Search results for: global survey

Authors: Essam Mansour

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The purpose of this study is to explore the potential role of South Valley University (SVU) libraries’ manpower, collections and services in the fight against terrorism in the Upper Egypt. A quantitative research methodology was used in the form of a survey sent to 127 library staff at the SVU. The survey was undertaken from June to July 2015 with a response rate 73.2%. Printed materials were the most adequate collections in the SVU libraries. Other materials, such as CDs/DVDs, audiovisual materials, microfilm and microfiche, online resources and electronic materials respectively were inadequate at SVU libraries. Few of the services provided by SVU libraries were characterized as adequate services, some are inadequate and other services do not exist. The average of the facilities provided by SVU libraries was somewhat adequate. Activities, such as holding social field trips, holding training workshops and holding academic field trip were, at least, somewhat adequate to SVU libraries. SVU libraries had no a significant role in fighting terrorism in the Upper Egypt. There is no a relationship between the SVU library staff’s professional characteristics and the potential role that their libraries may play in the fight against this phenomenon. As a result of the lack of SVU libraries’ collections, services, facilities and activities, this study concluded that that such role could not be achieved. Almost all the library staff admitted that this severe lack has affected the provision of library patrons and members of the library community to these collections and services, which help in countering the threat of terrorism. Despite the significance of all these problems faced by SVU libraries in the fight against terrorism, it was found that the inadequacy of the library opening hours is significantly correlated with the professional characteristics of the library staff, particularly their job title and work experience.

Keywords: terrorism, national security, university libraries, south valley university, Egypt, survey

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Authors: Jessica Bain, Greg Thoma, Marty Matlock, Jeyam Subbiah, Ebenezer Kwofie

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The environmental impact and particulate matter emissions (PM) associated with the production and packaging of 1 kg of almonds were evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA). The assessment began at the point of ready to harvest with a system boundary was a cradle-to-gate assessment of almond packaging in California. The assessment included three scenarios of off-ground harvesting of almonds. The three general off-ground harvesting scenarios with variations include the harvested almonds solar dried on a paper tarp in the orchard, the harvested almonds solar dried on the floor in a separate lot, and the harvested almonds dried mechanically. The life cycle inventory (LCI) data for almond production were based on previously published literature and data provided by Almond Board of California (ABC). The ReCiPe 2016 method was used to calculate the midpoint impacts. Using consequential LCA model, the global warming potential (GWP) for the three harvesting scenarios are 2.90, 2.86, and 3.09 kg CO2 eq/ kg of packaged almond for scenarios 1, 2a, and 3a, respectively. The global warming potential for conventional harvesting method was 2.89 kg CO2 eq/ kg of packaged almond. The particulate matter emissions for each scenario per hectare for each off-ground harvesting scenario is 77.14, 9.56, 66.86, and 8.75 for conventional harvesting and scenarios 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The most significant contributions to the overall emissions were from almond production. The farm gate almond production had a global warming potential of 2.12 kg CO2 eq/ kg of packaged almond, approximately 73% of the overall emissions. Based on comparisons between the GWP and PM emissions, scenario 2a was the best tradeoff between GHG and PM production.

Keywords: life cycle assessment, low moisture foods, sustainability, LCA

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Authors: Ch. Surawut, D. Sukawat

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In order to utilize results from global climate models, dynamical and statistical downscaling techniques have been developed. For dynamical downscaling, usually a limited area numerical model is used, with associated high computational cost. This research proposes dynamic equation for specific space-time regional climate downscaling from the Educational Global Climate Model (EdGCM) for Southeast Asia. The equation is for surface air temperature. These equations provide downscaling values of surface air temperature at any specific location and time without running a regional climate model. In the proposed equations, surface air temperature is approximated from ground temperature, sensible heat flux and 2m wind speed. Results from the application of the equation show that the errors from the proposed equations are less than the errors for direct interpolation from EdGCM.

Keywords: dynamic equation, downscaling, inverse distance, weight interpolation

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Authors: Elmira Shamshity

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This study aimed to explore the economic approach for the Setiu wetland evaluation as a future protection strategy. A questionnaire survey was used based on the single-bounded dichotomous choice, contingent valuation method to differentiate individuals’ Willingness to Pay (WTP) for the conservation of the Setiu wetland. The location of study was Terengganu province in Malaysia. The results of the random questionnaire survey showed that protection of Setiu ecosystem is important to the indigenous community. The mean WTP for protection of ecosystem Setiu wetland was 12.985 Ringgit per month per household for 10 years. There was significant variation in the stated amounts of WTP based on the respondents’ knowledge, household income, educational level, and the bid amounts. The findings of this study may help improving understanding the WTP of indigenous people for the protection of wetland, and providing useful information for policy makers to design an effective program of ecosystem protection.

Keywords: willingness to pay, ecosystem, setiu wetland, Terengganu Malaysia

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Authors: Mladen Dragičević, Mirjana Pejić Bach, Vanja Šimičević

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The purpose of this paper is to develop models that would enable predicting student success. These models could improve allocation of students among colleges and optimize the newly introduced model of government subsidies for higher education. For the purpose of collecting data, an anonymous survey was carried out in the last year of undergraduate degree student population using random sampling method. Decision trees were created of which two have been chosen that were most successful in predicting student success based on two criteria: Grade Point Average (GPA) and time that a student needs to finish the undergraduate program (time-to-degree). Decision trees have been shown as a good method of classification student success and they could be even more improved by increasing survey sample and developing specialized decision trees for each type of college. These types of methods have a big potential for use in decision support systems.

Keywords: data mining, knowledge discovery in databases, prediction models, student success

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Authors: Asma Righi

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After the global financial crisis of 2008, interest in ethical economics increased, particularly in the field of finance in general and commercial banks in particular. Indeed, it has become imperative for them to move from an institution that aims to make a profit to a community partner that takes the environmental aspect into account in its funding, rationalizes its decisions and adheres to ethics in its dealings. This leads it to the need of adopting the concept of ethical finance and standing on its most important principles and dimensions to realize profits on the one hand and to serve its society and its economy on the other hand. The objective of this research is centered on knowing the reality of the Algerian commercial banks’ adoption of the dimensions and principles of ethical finance. The quantitative methodology used is based on a questionnaire survey of twenty-four banking agencies in the states of Bordj Bou Arreridj and Setif. The data obtained were processed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program. This research led to two main results: first, the author observed a limited application of the principles of ethical finance in commercial banks active in Algeria. This application is particularly in line with the implementation of the directives of the Central Bank and the imposed monetary policy. Second, the results showed that there is a significant difference in the application of ethical financial dimensions and principles between government and foreign banks.

Keywords: Algerian commercial banks, ethical banking, ethical finance, socially responsible investment

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Authors: Yaron Covo, Tamar Kofman, Shira Palti

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Over the recent decades, debates about the engagement of fans in football governance have focused on the club level and national level, emphasizing the significance of fans’ involvement in increasing the connection of clubs with the community, and in safeguarding the transparency, accountability, and clubs’ financial stability. This paper will offer a different conceptual justification for providing fans with access to decision-making processes in football. First, it will suggest that the participation of fans is necessary for addressing discriminatory practices against women in football stadiums. Second, it will argue that fans’ involvement in football governance is important not only at the club and national level but also at the global level, relying on the principles of Global Administrative Law. In contemporary men’s football, female fans face different forms of discrimination. Iranian women are still prohibited from attending football games at the domestic level; In Saudi Arabia, female fans are only permitted to enter designated family areas; Qatar – the host of the 2022 FIFA world cup – requires women to attend matches wearing modest clothing. Similarly, in Turkey, Lebanon, UAE, and Algeria, women face cultural barriers when attending men’s football games. In other countries, female fans suffer from subtle discrimination, including micro-aggressions, misogyny, sexism, and noninstitutionalized exclusion. Despite the vital role of fans in world football and the importance of football for many women’s lives, little has been done to address this problem. While FIFA recognizes that these discriminatory practices contradict its statutes, this recognition fails to materialize into meaningful change. This paper will argue that FIFA’s omission stems from two interrelated characteristics of world football: (1) the ultra-masculine nature of the game; (2) the insufficient recognition of fans’ significance. While fans have been given a voice in various football bodies on the domestic level, FIFA has yet to allow the representation of fans as stakeholders in world football governance. Since fans are a more heterogeneous group than players, the voices of those fans who do not fit the ultra-masculine model are not heard. Thus, by focusing mainly on male players, FIFA reproduces the hegemonic masculinity that feeds back into fan dynamics and marginalizes female fans. To rectify this problem, we will call on FIFA to provide fans and female fans in particular, with voice mechanisms and access to decision-making processes. In addition to its impact on the formation of fans’ identities, such a move will allow fans to demand better enforcement of existing anti-discrimination norms and new regulations to address their needs. The literature has yet to address the relationship between fans’ gender discrimination and global football governance. Building on Global Administrative Law scholarship and feminist theories, this paper will aim to fill this gap.

Keywords: fans, FIFA, football governance, gender discrimination, global administrative law, human rights

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Authors: Cristina Giosuè, Federica Biondo, Sergio Vitale

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In the last years, the consumers' awareness for environmental concerns has been increasing, and seafood eco-labels are considered as a possible instrument to improve both seafood markets and sustainable fishing management. In this direction, the aim of this study was to carry out a meta-analysis on consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for eco-labeled wild seafood, by a meta-regression. Therefore, only papers published on ISI journals were searched on “Web of Knowledge” and “SciVerse Scopus” platforms, using the combinations of the following key words: seafood, ecolabel, eco-label, willingness, WTP and premium. The dataset was built considering: paper’s and survey’s codes, year of publication, first author’s nationality, species’ taxa and family, sample size, survey’s continent and country, data collection (where and how), gender and age of consumers, brand and ΔWTP. From analysis the interest on eco labeled seafood emerged clearly, in particular in developed countries. In general, consumers declared greater willingness to pay than that actually applied for eco-label products, with difference related to taxa and brand.

Keywords: eco label, meta regression, seafood, willingness to pay

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Authors: Jonathan De Rothewelle

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A pandemic, such as that of COVID-19, can be a time of panic and stress; concerns about health supersede others such as work and leisure. With such concern comes the seeking of crucial information— information that, during a global health crisis, could mean the difference between life and death. Whether newspapers, cable news, or radio, media plays an important role in the transmission of medical information to the general public. Moreover, the news media in particular must uphold its obligation to the public to only disseminate factual, useful information. The circulation of misinformation, whether explicit or implicit, may profoundly impact global health. Using a discursive analytic framework founded in linguistics, the images and headlines of top coverage of COVID-19 from the most influential media outlets will be examined. Micro-analyses reveal what may be interpreted as evidence of sensationalism, which may be argued to a form of misinformation, and ultimately a departure from ethical media. Withdrawal from responsible reporting and publishing, expressly in times of epidemic, may cause further confusion and panic.

Keywords: public health, pandemic, public education, media

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Authors: Mansour H. Alkmim, Adriano T. Fabro, Marcus V. G. De Morais

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In this paper, a global direct search optimization algorithm to reduce vibration of a tuned liquid column damper (TLCD), a class of passive structural control device, is presented. The objective is to find optimized parameters for the TLCD under stochastic load from different wind power spectral density. A verification is made considering the analytical solution of an undamped primary system under white noise excitation. Finally, a numerical example considering a simplified wind turbine model is given to illustrate the efficacy of the TLCD. Results from the random vibration analysis are shown for four types of random excitation wind model where the response PSDs obtained showed good vibration attenuation.

Keywords: generalized pattern search, parameter optimization, random vibration analysis, vibration suppression

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Authors: Kayla Youhanaie, Kenneth Dott, Greg Gillis-Smith

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Access to clean water is a global challenge that affects nearly one-third of the world’s population. A lack of safe drinking water negatively affects a person’s health, safety, and economic status. However, many regions of the world that face this clean water challenge also have high solar energy potential. To address this worldwide issue and utilize available resources, a solar-powered water purification device was developed that could be implemented in communities around the world that lack access to potable water. The device uses ozone to destroy water-borne pathogens and sand filtration to filter out particulates from the water. To select the best method for this application, a quantitative energy efficiency comparison of three water purification methods was conducted: heat, UV light, and ozone. After constructing an initial prototype, the efficacy of the device was tested using agar petri dishes to test for bacteria growth in treated water samples at various time intervals after applying the device to contaminated water. The results demonstrated that the water purification device successfully removed all bacteria and particulates from the water within three minutes, making it safe for human consumption. These results, as well as the proposed design that utilizes widely available resources in target communities, suggest that the device is a sustainable solution to address the global water crisis and could improve the quality of life for millions of people worldwide.

Keywords: clean water, solar powered water purification, ozonation, sand filtration, global water crisis

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Authors: Jihye Jeon

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This paper analyzes the political and economic issues that people with disabilities face related to globalization; how people with disabilities have been adapting globalization and surviving under worldwide competition system. It explains that economic globalization exacerbates inequality and deprivation of people with disabilities. The rising tide of neo-liberal welfare policies emphasized efficiency, downsized social expenditure for people with disabilities, excluded people with disabilities against labor market, and shifted them from welfare system to nothing. However, there have been people with disabilities' political responses to globalization, which are characterized by a global network of people with disabilities as well as participation to global governance. Their resistance can be seen as an attempt to tackle the problems that economic globalization has produced. It is necessary paradigm shift of disability policy from dependency represented by disability benefits to independency represented by labor market policies for people with disabilities.

Keywords: economic globalization, people with disability, deprivation, welfare cut, disability right movement, resistance

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Authors: I. Inuaeyen, L. Phil, O. Eni

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Fossil fuels have been the main source of global energy for many decades, accounting for about 80% of global energy need. This is beginning to change however with increasing concern about greenhouse gas emissions which comes mostly from fossil fuel combustion. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are responsible for stimulating climate change. As a result, there has been shift towards more clean and renewable energy sources of energy as a strategy for stemming greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere. The production of bio-products such as bio-fuel, bio-electricity, bio-chemicals, and bio-heat etc. using biomass materials in accordance with the bio-refinery concept holds a great potential for reducing high dependence on fossil fuel and their resources. The bio-refinery concept promotes efficient utilisation of biomass material for the simultaneous production of a variety of products in order to minimize or eliminate waste materials. This will ultimately reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the environment. In Nigeria, cassava solid waste from cassava processing facilities has been identified as a vital feedstock for bio-refinery process. Cassava is generally a staple food in Nigeria and one of the most widely cultivated foodstuff by farmers across Nigeria. As a result, there is an abundant supply of cassava waste in Nigeria. In this study, the aim is to explore opportunities for converting cassava waste to a range of bio-products such as butanol, ethanol, electricity, heat, methanol, furfural etc. using a combination of biochemical, thermochemical and chemical conversion routes. . The best process scenario will be identified through the evaluation of economic analysis, energy efficiency, life cycle analysis and social impact. The study will be carried out by developing a model representing different process options for cassava waste conversion to useful products. The model will be developed using Aspen Plus process simulation software. Process economic analysis will be done using Aspen Icarus software. So far, comprehensive survey of literature has been conducted. This includes studies on conversion of cassava solid waste to a variety of bio-products using different conversion techniques, cassava waste production in Nigeria, modelling and simulation of waste conversion to useful products among others. Also, statistical distribution of cassava solid waste production in Nigeria has been established and key literatures with useful parameters for developing different cassava waste conversion process has been identified. In the future work, detailed modelling of the different process scenarios will be carried out and the models validated using data from literature and demonstration plants. A techno-economic comparison of the various process scenarios will be carried out to identify the best scenario using process economics, life cycle analysis, energy efficiency and social impact as the performance indexes.

Keywords: bio-refinery, cassava waste, energy, process modelling

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Authors: Muna Al-Kalbani, Thuwayba Al Barwani, Otherine Neisler, Hussain Alkharusi, David Clayton, Humaira Al-Sulaimani, Mohammad Khan, Hamad Al-Yahmadi

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This study describes the psychometric properties and factor structure of the University Readiness Survey (URS). Survey data were collected from sample of 2652 students from Sultan Qaboos University. Exploratory factor analysis identified ten significant factors underlining the structure. The results of Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit to the data where the indices for the revised model were χ2(df = 1669) = 6093.4; CFI = 0.900; GFI =0.926; PCLOSE = 1.00 and RMSAE = 0.030 where each of these indices were above threshold. The overall value of Cronbach’s alpha was 0.899 indicating that the instrument score was reliable. Results imply that the URS is a valid measure describing the college readiness pattern among Sultan Qaboos University students and the Arabic version could be used by university counselors to identify students’ readiness factors. Nevertheless, further validation of the of the USR is recommended.

Keywords: college readiness, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability, validity

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Authors: Mahiout Tassadit

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As part of the study of a compliance and quality aspect concerning one of the plant-based products: drugs for herbal teas sold in pharmacies, a survey targeting: the general population (100 people of different age groups) as well as dispensary pharmacists (40 pharmacists from rural or urban areas) of the wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou (central Algeria) was carried out followed by a macroscopic and microscopic analysis of 4 samples of the said drugs, the survey carried out using two questionnaires, the data of which were collected and then analyzed, made it possible to estimate the population's use of herbal products and medicinal plants, and the place occupied by herbal medicine in our pharmacies. The second part made it possible to control and evaluate the information present on the packaging of drugs for herbal teas; anomalies concerning the packaging, labeling and composition of these products were noted. As a result, it is more than necessary to establish regulations for this type of product; the community pharmacist again places himself as an essential element for the proper dispensation of these remedies.

Keywords: drugs, herbal teas, macroscopic analysis, microscopic analysis

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Authors: Rahul Thakur, Onkar Chandel

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Red Hat is the world leader in providing open source software and solutions. A global enterprise, like Red Hat, has unique issues of connecting employees with content because of distributed offices, multiple teams spread across geographies, multiple languages, and different cultures. Employees, of a global company, create content that is distributed across departments, teams, regions, and countries. This makes finding the best content difficult since owners keep iterating on the existing content. When employees are unable to find the content, they end up creating it once again and in the process duplicating existing material and effort. Also, employees may not find the relevant content and spend time reviewing obsolete duplicate, or irrelevant content. On an average, a person spends 15 minutes/day in failed searches that might result in missed business opportunities, employee frustration, and substandard deliverables. Red Hat Knowledge Management Office (KMO) applied 'open source strategy' to solve the above problems. Under the Open Source Strategy, decisions are taken collectively. The strategy aims at accomplishing common goals with the help of communities. The objectives of this initiative were to save employees' time, get them authentic content, improve their content search experience, avoid duplicate content creation, provide context based search, improve analytics, improve content management workflows, automate content classification, and automate content upload. This session will describe open source strategy, its applicability in content management, challenges, recommended solutions, and outcome.

Keywords: content classification, content management, knowledge management, open source

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Authors: Arpit Sachan, Nilanshu Kumar

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This paper tries to understand the nuances of feminisation of agriculture in the Indian context and how that is associated with better intrahousehold bargaining power for women. The economic survey of India indicates a constant increase in the share of the female workforce in Indian agriculture in the past few decades. This can be accounted for by many factors like the migration of male workers to urban areas and, therefore, the complete burden of agriculture shifting on the female counterparts. Therefore this study is an attempt to study that how this increase in the female workforce corresponds to a better decision-making ability for women in rural farm households. This paper is an attempt to carefully evaluate this aspect of the feminisation of Indian agriculture. The paper tries to study how various factors that improve the status of women in agriculture change with things like resource ownership. This paper uses both the macro-level and micro-level data to study the dynamics of the proportion of the workforce in agriculture across different states in India and how that has translated into better indicators for women in rural areas. The fall in India’s rank in the global gender wage gap index is alarming in such a context, and this creates a puzzle with increasing female workforce participation. The paper will consider if the condition of women improved over time with the increased share of employment or not? Using field survey data, this paper tries to understand if there exists any digression for some of the indicators both at the macro and micro level. The paper also tries to integrate the economic understanding of gender aspects of the workforce and the sociological stance prevailing in the existing literature. Therefore, this paper takes a mixed-method approach to better understand the role that social structure plays in the improved status of women within and across various households. Therefore, this paper will finally help us understanding if at all there is a feminisation of Indian agriculture or it's just exploitation of a different kind. This study intends to create a distinction between the gendered labour force in Indian agriculture and the complete democratization of Indian agriculture. The study is primarily focused on areas where the exodus of male migrants pushes women to work on agricultural farms. The question posits is whether it is the willingness of women to work in agriculture or is it urbanisation and development-induced conditions that make women work in agriculture as farm labourers? The motive is to understand if factors like resource ownership and the ability to autonomous decision-making are interlinked with an increased proportion of the female workforce or not? Based on this framework, we finally provide a brief comment on policy implications of government intervention in improving Indian agriculture and the gender aspects associated with it.

Keywords: feminisation, intrahousehold bargaining, farm households, migration, agriculture, decision-making

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Authors: Aybike Ayfer Karadağ

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Today, the amount of water available is decreasing day by day due to global warming, environmental problems and population increase. To protect water resources, it is necessary to take a lot of measures from the global scale to the local scale. Some of these measures are related to spatial planning studies. In this study, the impact of water process analysis was assessed in the development of spatial planning for water conservation. The study was conducted in the Kovada sub-watershed (Isparta, Turkey). By means of water process analysis, the way to reach underground water of surface water in the study area is mapped. In this context, plant cover, soil and rock permeability were evaluated holistically with geographic information systems technologies. Then, on the map, water permeability is classified and this is spatially expressed. The findings show that the permeability of the water is different in the study case. As a result, the water permeability map needs to be included in the planning for water conservation planning.

Keywords: water, conservation, spatial planning, water process analysis

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Authors: Smriti Mishra, Jaydip Barman, Shashi Kant Pandey

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Many scholars suggest that waterfront development projects have an all round impact on cities. However, their research stops short of considering the perception of local residents, of what they think about the impact of such developments and the kind of waterfront development which they would prefer to support. Therefore, this paper attempts to address this imbalance in the literature by analysing a survey of residents' perceptions of such developments. The paper discusses the issue in the Indian context by considering Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project (SRFD) of Ahmadabad. It gives an overview of the project components of the SRFD; discusses its development issues and concerns associated with it. It further examines the structural relationship between socio-economic and demographic attributes of local residents and their attitudes and perception towards the economic impact of such developments. The study suggests that the economic component that riverfront development will attract more investment in their community and that riverfront development will increase real estate tax revenue emerged as strong components. While the economic component of substantial premiums to developers, land owners and local government and the other of cost of developing riverfront facilities are too much of a burden on government and public sector agencies appear to be weaker economic components of the perceived economic impacts of urban riverfront development. This paper also gives an overview of the urban waterfront development in the global scenario. It highlights the need to consider residents perception in the development of such projects.

Keywords: urban waterfront development, riverfront, economic impact, resident perception, SRFD

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Authors: Tariq Mahmood, Faiza Lehrasab, Faraz Akrim, Muhammad Sajid nadeem, Muhammad Mushtaq, Unza waqar, Ayesha Sheraz, Shaista Andleeb

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Brown bear (Ursus arctos), a member of the family Ursidae, is distributed in a wide range of habitats in North America, Europe and Asia. Suspectedly, the global distribution range of brown bears is decreasing at the moment due to various factors. The carnivore species is categorized as ‘Least Concern’ globally by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. However, there are some fragmented, small populations that are on the verge of extinction, as is in Pakistan, where the species is listed as ‘Critically Endangered’, with a declining population trend. Importantly, the global historical distribution range of brown bears is undocumented. Therefore, in the current study, we reconstructed and estimated the historical distribution range of brown bears using QGIS software and also analyzed the network of protected areas in the past and current ranges of the species. Results showed that brown bear was more widely distributed in historic times, encompassing 52.6 million km² area as compared to their current distribution of 38.8 million km², resulting in a total range contraction of up to approximately 28 %. In the past, a total of N = 62,234 protected Areas, covering approximately 3.89 million km² were present in the distribution range of the species, while now a total of N= 33,313 Protected Areas, covering approximately 2.75 million km² area, are present in the current distribution range of the brown bear. The brown bear distribution range in the protected areas has also contracted by 1.15 million km² and the total percentage reduction of PAs is 29%.

Keywords: brown bear, historic distribution, range contraction, protected areas

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Authors: Marijana Pantić, Saša Milijić

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In Serbia as a continental country, the tourism industry relies on city-break, spa and mountain tourism, where ski resorts have primacy during the winter season. Even though the number of tourists has recently increased, the share of domestic tourists remained predominant. It is also noticed that tourists from Serbia eagerly travel abroad, which was so far researched in the context of summer holidays but not in the framework of ski resorts. Therefore, this paper examines the competitiveness of ski resorts in Serbia from the perspective of domestic tourists. A survey was used as a data collection method, covering various competitiveness dimensions. The aim is to recognize the main motives of consumers when choosing a ski resort in Serbia or abroad. The results showed that the choices of Serbian tourists are predominantly shaped by the cost of an offer – of accommodation above all others. They are attentive by estimating the value for money, which is the most common reason to choose a ski resort abroad over a domestic one. The crowd at ski resorts and ski runs appears to be a result of unbalanced accommodation capacities on the one hand and ski infrastructure on the other, which is currently the most notable competitiveness drawback of ski resorts in Serbia.

Keywords: mountain tourism, Serbia, ski resorts, tourism competitiveness

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Authors: Nurezlin Mohd Azib, Pan Kok Chang

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This quantitative study investigates the effects of major and minor modes, and contributing musical parameter of tempo, to the emotional perceptions of ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ in piano music among subjects aged 9-17 years old. The study was conducted in two phases; survey-questionnaire, and listening activity. Subjects (N=31) were sampled from piano music students’ population in Bangi, Selangor. In the survey-questionnaire, subjects answered 20 questions on demographic characteristics, music listening and preference, and understanding of emotional perception in music. In the listening activity, subjects listened to 20 untitled piano music excerpts and rated the emotion perceived for each excerpt, whether ‘happy’ or ‘sad’. Results from survey-questionnaire show that most percentage of subjects are 11 years old, in Grade 1, of 3 years of learning piano, prefer classical music, always listen to music, prefer both major and minor modes’ music, and find it easy to understand emotion in music, as well as major and minor modes. Results from listening activity show that 60 % of major mode music are perceived as ‘major-happy’, while 60 % too, of minor mode music are perceived as ‘minor-sad’. However, Chi-square test of independence statistical analysis indicates that there are no association and significant relationship between modes (major and minor) and ‘happy’, as well as ‘sad’ perceptions (x2 (1, N = 20) = 0.80, p = 0.371), at the significance level of p ≤ 0.05. Contrastingly, there are association and significant relationship between tempo (fast and slow), and ‘happy’, as well as ‘sad’ perceptions (x2 (1, N = 20) = 9.899, p = 0.005). Therefore, it is concluded that tempo plays an important role in effects of major and minor mode to ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ emotional perceptions in piano music among subjects aged 9 to 17 in this study.

Keywords: effects, emotional perceptions, major and minor modes, piano music

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Authors: Mayowa A. Sofowora, Seraphin D. Eyono Obono

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The use of information and communication technologies such as computers, mobile phones and the internet is becoming prevalent in today’s world; and it is facilitating access to a vast amount of data, services, and applications for the improvement of people’s lives. However, this prevalence of ICTs is hampered by the problem of low income levels in developing countries to the point where people cannot timeously replace or repair their ICT devices when damaged or lost; and this problem serves as a motivation for this study whose aim is to examine the perceptions of teachers on the reliability of cellphones when used for teaching and learning purposes. The research objectives unfolding this aim are of two types: objectives on the selection and design of theories and models, and objectives on the empirical testing of these theories and models. The first type of objectives is achieved using content analysis in an extensive literature survey, and the second type of objectives is achieved through a survey of high school teachers from the ILembe and Umgungudlovu districts in the KwaZuluNatal province of South Africa. Data collected from this questionnaire based survey is analysed in SPSS using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations after checking the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The main hypothesis driving this study is that there is a relationship between the demographics and the attribution identity of teachers on one hand, and their perceptions on the reliability of cellphones on the other hand, as suggested by existing literature; except that attribution identities are considered in this study under three angles: intention, knowledge and ability, and action. The results of this study confirm that the perceptions of teachers on the reliability of cellphones for teaching and learning are affected by the school location of these teachers, and by their perceptions on learners’ cellphones usage intentions and actual use.

Keywords: attribution, cellphones, e-learning, reliability

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Authors: Daniel Ecler

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The aim of this paper was to find out how Chinese university students perceive distance learning compared to full-time teaching, to reveal its advantages and disadvantages, and to try to find what elements could be implemented in regular full-time teaching in order to make it more effective. Recent events have shown that online teaching has a significant role to play in the field of education and needs to be given increased attention and scrutiny. For this purpose, a research survey was conducted using semi-structured questionnaires, which aimed to determine the attitudes of Chinese university students to the phenomenon of distance learning. The results of this survey revealed that most students prefer distance learning to full-time teaching, mainly because it gives them more freedom to participate in teaching, regardless of the environment in which they are currently located. In conclusion, it is necessary to mention that the possibility to participate virtually in teaching from anywhere is a huge advantage that could become part of regular teaching in the future. However, further research into this issue will be necessary.

Keywords: distance learning, full-time teaching, Chinese college students, cultural background

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Authors: Ahmed M. El-Araby, Ibrahim Sabry, Ahmed El-Assal

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The relationships between the industrial facilities, the capacity available for these facilities, and the costs involved are the main factors in deciding the correct selection of a facility layout. In general, an issue of facility layout is considered to be an unstructured problem of decision-making. The objective of this work is to provide a survey that describes the techniques by which a facility planning problem can be solved and also the effect of these techniques on the efficiency of the layout. The multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques can be classified according to the previous researches into three categories which are the use of single MCDM, combining two or more MCDM, and the integration of MCDM with another technique such as genetic algorithms (GA). This paper presents a review of different multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques that have been proposed in the literature to pick the most suitable layout design. These methods are particularly suitable to deal with complex situations, including various criteria and conflicting goals which need to be optimized simultaneously.

Keywords: facility layout, MCDM, GA, literature review

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Authors: Somar Boubou, Tatsuo Narikiyo, Michihiro Kawanishi

Abstract:

In this work, we address the problem of 3D object recognition with depth sensors such as Kinect or Structure sensor. Compared with traditional approaches based on local descriptors, which depends on local information around the object key points, we propose a global features based descriptor. Proposed descriptor, which we name as Differential Histogram of Normal Vectors (DHONV), is designed particularly to capture the surface geometric characteristics of the 3D objects represented by depth images. We describe the 3D surface of an object in each frame using a 2D spatial histogram capturing the normalized distribution of differential angles of the surface normal vectors. The object recognition experiments on the benchmark RGB-D object dataset and a self-collected dataset show that our proposed descriptor outperforms two others descriptors based on spin-images and histogram of normal vectors with linear-SVM classifier.

Keywords: vision in control, robotics, histogram, differential histogram of normal vectors

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Authors: Bency Jacob, S.B. Waykar

Abstract:

Degradations in historical document images appear due to aging of the documents. It is very difficult to understand and retrieve text from badly degraded documents as there is variation between the document foreground and background. Thresholding of such document images either result in broken characters or detection of false texts. Numerous algorithms exist that can separate text and background efficiently in the textual regions of the document; but portions of background are mistaken as text in areas that hardly contain any text. This paper presents a way to overcome these problems by a robust binarization technique that recovers the text from a severely degraded document images and thereby increases the accuracy of optical character recognition systems. The proposed document recovery algorithm efficiently removes degradations from document images. Here we are using the ostus method ,local thresholding and global thresholding and after the binarization training and recognizing the characters in the degraded documents.

Keywords: binarization, denoising, global thresholding, local thresholding, thresholding

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Authors: Muhammad Tahir Riaz, Khalid Mehmood, Ahmad Waseem Akhtar, Tariq Abbas, Sadaqat Ali, Muhammad Altaf

Abstract:

Livestock sector contributes around 55.9 and 11.8% to agriculture and GDP respectively, according to economic survey of Pakistan 2013-2014. The goats population has been estimated about 66.6 million (M). Parasitic infestation is a major health problem in goats causing loss in body weight, poor body condition, low birth weights, and difficulty in kidding. Keeping in view the utilization of these animals in the country, a pilot epidemiological survey was conducted to find out the major parasitic problems of goats in and around Derawar fort area, Cholistan. Data regarding 662 fecal samples of goats was collected from 25 tobas of Cholistan during June 2012 to June 2013. All the fecal samples were examined through Direct Smear Method and Salt Flotation Technique for the presence of helminth eggs. External parasites were taken from the various components of the carcass of goat and were conserved in 70% alcohol in hygienic, properly enclosed glass jars that were tagged thoroughly. The collected date was analyzed statistically by Chi-square test to find out the prevalence in goats. Out of 662 goats, 261 (39.42%) were found positive for parasites. 233 (35.20%) goats were found positive for gastrointestinal parasites while 28 (4.23%) were positive for external parasites including ticks 20 (3.02%) and mange 8 (1.21%). The higher prevalence of parasites in the study area may be due to pasture grazing, poor management and lack of extension work. In this regards proper management and control measures should be adopted to minimize the Parasitic Problems.

Keywords: Cholistan, goats, parasite, surveillance

Procedia PDF Downloads 566

Authors: Saleh Komies, Mona Alharbi, Razan Alhayyani, Mozah Almulhim, Roseanne Khawaja, Ahmed Alradhi

Abstract:

One of the proposed solutions that faces some challenges is encouraging sustainable energy consumption across Saudi Arabia through crowdfunding platforms. To address these challenges, we need to determine the level of awareness of crowdfunding and green projects, as well as the preferences and willingness of Saudis to utilize crowdfunding as an alternative funding source for green projects in Saudi Arabia. In this study, we aim to determine the influence of environmental awareness and concern on the propensity to crowdfund green projects. The survey is being conducted as part of environmental initiatives to assess public perceptions and opinions on crowdfunding green projects in Saudi Arabia. A total of 450 responses to an online questionnaire distributed via convenience and snowball sampling were utilized for data analysis. The survey reveals that Saudis have a low understanding of crowdfunding concepts and a relatively high understanding of implementing green projects. The public is interested in crowdfunding green projects if there is a return on investment.

Keywords: crowdfunding, green projects, awareness, Saudi Arabia, energy, solar, wind

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Authors: Temitope Francis Abiodun

Abstract:

The practice of intelligence is not limited to the machinery of a nation state alone, yet not much research or analysis has been directed towards the spy-crafts and tradecrafts engaged in by violent non-state actors (VNSAs) in the international community. The rise of 'private sector intelligence' in more recent years has only just begun to be interrogated by practitioners and academics. However, the use of intelligence by insurgents and other groups assembled to achieve varied forms of politico-military outcomes has often been overlooked. This paper examined the factors and conditions that gave rise to an increase in violent non-state actors (VNSAs), strategies aiding their deployment of insurgent intelligence, and as well the implications of their activities on global security. The failed state theory was adopted, while a descriptive research design served as the framework for the study. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources. The paper, however, revealed there were massive deployments of insurgent intelligence by violent non-state actors in contrast to a faulty pre-conception that insurgents were not as highly trained in deployment of intelligence as state actors, having assumed that the VNSAs lacked the sophistication to produce intelligence. However, the strategic objectives of insurgents (VNSAs) were revealed to depend on well-organized information gathering operations that feed into the tactical executions of their insurgency. The paper recommends, therefore, there is a need for adequate training on the part of security personnel in the states to be alive to their responsibilities; and there is also a need to ensure adequate border control and management to checkmate the influx of the various violent or deadly movements across global frontiers.

Keywords: terrorism, non-violent state actors, private sector intelligence, security

Procedia PDF Downloads 137