level of expenditures incurred by self-government units and the National Health Fund to cover the costs of health policy programs. In the first stage of the project, legal acts concerning the subject of research and financial data published by the National Health Fund were analyzed. The material for the second, main stage of the study was the detailed financial data obtained from the National Health Fund and data obtained from local government units. The results present the situation in Poland in territorial terms, divided into 16 voivodships.Keywords: health care system, health policy programs, local self-governments, public health
Procedia PDF Downloads 1593844 Acceptability of the Carers-ID Intervention for Family Carers of People with Intellectual Disabilities
Authors: Mark Linden, Michael Brown, Lynne Marsh, Maria Truesdale, Stuart Todd, Nathan Hughes, Trisha Forbes, Rachel Leonard
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Background: Family carers of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) face ongoing challenges in accessing services and often experience poor mental health. Online support programmes may prove effective in addressing the mental health and well-being needs of family carers. This study sought to test the acceptability of a newly developed online support programme for carers of people with intellectual disabilities called Carers-ID. Methods A sequential mixed-methods explanatory design was utilised. An adapted version of the Acceptability of Health Apps among Adolescents (AHAA) Scale was distributed to family carers who had viewed the Carers-ID.com intervention. Following this, participants were invited to take part in an online interview. Interview questions focused on participants’ experiences of using the programme and its acceptability. Qualitative and quantitative data were analysed separately and then brought together through the triangulation protocol developed by Farmer et al (2006). Findings: Seventy family carers responded to the acceptability survey, whilst 10 took part in interviews. Six themes were generated from interviews with family carers. Based on our triangulation, four areas of convergence were identified, these included, programme usability and ease, attitudes towards the programme, perceptions of effectiveness, and programme relatability. Conclusions: In order to be acceptable, online interventions for carers of people with ID need to be accessible, understandable and easy to use, as carers time is precious. Further research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of online interventions for family carers, specifically considering which carers the intervention works for, and for whom it may not.Keywords: intellectual disability, family carer, acceptability study, online intervention
Procedia PDF Downloads 933843 Process of the Emergence and Evolution of Socio-Cultural Ideas about the "Asian States" In the Context of the Development of US Cinema in 1941-1945
Authors: Selifontova Darya Yurievna
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The study of the process of the emergence and evolution of socio-cultural ideas about the "Asian states" in the context of the development of US cinema in 1941-1945 will contribute both to the approbation of a new approach to the classical subject and will allow using the methodological tools of history, political science, philology, sociology for understanding modern military-political, historical, ideological, socio-cultural processes on a concrete example. This is especially important for understanding the process of constructing the image of the Japanese Empire in the USA. Assessments and images of China and Japan in World War II, created in American cinema, had an immediate impact on the media, public sentiment, and opinions. During the war, the US cinema created new myths and actively exploited old ones, combining them with traditional Hollywood cliches - all this served as a basis for creating the image of China and the Japanese Empire on the screen, which were necessary to solve many foreign policy and domestic political tasks related to the construction of two completely different, but at the same time, similar images of Asia (China and the Japanese Empire). In modern studies devoted to the history of wars, the study of the specifics of the information confrontation of the parties is in demand. A special role in this confrontation is played by propaganda through cinema, which uses images, historical symbols, and stable metaphors, the appeal to which can form a certain public reaction. Soviet documentaries of the war years are proof of this. The relevance of the topic is due to the fact that cinema as a means of propaganda was very popular and in demand during the Second World War. This period was the time of creation of real masterpieces in the field of propaganda films, in the documentary space of the cinema of 1941 – 1945. The traditions of depicting the Second World War were laid down. The study of the peculiarities of visualization and mythologization of the Second World War in Soviet cinema is the most important stage for studying the development of the specifics of propaganda methods since the methods and techniques of depicting the war formed in 1941-1945 are also significant at the present stage of the study of society.Keywords: asian countries, politics, sociology, domestic politics, USA, cinema
Procedia PDF Downloads 1293842 A Study of the Effects of Zimbabwean Youth Migration on Musina Area, South Africa
Authors: R. Chinyakata, N. R. Raselekoane
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Migration has always been part of human history. Migration is spurred by globalisation which connects nations by encouraging the flow of goods, services, ideas and people across borders. Migration does not only involve movement of adults from one country to another. It also affects and involves the youth as they are the most mobile group. Musina area, like many other border areas, experiences a variety of challenges as a result of the influx of people from the neighbouring Zimbabwe and other African countries. Of great concern about this migration is the fact that the host country or area may become unsafe and unstable as a result of huge influx of migrants. There may also be tensions between local people and migrants over the resources. The study sought to investigate the effects of the Zimbabwean youth migration on Musina area. The study was undertaken in Musina area which is situated 18km from the Beit-Bridge border post. A qualitative research approach was used. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. Non-probability quota sampling technique was used to select the respondents. The study sample consisted of sixteen female and male respondents. Thematic coding was used to analyse the data. Ethical considerations such as informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity and voluntary participation were taken into account to protect the participants. The study found that the effects of the Zimbabwean youth migration on the Musina area include, among others, tensions between locals and the Zimbabwean youth migrants over resources, job and business opportunities, overcrowding and crime. Multi-pronged strategies which involve different stakeholders should be applied to address tensions over job and business opportunities, overcrowding and crime in the Musina area.Keywords: host country, effects, migrant, migration, Musina, youth, Zimbabwe
Procedia PDF Downloads 2453841 My Dress, My Body and My Choice Politics in Kenya
Authors: Emmy Kipsoi
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Kenya legalized the Sexual offence bill (2001), after vigorous campaigning and lobbying by feminist both in and out of parliament to ensure that the bill passed with minimal amendments. The sexual offense act provides for a good description on what constitutes sexual offences and the penalties that follow. It is from this context that the paper explores and interrogated the lived experiences of women living and working in Kenyan urban towns, who had experienced some form of sexual harassment. The study employed phenomenology to interpret the experiences of twenty (20) women in an urban town between the ages of 20 to 65 years women who had received at least some formal education and where engaged in some formal form of employment. The findings indicated that various forms of sexual harassment were experienced in the Kenyan town. Secondly, the knowledge about the contents of the bill wanting most of the women interviews were not aware of the protection accorded by law. The number of reported cases of sexual harassment shed light on the isolation, frustration and fear that women live despite a progressive law in printKeywords: Kenya, phenomenology, sexual harassment, women
Procedia PDF Downloads 3103840 Performance Evaluation of Routing Protocol in Cognitive Radio with Multi Technological Environment
Authors: M. Yosra, A. Mohamed, T. Sami
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Over the past few years, mobile communication technologies have seen significant evolution. This fact promoted the implementation of many systems in a multi-technological setting. From one system to another, the Quality of Service (QoS) provided to mobile consumers gets better. The growing number of normalized standards extends the available services for each consumer, moreover, most of the available radio frequencies have already been allocated, such as 3G, Wifi, Wimax, and LTE. A study by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) found that certain frequency bands are partially occupied in particular locations and times. So, the idea of Cognitive Radio (CR) is to share the spectrum between a primary user (PU) and a secondary user (SU). The main objective of this spectrum management is to achieve a maximum rate of exploitation of the radio spectrum. In general, the CR can greatly improve the quality of service (QoS) and improve the reliability of the link. The problem will reside in the possibility of proposing a technique to improve the reliability of the wireless link by using the CR with some routing protocols. However, users declared that the links were unreliable and that it was an incompatibility with QoS. In our case, we choose the QoS parameter "bandwidth" to perform a supervised classification. In this paper, we propose a comparative study between some routing protocols, taking into account the variation of different technologies on the existing spectral bandwidth like 3G, WIFI, WIMAX, and LTE. Due to the simulation results, we observe that LTE has significantly higher availability bandwidth compared with other technologies. The performance of the OLSR protocol is better than other on-demand routing protocols (DSR, AODV and DSDV), in LTE technology because of the proper receiving of packets, less packet drop and the throughput. Numerous simulations of routing protocols have been made using simulators such as NS3.Keywords: cognitive radio, multi technology, network simulator (NS3), routing protocol
Procedia PDF Downloads 653839 Traced Destinies: A Study on the Migration of Brazilian Children for Switzerland
Authors: Flavia Schuler Gomes, Cristina Brito Dias, Emily Schuler
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One of the emerging themes in modern society is migration. What in the past was a route mostly traveled by men, is currently carried out by women and even children. In this sense, the objective of this research was to understand the experiences and repercussions of the migration in the life of young Brazilians who went to Switzerland. The specific objectives were: to know the causes and consequences of migration; how was the adaptation in the country in emotional and educational terms; as how the interviewees feel the impact of living with two cultures simultaneously. The research had a qualitative methodology. The participants were eight young men and women, between the ages of 18 and 25, who migrated to Switzerland as a child. The instrument used was interview technique of life history. The collected data were analyzed through the thematic content analysis. The results indicate that the young people migrated to accompany their mothers; in terms of nationality, two participants feel completely Swiss, and six believe they share Swiss and Brazilian aspects. None of the participants followed an academic career, having secondary education.Keywords: adaptation, children, culture, migration
Procedia PDF Downloads 1813838 The Multi-Lingual Acquisition Patterns of Elementary, High School and College Students in Angeles City, Philippines
Authors: Dennis Infante, Leonora Yambao
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The Philippines is a multilingual community. A Filipino learns at least three languages throughout his lifespan. Since languages are learned and picked up simultaneously in the environment, a student naturally develops a language system that combines features of at least three languages: the local language, English and Filipino. This study seeks to investigate this particular phenomenon and aspires to propose a theoretical framework of unique language acquisition in the elementary, high school and college in the three languages spoken and used in media, community, business and school: Kapampangan, the local language; Filipino, the national language; and English. The study randomly selects five students from three participating schools in order to acquire language samples. The samples were analyzed in the subsentential, sentential and suprasentential levels using grammatical theories. The data are classified to map out the pattern of substitution or shifting from one language to another.Keywords: language acquisition, mother tongue, multiculturalism, multilingual education
Procedia PDF Downloads 3843837 Going Global by Going Local-How Website Localization and Translation Can Break the Internet Language Barrier and Contribute to Globalization
Authors: Hela Fathallah
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With 6,500 spoken languages all over the world but 80 percent of online content available only in 10 languages – English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese, German, French, Russian, and Korean – language represents a barrier to the universal access to knowledge, information and services that the internet wants to provide. Translation and its related fields of localization, interpreting, globalization, and internationalization, remove that barrier for billions of people worldwide, unlocking new markets for technology companies, mobile device makers, service providers and language vendors as well. This paper gathers different surveys conducted in different regions of the world that demonstrate a growing demand for consumption of web content with distinctive values and in languages others than the aforementioned ones. It also adds new insights to the contribution of translation in languages preservation. The idea that English is the language of internet and that, in a globalized world, everyone should learn English to cope with new technologies is no longer true. This idea has reached its limits. It collides with cultural diversity and differences around the world and generates an accelerated rate of languages extinction. Studies prove that internet exacerbates this rate and web giants such as Facebook or Google are, today, facing the impact of such a misconception of globalization. For internet and dot-com companies, localization is the solution; they are spending a significant amount of time to understand what people want and to figure out how to provide it. They are committed to making their content accessible, if not in all the languages spoken today, at least in most of them, and to adapting it to most cultures. Technology has broken down the barriers of time and space, and it will break down the language barrier as well by undertaking a process of translation and localization and through a new definition of globalization that takes into consideration these two processes.Keywords: globalization, internet, localization, translation
Procedia PDF Downloads 3633836 Creating Systems Change: Implementing Cross-Sector Initiatives within the Justice System to Support Ontarians with Mental Health and Addictions Needs
Authors: Tania Breton, Dorina Simeonov, Shauna MacEachern
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Ontario’s 10 Year Mental Health and Addictions Strategy has included the establishment of 18 Service Collaborative across the province; cross-sector tables in a specific region coming together to explore mental health and addiction system needs and adopting an intervention to address that need. The process is community led and supported by implementation teams from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), using the framework of implementation science (IS) to enable evidence-based and sustained change. These justice initiatives are focused on the intersection of the justice system and the mental health and addiction systems. In this presentation, we will share the learnings, achievements and challenges of implementing innovative practices to the mental health and addictions needs of Ontarians within the justice system. Specifically, we will focus on the key points across the justice system - from early intervention and trauma-informed, culturally appropriate services to post-sentence support and community reintegration. Our approach to this work involves external implementation support from the CAMH team including coaching, knowledge exchange, evaluation, Aboriginal engagement and health equity expertise. Agencies supported the implementation of tools and processes which changed practice at the local level. These practices are being scaled up across Ontario and community agencies have come together in an unprecedented collaboration and there is a shared vision of the issues overlapping between the mental health, addictions and justice systems. Working with ministry partners has allowed space for innovation and created an environment where better approaches can be nurtured and spread.Keywords: implementation, innovation, early identification, mental health and addictions, prevention, systems
Procedia PDF Downloads 3663835 Evaluation of Digital Marketing Strategies by Behavioral Economics
Authors: Sajjad Esmaeili Aghdam
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Economics typically conceptualizes individual behavior as the consequence of external states, for example, budgets and prices (or respective beliefs) and choices. As the main goal, we focus on the influence of a range of Behavioral Economics factors on Strategies of Digital Marketing, evaluation of strategies and deformation of it into highly prospective marketing strategies. The different forms of behavioral prospects all lead to the succeeding two main results. First, the steadiness of the economic dynamics in a currency union be contingent fatefully on the level of economic incorporation. More economic incorporation leads to more steady economic dynamics. Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is “all casual communications focused at consumers through Internet-based technology connected to the usage or characteristics of specific properties and services or their venders.” eWOM can take many methods, the most significant one being online analyses. Writing this paper, 72 articles have been gathered, focusing on the title and the aim of the article from research search engines like Google Scholar, Web of Science, and PubMed. Recent research in strategic management and marketing proposes that markets should not be viewed as a given and deterministic setting, exogenous to the firm. Instead, firms are progressively abstracted as dynamic inventors of market prospects. The use of new technologies touches all spheres of the modern lifestyle. Social and economic life becomes unbearable without fast, applicable, first-class and fitting material. Psychology and economics (together known as behavioral economics) are two protruding disciplines underlying many theories in marketing. The wide marketing works papers consumers’ none balanced behavior even though behavioral biases might not continuously be steadily called or officially labeled.Keywords: behavioral economics, digital marketing, marketing strategy, high impact strategies
Procedia PDF Downloads 1863834 Trend of Overweight and Obesity, Based on Population Study among School Children in North West of Iran: Implications for When to Intervene
Authors: Sakineh Nouri Saeidlou, Fatemeh Rezaiegoyjeloo, Parvin Ayremlou, Fariba Babaie
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Introduction: Childhood overweight and obesity is a major public health problem in both developed and developing countries. Overweight and obesity in children may have severe consequences later in adolescence and adulthood. The aim of current study was to determine the prevalence trend of overweight and obesity in school-aged children from 2009 to 2011. Methods: The present study was a population-based study and conducted in three consecutive years, from 2009 to 2011. The study population included all of primary, secondary and high school children in rural and urban regions of West Azarbijan province in West-North of Iran. Body mass index (BMI), the ratio of weight to height squared [weight (kg)]/ [height (m)]2, was calculated to the nearest decimal place. Overweight and obesity were classified using CDC recommendations for age and sex: a BMI 85th–95th percentile was classified as overweight and a BMI>95th percentile was classified as obese. All statistical analyses were performed using the Excel Software. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the sample in different time periods. The prevalence was calculated as the ratio of number present cases to a given population number in a given subgroup at a given time. Results: Overall, 165740, 145146 and 146203 school children were assessed at 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively. Prevalence of overweight in primary school children among girls were 52.83, 86.93 and 116.36 and for boys were 57.07, 53.4 and 93.55 per 1000 person in 2009, 2010 and 2011 years ,respectively. The prevalence of obesity in secondary school children for girls were 22.26, 27.75 and 28.43 and 26.52, 25.72 and 35.85 for boys per 1000 person in 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively, The highest prevalence of overweight was 77.58, 142.4 and 126.46 per 1000 person among primary, secondary and high school children, respectively, in 2011. The lowest prevalence of obesity was 12.52, 24.1 and 21.61 per 1000 person among primary, secondary and high school children, respectively, in 2009. Conclusion: However, the rapid increase in both obesity and overweight should have a special attention. Research on prevalence trend of overweight and obesity in children is poorly reported in Iran. So that, future studies need to follow-up on the associations between overweight and obesity with health outcomes when children develop and reach adolescence and adulthood.Keywords: overweight, obesity, school children, prevalence trend, Iran
Procedia PDF Downloads 3443833 International Trade and Regional Inequality in South America: A Study Applied to Brazil and Argentina
Authors: Mónica Arroyo
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South America shows increasing decline in regional export values in the last years, after a strong growth of trade flows especially with China up to 2013. This change is due to the end of the commodity price boom, the slowing of the Chinese economy and the effects of the 2008 economic crisis. This paper examines the integration of regional economies in this context, particularly the situation in Brazil and Argentina. Based on transformations over the last two decades, the analysis is focused on the spatial circuits of production linked to foreign markets, contributing to the understanding of the different uses of territory and the within-country inequality. The South American regional exports, consisting basically of raw materials, are concentrated in a few companies. Large areas are intended for the production of agriculture and mining commodities, under the command of major economic groups, both domestic and foreign, relegating the local population to less productive places or, in most cases, forcing them to change their activity and to migrate to other regions in search of some source of income. On the other hand, the dynamics of these commodities’ spatial circuits of production print requirements in territories in terms of infrastructure and regulation. Capturing this movement requires understanding businesses and government’s role in territorial regulation, and consequently how regional systems are changing – for instance, economic specialisation, growing role of services, investment in roads, railways, ports, and airports. This paper aims to highlight topics for discussion on regional economic dynamics and their different degrees of internationalisation. The intention is to contribute to the debate about the relations between trade, globalization, and development.Keywords: regional inequality, international trade, developing world, South America
Procedia PDF Downloads 2613832 Aromatic Medicinal Plant Classification Using Deep Learning
Authors: Tsega Asresa Mengistu, Getahun Tigistu
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Computer vision is an artificial intelligence subfield that allows computers and systems to retrieve meaning from digital images. It is applied in various fields of study self-driving cars, video surveillance, agriculture, Quality control, Health care, construction, military, and everyday life. Aromatic and medicinal plants are botanical raw materials used in cosmetics, medicines, health foods, and other natural health products for therapeutic and Aromatic culinary purposes. Herbal industries depend on these special plants. These plants and their products not only serve as a valuable source of income for farmers and entrepreneurs, and going to export not only industrial raw materials but also valuable foreign exchange. There is a lack of technologies for the classification and identification of Aromatic and medicinal plants in Ethiopia. The manual identification system of plants is a tedious, time-consuming, labor, and lengthy process. For farmers, industry personnel, academics, and pharmacists, it is still difficult to identify parts and usage of plants before ingredient extraction. In order to solve this problem, the researcher uses a deep learning approach for the efficient identification of aromatic and medicinal plants by using a convolutional neural network. The objective of the proposed study is to identify the aromatic and medicinal plant Parts and usages using computer vision technology. Therefore, this research initiated a model for the automatic classification of aromatic and medicinal plants by exploring computer vision technology. Morphological characteristics are still the most important tools for the identification of plants. Leaves are the most widely used parts of plants besides the root, flower and fruit, latex, and barks. The study was conducted on aromatic and medicinal plants available in the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research center. An experimental research design is proposed for this study. This is conducted in Convolutional neural networks and Transfer learning. The Researcher employs sigmoid Activation as the last layer and Rectifier liner unit in the hidden layers. Finally, the researcher got a classification accuracy of 66.4 in convolutional neural networks and 67.3 in mobile networks, and 64 in the Visual Geometry Group.Keywords: aromatic and medicinal plants, computer vision, deep convolutional neural network
Procedia PDF Downloads 4443831 The Use of Scuba Diving Tourism for Marine Protected Area Management
Authors: L. Mota, O. Frausto
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Marine Protected Areas can benefit from nature based tourism, monitoring environmental impacts and also become target for human presence. From more than 3 million tourists visiting Cozumel Island every year, an average of 2,8 million arrive by cruise ship, and 41% are estimated to have motivation for water activities. The destination is relying so much on the tourism activity, that scuba diving and snorkeling in the National Park Reef of Cozumel sustain the major economic activity. In order to achieve the sustainable development indicator designed for regional environmental development, the PNAC offers a training course for tourism providers acceding the protected area. This way, the update of the last 5 years of such training is directed to diving staff, boat crew and professionals, making them able to assist in managing the natural resource. Moreover, the case study is an example to be used for raising awareness among tourists visiting protected areas.Keywords: education, marine protected area, scuba diving, sustainability, tourism
Procedia PDF Downloads 4463830 The Security Trade-Offs in Resource Constrained Nodes for IoT Application
Authors: Sultan Alharby, Nick Harris, Alex Weddell, Jeff Reeve
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The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) has received much attention over the last five years. It is predicted that the IoT will influence every aspect of our lifestyles in the near future. Wireless Sensor Networks are one of the key enablers of the operation of IoTs, allowing data to be collected from the surrounding environment. However, due to limited resources, nature of deployment and unattended operation, a WSN is vulnerable to various types of attack. Security is paramount for reliable and safe communication between IoT embedded devices, but it does, however, come at a cost to resources. Nodes are usually equipped with small batteries, which makes energy conservation crucial to IoT devices. Nevertheless, security cost in terms of energy consumption has not been studied sufficiently. Previous research has used a security specification of 802.15.4 for IoT applications, but the energy cost of each security level and the impact on quality of services (QoS) parameters remain unknown. This research focuses on the cost of security at the IoT media access control (MAC) layer. It begins by studying the energy consumption of IEEE 802.15.4 security levels, which is followed by an evaluation for the impact of security on data latency and throughput, and then presents the impact of transmission power on security overhead, and finally shows the effects of security on memory footprint. The results show that security overhead in terms of energy consumption with a payload of 24 bytes fluctuates between 31.5% at minimum level over non-secure packets and 60.4% at the top security level of 802.15.4 security specification. Also, it shows that security cost has less impact at longer packet lengths, and more with smaller packet size. In addition, the results depicts a significant impact on data latency and throughput. Overall, maximum authentication length decreases throughput by almost 53%, and encryption and authentication together by almost 62%.Keywords: energy consumption, IEEE 802.15.4, IoT security, security cost evaluation
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